Negative Space 3: Filling in Space · 3:53am Jan 23rd, 2016
Welcome to the third and final part of my blog series on Negative Space.
You've seen what I think about the definitions and usage of negative space in stories. Now let's look at the opposite side - filling in that space.
Negative space does not and, not in all cases, should not remain empty. Empty literary space can, in the wrong forms, be frustrating to the reader.
This blog will focus on what I think about where and when these spaces should be filled in, and where, in places, they probably should not be filled in.
Negating Negative Space
At some point, excepting certain circumstances, you may wish to fill in that negative space, and let the reader understand just what it was that was driving the character. In a lot of cases, this will lead to closure and the end of the story. In others, it may lead to more questions. Just how you answer it, and what you provide to fill in that space in the narrative will tell what kind of ending you have.
A cliffhanger story, or chapter, will leave out details, urging the reader to wait for the next chapter, or the next story in the series. However... be careful with cliffhanger stories. They can easily backfire if you don't provide resolution to the main questions provided in the plot of the story you finished. A proper cliffhanger will finish up the current, main plot questions, but open another, intriguing idea that doesn't directly tie into the questions of the main plot.
The reason you don't want to extend a question of the main plot is because 1. it's cheap, and 2. it forces the story back open, and leaves the main question still unresolved, leaving your readers annoyed and feeling cheated.
So... when do you fill in the negative space? Well, that's an awfully fuzzy bit. The answer isn't exactly simple.
Two key questions when trying do decide this are:
When does it make sense?
When does it create the greatest impact?
The key to filling in negative space, then, is the mirror to deciding to include it in the first place. This is, of course, macro-level plot-related N-Space, not the micro-level showing vs. telling. Micro-level N-Space is mostly a mechanical, often artistically driven process, and might not require a lot of planning or forethought to flat out express a character's reaction to something through their thoughts, actions, and voice (either narrative or dialog).
Macro-level N-Space does require more planning or, at the least, an ingrained understanding of how the story will unfold, and the characters. Some people might be able to dash out a story, including N-Space concepts, filling out, and etc. easily, quickly, and with little forethought.
I can't. You might, I dunno. But I like to know what I'm trying to hide, and how I want to hide it before I try writing the story.
Looking at Ghost of a Rose, what I hid was that Rose wasn't actually dead, but comatose and near death, and experiencing the world of the living through a veil of memories and impressions. Now, I probably could have, and should have, revealed this later than the halfway point, but it was the changing point for the 'inside' story, where Rose trying to learn her past so she can move on, knowing that she left a world better for her presence, changed to regaining what she lost so she could join that world again. Hopefully.
I chose to fill that in after I had Pinkie discover the hospital room she was stable in. That was where it made sense. Pinkie/Mirror's character made it such that having her withhold that information from Rose would have been a break from it. Which, while it may have been true that it was a significant change in her own circumstances, I chose not to have Pinkie do that because I had no prior setup for Pinkie/Mirror being that selfish and wanting to keep Rose for herself. She wanted to help Rose move on, even if it meant she would be alone again.
For Pinkie/Mirror, the only thing that changed was discovering that she was a flawed copy of Pinkie. Thus, it made sense for her to want to push Rose out faster.
But the second question: When does it make the greatest impact?
I think I failed on that one. The greatest impact would have been the climax of both the inside and outside stories. The moment when Roseluck gets struck in the head, sending her spiraling close to death, and Pinkie discovering at the same time that Rose isn't dead. At the moment that Rose reconnects with her body would have been the greatest impact.
But it wouldn't have made sense, then, and likely would have overloaded the reader with too much to make sense of it all. And felt cheap. Instead, I tried to make Pinkie's plight more compelling in the inner world, her belief that she doesn't matter because she's not really real, and Rose, still desperate to get home, but fighting reluctance to leave a friend in lonely agony.
I could have handled the whole affair much better, honestly.
But... I learned a lot from it, too.
I tried to apply that understanding to Filling Space, with leaving the most impactful revelation for near the climax, the revelation that Derpy's vision issues came about from an old Hoofball injury in as visceral a way as I could in the space I allowed myself.
It made sense for the flashback to come then, when she was confronted with her daughter's interest in playing the game that had crippled her. The reason why her daughter was interested when she maybe otherwise wouldn't have been. And Sparkler had pulled Twilight aside to talk to her behind the scenes of the story, and get her help in talking to Derpy about it.
And it was an impactful moment, with Derpy having found a relaxation and enjoyment of the night, the games, and the unexpected bliss of having her daughters and her marefriend there with her.
