Storybuilding: This One Trick Will Unlock Your First Story!
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- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- So you've spent hours or days or months hammering out your unique world. Unfortunately, magical systems aren't stories on their own. And the toughest challenge any fledgling writer, and even some experienced writers, face is the daunting task of hitting your first story idea.
Unlock the hidden potential of your first story with this game-changing secret: Conflict! Learn how to establish the central conflict and jumpstart your writing journey like a pro. Unleash your creativity and storytelling prowess today! 📚✨ #Storytelling #Conflict #WritingTips
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"Conflict is primary engine of fiction; without some form of conflict, there is no story."- John Updike
I don't know this man's other quotes, but this is one is my favorite. I am sure this quote is classic wisdom.
"Fiction is the lie that tells the truth."- Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman took that line from Albert Camus's _The Stranger_ and tried to pass it off as his own. Fitting for a supporter of Social Justice.
@@HenriFaust He plagiarize other people's work? Isn't he a good writer?
@@warrenbradford2597 It's not technically plagiarism, because _The Stranger_ was written in French.
I forget the name of the book but theirs a story that just recounts a day in the life of a regular man. No big conflict maybe a few irritations or other things that happened that day. Surprisingly long book too
@@HenriFaust I see. Copying other people's work written in languages is not plagiarism, though?
I always enjoy these videos. You'd make a good teacher, except that you're not boring, so maybe not....
He also cares about developing skill and imparting learned truths, so definitely not.
This video could not have come in a better time, since I myself am in this exact situation, a lot of ideas for stories, but I have no idea on how to start them, thanks LD!
Agreeed
Same
Please just start them and write them for as long as you can!
One thing to keep in mind is that conflict will change throughout the story. Escaping from the Death Star doesn't happen until near the end of the movie, neither does freeing Morpheus.
I guess that's one piece of advice for Slice of Life writers who might not get as much practical use out of this video: watch some more episodic media in the same genre, and keep track of the conflict and how it evolves, if at all. If you're going by cartoons as a base, you can take the fade to grey ad breaks as a decent stopping point.
Something I learned from writing (and reading and watching) is that our own beliefs, habits, and biases as a writer will bleed into you're story intentionally or unintentionally. Ex: look at how many Anime have extremally hard working and perfect manned people that are portrayed as good. And we know the writers themselves had to have those values to be where they are in the east. So I would almost say try not including philosophy, because the way natural consequences work in an authors mind or the character's motivation is likely where our message will come out.
As long as the writer has a well formed philosophy. Otherwise, the decadent culture of the west will unconsciously seep in.
Oh! this is Members Only(Phew), I'm like "why do u have such low views?" I wish i knew this trick of yours way back in the early 10s, I was burned so many times after pitching my story; I know to keep the pitch short & simple now.👍
It surprised me how much of my current developing idea already covers these points that you've listed out. It seems I'm nearly at the point where I could start writing my own original story without fear of it falling apart but I'm still very reluctant to do so at this moment because of my doubt that I could create it in the way I imagine it. Things like my inherent laziness making me unable to keep a consistent work effort, the stress of high school life, and of course the fear that my current skill would not be enough to take on the magnitude of the story and complete it in a satisfactory amount of time (1-3 years). I believe I'll only become confident enough to go for it in a couple more years but I want to reduce that to few more years instead.
Try writing a completely different story in the meantime - something you can publish to get your name out there. This will help with the laziness and skill-building, as well as help you build an audience for your current idea.
An advice that I can give is that you can overcome laziness with the force of habit.
Every day, set yourself an hour or so to write. And do so every day. Over time, that laziness will get replaced by that habit of writing at this specific hour.
@@the1necromancer The main problem with that is that the new story you plan to write starts to become just as grand in your mind, leading to the same feeling of not being confident enough. Or because its so new and you aren't as attached to it, you end up with very little to work with and don't know what to do with it at all, you feel like the story isn't there at all, just an idea.
For me the main issue is that I feel like I got a good story, but no minor details to fill it out, no middle areas like I might have a great A and a great C, but no B to bridge the gap. If that makes sense, like I could have a short story, but want to flesh it out until its a full book (even if just a small 100 page one).
