I first thought that it might be a good idea to decompose further and discuss Letters a little bit. But I realize that the process is sucking energy that we don't expect to spend. I am content with your way of thinking, and I know you are too. So let's not worry about it.

Do you see anything awkward about my plot? It seems that what I need most is to associate each discovery with events and actions.

Unicorn Slayer
by Jastiv

1.Prologue, we introduce a character who is later revealed to be the mother of the protagonist. She is an uneducated woman in a highly religious, patriarchal society. We learn that her father wants to kill the child she has just become pregnant with by a man who was supposed to be a friend of her fathers.
2.Xeri grows up in the town of Northwell. She dreams of becoming a unicorn rider, part of an elite troope of women who guard the city. We are confronted with the themes of fantasy vs reality, past vs future, and an ongoing outside war that threatens to destroy the town. We hear mention of the living dead, zombies although we do not encounter any of them yet.
3.After being rejected as a unicorn rider, Xeri kills the unicorn that rejected her. Shanna, the woman who got her interested in unicorns in the first place, tells her to leave town, so she does, going to the south to an area known as the monster lair. But before she leaves she receives the first of a set of four crystals.
4.Xeri meets up with a member of the Griffin Guard, we see a contrast of the Griffin guard and the unicorn riders. Xeri's brief flirtation with becoming a member of the Griffin Guard ends when her pseudonym is found out and she is sent to the temple.
5.We learn that she is not sent to the temple for her own personal benefit, but for the benefit of the the religion. We see how Xeri cannot be allowed to die and how the creation of the undead occurs, we begin to understand where the plauge of zombies comes from. Xeri receives the second crystal from a priest of the temple.
6.Xeri investigates a place commonly known as the forbidden library. She no longer believes the simple histories she was told as a girl and by other people she has met of the world, so she wants to read the books there to investigate, she doesn't find out anything useful though.
7.Xeri finds herself repeating the same pattern again, this time with mage school, although she reads about it before hand and knows it is not going to be fun. She is introduced to the mage school through a current student. It is there she first hears about the four crystals of power and comes to realize that she may be part of the legend because she already has two of them.
8.The third and forth crystals do not come so easily to Xeri, instead of merely being handed them, she finds that she must seek them out, the third crystal takes her through an inhospitable desert, and although she survives it without water, she still does not suspect her non-human nature to be the culprit.
9.Finally Xeri ends up with the final crystal. This last one proves to be the most difficult of all, because having the other three crystals makes her ineligible to receive the fourth crystal. She thinks maybe she should have gone after it first. But then she finds the the bard,
10.The further I go on in the story, the more unclear the storyline and plot points get. Xeri ends up confronting her heritage and origins. She finds out that she is really a daemon.
11.The final ending, Xeri raises an army of undead and confronts the current ruler of the underworld, who she destroys. She takes his place as ruler of the underworld, determining the rules of life and death.

Actually, in some sense, I think it makes a better video game plot than novel plot, but my lack of programming skill holds me back from making it into a complete game.

Here is part 2 of the assignment.

Jastiv - I like the title, the killing of the unicorn and the comparison with the griffin guard, and the ending. Kinda like Raistlin from Dungeons and Dragons except that he in the end decided not to become a god because the price was too high. The 4 crystals of power thing is kind of yuck - maybe you could make them be something that only responds to her because she's a demon, and each one is a unique object which gives he a specific power, instead of some set of objects whose destiny is to be reunited.

[Edited by - sunandshadow on August 31, 2007 11:09:11 PM]

Quote: Original post by cyansoft
Here is part 2 of the assignment.

Other than sounding like a depressing read, that plot looks well planned. [smile] One suggestion I would make if you're interested is trap your two characters together somewhere for a few hours - due to a power outage or a contamination threat or something - so they can talk. You might want to reveal that the accident which almost killed the main character was a trap which was supposed to kill the other character, a character who sees nothing wrong with his action and is annoyed at the main character for messing it up, and the accusation of terrorism was also set up by the same man. This would help put a human face on the conspiracy of bigotry and anti-terrorism.

[Edited by - sunandshadow on August 31, 2007 11:21:47 PM]

Quote: Original post by Wai
I first thought that it might be a good idea to decompose further and discuss Letters a little bit. But I realize that the process is sucking energy that we don't expect to spend. I am content with your way of thinking, and I know you are too. So let's not worry about it.

Do you see anything awkward about my plot? It seems that what I need most is to associate each discovery with events and actions.

Actually I think your encoding of my plot is very interesting, (because I hadn't encoded it at all yet and you give me a nice place to start where I also see some changes I would immediately like to make.) I want to reply to it but I have to print it out and spend a few hours playing with it first. I'm sure you remember that plotting is my personal weak point, so it makes sense for me to continue working on plot while others do the new character assignment.

For yours, I agree that mainly you need to turn it into events and actions. I still believe that the ending episode needs to be special - generally the climax of a story requires the main character to make a difficult and irreversible decision at high personal cost, and this must resolve the character's original dissatisfaction with himself and/or the world. Other than that and my remarks in the #3 thread your plot seems fine so far to me. [smile]

[Edited by - sunandshadow on August 31, 2007 11:40:36 PM]

Ok Wai, what do you make of this?


