Case against continuity

[loverdrive]

If you’ve talked to me for more than fifteen seconds, you probably know that I’m quite firmly in a storytelling camp. I love Apocalypse World. I love Fate. I love MUJIK IS DEAD.

But the thing is, I kinda don’t give a crap about stories. I love cool, gripping scenes. Pretty much all the storytelling wisdom is about arcs, resolution of conflict, change. Maybe I’m a hack and I just suck at creating interesting characters, skill issue, yeah, maybe. Or maybe there’s something valuable in the distinct lack of change.

We’ve all played role-playing games. Pretty much regardless of the style, continuity is the king: fiction can’t, or at least, shouldn’t be retconned, shouldn’t be rewinded, it should triumphantly march forward, crushing all the words unsaid beneath it.

A leads to B to C to D.

But I’m a renegade. Screw this. A leads to A to A to A to A, until there’s nothing but a barren wasteland, devoid of feelings to extract, and only then we move to B to pick its bones clean. I crave stagnation the same way I crave suffering. Perpetual torture in a purgatory of an eternal song and dance, edging at the brink of release.


It's similar to fanfiction.

Fanfiction hinges upon the established, familiar characters, and that what allows it to cut to the chase: you don’t need to spend words upon words to make the reader give a damn about your heroine and her love interest, they already do.

Instead, you can focus on what happens to them, or who they are in your AU, or whatever, go nuts. Your idea can burn bright, so hot it would burn the story into ashes in seconds, and you can observe the inferno with a sadistic glee, without care in the world that you’ll have to clean up the mess you’ve created afterwards. Or it can be too modest to be interesting: “what if the main character worked at coffee shop” isn’t something you can mine for several seasons. You can mine it for fifteen minutes, though.


Inner Sanctum was my first stab at this general idea: it’s played in scenes, and these scenes don’t have to be connected to each other in any way, shape or form. You can play out the same conflict with the same characters over and over and over again, every time reaching a different climax.

I’ll work in this direction more, but for now, I’ll probably pause design work. Online play for Inner Sanctum ain’t gonna implement itself, after all.

 

[payn]

So, is this idea like episodic sitcom television?

 

[Umbran]

It's similar to fanfiction.

Fanfiction hinges upon the established, familiar characters, and that what allows it to cut to the chase: you don’t need to spend words upon words to make the reader give a damn about your heroine and her love interest, they already do.

Yeah, but fanfiction lives in a space in which someone else establishes the characters and makes you care about them, by showing us the journey they are on. Fanfiction takes characters who are going from A, to B, to C, and pulls them aside for a moment.

Which suggests that the story is valuable to establish the engagement that makes exploring stagnation worthwhile.

“what if the main character worked at coffee shop” isn’t something you can mine for several seasons. You can mine it for fifteen minutes, though.

Oh? Travis Baldtree's Legends and Lattes is getting a prequel, Bookshops and Bonedust.

 

[nevin]

If you’ve talked to me for more than fifteen seconds, you probably know that I’m quite firmly in a storytelling camp. I love Apocalypse World. I love Fate. I love MUJIK IS DEAD.

But the thing is, I kinda don’t give a crap about stories. I love cool, gripping scenes. Pretty much all the storytelling wisdom is about arcs, resolution of conflict, change. Maybe I’m a hack and I just suck at creating interesting characters, skill issue, yeah, maybe. Or maybe there’s something valuable in the distinct lack of change.

We’ve all played role-playing games. Pretty much regardless of the style, continuity is the king: fiction can’t, or at least, shouldn’t be retconned, shouldn’t be rewinded, it should triumphantly march forward, crushing all the words unsaid beneath it.

A leads to B to C to D.

But I’m a renegade. Screw this. A leads to A to A to A to A, until there’s nothing but a barren wasteland, devoid of feelings to extract, and only then we move to B to pick its bones clean. I crave stagnation the same way I crave suffering. Perpetual torture in a purgatory of an eternal song and dance, edging at the brink of release.


It's similar to fanfiction.

Fanfiction hinges upon the established, familiar characters, and that what allows it to cut to the chase: you don’t need to spend words upon words to make the reader give a damn about your heroine and her love interest, they already do.

Instead, you can focus on what happens to them, or who they are in your AU, or whatever, go nuts. Your idea can burn bright, so hot it would burn the story into ashes in seconds, and you can observe the inferno with a sadistic glee, without care in the world that you’ll have to clean up the mess you’ve created afterwards. Or it can be too modest to be interesting: “what if the main character worked at coffee shop” isn’t something you can mine for several seasons. You can mine it for fifteen minutes, though.


Inner Sanctum was my first stab at this general idea: it’s played in scenes, and these scenes don’t have to be connected to each other in any way, shape or form. You can play out the same conflict with the same characters over and over and over again, every time reaching a different climax.

I’ll work in this direction more, but for now, I’ll probably pause design work. Online play for Inner Sanctum ain’t gonna implement itself, after all.

so great for you. see thing is I like the story and that makes the gripping scenes even better.. (or worse if they don't fit). Take away continuity and i'm done. The worst thing a show can do for me is to kill it's own built in continuity just because some lazy ass writer decided they wanted to do something continuity didn't allow for. Have fun but I'm out.

 

[nevin]

So, is this idea like episodic sitcom television?

no even those have continuity. this sounds like star trek. hey um I've got this great story that doesn't fit lets reboot everything so I can do what i want.

