Bare Bones

2.1.15

I need to figure out the bare bones of my story. I have various richness of characters, but I don't have a good grasp of the world. I also don't have the essence of the story. Is it just good v. evil? I think it's more complex than that, but if that's the case, what is it when all the fluff, magic and costumes are taken away?

I don't know.


Feedback & Reflection from classmate (P.R):

Gina

You asked if disregarding Week-1, from your Week-2 description here what sort of character picture I get, who I see her as?

You certainly present the basis of several core conflicts, including fear v power, intimacy v fear/lack of commitment, however as I first observed, they don’t yet gel for me, probably because you haven’t yet picked one.

The biggest stumbling point for me even within the Week-2 description is why she wants to or needs to mess w dark magic, what that has to do w dead sisters (why does she need them), and why she chooses that path to deal w her insecurity or conflicts.

That help?

My reply:

Yep!  Thanks! 

A part I will have to work on is different language than "dark magic". The way I'm working on it is not good/bad = light/dark, but more along the mindset of matter/anti-matter. 

The other part is continued working on the "bare bones" of who Azriona is and what the story is supposed to be when all the fluff, magic, and costuming is taken away! 

Your feedback helps with that. 

Thanks, again.

And in regards to their own writing:

As I process Week-2 & 3 feedback, however, I AM struggling with the fine-point distinctions and the connections between “need”, “motive”, and “goal”.  Same with “obstacles”, “fears”, conflicts.

Pardon if this seems too cerebral (or too brain-dead), but I observe how for our assignments I write specific goals, obstacles, or a need to change.  I then myself see (and others kindly note) how it stillsounds too vague, too large, too general.  This is no defensive remark, it is an exploratory declaration. 

So, I decided to spend a few days re-figuring what these things mean to me, and to my characters. Here’s what I came up with.  It helped me, maybe can help others in our class if any have similar issues.

A psychologist named Maslow laid out a “hierarchy of needs”, with the basic idea being each person progresses sequentially to meet their needs – they can’t move on or satisfy the next w/o meeting the priorlevels of need.

Here’s Maslow’s hierarchy.

1.    Biologic Needs – food, air, water, maybe shelter

2.    Need for Safety -  protection and freedom from fear and anxiety

3.    Need to “Belong”, be a part of - involves both accepting and being accepted

4.    Need to BE loved, and TO Love

5.    Need for “Self-Esteem”

6.    Need to Self-Actualize (Grow)

For my current literary perspective, my characters’ Goals should come out of their Needs.  Motivation is the urge to meet (or avoid) their Needs.  “Conflict” is how Needs, Goals, Motivations, and the forces in the character or world collide, oppose or contradict each other.

Yeah, pretty basic, but getting them into this order was very helpful to me. 

One other thing then occurred to me- “Needs” may be universal, but in my perspective they are tilted toward ones where during our upbringing we likely did NOT get some-all satisfied.  That helped with the large Growth Arc I propose for Chatier’.

While I do not champion Maslow’s model, per se, it was a useful reference for assessing where my descriptions of the characters break down.  I think I was getting them mixed up in my previous assignments. 

That moved me back to your central question.

You asked me to better identify Chatier’s core conflict, and suggested possibly “control of self”. 

I thought about that.  It could fit.  However, she more or less attains that after becoming a pilot, and, yes, that would be enough for one book.  The “Aha” for her about control of self is the assault and car crash.

“I killed people.  I have to get some structure.  I have to get direction, training.  I have to get out of here.” 

A lot of her subsequent scenes have events to challenge that, but she never goes back to losing self control (except perhaps her self-blame) no matter the chaos.

Given this and her scenes that span across years, I dug for something more fundamental, more “core”.

So, before I run further with this, does this at least SOUND like a legitimate Core Conflict?

Autonomy (control and self) vs. Intimacy-vulnerability, “Other” (possible dependency, causing harm, etc) 

Explanation – the more a person tilts toward one aspect, the less they have of the other.

Is that still too vague, too general? 

I did formulate a second perhaps more pithy conflict: Guilt-shame vs. Forgiveness-acceptance as the way forward from trauma.  This conflict manifests in Chatier’ as a drive to atone (via self-sacrifice) to make up for anger or violence.

 In the final analysis, the “guilt-forgiveness” conflict looked to be secondary, but it still may be better in that it is less general and universal, a flaw you observed in my Week-1 descriptions. 

In general, I envision the Core Conflict across the story delivering one blow challenging one side of her balance (guilt v acceptance, autonomy v dependence), then another event knocking her to the other side, confounding her satisfaction and even her survival until she finds acknowledgement both in herself and from others that she’d done enough, tried her best, no matter the outcome.  (I address your “earn” v “find” observation later).

How’s it all end for her re: final arc of growth?

Presented with more a literary tone than “assignment talk”, on a grand scale she learns to trust there is some order in the universe within and among the chaos… and she learns to navigate within it, to metaphorically fly through it.  That’s all, just fly and glide and soar through it, eyeballs to the canopy and zenith, among and through the towering thunderheads.

See if this works better in enunciating a clear and vivid core conflict, and how it fits into the amended Growth Arc with scenes in my concurrent postings today. 

If OK, I will proceed with your other suggestions about how her challenges and changes must result in identifiable “Aha’s” a clear arc-of-growth.  I already tried to begin readdressing that in my concurrent posting today for her first three scenes – check that that subject-name please.

Thanks