posted
This is a response to extrinsic and I think everyone.
What if the natural way to start a story is with setting? "Once upon a time, there was..."
And what if, at least sometimes, or for some readers (like me), the best way to start a story is with action/dialogue. (I called that "scene clock on.)
Orally, my stories begin with setting. I can't imagine starting with action. It would be too hard.
Then we would expect early books to start with setting. Which tends to be true. Then someone has to go first for starting with action, even though readers aren't expecting it.
Then there would be a transition. Maybe Wharton counts for that. She starts with the scene clock on, then quickly shifts to setting.
And, really, starting with the scene clock on is really difficult, and an art. Where to start? How much setting needs to be put in, and how does it fit in?
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quote:Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet. He grabbed the crutch for his broken foot, hobbled quickly to the window, and looked out over their farm and the flat plains of Kansas for only a second. Then he whipped around and screamed, "It's a tornado! It's a gol-darned tornado, coming our way! Quick! To the cellar!"
I'm not starting with the middle of the action ("in media res"?), I'm starting with the precipitating event. The first two words suggest the main character (her). The crutch is an important plot point for the scene, and the setting (Kansas) is very important to the whole book and understanding the scene.
So I'm integrating setting into the action.
The first sentence gives us urgency -- it was a good place to start for that. Orally, I couldn't come close to getting all of that organized and in place.
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posted
Don't get dragged into the box. Find a brilliant story. Start it with your heart then rewrite it with your head. Then throw it to the wolves. Rinse and Repeat.
Whether action, dramatic, romantic, background, whatever to start. It will always be the story and how you tell it that will say whether those who listen will enjoy or not.
You will know when you have written something worth reading, because you will have no doubt that it is something that should be read.
posted
Greatest challenge for starts, raw flash, polished typescript, or live oral performance from a composition, is from a judicious meld of description, action, sensation, and emotion -- dramatic emotion emphasis, irrespective of if a milieu (setting), idea, character, or event (action) emphasis. Dialogue (conversation), thought (introspection) in due course.
DIANE'S SECRET SPICED ACT, a mnemonic checklist for prose composition modes, for creation's sakes and craft analyses: description, introspection, action, narration, emotion, sensation, summarization, exposition, conversation, recollection, explanation, transition; setting, plot, idea, character, event, discourse; antagonism, causation, tension.
Few, if any, standout narratives come to mind. Much latitude for more artful start appeals yet to realize for the opus. Maybe a few somewhat deft craft first-person short-fiction narratives; among which, Denis Johnson, "Car Crash While Hitchhiking", 1992 collection, Jesus' Son. (Washington State University hosted PDF, ten pages, about two thousand words.)
First several lines:
"A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping . . . A Cherokee filled with bourbon . . . A VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student . . .
"And a family from Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri . . .
". . . I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain, and something less than conscious, thanks to the first three of the people I've already named--the salesman and the Indian and the student--all of whom had given me drugs."
The above fraught with unnecessary -ing words.
From the EmmaSohan posted sample above, "suddenly" is always a word that wants consideration for replacement and expansion. The word artlessly summary tells, forces, rushes a gamut of description, action, sensation, and emotion subtext and satire occasions. Even slung, etc., is stronger and clearer by itself.
"grabbed," "quickly" and "Then," too, want consideration for similar reasons.
posted
The first issue with starts is to find the right place to start; the actual time and place where the story really starts. Once you’ve found that spot you need to decide how close to that point you begin your narrative. Too close and the start will be rushed and, usually, contrived. How can it not be? Your example fragment is an excellent case in point. Too far away from that spot and you are going to bore the heck out of your readers as you attempt to fill in the space between the time the narrative starts and the moment something actually happens; time usually filled with boring exposition, explanation and/or world-building.
Once you’ve found out were to start, what are you going to say? What are you going to tell the reader, how are you going to prepare them for the journey they are about to undertake? How will you invite them into your world and your story.
I always start by asking myself one question: What does the reader really need to know? Not what I would like to tell them, but what is the absolute minimum they must know in order to understand what is going on, what is happening or what is about to happen. Readers aren’t stupid; they’ll fling your book across the room if you treat them like simpletons.
Let me give you a quick example; my short story ‘The Ascent of a Man’. The story takes place in Hell, but I have to get my protagonist there--so he has to die. How? I came up with the idea of him having a heat-attack so I wrote a nice little scene of about 300 words ‘showing’ the reader why it was no surprise that my hero had a heart-attack, given what he ate. But I wasn’t satisfied: the reader didn’t need to know all that, they just needed to know he died. So I killed him off in the first sentence:
On a Wednesday morning in April Jonas Hobb died while waiting to cross East Twenty-third street.
The reality is, there is nothing in that sentence that is necessary for the reader to know except that Jonas Hobb is dead: the day, the month and the street have no bearing on the story, he’s just dead. (Actually, the street name does have some small relevance--it's referencing the twenty-third Psalm) And I could have just said that, but there’s no poetry in “Jonas Hobb died and fell to Hell.” So I spent a week coming up with an opening that sang--at least to me.
But, before all that, you need to know what your own story is really about. Not what you think it is about as you write it out, but the certainty you know what it’s about when you wake at three in the morning six months after finishing your first draft shouting, “Eureka!”
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: The first issue with starts is to find the right place to start; the actual time and place where the story really starts. Once you’ve found that spot you need to decide how close to that point you begin your narrative.
Well, yes and no. The first thing is just to start. Somewhere. Sometimes you don't know what the right place is until you've written the first draft. Then the right place to start becomes easier to pinpoint. Maybe it's the place that mirrors your ending. Maybe it's something else. Very often, it will be someplace a little later than where you did start. Occasionally, it'll turn out to be a little earlier.
And, certainly, thinking about the ways successful stories start is a useful endeavor. But don't let it paralyze you.
Write the thing first. Fix the beginning in the revisions.
But then, full disclosure, I am a discovery writer.
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posted
For me, the ideal place to start creation is an apt title. Until I know the title, I flounder in the dark, often, until a first draft is on the page. From first word, though, I have a destination -- scene-by-scene, act-by-act destinations, and outcome ends, though those are subject to change and often do. Prose's forte is a make believe meaning making phenomena, meaning made out of wants and problems I and an ideal target audience want to understand, and whatever human condition is on the hot seat thereof is for a title's inspiration.
If I have an apt title, a story shapes itself. If not, the destination serves until I do. Several projects the title presents while a draft is in progress. Rare that I finish a rough draft without an apt title. With a title, rewrites and revisions follow.
