The thread through the tale’s spine
“There are a thousand places to put the camera … and there is only one.”
(paraphrase attributed to Ernst Lubitch)
I generally start a tale with two points in mind. I may have more but I almost always have the start and the end.
In between lie a thousand paths.
Every scene holds its choices for every character. We can think of these as binary to make things simple, so every scene gives us two possible outcomes — call it ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ If our hero acts randomly we thus have branching from every scene two possible outcomes, and each added scene will double the total possible paths the tale can follow.
And yet we hold that end-point in mind.
Somehow I must ride my hero home to the end I want.
The hero acts not in random choices, so the paths dwindle in number. But his choices are not confined to simply ‘yes’ or ‘no.’ And other characters have their choices to make. The choices of other characters will turn out to be more random than those the hero makes. Here’s the general rule: the more ill-formed a character is, the greater range his choices can include. This means as a practical matter that more minor characters have more freedom of choice in a tale.
Beyond the choices characters make there lie the vagaries of non-charactters. These include animals not defined well enough to count as characters as well as inanimate objects that we see as not wholly ruled by physical law (by this I mean that the tale doesn’t tell us enough so that we can forecast the effect of the physical laws that rule these objects), and such larger forces as weather and fatality.
Mix half a dozen characters in a room. Add conflict among them and within each man so that a slight shift will move him to act differently. Stir in some beasts and objects, weather and fate.
Anything can happen!
I find more ‘play’ if you will, in the middle scenes of my tales than those at the start. As I near the end I know I must ‘ride’ my characters objects and fate more strictly in order to reach the end I want. Sometimes my characters will move differently than I wish — sometimes they define themselves in ways that defy the ends I saw when I set out with them on the journey of their tale. It happens rarely though — I deem this a failure on my part to grasp firmly enough the three core parts to a tale in utero: the start the end and the world in which I find my tale.
This world comprises three matters — mood, man, and fate.
I will write more on these three and their kinship tomorrow.
(Composed on pentop Thursday 24 July 2008)
