Well, I've been steadily chipping away at my YA sci-fi and I don't know if I'm just not very creative or what, but I feel like I rely heavily, and consciously on archetypes: the villain, the stooge, the thug, the oracle, the beauty, the sidekick. All characters fit into archetypical categories because all characters have a purpose. If it doesn't have a purpose it doesn't have an archetype and chances are, are pretty forgettable. With this in mind, I'm deciding to roll with it. Look at me, not caring that I purposefully look for archetypes to fill my story with!
So it's starting to look like just building a really tasty sandwich. Assemble your ingredients: Location, plot, a schmear of description, all those meaty archetypes, some slices of humor for extra flavor, some garlic (really every story needs some garlic. I don't care how you work it in, just work it in). Now carefully layer salty and sweet and crunchy and soft so it's nicely balanced. (Are you getting hungry? Craving Schlotszky's?) Then at the end you cut it open down the middle so you can see how everything makes sense, or leave it whole if you like to take it in in three or four bites.
Easy peasy rice and cheesy.
Except it's not. The meats all keep slipping around, and then you notice the expiration date was past on your humor, so you've got to take that out and find some more, and sometimes you slather on too much description so you have to wipe it off with a paper towel, and then your husband comes in and freaks out because he hates mayonaisse (wait - got off track there), and you're using a location you've never actually been to so it does funny things to your sandwich and ON and ON! Until you want to throw it all in the trash and go out to eat. So you sort of do. You take a little break, read a new novel, or better yet some interesting non-fiction from which you happen to latch on to the smallest detail. But it's THE DETAIL you needed. That one little pinch of spice that will bring your sandwich that much closer to being delicious.
I'm off now.
Off to make a sandwich.
With a side of self-congratulation when I'm done.
I shouldn't have read this with a empty stomach! I think I'll toddle off to the kitchen now...
ReplyDeleteExcellent parallel. If I hadn't just come home from too much dinner at a friend's house, I'd be in the kitchen making a sandwich and wondering where my last unfinished story ended up. Keep up the good work.
ReplyDeleteThanks ya'll!
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