mark_asphodel | Rule Number One (and Two)

I dislike grand pronouncements, so rather than explain what the new order of business is around here, I'm just going to do it.

Anyway, I don't know about you (really, I don't), but when I write something that's going up on public display, I want it to be the best I can write. Not the best Fire Emblem fanfiction around or the best any kind of fanfiction ever, but the best I can do with that story at that moment. Otherwise it goes in the slushpile in the deep recesses of my hard drive where I hide the Marth/Melissa pr0n.

And maybe I do want to get something published some day. Anyway, consequently, I've spent a lot of time thinking about writing and reading about writing and writing about writing. It's what I do for fun. Well, that and give public talks on the Russian space program (betcha you didn't see that one coming).

So, having come across Mark Twain's so-called rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction, and having enjoyed them greatly, I figured it was worthwhile to have a look at them and see how they apply to amateur fiction, if they apply at all. Tonight we cover:

#1: That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

~~Well, I guess that blows PWP out of the water.~~

Anyway, Twain uses this first rule as a springboard for some later rules, and as he doesn't define his terms, we have to guess as to what he means by "accomplish" and "arrive." Whatever he means, it's the opposite of what the Leatherstocking Tales do. :)

This is followed immediately by:

#2: They require that the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it.

OK. So a "tale" (I'm thinking he doesn't mean flash fiction here) is constructed of episodes that develop it so that the tale "goes somewhere" and, in doing so, "accomplishes something." I think we can translate this to mean that a story has a plot that follows a recognizable structure (conflict-climax-resolution, argh), whose denouement evokes something in the reader-- preferably the feeling the author intended. I'm not going to argue with that; it has a pedigree in Western Lit going back to Aristotle, and that's because it works. Yes, you can subvert it or invert it or chop it to bits, but it helps to know beforehand what you're turning inside out and why.

Now, since I'm agreeing to run with #1 and #2, a violation of #2 in particular would mean that a narrative is cluttered with episodes that are unnecessary and don't develop the plot-- filler, if you will. Or perhaps subplots that don't reflect back on the narrative in any meaningful way. An unsuccessful sequence of episodes leaves the reader screaming, "Nobody cares, get back to the main story!"-- or, worse, they're dying to get back to the subplot because the main characters are bland and/or unsympathetic.

One of the great unfinished Utena fanstories, Alan Harnum's Jacquemart, has so many damned plot threads running that it's obvious why Harnum couldn't finish it-- he's admitted that he'd bitten off more than he could chew. A good plot-subplot structure should be as elegant as a molecule of DNA or collagen, and Harnum ended up with what looks more like Grandma's yarn basket after my cat got into it. This doesn't invalidate his effort-- what there is of Jacquemart is compelling and sometimes brilliant. But the various episodes of the narrative didn't cohere.

Now, a short story/one shot doesn't necessarily need any subplots, but if you're writing in a smaller framework, than working toward your end as concisely as possible becomes even more important. Basically, the shorter the word count, the tighter the focus. Which brings us to flash fiction. Do drabbles have to arrive somewhere? How do you go anywhere in the space of 100-500 words? Well, a good piece of flash fiction still evokes something in the reader, so I'd say that qualifies for going somewhere and accomplishing something. I think we all know at least one favorite drabble that "arrives somewhere," no matter how sparse the word count.

Rules #3 and #4 tomorrow!