@@GBDupree
I know exactly what you mean. I have my own stories I want to write - we all do, that's why we're here - but can't due to personal circumstances. And when I put one story on the backburner and decide "I'm done with it for now until I'm able to work on it," another story forms.
I guess I failed to accurately convey "just write." That's the only way to build up your skills so that you can convey your grandest stories with the eloquence they deserve. Just writing is much easier with a new idea, because it isn't as grand, and you aren't as attached to it.
@@the1necromancer Yeah that makes sense, its hard to just write when you don't have a proper plan for the story yet, so I always end up having gaps that I just stop at until I can think of a way around it, but that practically never comes up so its always on pause. And I end up coming up with clever ideas faster than I can complete the previous ones. Just yesterday I came up with an interesting idea and was about to start forming a story around it when I realized that I'm just adding more onto my plate that I haven't even begun eating the leftovers, so to speak.
The idea, if you are curious, was based on the idea of things reacting to being observed. So, there was some sort of particle (I forget which one) that scientists say changes how it looks and acts when under direct observation. I then thought about the possibility of what else could be acting like this that we aren't aware of. To what extent does this go? Could the sun itself be reacting to our observation of it? So then I thought about the idea of a Nasa scientist, or even just a humble employee of a local observatory, finds some files listed under "Do Not Observe" and becomes compelled to seek out info about it, and when he can't find much since the planet listed in the file hasn't been observed much, he goes to observe it himself. Cue strange things happening in various ways due to him observing the planet. It could even go into psychological terror territory if you wanted, like the planet moves position to not be observed or he starts getting text that says "Stop" that comes from no one, or simply just be a short story of how hard it is to observe this planet due to it reacting to being observed with no unnatural elements to it. As you can see, it simply a premise right now and not a full story. And its about someone in a field I'm not familiar enough with to make a compelling story with yet. Like I would be too worried about inaccuracies. So, feel free to take the idea yourself if you want.
I'm glad to see LitDev still uploading videos.
If the conflict of The Last Jedi was to escape the First Order, then they failed. Only a small freighter's worth of people got away.
And Rey failed to get trained.
It more like the rebel are purposely getting themselves killed by not doing the obvious, aka jump, scatter, and run away in different direction and empire doing everything to not kill rebels instead of sending wave after wave of fighter to destory the rebel, or super cannon target the obvious starship in orbit instead of the planet that isn't going anywhere.
"Failure is the greatest teacher" indeed. 🙄
Technically there is a conflict in TLJ, but the characters in the story don't treat it like a conflict. Or at the very least the bad guys don't. They make no effort to affect the conflict in any appreciable way. The script says they don't do anything, so they don't. Less of a conflict and more of a holding pattern.
Some of this talk about tangible goals reminds me of self help advice. Don't go saying "I want to be happy" because that's too vague. Instead say "I want to go to the gym today" since that is something you can accomplish.
A great follow up to this would be a discussion about finding a balance between a plot that's contrived and derivative. Stumbling upon the scene of a drug deal gone bad is a contrivance but a believable one, someone was going to stumble upon it eventually and who else is more likely to be there than someone out hunting? Whereas a bad contrivance would be a cop responding to a bank robbery only to get a call from his family who are hostages inside, but that's almost acceptable, it's unlikely but I've seen far far worse contrivances where you can almost literally see the writer's influence like the hand of god coming in to contrive things to be as dramatic as possible. Then on the other end of the scale there's seemingly only so many way to make a particular plot happen in a believable way without it being derivative, something that's been done many times before, like the old classic a party of adventurers meet in a tavern.
Depending on your story, you don't even need an antagonist character. There are many stories of characters just trying to survive a hostile environment. Unless you consider the hostile environment to be a character.
The point about clarifying your concrete overarching objective at nearly all times legit helped me get started on my novel! I realized that the latter half of my story had a tangible goal, however simple, while the beginning was unfocused. Without changing my balance of ideas too much, I can create a sense of stakes by rearranging the priority of scenes so that from early on there is a central conflict established, even though it morphs into something else later. This made me realize from which character's perspective I must begin, because theirs is the overarching tangible goal of the beginning of the story.
I think this assumes that the conflict of the story is going to be man vs man. However, as anybody who's taken middle-school english class probably knows, there are two other main categories of conflict for a story: man vs nature and man vs self. Of course, these 3 types of conflict aren't always discreet categories and they can overlap, but you don't necessarily need a conflict between two characters with competing interests to craft a story. Maybe this is the easiest type of story to craft for someone's first piece of writing, though.
