Author Topic: Origin Stories  (Read 4086 times)

Offline belial.1980

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Origin Stories
« on: March 10, 2009, 01:57:00 PM »
A lot of stories start off with a protagonist who's relatively well established; of course there's always room for growth but said hero will usually have a fair assortment of knowledge and skills already under his/her belt.

Any pointers on writing a story that includes the character's origin? I'm trying to write a story (1st person perspective) where the young protagonist is just discovering a magical, and sometimes horrific, world that lies just below the surface of our own. I'm having a difficult time managing the flow of the story. He's going to receive a huge influx of information and I find it difficult to keep it streamlined. Any tips on smoothly working a glut of information into the story so it doesn't slow it down too much?

Also, I'm struggling to create a genuine reaction to life-changing knowledge and situations. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance for your advice.
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Offline ballplayer72

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2009, 02:09:15 PM »
well if you come to a point where you just have to info dump, maybe he needs a mentor?  Or at least someone he can learn something from on a short basis (think the sifu's in Avatar). Or if youre using magic, have him seek knowledge from a spirit or spirits.  Ghosts even, or other magic beings. (fae etc.)  These already learned characters can info dump at will.
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Offline Starbeam

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2009, 04:45:30 PM »
Try reading Bloodblade, I forget the author's name.  It's a very similar type of thing, where a character comes into an unfamiliar world and has to learn about it.  It's good to get a feel of how to let the info out and to get a handle on how to keep the pacing going without the info stopping it.  I've got the same sort of a thing going on in one of my stories, and it helped me get an idea of how to do it without being info dumpish.  Also, like bp said, a mentor is probably going to be something you'll want as a way to get the info out without it coming across as too terribly contrived.
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2009, 12:14:00 AM »
Id recommend most anything by Neil Gaiman, but specifically American Gods or Neverwhere.  The arent a guy developing magic per say, but they are definitely about somebody who is thrown into the deep end hard and has to pick up or figure out things as the story goes along. 
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Offline ballplayer72

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2009, 02:18:36 PM »
heres an idea feel free to use it :

Your character discovers this mad mad world through a seemingly harmless magic creature.  Satyr, fawn, something kinda cute and maybe with some hoes around it :P    He drinks the faerie koolaid. bad things start to happen.  he freaks. asks the now not so cute satyr (that looks like it normally does since it isn't fucking around with him anymore) wtf mate whats goin on?  Satyr says you really wanna know? dude says yeah man why are the walls growing tentacles wtf?   Satyr makes him a bargain he gets to know whats going on but has to X (insert your plot here.  go on a quest. retrieve the such an such from so an so and rescue any damsel with a breast size over a b cup etc.) maybe start it out as a favor. or a couple of favors.   In return the satyr could just magically dump what it knows about the magic world into his head.  Make it like a bunch of flashbacks or something like that and you can have a few pages or a chapter tops of some nice decent info dumping to set the stage
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Offline belial.1980

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2009, 01:19:22 AM »
Yeah, the character's going to have an "in" into the nature of magic, etc. I just need to be careful not to bog the story down with too much info--I'll try to keep it short and sweet to keep the flow of the story going. 

Great suggestions. I appreciate the advice, everyone. 
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Offline thausgt

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2009, 06:41:38 AM »
Yeah, the character's going to have an "in" into the nature of magic, etc. I just need to be careful not to bog the story down with too much info--I'll try to keep it short and sweet to keep the flow of the story going. 

I'll probably get stuff thrown at me for this, but here goes: "The Mexican", that movie with Brad Pitt & Julia Roberts. Regardless of how you feel about the story itself, it does contain, IMHO, an interesting way to convey information in managemable chunks. Basically, the protagonist moves from one encounter to another, getting told different parts of a story in which he's become involved. Each part he gets builds on the next, but not necessarily in linear order; meaning that although there is a sequence of events A-B-C-D-E, he may hear C first, followed by D,A,E,B or something like that.

If anyone else has a better (or more palatable) example, please feel free to share.

