The stuff that I *haven't* seen properly described anywhere outside of briefly in Johnstone is that there's something like a procedural-generator within you that you need to spin up. It feeds on tropes pattern generation upstream, and is edited by story-structure downstream.
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Tropes/patterns is like cotton bolls. Story structure is like tailoring garments. But the hardest, least documented part is the spinning of yarn and the weaving of fabric that comes in between those 2 extremes.
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Campbellian structure is not always easy to recognize and you have to make tweaks for different genres, but it's not apophenia. It's really there. Harder to spot in comedy sometimes.
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Replying to @kevinmarks
Groundhog Day is classically Campbellian if you interpret it correctly. See Steve Kaplan's reading in The Comic Hero's Journey. creativescreenwriting.com/the-comic-hero
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Fiction is way more intellectual-capital intensive than non-fiction. Like calculus vs geometry. You can figure out a lot of geometry via trial-and-error with a compass and straight edge and a few prompts. With calculus, that's very unlikely without a text.
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Assuming basic arithmetic and algebra as foundation of math literacy, there are branches like probability and geometry which possess an intuitive beginner game (dice/coins/cards, compass/straight-edge construction problems) and ones that don't (calculus, statistics)
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Challenge with fiction is that following the "make 100 pots to make 1 good pot" trial-and-error agile learning model is very hard, because there's no small, simple iteration unit. The smaller units (jokes, very short stories) are actually harder to execute than long.
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So double jeopardy -- you have to do a lot of "intellectual capital prep" (consume a lot of fiction, read some structure theory, learn to recognize 1000s of tropes) AND learn with large iteration unit (I'd estimate 2000 words is the minimum viable beginner size)
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The difficulty at short scales is comparable to the difficulty of learning electronics. Intuitions work best at breadboard scale with discrete classical components (resistors, transistors). Building compact circuits means understanding ICs, pinouts, and standard logic circuits.
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If you're playing with beginner electronics, making something with a say a 10" x 10" footprint will be much easier than making something with a 1" x 1" footprint. You have to understand a lot less. Fiction writing is like that I think.
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This feels right. I've written hundreds of short stories but never finished a novel. Writing jokes is way easier than writing a 1 hour special.
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Just read it again and noticed you seem to be saying the opposite of my situation lol. I do find the short stuff to be effortless. You're saying that's harder than the long stuff.
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For me... ymmv. My sweet spot (and I've only written a few short stories) is 2000-5000 words. Very short is extremely hard for me. I tried to do a thread of 100 jokes and gave up around 50. And none of them were very good.
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