An improtant source of conflict to remember is internal conflict.
Your character wants to do something, but they also want to do something else/give up.
Kaladin in 'The way of Kings' by Brandon Sanderson is a good example of this, he wants to save Bridgemen, but he also want to pretend he doesn't care. It is compelling because we know how valuable saving lives is, but the strain of it all makes it believable that he would give up.
Other appearances of this conflict type are people grappling with addiction, they want to stop gambling, but also want to place another bet. It makes for a good character study.
I thought you were joking with the offhand comment at the end of the last video.
Edit after watching:
Another way is to ask, " Who is suffering and what are they going to do about it?"
I can't remember where I read or heard that.
Great video LD!
6:27 Something to keep in mind is that the more you explain about a work, the less readers have to discover on their own. Ideally in interviews you should bring out your inner politician and talk a whole lot without really saying anything at all. Bonus points go to responses that sound cryptic, mysterious, and incomprehensible.
This is literally the first rule a storyteller needs to learn! And more advanced writers need to be reminded of it, too.
When that Wednesday show on Netflix came out and everybody was talking about it, I thought it would be fun to write a parody of dark academia. Our main character attends a super creepy prep school with dark secrets ... that aren't all that secret because teenagers gossip. Besides, when you have a death cult meeting in the library, witches selling potions from their lockers, and demigods playing lacrosse, it's too cool to keep secret.
I had this fun setting and all these colorful characters but no plot. So picked out the three most interesting factors in the setting (death cult, demigods, and dark academia's obsession with insanity and death) and figured out what the three had in common. Voila! A son of the god of death discovers a dead body on the school grounds and becomes a murder suspect. He sets out to clear his name and tackle his crippling daddy issues. Meanwhile, the death cult frames themselves, because they're hoping to be executed for murder and by doing so, meet death and get his autograph.
Simply amazing, as we've come to expect LD
I've thought about this extensively and came up with this realization on my own. A story can be about anything. The only thing you need is a conflict. Even slice of life has conflict. Their conflict tends to be small because the scale is small but conflict is still there. I do think that genre should also be separated from setting. Western and fantasy for example are considered inseparable from their setting, but the conflicts can be seperated from its setting.
Dude... Yes!! I needed this.
Thanks LD, you've helped me alot with this video
Here I am, just making silly Pokémon and Sonic fanfiction, yet the lessons you teach make me wanna make the best ones in the world! (Or at least the best I can make, lol) And then....my dream novels will truly be realized! I owe everything I am thinking about to you! More people need to learn from you! Thanks again!
With my comic I decided to have the first part of three being very simple. The main character is a little girl who is curious as to what her dream world really means, as it feels like she is simply entering into another life whenever she falls asleep. It gets more complicated but the goals remain simple.
Thank you for another informative video! Your content has helped me with many aspects of storytelling that I used to struggle with.
Even for long, rambling, open world video games this basic idea of "simple conflict driving narrative" is important and works well.
Take the well beloved Fallout New Vegas: The basic plot without all the philosophy and world building is "Mail Courier gets shot and robbed, now he has to get back the package that was stolen." On its face its a very simple and pedestrian driving conflict, yet the beauty and art comes from all the interesting twists and reveals that the Courier encounters on his way to said main goal, yet the main goal is never forgotten as, if you're going on the intended routes, you're constantly given reminders of your mission as you have dialogue options with NPCs about what you're doing, where you're going, and if they've seen the Checker-suited man with Khans behind him, and you're given a gradual yet satisfying drip of information from Primm to Boulder, until eventually the trail of breadcrumbs finally takes you to The Strip where you have your fateful encounter with Benny. From there, depending on how you deal with Benny, the main conflict becomes resolved and the entire game changes pitch and turns around to ask you the player "Which goal or conflict do YOU want to pursue now?" expecting you to have your own answer after spending the whole game roaming the Mojave and getting invested and embroiled in the greater geopolitical struggle going on around you, one which you are now free to make your own resolution to now that you've finished your own personal conflict. A simple conflict of "mailman must retrieve his stolen package.