I am a plan and intuitive writer, and editor, back and forth and each at once throughout each project's process.
posted
My starting point is the premise. What is this story going to say. I often do dances with my own feelings on various subject matter and emotions. then take pro or con sides with many shades in between, but from start to finish I know how the story's framework is going to unfold. Where the conflict ensues from the premise.
I know that if this story is going to inspire readers to believe that love concurs all. That the start will intro the opposing sides to the premise, with a thumbs up or a thumbs down. what follows is either the tearing down of love or its fight to be restored, then a conclusion that will leave the readers satisfied and leaning toward the positive. I could just as easily write the opposite, many teen angst books are stories of how love fails in the face of reality.
I think that is something wonderful about fantasy, you can break with reality, and bring others on a journey into a realm where good wins the day, and love concurs all. It's just not as popular anymore.
But mostly, every reader wants to feel they are that special one for whom adventure/love has chosen out of the other billion on the planet.
quote:My starting point is the premise. What is this story going to say. I often do dances with my own feelings on various subject matter and emotions. then take pro or con sides with many shades in between, but from start to finish I know how the story's framework is going to unfold. Where the conflict ensues from the premise.
This is often very true of me as well. Premise and subject matter are very important (quite possibly the most important thing) for me and very often where a story starts, in the sense of its genesis in my mind, for me. Then I try to come up with a plot that addresses the idea I want to explore or the event I want to have happen or whatever.
quote: What if the natural way to start a story is with setting? "Once upon a time, there was..."
And what if, at least sometimes, or for some readers (like me), the best way to start a story is with action/dialogue. (I called that "scene clock on.)
This is very important to me. I do tend to feel that the sort of "natural" or default way to start a story is, shockingly, at the beginning-by setting the scene. Certainly in novels, but even in the medium of the short story, I've always felt like it was sort of a given that the beginning of a story is going to be just that-the start of things. Nothing major is happening yet. Your presenting some of the pieces-setting most likely, character(s) probably and then they start moving.
Now of course, there is in medias res, and there are readers that don't want any sort of preamble-they want dynamism and conflict and action right away, explanations and scene setting later if at all.
It also depends on the nature of a story. In order for the inciting incident or conflict or whatever to be understood, there may have to be some scene setting first. In other cases, especially with, say, straightforward peril of some sort, you can just drop the characters into the action with the first line.
It all depends on what you're trying to do. But, like a literary Killjoy, my catchphrase is "the story is all."
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posted
I generally try to start as late as possible in the story---but usually that only works when I write something and then discard it.
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quote: It also depends on the nature of a story. In order for the inciting incident or conflict or whatever to be understood, there may have to be some scene setting first. In other cases, especially with, say, straightforward peril of some sort, you can just drop the characters into the action with the first line.
I can't imagine why there would have to be setting first. Example?
I don't always start with peril. If it's a premise story, I start with action/dialogue and do the premise.
But right I know one book that puts the best scene at the start of the book (prologue), where it loses all force and meaning. But that's more than just context.
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posted
Let me begin with the proviso: If it works, it works, be it a lecture on history or opening with action.
In general, though, if you are in the viewpoint of the protagonist, you have no choice but to begin the story with a scene, not scenery, unless the protagonist is noting and reacting, with something like it:
Zack peered through the hedge,counting passers-by while he waited for Susan.
But if the setting matters to the story opening, it's common to use a film technique and begin with a establishing shot to place the reader before moving to close up.
But the reader comes to fiction for a story, not a travelogue, right?
I assume that the lines you posted were something you thought about using. So:
quote:Her father suddenly threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet.
I'd drop "suddenly because jumping to his feet is, by definition, suddenly.
But to give it context, I'd suggest something preceding, like him saying, "Be quiet for a moment!" then having him bend his head forward, listening intently for a moment before exploding with, "Oh my God!" as he snatched up his cane and hurried to the window that looked out over the wheat-fields.
Reasons: The request for quiet sets the stage so far as him not being alone, and both foreshadows and gives context his reaction. It also replaces the second line to condense the thought and add impact. The man hears a tornado coming. That's immediate and deadly danger. So anything that slows the presentation of the emergency reduces the impact. He has a cane and must hobble. That says he's limited. At this point, do we care why? No. Clarify that when it's necessary that the reader know, or part of his decision-making. This tells the reader everything necessary for context. We know it's a farm, in an area where they have storm cellars. True, we don't know country and state, but do we need that at this point?
quote:Then he whipped around and screamed, "It's a tornado! It's a gol-darned tornado, coming our way! Quick! To the cellar!"
Needs more drama and immediacy, than, "then he..." How about something like:
After a single open mouthed glance he spun back to face the room, his face drained of color, arm pointing to the dining room doorway. "Get to the cellar right now. It's a gol-darned tornado!"
Reasons:
I added the reaction to what he saw as part of his looking, to show how serious he thought it was, and place cause—what he saw through the window—before effect: what he did and said as a result. For the same reason, I had him point to where the cellar is, and give the order to move before he explains why (which also heads off any of those in the room from asking why.
Hope this helps.
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posted
Example of setting first, about four hundred words of pure setting description (time, place, situation, and milieu dramatic motion) necessary to the main dramatic movement start to come thereafter, emotional equilibrium upset nonetheless: Nell Zink, Mislaid, 2015.
The bulk of the setting description start could, however, incorporate into a scene mode meld rather than a standalone narrator summary and explanation description tell, if the focal persona introduction started the whole and through which the setting development were received reflections, as the remainder could be construed, though can't, because the narrator shows forth from the outset.
The narrative point of view of the whole, though, is third-person close, limited, remote narrator perspective, as is the sans characters and events and complication-conflict start. An unconventional departure from third-person close, limited's usual invisible narrator baldly reports the sole received reflections of a single viewpoint persona; rather, a shown-forth narrator, a close to the narrator narrative distance, that is.
The narrator is the actual viewpoint persona who overtly reports the narrator's perceptions of the focal persona, includes thoughts thereof, and others and events and sensations and places and objects as external perceptions of them and those, and narrator commentary attends, a semi-objective-subjective merge. This is a motile spy-eye drone camera with an onboard emotional-moral attitude, selective omnipresence narrative point of view, selective, limited omniscience. Could be argued Zink doesn't appreciate close, limited's conventions; rather, that these departures from convention work and are Zink's fresh narrative forte.
The flexibility advantages of this particular narrative point of view are that actions and sensations of a focal persona's self a self cannot possibly observe do not violate viewpoint consistency, and occasion overt and covert narrator attitude commentary (tone).
