StrangeLife
Eater of beef
- Joined
- Jun 3, 2013
- Posts
- 3,760
I am a member of this group of other writer-wannabes (and a few actual writers) in my area who I meet up with once in a blue moon. Besides chowing down good food we usually have a topic for discussion, which recently was "Where do I get inspiration for story-telling?". Not specific subjects, but the methods and mechanics. How do you learn the art of crafting a good story?
I was not surprised that "reading books" topped the list for everybody - on the way to true greatness there is no substitute for learning from the masters. But the second place shocked me: "Watching movies!"
I mean, seriously? Movies??? Hollywood is the friggin epitome of formula and regurgitations. It's all about "focus groups" and "censorship", and they will even change the very ending and re-shoot part of the movie if a screening shows that the audience are displeased. I am not saying that I don't enjoy watching a good movie, but even the best of them sucks in the story telling department when compared to books. The old saying "the book is always superior to the movie" is very true. The only recent exception I can think of is Lord of The Rings. And I'm not blaming the studios for this. A movie can cost tens or hundreds of mills to make - a single flop can make or break their entire business, so it's no wonder they go for the lowest common denominator.
My number two on the list was "computer games and manga/anime" - a fact that seemed to baffle everybody else. So I was forced to defend my choice by conducting a presentation with some examples and - since I can imaging that some readers of this noble forum may share the sentiments of my local writers group - I have decided to take the liberty of inserting part of my presentation in this thread. So enjoy...
PC game - Bioshock Infinite
The first example is a no-brainer for every serious gamer. All Bioshock titles are extraordinary in the story telling department, but one reigns supreme...
Mix 19th century America with quantum technology and advanced biotech, and you get the steampunk city Columbia that's floating in the clouds. You play a Pinkerton detective who is hired to sneak into the city and free a girl who is held captive in a tower. Basically that's all you should know going in... and I wish I could develop amnesia so I could start all over again.
As a game it's not bad - there is a decent first person shooter element in it - but the story and the graphic details will have you captivated every step of the way. And it doesn't let up - even the ending is perfect and will have go "WTF!" in a good way. So if you are not a gamer you need to borrow/buy/steal/sell your soul for a gaming rig - preferable a PC with specs that allows you to dial the graphics up to ultimate.
There are scores of books on The Times best-seller lists that wish they were this good.
Anime - Kara No Kyoukai (Garden of Sinners)
My personal choice as the best anime ever made so-far .
Yes, this is "a cartoon".... but don't bother watching it with your kids. They wont get anything out of it, except bad dreams. It is a slow but masterfully told story that touches upon a lot of mature themes like mental illness, love, acceptance, domestic violence, incest, cannibalism, hope and murder. The timeline is not linear - this could be a David Lynch movie if it was American. It's also heavily loaded with symbolism, and so not for the casual viewer.
The story revolves around a girl with split personality disorder - neither personality being anywhere near "healthy" - who ends up working for a detective agency dealing with supernatural problems. The overall story arc is a love story between her and a "normal" guy working for the same agency.... think "X-Files" with Dana Scully as a deeply emotionally disturbed knife-wielding chick with scary eyes.
Despite being 7 years old, the animation and visuals still hold up to the current standard and the music was composed by Yuki Kajiura (a name that can make geeks cum in their pant). For an example of both check this. And this is from the first and oldest of the movies. The later 6 are even better quality.
Yep, the story spans 7 full length movies, and you need to watch all of them. So stock up on pop-corn and cola.
Anime - Elfen Lied
This anime tells a simpler story in a more straight forward way, but do not even think about watching it with your kids. Not unless you want to pay for their therapy for the next decade.
The plot is about a mutant species of humans - called diclonii - who are hunted and killed by the government out of fear that they will take over the planet if they are allowed to breed freely. They are physically superior to ordinary humans and able to slice and dice anybody who gets too close. In other words, a story not unlike Species. The main protagonist is a diclonii named Lucy who is the only fertile one on the loose, so the government is very anxious to get her killed. Unfortunately she has lost her memory following a gunshot to the head and is living with a young family that doesn't realise that the deadliest girl on the planet is living in their house. And the people dispatched to hunt her down aren't exactly nice either.
