dooooooommm
Apr. 25th, 2012 03:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardI have this list of things I would like to have in the epic novel I shall someday right (what, think small? me?), which includes the following:
1. ladies
2. mentor/student --> equals
3. good v. evil --> shades of grey (?)
4. friendship
5. ~destiny + fate (thwarted?)
6. changes + growth
7. Machiavelli
8. family (the kind you make/choose)
9. ass-kicking
10. loss
11. no right answers
12. faith
But I was thinking the other day how one thing I really like in my fiction and my history is DOOOOOOMMMMMM -- or tragedy, if you want to be less melodramatic about it. The feeling that some kind of fate is rushing headfirst at you or your characters, and there's nothing they can do to avoid it. The hunt, the White Stag, and the end of the Golden Age in Narnia; the end of the Republic, Order 66, and Anakin's betrayal in Star Wars; the Ides of March in Rome; Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere in Arthuriana; that sort of thing. And you only get this sense of dramatic DOOOOOOMMMM because you as the reader or the viewer know it's coming -- because the Star Wars PT is a prequel, because we're familiar with Narnia, because the Ides of March and the betrayal of Arthur are shared cultural memories. And I've been trying to figure out if one can actually get that sense of DOOOOOMMM (I'm sorry, this is just what it is in my head) across in an original if it's not a prequel or doesn't deal with something in that shared cultural memory. I could do it in a historical novel: I'd love to do something sometime leading up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. But that's because the reader knows it's coming; it's why in Rome, the PTB don't have to show Antony romancing Cleopatra; you just need that thirty seconds or so where he walks into the Rome and she says, "Antony," and he replies, "Cleopatra." And that's it. That's all you need. Because we know what happens. It's why in TPM all you have to say is the name, "Anakin Skywalker," and the audience sits up and pays attention. We know what happens. And I don't know if you can do that in an original except in retrospect. Can you do it if the audience doesn't know what's coming? Maybe that's the only way to do it, because it only works on reread. (Like ASoIaF, except I can't think if this is the best example because there's so much doom and gloom going on it's hard to pick out anything as DOOOOOOOMMMMM.)
...there is a possibility I am not making any sense. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to imply DOOOOOOOMMMM if you don't know what's going to happen. It's that shorthand, I guess, that imminent tension of knowing what's going to happen but not how or when or maybe even why. And you can do that in fanfic, because most people who are reading know the major events -- so if you have a clone trooper in a corner on the holocomm with a guy in a hood, then you know that someone's probably about to be shot in the back.
Eh. *handwave* Today is not my day for coherency. Tell me if this makes any sense at all?
1. ladies
2. mentor/student --> equals
3. good v. evil --> shades of grey (?)
4. friendship
5. ~destiny + fate (thwarted?)
6. changes + growth
7. Machiavelli
8. family (the kind you make/choose)
9. ass-kicking
10. loss
11. no right answers
12. faith
But I was thinking the other day how one thing I really like in my fiction and my history is DOOOOOOMMMMMM -- or tragedy, if you want to be less melodramatic about it. The feeling that some kind of fate is rushing headfirst at you or your characters, and there's nothing they can do to avoid it. The hunt, the White Stag, and the end of the Golden Age in Narnia; the end of the Republic, Order 66, and Anakin's betrayal in Star Wars; the Ides of March in Rome; Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere in Arthuriana; that sort of thing. And you only get this sense of dramatic DOOOOOOMMMM because you as the reader or the viewer know it's coming -- because the Star Wars PT is a prequel, because we're familiar with Narnia, because the Ides of March and the betrayal of Arthur are shared cultural memories. And I've been trying to figure out if one can actually get that sense of DOOOOOMMM (I'm sorry, this is just what it is in my head) across in an original if it's not a prequel or doesn't deal with something in that shared cultural memory. I could do it in a historical novel: I'd love to do something sometime leading up to the fall of Constantinople in 1453. But that's because the reader knows it's coming; it's why in Rome, the PTB don't have to show Antony romancing Cleopatra; you just need that thirty seconds or so where he walks into the Rome and she says, "Antony," and he replies, "Cleopatra." And that's it. That's all you need. Because we know what happens. It's why in TPM all you have to say is the name, "Anakin Skywalker," and the audience sits up and pays attention. We know what happens. And I don't know if you can do that in an original except in retrospect. Can you do it if the audience doesn't know what's coming? Maybe that's the only way to do it, because it only works on reread. (Like ASoIaF, except I can't think if this is the best example because there's so much doom and gloom going on it's hard to pick out anything as DOOOOOOOMMMMM.)
...there is a possibility I am not making any sense. I guess I'm trying to figure out how to imply DOOOOOOOMMMM if you don't know what's going to happen. It's that shorthand, I guess, that imminent tension of knowing what's going to happen but not how or when or maybe even why. And you can do that in fanfic, because most people who are reading know the major events -- so if you have a clone trooper in a corner on the holocomm with a guy in a hood, then you know that someone's probably about to be shot in the back.
Eh. *handwave* Today is not my day for coherency. Tell me if this makes any sense at all?