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Página 54 – Sitio sobre chorradas acerca de cómo escribir ficción

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  • Screenwriting Fundamentals (by Blake Snyder, peppered with nonsensical notes by me) p1


    Free lady opening door image



    I DON’T UNDERSTAND BEATS

    Long ago I started reading Mr. Robert McKee about beats and … Unlike you for sure, I don’t get them. Beats don’t have a decent name in Spanish and such a thing as naming is fundamental in the process of learning. And no, sometimes English ain’t the best language for a word to just be adopted. Perhaps it is the fact that no one really understands them and just speaks like experts do. The thing is I DON’T GET WHAT BEATS ARE, because I don’t feel able to explain them to my grandmother[1].

    ONLY FOR SCREENWRITING?

    As the title portrays, the advice is for screenwriting and it was introduced to me by the one and only monetary contributor to this thing of a blog —Daniel Vanches is his name (in the case you are too shy to ask but still feel curious and even if you are not, advertising needs a space so this is as good as anywhere). Nonetheless, some of the stuff might apply to comics, novels and plays. If understanding the strengths of other media helps you to better your own game.

    This is kind of a video summary of the BS2 format page or frequency page, created by some guy I still don’t have idea whom he is, but whose name is Blake Snyder and if you might and prefer untainted and unmerriamed stuff; you can watch the video here.

    To begin with I’ll announce the episodes or events in the video:

    MOST IMPORTANT MOMENTS OF PLOT

    Opening image
    Ambience
    Stating the ruling idea or topic
    Catalyst or inciting event
    Conflict
    We go to number two
    B plot
    Fun and games
    Average
    Bad guys on sight
    Everything is lost
    The darkest night if the soul
    We are in three
    Ending
    Closing scene

    OPENING AND AMBIANCE

    Right. What’s the most interesting and worth thing here? The opening image that will set the tone. We need the hue to know: what’s the comic, movie, series or novel like? Is it fun and light or dark enough to cut our veins with animal biscuits? Do we need gray tones or red notes to indicate the depravity of our world together with cigarette butts? It is not a bad idea to learn a bit of graphic design eh novel writers[2]. Psychology maybe. After all, there’s the way brain works and the way people believe brain works. And if you don’t believe me, just watch how the villains of kduramas repent and become «good people» all of a sudden. We westerners have a much more somber idea of evil.


    This is convenient to avoid or to use clichés to OUR ADVANTAGE. The opening image tells the reader what to expect and how to react to what comes next. If you add something like «Dramatis oves» at the  beginning of your novel and add characters the same way Agatha Christie used to, for the reader to have a who is who guide, they will immediately know that what follows is a not really serious crime novel dealing with sheep.



    DURATION AND OPENING IMAGES

    This opening image is the reader’s cue to stay or leave. Both are worthy. I don’t read or watch Christmas stuff. Neither horror. Thus, this is the way to tell: WARNING, what comes next is under your responsibility and risk. Which is why I always tell you this blog is nonsense.

    Comic, short novels and movies need this as soon as possible. A novel, unlike what Mr. Wodehouse states in A damsel in distress, can take a little longer but it still uses the opening image because it is not the same thing setting the ambiance as setting tone. Sometimes a Terry Pratchett Disc world novel will take a while taking off and; novels take a lot longer to digest than the longest 3 hour movie, a comic chapter that can be read in about 5 minutes or a tale that can be devoured in 10.

    Just a whole chapter of My family and other animals can take about an hour or more to be read aloud. Which might be a lot less in silence but still, enjoying it and reading at a normal pace and not showing off a quick reading technique, absorption of the contents will take the time a movie has to be about to be half away of the end.

    A novel can take in between— not counting at all absurd oddities such as real life events like working, eating, cooking, doing the laundry…—three days to two weeks, maybe two months … A hundred years? I do not know if you have but A hundred years of solitude made me feel like the hundred years were actually happening in between all those almost copy pasted Aurelians. War and peace ain’t that thin (plus if you stop to read the parts in French you might take longer). The Bible… That book requires guts[3].

