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imagination (1963) - harold ordway rugg
"chekhovs cat / schrödingers razor / occams gun"
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Chekov's Cat: if you see a cat in the first act, it will probably be relevant later. (example: Alien)
Shrodinger's razor: an unopened box may or may not contain the solution to the story; there's no way to know without opening it. (example: Monk)
Occam's gun: the simplest way to kill off a character is to shoot them. (example: Bambi)
i have been cracking up at this for the past 3 minutes
Chekov's Box: If there is a container introduced in the opening act, it will be opened later.
Schrodinger's Gun: Treat every gun as if it's loaded unless you've checked it yourself.
Occam's Cat: If you hear strange noises at night, it's probably a cat.
Occam’s Cat: If you
hear strange noises at night, it’s
probably a cat.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...
Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?
Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?
Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?
Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?
Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?
Thank you so much for this!
Throwback thursday to when I was like 12 and I was putting out new writing DAILY...... Like entire Chapters of my then-current wips just, over an afternoon. What the fuck was I on
Nobody:
Me, age 12, just started drinking coffee:
I drew 14 pictures during the day, and wrote 32 pages a night. Now I can’t do shit.
A huge part of this is because you've gotten better! And now, when you're drawing/writing/doing whatever creative task, you're not just mindlessly throwing thoughts at your paper, you're thinking as you do it. Children can churn out a lot more work because it's not yet refined, but when you're older and have more practice, you work with all these thoughts running through your head about form and shape, color palettes or word choice. Now, you're making a dozen decisions with every moment of work, and you're also questioning the decisions you've just made, wondering if you can do it better. Don't beat yourself up about producing less work now than you did back then, because every sentence or shape involves a lot more effort for you now, than it did when you were ten and brand new to this hobby.
Also you have a job now and the never-ending bullshit that is laundry and dishes and feeding yourself.
Jane Austen really said ‘I respect the “I can fix him” movement but that’s just not me. He’ll fix himself if knows what’s good for him’ and that’s why her works are still calling the shots today.
Meanwhile Emily Brönte just said “We can make each other worse.”
Mary Shelley said, "I can make him
big believer that writing doesn't always have to be writing. sometimes writing is going for a walk. sometimes writing is rehearsing your characters' dialogue in the shower. sometimes writing is putting a song on loop and staring at the carpet. sometimes you need to hang out with your story instead of writing it
you have to write a book* incorporating the theme/motif/location/person/etc. of this random Wikipedia article**...how screwed are you?
the random article was super interesting and now I actually want to do this!
I'm not mad at my result!
I mean, not my first choice but it's doable
I got the most boring article in existance/it was a stub
HELL NO
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