No such thing as sandwiches

Plot, subplot, superplot. ...'Superplot'?

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:37:14 GMT

Plot: the chain of events that takes the protagonist from the start of the story to its close.

Subplot: miniature stories within the main story, that may include the protagonist or supporting characters, and that interconnect with the main plot, sometimes causally, sometimes thematically.

Superplot:

But wait, you've never heard of 'superplot'.

I propose the concept. Superplot:plot::plot:subplot.

After thinking about this for a while, I googled 'superplot'. There are couple of uses on the net with respect to fiction, but they're not talking about what I'm talking about. They're using 'superplot' to mean 'large story arc', a season-long or multi-season-long arc of a TV show, or the overall story arc of a trilogy of novels.

That's still 'plot'. And it's not what I'm talking about.

What am I talking about? I propose 'superplot' as a world-story. Not just static world-building -- planetary mechanics, climate, races, culture -- but a world that has its own ongoing, causally-related events, a world-sized story, immense in space and time. The plot is shaped by the superplot, but the plot influences the superplot little, if at all. Why? Because the plot, and its actors, are too small.

Examples:

1. In the Lord of the Rings, the plot is Frodo and Sam taking the Ring to Mount Doom and destroying it. Subplots include the battle of Gondor, the romance of Eowyn and Faramir, the fate of Saruman, and many others. The superplot is the fall of Melkor. That was the event that started everything into motion, that precipitated the fall, and all subsequent actions of Sauron, that brought the Eldar and the Ishtari back to Middle Earth, and so on. The events set into motion by the fall of Melkor roll on for thousands of years, starting long before the start of LotR, and continuing long after. The events of LotR fixed Sauron's hash, but otherwise affect the events of the Fall very little. The Age of Men arrives, the other races fade away, the elves return to the True West, and so forth. I think that its superplot is one of the things that makes LotR seem so *rich* to me: I have the feeling of walking over almost limitless depths of history, that is still moving under my feet. Or: like being a little kid standing in a train station as the train roars by: from somewhere distant to somewhere equally distant, large, powerful, mysterious, and utterly beyond my ability to control or even affect.

The superplot of LotR is the plot of the Silmarillion, of course. The Silmarillion has no superplot per se.

2. In Lovecraft's "The Call of Cthulhu," the superplot is the history of the Great Old Ones, having ruled before and left traces, now dreaming and influencing susceptible humans, and fated to eventually emerge from their tombs and rule the world again. This is the background against which the characters in the story move, and which, in fact, is the prime mover behind the story events. Nothing the characters do, however, influences the superplot at all.

3. George Eliot's Middlemarch. The superplot is the events leading up to the Reform Bill of 1832.

4. Miyazaki's Porco Rosso. The superplot is the fallout of WWI, the gradual rise of fascism in Italy during the time of the Lost Generation, and its gradual but inexorable impingement on the hedonism of life around the Med.

I think superplots are found most often in novels. Many short stories, perhaps most, lack them. Even many novels lack them. For example, William Gibson's novels, though I admire them immensely, and although they have brilliant static worldbuilding, do not seem to have any identifiable world-size ongoing events larger than the characters and their story. Tim Powers' novels that I have read (not many of them) are the same: wonderful story-level worldbuilding, but no matrix of larger events in which the story is embedded. Pullman's "His Dark Materials" is the same: the characters are acting at the largest scale in that universe.

In some novels I distinctly feel the lack of a superplot, as though it is needed but not present. For example, Dodie Smith's much-loved I Capture the Castle is set in the 1930s. There's great cultural color and texture, but no mention of the momentous external events of the time: a world-wide depression, the rise of fascism, and the increasing threat of war. I liked this novel, but IMO, if the obvious superplot had been present, it would have added depth and poignancy to the story.

In summation: I am in favor of superplot. It's not always necessary, especially in short stories, but it can add wonderful depth, richness, and sense of wonder to novel-length fiction.

Your thoughts?

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:22:29 GMT

And now, morbidly obese monkeys.

Also: Chainsaw Maid. Wildly unsafe for work, school, church, home, or pretty much anywhere.

Sadly, the romantic subplot is left unfinished.

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 00:44:17 GMT

A reminder: the Strange Horizons June fund drive ends tomorrow. If you haven't contributed yet, please consider doing so. SH publishes all sorts of wonderful stuff, it's a great thing to have for both readers and writers, and it deserves our support.

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:50:00 GMT

Lovely Plumage: A Blasphemous Christian Fantasy For Young Readers

Halfway. Whew.

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 01:58:48 GMT

You have probably heard of the Albanian 'sworn virgins' before, but if you haven't:

Pashe Keqi recalled the day nearly 60 years ago when she decided to become a man. She chopped off her long black curls, traded in her dress for her father's baggy trousers, armed herself with a hunting rifle and vowed to forsake marriage, children and sex.