    Yet, a series can easily dethrone any novel in extension without failing the opening image. And that doesn’t mean novels don’t set tone from the beginning. The fall of the Usher immediately enters the use of somber and depressing images to set the tone. Horror.

    ¿Feeling like more?

    TO BE CONTINUED

    [1] Thinking Einstein really said this thing about understanding something and being able to explain it to your grandma

    [2] No, not to mess with the cover of your book but it would be useful setting the tone of your novel

    [3] That book requires more warning contents than many mangas or manhwas nowadays: rape, murder, assault, vengeful godos, gore…

    geful godos, gore…

  • Lamassu

  • 60 %



    A little bit of covert and noon became sunset.
    (Without the glasses,
    A blurry ball in front of sun)
    Beyond, further down or up,
    (according to your mind frame,
    space has no address);
    it must have been a sun ringlet of samba move.
    And the time regained again its nooness with a frozen wind one could very well despise.
    For the he sun above was there and there it was the sun.
    The dark shape on the window spying the birds.
    The fly buzzing and the silence a moment ago, melted into everyday life.
    One without ado.

  • Ilusión y encontrado

    Mientras tanto, del norte, mucho más al norte de dónde Melidé habia salido al mar con la barca; se hacía al mar una partida de exploración. Eran 8, dos chicas y seis hombres. El viento los llevó a la misma orilla donde Melidé habia encontrado el curso del río. Ellos también lo siguieron, con el otoño pisándoles los talones.

    Crujieron las hojas bajo sus pies y Stroukoun, el jefe, ordenó el alto. Su hermano Rôder propuso que Stroukoun fuera de cacería con 3 de los hombres mientras el resto armaba un campamento. No obstante, Stroukoun se lo jugó a suertes con Rôder porque prefería mandar a qué lo mandarán a él. Rôder perdió.

    Le pidió prestada la capa de piel de lobo blanco a su hermano. Stroukoun dudó porque el adivino le había dicho que no lo hiciera, pero también quería a su hermano y se la presto. Rôder se convirtió en lobo junto con los otros y salieron de cacería.

    Melidé salió ese día con las demás a cortar troncos. Se fue rio arriba con Medianoche, mientras las otras se esparcieron, buscando árboles muertos. Melidé se cruzó pronto con los lobos. Y Rôder y sus hombres sintieron miedo. Porque Melidé era hermosa y Medianoche también y ninguna de las dos corrió. Se olía el miedo en ellas pero no corrieron. Melidé se quedó mirando al lobo blanco con los pies dentro del río.

  • Bajo tierra

    Al día siguiente comieron y bailaron y jugaron y decidieron hacer una casa. Una casa grande de troncos. Se fueron en parejas a cortar los troncos con instrumentos dibujados mientras Melidé excavaba un sótano. Algunas cosas no pueden dibujarse sin más.

    Melidé excavó tanto como pudo ese día. Pasaron 2 semanas y el sótano era del tamaño de una casa pequeña. Se tardó todo el tiempo que tardó en ponerle nombre a las otras ovejas: Carda, Brizna, Nube, Amaranto, Brinca y Medianoche. Cuando todas tuvieron nombre, cubrieron el sótano de madera y empezaron a almacenar grano y manzanas.

  • Los 6 tipos narratológicos de descripción p3

    photo of cryptic character codes
    Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com



    METONIMÍA según el diccionario Oxford.

    nombre femenino

    Figura retórica de pensamiento que consiste en designar una cosa con el nombre de otra con la que existe una relación de contigüidad espacial, temporal o lógica por la que se designa el efecto con el nombre de la causa (o viceversa), el signo con el nombre de la cosa significada, el contenido con el nombre del continente, el instrumento con el nombre del agente, el producto con el nombre de su lugar de procedencia, el objeto con la materia de que está hecho o lo específico con el nombre genérico.

    «algunos autores no distinguen entre metonimia y sinécdoque, otros ven en esta última una clase especial de la primera»

    ¿Debería gritar ‘Eureka’? Todavía no. Hasta ahora solo he comprendido que la relación jerárquica entre las palabras a las que se las denomina subtemas es lo que da paso a la metáfora a fuerza de mencionarlas en relación con/sin relación con el tema o sustituyendo las relaciones de tal forma que tienen sentido de un modo distinto. Lo que no explica porque se las usa en narrativa.