That night gets jarred, and she's moved out of a comfortable space to a worried space again, and they get under way towards the climax, and a choice for both Derpy and Twilight to take a bigger step in their relationship.
So, we have all these spaces being revealed by structure within the larger N-Space formed by two things: Derpy's backstory and her romance and involvement with Twilight. Some of those spaces get filled in, leaving other spaces still empty - some of them quite large and not insignificant but also not directly impacting the story.
However, sometimes, you do have to sacrifice one question for the other. I tend towards where it makes the most sense over where the greatest impact is, as I believe the structure of a story should make sense, and that a story should not be bent towards creating the greatest impact.
Ideally, though, the best stories will hit both within relatively close approximations. And, for complex stories, where it makes sense, and where it has the greatest impact might have several places for both, for different bits of information and different N-Space holes.
Similarly, filling one N-Space hole may lead to filling another, and another, and another. This is generally where the story's climax is located, where lesser holes bordering on larger ones draw in more and more action, detail, and revelations that suck the story along, and the reader with it.
It's where the killer is found, the missing artifact is revealed, the tsundere love interest relaxes his/her guard, the plot to overthrow the government is revealed, or the attack begins.
All of these scenarios need information that was previously missing in order to proceed.
The murder weapon and suspect is found.
The thief or hiding place is discovered.
The reason why the love interest was antagonistic before (and the protagonist's overcoming of it).
The conspirators' code is cracked or a defector comes forward
The scout comes back with much needed intel.
Or, alternatively, something else happens, necessitating a change in status quo.
A confession is made; the thief turns up dead.
The love interest reveals they were secretly dying, and didn't want to break someone's heart.
The plot is revealed to be a hoax to garner media attention.
The enemy withdraws, revealing an even more sinister force at work.
These all change the tone of the story and, in the wrong hands, can come across as cheap 'shock' tactics. If, on the other hand, the ending of the story is foreshadowed enough through little bits, like:
A person standing on the sidelines of the investigation constantly asking about the case.
A love interest that isn't available for long periods of time for unexplained reasons.
A focus on the media throughout the story, in unobtrusive ways.
Diplomatic correspondence, or spies that report unusual activity behind enemy lines, without any reasonable explanations.
These are, depending on your perspective:
A mystery or thriller.
An adventure or a mystery.
A political thriller, or an action thriller.
A war story with a known antagonist, or a thriller/mystery.
Choosing what to exclude, where to include it (if at all), despite the plot elements essentially being the same up until the reveal, can radically change the genre of the story, and thus would require some additional footwork on how to portray the story. What narrative tone (and what micro-level elements drive that tone) to adopt, what perspective(s) you choose to write from, and how swiftly or slowly the story is paced.
A tsundere romance where the romantic interest is dying, for example, might be slow paced, drawing out the love interest's reluctance despite their own desires, or, in the case of a more normative romance, it might be a fast paced comedy where the protagonist makes overtures of love, and is continually turned down (see every anime ever) for reasons possibly pertaining to them being a creepy-creeperson.
Finally, I'd like to say a little about the nature of this blog, how it came to be, and how it grew. Now, this might be a case of having a hammer and looking for nails, but once I started to peel apart the writing process looking for N-Spaces to demonstrate, I found them everywhere.
Which is why this blog expanded from its initial, humble beginnings of exploring a single concept - using words to define an empty space where other words could have gone - to... well... Minds Eye, as he was poking at the blogs to make sure they made some kind of sense, commented that it was almost an overview of writing.
And I suppose it is.
It is, to be certain, a high level look at writing through a particular lens - that of what not to write - but sometimes, that can be as useful, or more, as what to write, depending on what you're struggling with during the writing process.
It's a common desire of a lot of writers, myself included, to write everything and go back later and trim out the bits that aren't necessary. But I find it's hard to trim those pieces out. Personally, I find it's easier to start from the simple and build up, adding layers and detail as I go, and leaving out bits and pieces in the early stages that I can decide to fill in later, and decide how to fill them in.
So, for me, part of my writing process is deciding what doesn't go into a story. Which, when you're just starting out, and have maybe an idea or even a bare-bones outline, might sound counter-intuitive, because there's not much there to carve away. But I don't think so. By deciding what not to write, be it back story, world setting, or plot elements, you're drawing lines around that 'not space' and saying "I won't write that."
That negative space becomes an early bit of the framework of your story, and a bit of framework you can use to attach other bits.
Starting from nothing and carving out a negative space from nothing, then, can be the start of a story.
So, here's your story. Go carve nothing out of it.
Have fun!
