#i just didn't have the experience with storycraft to actually write the scene i wanted

[andromeda3116]

fighting the powerful urge to just like. go ahead and post the next chapter. because i am so happy about a scene i've added and like. i know that this fic has a tiny readership but i really love this scene.

[comicaurora]

I didn't realize levels of context and such was something I wanted to think/talk on until I read today's page so I decided I might tap you about it if it's alright. Basically, I didn't realize how much I missed everyone Not Being Under Active Pressure until this page. It felt as though something's been made right with the world seeing Erin 0 concealment or hesitation taking notes about Dainix, and what really struck me and got my wheels turning was how this perfectly normal behavior hits so different off the heels of all the weight and pressure and such that Erin and everyone else has been under than it otherwise would hit. Obviously the framing of the page has something to do with the effect I described, but this page feels unique in its requiring context to feel the full scope of the impact.

However, that thought then bounced off a thing that happened where a contextless scene hit me like a truck and demanded I write it despite me having nothing else to apply it to, and I still read it back and need no context to prove to myself that it is a very solid and effective scene in spite of it being like. Five lines and two stage directions. This sort of thing happens with me on occasion where I have isolated moments, single loaded scenes that seem as though they come from context, and yet the context not only doesn't exist but doesn't really need to exist, yet the way it's structured, you think there would surely be grander story context around the scene.

(Sorry I seem to keep giving you walls of contextualizing [ha] before actually getting to the question part) What I wanted to ask you was: What are your thoughts on the relationship between story context and individual scenes/moments in a narrative? The sort of ins and outs of a scene as itself and a scene as part of a story, and a story as a whole and a story as a chain of scenes that give one another context.

This is a fun question, because the need for context to make moments hit was initially something that really frustrated me.

Like many people, my storycrafting started with a big pile of out of context Yo That Would Be So Cool moments - sweet one-liners, fight scenes, big flashy powerups. And I liked the Big Moments from the shows I watched, and wanted to know what made them hit so hard so I could replicate that emotional punch. Was it the kickin' theme music? The determined monologue? The speed lines? The yelling??

And I came to the frustrating conclusion that it was all the slow, often boring setup that had come before the big moment.

The sudden reveal of a superpowered evil side means nothing if we don't know what that character is supposed to act like. A character drawing motivation from a dead loved one tells us nothing if we don't ourselves know and love the person they lost. A jaded, powerful warrior will seem generic if we don't know the fun-loving child they spent two whole seasons being. A character backed into a desperate corner will reveal untapped wells of heroism we can't appreciate if we don't realize how rare this is for them. Powerful moments are in some way carried by what happens in them, but in a much larger way are carried by the contrast between them and the story that preceded them. Stripped of context, all the moments I loved - all the TVTropes "Crowning Moments of Awesome" - were either mindlessly flashy or oddly underwhelming.

In order to make the moment hit, even if the moment was so much more fun and interesting than anything else, the writer had to write all the buildup and pace it out enough that it stuck with the audience, and the audience had to experience that buildup. It just wasn't possible to write a story that was one amazing thing after another without the amazing things losing more and more impact.

We're all on tumblr here, so I'm sure we've all experienced That One Person We Follow getting into some new media property we don't know about. They post mini-essays about why That One Bit With Character A And Character B Was So Powerful, gifsets of two people standing in a dark room captioned with "they were in love here 😍" and extremely well-made fanart of people you don't recognize in vaguely saint-like poses, sometimes captioned with something you think cannot possibly be relevant. This is fine, because you're not the target audience for that fan content. That's for people who already know what the fanart is about - it's essentially referential art that doesn't stand on its own to an outside audience.

But I want people to watch and enjoy the things I watch and enjoy so I have people to talk about those things with. And that means I have spent long hours trying to figure out how to explain to a skeptical audience why a story I liked was so good, and what made the awesome moments work. This is a huge part of the impetus behind Trope Talks, and why the in-depth examples I use always have context as a preamble. Without the context, the moment doesn't work.

If you think a gutpunch is just the moment the fist connects, you're disregarding the windup that actually makes it hit.