"Mislaid," though!? Uh-huh, mislaid narrative point of view convention emphases, though not truly; mislaid wants and problems and blames and responsibilities and events and places and persons and things; mislaid dramatic movement, mislaid subtext and satire, though not truly; as well mislaid to mean mis-loved and all its expected mislaid intimacy events, too. Is a title all by its lonesome sufficient to intimate dramatic essentials and engage for several hundred words at least, and relevance hold up throughout a whole, one word no less? Mislaid, indeed, though not truly; actually, energetic real-life human condition insight through moral truth discovery drama.
quote: I can't imagine why there would have to be setting first. Example?
Well of course nothing ever technically has to be anything and remember I said scene setting, not necessarily just setting as in milieu/worldbuilding.
For an example, with my "Purple Haze" story, two of my recurring characters hear about a series of murders in there area, and wind up dealing with the person who committed them. In order for the story to play out as I wanted it to, I needed to establish the characters, the murders and a few things about the murders from the outset, rather than, say, having them get into a fight with him in the first 13.
Perhaps not the best example and I suppose what I should have said is, sometimes for certain stories to work the way you want them toyou may need to set the scene or establish certain things before you get to the central whatever-the-heck.
I should also say that sometimes in order not to have your reader be confused or feel left out you may need to set scene/worldbuild/establish certain things early on. Of course, it's a matter of taste. I for example am not super thrilled with the trend I've detected in some recent high fantasy of taking forever and ever to establish things like how the magic works or the cosmology of a world, but some people don't care.
What I meant about peril is, if a story's main conflict is some sort of direct danger-especially if its primarily physical-you can start with a true full on action scene, a battle or such. The same is true any time there is some specific antagonist or enemy or obvious danger, you can if you choose just plop down in the middle of it. But as in the story I mentioned above, the real core of the story lies in the emotional and moral conflicts faced by a non-protagonist character who the MC's haven't even met when the story begins.
The point is, once again, you do whatever the story requires.
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posted
I have a female protagonist who is about as far from human as you're likely to get; think giant Archaeopteryx with a sixty foot wingspan. For readers to understand not just what she is but who she is as well, I have to 'set the scene'. To do this, the opening scene shows Sayethryd (her name) waking up and getting her breakfast--a 2000 kilogram angry bull.
It won't be boring, but it doesn't advance the dramatic want.
Phil.
I have no idea why I posted this other than to make the point every story is different and each requires a different treatment.
P
[ December 19, 2018, 12:02 AM: Message edited by: Grumpy old guy ]
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quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan: I can't imagine why there would have to be setting first. Example?
I don't always start with peril. If it's a premise story, I start with action/dialogue and do the premise.
But right I know one book that puts the best scene at the start of the book (prologue), where it loses all force and meaning. But that's more than just context.
It matters a lot whether we're talking about a short story, a novel, or something in between. I'm primarily a novelist, so I tend to think that way.
But, in any case, you need at least a little scene setting in the beginning. You're asking your reader to imagine your story, to create it in their own minds. You can't tell them that your character boarded a ship without a few more details. Some of them are going to imagine a modern cruise ship. If, pages later, they find out it's an 18th century British navy frigate. They'll be annoyed--and rightly so.
Even if you start with dialogue, a little orientation to the scene is necessary. Are they driving somewhere in a car, sitting at the kitchen table, walking in the park? Otherwise, it's just talking heads in a white space.
Now, it's not often you start with several pages of scenery alone, but I can think of novels--some of the best--that start with a fair amount of setting interspersed with the dialogue and/or action. David Farland repeatedly advises to transport the reader to another time and/or place. Description is necessary for that.
And, if you want a totally non-action, setting-heavy opening to a novel, check out the first page of Patrick Rothfuss's THE NAME OF THE WIND.
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posted
On the notion of beginning with a firm premise and crafting your story to fit, I have a short story I wrote where the premise was: revenge is sweet, sweeter still is the moment your nemesis' eyes widen when he realises he’s been destroyed by a nobody.
That's were I started, when I was finished I applied my new-found wisdom and created a causality map for the story. Turns out it wasn't about revenge, but how you learn to love.
Believe me, things ain't always what they seem, or what you think they are.
posted
"Premise," cited several times above entails a proposition or supposition, a claim asserted, supported, and proven. A syllogism entails antecedent major and minor premises and a conclusive therefore claim assertion.
For example, Grumpy old guy posted this premise: "revenge is sweet, sweeter still is the moment your nemesis' eyes widen when he realises he’s been destroyed by a nobody."
"Revenge is sweet" is a conclusion, not a premise, Likewise, "sweeter still is the moment your nemesis' eyes widen when he realises he’s been destroyed by a nobody" is a conclusion. Neither is a major or minor premise setup or support of a conclusion.
Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely is also an incomplete syllogism, all conclusion, no premise setup or support. Though a message and moral for many narratives.
Major premise demonstration from the above revenge example: Humans insult. Minor premise: Insults hurt. Conclusion: [Therefore] Humans hurt. (Then, revenge is sweet.)
Not enough context therein for a narrative, a bare figment of a finger bone, if that, though apt prose narratives follow similar causal-logic progressions and syllogistic argumentation (deductive), though the deductive causal-logic of moral truth discovery and reversal are obscured.
Realization a narrative, which entails vengeance wants, is about how to learn to love occasions a dramatic pivot, a substantive transformation of a syllogism and complication-conflict at one of the several latter half crisis bridge points of a narrative's acts, though Chekhov's gun earlier pre-positions attend regardless.
posted
"Revenge is sweet. . . " is a proposition from which a conclusion can be formed: ergo, the conclusion that revenge is something to be sought out.
I think that satisfies at least one definition of a premise.
quote: "Revenge is sweet" is a conclusion, not a premise, Likewise, "sweeter still is the moment your nemesis' eyes widen when he realises he’s been destroyed by a nobody" is a conclusion. Neither is a major or minor premise setup or support of a conclusion.
It is in terms of the definition of premise that is relevant to this discussion. From Wiktionary, the fifth definition given for premise:
quote:5: (authorship) The fundamental concept that drives the plot of a film or other story.
It isn't the oldest definition, but it is the one that applies here and is the one we've all been using.
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posted
So yet another mass culture coin of late, diluted beyond recognition, from fan and slash fiction culture, because a concise term or terms are too -- what, difficult? Too literary? Too sophisticated? Too complex? Out of immediate, convenient gratification reach?
Dramatic movement forces are antagonism (motivation, complication), causation (stakes risked, conflict), tension (reader, viewer, etc., emotional effect), and tone (attitude).
How does "Revenge is sweet" develop into a major or minor premise? The saying accords one of a premise's basic tests; that is, the premise is asserted or assumed to be true, is taken for granted, self-evident, axiomatic. Likewise, as such:
All revenge is sweet. Some revenge is bitter. Therefore, some revenge is bittersweet.