Why did ratings fall. Wait you mean our ratings were up because people liked the story not my coolness?

 

[MGibster]

I'm trying to think of any great work of fiction that is a product of good scenes without a good story accompanying it and I'm drawing a complete blank. Cool scenes without a good story is just a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. It might be a tasty treat like consuming a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, but it doesn't truly satisfy like a decent meal would. Man of Steel had some cool scenes in it, but ultimately I didn't care for the movie very much because the characterizations and overall story were not to my liking. Whenever I think of a "cool" scene that has next to nothing to do with the overall story it brings me back to how much I hate Tom #%^#%# Bombadil.

Continuity does not equal stagnation. You can certainly maintain continuity in a setting while simultaneously making changes. Just because the king has been around for twenty years doesn't mean he's going to be around for the next twenty.

 

[loverdrive]

I'm trying to think of any great work of fiction that is a product of good scenes without a good story accompanying it and I'm drawing a complete blank

I've recently rewatched Hardcore Henry and it still is very damn great movie. I'm not sure what the story is (there's this bad guy, and then there's a guy with a ton of clones that all have completely different personalities, one which is a cocaine addict and another is cpt Price reference? Idk), the main character doesn't say a word, but the fight scenes are exhilarating. Out of more niche things, EMESIS BLUE is a collection of well executed disturbing scenes that are, if connected, this connection buried so deep I can't grasp it.

Yeah, but fanfiction lives in a space in which someone else establishes the characters and makes you care about them, by showing us the journey they are on. Fanfiction takes characters who are going from A, to B, to C, and pulls them aside for a moment.

I'm not so sure, to be honest. I read a lot of Miraculous fanfiction, and the characters in the show itself are practically non-existent. The main characters have one and a half superficial trait each, at best.

Team Fortress fanmedia is also going strong even after 15 years of the game launch, with hilarious skits featuring mercenaries, who also aren't particularly deep. Scout is stupid and bostonian, Soldier is stupid and patriotic and crazy, Pyro is crazy and childish, Medic is crazy and German... Yeah.

Continuity does not equal stagnation. You can certainly maintain continuity in a setting while simultaneously making changes. Just because the king has been around for twenty years doesn't mean he's going to be around for the next twenty.

No, of course it doesn't. But you then have to deal with the consequences of that change, which may or may not be actually interesting.

If your character defeats (or befriend or falls in love with) her bitter enemy, congratulations, she doesn't have a bitter enemy anymore and you have to deal with it somehow.

 

[nevin]

I've recently rewatched Hardcore Henry and it still is very damn great movie. I'm not sure what the story is (there's this bad guy, and then there's a guy with a ton of clones that all have completely different personalities, one which is a cocaine addict and another is cpt Price reference? Idk), the main character doesn't say a word, but the fight scenes are exhilarating. Out of more niche things, EMESIS BLUE is a collection of well executed disturbing scenes that are, if connected, this connection buried so deep I can't grasp it.


I'm not so sure, to be honest. I read a lot of Miraculous fanfiction, and the characters in the show itself are practically non-existent. The main characters have one and a half superficial trait each, at best.

Team Fortress fanmedia is also going strong even after 15 years of the game launch, with hilarious skits featuring mercenaries, who also aren't particularly deep. Scout is stupid and bostonian, Soldier is stupid and patriotic and crazy, Pyro is crazy and childish, Medic is crazy and German... Yeah.


No, of course it doesn't. But you then have to deal with the consequences of that change, which may or may not be actually interesting.

If your character defeats (or befriend or falls in love with) her bitter enemy, congratulations, she doesn't have a bitter enemy anymore and you have to deal with it somehow.

if the consequences of the change are that boring get new writers. If the consequences of that change are so dramatic you want to slit your throat and die, get new writers. But to have a good story sometimes (and I think modern writers were never taught this) things have to be normal so the incoming drama is actually framed with enough normality to be a shock. If everything is one dramatic scene after another then you have a soap opera.

edit:
Everything cant be interesting. Events have to be framed. bad things make good things seem more good. normalcy makes exciting things more exciting. If it's always exciting then exciting becomes normal and eventually ceases to be exciting.

marvel anyone. Is anyone really worried about the universe being destroyed? It's threatened every single movie. Just old had normal day now. Sucks to be those writers.

 

[pemerton]

I'm trying to think of any great work of fiction that is a product of good scenes without a good story accompanying it and I'm drawing a complete blank.

Good fiction is in the eye of the beholder, I guess - but in the context of typical RPGing, I think that James Bond and Indian Jones movies fit this description to quite an extent. Also MCU movies (cf the X-Men movies, which do have stories).

 

[Lanefan]

Good fiction is in the eye of the beholder, I guess - but in the context of typical RPGing, I think that James Bond and Indian Jones movies fit this description to quite an extent. Also MCU movies (cf the X-Men movies, which do have stories).

Taken as a complete catalog, you're right; but within each Bond or Indiana Jones movie there's a very discernable one-thing-leads-to-the-next story arc. And each of those arcs is considerably longer than the single scene the OP seems to be after.

Taken as a whole, the Bond catalog might almost map to playing a party Gygax-style through a series of dungeons or adventures that while each interesting in their own right have little-to-nothing to do with each other in any sort of bigger picture.