I haven’t read a lot of Diana Wynne Jones, but I did read and absolutely adore her story The Power of Three as a young teen. It was one of the first handful of stories that I read after venturing outside of the baby stacks at the library. If at that time I had found more DWJ books I would have devoured them. But Andre Norton won that round.
I don’t mind not having ‘standard’ plotting - when do they become well trodden patterns? I was watching an epi of Hawaii 50 and an apparently unimportant actor was played by a recognisable face at the start. I immediately identified them as the hub of the plot - which after typical H50 shenanigans - they turned out to be. Analogously, that actor was like the character at the start of an Agatha Christie book who the author made a specific point of taking note of why they drank with their little finger sticking out (and was the murderer). Let’s have a little bit of meandering and misdirection *g*
Complicated characters are fascinating like Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones.
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I don’t mind not having ‘standard’ plotting - when do they become well trodden patterns? I was watching an epi of Hawaii 50 and an apparently unimportant actor was played by a recognisable face at the start. I immediately identified them as the hub of the plot - which after typical H50 shenanigans - they turned out to be. Analogously, that actor was like the character at the start of an Agatha Christie book who the author made a specific point of taking note of why they drank with their little finger sticking out (and was the murderer). Let’s have a little bit of meandering and misdirection *g*
Complicated characters are fascinating like Tyrion Lannister in Game of Thrones.
Deus ex machine ( ... )
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