Brainstorming session from this morning: situations v. complication

[pegkerr]

Read in The Pocket Muse about the difference between situation and complication. Stories can grind to a halt if you mistake a situation for a complication. A situation, however complicated, is self-contained (situation: someone is contemplating suicide and holds a gun to his head. Only one way out of the story: either he pulls the trigger he doesn't). A complication, however simple, opens up, affording a way out. (Person holding the gun to his own head gets a wrong number cell phone call, from someone who needs help. Now what happens?) Excellent complications offer several ways out.

A good complication illuminates, thwarts, or alters the character's desire
A good complication forces the character to act
A good complication offers the story a point of departure
A good complication raises the stakes
A good complication thickens the plot

Ex: Miles' parents are stuck in a standoff in the civil war in Barrayar. But then Miles' uterine replicator is kidnapped and held hostage by the enemy, and there is a time limit to how long it can support him. Cordelia's husband won't negotiate to trade hostages. What does Cordelia do?

Consider: The idea of Rolf kidnapping Ingrid. How is this a complication? How does it change what Solveig does? Perhaps she was originally going to quit work on the ice palace for some reason? (Fired from her job? Or?) Or she was going to build the ice palace without magic, but the kidnap changes her mind? Or it forces her to change her design to go with Jack's changes? Or to overrule Jack's changes? (After all, Jack's changes were at Rolf's behest).

Damn. Ouch. Just saw for the first time the structural similarities with the kidnap of Willy Silver in War for the Oaks. Do I have to ditch this story idea, then? The old gravitational pull problem. Aargh.

I can see more clearly how it (Ingrid's kidnap) changes things for Jack. It causes him to switch sides. But how does it change things for Solveig?

What other complications should be built into the story?

The Aquatennial business with the milk carton boat race on Lake Nokomis is the start of Solveig facing her fear of drowning. Could Solveig need to face it even more fully? Can I think of some reason she'd have to go swimming under ice in winter, related to Ingrid's kidnap? Maybe she has to consult with the fish? Maybe they find that Ingrid is somewhere that Solveig has to reach by swimming only? And when they get there, they discover she's been moved?

Why is Agnes in the story, really, other than to talk with Solveig and give her coffee? Agnes-Solveig-Ingrid make up the crone-mother-maiden triumvirate. Why? What power/use is this in the story? I had thought that Agnes is an ex-Princess Kay of the Milky Way (State Fair Queen). Why does that matter?

Peg

Comments

Re: OMG! You read Miles too!

[romancoat.livejournal.com]

You read Miles! I know so few people who do, I don't know why, and I've been trying to subtly encourage friends to read it. Memory is my favorite. And you're in her writing group - wow. I love her work. It has... humor and depth and one of the few intelligent SF works I've read and enjoyed. And you can really see Miles's character development in the books.

Re: OMG! You read Miles too!

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I agree that Lois is great at character development. I have been so impressed that she is not afraid to change Miles entirely, when necessary to the story. She could have sold endless books about Miles and the Dendarii Mercenaries, but instead she blew up that life for him and forced him to become someone else--someone even better and braver, because he wasn't facing a cardboard cut-out enemy. He was facing himself. You're right; he really does grow and develop.

Lois says that her books are about identity. And a lot of them are about parenting.

Hope you are successful in getting friends to read her books. I nagged my best friend kijjohnson to read her books for years, and Kij finally broke down and read them last year, and now she loves them as much as I do. It's so much fun to burble excitedly to a friend about who reads them because of your recommendation and them learns to love them, too.

Cheers,
Peg