May 07 2009
Long Narratives: Avoiding the Hazards
Yesterday, I discussed a number of problems that crop up with particularly long narratives. Today, I’m going to address some methods to avoid these problems.
Photo by jsliwinski
- Gaps between plotlines, lack of connectivity: The best way to avoid these is make the next plotline grow naturally from the previous one, sometimes making itself known in the middle of a plot arc. For instance, if your sequence of events is something along the lines of “Raiders attack village—dragon takes advantage of confusion to strike against capital”, you might bridge into it with that brief shadow falling over the far edge of the battlefield as the dragon verifies that the potentially opposing forces are kept busy before heading off to strike against the now undefended population center. In sum, make sure any change in plot direction is foreshadowed. This is particularly important when you’re dealing with reactive tabletop roleplayers, as they’re the ones who determine their direction, and many are known for their tendency to mill around awkwardly waiting for the next plot to show up.
- Length for length’s own sake: The easiest thing to say is ‘just don’t', but that’s a hard request to enforce. Instead, look at any segment you want to add, and figure out what purpose it serves in the story. (I personally recommend finding purposes to go along with ‘giving the group space to get powerful enough to deal with this threat’, if you’re running a role-playing game.) Then, as you’re implementing it, make sure you have that purpose in mind, and that it shows through. Note carefully the apparent divergence of whatever you’re writing at this point from the primary plotline; the more it seems to diverge, the more the division of time should be skewed towards focusing on elements that illustrate the use of that plotline to the overall narrative. Particularly in an episodic medium.
- What was my plot again? This can be avoided by one simple rule: Plan ahead, read behind. While I’m not saying ‘go for an outline’, I highly recommend at least knowing what the basic conflict is, why it matters, and how to keep the characters moving in that direction. And make sure you know what you’ve done before; if you’re writing, reread (this also gives you a chance to self-edit, and can be used as a way to get you back in voice), and if you’re running games, keep notes.
- Absurdly scaling power: Granted, in many game systems increasing the overall power level of the group is inevitable. That doesn’t mean that the conflicts have to go in the same direction. Much of the arms race mentality of long series tends to come from people depending on power rather than something else to match their opponents, and challenging each other in their specialties, particularly combat. However, if you focus on a less confrontational storyline, the issue becomes less about what you can do and more about what you can do with it. There’s maneuvering in a court, and then there’s learning different courts as one maneuvers in them—the patterns may be similar, but the people are never alike. There’s taking one magic ability, and applying it in multiple ways; I did this once with a hole in the world connecting two points. A swordsman with no equal in the world might be scary in a fight, but what happens when you plop him somewhere where different skills are needed?
- Character stasis. I’ve found two ways of avoiding this particular problem. One is planning a direction in which a character’s personality is most likely to go over the course of a storyline; this ensures the character changes, but can seem artificial if not done right. The other is to keep careful stock of what impact each event might have had on a character, and if not why it didn’t—and most importantly, to remember it and keep that knowledge in mind.
- Information overload. This also has two solutions, best used in tandem. One is to filter the information in question; make sure characters have a reason for existing, don’t reveal details that wouldn’t naturally come up over the course of the storyline, and make sure that any piece of information that will be vital later comes up regularly enough that people aren’t likely to forget about it. Another is to give your audience a quick reference—a glossary in a book, for instance, or a wiki for a game campaign—so that they can check back for the particularly important facts. This is still doable if you’re trying to arrange a mystery; you just need to make sure the details that can easily be researched are more focused on ‘what’s than ‘why’s.
These won’t take care of all the problems you’re likely to have with a long narrative, but they’ll cover for quite a few. So let your story go as long as you want!
