Tag Archives: Star Wars

In Medias Res

01 Friday Jun 2012

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Beginning your story right in the thick of things, in the middle of some powerful and tense scene, is a tried-and-true method of storytelling. The beginning of your story is the most important part, and using that moment to introduce conflict can really clinch your audience and get it drawn in. Of course, the method isn’t without its pitfalls, and it’s not appropriate to every story, so let’s talk about it a little.

What is in medias res? It is Latin for “into the middle of things” and is the concept of starting your story somewhere other than the beginning. Some stories jump right into the middle and a few of the more daring ones come in right at the end. When a story begins in medias res, it provides no context and the audience is left trusting to the storyteller to fill in who the people are and why they are acting in a dramatic manner. As the storyteller, then, it falls on you to provide that explanation. How is up to you, but there are several tried-and-true ways.

One of the easiest but least interesting ways of providing context is through flashbacks. Better is through conversation. You can go Homer’s route in the Odyssey and combine the two: much of that story is Odysseus telling how he got to the start of the story in the first place! You can also provide backstory through exposition, preferably in small chunks; think about how mystery stories slowly reveal all the clues you and the protagonists need to uncover the who, how, and why behind the crime. If you’re feeling really bold you can just not explain what led up to your starting scene at all, although I think that’s probably best done rarely (although you can get away with it more, I suspect, if your opening scene is a fight of some kind).

So what is the major benefit of in medias res? Instant conflict means instant interest from your audience. If you do it right (and this part, at least, is hard to do wrong), you’ll hook your audience without a lot of effort or risk. I think that must be one reason in medias res is so popular with storytellers.

“Without a lot of risk” isn’t the same as “without risk,” though. I think the biggest danger you run into as a storyteller using in medias res is to not follow through well with the rest of your story. Yes, you’ve captured your audience with your opening scene, but if you can’t keep your audience engaged you can still lose it. How many stories have you started because they had such amazing beginnings but that you later abandoned or thought about abandoning because the rest of the story was dull and lifeless? It does happen! Fortunately, I think it’s a pretty rare occurrence, but it does happen.

But don’t let that risk discourage you! I do heartily believe it’s pretty hard to mess up by starting a story in the middle! If you can write a strong opening scene there’s a really good chance you can write a strong everything-else. Storytellers and readers of a story seem to really like in medias res and I think most audiences are more than willing to trust that you’ll explain what’s going on—assuming that’s even necessary.

So when should you use in medias res? I’d say pretty much whenever you think it appropriate. You can use it in any genre or with any medium. Starting off with a dramatic, high-conflict scene doesn’t have to mean violence (although that’s certainly appropriate for multiple genres). A simple conversation can be in medias res if it carries high stakes with it and the rest of the story is affected by it.

Examples of in medias res abound. It seems to be a favorite of Homer and of war movies, and of course a lot of mysteries begin with the commission of crime, but perhaps the most famous modern example is Star Wars: A New Hope. You know how that begins, right? Two spaceships fly in across the screen, clearly in the middle of a battle. Minus the word scroll at the front of the movie there is precious little context to define who the opposing sides are and why they are shooting at each other in space. That comes a little later. You can find a bunch of other examples at the Wikipedia page.

Know Your Story

11 Friday May 2012

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On Monday, Ann and I watched a British movie called Centurion. We… weren’t exactly sure what story they were trying to tell. We were both kind of at a loss to figure out what the movie is really about, and the best I can come up with is that it’s trying to tell too many stories all at once. On the one hand, it’s about the focus character—first his quest for vengeance, then his less grandiose struggle for mere survival, and finally his love for a woman he meets along the way. But it’s also about the lost Legio IX Hispana, the inability of Rome to subjugate the Picts, and the political machinations of Roman Britain. In other words, for a 90-minute movie it’s just too much.

Now, this post isn’t actually a deconstruction or review of that movie, and I’m somewhat picking on the writers, but it gives me a launching point for today’s topic. And that is this: When you’re getting ready to tell your story, make sure you know what it is. Said another way: If you don’t know where you’re going, how will you know when you get there?

I don’t mean you can’t have subplots or multiple weaving main plots. You most certainly can, as long as you know what the story is you’re trying to tell, you remain primarily focused on it, and you communicate it to your audience. This doesn’t mean you can’t throw your audience a curve ball and change what you present as being the story, as long as it’s a natural evolution in the narrative, you planned for it all along, and you provide a proper conclusion for your actual story. China Miéville’s Un Lun Dun is a perfect example of what I mean.

And if you’re telling a multi-part story, or think you might be, you need two main stories to tell for each part: the overarching one and the individual one of each piece. If you’ve ever considered writing a series of novels (for example) you might have heard the suggestion to make each book stand by itself, because you can’t control how a reader discovers your series. Assume that I’m echoing that advice here, because discovering an ongoing series in the middle (without realizing it) and not being able to follow along is extremely frustrating. I think the Harry Potter and Star Wars series do this well; conversely, Lord of the Rings, the Matrix trilogy, and The Hunger Games series do it poorly (although I thought Catching Fire did this a little better than Mockingjay).

