14 Comments

The film midsommar has a tapestry at the opening credits that does this.

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founding

I love that I now have a term (or terms, with "postage stamp")for this concept. I've been trying to compile moments when I (and hopefully others) want to know more about something in the hope that I can recreate that want and build an investment for readers. Murder mysteries seem like a great base for those kinds of investment moments because one question leads to another: who died, who killed them, why did they kill them, are they sorry, what happens next? The thumbnail is such a great way to think of the setup for all those whys and hows while we start caring for the characters and the growing anxiety of what they are set to suffer. I hope this is leading into They Shoot Horses, Don't They discussion because I can't wait to talk about it.

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Lish used to say that all the energy is “in the going.”

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Do you think that a thumbnail of a narrative needs to lead to the conclusion, or can you paraphrase the story and then continue? Like the thumbnail is only the first two thirds of the story? Or is this another device entirely?

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Now I'm trying to imagine a story where the tardy traveler who phones in a bomb threat in order to create the delay that enables him to catch his flight is actually a sympathetic character.

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This reminds me of Bond. Producer Albert Broccoli insisted they show all the Aston Martin features early (Q: “now pay attention, 007”) so the audience would be delighted when they saw it in action.

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Sorry if this is off topic from the post, but I have a question on archetypes. You’ve said when we are writing it’s important to identify the archetype that fits your story because then you know what must happen.

Let’s say I identify my archetype, but it ends up that my version doesn’t follow it note for note or maybe that while it does follow the archetypal story, my version reverses character roles or changes the order of events. Is this ok or is this a problem? Or should we as writers literally just follow that archetype’s format and call it good? To me that seems almost too predictable/boring, but I’m also not the expert.

How do you determine whether your story is still hitting in the right spots while at the same time being a bit different? I know archetypes are practically engrained into our DNA and they are really important to get right.

I think I’ve figured out the archetype for my story and I’m having trouble dissecting it. In case it’s helpful — my archetype is Adam and Eve. My story’s protagonist is male and it is apostolic in that he looks up to his girlfriend who is the secondary character. He sees her as a better person. He’s a good person, but makes bad decisions. She’s a good person, but makes good decisions. The train wreck ensues.

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You rule sir. I checked you into the Muse Hotel in times square in 2002 and man...I've been reading your stuff ever since and I have to say that aside from maybe Cormac McCarthy you are the best american writer alive. Keep doing it because you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing in this universe. Not many people can say that.

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The popular thumbnail/postage stamp that came to my mind is the “Winchester speech” in Shawn of the Dead. Several major plot points are addressed in the pub crawl plans that go horribly awry. “Rant” also hit me like both a culmination and an amalgamation of earlier works (kind of a dull/“duh” observation) and, to me, is as brilliant and cool as its cover.

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Odd what you can learn from these posts. My biggest lightbulb moment came in the horizontal vs. vertical descriptions.

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Excellent post. I think I just did this in my most recent novel, perhaps instinctively or intuitively, but more likely accidentally.

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