Lit Devil: "Alright, I promised myself I wouldn't shit on the last Jedi this time..."
"Rian Joshnson though... "
I am fond of the allstar superman answer for your riddle.
They comprise.
Simple:
The unstoppable force stops, the immovable object moves.
I incline to disagree with Gaiman because slice of life proves you don't need conflict. In fact that's why there are conflict driven stories and character driven stories.
Also having a goal sometimes isn't conflict itself. Sometimes obstacles aren't conscious beings.
Climbing a mountain isn't the mountain consciously trying to stop the expedition.
The mountain may not be a genius loci antagonist but for the purposes of plot it may as well be in how it presents challenges to the protagonist, the protagonist has a goal and the mountain and its environment exist (in the story) for the purpose of frustrating that goal. For example if your hiker needs to light a fire and they just light a fire then there's not much to say about it, but if they're slowing succumbing to hypothermia and they're fighting the wind and rain to get a fire going that's a dramatic conflict even if it's not an interpersonal conflict. Imo slice of life stories have conflicts, they're just low stakes conflicts, the world won't end if someone isn't able to get a cake they spent hours making to a birthday party but it matters a lot to them that they earn the esteem of their social group. I really like it when stories mix low-stakes slice of life conflicts with high-stakes conflicts because it highlights how the stakes may be incomparable but the personal significance to the individual is, that the smallest things can really mean the world to someone.
The Seven Stories:
1.) man against man
2.) man against nature
3.) man against himself
4.) man against God
5.) man against society
6.) man caught in the middle
7.) man and woman
Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
The slice of life are often man against himself, with a smattering of man against nature (often nature is time, can you get everything done and meet your obligations?)
@@nk_3332 perhaps. Particularly man against himself since many slice of life works are about self actualization.
@@cognisant307 I actually like low stakes stories more and more lately. Perhaps because I over consumed high stakes stories in my childhood and young adulthood.
Actually all stories need engaging meaningful conflict, even character driven stories are based on internal conflict. Conflict doesn't mean two people beating each other up or they are engaging in a verbal argument. To a writer conflict is the struggle that characters face within themselves or something external like people, places or events that are keeping them away from there goals. No meaningful conflict means no meaningful story.
I would say that without a tangible conflict, the abstract is completely meaningless. And solid tangible conflicts will spawn abstract and intellectual conflict whether they attempt to or not.
My story's main motiff is Spiderwebs, the characters are connected through a series of complicated events that tie and interlink their fates together (Trauma, betrayal, death, grief, tragedy, etc.) one of the protagonists is a paramormal 'Detective/exorcist' of sorts, she's a bloodhound that has catched a scent and will not stop sniffing and poking around until the job is done, thing is, despite her amazing detective skills, due to trauma and codependency, she is unable to realize that her mentor was in reality the main villain and the one who has been pulling the strings all along to control her fate to suit his purposes, (And the main reason she's so isolated and fucked up in the head in the first place, all of her suffering is his freacking fault and he Twisted everything up in his favor, to top it all off she isn't his first victim nor will be the last)
Here comes the main protagonist (Who opens up the story) who meets the Detective by complete accident, and by pure chance, she's the wrench thrown in all of the mentor's plans, something completely out of his control despite all of the power and maquiavellic intelligence he possesses, his own ego and malice plays into his downfall as their meeting kickstarts a fall of dominoes he could not had had ever even imagined.
I think I've got a solid conflict that can be sustained through the story, the characters are connected to and by the main villain one way or another via his lies and manipulation, many of the big events are staged by him and all of them are mere pawns in his plans (The characters have their own lives, goals and motives and they are explored one by one as the story progresses but the main goal of defeat the greater evil that linked them together is very clear and remains the greatest goal at the end of the story). I think about conflict I've got it covered but I'm lacking in a clear worldbuilding outside of 'Victorian-esque era'
Thank you so much
love your stuff my guy
We love Gaiman lol
One of the things I love about these videos, is the simple, digestible breakdown of the info on different topics in the writing process. I mean from this one alone, I recognized several traps I’ve admittedly fallen victim to while writing (especially the philosophical stuff). Wish I knew a lot of it years ago honestly
Oh wow, I’m further along the story making process than I thought.
That sound like a really good idea. Thank you.
Wow this explains a lot why my writing is subpar at best. I focus more on philosophy part and not the conflict part.