Keqi lorded over her large family in her modest house in Tirana, where her nieces served her brandy while she barked out orders. She said living as a man had allowed her freedom denied other women. She worked construction jobs and prayed at the mosque with men. Even today, her nephews and nieces said, they would not dare marry without their "uncle's" permission.

When she stepped outside the village, she enjoyed being taken for a man. "I was totally free as a man because no one knew I was a woman," Keqi said. "I could go wherever I wanted to and no one would dare swear at me because I could beat them up."

The 'sworn virgin' role today is vanishing, it it said, on account of modern, more equal treatment of women in Albanian society.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 03:24:04 GMT

Why do Secret Service agents hold their hands at their stomachs? Pictures illustrating the practice.

Interesting.

via: linkfilter

Short-range missile

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:13:55 GMT

From Aviation Week, on the Navy's interest in developing new anti-ship missile technology:

The problem is the US doesn't have a long-range anti-ship missile - and the countries it considers potential enemies do. Boeing's Harpoon is subsonic and can fly about 60nm from a surface launch. Russia's 3M-54E Klub (SS-N-27 Sizzler) can reach out as far as 160nm[...]

I dunno about that range. Even if we're fighting the Gray Goo Armada of Tiny Dancer, the itsy-bitsy Water Witch of Puddles and Teardrops, I'd think a missile would need to fly a lot farther than that to be useful.

The same arts that did gain / A power, must it maintain

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 13:28:45 GMT

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe has warned that veterans he commanded in his country's liberation war will take up arms again to prevent the opposition party from taking power.

Mugabe told supporters that Tsvangirai would turn the country back over to white control if he won the runoff.

"They said they got this country through the barrel of gun, so they cannot let it go by a ballot," Mugabe said...

                       .  .  .

But Thou, the War's and Fortune's son,
March indefatigably on;
        And for the last effect
        Still keep the sword erect:

Besides the force it has to fright
The spirits of the shady night,
        The same arts that did gain
        A power, must it maintain.

—Andrew Marvell, from: "Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland"

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 02:47:06 GMT

My story, "Fourteen Experiments in Postal Delivery," is now appearing as a podcast on Podcastle.

I note from the comments that, as usual, the listeners' reaction is strongly bimodal. This story, ya either love it or ya hate it.

No fish to my name

Sun, 08 Jun 2008 04:46:01 GMT

Nubile Danish tomboys I led to old loser as no melons I held; no fish to my name.

Long palindrome is long. The last one (scroll down, there does not seem to be a way to link to a particular post) is almost Joycean.

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:02:40 GMT

If you aren't yet subscribed to wtf_nature, you should be.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:48:11 GMT

I'm back. It's over. I have eaten pancakes.

I have no memory of the event. Propofol is a wonderful drug.

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 05:55:02 GMT

Yesterday I gave a deposition in a malpractice suit.
Today I am to have a colonoscopy.

"...all we do our whole lives is go from one little piece of Holy Ground to the next."
—J. D. Salinger, Seymour — An Introduction

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 02:32:43 GMT

There's a much-anticipated, much discussed article by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair this July, about Bill Clinton since he left the presidency.

Purdum says of Clinton's vanity (quoting Alice Roosevelt Longworth), that Clinton longed to be "the smiling, snowy-haired man who is the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral he attends."

I'd rather be the corpse at every wedding and the bride at every funeral, but that's just me.

But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll

Tue, 27 May 2008 04:13:39 GMT

An offence outlawing discrimination against the wearing of military uniforms is among 40 recommendations designed to promote greater protection and understanding of the armed forces. They include promoting cadet forces in schools.

The report cited a number of cases of discrimination, including a Harrods security assistant in 2006 preventing an army officer from entering the store after a Remembrance Day ceremony.

Staff at Birmingham airport last year told troops returning from Afghanistan to change into civilian clothes, and troops passing through Edinburgh airport were directed away from public areas.

Patients from the armed forces rehabilitation centre at Headley Court in Surrey were subjected to abuse by members of the public at a swimming pool, and abuse levelled at RAF personnel in parts of Peterborough led to restrictions on their wearing uniform in public.

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
        O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
        But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
        The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
        O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
        For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
        But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
        The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
        O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
        Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
        But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
        The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
        O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
        While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
        But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
        There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
        O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
        For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
        But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
        An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
        An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!

—Rudyard Kipling

Sun, 25 May 2008 16:52:23 GMT

I don't get it...I have it all...fame, wealth...a wonderful wife and kids...

So why do I feel like something is missing from my life?

Thu, 22 May 2008 08:36:31 GMT

NSFW: cartoon boobies. Ukulele music.

