Indeed, the idea that the "plot points" are the important thing is frequently all messed up and backwards Often the plot is just a damn skeleton, an excuse to talk about the stuff the author wants to talk about, it doesn't actually matter
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Certain zealots -- people with a CinemaSins obsession with "plot holes" -- think of this as a critical flaw in a story Even if the plot doesn't have "holes" they get up your ass about how the plot needs to have a "structure", Hero's Journey shit Don't take them too seriously
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
It's like getting all pissed off at Van Gogh because he, unlike his colleague Emile Bernard, didn't make nice clear outlines around the shapes of stuff he painted "You should be able to tell what a drawing is of if you subtract the color -- his paintings are NOTHING but color"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Nothing about Moby Dick (an example I'm kind of fixated on because it's this byword for "long, boring novel" that I read at a young age and fell in love with) would be improved by making the "plot clearer"
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Moby Dick -- like all books -- is actually a story about only one character doing one thing, the story of the author writing the book Melville's OOC digressions about whaling and shit are just as much part of "the story" as the actual shit happening on the Pequod
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Moby Dick is a book about Melville being a weird dude whose life was all distorted and twisted and warped around this part of his life most people find horrifying and disgusting and scary -- his career of murdering beautiful creatures at sea and slicing off their fat to sell
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
The book is a book about a man trying to make a human connection, to get you to understand this strange alien world that made up such a huge part of his life Geeking out at you about all the knots he learned to tie is one tactic The made-up story about Ahab's leg is another
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
But they are all part of the same thing Just like Hal Incandenza's personal life story is only one thread in Infinite Jest, and possibly not even the most important one
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
(DFW's story "Octet" is one that stuck with me a really long time, because it's a story where he literally *gives up on telling the story* halfway through and just starts talking directly to the reader through the fourth wall about why he's writing the story)
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
I have always aspired to be able to write that kind of thing and make it work, which is very difficult but very powerful when it works Just admitting to the reader "I don't think I can make this story work, and frankly I'm not doing great personally right now"
2 replies 2 retweets 14 likes
Like, say, Dave Sim rapidly going "off the rails" toward the end of Cerebus Or like SCP-2999
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Replying to @arthur_affect @BetaDecayPlus
Not sure why off the rails is scarequoted, Dave Sim was absolutely going OFF THE FUCKING RAILS in multiple senses.
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