But of course nothing is what it seems. The story is actually about racism, social alienation, identity, prejudice, revenge, abuse, jealousy, regret and the very definition of a human being. It contains extreme violence - people are ripped to bloody pieces in droves - and nudity. There is incest of course - not brother/sister as in Kara No Kyoukai, but cousin/cousin - and severe daddy-issues. There is even a puppy getting bludgeoned to death by a group of kids (off screen though, but still pretty gruesome). You could never make this in the US or Europe, which is unfortunate because the story-telling is great and the violence is simply part of that. This is what Species could and should have been, if Hollywood weren't crawling with censors and being ruled by marketing people.
It's a 13 episode series and the English dubbing is ok so there is no need to watch it with subtitles.
Anime - Steins Gate
Steins Gate is time travel mind-fucking done right. If you want ideas for how to plot this type of story, look no further.
The story follows a self-proclaimed "mad scientist" Rintaro Okabe and his small inventors lab of ragtag and quirky characters. One day he is attending a lecture and witnesses a murder. On the way home he sends an SMS to his friend and lab-partner telling that the person in question was killed. Unfortunately his friends phone is attached to a time machine they are working on, so the SMS is sent back in time. As a result the entires world changes the moment Okabe presses the send-button.
And as all Doctor Who fans will know, all manner of shit may happen once you start messing with time and space.
Steins Gate doesn't try to explain all aspects of the hard science behind time travel, but gives us just enough "pseudo science" to make everything credible. The real emphasis is on the characters and their stories. The series also addresses a lot of the major philosophical questions connected to time travel. Like, what if you could send an SMS to the past and prevent your dad from getting killed? How much would you sacrifice for that chance? What if a lot of other people died as a result?
The closest Hollywood analog to Steins Gate is Looper, which is a pretty good movie too. But in true Hollywood fashion Looper can't go quite as far as an Anime and this gives Steins Gate a significant edge... even if it doesn't have Bruce Willis.
It's 24 episodes and the first 9 are kinda slow-paced and focuses on getting to know the characters. But once it takes off, it really takes off. And do watch the japanese version with subtitles - not the english dub. Even if you don't understand a single word, the guy doing the japanese voice of Rintaro Okabe is too awesome to miss. El Psy Congroo!
Anime - Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)
Mirai Nikki is another (not child-safe) time travel mind-fuck, but of the supernatural rather than the scifi variety.
It features a group of 12 people who each get a "future diary" - a diary that shows event before they happen. Very practical, since it enables you to change your future in case something bad is lurking ahead. However there is a catch. The whole thing is actually a competition between the selected 12 where the last person left alive will become a God in 90 days.... and if the competition hasn't finished by that time with a clear winner, the world will simply be destroyed.
The main protagonist is an introverted and frankly not very likeable teenager who gets the diary on his phone. He is being stalked by a clinically insane girl who is also in possession of a diary and has an obsession with him. That girl - Yuno Gasai - is batshit even by manga standard (that is saying some), but she is also the main drive of the series and by far the most interesting character. Despite pink hair and moe style face she makes Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers look like pussies...
What makes Mirai Nikki interesting from a story tellers perspective is the way it pits these 12 people - who all have knowledge about the future - against each other. How do you kill somebody who knows in advance that you are coming? And how do you find your target when you don't know their names or what they look like? It's as much a chess game as a violent gore fest. And why were these exact 12 chosen as contenders? Is there anything special about them?
Of course the story deals with real life subjects under the surface - most predominantly child abuse, domestic violence, love, sexual repression, parental neglect, mental illness, human decency, sacrifice and ambitions.
It is 26 episodes so the pop-corn and cola advice applies.
Anime - Another
For tips on how to plot an effective mystery/horror story, Another is a good place to look. It has all the requisite elements and creepy atmosphere coming out the wazoo. Btw. did I mention that it's not for kids? Well, it isn't.... unless you have very creepy kids.
The protagonist is a boy who moves from Tokyo to a small town where he attends a new school that looks a lot like an abandoned lunatic asylum from the outside. The creepy stuff begins immediately when he meets an odd one-eyed girl that nobody else can see and he keep hearing weird rumors from his classmates about some mystic curse that is haunting the class he is attending. And people keep treating him as if they have seen him before, even though he is certain that he has never set foot in the town. Needless to say that it doesn't take long before the shit hits the fan and people start dying in various spectacular ways. Yep - there is lotsa blod and violence.
This anime could easily have been a Hollywood movie if the gore was toned down a little, since there is no incest or under-age sex in it. In that case I would choose M. Night Shyamalan as director, which should say something about the kind of territory we move in.