Sun, 18 May 2008 08:02:31 GMT

Room 2: Chest pain, EKG changes, admitted.
Room 3: Intoxicated, acting erratically, chased into ER by police. Alcohol 252 mg/dL.
Room 4: Intoxicated, domestic dispute, head injury. Alcohol 281.
Room 5: Bipolar, OD, drug screen positive for several substances
Room 6: Intoxicated, domestic dispute, fled police, broke ankle. Alcohol 208.
Room 7: Drinking all day, passed out in bar. Vomiting. Alcohol 283.
Room 8: Elderly. Abdominal pain.
Room 9: Cocaine. Chest pain.
Room 10: Infant. Diaper rash.
Room 12: Intoxicated. Alcohol 381.

I don't care what the date is, SUMMER IS HERE.

Say 'Friend', and enter

Sat, 17 May 2008 07:33:10 GMT

A major security vulnerability in Debian (and Ubuntu, and probably all the other many Debian-derived distros) has been discovered, and (belatedly) fixed. No damage has been known to be have been done, but everyone involved is still sniping nervously at each other.

It's interesting that, as with airplane crashes, this was not the result of a single error, but a coincidental concatenation of multiple errors, of different sorts, by many individuals. In a way, that's reassuring.

I know, you probably don't run Debian, (unless you're midendian?), and don't care about this. But you might be amused by:

the translation into lolcats;

xkcd's take on the rumpus.

Mon, 12 May 2008 02:08:56 GMT

via robotazalea

Sun, 11 May 2008 12:45:46 GMT

Why isn't a 'pansexual' someone who is erotically oriented towards cookware?

Actually, I suppose a pansexual does find cookware erotic. Also elephants, Buicks, the state of Rhode Island, the numeral '7', the tau lepton, two Thursdays ago, the Sloan Great Wall, those drawn with a very fine camel's hair brush, and pretty much everything else.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord that David played, and it pleased the Lord

Sun, 11 May 2008 06:02:54 GMT

A couple of days ago, ktnflag asked this question.

I remembered it when I came across this dictum in a list of proverbs for entrepreneurs.

If you keep your secrets from the market, the market will keep its secrets from you -- entrepreneurs too often worry about keeping their brilliant secrets locked away; we should all worry much more about springing a surprise on a disinterested market (anyone remember the Segway?). To quote Howard Aiken: "Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."

I also like this line, in the next proverb: "[W]hen the New York Times Magazine puts out its annual "Year in Ideas" issue, is your idea in it? Then don't do it. You're already too late." Are you writing the same stuff that everyone else is writing? Don't do it. Yes, editors are still buying it -- from the writers who invented it, five or ten years ago. They already have a fanbase, and can continue to milk that fanbase, perhaps for many more book-years. You can't. You have to come up with your own stuff.

But what if people don't liiiiiike my stuff?!

Yeah, there's that risk. You can spill your guts on the page, and sometimes the readers' reaction is, "Ewww, guts." But there's really no other way.

In a sense, writing is a good bit like being an entrepreneurial engineer, isn't it? We're building these machines of spinning gears and flashing lights, hoping the reader will be thrilled, happy that he bought the gadget, and on the lookout for the next spinning, flashing machine from the same shop. And the reader didn't even know he wanted the thing you made, until he read the story. Ten years ago, who knew that anyone wanted blogs? Fifty years ago, lasers were dismissed as 'a solution in search of a problem'. Now I've got half a dozen lasers in my house, in everything from the DVD player to the garage door. In 1997, who knew we wanted Stalky & Co. with magic wands and ghosts? Who knew we wanted cyberpunk before Gibson, or retellings of the Edda before Tolkien?

Everyone, entrepreneur or writer, has to figure out what might resonate with the buyer or the reader, before they know themselves. What do you have, what do you know, that would fascinate others? It may be something completely new. It may not be new, it may be something that everyone knows (or loves, or fears, or desires) deep down, but has never heard articulated. Every famous jazz player of the 1930s and 1940s had his own unique riffs, that he used again and again, through many variations. Every successful rock and roll band has invented its own signature chords. A writer must do this, too. A writer must bring something new and intriguing to the table, something the reader can't take their eyes off, something they have never seen the likes of before, something they can't get anywhere else.

Some recent quotes 'n' stuff about fiction writing:

Suzy Charnas, suzych, on the wrong way vs. the right way to reveal character, and why the writer must not have contempt for any character, even the evil ones:

For example, the thought "I hate X because he makes me feel stupid" is way too self-aware for the mentality at issue, which is far more likely to be expressed, IMO, in these terms: "X thinks he's so smart! All he knows is a lot of high and mighty bullshit he read in a bunch of crumbly old books, but he doesn't know anything about the real world that real people like me have to live in, because he's so ancient and stuck up and high on himself!" We get the author's assessment of the character's view of other-character X, not the baby celeb character's own view of him at all.