A is B; Some A is C; therefore, Some A is B and C. Valid deductive process? Basis for a dramatic structure movement? (256 possible, 24 valid syllogism types.) The above, an All-1 Modus Darii syllogism type.
All apt drama is of an emotional appeal. Some action starts are emotional. Therefore, some apt dramas are emotional action starts.
A is B; Some C are B; therefore, Some A are B and C.
Deductive linkage established among two or more axiomatic premises and a conclusion is the basis for valid premises and syllogisms. Shortfalls thereof for a narrative glare as wide as plot holes and flat outcomes, as does too overt a deductive formula structure for a narrative.
However, this deductive process is beyond mass culture consciousness, is sub-subliminal nonconscious processes for many, at best.
Sublime and profound, though, if a narrative's syllogism is inferably self-evident and leaves the sacred reader immersion spell undisturbed.
posted
I think you are underestimating "suddenly" and ignoring how much it tells us about what was happening BEFORE.
When I say he jumped to his feet, that tells the reader he was sitting. When I say he threw aside his newspaper, that tells the reader he was reading the newspaper.
And whhe I say he suddenly jumped to his feet, that means he was just sitting there.
So, it is as if I began with a sentence of setting: Her father was sitting in his chair, calmly reading his newspaper.
This is my point -- I do start with action/dialogue, that does create problems for setting, and I try to solve those problems in an artful way.
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posted
A general grammar principle asserts that unnecessary modifiers clutter expression, -ly adverbs among the more patent clutter. Modifiers' prose function is commentary expression.
Actually, "suddenly," for the intended use, is a conjunctive adverb, takes punctuation separation, not a predicate verb modifier. Conjunctive adverbs are location independent, position may be the start, middle, or end of a syntax unit.
"Her father _suddenly_ threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet." //Her father, suddenly, threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet. //Suddenly, her father threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet.// //Her father threw aside, suddenly, his newspaper and jumped to his feet. //Her father threw aside his newspaper, suddenly, and jumped to his feet.// //Her father threw aside his newspaper and, suddenly, jumped to his feet. //Her father threw aside his newspaper and jumped, suddenly, to his feet. //Her father threw aside his newspaper and jumped to his feet, suddenly.//
Plus, the two clauses are a not-simultaneous mistake. Try at one and the same time to set aside an object and stand up, awkward at least, rarely, if ever, truly simultaneous otherwise. The misapprehension for not-simultaneous mistakes is confusion of simultaneous, contemporaneous, and sequential events or other circumstances. For such as this sentence, the serial list, sequential compound predicates principle applies.
//Her father slung aside the Wichita Daily rat-cage liner, jumped to his feet.//
The verb "slung" expresses "suddenly threw" all by its one-word lonesome, uncluttered. One syllable versus four, an economy of glyphs that then occasions other content. "slung," too, an invisible verbal metaphor that relates to cyclone centrifugal force. Unnecessary "and" elided, another occasion for glyphs economized and dynamic content substituted. "Wichita" is a setting feature, too; "rat-cage liner," commentary and characterization development, of her, of father, of a family breakfast situation, of a non-routine a.m. contention routine.
Father's contentious read and commentary of the paper could be part of the daily routine beforehand, set up and foreshadow the incitement event to come. //"Cack-handed weather guessers," her father said, "conditions are ripe for 'rotational disturbance.' Not on my plow day!"// Her is, to a degree, intimidated by father's daily moody exclamations? Natural reason for her careful observances of his stormy demeanor, a specimen shape, and occasion for scene-mode melded event, setting, and character description, sensation, action, conversation, and emotion.
The next sentence, though, is a true serial list, compound predicate sequence, and poses a consideration of invariant syntax either way:
"He _grabbed_ the crutch for his broken foot, _hobbled_ quickly to the window, and _looked_ out over their farm and the flat plains of Kansas for only a second."
"crutch for his broken foot, though? Oh yeah? Really? The crutch is for his foot's use? Foot on a crutch? And another several unnecessary modifiers, lackluster summary and explanation anyway: "broken," "quickly," "flat plains," and "only."
posted
I don't think you'd need "suddenly" in that sentence, however it's arranged. I've been revising my work to purge "ly" adverbs where I can---not that I think it's helped much, but it's made me more conscious of what I put into sentences in the first place.
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posted
"ly" Rowlings favorite friend. I pick on her a lot but will be the first to say she has a formula for success.
"Ly" which is usually frowned upon by writers is perfect for the young reader because psychologically it frames a sentence more like a bedtime story. "Ly" words are great to add emphasis when reading aloud.
"Then SUDDENLY the-door-creaked-open."
Without knowing it even adults are transported back to childhood.
But if your story is more Tolkienish, OSC, Asimov then work on your ly's. Serious readers are very unforgiving.
I suggest complete your story then come back for rewrites and edits. Complete the manuscript first. Then...comeback and like jack the ripper, be unmerciful-hack, slash, and mutilate that which you so love. There is just so much more you usually see by the end. It can easily adjust pov, starting points, unknown characters, things you never saw at the start. If you can't reach the end you definitely know the start was not the right one.
quote: So yet another mass culture coin of late, diluted beyond recognition, from fan and slash fiction culture, because a concise term or terms are too -- what, difficult? Too literary? Too sophisticated? Too complex? Out of immediate, convenient gratification reach?
I'm 37 years old and I've heard people use "premise" in the manner several of us did for as long as I can remember, and in things going back to before I was born, so its not like it's a definition that just cropped up last year. And its a sensible extension of the other definitions: a foundation upon which something is built.
Language grows and evolves. Modern English is chock full of words with many meanings, many of which are later extrapolations of previous ones. Even most of the oldest definitions of words in this language are derivations of other, often very different meanings in older tongues. If "pagan" can go from being Latin for "hick" to being a Modern English religious term, anything is possible.
And as to why we (or at least I) that's pretty simple-because to most people, it means exactly the thing I wanted to say. I want, above all, to be understood, and that is the first purpose of language, to communicate.
quote: I think you are underestimating "suddenly" and ignoring how much it tells us about what was happening BEFORE.
I agree. And also, sometimes its just the right word. I'm concerned primarily with what a word means and how it sounds, not what letters it begins or ends with. Sometimes you need to say "suddenly" because the bloody whatever it is happened blinking suddenly. Sometimes that's the word that fits right in a given sentence. The point is to get across what you're trying to get across.
Also, I've said it before and chances are I'll say it again-we're talking about writing creative fiction here, not doctoral theses, logic treatises or legal documents.
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If a litter of -ing and -ly and other unconventional diction and convoluted syntax, etc., entails a dramatic function, rhetorical purpose maybe, say, to characterize a persona through speech or thought; for example, young feminine personas, or to express a persistent present sense of present state of being to intimate, say, nothing ever really changes, more power to a writer.
