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

[slightlights.livejournal.com]

Questions right back to you, in case any of them help, 'cause I'm up early with a baby:

The kidnapping can change what Solveig does in many ways, but does it necessarily have to change what she does (action) compared to changing to how she does it (emotional resonance and/or 'smaller actions')? If the kidnapping only changes how she does it, what would it signify that she went through with what she'd planned to do anyway, and what might the differences in how she does it be?

How does your magic system work—through ritual or just sheer emotion, can the architecture be instilled with a particular desire or demand, can it be dedicated to a particular cause? For that matter, do the actual shapes of the building have anything to do with it, e.g., such proportions as the Golden Mean?

How does Solveig swim under ice and survive? Magic, drysuit, some combination of the above? When she looks up at the ice while underwater, might it have any difference of significance to how she looks down at it from the air? (I'll note that a hostage underwater may also resonate with Harry Potter to some degree, depending on how it's done, but there are other ways being underwater could be related to the kidnapping.) Is being under the lake a destination or a route?

Might Agnes have relevant secrets? Might her being an ex-Princess Kay of the Milky Way have meant that she was symbolically dedicated to the land (or water :) ) or a particular role, even if she didn't know it at the time or, indeed, if most people didn't know it? State Fair Queens are usually for a year's time, I gather; 'should' she have survived this long? Is she healthy or ill? Has she had any close calls? Did she knowingly or unknowingly lose/trade/gain something in agreeing to be judged, to have the crown placed on her head, to perform the rites and duties of such a queen? What did it mean to her to hand the crown to another, if she did, and did she gain or lose anything then? What are her motives in her own life, whether or not they're directly relevant to the main plot—what moves her, what does she delight in, what does she abhor?

[papersky.livejournal.com]

A thought about what the Princess Kay thing could mean -- May queens are part of a European fertility rite, in Europe, a long time ago, maybe doing it in Minnesota is part of the bargain the newcomers made with the country/land-spirits/whatever when they settled there -- maybe all of this circle of the year stuff is, it's not European shreds imposed (as in War For the Oaks) it's the fusion of the European customs and the local. And maybe the land would look at the settlers and wonder if they're worth making part of everything, or if they'll just go away again, and maybe the May Queen thing as Princess Kay is a combination of the European fertility and a promise to stay, it means that her part of the bargain is to stay in the state/area (she's never left, maybe she thought about it but she never quite did, and the magic has kept her there whether or not she knows it) and marry and have children there (which she did) though I don't know how this would fit with killing Solveig's father and almost killing Solveig?

[slightlights.livejournal.com]

Fusion rather than imposition; that's interesting (and the May Queen was just what I'd been thinking of, indeed). Hmm, from what you've just said, might the killing/almost-killing have anything to do with an attempt to break the bargain for, presumably, some pretty important-seeming reasons? Or, perhaps, for passing the bargain on? And... not so much to get more kidnapping into the mix, but because I'm curious, what would happen if someone kidnapped someone who'd made such a bargain and tried to take them across the boundary?