There are 13 episodes and the english dub is fine so there is no need to read sub titles.
Btw a funny piece of trivia: I read that the hairstyle, eye-patch and red bow of creepy-girl became all the rage in Japan when this anime was released and for moths the stores had red bows in back-order. Well, I guess Japanese fans can be quite enthusiastic...
Anime - Code Geass
For the large and epic story-stelling Code Geass is a fine example. The drawing style may look a bit cartoonish, but don't worry about it - once you start you soon forget that you are even watching a cartoon. Yes, the writing is that god.
The story takes place in a futuristic world where the UK is a fascist empire - one of three major super powers that rules the world - and is currently occupying Japan with a nazi-like fervor. The main protagonist is a hyper-intelligent young British prince - Lelouch Lamperouge - who has been disowned by the court and secretly attends college in Japan while caring for his blind and disabled sister. One day he gets involved in a riot and almost ends up dead, but is saved in the nick of time by a mysterious green-haired girl who offers him a deal; in return for an unspecified favor at a later time she grants him the ability to compel another person to do what he says if he has eye contact with him.
Lelouch decides to start a rebellion against the Brits using his superior strategic intellect and his new hypnotizing skill, and he creates a masked alter ego for this purpose which he names "Zero". Despite his abilities this, doesn't go nearly as smoothly as planned and there are more plot twists and unexpected developments than you can shake a stick at. Almost every single episode ends with a cliff-hanger so it's really hard to not watch the whole thing in one session. Which would take a couple of days since there are 50 episodes in total. So get lotsa pop-corn for this one.
And be sure to get the japanese version with sub-titles. The english dub can't hold a candle to the original.
Honorable mention: Ghost in the Shell
There are two movies and three series and they still reign as some of the best cyberpunk story telling around. The problem is, that the original movies are almost 20 years old and they are showing their age - the animation is not up to modern standard. Thus I am reluctant to recommend them to non-geeks. But if you can look past that limitation, the stories are top notch. To judge for yourself you can check the opening sequence with Kenji Kawai's famous haunting music score.
Btw. be aware that these movies contain extensive "fan-service" - that's another word for boobies and nudity. They aren't gory compared to modern anime and there is no actual sex - it's all robo-boobies - but some people might not deem them entirely child safe. Just sayin'...
I was not surprised that "reading books" topped the list for everybody - on the way to true greatness there is no substitute for learning from the masters. But the second place shocked me: "Watching movies!"
I mean, seriously? Movies??? Hollywood is the friggin epitome of formula and regurgitations. It's all about "focus groups" and "censorship", and they will even change the very ending and re-shoot part of the movie if a screening shows that the audience are displeased. I am not saying that I don't enjoy watching a good movie, but even the best of them sucks in the story telling department when compared to books. The old saying "the book is always superior to the movie" is very true. The only recent exception I can think of is Lord of The Rings. And I'm not blaming the studios for this. A movie can cost tens or hundreds of mills to make - a single flop can make or break their entire business, so it's no wonder they go for the lowest common denominator.
My number two on the list was "computer games and manga/anime" - a fact that seemed to baffle everybody else. So I was forced to defend my choice by conducting a presentation with some examples and - since I can imaging that some readers of this noble forum may share the sentiments of my local writers group - I have decided to take the liberty of inserting part of my presentation in this thread. So enjoy...
PC game - Bioshock Infinite
The first example is a no-brainer for every serious gamer. All Bioshock titles are extraordinary in the story telling department, but one reigns supreme...
Mix 19th century America with quantum technology and advanced biotech, and you get the steampunk city Columbia that's floating in the clouds. You play a Pinkerton detective who is hired to sneak into the city and free a girl who is held captive in a tower. Basically that's all you should know going in... and I wish I could develop amnesia so I could start all over again.
As a game it's not bad - there is a decent first person shooter element in it - but the story and the graphic details will have you captivated every step of the way. And it doesn't let up - even the ending is perfect and will have go "WTF!" in a good way. So if you are not a gamer you need to borrow/buy/steal/sell your soul for a gaming rig - preferable a PC with specs that allows you to dial the graphics up to ultimate.
There are scores of books on The Times best-seller lists that wish they were this good.
Anime - Kara No Kyoukai (Garden of Sinners)
My personal choice as the best anime ever made so-far .