However, if such uses are offhand convenience and handy habit, haphazard happenstance, tired and everyday conversation of a mass culture babble idiolect, a dreary, dead, lackluster, nuisance sameness of a flat, droned monotonous buzz -- nope, reconsider again. Or not, and so be it.
One of a language's communicative functions is concision, at the least so as to fulfill conversation's social contract, more so for robust, lively, vivid expression appeals -- of which prose is most insistent. Irrespective of creator, persona, or audience age or any other identity facet, creative expression poses an already heavy-lift appeal burden. Why shortchange concise language's dramatic expression appeals, too? Why write the same as the million-writer mediocre horde always outside the transom threshold? Why perpetuate cause for easy submission rejection?
quote:When the drunken football player went berserk and tried to steal a stripper, everyone yelled to get the bouncer.
It seems like that's starting with action. BUT it continues
quote:This drunk was a huge, red-headed giant. He lunged for the stage ... then went straight for Kimberly ...
And we get the story of him grabbing the stripper. Which means, the first sentence was just a topic sentence. And pretty much no one writes topic sentences in modern fiction, right?
So that first sentence might seem like action, but it's not dropping me into the story.
Now that I reread this start, I see so many problems. But I should stop here. It looks like it's starting with the action, but really the action doesn't start until the third sentence.
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"Topic sentence," "thesis sentence," "claim assertion" are, indeed, conventions of other, formal metagenre: investigative report essays, research essays, analysis essays, argumentation essays, and comprehensive essays of the several former bases. Performance genre is prose's label among the formers' categorization criteria. Performance includes poems and scripts.
Prose is any method from any other form that works appeal magic mischief, includes "topic sentences," a transition mode type. However, artful prose appeals express subtext commentary about such conventions adopted from other forms, rhetorical satire rationales, that is. For example, contrary to anticipated form convention expectations.
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest, 1996, uses apt, earned, otherwise formal essay conventions for fiction. Landfall Along the Chesapeake: In the Wake of Captain John Smith, Susan Schmidt, 2002, a travelogue personal essay, uses topic, setup, transition, and follow-through sentences per paragraph, and of a less than apt, artful deftness. Schmidt's academia editor-publisher insisted on those for a final rewrite before publication. (Schmidt a personal acquaintance at the time, and long before I completed editor indoctrination.)
Pulitzer winner, creative nonfiction, Beautiful Swimmers: Watermen, Crabs and the Chesapeake Bay, William Warner, 1976, melds several essay types. Biologist critics objected to its entertainments. Some personal drama methods and modes, some impersonal formal essay methods and modes, some merged. How dare a scientist make reading science fun.
The cited above first sentence of The Bouncer, David Gordon, 2018, declares what's to come thereafter. A summary and explanation tell, such up-front tip-off gimmick transitions tell up front what's to come, telegraph dramatic movement, instead of a linear chronological sequence shown forth, defuse potential inevitable surprise sequence appeals and blunt tension sequences.
The Bouncer's first few pages' content are no more apt than the selected cites given above. Gordon could have benefited from a competent editor's light to medium-touch guidance; Schmidt, too, and much less heavy-handed mush.
First clue Bouncer's first sentence is out of chronological sequence is the first-word conjunction "When." What, start out of time context with a conjunction first word? A grammar error. Ought should at least omit the conjunction and recast the sentence to suit. Or earn one or more valid rhetorical rationales for the unconventional grammar, other than a train-wreck fused sentence that signals convenient writer habit and marks writer hand on the keyboard: instant spoliation of willing suspension of disbelief. Second clue, close proximity "went" repetition of no rhetorical value.
//Football Oaf went berserk. Everyone yelled to get the bouncer. This drunken, red-headed giant tackler -- he lunged for the stage, pushed straight for blonde Kimberly . . . tall, dainty lace and ribbon lingerie stripper.//
Now that's a linear chronological action sequence start (event) shown forth within the scene's now-moment reality imitation, insider looks outward and inward; consistent narrative point of view and persona viewpoint; characterization developments of narrator, viewpoint persona, footballer and stripper specimen personas; some, maybe enough setting characterization for the moment; situation: a public gather shape, a bridge scene, at that; contemporaneous auxesis (increase of action force toward climax, the figure); entrained tension setup, tension relief delay, later, partial tension relief; a dramatic destination realized; and congruent catacosmesis (chronological progression). No tip-off telegraph gimmicks, no transition topic sentence declarations, no surprises untimely defused, nor tension entrainment blunted.
Though either as written or illustration rewrite entail a dramatic incitement due to a want-problem motivation (complication) and imply stakes risked (conflict), the tone (attitude) of the illustration now smoother, stronger, and clearer.
"Football Oaf" capped to signal metonymy, bouncer viewpoint persona profiler's nickname for muscle-bound, oafish athletes, eliminates unnecessary and grammar error definite article adjective "the" from "When the," too. Though the ellipsis points of the given above cites mark elided content, those of the illustration now signal broken thought, mark an apt and timely shift from external to reflected internal perception and response.
And because, altogether, now an unequivocal viewpoint persona's stream of consciousness, narrator estranged though available if wanted, close, limited omniscience, received reflection perceptions and responses from the immediate reality outset. Instant reader immersion from the get-go, instead of inapt craft, diction, and syntax chaos and confusion. Or is that the intended situation of the riotous strip club scene? Undeveloped to a timely, judicious, accessible degree if so.
But, in any case, you need at least a little scene setting in the beginning. You're asking your reader to imagine your story, to create it in their own minds. You can't tell them that your character boarded a ship without a few more details.
Wondering. I am happy to occasionally start with a snippet of setting. But how much sense does it make without a story?
My memory of Of Mice and Men is that Steinbeck stops the action occasionally and does a paragraph of setting. I liked that (second reading). But, it was in the context of a story. I could imagine the two men in that setting.
The story begins with contextless setting. It was like adding 3-digit numbers to me. Still is.
quote: A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.
I don't know what it means for a river to drop close to a hill. I don't know that this is a real river. Those are solvable problems. I have no idea why I'm supposed to remember (or pay attention to) being south of Soledad. Is the river going to overflow? Will someone have to cross it?
And, ironically, "His huge companion ... drank from the surface of the green pool."
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John Steinbeck, like more than a few writers of his era and before and after, composed description detail blocks leavened among other block types, a prose composition mode custom still followed at present. The arts of the full realization scene-mode meld are a craft technique too far and no effort farther than this for many.
Early and mainstream Romanticist-Realist-Modernists blazed a trackless, barren pathway ahead for melded scene methods: Steinbeck, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Henry James, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and others, yet occasion block composition techniques nonetheless.
