TYM's new blog-why a story doesnt work

[Pamela Jo]

Analyzing What Makes Story Work (or Not)

Regular readers know that I tout the value of analyzing other storytellers’ work as the best way to improve your own. Let’s see what we can learn about storytelling based on why I felt this movie ultimately fell flat despite its many strengths.

foxprinteditorial.com

 

[Hannah F]

"We spend two hours watching him get buffeted about by the waves, but never taking the wheel of the ship."

This is a great analogy for a protagonist with no agency which is so common in newbie writers. The first novel I wrote (never to be published) had a main character with very little agency. But I learnt and hopefully won't do that anymore.

 

[MattScho]

"We spend two hours watching him get buffeted about by the waves, but never taking the wheel of the ship."

This is a great analogy for a protagonist with no agency which is so common in newbie writers. The first novel I wrote (never to be published) had a main character with very little agency. But I learnt and hopefully won't do that anymore.

As has been pointed out many, many times, Indiana Jones has no agency in the first of the films with that name. Remove his character from the plot and the story ends in exactly the same way. and yet...
I think Pete has nailed this notion. The only rule for writing is that if it works, it works.
Huck is an observer, after all. Dent is along for the ride. Mu'ad Dib spends hundreds of pages being buffeted by the world around him. In the Lake of Woods is spectacular, but no one ever even figures out if the ship has a wheel.We recently read Wolff. Was there a ship, were there waves?

 

[JohnBertel]

Remove his character from the plot and the story ends in exactly the same way.

You could argue that the germans would never have found the ark if its wasn't for Indiana Jones. He was the only one smart/lucky enough to find its true hiding place.

Anyway, and maybe I misunderstand "agency" here, but Mr. Jones has a very clear goal which he actively pursues. Okay, he fails, but he still had a lot of agency in the story.

 

[Hannah F]

You could argue that the germans would never have found the ark if its wasn't for Indiana Jones. He was the only one smart/lucky enough to find its true hiding place.

Anyway, and maybe I misunderstand "agency" here, but Mr. Jones has a very clear goal which he actively pursues. Okay, he fails, but he still had a lot of agency in the story.

And he'd originally (pre-film) abandoned the woman in pursuit of his career. But saving her life became ultimately more important than the ark.

(And it was Harrison Ford . . . )

 

[MattScho]

And he'd originally (pre-film) abandoned the woman in pursuit of his career. But saving her life became ultimately more important than the ark.

(And it was Harrison Ford . . . )

If we assume that the ultimate story was to create as many Harrison Ford closeups as possible, and this is a pretty decent idea, then he had a massive impact on the narrative arc.

 

[Hannah F]

If we assume that the ultimate story was to create as many Harrison Ford closeups as possible, and this is a pretty decent idea, then he had a massive impact on the narrative arc.

 

[Hannah F]

Sherlock Holmes. There's a character with a flat arc (this being about storytelling and not maths). What makes the books/films great is a clever plotline (so entertaining that we forgive plotholes along the way) and Sherlock's idiosyncratic charisma.