#*and* fixed the historical and technical anachronisms

[allalrightagain]

There’s a sweet spot for enjoying media that requires some amount of interest but a limited amount of knowledge

[seventhfracture]

I was asked to talk about plot holes and, specifically, how to avoid them. I think plot holes mean a lot of different things to different people so to make sure we’re all on the same page I’m going to insert here the Wikipedia definition of plot holes. It’s simple and its clear and, frankly, I’m not too good for Wikipedia;

“In fiction, a plot hole, plot hole or plot error is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story's plot. Plot holes are usually created unintentionally, often as a result of editing or the writers simply forgetting that a new event would contradict previous events.”

There are five types of plot holes commonly listed:

1 Factual errors – anachronisms, contradictions in technical details, inaccuracies in specific historical or cultural settings. 2 Impossible events- an event which defies the laws of the world you have created and/or the real world. 3 Out of character behaviour – characters acting in ways that are inconsistent with their previous characterisation. 4 Continuity errors- contradictions within your story. Often seen in sitcoms when perhaps the orientation of the fridge in the kitchen changes between scene to scene with no explanation. Or when you previously established a character was 16 but its suddenly their 18th birthday in the next chapter. 5 Unresolved storylines- something is set up but there is no pay off. Perhaps a character who was previously important simply stops appearing in the narrative.

So how do we resolve plot holes?

The Road of Least Resistance

It’s wrong to say plot holes are inevitable. The simplest way to resolve plot holes is editing. Most plot holes become obvious when you step back and look at the story as a whole. This is why stories which have undergone a second draft often have fewer plot holes and seem as if they were neatly plotted in advance. Because the rough edges are smoothed in a second draft.

I would recommend a second draft.

Basic Drafting

Where possible write your story and then take a break. How long depends on how long you need to get some distance and clarity. Stephen King takes eight weeks off. Other writers take as little as two or three days. But the story has to feel foreign to you, new again.

Print it off or change the font of your story. This will help your mind treat the story as a new entity. And giving it some freshness will make an inconsistencies or illogic more obvious to you. Read it through from start to finish. Take notes but don’t stop to correct things as you go. Read the entirety of the story over first.

You want to read the whole story before editing because doing so will help you triage. In medicine ‘triage’ is the process of determining which injuries are the most severe and require immediate attention. You focus on the big bleeders first and then work your way back to the minor stuff. After all there’s no point editing your ‘affect/effect’ usage if the climax of your story feels hollow. You have much bigger problems to address and starting with the small fish will just be polishing a turd. In fixing the big problems you’ll probably delete some of the things you were going to fix in smaller edits anyway.

Beta Reading

It’s always a good idea to get a second pair of eyes on your projects. Beta readers are essential for all sorts of things. Certain beta readers can tell you if you’ve handled difficult subject matter in a culturally sensitive way, others can help you figure out if your emotional beats are landing, and betas are great for plot holes.

Beta readers have the distance you lack on your project. Which means they can give a more objective opinion. If you’re short on time one of the best things you can do is send your story to a beta reader.

Some tips for a good beta reader/writer relationship: -Pick someone whose opinion you value and whose input you respect. Don’t take criticism from someone you wouldn’t take advice from. -Be respectful of your beta readers, a good beta reader is not trying to demoralize you, and I know it’s easy to get defensive, but a beta reader is trying to save you from much bigger heartaches at the hands of a wider audience. -Trust the instincts of your beta reader. If you respect your beta reader as a savvy reader or capable author in their own right chances are they’re correct about something in your story they think isn’t working. -Don’t rush your beta reader. They’ll have a happier reading experience if you don’t pressure them and, remember, however cool your story is they’re doing you a favour by reading the rough version. Be patient.

The Elephant

Okay, let’s come to the major problem here. Because a second draft is fantastic but, let’s be honest, a lot of us are hobbyists and we live in the world of serialization. Most fanfic writers post as they write making it incredibly hard to do anything approaching a second draft.

If you’re in this boat, don’t despair. There are some options available to you.

Cheating

Make a cheat sheet. It doesn’t have to be fancy. But having a small document somewhere with the technical details of your characters, spellings and settings will massively help you stay consistent. You’re less likely to get a character’s age wrong between chapters 3 and 14 if you have their age listed somewhere easily accessible. It’ll save you pain and heartache.