Depending on the length of your story, you might need or want subplots to feed into the main story, and that’s not only fine it’s probably desirable. But keep in mind that these subplots really do need to feed into the main story and not detract—or distract—from it. A short story, for example, has no room for subplots. Anything longer needs them. Usually, these subplots will come from supporting characters (because, presumably, the primary plot is about the focus character) and will often expose their backstories and be a part of why they become a part of the main story. And, really, the most important subplot in a longer piece, at least in genre fiction, and if it’s not already the primary plot, will almost always be the motivations of the primary antagonist.

This is a problem that even I run into with some of my story ideas. For example, off and on over the past few years a friend and I have been developing a webcomic; the characters are designed, the world is mostly built, and the subplots are largely lined up. I even have some story arcs to take the characters through (my friend is the artist; I’m in charge of writing). What I lack as the storyteller, though, is an overarching story. Sure, since it’s a webcomic I could just string along a bunch of unrelated story arcs, and for a while I think our audience would be okay with that. But at some point everyone, especially I, would want to see the story go somewhere. So since I haven’t figured out yet what my story is I’m not ready yet to begin it. Once I do figure it out, though, you’ll be among the first to know.



Plan for the Sequel

27 Friday Apr 2012

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You’ve finished your story. You got it published in your medium of choice. Now you’re sipping a mai tai on some tropical beach, basking in your success and struggling only with those little umbrellas they put in your drink.1

Congratulations!

Then your representative calls (agent? editor? director?). The company that put your story into the mass market wants a sequel.

Superb!

Just one problem: You told your story. It has a beginning. A middle. And most importantly, an end. The hero wins. The bad guy loses. All the loose ends are tied up neatly with precise little bows.

You left yourself nothing to build a sequel off of.2

So you set to work creating a new antagonist and try to recapture the excitement and tension of your first story. You know, because like me you’re a student of the Maass school of storytelling, that you need to up the tension. That means making the new antagonist worse in some way than the one in the first story.

I think we can all think of sequels that work like this. Where the storyteller didn’t leave an out. A way to continue the adventures of the popular protagonist after the conclusion of the first story.

When you’re telling your story, leave yourself an out or four. Just in case. This ties into the general advice of using foreshadowing. Let us know there are other concerns in the world you’re building besides those of the immediate story you’re telling now. You needn’t do more than drop a name or mention of something else, something bigger, that you can then bring up in a later story if you need to.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, of course, if you’re proposing your story as a single tale there’s not likely going to be a sequel. But that doesn’t mean for sure there won’t be one. Prepare for the “worst” and hope for the “best,” which in this case is the same thing.

Want examples of what I mean? Rather than harp on the stories and storytellers who get it wrong, let me point out a few examples of those who get it right.

Let’s look at two popular examples from genre stories: The original Star Wars and the first Harry Potter book.

In his first Star Wars film, George Lucas (yes, I’m praising Lucas’s storytelling; don’t get used to it) does a good job of both telling a good, complete story and of leaving room for additional tales in the same universe, with the same characters. Think of the conclusion of the first story: at the end of it, the good guys blow up the immediate threat to themselves and their entire universe. The story could end right there and it would feel complete. On the other hand, Lucas leaves plenty of room for continuing the saga if it proved successful (and, well, it did): the Empire still exists, even though its big toy is destroyed; Darth Vader (the face of the antagonist) is still alive; Han Solo still has a big price on his head. Threads to tie the story into a greater tale, if one could be justified (and it was, obviously).

JK Rowling did the same thing in the first Harry Potter book. At the end of that story, Harry has defeated his arch nemesis, Voldemort. Is Voldemort dead? Who knows? There are hints that, although defeated, Voldemort is still around. Plus, there’s the matter of the ongoing dislike between Harry and Snape. Oh, and Harry’s six more years of school, of course. Lots and lots of threads JK could use to continue the story if her book proved successful enough to warrant sequels. But like Lucas did, she also wrapped up the story nicely. If the book flopped, well, at least those who read it would have a complete story.

So while you’re working out your plot and trying to work in foreshadowing for the conclusion of the story at hand, also try to spare a mention here and there of something else you can build more stories on later. One of the easiest ways to do that is to use the Star Wars example3: make the antagonists more than one person who can be overcome in one simple story, but make sure to give them a face whose defeat definitely creates a closure for the story.



1 Or more likely, sipping wine in your dining room. Stories don’t pay that well. ;)
2This is largely an issue in genre fiction. If you’re telling a traditional romance story or something literary, a sequel is rarely appropriate.
3I only call it the Star Wars example here because I already talked about the saga earlier. In truth, it’s a very common storytelling technique. My current-obsession of The Hunger Games trilogy uses the technique. And earlier this week, Mark Rosewater (head designer for Magic: The Gathering; full disclosure: I work on Magic’s website) answered a question on his Tumblr blog about creating whole races or armies of enemies, instead of focusing on a single bad guy. Also: If anyone can find the Stephen Moffat interview mentioned where he talks about creating groups of enemies for Doctor Who, I’d love to read it.