Yes, this is "a cartoon".... but don't bother watching it with your kids. They wont get anything out of it, except bad dreams. It is a slow but masterfully told story that touches upon a lot of mature themes like mental illness, love, acceptance, domestic violence, incest, cannibalism, hope and murder. The timeline is not linear - this could be a David Lynch movie if it was American. It's also heavily loaded with symbolism, and so not for the casual viewer.
The story revolves around a girl with split personality disorder - neither personality being anywhere near "healthy" - who ends up working for a detective agency dealing with supernatural problems. The overall story arc is a love story between her and a "normal" guy working for the same agency.... think "X-Files" with Dana Scully as a deeply emotionally disturbed knife-wielding chick with scary eyes.
Despite being 7 years old, the animation and visuals still hold up to the current standard and the music was composed by Yuki Kajiura (a name that can make geeks cum in their pant). For an example of both check this. And this is from the first and oldest of the movies. The later 6 are even better quality.
Yep, the story spans 7 full length movies, and you need to watch all of them. So stock up on pop-corn and cola.
Anime - Elfen Lied
This anime tells a simpler story in a more straight forward way, but do not even think about watching it with your kids. Not unless you want to pay for their therapy for the next decade.
The plot is about a mutant species of humans - called diclonii - who are hunted and killed by the government out of fear that they will take over the planet if they are allowed to breed freely. They are physically superior to ordinary humans and able to slice and dice anybody who gets too close. In other words, a story not unlike Species. The main protagonist is a diclonii named Lucy who is the only fertile one on the loose, so the government is very anxious to get her killed. Unfortunately she has lost her memory following a gunshot to the head and is living with a young family that doesn't realise that the deadliest girl on the planet is living in their house. And the people dispatched to hunt her down aren't exactly nice either.
But of course nothing is what it seems. The story is actually about racism, social alienation, identity, prejudice, revenge, abuse, jealousy, regret and the very definition of a human being. It contains extreme violence - people are ripped to bloody pieces in droves - and nudity. There is incest of course - not brother/sister as in Kara No Kyoukai, but cousin/cousin - and severe daddy-issues. There is even a puppy getting bludgeoned to death by a group of kids (off screen though, but still pretty gruesome). You could never make this in the US or Europe, which is unfortunate because the story-telling is great and the violence is simply part of that. This is what Species could and should have been, if Hollywood weren't crawling with censors and being ruled by marketing people.
It's a 13 episode series and the English dubbing is ok so there is no need to watch it with subtitles.
Anime - Steins Gate
Steins Gate is time travel mind-fucking done right. If you want ideas for how to plot this type of story, look no further.
The story follows a self-proclaimed "mad scientist" Rintaro Okabe and his small inventors lab of ragtag and quirky characters. One day he is attending a lecture and witnesses a murder. On the way home he sends an SMS to his friend and lab-partner telling that the person in question was killed. Unfortunately his friends phone is attached to a time machine they are working on, so the SMS is sent back in time. As a result the entires world changes the moment Okabe presses the send-button.
And as all Doctor Who fans will know, all manner of shit may happen once you start messing with time and space.
Steins Gate doesn't try to explain all aspects of the hard science behind time travel, but gives us just enough "pseudo science" to make everything credible. The real emphasis is on the characters and their stories. The series also addresses a lot of the major philosophical questions connected to time travel. Like, what if you could send an SMS to the past and prevent your dad from getting killed? How much would you sacrifice for that chance? What if a lot of other people died as a result?
The closest Hollywood analog to Steins Gate is Looper, which is a pretty good movie too. But in true Hollywood fashion Looper can't go quite as far as an Anime and this gives Steins Gate a significant edge... even if it doesn't have Bruce Willis.
It's 24 episodes and the first 9 are kinda slow-paced and focuses on getting to know the characters. But once it takes off, it really takes off. And do watch the japanese version with subtitles - not the english dub. Even if you don't understand a single word, the guy doing the japanese voice of Rintaro Okabe is too awesome to miss. El Psy Congroo!
Anime - Mirai Nikki (Future Diary)
Mirai Nikki is another (not child-safe) time travel mind-fuck, but of the supernatural rather than the scifi variety.
