Writer's Block Daily

So anyway, I'm considering whether a Soul Jar would raise or lower stakes. For context, my villain is dead and his soul is stored in a totem. To be revived, someone else's soul had to refill the totem. Normally, he would be permanently dead after 100 hours, but since he was preserved in frozen amber he needed extra energy to restore himself.

The person sacrificed to revive him is dead. If the totem is lost, or 100 hours have passed, she is irrevivable. But I'm unsure if this raises or decreases stakes—there's already a key back that needs to be kept too.

Sounds like it simply "defers" the stakes—that is, it puts off the final moment (often a good way to increase narrative tension).

What does "deferring" the stakes mean? Your explanation seems poorly worded.

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Sep 11th 2020 at 7:46:10 AM

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/defer#Verb

Delay, postpone, put off.

Ah. Sounds good.

Does this mean that, before the hundred hours are up, the sacrifice can be revived? And if so, is anyone interested in doing so? Because that element—a potential death alongside the threat of the villain's return—could perhaps increase the stakes.

Yes. She's one of the heroes, whose soul has been transferred into the totem so the other one could be forced out, and the villain has been revived. There's no ice crystals to preserve her before she decomposes. Plus, the King wants her corpse thrown into the whirlpool along with the rest of the people who broke into his castle.

I just wonder how this should be exposited to our protagonist.

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Sep 12th 2020 at 1:47:24 PM

Also, the mechanism by which a soul is transferred into or out of a totem is to place the totem in somebody's mouth. One totem only holds one soul, so in order to revive somebody who's past the 100-hour time limit, another person needs to die and extra crystal energy needs to be used to force the soul back into its original body, if well-preserved.

I'm looking through stories I'd written previously,apparently past me liked writing in different fonts,depending on the story

Thinking about titles for my screenplay, so I guess here's my synopsis.

The screenplay is currently titled Tale of a Fox, but it's merely a placeholder until I figure out all the complicated plot threads. Here are some other title ideas I have:

• The Lizard King
• The Red Knight
• Maci Moon
• Total Eclipse
• The Fire Crystal
• The Night of the Eclipse
• Moonletting

Aside from that, just a brief little thought about stakes. At the end of my screenplay, I'm planning on having Autumn save Liz from drowning in the open ocean using the fire crystal on her hand. However, I'm wondering how I should set up that moment earlier in the story. I was thinking about having Liz try to climb a predatory tree with sticky bark to get a fruit to heal Autumn's leg, but she gets stuck at some point and nearly gets eaten.

Would it make more sense to have Autumn save Liz using her fire crystal at that point, or would it be more emotionally satisfying to have her finally do the saving at the end? Also, since fire makes the predatory trees angry, would it be more of a stupid "last resort" decision upon Autumn's part to shoot fire at it, or would it be a well-intentioned action that ended up getting Liz and she nearly killed?

When I think about a title, I try and distill what the whole movie is about into 1-3 key words. Inception is about putting an idea deep into someone's subconscious while also just exploring the mind itself. Kiki's Delivery Service is about Kiki and the delivery service she starts as she strikes out into the world on her own. Gleahan and the Knaves of Industry is an adventure comedy with some fantasy-nerd trappings.

The best titles all come down to word choice that get across the tone, the genre, and/or the themes. Sometimes they're obvious. Sometimes they take some work.

Setting aside your synopsis for a moment, each of the titles you listed gives off a different impression. Here's what I got from each of them:

• Tale of a Fox — A fairy-tale. Could be a light-hearted romp or a deep and dramatic art-film.
• The Lizard King — Fantasy, with a little more of a "for kids" angle.
• The Red Knight — High Fantasy, but not much more info.
• Maci Moon — I actually have no idea what kind of movie this would be just based on this title. It doesn't show up anywhere in your synopsis. I assume it's a character's name? But if it were an important character they would have been mentioned somewhere.
• Total Eclipse — Either sci-fi or horror, with more of an "impending doom" angle either way.
• The Fire Crystal — Fantasy again, but that's all it tells me.
• ''The Night of the Eclipse' — Definitely horror. Maybe a dash of fantasy with a "prophetic" angle?
• Moonletting — Horror again. Possibly more suspenseful.

Each one of these will change a potential viewer's expectations about the overall story, and it's up to you to decide which expectation you want to lean into, if any.

To find a good title, what I'd recommend you do first is condense that synopsis even more — you don't have to share it with us, this is just an internal process — and figure out:

1. What kind of tone do you want to set? What genre?
2. What's the story about? And I don't just mean, "what are the events of your story?" but more like... what are you trying to say with this movie? What message or idea are you trying to get across?
3. Who's your ideal audience for this?

(Ideally this will help you focus in on the title and give you a clearer idea for future drafts, but YMMV.)

Anyway. I hope that helps!

I'm curious: What is it about "Tale of a Fox" that you don't like for a title?

Edited by AwSamWeston on Sep 27th 2020 at 4:35:45 AM

1. I'm trying to go for a tone that is cautiously optimistic. Given that it's a fantasy novel, it needs some sort of escapism. That is, it does have some hope, but overall it is a dramatic story about a girl (who happens to be an anthropomorphic fox) finding out what happened to her brother.
2. I have a few themes in mind. One of these themes is about how people should express themselves; another is how communication is key; another is that friendships are just as important as family.
3. My intended audience is probably teenagers—I'd aim for a PG-13 rating at most. It was originally intended to be somewhat of a YA novel at first.

I feel like Tale of a Fox wouldn't be as memorable as any of those other titles, but on the other hand they are somewhat generic.

Also, Maci Moon is a pun on Marquee Moon (spoken as if by the Queen of England).

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Sep 27th 2020 at 7:12:55 AM

"Tale of a Fox Girl" is what you want. That will get a teen's attention.

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 27th 2020 at 10:13:17 AM

Or "Tale of a Vixen." But I don't know, "Tale of a Fox" just rolls off the tongue better. Maybe "A Tale of a Fox"? "The Tale of a Fox?"

I would've titled it "A Fox Tale," but that would've gotten it confused with an erotic furry novel.

It also hints at the self expression theme: is her identity as a fox, or a girl, really the core of her self-expression, or does she need to learn how to transcend that? ("Vixen" carries too many unintended implications).

And, double bonus, it's a stealth pun: Fox. Tale. Get it?

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 27th 2020 at 10:15:30 AM

It's a furry movie. So it's not really necessary.

And I noticed the pun—that's why I used that as a (now permanent) placeholder.

Don’t see why A Fox Tale couldn’t work.

A Fox Tail.

The spelling’s different, not to mention that works can have the same or similar names.

If I may suggest a name, what about "Meleti Bound"?

It's intended to carry a dual meaning: On the one hand, the characters (and audience) are at the outset "bound for Meleti". And on the other (if I gather correctly), there's a bit of a race against time to beat the onset of that eclipse, and if they fail to return before then, they'll be "bound to Meleti"—that is, unable to leave.

Well well well, I think we might have a winner!

...though for now I'll still be keeping "Tale of a Fox" as a placeholder.

Edited by TheWhistleTropes on Sep 28th 2020 at 7:21:14 AM

Been working on two Roblox game plots atm. How about you guys?

I've way too many stories I'm trying to juggle, including two fanfics, though one is a lot shorter and more light-hearted.

I'm struggling to work through one!