Today is the last day to join, so if you want in on it, be sure to read over the rules and PM Shakespearicles!OPWA: Episode Seventeen · 4:13pm Sep 28th, 2019
Overpriced Writing Advice
Where you can learn the stuff I paid thousands of dollars to have taught to me, for free.
...Or In This Case, I Share The Free Stuff I Find - Pt. 6
(AKA "Blog & Book share: Antagonists In Our Stories, Antagonist In Our Mind")
This episode is a strange hybrid as I re-examine some of my past work with the wisdom of today's shares. I may as well call myself a devote follower of K.M. Weiland, because I'm bringing her up again. I also have a blog post from Craig Snider. First, I want to chat about this book I'm reading that moved me to share in the first place today--
Art & Fear
a book by David Bayles & Ted Orland
Originally published back in 1994, this book is about creativity and its perils. It's a short read, only 118 pages, and it's a cheap resource to invest in. I've been reading it as a kind of encouragement (and realistic anchor) since my return to writing. The beginning of the book, while it still provides some interesting ideas, can try your patience if you've already read a lot of motivational and philosophical books on the creative process. Further in is where the meat is. Here's a section on perfection that got me thinking:
The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely
on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B", and so on. Those being graded on "quality", however, needed to produce only one pot--albeit a perfect one--to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busily churning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.If you think good work is somehow synonymous with perfect work, you are headed for big trouble. Art is human; error is human; ergo art is error. Inevitably, your work (like, uh, the preceding syllogism...) will be flawed. Why? Because you're a human being, and only human beings, warts and all, make art. Without warts it is not clear what you would be, but clearly you wouldn't be one of us.
--Pg. 29
Some of you may be shrugging. "So?" you might be saying. "Of course more work produces better quality. Practice makes perfect." But stop and consider the vast majority of writing articles (this series included) that insisted on avoiding every mistake you can think of. The kind of feedback you receive that almost suggests you didn't do your due diligence when you tripped down a particular pitfall, therefor "shame on you!" I have had enough conversations with young (and sometimes even experienced) writers who admit that the only reason they haven't shared or pursued something is that it's not perfect.
It is logical to believe that practice makes perfect, and quantity is the thing that will grow our skills better than obsessing over the perfection of one piece. That just isn't the message that's being broadcasted. The writing world's perspective is a critical one (by its nature, it has to be) but this has allowed for a paralyzing misconception to spread among young and old writers alike. Too many people have given up because they believed they lacked the talent to produce a "perfect" bit of fiction.
We have to give ourselves room to be grateful for being aware of our mistakes, and we need to do this in spite of the vehicle that brought the mistake's existence to our attention. Snarky review? Misguided comment? Publisher rejection? Yay! Guess what? Now you can try to learn from your mistake and move on.
When considering my own work, I remembered the various feedback I'd received for both my original stories and fanfiction. One major thing kept coming up: your antagonist lacks presence. Apparently it was a lesson I needed several times over, but in a recent manuscript for an original novel, I finally remembered. I crafted a plot where the protagonist and antagonist were consistently locked in direct conflict, constantly contrasting (and sometimes reflecting) one another. I wouldn't have done that had I not heard about the mistakes I'd made in the past.
But then I started wondering. Maybe some of the feedback I received was missing something? My stories didn't lack conflict. For instance, my FlutterDash fic What They Expect to Give is rife with internal struggles. And then it hit me.
What if my true mistakes up till now was because of my poor understanding of antagonistic forces? If this was the case, then my failure was in confusing the reader as to what the primary oppositional force was in my stories. (Heck, I was confused.)
Looking back on my work, it makes sense. I have always had a heavy emphasis on internal struggles-- Man vs. Self. This is an appropriate central antagonistic force, but because I open my stories with the promise of there being an antagonistic person, the reader was always left wondering, "Where the hell is the bad guy?" What They Expect to Give literally opens with Blaze being portrayed as a real and imminent threat to Rainbow and Fluttershy's happiness, but then he just kind of... vanishes for chapters and chapters-- sometimes with hardly a mention. That's because while Blaze was, on his own, an antagonistic force, he wasn't the primary one. The real opposition came from within Rainbow Dash, who literally conceived of the reprehensible plan that causes her own continuing anguish. In fact, for as many problems as Dashie fixes, she seems to keep creating new ones!
I wanted to learn more about antagonistic forces, so I did some googling, and of course, K.M. Weiland's post was one of the top hits.
What If Your Antagonist Isn't A Person?
a post from K.M. Weiland's blog
She mentions some antagonistic forces that aren't covered in the Wikipedia article on narrative conflict or my other blog share. She provides story examples for each antagonist type. Not a long read!
ANTAGONISTIC FORCES–MAY THE FORCE BE AGAINST YOU…
a post from the Writing Wranglers and Warriors blog
Craig Snider's post is more general. It touches on Robert McKee's ideas, talks about Shutter Island as a Man vs. Self example, then chats about The Dark Knight's Joker as a prime example of Man vs. Man.
What did you guys think? Have anything you'd like to add?
EDIT: Oh! I forgot to include this when I first posted. This is my old FanFiction.Net profile. Please. Pick any one of the two stories and just skim it. My lack of skill at that time is apparent with bad grammar, word salads, and dumb plot devices. Then look at my newer work. There's generally less of that. I didn't get to where I did today by magic. After fifteen years and hundreds of thousands of words, I got better. Not perfect. Because we can never be perfect. But I persevered through mistakes, some of which very embarrassing, and learned as I went. Quantity creates quality. If you've got a project on the shelf because it's not perfect, or because you're afraid you can't "make it good enough", just stop that. Right now. Finish your work, author! Keep writing.
If you liked this post and would like to see more writing tips, then click here!