Seymour Chatman, Story and Discourse, 1978, explores block portion types from a separated story time, narrative time elapsed approach, inferable guidance for strength and shortfall compromise considerations and innovative transcendence methods thereof. Linguists consider distinctions between paraphrase time compression and verbatim time expansion another approach to interleaved pieces and blocks, respectively, indirect and direct discourse methods, irrespective of attribution method or composition mode.
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What does it mean for a river to drop in close to a hill? Wait -- drop down means a rapids. Right? "Drop in" still has me mystified. There's a rapids in the valley that heads up to a hill? Is that physically possible?
How would I know what state they are in? I just figured out which half of the state they are in.
One sentence isn't the problem. It just keeps going and going. I read a book to read, um, the story. BUt I can just skip over.
The point I wanted to make was that in the context of a story, I liked Steinbeck's setting. Yes, there are problems starting out with contextless events, but maybe contextless setting is a problem too.
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Steinbeck was also a Cinematist -- Hollywood adjacent.
Rivers flow, therefore, fall down from elevations, drop down, off, in, into, below: gentle runs, swift floods, washboard rapids, small to great waterfall cataracts. A river that drops in close to a hillside bank and a green pool from which to drink? Eutrofication algae of a river and a stagnant eddy's pool due to agriculture nutrient runoff. The river course rounds a hill, turns aside by the hill, erodes an oxbow course about the hill.
Three natural locations for stagnant eddies, one at the hillside bank oxbow's apex, one upriver and one downriver from the hillside bank and oxbow apex, on the opposite bank. Maybe flat, open farmland the hillside bank and river's opposite side, and surrounds the hill's other sides, though higher elevation than the river's course. Water seeks a level.
To drop, transitive or intransitive verb forms, occasions a particle, often an adverb, maybe a preposition. "Down," "off," "in," "into," "forth," etc., are such particle adverbs for the two-word verb form. Creative writers may use an unexpected though apt particle substitution; many adverbs and prepositions are of the same words though distinct parts of speech for each, syntax dependent.
Context: a conceptual tool from folkloristics' analytics, label for who, when, and where detail developments. Texture: what, why, and how, likewise. Contexture: likewise, though enmeshed, melded mergers of several or all of each per syntax unit.
quote: I think you are underestimating "suddenly" and ignoring how much it tells us about what was happening BEFORE
Any action that was not happening, and then begins is sudden. From a reader’s viewpoint, is there even the slightest difference between, “He jumped from his chair,” and “He suddenly jumped from his chair?” No. Jumping-is-jumping. Some adverbs are what I call demonstration adverbs, in that the way you say them contributes to the meaning. To illustrate the situation being described, and add emotional content, in speech, you might stress the word “absolutely,” in “The room was absolutely silent.” Or you might say, “Sloooly, he turned.” Used like that it contributes to the mood. On the page, the word is simply read, without that added emotion, so it contributes nothing. There are lots of useful adverbs to be used on the page, but demo-adverbs serve only to slow the narrative.
quote: When I say he threw aside his newspaper, that tells the reader he was reading the newspaper.
No one cares what he was reading before the story began unless its meaningful to him or the plot. And in this case, since it’s neither, mentioning what he was doing, specifically, serves only to slow the narrative. What matters is that something took his attention, and he reacted in a way that kicks off the action. Knowing that he tossed the paper aside without knowing why places us in your viewpoint, not his. So you’re telling the reader what you visualize in overview—when you could be showing what matters to him.
quote:So, it is as if I began with a sentence of setting: Her father was sitting in his chair, calmly reading his newspaper
But that would be static, and contributes nothing to the setting, given that we don’t know who he is, where he is, or what the situation in the room is. And when he does jump up you’re thinking cinematically, and presenting visual detail about action that has no known cause. Remember, were this a film we would see the expression he wears and know that something serous is going on. As presented, someone we don't know jumps out of his chair for no known reason.
Because of that, we don't know know what caused him to take the action. So we get his response to whatever told him there was a problem before we're aware of why he investigated as hurriedly as he did (in fact, we never learn). How can that seem real? Having him go still and listen gives him a reason to act. And, incidentally, it both involves a sense other than vision, and gives the reader a reason to want to know what he’s listening for. So, it’s a hook, albeit a small one. The fact that he’s reading a newspaper, as against a book, or a can of peas, is data, and fact-based, not emotion-based.
quote:This is my point -- I do start with action/dialogue, that does create problems for setting, and I try to solve those problems in an artful way.
My point is that the present approach of, “Someone you don’t know did this, for unknown reasons…then he did that—but by the way, here’s why he needed to do it … and then he looked—Oh…by the way, here’s the setting, in general but not what he saw …and after that he turned, and…” is a fact-based and author-centric approach, and can read too much like a report. But make the reader know why he does what he does and we’re in his viewpoint, because you’ve calibrated ours to what matters to him, not you.
I hope this makes sense.
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This might seem like a trivial issue, but it relates -- how much work should I be doing to understand setting. A river can be going down a plain, and if a hill is in the way, it will turn. But it won't "drops in close to the hillside bank".
A river could be close to a hill bank. That's easy. But there kind of has to be elevation on the other side. Not a valley. (There is a valley on the other side of the river.) The river will be in the lowest part of the valley.
A river can drop down a hill. But then it's going straight down the hill. And the Salinas river doesn't do that.
All rivers lose elevation, so it's redundant to say "drop" to mean that the river is losing elevation.
So, I cannot visualize what that river is doing. And . . . it doesn't matter, does it? It's an irrelevant detail.
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Actually, it doesn't. It seems to me that there's a difference between (1) reading a newspaper, shouting "I forgot to feed the cows", and him jumping from his chair, and (2) him sitting in his chair, reading a newspaper, and then suddenly jumping from his chair.
As you say, suddenly raises the question, why did he jump from his chair? I WANTED to raise the question. It's the hook that gets me to the next sentence.
I wanted that cinematic viewpoint. Really, I don't think the reader is going to have any trouble understanding the emotions of someone who has looked out the window and seen a tornado.
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But I had a thought. The book begins "She nearly killed an innocent man."
They we are told about Charlie, driving down the road, and a flashback to his morning, and about his life, Then back to driving.
So it's more than a paperback page about a character that drops out of the novel after the first Chapter. And really, we didn't have to understand anything about him to understand the scene that followed.
So, how much should a start try to describe irrelevant characters? I was surprised about how much people wanted me to describe about her father, who pretty much disappears from the story very quickly.
Or that people wanted me to add drama to that paragraph. It was just a start. How dramatic can a start be?