It features a group of 12 people who each get a "future diary" - a diary that shows event before they happen. Very practical, since it enables you to change your future in case something bad is lurking ahead. However there is a catch. The whole thing is actually a competition between the selected 12 where the last person left alive will become a God in 90 days.... and if the competition hasn't finished by that time with a clear winner, the world will simply be destroyed.
The main protagonist is an introverted and frankly not very likeable teenager who gets the diary on his phone. He is being stalked by a clinically insane girl who is also in possession of a diary and has an obsession with him. That girl - Yuno Gasai - is batshit even by manga standard (that is saying some), but she is also the main drive of the series and by far the most interesting character. Despite pink hair and moe style face she makes Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers look like pussies...
What makes Mirai Nikki interesting from a story tellers perspective is the way it pits these 12 people - who all have knowledge about the future - against each other. How do you kill somebody who knows in advance that you are coming? And how do you find your target when you don't know their names or what they look like? It's as much a chess game as a violent gore fest. And why were these exact 12 chosen as contenders? Is there anything special about them?
Of course the story deals with real life subjects under the surface - most predominantly child abuse, domestic violence, love, sexual repression, parental neglect, mental illness, human decency, sacrifice and ambitions.
It is 26 episodes so the pop-corn and cola advice applies.
Anime - Another
For tips on how to plot an effective mystery/horror story, Another is a good place to look. It has all the requisite elements and creepy atmosphere coming out the wazoo. Btw. did I mention that it's not for kids? Well, it isn't.... unless you have very creepy kids.
The protagonist is a boy who moves from Tokyo to a small town where he attends a new school that looks a lot like an abandoned lunatic asylum from the outside. The creepy stuff begins immediately when he meets an odd one-eyed girl that nobody else can see and he keep hearing weird rumors from his classmates about some mystic curse that is haunting the class he is attending. And people keep treating him as if they have seen him before, even though he is certain that he has never set foot in the town. Needless to say that it doesn't take long before the shit hits the fan and people start dying in various spectacular ways. Yep - there is lotsa blod and violence.
This anime could easily have been a Hollywood movie if the gore was toned down a little, since there is no incest or under-age sex in it. In that case I would choose M. Night Shyamalan as director, which should say something about the kind of territory we move in.
There are 13 episodes and the english dub is fine so there is no need to read sub titles.
Btw a funny piece of trivia: I read that the hairstyle, eye-patch and red bow of creepy-girl became all the rage in Japan when this anime was released and for moths the stores had red bows in back-order. Well, I guess Japanese fans can be quite enthusiastic...
Anime - Code Geass
For the large and epic story-stelling Code Geass is a fine example. The drawing style may look a bit cartoonish, but don't worry about it - once you start you soon forget that you are even watching a cartoon. Yes, the writing is that god.
The story takes place in a futuristic world where the UK is a fascist empire - one of three major super powers that rules the world - and is currently occupying Japan with a nazi-like fervor. The main protagonist is a hyper-intelligent young British prince - Lelouch Lamperouge - who has been disowned by the court and secretly attends college in Japan while caring for his blind and disabled sister. One day he gets involved in a riot and almost ends up dead, but is saved in the nick of time by a mysterious green-haired girl who offers him a deal; in return for an unspecified favor at a later time she grants him the ability to compel another person to do what he says if he has eye contact with him.
Lelouch decides to start a rebellion against the Brits using his superior strategic intellect and his new hypnotizing skill, and he creates a masked alter ego for this purpose which he names "Zero". Despite his abilities this, doesn't go nearly as smoothly as planned and there are more plot twists and unexpected developments than you can shake a stick at. Almost every single episode ends with a cliff-hanger so it's really hard to not watch the whole thing in one session. Which would take a couple of days since there are 50 episodes in total. So get lotsa pop-corn for this one.
And be sure to get the japanese version with sub-titles. The english dub can't hold a candle to the original.
Honorable mention: Ghost in the Shell
There are two movies and three series and they still reign as some of the best cyberpunk story telling around. The problem is, that the original movies are almost 20 years old and they are showing their age - the animation is not up to modern standard. Thus I am reluctant to recommend them to non-geeks. But if you can look past that limitation, the stories are top notch. To judge for yourself you can check the opening sequence with Kenji Kawai's famous haunting music score.
Btw. be aware that these movies contain extensive "fan-service" - that's another word for boobies and nudity. They aren't gory compared to modern anime and there is no actual sex - it's all robo-boobies - but some people might not deem them entirely child safe. Just sayin'...
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