Research

This is going to slow your production time but if its going to be significant to the plot it’s best to do research. Most people aren’t going to care to check if they have wheelie bins in Japan if your scene sounds generally correct. But you need to have enough information to talk with confidence.

I can’t tell you how much research to do. It depends on how faithful your setting is to the real world, how significant X or Y are to your story and how much you already know about the topic. When in doubt do more, not less. In matters of people and culture tread with caution. I genuinely believe more people should write transgender characters, even if the author themselves is not transgender, but if this is your situation then it might not be the best option for a casual project. Especially if you’re not willing to invest some time in research.

Characters

Plot holes, for the most part, are invested in logical consistencies. I see writers sometimes make the mistake of thinking their character should always pick the logical choice in every situation.

People are not logical.

If your character desperately adores their found family they’re not going to abandon them to slaughter even if running away is the most pragmatic option available. Some characters would never take certain logical options because of who they are as characters.

Your characters should consider every option. They should acknowledge the glaring, obvious, choices in front of them. But, in every case, your character should pick the action which makes sense to them. Your audience will forgive and sometimes thrill in your characters making ‘bad’ decisions if those decisions make sense to the character at the time and feel true to their characterisation.

The flipside of this rule is you can’t force a bad decision for plot purposes. If no sensible person, including your character, would go to the Pit of Fire then you can’t fabricate a dumb reason for your character to go or, worse, make your character decide to go for no reason other than the plot needs them there.

Audiences get very upset when characters act out of line with their own personalities. Either to make the rational choice or the irrational one. This means sometimes you’re going to have to change direction to follow your character’s logic but, in the end, nerfing your characters into making bad decisions just so you can progress the plot will kill the story quicker than anything else you can do.  

The Big Razzle Dazzle

Now this is not going to be popular, but I would feel dishonest if I didn’t talk to you about this. That is, when all else fails, razzle dazzle em’.

A lot of small plot holes can be ignored or forgiven if the main plot and major character beats are compelling enough. If your audience are having fun, there are obvious errors they will totally skip over until their second or third re-read.

The razzle dazzle is going to look different for every project. Sometimes it’s incredible sex scenes, sometimes it’s wonderful atmosphere, sometimes its thrilling plot twists… The long and short of it is that this technique will lean on your strengths as a writer.

Some people are going to argue that this is something no ‘quality’ writer would confess too or put up as a viable option, but the fact of the matter is that the razzle dazzle works. The MCU is at times totally sustained by razzle dazzle. If they can get away with it I think you should know it’s a weapon in your arsenal.

[7r0773r]

Reading Pictures: A History of Love and Hate by Alberto Manguel

Histories and commentaries, labels and catalogues, thematic museums and art books attempt to guide us through different schools, different ages and different countries. But what we see as we walk through the rooms of a gallery, or follow pictures on a screen, or leaf through a volume of reproductions ultimately escapes such strictures. We see a painting as defined by its context; we may know something of the painter and of his world; we may have an idea of the influences that fashioned his vision; if conscious of anachronism, we may be careful not to traduce that vision through our own—but in the end, what we see is neither the painting in its fixed state nor an artwork trapped in the co-ordinates set by the museum for our guidance.

What we see is the painting translated into our own experience. As Bacon suggested, unfortunately (or fortunately) we can see only that which, in some shape or form, we have already seen. We can see only that for which we already have identifiable images, just as we can read only in a language of which we already know the syntax, the grammar and the words. The first time I saw Van Gogh's brightly coloured fishing boats, something in me recognized something mirrored in them. Mysteriously, every image assumes my seeing it.

When we read pictures—in fact, images of any kind, whether painted, sculpted, photographed, built or performed—we bring to them the temporal quality of narrative. We extend that which is limited by a frame to a before and an after, and through the craft of telling stories (whether of love or of hate), we lend the immutable picture an infinite and inexhaustible life. André Malraux, who so actively took part in both the political and the cultural life of twentieth-century France (as a soldier, a novelist and France's foremost minister of culture), lucidly argued that by placing a work of art among the works of art created before and after it, we, the modern viewers, became the first to hear what he called "the song of change"—that is to say, the dialogue a painting or sculpture establishes with other paintings or sculptures from other cultures and other times. In the past, says Malraux, the viewers of a Gothic church portal could only have drawn comparisons to other sculpted church portals in the same cultural area; we instead have at our disposal countless images of sculptures from around the world (from the statues of Sumer to those of Elephanta, from the friezes of the Acropolis to the marble treasures of Florence) that speak to us in a common language of shapes and forms, allowing our response to the Gothic portal to be replayed in a thousand other sculpted works. This rich display of reproduced images, open to us on page and screen, Malraux called "the imaginary museum."