One other element is that the protagonist has to get different parts of the story from different people. It might overcomplicate things by giving each tale-teller a different agenda, but feel free to at least try it out.

Good luck!
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Offline Quantus

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #7 on: March 17, 2009, 02:28:25 PM »
if your looking for an example of how to pace a story to reveal things slowly, a fantastic but completely unorthodox example is Memento, since its all told backwards
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Offline knnn

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #8 on: March 17, 2009, 05:12:20 PM »
Or you can go the Zelazny route and not tell *anything*.   Everyone else takes it for granted, and the hero (and the reader) pick up bits and pieces along the way. 

...I think that's why so many of his characters start the story with amnesia
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Offline Lanodantheon

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #9 on: March 19, 2009, 10:53:51 PM »
It seems like you're asking from two things:

1. How do I write about my character before and as he gets his magic?

and

2. How do I introduce this world?


I have my answers for those questions:

The "origin" of a character can best be summed up by the modern source of the trend, the super hero comic. Every Super hero has an origin story that can be summed up in a few sentences. In film/literary theory this can be called the Premise or the Hook and it sums up your story in a sentence or two. But more often than not, the Origin story of a character is the Initiating Event(IE). A character's life begins in balance and then something throws that life out of balance and your character strives put his/her life back into balance. The IE is the first drop in the bucket, the first ripple on the pond, the first thing out of place in your character's world. "My Main Character was normal until..."

How do you introduce this world you have created? There is no right answer to that, I just know how I approach it because it has worked for me thus far. I like to think of a ficitional world, any fictional world from the Dresdenverse to Eberron to the place of Fairy Tales like something I'm not good at, a Sport. Explaining your world is like explaining  to someone Hockey or Football or Baseball. 

It all revolves around The Playing Field, The Players and The Rules of The Game.

The Playing Field of your story is your scope. In Baseball, there is the stadium and the bases, there is nothing outside of it for the players. In the Dresdenverse, the Playing field is the whole world but for Harry, it's just Chicago.
The Playing Field is your story's geography; this is what it looks like, this is where everything is, this where the story is going to be told.

The Players
are the forces at work on the field. The positions, basically. In Baseball you have Batter, basemen, the pitcher, umpire etc. In literature you have your good guys and your bad guys, your allies and your enemies or more specifically, your protagonist who pursues his goal(s) and the antagonist who stands in the way of that goal.

The Rules of the Game are the most important part of the world to explain. Every story has to do this. It represents how the game is played and what is at stake. If you can explain the rules of Hockey, Baseball or Football to someone, you can explain a fantastic place easy.

The Rules of the game of a story include basic rules like gravity. "What goes up must come down." Injury "When the MC gets punched he bruises, if cut he bleeds." The Rules of the game include how the game is played and what is at stake.

For example, Harry Dresden starts in SFront by explaining what magic is and how a wizard is able to use it. At his first crime scene, he shows his Murphionic field , which is a rule. He explains how magic could have done the first crime in Storm Front and when he finally uses magic explains its rules for use. WHen he meets Marcone, he explains about a Soulgaze and its rules, etc.

The best place to observe Rules of The Game in action is actually movies and scifi television. A rule of the game in those mediums are Chekov's guns so you will always see them pay off.

I hope this helps you,
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Offline Yeratel

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2009, 05:40:32 PM »
Just a thought, but you might try Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon.   :)
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Offline thausgt

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Re: Origin Stories
« Reply #11 on: March 21, 2009, 01:41:45 AM »
Or you can go the Zelazny route and not tell *anything*.   Everyone else takes it for granted, and the hero (and the reader) pick up bits and pieces along the way. 

...I think that's why so many of his characters start the story with amnesia

The other useful way would be "the master lecturing the apprentice". A more familiar format would be "Batman teaching Robin", especially back in the early days. Consider how Harry talks to Molly when they're in those roles. It's an opportunity for Jim to pass along a few refinements to how magic (and the rest of the Dresdenverse) works to the reader, under the guise of Harry teaching Molly.
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