Reviewer: lfcfan Signed
Date: December 05 2013
Title: Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Now this is an interesting 'story' to encounter here in this site and really worth discussing. :)
Overall, I have to wholeheartedly agree with two of your ideas, Character and Setting. Those two are the most basic elements of a story. One without Characters and a Setting wouldn't even make any sense.
But I honestly have to disagree with your concept of Misunderstanding, or rather I don't think the word misunderstanding is the one you're looking for, but is rather a mashup of two more basic elements, plot and conflict.
In your misunderstandings chapters, you said this: Then again, I'm using misunderstandings to represent information which is known, or unknown. I think information, and how it interacts with characters, are how events are made.
And then you went on to describe the different forms of information in a story and how they are very important to you, especially as tools to create events upon which characters act to create conflict between each other, which is I think what you mean by misunderstandings.
But in my opinion, you shouldn't mix those two because information itself is not a basic key element of a story, but rather a basic plot device. For example, consider this scenario: The dinosaurs were living happily amongst each other, until an asteroid hit the earth, plunging the world into chaos.
The act of an asteroid hitting the earth cannot be categorized in any of your forms of information because it is an event that is entirely independent of any of the characters on earth. The asteroid is not conscious, it does not have a motive, it didn't act upon any information nor did any character have any influence on its behaviour, it just smashed into earth because the laws of physics dictated so. And since such a thing actually happened in real life, you can use it as a believable plot device, which leads to an earth where your dinosaur characters would have to fight for their very survival, creating lots of potential for conflict on the story, which is why anyone would actually want to read it.
And the actual asteroid impact is not something that just happened, but is the reason why the story is set at that time, because it creates an interesting setting for the characters to navigate through in your story. But nobody would want to just read how they slowly died of hunger and starvation, without any actual conflict between each other for food or something similar, making conflict itself a basic element of a story.
So in other words and in my own humble opinion of course, the basic elements of a story are: Character, Setting, Plot, Conflict and one other thing, Theme.
Theme is easy in this site, size difference, but is actually a very important element in a story. Nevertheless it's not something we should dwell much upon here because the absolute majority of the stories here have that sole reoccurring theme, but generally every story should have one theme and should stick to it very consistently.
As a last example, I just want to show how I think of a story and how I divide it into it's basic elements:
A man and woman (characters) have a one night stand on her apartment (setting, implying a modern day world). Suddenly, the woman grabs a shrink ray gun (plot device) out of her purse and fires it on the man, shrinking him to just several inches tall (plot, theme). The woman then proceeds to use the man as a sex toy (character personality, driven by her lust and desire for power) while the man struggles against her (character personality, driven by the desire to survive, also to escape the humiliation).
But the main reason why this story is interesting is the conflict between the characters. There is no misunderstanding there, both know perfectly well what one and the other wants, but the entirely different desires driven by their personalities create that tension that is so interesting between them. Then of course, setting and theme (the woman being overwhelmingly more powerful than the man) dictate how the plot advances. How the writer then handles those elements and the constrains that they put in place is what makes him a good or a bad writer.
And just to make it clear, I'm talking about stories with an actual plot here, because in this site, we often see stories without plot and conflict, their main purpose being just sexual stimulation.
Anyway, this is my own view, hope I haven't come across as arrogant or offensive. :)
Author's Response: I'm really glad these thoughts of mine are bringing about such good discussion.
You're not the first to disagree with me on my concept of misunderstandings. And yes plot, as defined by a dictionary, is a skill term defined as the events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence. As I see it, a plot, is a combination of a sequence of any events, not the events themselves. Conflict is defined by a dictionary as, opposition in a work of drama or fiction between characters or forces (especially an opposition that motivates the development of the plot); "this form of conflict is essential to Mann's writing". Which in a sense, is a lot like a misunderstanding, as misunderstandings, bring about conflict. When conflict happens, an event occurs. Finally when enough events occur, often plot happens as a byproduct.
In your example, the dinosaurs were in a form of static information. They simply were. Then an action occurred, this action, " the asteroid coming without their knowledge", can be seen as a absence of information, and form the misunderstanding that their static world would not change. Then the result is an event occurs, since the asteroid hits earth, causing a conflict because of this misunderstanding. The result is their world has gone from a static world to a world of chaos.
In this regard I feel that the asteroid hitting earth can be categorized as a piece of information in the story. You're right the asteroid didn't have a conscious, nor motive, it was a piece of the setting, brought upon the characters within the story to make them act, a plot device or mechanism. In this case I call that device a misunderstanding, other authors call it differently, it's just my thoughts after all. Yes conflict is a basic element of a story, but without misunderstandings of some nature, as I have defined them, then there can be no conflict.
We are both agreed that, "the basic elements of a story are: Character, Setting, Plot, Conflict and one other thing, Theme." I just went a step further and said that misunderstandings, come before conflict.
As for theme, it's defined as a unifying idea, image, or motif, repeated or developed throughout a work. This to me is also very important, but it's not like every story is limited to just one, and your right about it being a staple on this site. Without a theme of some sort, not matter how well written a story, it can fall flat to the chaos of consistency.
So we have a man and a woman "in" an apartment. The apartment being a setting in the modern world as you said. They are simply static information right now awaiting a misunderstanding of some sort to occur. The woman then starts an action, one unexpected, unknown to the man. He has a lack of information she would perform this action, and so brings about a misunderstanding. He is now shrunk, per the theme of the story. He has a very slim choice of actions to perform. Then because of the woman's personality in how she choose to perform her actions, the man must suffer for her choices, and becomes a sex toy. He doesn't willing of course, but any action or misunderstanding he might try and generate, to create a conflict event, to free himself is nearly a moot point. He has no recourse or free will, and almost nothing that he does can return him to the previous state he held before becoming shrunk.
Yes the story follows an intresting theme, and rooting for the guy who generates meaningless conflicts to survive, or events which make up the plot, is what's causing people to keep reading. Maybe there are no misunderstandings, to the characters, but there doesn't have to be. Misunderstandings can occur to the readers, simply, the lack of the things they know or don't know about the characters. To me the reader who becomes enthralled in reading a narrative, becomes part of it, and should not be factored out for convenience to the author. In this type of story, personalities are the rule, but it's the actions and conflict brought about by misunderstandings, that let us know what those characters personalities are. Otherwise were just creating a straight static fiction world, were we don't observe a story, but are told information. It's how the writer writes, the events which allow the character to perform the story, which makes the author a good or bad writer, as a writer who just tell us everything, is a lot worse than the author who lets us discover everything on our own, the mark of a truly good writer.
Even in a basic story devoid of all logic and reason, with the theme of sexual simulation, a true story may still lie hidden underneath. Please don't insult the community, then again, I'm mostly in agreement with you.
I loved the fact your shared your view, and I hope you appreciated mine as well, I don't mean to be arrogant of offensive either. Thanks for the discussion!