M believes X. (Y is really the same so I'm just going to call both cases X.) X is not doubted to be morally true, the overall question is whether it is possible to be practically enforced. (And as an underlying question, why it is not already naturally enforced.) The initial problem, though, it that M doesn't know what would satisfy his own X, he just knows that it isn't satisfied.

0.0) M wants to enforce X fairly for everyone. But, he can't enforce it for himself because he doesn't know what would satisfy his own X, even though he has abilities that might allow him to do so.

0.1) A's X is in conflict with L's X. The temptation is to say that L doesn't deserve X because he is the enemy. But instead M substitutes himself for A, demonstrating that different people's Xs are satisfied by different things.

0.2) M (enabled by a disguise) has the epiphany that one thing necessary to satisfy his X is P, so he grabs P while he can get it but realizes this will cause other problems.

0.3) Although he suspects staying with L will help him find out what other things are necessary to satisfy his X, in order to rescue his allies (satisfy their Xes) he must anger L, and then he's afraid to be vulnerable to L because L seems unconcerned about protecting and satisfying other people's Xes. L could take away M's X if M stays in disguise, or if he saves himself by giving up his disguise L could then use M's ability to take away many other people's Xes. For the good of the many M chooses to temporarily sacrifice L's X and his own chance of finding out more about what would satisfy his own X.

0.4) Hearing his allies ungratefully criticize L when M knows L's X was sacrificed to help his allies, M feels even more strongly that he owes a debt to L. Attempting to avoid the problems having P will cause M wears a second kind of disguise and must again worry about it being penetrated. Feeling vulnerable and lonely, M sympathizes with R and tries to satisfy R's X but can only partially do so.

0.5) A is involved again here, and L takes action in a misguided way to try to get his X back, but I don't know exactly what happens. M is frustrated by the fact that his allies who are supposed to help him satisfy his X, are preventing him from pursuing the satisfaction of his X.

0.6) M sees that if A and R bond they will satisfy each others Xes. They will also attain ability RA but at the loss or risk of losing Q.

0.7) M must risk trusting L in order to repay his debt to L and try to satisfy L's X (although it's not as simple this time).

0.8) L's argument with M's allies has escalated to the point where L must defeat problem V to protect his X. But in order to be defeated L's own ability is not enough. L must risk trusting M so that together they will attain ability LM. But LM is still not enough, RA is also needed.

0.9) R and A join forces with L and M. Unfortunately V and Q also join forces. Now a final event is needed to meld powers LM and RA in LMRA.

1.0) LMRA is used to defeat VQ in such a way that VQ can never threaten them again. M has, largely by accident, gotten his X satisfied, as have the other three through M's efforts. Yay happy ending.

Re: S/S

I think it might be better to break down X into two, because X has two parts that are dynamically different:

X: One shouldn't be forced to do something they don't want.
Y: One shouldn't refrain himself from doing something he truly wants.

constraints: X involves 2 or more characters. Y involves 1 character.

When I read (0.0), my thought was that M can't have X on himself, so (0.0) should have mentioned another character. So I thought M's conflict is actually Y. Did I guess right?


more thoughts on using letters:

It doesn't seem like a good idea to mix the letters with text. I think it would be more clear if the plot is described in three levels.

1) Descriptions of the actual thematic relations (in English)
2) Abbreviations of the thematic relations
3) The plot outline in abbreviations.

example:

I) Story Logic:
The earth is round. One can verify it by going one way and reaching the starting point.

II) Abbreviated relation:
If XP1 and XP2 are accomplished, X is true.

III) Plot outline:
0.0) Char M wants to proof X.
0.1) M starts by doing XP1.
0.9) M does XP2.
1.0) X is proven. ~fin~

In your description, the plot outline has relations that aren't listed. While I don't need to know (I) to read the plot, it would be helpful if I know (II). (I) is usually subjective and are not subjected to changes. What I concern when I look at look at (III) is only whether the events are in a logical and interesting order, when elements are added and how many letters each chapter has. When I look at the (III) above, all I check is that XP1 and XP2 occur before X. Then I would ask, which task is more challenging? XP1 or XP2. The author might reply:

XP1 is more challenging. XP1 requires C1 and C2. C1 is solved by character A, and C2 is solved by character B. Character A begins the journey with M, B is someone M and A meet in the journey. So the plot is like this:

0.00) Char M wants to proof X.
0.05) A comes to help M.
0.10) M starts by doing XP1.
0.20) M faces challenges C1.
0.30) A solves C1.
0.40) M faces challenges C2.
0.50) M and A are helpless, but they found B.
0.60) B solves C2.
0.90) M does XP2.
1.00) X is proven. ~fin~

and so on.


comments:
The letters seem quite strong in communicating plots. It makes it easier to discuss the logics and the plot separately. Plots seem so easy to build when you don't know what the story is about. Ironic isn't it.


[Edited by - Wai on September 1, 2007 4:17:46 AM]

Unfortunately, I have nothing to post yet for part two of the workshop. I haven't even completed assignment one entirely. It's kind of bad, being a full-time student, working part time, and participating in two clubs. And I'm still moving into my new house. :) I'll try to catch-up at some point.

Suppose I associate a concept to an object as way to talk about the concept, what do I call the Object?

just "symbol"?