Your friendly local desultory blogger, here...

Because this defines my blogging habits in all the ways:

desultory |ˈdesəlˌtôrē|adjectivelacking a plan, purpose, or enthusiasm: a few people were left, dancing in a desultory fashion.• (of conversation or speech) going constantly from one subject to another in a halfhearted way; unfocused: the desultory conversation faded.• occurring randomly or occasionally: desultory passengers were appearing.
Also, I'm hard at work on Book 2 of the Chaos Queen series*, and it's going well. It's actually been quite fun to get back into the characters of Knot, Winter, Astrid, and Cinzia. It's been so long since I've written actual new material for them (I wrote the first draft of Duskfall in 2010, believe it or not) that I thought it would be something of a disaster. But I'm happy to see that is not the case. So, that is happening, and it's making me happy.

My other Chaos Queen project, which was tentatively titled Dark Immolation but has now been tentatively changed to Deadnight, is on the backburner for now. In fact, that project may become something closer to a series of novellas/novelettes, depending on Things.

And, finally, I'm pretty sure I'm going to attempt a D&D-style campaign in the Chaos Queen world. It wouldn't happen until Christmastime-ish, but if it goes well it might be the first in a long series of similar campaigns. I've never GM/DM'd before, so this will be my first experience telling the story, but I'm looking forward to it. Fun times ahead. (And it's not all for fun, either--the idea is that it will help me explore different facets of the Chaos Queen world. Okay, you're right, that actually does sound fun to me. So it is all for fun.)

Anyway, that's me lately. And, in the spirit of D&D, and one of the greatest sitcoms of all time, enjoy the following laugh:





*  Did I mention I changed the series title from The Blood Queen to The Chaos Queen? Well, I did. It fits a lot better. Also, there are no WoW NPCs named Chaos Queen, so, added bonus.

Story Structure (and Dan Harmon is Awesome)

So a couple weeks ago, before I dove into Dark Immolation, I was researching plot structure. My agent, when he first gave me notes on Duskfall, pointed me towards Dan Harmon's ideas of story structure, and reading his stuff got me thinking. Then I got to more reading. And suddenly I'd read a bunch of books and websites on story structure. So, I think it's safe to say that I'll be writing a series of posts on story structure in the next month or two.

But today I want to focus on Dan Harmon's method, which is pretty much the lens through which I'll be looking at the other forms because, let's be honest, it's the best. Or at least it's the best one for me. I've studied story structure in the past--most notably Dan Wells' 7-point structure, as well as Lou Anders' "hollywood formula at Worldcon last year--but nothing cemented in my brainbox quite like Dan Harmon's. I'll briefly cover it here, but he's a lot better at explaining it than I am, so if you're interested I suggest checking out the following:

Story Structure 101: Super Basic Shit
Story Structure 102: Pure, Boring Theory
Story Structure 103: Let's Simplify Before Moving On
Story Structure 104: The Juicy Details (this one is by far the most comprehensive, and what motivated me to go out and actually read things like Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, but I suggest at least starting with 101 and 102 to get the basics down first)
Story Structure 105: How TV is Different
Story Structure 106: Five Minute Pilots

This is from my white-board wall, btw. Have I mentioned I have a
white-board wall? It's awesome.

So Harmon's basic idea is that you draw a circle, as demonstrated, with the following eight points around it:

1. You
2. Need
3. Go
4. Search
5. Find
6. Take
7. Return
8. Change

Ignore the stuff written in the middle of the circle; I may or may not go into more detail on that later (but Harmon does, so again, if you're interested, check out those websites above). For now I'm just going to focus on the eight plot points.

The story begins with you, a character who either is you (metaphorically or otherwise) or with which you can empathize, sympathize, or to which you can relate in just about any way. Said character then discovers they need (/want) something. S/he then goes to a location, condition, or set of circumstances that is unfamiliar to them (hence the shaded lower half of the circle--it represents the unknown, the un/subconscious, the dark basement where chaos reigns) and searches for the thing s/he needs, often by/through adapting to the new circumstances. S/he finds what was needed, and takes control of his/her destiny and pays the price for it. Then the character returns to the comfortable/familiar situation, having changed in significant, life-altering ways, after such a fashion that s/he now has mastery over the world in which s/he lives.

It's simple, it's elegant, and what perhaps hits home most of all for me is how much Harmon emphasizes the every-day-ness of it all--this basic journey is reflected in all narratives. The circular pattern of descent into chaos and return to order drives all stories; Harmon says to

Get used to the idea that stories follow that pattern, [...] diving and emerging. Demystify it. See it everywhere. Realize that it's hardwired into your nervous system, and trust that in a vacuum, raised by wolves, your stories would follow this pattern. ("Story Structure 101")

That, more than anything else, draws me to this method of structuring stories. Other methods, to me, seem a bit too focused on plot points and what-happens-where and get a little too specific for me. This, instead, simply teaches me what a story is, and then gives me the freedom to make what I want with it.

So, in the next couple weeks (months?), I'll be examining at least two (perhaps more) significant methods of story structure, but I'll use Harmon's formula as the lens through which to view them. I think it'll be interesting. If you do, too, come on back and check it out.

Sidenote: By the way, right now I'm watching Community (written by Dan Harmon). For the first time. So many friends have insisted I watch the show, and I've finally gotten a hold of the first few seasons. And okay folks, this show is DELIGHTFUL. It is brilliant and hilarious and uses all sorts of TV and film tropes in wonderfully curious ways. It's a little early to say for sure (I'm only a few episodes into season 2), but it may have already usurped my co-favorite sitcoms, Arrested Development and Seinfeld. It's that good. So, yeah, I might talk more about that one day, too.