I was struggling to come up with motivations and desires for my characters but after many arguments on Dunn's server I finally came up with some answers.
Thank you for these types of videos. My muse recently hit me, and I have an idea for a story that one day I'll eventually write. These types of videos help me check my ambitions.
1:05 A story needs conflict. Neil is describing an antagonist, which is optional
It sucks your work is being shadowbanned, keep fighting on literature devil 💪
I got more than 2000 handwritten pages and just published my first book, i wrote by mind, no tips, just what i thought WOULD BE interesting and fun to read! Who read liked it, but when i see that kind of videos i think if i did big mistakes that can't correct anymore!
Was in a similar position a few years ago, and it happens. As you get better as a writer, older things look worse in comparison. For a long-term project, that can mean it looks like it sucks now because so much time's passed.
Try reframing it mentally, though. See it as a good stepping stone, and remember that people liked it. Plenty of imperfect stories have a loving audience, and it's worth remembering that a story is defined both by its strong and its weak points.
@@RaichuWizDom One good thing is that i wrote almost 2000 pages BEFORE publish the first book, that i wrote 7 years ago, so i could rewrite the beginning of the saga with better technique and development that i had when i started! I liked my feedback, not because people said "they liked", but because they discussed about the characters and got curious with the story events, that is more revealing of the story quality!
I'm in this exact scenario for a small story I thought up back in college (been on hiatus ever since). The overall premise is the four seasons get personified and appear as humans, but with abilities reflecting their season (a sort of magic system for the story). Basically taking inspiration from Greek mythology where the seasons/etc. are all just people.
I've thought up all the details about the core characters, including various side characters to represent other aspects (the four winds, etc.). But I have yet to figure out the actual conflict. They appear because the earth recognizes some threat and forms them as a defensive measure, but I don't know what that threat is. I mostly need to figure out if the "villain" will be a regular human with some kind of access to the nature magic system, or just another nature spirit being personified. I don't want the generic pollution/global warming crap, so I won't be going that route.
No joke Devil, your channel is one of the major reasons why I'm getting into writing. Every video is eye opening on the subject and gives me the same appreciation for this art as i had for years with music. It got to the point i did something i never thought i would in my life, be a dungeon master in few rpgs. And knowing your videos helped me narrate storys that not only i appreciate but the players aswell, conforts me in knowing i might be on to something, even more considering i managed a bunch of political subjects with my own views in them but they never felt lectured by it or even noticed that i did it.
You know? I only just now watched this video, not sure if I needed it (BOY DO I NEED IT) now that I started my story. And how did I do it?
I had this story that was set to be an adventure between master and student, as they traveled across the land, reviving an ancient, lost culture thay came before all others. The grandfather of all cultures thay can still be felt in the modern world. But I couldn't write more than a few chapters before starting over. Again and again I tried to write this blasted book. I tried different angles and starting points. Arguing whether or not my protag should start as a child or a teenager. Whether or not his family were irredeemable monsters or villains with a hope to becoming something better. But then I realized where I was going wrong, and it was not a step I wanted to take...
The problem wasn't the age, the starting location, or even the villain. It was so simple; it was the *master*. I had created this man to be powerful beyond reason. A man who couldn't stress his powers for a specific but very important reason. And yet, he was so strong that my MC would never be able to suffer conflict. And so I made one simple move that needed to take place to allow Zero to grow, have a character arc, and suffer both internal and external conflict; I killed his master. And just like that, the story fell into place.
Minus a few more hiccups where I realized one of the biggest things I was missing was how to build the relationship between Zero and his childhood sweetheart. I suffered not being able to write more than a few chapters, and am now halfway through book one.
It really is as simple as that. Big moves that are as painful for you to make as it is for your characters to suffer.
"Conflict is the primary engine of fiction. Without some form of conflict, there is no story."
"Conflict" doesn't have to extend to _just_ situations like "Batman must stop an evil man from doing evil things". It could easily be a story of competition. "Two rivals are using different methods to get to the same goal, but there's only enough glory for one of them."
