What Changes?

[suelder]

I'm deep into the second re-outlining for Shattered Magic - the one I do at about 50K and the one that's going to be the final structure.  I usually take a long time in working this last outline because it's got to be right.

My friend september888  provided me with this link: http://www.changeminds.org/disciplines/storytelling/plots/propp/propp.htm

It's

Comments

[shanrina]

I think of short stories in terms of "How X happened" but I don't really do many short stories, and the few that I do think I can do someday (short stories aren't my thing) usually hinge on novels that have yet to be written

[suelder]

But what's the story *about*? is it about his personal journey or about the gods, armies, etc?

My apologies, I've had a lot of trouble with unfocused storylines - I even got my mother lost. For me, simplifying helps. And you can always have more than one change - subplots, parallel plots, etc.

Sounds like a cool premise - for want of a nail, the shoe was lost..

Enjoy!

[shanrina]

For me it's *about* his personal journey. He grows and changes and basically gets over himself and his ex-wife. But that growth and change couldn't happen without the external impetus that makes him reexamine his life. And it takes a long time--most (or all, depending on how it works out) of the first book he's in is him trying to make that personal journey but going about it all the wrong way.

I still see it as only one change, though. If A hadn't killed B in the beginning of TAE's first book and the characters in the other storyline hadn't gone down that road, then this guy's ex-wife would never have been in his city, they never would have spoken, etc. And he never would have had that idea.

I highly doubt that most people are going to look at it exactly the way I have, but for me the initial change and the causes and effects of what follows help to provide a lot of clarity for me on what the story is, to the extent that I figure that sort of thing out in advance. And then all the characters have to deal with the various

[shanrina]

I actually tend to have a lot of trouble blurbing my stories, and I think this is why. For me it's all about the personal journey, and everything else--the fighting, the magic, the magical creatures, etc. is just the setting. Very important part of the story, obviously, but in the end it's not really about that. So I have a hard time balancing what the story is really about with what it might seem like the story is about (for the divorced guy, that one would run something like that "X goes off to try to break a terrible curse on another nation," which is true but which IMO doesn't quite tell the whole story).

Or maybe I'm just terrible at blurbs. That could be it too. ;)