    La narrativa no nace de las palabras. Puede usarse palabras para crear narrativa, pero no son las palabras las que crean la narrativa.


    LOS 6 TIPOS DE DESCRIPCIÓN

    • La descripción referencial, enciclopédica.
    • La descripción retórica-referencial: las de los folletos que intentan persuadir a través de informar[1].
    • Metonimía metafóríca: digamos un poema, que requiere de la imaginación del lector para adivinar de que se habla.
    • La metáfora sistematizada: la de la novela que no puede funcionar sin tener una referencia contextual de lo que se describe.
    • La metáfora metonímica: un tipo de metáfora que abarca todo el texto de la descripción y que no entendí..

    La serie de metáforas: cuando la relación entre tema y subtemas se ajusta continuamente y no hay una mención continua del tema.

    ¿Algún deseo de regalarme con una hermosa metonimía metafóríca en forma de comentario? ¿Lo tuyo es ser directo e ir a por el like sin más? Más nada, si ninguna de las opciones te place, puedes pasarla bien. Pasto kalo.

    [1] Los folletos no funcionan así en absoluto, esa forma de mercadotecnia se abandonó cuando se logró que las mujeres fumaran como signo de estatus de liberación económica y social… Es decir, a través de sus emociones.

  • Dormida

    Las gaviotas gritaban en la playa pero hacia frío. Tanta frío que ella se dibujo encima un abrigo de lana más larga y más gruesa. Y un buen par de botas. Saltó del barco en el agua. Emborronó la parte del barco más grande que había dibujado sobre la barca y cargó con la barquita hasta un río ancho y lento. La bajó. Dibujo un remo sobre un tronco que el agua había hecho flotar hasta allí y metió la barquita dentro del río saltando dentro y empezando a remar con todas sus fuerzas. Remo. Durmió bajo las estrellas y entre los bosques. Remo de nuevo. Cargo su barca cuando la corriente se volvía un obstáculo. Durmió abrazada a ella, aspirando el perfume de la manzanilla silvestre. Y remo otra vez hasta una pradera con suficiente pasto verde para empezar una familia. Sacó la pluma de ganso. La mojo con la última tinta púrpura y la enterró en la tierra. Brotaron briznas de hierba que llenaron el prado. Y Melidé dibujó seis ovejas más como ella. Se apretujaron todas juntas y soñaron con la luna llena.

  • How comes everybody writes interesting personal plots?

    Man Writing a Letter (1665)



    There are, somewhere around, some endearing hominid animals. They like thinking they will shoot themselves to the sky anytime, in a pair of angel wings, cause they’re special… (free adaptation to some ideas by Vylanur Ramachandra, neurologist physician, in one of the 2003 Reith Lectures he lead, don’t remember which one).

    All of them write tales… Unknowingly. They begin their mornings writing such plots in front of the mirror. Trying to convince themselves, TODAY is the day. Today, something GREAT is bound to happen. Cool, original, unexpected, unbelievable. Fuc$#34_ great[1].

    The extraordinary happens every blue moon. However, in the meanwhile, we look back at the past, knead some memories and make a singular dough where all of them make sense explaining our decisions and wantings… Despite sensibility, chronology or time length; for our mind will assign value to memories not because of their real value but emphasizing what WE care about and the way we cared about it to explain why and where we stand. I did this and was here. I didn’t do that and wasn’t there. These memories give us a sense of origin affirmation.

    The next thing is to plan the day. Talk to the boss for the raise or tell Rosy she has the most kissable lips a fubu might wish for (earning the consequential smack since Rosy has no idea we adore fubu). In the mean time, life makes us trip over or pushes us downhill.

    We tell each other the stories of our lives drinking coffee or tea or soaking our biscuit in milk[2]. We use any memorable happening to make sense and and give meaning to our being. Where and when were we born? Who conceived us? How did MY story begin?