And yet the elements of our response, the vocabulary we use to tease the story out of an image (whether of Van Gogh's boats or the portal of Chartres Cathedral), are determined not only by the world's iconography but also by a vast range of circumstances, private and social, casual and obligatory. We construct our story through echoes in other stories, through the illusion of self-reflection, through technical and historical knowledge, through gossip, reverie, prejudice, illumination, scruples, ingenuity, compassion, wit. No story elicited by an image is final or exclusive, and measures of correctness vary according to the same circumstances that give rise to the story itself. Wandering through a museum in the first century A.D., the dejected lover Encolpius sees the many images of gods painted by the great artists of the past—Zeuxis, Protogenes, Apelles —and cries out in lonely anguish: "So even the gods in heaven are touched by love!" Encolpius recognizes in the mythological scenes that surround him, which depict the amorous adventures of Olympus, reflections of his own emotions. The paintings move him because they seem to be, metaphorically, about him. They are framed by his apprehension and circumstances; they now exist in his time and share his past, present and future. They have become autobiographical. (pp. 12-14)

***

There exists in the engraver's craft (though the term appears in other forms of printing) something called reserve, the area carved out on a block of wood that when stamped translates into an empty space on the paper. Unlike the pentimento—the erasure or reworking of a section of the image of which the artist has "repented"—the reserve signals an idea not yet fully come into being, left in suspense, perhaps to be completed at some later time. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, one of the first to recognize the genius of Paul Cézanne, wrote about a still life in which the master had left half an apple unfinished (in reserve, as it were), that Cézanne had painted only the parts of an apple he knew; the parts that were still a puzzle to him, he left blank. "He only painted that which he utterly understood," Rilke concluded. Pollock's splattered canvases are another version of Cézanne's absence of language, another reserve leaving room for that which lies beyond understanding. The terrible paradox, as Pollock realized, was that through what the Italian critic Giovanna Franci has called "the anxiety to interpret,” eventually even the absence of language becomes language in the eye of the beholder. (pp. 28-29)

***

[Joan] Mitchell shared [Samuel] Beckett's fascination with nothingness, but not his despair. She was, at heart, a romantic and tried to paint, as Pollock had wanted, "without being conscious of the act.""I want to make myself available to myself. The moment I am self-conscious, I cease painting,” she once explained. From her point of view, nothing "happens" in her paintings, nothing is "represented." In works such as Two Pianos, her colours fall, like Eliot's shadow, "Between the idea/ And the reality/ Between the motion/ And the act." What we, the viewers, receive when looking at the canvas is not a narrative but something on the edge of motion, the promise of an identifiable presence that will never be fulfilled. In an interview with the critic Yves Michaud. Mitchell explained: "If the painting works, the motion is made still, like a fish trapped in ice. It is trapped in the painting. My mind is like an album of photographs and paintings. I do not conceive.” (p. 31)

***

Both these elements—Mitchell's mood and her admiration for Van Gogh's picture—belong to the circumstances of the painting's creation and are, as it were, part of its history. But how far should these circumstances affect our reading of Two Pianos? If the facts of her biography are to be considered, what of the biographies of those who surrounded her? What of the history of the places in which she lived? What of the trends and movements and changes that affected the world during, and even before, her lifespan? Are they all an integral part of the picture we are meant to see? And if they are, if the circumstantial evidence surrounding any act of creation is part of that act, can any reading ever be said to be final, even if not conclusive? Can a picture ever be seen in its contextual entirety? And if it can't, is our position the same as that of Samuel Beckett's reader who must respect the credo found in Molloy, that "there could be no things but nameless things, no names but thingless names"? (p. 35)

