beyond conflict base story through minimal story

Neoshaman · 2006-06-29T12:50:53

hello! Did really all story conflict base? It seems to me that there is a more large sets for story that most westerner tradition let in the meme pool. Let's use minimal story to highlight this. Minimal story is story reduce to there bare component, the 3 acts structure (exposition, developement, conclusion) in nearly one sentence. for ex a commonly conflict base story: "Bowser kidnap the princess but Mario manage to save her". "Bowser kidnap the princess" is the exposition, the first state of the story,"Mario manage to save her" is the conclusion, the last state. Heck what about the developement? well it's implicit by the juxtaposition of the exposition and the conclusion, it's emergent. Reverse the order of the proposition and you have a complete diferent story. Developement is the process of going from state 1 to state 2, and in this case, this process is a conflict or a problem that need a resolution (the kidnaping). Let assume that a good story reside in the surprising but meaningful and relevent twist (process) that lead from the first state to the last. Here to say, is there other kind of process for going from state 1 to state 2 that make compelling story? This why we should use minimal stories as they give us a cheap framework to study this problem efficiently. Some sample "Harry marry a woman but discover it was a man." Here the story do not open with a conflict or a problem but finish with, it is a form which is widely use in comedy (of manner and attitude?) in my opinion, but it detract from the conflict approch, well at least in the auditory part since the writer would start with this as a problem. "Bowser kidnap the princess but mario pick up a ice cream" In this case, the story use context of meme pool to convey his meaning, the reader must know who is bowser and mario to make sens of that. The story rely on specific external data to get meaning. "Harry dedicates all his life to women, he dies happy" This a particular story that are not conflict base. Insteed he highlight a statement. A full fledge story will be full of case that demonstrate this, not necesserly with conflict. I think miyazaki's Totoro is from this kind. "He was a normal guy, but he killed seven psychopath all by himself" This, here too, is not necesserly conflict oriented. By instance it is the telling of an extraordinary event. I may have choose a better exemple for exemple a child that have make it to the top of everest... Can you think of anything else? Did this make sense to you? Side note: I tend to categorize story into two diferent category for myself, temporal, and spatial. While temporal tend to be very chronological (such as conflict type story), spatial are most base on case and variation of combinaison of element to show a theme, just like a demonstration that show many case to let you understand the whole picture. Spatial story tend to have a puzzle feel (collect information) than temporal one. PS: i'm french, sorry if the langage is sometimes confuse :)

Writing for Games Game Design

Started by Neoshaman June 27, 2006 06:27 AM

13 comments, last by Neoshaman 18 years, 7 months ago

Neoshaman

Author

180

June 29, 2006 05:51 AM

And what about the good story WITHOUT CONFLICT:)
And what about SIMPLE story that make it?

I'm not saying that conflict base movie are bad, but easier to make.
and a story does not have to be complex to be good IMHO.

A good story is just a good story.

As writing aware, i have interest to find any form of good writing and story and not to reharsh the same formula.

It's a challenge.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>be goodbe evilbut do it WELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

T1Oracle

100

June 29, 2006 08:47 AM

Quote:
Original post by Neoshaman
And what about the good story WITHOUT CONFLICT:)

Ce n'est pas possible.

Programming since 1995.

Neoshaman

Author

180

June 29, 2006 12:50 PM

There is two solution: Totoro is not a good story despite is sucess, or you don't like it.
Or else 'Romeo must die' is a master piece of cinema.

The real question: is any meanigful progress is a conflict.

Well we are going nowhere if we keep thinking conflict is so essentiel, i was here to try to find different way, to challenge thing. I'll give up if no one takes the challenge with me.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>be goodbe evilbut do it WELL>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

beyond conflict base story through minimal story

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beyond conflict base story through minimal story

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