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"drops in close to a hillside" is creative license, a mere, what, inch or so, if that, drop in elevation close beside the hillside? Alludes to, also, a drop-in casual, brief visitation; a casual visitor (noun case), sans the hyphen (verb case). Anthimeria: "Substitution of one part of speech for another." Also, personification: "Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities." (Gideon Burton, Silva Rhetoricae, rhetoric.byu.edu)
And not too much an abstract cognitive stretch to connect the river's personality at the hillside to and realize that George Milton and Lennie Small are casual life drop-ins, stagnant eddy dropouts.
I can visualize the Salinas River drop-in close to a hillside -- many close, personal encounters with rivers and waterways of every variant personality. Includes Los Padres Mountains, Monterey Bay, and other California waterways. Then, though, I have an above average affinity for things aquatic and maritime. ---- If a character is irrelevant, why lavish attention on the character then? Stage dressing, an extra brought out of archetype cast inventory for scene verisimilitude and fellow contestant, either or both for reader empathy and rapport for a viewpoint persona or alienation toward an anti-agonist, to entrain movement? Okay, though, then who is dramatically relevant enough to want lavish attention?
That protagonist, first activated and active persona contestant of worthwhile note, is who ought most be influenced by and influence dramatic movement: antagonism, causation, and tension.
Is she an antagonized victim of her antagonist specimen father's, what, newspaper slung aside, or his reading of it beforehand, his alarm at a tornado, those and more? Or does she antagonize proactively for herself or both the former, victimism and proactivism motivations and more? Yet antagonism motivation that is relevant to the viewpoint persona, the now-moment drama, thereafter, and of the whole. ---- How dramatic is wanted for a start to immerse readers? Aristotle and Hemingway advise that a quiet start may build tension increments forth to an unsustainable summit. Others advise that a robust start allows for crests and troughs that oscillate tension ever higher to an unsustainable breaker, wave undulations to a tsunami. Many advise against a slow or no tension start; a pump primer is a pejorative term for those starts. Others -- well, irrespective, advise at least evoke an often subtle though dynamic alteration of readers' alpha-world extant, routine emotional state of existence.
quote: Actually, it doesn't. It seems to me that there's a difference between (1) reading a newspaper, shouting "I forgot to feed the cows", and him jumping from his chair, and (2) him sitting in his chair, reading a newspaper, and then suddenly jumping from his chair.
As you say, suddenly raises the question, why did he jump from his chair? I WANTED to raise the question. It's the hook that gets me to the next sentence.
I wanted that cinematic viewpoint. Really, I don't think the reader is going to have any trouble understanding the emotions of someone who has looked out the window and seen a tornado.
All of this.
Also, I think it needs to be remembered that, no matter how hard we try to make it so, the reader is not seeing what the character is seeing nor are they in their head. They are seeing only our words on the page. The reader has only what we write to let them know what is going on, where, when and in what way. Now, some things can be assumed or inferred without us specifically stating them, but if we want to be sure the reader knows something, we have to present it. So, if you really want your reader to know something happened suddenly, say it.
Its all about what you are trying to do with your story. Learn as many tools as you can, and make them work for you in the telling of your story. And don't forget about the story in the process of obsessing over how to tell it.
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I'm just wondering what the point of this discussion is. Just what are you looking for, EmmaSohan? Validation for an already established opinion, or a wider understanding of possibilities?
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: I'm just wondering what the point of this discussion is. Just what are you looking for, EmmaSohan? Validation for an already established opinion, or a wider understanding of possibilities?
Phil.
Why would I want an established opinion? Also, isn't that an oxymoron? I like to understand and think about things. So you will see me latching onto ideas about how things fit together and why.
You are the one that said there was one right place to start a story. That wasn't supposed to make me start thinking? You wrote:
quote:In my opinion, each and every story has its own start; particular to that story alone. The task of the writer is to find this elusive animal, tame it and, most importantly, understand it.
For me, the only way to find the exact dramatic moment when the character is forced into movement
That last sentence is quite an idea. I assume character = main character. I have been talking about precipitating event, and that's a new idea for me; you are saying something similar and yet different too. And really interesting.
I suspect it's not going to work very well in terms of where a book actually starts. In terms of structure of a story, it could be a very powerful idea. But those are just thoughts, not even yet opinions.
For example, Ender's Game begins with the precipitating incident -- taking off the monitor. I want to think that the point at which Ender is forced into movement is destroying Stilson. That's a powerful moment, and I think we need a lot of context to appreciate it as readers. So it was probably a good decision to not start there. (And I don't think Card saw it that way.)
You have good ideas Phil. But I like hearing from everyone. From what Jay said about my start, I think I understand his start better. I like trying to imagine how Meridith sees the start of the Bujold book I got. It's all interesting.
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Ender's Game starts and initiates dramatic movement, though, from a bridge scene prelude that depicts two adults' plan for Ender's incitement, inception, a test, really, tests if he is a suitable candidate for their "greater good" plan.
Not much of a scene, at that, sketchy details, more or less a dialogue scene. However, movement begins from the first sentence, that two adults, who are not Ender's parents, discuss what amounts to a gaslight of Ender, a setup of him to abreact, a true incitement event. The background of a victimism setup event initiates Ender's incitement event, removal of his monitor, from which Ender proactively acts forward. Emotional and dramatic movement from the outset. A quiet movement start, though -- maybe.
Anyone who has in any way been nefariously gaslighted realizes the scene's portents. What, some folk, who have no right to do to another, decide another's fate without consultation of the individual and, in this case, also without responsible parent guardians' consultation? Cruel, brutal, wicked. And by the way, a clue of what the novel is really about from the outset.
The title, too, "Ender," really? Much several meaning potentials and at first a telegraph that Wiggins will be the ender of whatever game is afoot. Though the novel explains the name's portent from Ender and family's perspectives, and defuses the clever cuteness of it, the motion picture glosses over why.
"Ender" part of a noun that also relates to the novel's outcome: bitter-ender; label for a narrative or real-world event that ends on a painful, catastrophic, calamitous note. So, yeah, the title Ender's Game subtly starts dramatic movement by itself.
Readers less clued in to the title's portent at least are curious enough from what the uncommon title expresses to read further: persona, event, and thematic relevance. Curiosity is an emotion of tension, of suspense, due to tension entrainment's suspense: tension setup and suspension, tension relief delay and suspension, partial tension relief and suspension, full relief and satisfaction at a bitter-ender end. Though the novel's ender is bittersweet.
For writers, how tension's emotional effect, for agonist personas and, therefore, readers, sets up and unfolds is of more significance than what existent or other means engages and immerses readers, irrespective of whether event, setting and milieu, or character or source persona. An event bridge scene in this case, a conversation event.
