Forum Posts Feed
Snowflake et al.
< Next Topic | Back to topic list | Previous Topic >
Posted by 22111
Dec 6, 2013 at 08:53 PM
1)
In this CT thread, on pages 3 and 4, the “Snowflake method” was mentioned:
http://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/5128/10
As Franz said there, the method is straightforward, the software is not really needed.
There is a lot of insight to be found on amazon.com, by entering “snowflake method”, both with (143) reviews of
Writing Fiction For Dummies by Randy Ingermanson (Snowflake Method creator/inventor) and Peter Economy
and (273!) reviews of
Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success by K. M. Weiland (Jul 1, 2011)
(in both cases, I’m speaking of the reviews, not of the books).
My opinion: It’s not sufficient, but that does not make it wrong. And its creator acknowledges that its an iterative process (and that means, “how much meat to be put to characters, etc., in early stages? and how much outlining is there to be done before writing?”)
2)
Another link from Prof. Kühn’s blog:
I remember many others, very detailed ones from Heinrich Böll among others, or from Garcia Marquez; in the link, the Heller spreadsheet is remarkable for its size (A2 or bigger) and clarity (how often might it have been rewritten in parts?), the Mailer matrix for its real-life character (sheet of paper, adjacent element will not withdraw to make room).
Since there are so many other examples, I would be thankful for further links; also, somebody should make a splendid coffee table book out of such (there are several such books about writers’ studies/desks, of much less interest here.
Also, some Kühn notes (no illustration) about
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2011/12/charles-dickens-plan-sheets.html
and even on a quite different but also fascinating aspect:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2011/09/holderlin-and-version-control.html
3)
An interesting aspect in the above facsimile examples: Few coloring, not so much “timeline”, “which person in which scenes” and all that, but we are speaking of novels, not Hollywood screenplays here.
At the opposite of the straightforward approach in 2) above (scroll down to see the screenshots):
(Attention, for Mac there is “Story Expert”, much more developed, 200$, whilst for Windows, you only will get “Pro”, 150$ - both are on sale currently, for some 30 or so $$ less.)
Here again, the observations of 1) above apply, but I suppose some ex post analysis, post 1st, 2nd… 10th draft (iterative again) with such methods (in Dramatica or in other tools mentioned in this forum) is highly advisable if a planned Hollywood blockbuster is not meant to become a turkey.
4)
Well, it’s called Dramatica, after all, not Epica, right? Even though there might be intersections, cf. “The Hero’s Journey” concept (Joseph Campbell).
Now for the “let your characters guide you” concept (with or without previous planning) and which might indeed be far better in many cases of epic writing, and in “arthouse” films, too, than too much planning in situational/action terms:
A fine example for such development is given by Jeremy Leven in a not-so-good Rob Reiner (“When Harry Met Sally”, 1989) film, “Alex & Emma” (2003, some interesting reviews on imdb.com).
5) NOT RELEVANT HERE, so please skip:
Reviews on imdb.com, e.g. giving the fact that the true story behind is Dostoievski’s and his typist’s.
I remember many such “story within story” packages, but I’ve forgotten all of them, so I would be thankful for some hints/links to others of this kind.
It’s quite normal though that “the story within” is not of good quality (let alone something like “Harry/Sally”), since it’s “sacrificed”, it’s “given away”, instead of being sold as a product of its own, so it’s almost always some minor thing having been “recycled” this way.
As I have said some days ago, from a technical pov, both “Tonio Kröger” and “Death in Venice” (and even some other, lesser novellas / short stories of this authors) could have been integrated into “Buddenbrooks”, but Thomas Mann was very well advised to “cut them off” and publish them as integral works, instead of committing the double error of blowing up his big novel even more, and of sacrifying two first-rate novellas.
So, “story within story” novels or films should better be sure of becoming real blockbusters if they dare “sacrifying” any (second) first-rate story within.
But from a “writers’ lovers’ pov”, such a scheme, even in lesser specimens of their kind, is always of high interest…
...as is any story that details creation, here in writing, but of course, no one will have forgotten the about-4-hour version (and it must be that one!) of Jacques Rivette’s “La Belle Noiseuse” (1991)
For this kind of tale-telling, too, I’d be thankful for sources (links, possible books…).
