The Write Stuff
Nov. 23rd, 2003 08:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_gneechI've been puttering around in my head with Michael Macbeth for the past few days now, and did some more intensive puttering, if such a thing is possible, today. In particular, I pulled out the big honkin' blue binder that contains The Collected Michael Macbeth ... scenes, fragments, notes, and about five major pieces of five different novels, and have been looking at them to see if I could figure out what worked, what didn't, and why -- and more importantly, figure out a way to come up with a plot for Michael to be involved with, rather than just scene after unconnected scene.
The conclusion I've come to, so far, is that while Michael is a fairly interesting guy, the things he gets involved in are boring. I.e., in order to have Michael be the eccentric genius of the story, everyone else involved is so hopelessly pedestrian that I don't actually care what happens to them. And if I don't, why the heck should the reader? One of the things about the Harry Potter stories is that almost all of the major characters are wizards, and as such, each of them have stories of their own to tell.
Another way of putting it: think about Sherlock Holmes. Do you remember any of the victims in his stories? Or any of the people who engage his services as a detective? I sure don't, all I remember is Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, and Moriarty, because they were the interesting people.
I think the problem with the MM stories may be that I was depending too much on the breezy narrative and witty repartee to carry the story, and in the end it always fell down because there wasn't anything solid to support it. What I'd be better off doing is to come up with a good, solid framework -- characters, circumstances, rules-of-the-world, and coming up with stories that flow out of that, rather than putting everything into the gloss on top.
Speaking of all of which, I found the original passage that I recreated from memory the other day. It was noticeably better, if only because it was in context and Lillian (not Susan) was a more fleshed-out character and had more input into the conversation than simply being a sounding board for Michael's pontifications.
-The Gneech
The conclusion I've come to, so far, is that while Michael is a fairly interesting guy, the things he gets involved in are boring. I.e., in order to have Michael be the eccentric genius of the story, everyone else involved is so hopelessly pedestrian that I don't actually care what happens to them. And if I don't, why the heck should the reader? One of the things about the Harry Potter stories is that almost all of the major characters are wizards, and as such, each of them have stories of their own to tell.
Another way of putting it: think about Sherlock Holmes. Do you remember any of the victims in his stories? Or any of the people who engage his services as a detective? I sure don't, all I remember is Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, and Moriarty, because they were the interesting people.
I think the problem with the MM stories may be that I was depending too much on the breezy narrative and witty repartee to carry the story, and in the end it always fell down because there wasn't anything solid to support it. What I'd be better off doing is to come up with a good, solid framework -- characters, circumstances, rules-of-the-world, and coming up with stories that flow out of that, rather than putting everything into the gloss on top.
Speaking of all of which, I found the original passage that I recreated from memory the other day. It was noticeably better, if only because it was in context and Lillian (not Susan) was a more fleshed-out character and had more input into the conversation than simply being a sounding board for Michael's pontifications.
-The Gneech