Emotional movement entrainment, for reader effect, number one priority, though greatest writer challenge and the challenges of subtext mannerisms, due to intangibleness and subtlety, a subliminal, imperceptible facet of tangible connected to and part of intangible action and near invisible dramatic structure organization: first and second textual matters, the tangible, material, concrete, surface action and a tangible counteraction, a tangible contest, that is, 1-a & 1-b matters; third and fourth, an intangible emotional subtext action and an intangible emotional subtext counteraction, a congruent opposite emotional cluster, 2-a & 2-b; fifth and sixth, 3-a & 3-b, likewise intangible action and counteraction, a moral contest subtext -- which is from whence satire presents.
A seventh meaning space is a synthesis of a whole and a true, actual, real satire design and target overall, here, satire that adults gaslight a child, "adult mistreatment of children, for a 'greater good,' actually, targets 'greater good' vice and folly fallacies altogether." Menippean satire. ("Satire Primer" thread.)
quote:It seems to me that there's a difference between (1) reading a newspaper, shouting "I forgot to feed the cows", and him jumping from his chair, and (2) him sitting in his chair, reading a newspaper, and then suddenly jumping from his chair.
The difference is in the first case we know why he did it, so the reader has context. In the second case it just happens, without cause—so it’s data, not story. And that was my point, you’re writing a story, not chronicling events. Jumping to his feet is the recitation of a fact, and devoid of emotional content for the reader. If we’re in his viewpoint, we need to know not just what happened, but what motivates him to act.
quote:As you say, suddenly raises the question, why did he jump from his chair?
But why he jumped is never answered. Did he have to go to the bathroom? Did his leg cramp? Did he hear something? Did he remember the weather forecast held a warning? Was there a warning in the paper? Why raise a question you don't respond to? Seems to me that if you raise a question, address it by what's said and done, and then raise another question, over and over, you're giving the feel of an ongoing interaction between reader and the story/character, which makes them feel like a participant in the action.
There are an infinite number of reasons why he might jump from the chair that are unrelated to a tornado, and since we don’t know where he is as he does, the non-tormado possibilities are what will come to a reader’s mind.
But…muttering, “What in the hell is that?” as he tosses the paper aside, or even as he hurries to the window, provides meaningful context for his decision to stand, and, places the reader in his viewpoint. Where he comes from in the house, and what he was doing, is irrelevant to the scene. Begin with him cooking, or painting, or whatever you care to, it’s at best a short-term scene goal. What matters is that the inciting incident has arrived, tension has entered, and he must respond.
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IMO, if you wanted to write a book about adults mistreating children, you wouldn't do any of the things Card does. He constantly shows their awareness and concern for their mistreatment. And then they constantly run into the problem that the existence of the human race is more important.
His start is interesting. The removal of the monitor is portrayed as a normal, has been done many times, is never a problem, and they know the subtle details of his experience. It's a wonderful Show.
Then it goes wrong. Card could have spread that out. One sign. Then another. Then things getting worse. Then even worse.
Card decided for an abrupt, big punch. I don't know what we call that writing technique. But it was set up from the start. Nice writing.
The doctor was twisting something at the back of Ender's head. Suddenly a pain stabbed through him like ... "Deedee!" shouted the doctor. "I need you!"
(smile)
Mystery is used to keep the reader reading up to there. And he starts with the story running.
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quote:Originally posted by EmmaSohan: IMO, if you wanted to write a book about adults mistreating children, you wouldn't do any of the things Card does. He constantly shows their awareness and concern for their mistreatment. And then they constantly run into the problem that the existence of the human race is more important.
From such justifications, though, come any means to an end self-excuses. Because we have to for the greatest good is a justification for many of humanity's greatest evils and a dangerous precedent, often misapprehended throughout history.
Though Card does defuse objections to "greater good" fallacies, the adults' awareness of their agenda's harms to a few others for all of humanity's benefits, those passages call due attention to the fallacy, albeit, a supported, valid rationale for the occasion.
Observe that, at one time in the narrative, Ender realizes he's been manipulated. If that remains permanent, the end his gaslighters want would fail. If he weren't gaslighted throughout, though, they believe his indoctrination, efforts throughout, and the final goal would fall short of full success.
Keep Ender hyperalert or untimely tip him off beforehand, give him cause to relax on his laurels? Better case scenario of the two, for best intended outcome effect: show no mercy. Even at the pivotal moment, aware he's manipulated, he does not realize he's still gaslighted. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. To which Ender inevitably responds as he does for the final bittersweet outcome end.
The "plot" type is an Aristotlean "complex plot," of a profound discovery pivot that incites a likewise profound reversal pivot, as are Ender's earlier unpredicted violent attacks, because he wants an unequivocal end to abuse of him. Peripeteia and anagnorisis types of tragically beautiful "twists" delights readers. Would the senior military personnel celebration of Ender's achievements have satisfied readers as much? No. How many narratives use that trite type of end? Or a nuptial or death outcome, likewise trite. E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, the latter; and the former, The Poetics or Aristotle.
posted
For my part, I think the things that human society did to itself on a broad level-outlawing religion, breeding laws etc-would be a much better example of something where the ends don't justify the means than the example of what was done to Ender.
That and the fact that they didn't even know for sure that the human race was in mortal danger.
Sacrificing one, or a few people for a whole species is, as far as I'm concerned, acceptable. But subjecting a whole species to massive losses of freedom to prepare for a danger you're not even sure is coming is not. Nor is the genocide of a whole species, unless it is the only option.
Mistreatment of children is certainly a major theme of that story, but it's by no means the only major theme.
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Fantastic fiction motifs rarely, if ever, match to a one-to-one correspondence, bug-eyed monster invasions among the many non-correspondent motifs. Many or all of which represent "other than us" real-world personas and cohort groups. Might as well obfuscate other identity as far as practical, portray the others' origins as off-world and from far away in the cosmos. Leave no doubt these are utter others, describe those as inhuman non-humans and personalities. Insect pests, that is. Avoid any and all objections to conscious, subconscious, and nonconscious bigotry of any kind.
Better, more apt and artful to choose non-correspondent substitution than choose, say, what, ethnic stereotypes, or of whatever adversarial real-world nemesis identity stereotype? The real-world function is demonization and demotion of human kindred to bank breaker, property stealer, job taker, baby eater, and life and wife and man taker bugs, etc. The rhetorical figure is antiprosopopoeia, inverse personification: "The representation of persons as inanimate [or nonhuman] objects [or forces]." (Ibid.) Allegory also.
Card's technique that entrains tension toward precipitous, inevitable surprise, abrupt events is labeled foreshadow, and is Chekhov's gun pre-positioned, further "nature" developed later, and later discharged; albeit, is or is other than a firearm.
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