I am currentpy working on a webnovel
Right now I'm trying to create a proper antagonist and villains, I'm still quite stuck and do not know how to write it, but your video helped me to think about how t9 start the contrast and conflict between the Protagonist and the Antagonists/Villains
Thanks! I've actually come up with an idea of where to start the story I'm working on now. I need to write the synopsis I came up with down real quick before I forget it. Some of the details are still subject to change but I have the basics down rather than just world-building and such set up in my Campfire Blaze account. Now I just need to start the actual story.
This is what I do with my TTRPGs, whether GM or player.
If I'm a player, I make my character, then immediately ask what they need in life so badly that they need to go on a quest for it.
As a GM, I ask what my BBG wants more then life itself, then immediately ask what is stopping them from having it right now.
In both cases, backstory/tactics/personality/etc are almost auto-generated as I seek to explain why they need the thing and how they initially intend to go about getting it (with a secret backup plan in my head for when the first inevitably falls apart).
Ryan is the king of invisible clothes lmao
Very Interesting video. This kind of sums up what I was missing when I was younger and attempted to write a book. Who knows, I might spend some free time to fix with that One Trick.
I one thing we can´t forget. Do the antagonists actions make sense. If we mirror the story or even do the base story make sense if we take away the Protaganist for the story. to make a example. If we take Die hard. It would be a diffrent story. but would the story work from Hans Grubers point of view. would it work even If we take away John MacClane. I think the problem with some stories is that. the antagonist is evil and want to destroy the world. so that the protagonist have something to beat and a excuse for their action. If you do the same with a superhero movie. would it still work and would the story still work. one more thing If yo view the story from a bystander. would you realy be able to see who the Hero is.
I would be interested in a video that talks about the fundamentals of well written characters. if Lit. Devil already has one, could anyone be so kind as to direct me to it?
Not all stories need conflict, remember your story about eastern storytelling.
If your character does nothing, throw rocks at him or her.
Literature Angel working on a comic confirmed? 🤔
Nice
This was of great help! I'm saving this video.
Is there any book you recommend for learning writing?
Everyone enjoys a great adventure. But to have an adventure you need conflict. Conflict comes from desire and opposing force, person or thing. The stronger the desire or more heart felt the bigger the impact to overcome. This is why eragon fizzled in the end his obstacles became small because he was getting to powerful. A marysue.
People need to ground the people on the storys and give them a compeling reason to fight but they need to stay grounded or the villan also needs to grow. Can you do an analysis of the Final Fantasy 14 story. It is long but if you pay attention you can see the simple plots but they are woven with a lot of simple plots all intertwined into one big one.
I think Eragon also suffered for the fact that the protagonist's investment in the setting's conflict was at odds with his personal attachment to his dragon so the motivations largely cancelled out.
It was a cold and stormy night ...
Question, was your avatar based off Mads Mikkelsen in Hannibal?
Another cute little trick, that used to be standard operating procedure in movies, so that you're main character could have both the mentioned tangible & "abstract" goal is by dividing them into A-Plot and B-Plot.
Example, your standard Action movies A-Plot is: defeat the bad guy, while the B-Plot could be: Fall in Love with the girl.
To use DIE HARD, yes the A-Plot for John McClane is: stop Hans Gruber, but this plot would feel somewhat one dimensional without any emotional weight to it without the B-Plot, which is: Can John MCClane repair his marriage to his wife Holly? Now of course what makes DIE HARD exceptional is that it weaves both plots together, as well as some C & D plots, that are satisfactorily resolved by the films climax.
Now it may not work in every case, but it is another useful tool in the chest when you need it.
I make it easy for me. I let others write the story for me. Specifically my pathfinder players.
Do you have an email by chance or pne that you share with your audience?
Isn't this the exact opposite idea portrayed in the video 'Asian storytelling vs western storytelling'‽ I feel like i have whiplash watching those back to back.
In 'journey to the west', a prominent story you juxtaposed with 'the Odyssey', there is no incompatibility of ideas between characters. Tripataka, the monkey king, piggie and Sandy encounter conflicts along their journey but it's not because these other people want to hinder their journey in the majority of cases.
They may just encounter someone acting unjustly to others and feel the need to right the wrong. The others they encounter don't know or care about tripatakas journey because they have their own things going on.
Not at all. One thing the Kishotenketsu style does very well is hammering out internal conflict. This is likely why Slice of Life stories are so great in manga and anime. Western stories are really good at external conflict. Even manifesting any internal conflict in an external way.