Both genres are totally fascinating, and “Alex & Emma” brings both in one film.
And of even less relevance here:
Of course, the film-within-film was quite ridiculous, and since the first-degree action wasn’t that good either, this package bombed; arthouse filmgoers will probably remember some avantgarde French films, like “Diva”, “Les amants du Pont-Neuf”, or “Subway”: Perhaps such real fresh secondary scenes - within an all-american context, no problem - would have had some more appeal: In fact, the “couple” in that apartment was rather subdued, classic, old-fashioned, and then going constantly back to some even more “legacy” material?! All the more so since the same actors play in both versions, which means that in the 1920 story, they “regressed” even more: not that appealing neither for young cinemagoers nor for the older crowd, since they go to the cinema in order to feel young. Hence the need of a VERY MODERN second-hand story in this film, in which those same actors could have proven that in their imagination at least (= the “ego ideal”, cf. the writer’s total passivity vàv the mob, waiting for their next/final visit), they were quite active/modern/up-to-date/really young.
Perhaps then the film would have bombed, too, just my 2-cents without thinking a week long about some better story. (And then there was some tongue-in-cheek humour, but far from enough, even of that kind only, let alone some “meat” to it all.)
Anyway, I’m fond of both the “story-within-story”, and the “story how to create a story” concept, so if there are some sources to one or both, please let me know.
Posted by 22111
Dec 7, 2013 at 08:56 PM
1)
Pigeonhole Organizer has been mentioned 7 times here, without anybody mentioning how primitive it is. From this screenshot
http://m8software.com/clipboards/pigeonhole/pigeonhole.htm
(= 175 items = 5 rows à 35 entries, in up to 20 groups)
you could assume that it’s a “quick and simple”, “minimalist” tool for the above task (lists of scenes, characters, locations, themes… = for one work, 175 such items should be enough), or for some special tasks in IM (I hope readers will have got that literary creation and IM is quite the same, for our purposes, at least 95 p.c. of any remark applying to one should apply to the other, too, and vice versa).
This is not true. Years ago, I had trialled it, and in light of the post above, I checked it out again; thankfully, there is an online help file
http://m8software.com/clipboards/pigeonhole/help/1.htm
from which you will deduct how primitive it is (as it was years ago):
- no formatting (neither of entries nor of notes)
- no import, no export (not of entries or single notes, and let alone groups, not even printing ( > not even “printing” to file, either))
So, between “plain and simple and really useful” and “outright primitive”, there is a world, and just for the fun of it:
“Gene and Roger [Ebert, Zeoli’s obituary] helped me to appreciate movies in ways I could never have imagined.
Mostly, they made me realize that filmmakers had a responsibility to make good movies. That as fans we didn’t have to settle for crap.
For that I will always be grateful.” And again, since there is no bolding here:
“Mostly, they made me realize that filmmakers had a responsibility to make good movies. That as fans we didn’t have to settle for crap.”
OMG - I claim exactly this for sw, here, and so many people snap at me for my daring criticising bad and even outright crap sw.
As said, just for the fun of it - this citation is simply far too beautiful to not post it here. (schizophrenia, anyone?)
2)
Re false/manipulative/sloppy interpretation of citations (or simply sloppy writing): In
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2010/03/schiller-on-connections-of-ideas.html
Kühn cites from a Schiller letter to Körner, then he goes on:
“In other words, don’t outline too early ... and: don’t ever use an outliner in collecting your ideas. Trying to force ideas into predetermined slots is counter-productive. The first step in writing should be less judgmental. Outlines come in only later in the creative process.”
And again, for simili-bolding:
“In other words, don’t outline too early ... and: don’t ever use an outliner in collecting your ideas.”
OMG - Schiller never said this (and yes, outlining had been invented by then, see this instructive Kühn post:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2009/07/medieval-card-index.html ).
So what’s the problem? A third one from Kühn:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2008/04/capturing-and-keeping-notes-versus.html (again on CT, of course):
“Properly constructed, a wiki does not lead to fragmented, but to deeply connected information, like a multi-dimensional outliner.”
Well said, and that’s what intrigues me in CT, and that’s why I multiply outlines (mine are approaching a 4-digit figure - crazy? just many combinations possible this way, instead of “wanting too much hierarchy” I once had been suspected here of).
