Moral Satisfaction - Dwight Swain and John Yorke

Still reading Dwight V Swain Techniques of the Selling Writer. When he's talking about a satisfying story resolution he says that the reader wants the focal character either rewarded or punished because of he deals with the moral theme of the story (I paraphrase). He talks about the choice a character has between what is expedient and what is morally right. So, the character faces a dilemma between the fast buck and the long righteous walk. If he chooses the fast buck then the reader is satisfied when he does not achieve his desire. If he takes the heroic but morally right choice, then the reader wants him to be rewarded.

On page 191, he talks how you show the action of the FC in dealing with his dilemma: no need for words, just show him doing the right (or wrong thing). He also says

"...you can fool the world, and sometimes you can even fool yourself. But you can't fool your own feelings. They tell the truth about you, every time, without regard for rationalizations or excuses.

That's why climax is so vital. Only as we see a man in crisis, when under stress he acts on feeling, can we gain the final, conclusive proof we need to determine whether or not he deserves the goal he seeks." 

Now, Dwight can come over as old-fashioned in wanting stories where the good guy is rewarded for being good. But what he says about a person acting on feelings and thus displaying what he/she really echoes something that I read in John Yorke's book Into The Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them

This was only published in 2013. On p. 127, Yorke says:

"The conflict between how we wish to be perceived and how we really feel is at the root of all character." 

Yorke says, in this book, that the whole character arc is the person's journey from portraying the false image of how they want to be perceived to being how they really are at the end. Just the same as Swain!

Yorke talks about a character's wants and needs. What he wants is related to his facade, or as Jung would say, his Persona. What he needs  is related to his Self (in Jungian terms again).

Based on what Swain said - what the character needs is to serve moral rectitude. And both writers talk about the importance of the story to humans being that it portrays order against the chaos and unpredictability of the Universe.

Someone else said, A kiss may not be the truth - but it's what we wish were true.

So go and kiss someone. Or not. But if you do, please obtain their consent beforehand.

Dwight V. Swain and Me

You will be familiar with my ongoing fascination with the wisdom of writing gurus who want to help you write better. First it was Blake Snyder, then John Yorke then I listened to the words of Michael Moorcock and Lester Dent. My latest find is Dwight V. Swain. I like his gnarly voice on the podcast I listened to. Gnarly has a different meaning in American I'm aware because one of the reviews for my stories said it was 'gnarly'. I think that was good. Yep, I've checked - it is good, and doesn't mean covered in knobs (well it does sometimes.

So, I am reading Dwight V. Swain at the moment. There are some very useful blogs about his technique. Check out Phillip McColllum's blog entry on Scene and Sequel  but also Katie Ganshert's post on "Motivation-Reaction Units".

I love a bit of jargon.

So I went over The Beast of Whitby and tried to get my Motivation/Reaction Unit in place and arrange them in Scenes and Sequels.

The benefit of this for me was that Blake Snyder and John Yorke and also Christopher Vogler (to a lesser extent) gave an overarching story structure. Yorke makes the point that Acts and Scenes are fractal - so that they should mirror the overall story arc.  Swain tells you exactly how to do that.

So, you have (Inciting incident) -> reaction -> dilemma -> decision -> goal -> conflict -> disaster.

And you repeat it. So each scene has that form, and each act has that form and the whole story is built from those bricks. This works well with John Yorke's idea of a five act structure being implicit in all stories.

I don't buy that every story is the Hero's Journey however, though I like Joseph Campbell a lot. There are lots of archetypal experiences that light us up - Leaving Home, Finding a Mate, Facing Death, Being Predated, Finding our Place in the Tribe's Pecking Order, Raising Young.

I don't know why I've given them all capital letters...

Peace dudes - be gnarly!

TW.

Stories

I continue to marvel at how my story The Haunting is selling so well - 145 copies in 10 days. That's the most I've ever sold since I started this business. Some of my other little collections give three stories for the same price, but for some reason they don't sell a fraction of The Haunting. Is it the cover? Is it the description?

My fear is that I can't replicate this with another story as I don't really know why it's been so relatively successful. It can't be reviews because it doesn't have any so far.

So I wondered whether it was the fact that the title is a common one - you can't copyright a title so you can call your stories anything. I didn't do this on purpose with The Haunting, but maybe it has helped that there are loads of other stories/films etc, called The Haunting or the Haunting of...

So, I'm writing a story called The Exorcist. I want to introduce a character called Adam Meyrink who is a Chaos Magician and who is the only one who can exorcise the thing...

"Little Brother, you've been meddling with the Goetia" as Allen Bennett said to Aleister Crowley...

I'm quite enjoying writing it but as I sit here all on my own typing away in this quiet, empty house, I am getting a bit scared.