***

But all these art forms—writing, sculpture, painting—deliberately define themselves as subjective, accept their own fictions, require in order to exist (as Coleridge pointed out) the audience "willing suspension of disbelief." Photography however, though acknowledging the subjectivity of the camera, relies on our conviction that what we, the viewers, see was actually once there, that it took place at a certain precise time, and that as reality it was captured by the eye of the beholder. Any photograph, whether deliberately censored or unconsciously manipulated, whether expressly artificial (as in the work of Man Ray) or elaborately fake (as in the faux-stills of Cindy Sherman), and though it may offer itself as "fixed, rigid, incapable of intervention,” wholly depends on this necessary deception. (p. 73)

***

Every portrait is, in some sense, a self-portrait that reflects the viewer. Because “the eye is not satisfied with seeing,” [Ecclesiastes 1:8] we bring to a portrait our perceptions and our experience. In the alchemy of the creative act, every portrait is a mirror. (p. 155)

***

Throughout the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, those who were excluded from the seat of the powerful sought, in the interstices allowed by the feudal social structures, places to assert their common humanity. In festivities, carnivals, mysteries and masques, the poor, the ill, the mentally afflicted, those deprived of rights because of their sex or their faith found roles to play and rituals to perform that allowed them a presence and a voice, what the historian Jelle Koopmans calls a "mise en scène of the audience itself in a festive setting." So powerful was their need to be present that even in Church-vetted representations, they appeared in all their perceived brutality, sexuality and subversiveness. (p. 273)

[medjaichieftain]

 ✪  ★  ✪  ★  ✪  ★

So much for this being shorter, lol…

✪ One way the mun and the museare alike. (x3)

We haveboth used swords. Granted, I’ve neverkilled anyone, heh, but technically, yes… I’ve used swords. I used to fence,and I’ve used foils, epees, schlagers, short swords, daggers, and I even got touse someone’s saber once. I did SCA fencing, not modern. SCA = Society for CreativeAnachronism. It’s fencing with a lot of the same protective gear, except we don’tjust have jacket and helmets, we have boots, gloves, hoods, gorgets, and ourhelmets protect the backs of our heads as well. This is because it ishistorical fencing, not competitive fencing, so anything is a target.Therefore, we have a lot more important areas to protect like throat, groin,armpit, wrists, and ankles. We wear armor and period clothing when we fight,and it’s just great fun. My persona was a European style, and most in myregional kingdom (yeah, we organize ourselves into kingdoms…. Bunch o’ nerds,we are, lol) were European style fencers. But there was one guy with an Arabianpersona, a Japanese guy, and a Chinese guy. So it was pretty interesting. Andwe all use different weapons forms. My favorite form is cases of swords (twoswords, I prefer them to be of equal size but one can be slightly longer thanthe other). But other people used sword and cloak, sword and dagger, singlesword, two daggers… there really are no rules except be safe heh. So yeah… gome for using swords. Although Ardeth is much better at it than I am andfrankly, he makes it look better than I do too. XD

We bothlove animals. Can I tell you how muchI love Horus? I get teary-eyed every time he gets shot in the damn movie. And Ijust love those scenes where Ardeth is gently stroking him. It’s like… (sigh) Okay,a battle-hardened warrior gently stroking a small animal with loving care?UNNNNNNF. Am I right folks? ;) But anyway… yeah, I have had a LOT of animalsover the years… Can I list them? Sure? Maybe? Let’s try. A cat, a canary, fourrabbits, five iguanas, umpteen mice, two rats, two guinea pigs, umpteen hamsters,snails, fish, water fleas (they’re so cute!), a couple Madagascar hissingcockroaches, a couple stag beetles, two painted turtles, a snapping turtle, anda grass shrimp named Cornflake who lived for 3 years, haha. So yup… I amdefinitely an animal lover. And Ardeth is too from what I’ve seen. Not onlydoes he treat Horus with care and his reaction to him getting killed was almostlike he was losing a beloved person, which broke my heart, but have you evernoticed how he treats his horses and camels? I mean… midst of battle situationsaside, he doesn’t kick them overly hard, or hit them, or yell at them likevarious other people in the movie do. He treats them gently and with respect.