    I am Merriam and I was born in 19~~, so as a millennial[3], I have seen black and white bulb tellies[4] changing into flat smartphones and have adapted into writing in its notes. And back then, when I wrote the original entry in Spanish I was about to write the 1~~ something pages of a first novel for the second time. Today I’ve rewritten it five times and I’m struggling with the second one for its complications go beyond my meager means.

    We imagine the future to know what we wish and how to get it. Our singular private tale is an everyday renovation of those tiny miny collected memories till it makes sense. Much stranger than plans happening the way we thought them; it is to realize we have wasted time and effort. Nuval Yoah Harari (historian, author of Homo Deus) says we tend to utter: «It wasn’t in vain».  We like completing a beach ball we can play with, not filling it with unpurposed holes of anguish telling us we let life go away. 

    Thus, the best sequel in every movie or book collection we might store is not Rocky X. It is the one we make Thanksgiving day about to get a broken tooth cause the vegan one of the family didn’t clean the organic beans enough[5] . Maybe it happens this Yuletide, after Rosy dumped us or surviving the corona. Has anyone told you their life story was boring or stupid[6]. They won’t. To them, life might get a 7 out of 10. Yet, they will tell you the +8s and -5s moments.  Truth is they have good ones. They have told them over and over again. Those who have told their own story once or twice end up with a boring life story, instead of piglet in tamarindo sauce[7]. Of course we mind end up watching the tenth thousand times of the same movie and we might move on to tuna salad and veggies again.



    WE ALL WRITE PLOTS. The difference? Awareness.



    Would you like to contribute to my life plot with a nice comment? Maybe some love in like shape?
    Pasto kalo.

    [1] Chingón in the original, so if you have ever tried Spanish, you know the word exceeds fu$#3&& great in meaning.

    [2] In Mexico we might soak bread.

    [3] This is dramatizen. Tough I am a millennial, according to the Wikipedia, the idea never went through my head. None of my friends or I would like have give a sheep’s manure about being catalogued as this or that generation. It was very recently I discovered I belong to the category… As show off people say: «buy a box and get yourself in it».

    [4] Mind that in Mexico as in everywhere, technology goes around as hand downs.

    [5] In the original entry, this happens January 6th, with the Three wise kings’ round cake.

    [6] And please don’t ask this to someone in the middle of depression or to those who suffer chronic depression. It is not their fault their brains can’t produce the required chemicals to feel life is a 7.

    [7] All right, pick something vegan and yummy if you might but don’t try to convince me to become vegetarian for I won’t try to convince you of the opposite. And no, don’t try giving me that argument. Meat tastes different than soja. Yes, I’m against animals being poached. I’m not ok with animals being murdered to be eaten either but I pretend ignorance and yes, I’m a murderer or accomplice because of it.

  • El mar

    Cuando se canso de buscar se dejó caer dentro de la pequeña barca y miro alternativamente el frasco y la pluma y se echó a llorar. Después de un rato sus hipídos se volvieron menos entrecortados. Se golpeó las mejillas con las palmas y resopló. Tomó el frasco y la pluma y dibujo en la cara interna de su brazo un nuevo frasco. El dibujo se trago la luz, en una especie de brillo negro y ella tomo el frasco. Está vez la tinta era roja y su mueca de dolor era más escandalosa por el silencio con el que la hacía.

    Abrió el nuevo frasco y dibujo un río sobre el pequeño arroyo. Después dibujó una barca más grande con una vela. Tomó la pluma, el frasco viejo y el nuevo y subió al barco. Dejo que la corriente la arrastrara hasta el mar.

  • Tinta

    Lo arrojó por encima del hombro y siguió registrando la pequeña barca. Dentro, había una pluma de ganso con la caña dorada y un frasco. Nada más. Abrió el frasco esperanzado. Tal vez la sustancia púrpura brillante fuera alguna especie de mermelada. La pluma, tampoco era útil. No podría vender la embarrada de oro sin que nadie preguntara de dónde había salido. La comida, la comida podía zampársela el solo. Olía mal. Probó aquella cosa y escupió arrojando el frasco. Parte de la tinta se le quedó en la lengua, la boca y una manga