In other words, the problem is that the author not only doesn't like her witless celeb characters -- she despises them; and she lets it show, mainly by not bothering to actually get in there and *be* them, which is an author's job. An old friend and colleague of mine recently remarked that good writer knows that she must *love* all her characters, even the dimmest and dullest and meanest of them, to make them work. I wouldn't put it that way, myself; I don't think love is the point. But you do have to lay down your superiority, moral and otherwise, and step into their minds with a willingness to actually see the world through their eyes, self-justification and all.

From Margorie Liu's, webpetals, LJ:

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work. ~ Beatrix Potter

Frankly, I'd love to have this problem.

Cheryl Klein, a YA editor, collects a few good quotes on the subject of sentence-level prose.

I ache in the places where I used to play

Mon, 05 May 2008 16:07:08 GMT

Department of Gobsmack, Facepalm, and Head Explode:

1. Vegetable Rights. Not endangered species. Just plain old plants. Step on the grass unnecessarily in Switzerland, Bunky, and before you know it, you're being arraigned in the Hague.

Next: rights for metamorphic rocks, noble gases, and Bratz™ dolls. Oh, you laugh, but you laughed at human rights for asparagus, too, and now look.

2. Politics makes strange, strange bedfellows, but... conservatives start to like Hillary? No, this not just Rush's 'Operation Chaos': "A tactical hope to see her campaign flourish--to keep the brawl going and knock dents in Obama--has changed to, at least in some cases, a grudging respect for the lady herself."

One observer once said that the main importance of PT-109 in the life of John Kennedy was that it was the only time in his life (until he was murdered) when the power and wealth of his father couldn't help him at all. Hillary in February 2008, after Obama's stunning string of 10 victories, was like JFK in the water--everything she was used to relying on had proved to be useless... In these dire straits, Hillary channeled her inner survivor, and, like John Kennedy, became a Gut Fighter writ large. She fought her way to an island, dragging her crew mates behind her, fed them on coconuts, and sent word for rescue. And then it came. "This one's for you!" she cried out to her base in hard-pressed Ohio as she pulled out the Big One, to their riotous cheers.

It was about this time that her presentation, and her persona, underwent notable change.

After March 4, she suddenly seemed to look and sound different: She began to seem real. The shrillness was gone, and so was The Cackle, and so were the forced southern accents that once caused so many so much merriment. Hillary!--whoever that was--never really cohered as a character; her previous poses--the Perfect Wife, the Aggrieved Wife, the Empress-in-Waiting--were all unconvincing, but in her new role--the scrapper, forced to the wall, and hanging in there with ferocious and grim resolution--she is suddenly all of a piece.

You know, this year I don't it think it would be a disaster if any of the three current major candidates were elected. I'm not all that enthusiastic about any of them, and I think all would be likely to make major errors (McCain would make different errors than than the Democrats, of course), but America would survive the experience. This is a large improvement over 2004, when both candidates were simply awful.

Remember when I threatened to buy all the Leonard Cohen CDs I had missed since the mid-70s? Well, I'm not there yet, but the first shipment from Amazon just arrived. OMG, no one can write lyrics like that man. Or sing them. I generally prefer female singers to male, by a ratio of at least 20:1. But I'll make an exception for Leonard.

See, what my life needs is backup singers in little black dresses, going "Ooo, na-na" when I say poetic and signficant things.

Sun, 04 May 2008 11:17:20 GMT

Lovely Plumage: A Blasphemous Christian Fantasy For Young Readers

I took Lovely Plumage out for a walk in public for the first time yesterday. It was treated nicely by the Nameless (filomancer, pointoforigin, Ef, and Ricardo), critted gently, and survived the experience.

Food was consumed. Deer were spotted. The toilet did not run backwards. No one was deathly allergic to the cats. All are signs of a successful crit meeting.

I urged filomancer to commit her thoughts about writing fiction to her LJ. They seemed penetrating at the time, but I had been up for 21 hours, and I fear they have skidded off my brain.

I know thee not, old man

Thu, 01 May 2008 02:53:19 GMT

Enter BARACK OBAMA and his train

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT

God save thy grace, King Hal! my royal Hal!

BILL MOYERS

The heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp of fame!

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT

God save thee, my sweet boy!

BARACK OBAMA

My lord chief-justice, speak to that vain man.

ARIANNA HUFFINGTON

Have you your wits? know you what 'tis to speak?

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT

My king! my Jove! I speak to thee, my heart!

BARACK OBAMA

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word. Set on.

Exeunt BARACK OBAMA, & c

REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT

Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.