Neither oneof us is a wild child. Ardeth and I… we stick to our personalmoral codes. We have our routines and we don’t stray from them… because webelieve in what we do. If we’re forced outside of our comfort zone, we can geta little bitchy about it (the “Why can’t you people ever keep your feet on theground?” comment comes to mind heh), but sometimes we end up having fun inspite of ourselves (his face on the plane in the first movie, omfg haha). Butwild or Chaotic-aligned things don’t cross our minds to try first, if at all.We look for stable, longterm, sure-thing solutions, rather than quick fixesthat can be reckless and dangerous. Having said that… if we’re pushed, werespond accordingly, and in a pinch, we might throw caution to the wind if we’veexhausted all other options. It’s in our personalities to foster agreat amount of conviction about certain principles in life and the way weconduct ourselves, we hold other people to the same standards, and we don’tunderstand other people when they don’t do the same, heh. Compare that to myother muse, Nuada… who THRIVES on being wild. He NEEDS it, or he goes stir crazyand gets very upset. Excitement and chaos and reveling in freedom works forhim, and it doesn’t for me and Ardeth. We don’t just live rigid lives becausewe believe in them, we live them because we need to. It’s our natures to adherestrictly to our personal codes. Without that anchor, we feel very disorientedand adrift. We don’t really know any other way to function in life. It comes down to a Lawful vs. aChaotic alignment on the morality scale. Nuada can be very lawful to certainpeople, but largely in his life he is Chaotic. About his personal freedom andhabits he is definitely Chaotic. Ardeth and I are Lawful. We thrive on routine,laws, rules, codes, etc. We don’t throw wild parties, haha.

★One way the mun and the museare different. (x3)

Ardeth is Muslim, whereas I am Wiccan. I… know very littleabout the Muslim religion, and so Ardeth is a very challenging muse for me towrite. I could just gloss over his religion, but if I was going to do that, I feelI have no business writing him. He is an incredibly devout soul, and to striphim of that identity would do him an injustice. I was raised Roman Catholic,but by high school I quickly realized that was not at all for me for at least47 different reasons. Now I suppose I would call myself Wiccan based on what Ibelieve, but really I just hold to a few core beliefs and try to be a goodperson. I don’t go nuts with religion at all as far as praying or keeping to aschedule or going to religious meetings or being in any religious groups. Iknow I have a strong moral compass, and I’m an okay person I think, so I juststick with that, heh. But generally, if I had to say what my “god” or “goddess”is, it’s just nature. I just believe I the forces of nature and theinterconnectedness of all things. I believe in the Threefold Law (what you putout into the world you get back threefold) and the general axiom “If it harmsnone, do as you will.” And I mean, this is something I’ve always wondered aboutArdeth, because the muslim religion is a peaceful one. So how does he reconcilewith Allah all the violence that he’s involved in? Sure, it’s for the greatergood, but does that make it okay? I am not familiar enough with Allah myself toknow, really. Maybe he feels it is a necessary personal sacrifice, or one thathe believes in anyway.

Ardethprefers swords or semi-automatic firearms, whereas I prefer a bow and arrows. I have used swords inthe past but honestly, my favorite weapon is my recurve bow. Of course, I onlydo target shooting, but still. Ardeth is… either in your face with swords orstrafing shit with the Thompson, haha. I really like the physical mechanics,beauty, and challenge of the bow. It’s just a lot more fun for me, and frankly,if I was going to use it as a weapon, I wouldn’t have to get up close andpersonal, which is better for my tiny arthritic self who could not overpower afluffy bunny. XD

Ardeth hasa great sense of direction, while I get lost in the stupidest ways. This man can wanderout in the desert BY HIMSELF with NO MAP in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE… and neverget lost. Because to him, it’s not nowhere, heh. He grew up in that desert. It’shis home. Even with the changing sands, he probably knows every inch of it. Ireally envy that, because… (sigh) I get lost if you just look at me wrong. XD Ican go to the same place every month for years during the day and the firsttime I go there at night? Lost. I can go there every day in sunny weather andthe first time it rains? Lost. All it takes is one wrong turn, one detour, onestore to put its sign in the wrong place, or one tree to get cut down, and boom…Lost, lost, LOST. I get lost… even when using a GPS. -_- I… I am a disappoint.XD So yeah, if I was ever plopped out in the middle of the Sahara, kiss my assgoodbye because I’m NEVER finding my way out, lol.