This month, I'm concentrating on my favorite stories, trying to figure out why they mean so much to me and what I can learn from them about storytelling and about myself as a storyteller.
The last two entries dealt with three works which seek to transport their audience to a new and different world of their own creation: the Riddle-Master novels by Patricia McKillip, the film Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, and Dinotopia by James Gurney.
This entry will deal with trying to draw some conclusions from the analysis of these works and my reactions to them.
The last two entries dealt with three works which seek to transport their audience to a new and different world of their own creation: the Riddle-Master novels by Patricia McKillip, the film Castle in the Sky by Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, and Dinotopia by James Gurney.
This entry will deal with trying to draw some conclusions from the analysis of these works and my reactions to them.
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| photo courtesy of IMDb.com |
These are the components, what are the conclusions?
Obviously these three stories have more similarities than they have differences.
In all three, the emphasis of the author is on verisimilitude: their highest goal is to make us believe in the world they are creating for the story to play out in.
The differences are in the approach to that world-building. The first is a printed novel, the other two are works of visual art. The first two are traditional narratives with objectives, heroes, villains, beginnings and endings. The third has a beginning, but otherwise obscures dramatic tension in favor of sheer exploration.
The first is a world where magic is grounded in reality by description and by the feel only, and is otherwise still magic in the traditional sense, that is, a mysterious force or forces that defies technical or rational explanation. It is like our world, but is not set here.
The second is a world much like our own, but where ancient technology, so advanced as to be indistinguishable from magic, stumbles its way into the paths of the principle characters and holds sway in the major events of their lives. It's set more or less in our world, or at least in a different version of our world, one much older and with stranger treasures far.
The third is set in our world, just in a tiny and lost corner of it. There is no magic per se present, unless it's the presence of the living creatures themselves, and the changes in the human culture their presence works. Of the three, it's the most concerned with being life-like.
Apart from this, the three are very similar. They are all essentially guided tours of the worlds they inhabit.
We're invited to inspect the various interesting things unique to the world of the story, and explained their comparative importance in either the course of the plot or the lives of the relevant characters, if not both.
The story moves us to a new area, we receive information about that area, its inhabitants, customs, special features, trinkets, and oddities, there is a twist in the exposition of the narrative or a climax of some kind is reached, and we move on to another area.
What these authors are writing for us in creating these stories is nothing less than a glossary of terms, or a customized encyclopedia, of people, places, and things. Filled to the brim with small and well-drawn details and memorable associations with the characters, the entries are often explained in terms of other entries, each time pushing the world a little more out of line with the day-to-day reality we're trying to escape by exploring their pages, making the world of the story that more its own.
Obviously a glossary read from A to Z without context or character would be both boring and incomprehensible. A progression must exist from simple familiar concepts to complex and alien ones, building by logic and analogy as the tension or tone of the narrative shifts to move us along.
In Dinotopia, where the narrative is simply one of exploration, the reading of the glossary is sequential by geography; the explorers are shipwrecked at A, they journey through B, C, and D to the capital E, along the way being sidetracked to F, G, and etc.
In the two more straightforward stories, the ones with plots to resolve and enemies to overcome, the exploration is mingled with the objectives of the characters: we have solved the problems at A, we must proceed to B. They are chasing us at B, we must rush on to C, and etc.
In both cases, the end of the story comes only when we have seen all the worlds have to offer, understood their last secrets, joined the ranks of the characters who are the most privileged explorers to happen upon these far-flung settings, in finding out what few of its native inhabitants have guessed at.
So these simple stories become scavenger hunts set inside glossaries, or simple linear challenges with scenery, like a miniature golf course.
The power of the story, the impact it has on the reader's attention and their memory, is in the vivid and unique details, and the associations those details form with the struggles of the indefatigable characters who experience them, and with us by extension.
Where do these stories go wrong? Or, if these stories manage to avoid them, where do stories like these often go wrong?
Primarily in characterization. With so much emphasis on the world and its trappings, it's easy to lose sight of creating people with depth, consistency, and clear beliefs and objectives to exercise as the tour guide plot unfolds.
I've mentioned in the passage on McKillip above that she averts the common pitfall of knocking the reader out of the moment of the story with overly direct and distracting character description. I would add to this that all three books manage to give us characters we want to root for, whether they're complex figures in the imagination or not. They are real, they are sympathetic, and we are happy they are having this adventure and seeing these things.
Worse, more and more often nowadays authors and screenwriters seem to be encouraged to write their main characters as "blanks", people who move through the story without really expressing any opinions of their own, taking no action other than blunt and generic emotional responses to the actions of other characters: these are functional placeholders. We are meant to insert ourselves into the story through their eyes.
This could be seen, in theory, as the uttermost logical consequence of this tour guide kind of storytelling: rather than have a hero or an explorer with their own opinions and actions getting in the way, just have a body that has nothing descriptive about it that we can occupy with our imagination, in order to take part in the story fully.
The problem with this approach is that a protagonist who doesn't have to make any effort to get from one end of the story to the other isn't very sympathetic, and it gets tedious in longer works where the lack of characterization of the main person in the story becomes more and more and more obviously a contrivance of the plot.
Better to have simple characters, with simple, quasi-generic motivations (avenge their parents, get to safety, see this really cool thing) that anyone can associate with, hopes and fears we can identify with, and with temperaments or character traits we find sympathetic. They don't have to be profound or troubled or complex to make this kind of story work, but I would argue that they do need to be there.
There can also be too much of a good thing when it comes to exposition. A clever design or element of the story world, no matter how clever or beautiful, can be boring or seem irrelevant and distracting when it isn't grounded in terms of the plot.
In Dinotopia, this line is a little hazier to draw, as there isn't a plot line per se to justify details by, but the "it was notable enough to write down" or "it was memorable enough to mention" law seems to be in full effect, and the story makes sense on these terms. Everything introduced and explained either is personally interesting to the philosopher-narrator, or is somehow of importance to the characters of the episode at hand.
Finally, I should talk about the limits of this kind of storytelling. I mentioned in discussing Castle that it lacks both the high-minded message of its sister story Princess Mononoke, and the down-to-earth and heartfelt journey of Spirited Away.
I love these stories for their simplicity, and for the free-spirited fun and wonder they serve. I think that the elements of a good glossary and an interesting miniature golf course built into it are good starts for making any story, but won't do all the work of a Great Novel, one that has a Theme or a Meaning.
The characters can't just be tourists if you're trying to make the reader reconsider something in their own waking lives.
The struggle can't just be for "the whole world" if we are going to wonder whether what the characters do is the right thing.
I think all these things are probably necessary for weaving a good story. If you don't have little details and traits that at least set your character's world views apart from your own, it will be a struggle to get your reader's attention as a storyteller without a monster of a dramatic hook for them to chase after.
That is to say, most of the Great Novels I've read, or at least books I've read and understood to be great, have elements of this kind of story in them. We have to be transported at least a little in order to get our feet under us as an audience and begin investing our emotions in the characters and their journey.
Great stories, I think, ought to do more than simply distract us from our lives for a little while. They should raise questions, challenge accepted ideas, make us wonder about life or look at our own lives in a different way.
While books that offer escape are a great place to start as a storyteller, if you're hoping to do more than entertain, further time and consideration are required.
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