And a fourth one:
http://takingnotenow.blogspot.be/2008/04/capturing-and-keeping-notes-versus.html :
“Ideally, an application would allow for all the different ways of looking at the notes one has collected. Starting out from what might be called the “shoebox metaphor,” (...)”
And again, from above:
“In other words, don’t outline too early ... and: don’t ever use an outliner in collecting your ideas.”
So you see, Kühn had just a moment of sloppy writing, but he sees the right problems.
Of course, there is outlining and outlining, and some extremists only see the latter variety, the 7/7/7 one, whilst few people take it easy and do outlining in a very relaxed way, “holding it flat”.
And here, IM joins the first post’ problem in this thread, since indeed, ASSIGNING elements too early both in your “writing process” and in your “IM categorization process”, to groups/categories/subfolders/subitems/whatever entities, DISCARDING them from the “general flow”, will make them (not technically, but psychologically) more or less UNAVAILABLE for other purposes, and this means, for possibly BETTER USE ELSEWHERE, and the above-mentioned outlining in literary creation, vs. “let your characters/situations guide you” is exactly the trap writers can fall into, and indeed, in the history of literature, there have probably been more writers having maintained “card box” structures, for “bits”, and from which they got an element here, and element there, than have been writers who did “outlines” (in the non-flat version).
Also (and as I dared explaining here some weeks ago), this 7/7/7-style outlining breaks your possible associative thinking: Not only those elements “stored away too early” become unavailable for literal use elsewhere, but also, they become unavailable for MAKING YOU THINK ABOUT SOMETHING SO CLOSE THAT IT MIGHT BEAR OFFSPRING elsewhere.
People like Kühn feel this problem, and then tell you, “don’t outline, wiki!” when I say, use your outliner, but make lists with it, and group by divider lines, preferably, don’t discard (too early) into its depths. Profit from outlining’s big advantages, without falling into the traps this concept brings along, too.
3)
OMG - Perhaps I just found the answer to our question why most people avoid outlining outright: They try to do it “right” (7/7/7) in school, it fails for them (predictively), and then they avoid it at all cost - they simply don’t see that outlining does NOT FORCE you to outline in the traditional way: they must be sure discarding things you need though was mandatory!
4)
NOT RELEVANT HERE so skip please
Yesterday, I spoke about “let your characters guide you” as the one concept opposing outlining the tale, but in fact, it’s both ways, intangled, it’s situations that have to follow the “development” of characters, and it’s also characters that have to be redesigned in order to be perfect for the course of the action, and I suppose this latter alternative comes even first, situations being more “productive in characters” than the other way round. A problem arises when the situation ask for a character that is too far away from the one you might have “wanted”, or from the one your readers will probably accept, and then you could be tempted to NOT change your character accordingly, and then your tale will bomb. So this is an iterative process between actions and character “development” which asks for your utmost attention, and for your bravery, i.e. you can’t have it both, this character, that action - you have to let THEM determine what they are able to “tolerate” on the other side… and they will quickly ask for amputations in your original wishes, and if you don’t do them, it will not hold together.
(“Development” of character here meaning SHAPING of characters; their real “development-in-the-course-of-action” coming later and being another problem yet (so some writers leave this out in their strive for not “over-complicating things”: another bad book not worth reading…).)
But just for the fun of it: Even Kühn fell into what I now will call THE OUTLINER TRAP, i.e. the general misconception that outlines have to be deeply indented… and that makes the living of Edoardo. So you can understand Kant, without grasping outlining’s finesses.
Outlining. Your false friend in school. Your enemy for the rest of your life.
Posted by 22111
Dec 7, 2013 at 09:10 PM
Correction:
Outlining. Your false friend in school. Your false enemy for the rest of your life.
Posted by Gary Carson
Dec 8, 2013 at 05:02 PM
That link to famous author’s handwritten outlines is pure gold.
Posted by Hugh
Dec 8, 2013 at 08:13 PM
Gary Carson wrote:
That link to famous author’s handwritten outlines is pure gold.
This is one of my favourites of all time: http://people.clarkson.edu/~johndan/workspace/images/self.jpg
Oh for a room with big white walls!