The sad part is that teaching new writers that conflict is essential is like pulling Cthulhu’s tentacles from his face. They don’t want to add it because it is violence as far as they are concerned and villains and heroes should live hand in hand under wokism. They don’t want to write stories. They want to write propaganda.
Good video, but I still hate NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN. Never before or since have I seen a movie fumble that badly at the finish line.
one pedantic piece of criticism from a nerd
Showing a lamborghini and then opening the front hood and saying 'no engine' isn't a good analogy. that specific lamborghini model is a mid-engine, and the hatch to get to the engine is behind where the driver sits.
If you would have shown a muscle car [Camero, Challenger, etc] missing an engine, it would have been a better visual. kthxbai
I mean: this is more or less basic of the basics and it is quite embarrassing that so-called writers seem to forget even such.
I would say that even the goddamn slice-of-life and romance stories (while as detached from this narrative on a surface level as possible) follow this structure. The VERY PREMISE of romance in a story is that of a conflict. Not even necessarily against an outside adversary but the main actors themselves and if executed well it will have it's chilling moments. There is also a tangible goal: establishment of a couple and definitive ending. At times it would also entangled with resolution of long lasting revenge, grudge or establishing own worth in world general hierarchy or in the eyes of certain character.
You just made me realize why I hate supposed 'western romance' (if you can even call it that ) in things like recent western comics. It is snarky, shallow, of no consequence and most of all: VOID of tangible conflict. It is mere hedonistic display of nihilism in the end as nothing matters beyond a 'feel good' narrative and maybe some hurt ego. One cannot even cheer or disdain in such situation as story itself is apathetic to the whole thing.
Then we get something like "Oshi no Ko", which while quite masterfully complex and polished is still nothing weird or exceptional in terms of manga, as any good manga story is following same basic rules. As such we get characters which are characters, have own personalities and own agenda... and why I mention that? Well in western stories they often lack those, or are totally inconsistent. This breaks conflict since i anyone can be anything at any time and nothing matters as long as the 'message' is followed... why would I even read it? In contrary if the characters have their goals or even just have strong consistent personalities: conflict will emerge naturally the moment they clash. Same time we will be able to emphasize with them and their world-views as a reader since they have some. We will find our likes and dislikes and we would often even cheer for less than noble causes as we would simply be immersed in the world of character we read about. I swear that "Ijiranaide, Nagatoro-san" or "Uzaki-chan Wants to Hang Out!" has ton more conflict and actual character story arcs than X-Men had in last 5-6 years! It should NOT be like that, but one one hand we have stories with tangible end-goal we hope for, character evolution, bunch of side-characters pushing, deterring or outright expanding the plot. As well as some established mid-goals being a milestones in a journey. While on other we have bunch of now immortal people who are bored enough to hold a fashion venue and reminder that 'plastic is bad, mhm' (I was single digit old kid in 90s w though and recall: "plastic good, recyclable, paper and wood bad, mhm" message of 90s... maybe talk on enviromental causes should not be sponsored? But that is off the topic).
Ah, sorry for ramblings.
But yeah: all ENGAGING stories need conflict in some clear tangible form. Even the Darn ROMANCES XD
Only story which can go on without such clear conflict structure is... I would say: comedy (in a comical, not necessarily traditional sense). But for that You need to have a good sense of humor and... we all know how 'good' western writers became on that front, least ever since GB 2016
So...Literature Angel is, um...Australian, maybe?
Way to puncture Rian Johnson and Cathay Yan, though maybe you could've at least sideswiped Jar-Jar Abrams with the Sword of Writing Justice while you were at it.
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Lol...Updike
So scummy of them
Lov your vids. But I lov more when you team up smudboy. You're both are a great duet.
You can create a story about philosophy if there is also a conflict. Star Trek TNG: The Measure of a Man. "In this episode, the rights of the android officer Lt. Commander Data (Brent Spiner) are threatened by a scientist who wishes to dismantle him to produce replicas of him."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Measure_of_a_Man_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
Slice of life stories are stories without conflict just regular daily lives of people with shenanigans happening.
They usually do have conflict. But it's smaller scale and the stakes are usually more personal. Like someone eating a nice pudding that wasn't theirs at work and then stressing about the mistake they had made.