Saturday, June 30, 2018

How NOT To Write An Epic Story (Couresy of Thor Ragnarok)



Hello everyone! Yes I know it must be weird me posting again within the same month! You'll just have to find some way to deal with this paradox. 

Anyways before I get into the post I want to warn everyone that if you haven't seen Thor Ragnarok this post will contain spoilers from the movie.

And if you have seen the movie (and liked it) I just want to say that I'm coming at it from a writing perspective, not a movie goer perspective. So this isn't a movie review or my thoughts on the movie.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie please turn away, check out an older post, or check back next week. Don't worry I'll give you some time to leave...

Are the gone Garry?... Okay! Lets kick things up a notch just like back in New York!


Now as we all start our writing adventures we usually don't know the "does" and "don'ts" of things. We have yet to learn the fundamentals to build off of. So we look how the ones that came before us did things and take our cues from them. We often don't know yet which cues are the good ones and which are the bad. So today I'll be talking about 4 things that you should never do when writing a novel (And yes Thor Ragnarok will be the example of what not to do). So lets get into the 4 things! 

1) Never switch the tone of your novel!


Now I'm pretty sure it's a given not to do this, but you'd be surprised at the novels I've read where the author decided to switch the tone of the series either in the middle of the series or in the last book. That is never a good idea because it makes your reader feel like they are reading something completely new. They'll be left wondering what happened to the story from the pervious books. Take the Frist two Thor Movies for instance. 

They build a world where they merged Norse legend with high tech science. And they did it in a way that made it work! The tones of the movies where slightly darker then the other marvel movies but that was okay because it matched the setting they build and the world the placed Thor in . But then in the third movie the tone is drastically changed, it went from being this cool Norse/tech movie to this Star Wars/Star Trek/Guardians of the Galaxy rip off that honestly left you wondering what had happened to Thor.



 Not only did they change the general tone of the more serious plots in to a light hearted space adventure, what they changed next also happens to be my next point.

2) Never Switch the personality of your character!

Now before you all jump on me about Character Arcs and how the Character needs to grow through the novel (which are all good things) I'm talking about totally forgetting the characters pervious personality and giving them a totally different personality. Take Thor for instance. They developed Thor, in the pervious movies, as a more serious guy. 

Yes He could smile and could laugh, but he had a serious personality, he didn't crack jokes (unless he did so unknowingly). He was a strong warrior after all. But then in the last instalment they changed his personally from this warrior to this joking idiot.



Now taking your character and putting them in different places is totally fine, having them grow as a character is fine. But when you change the personality you originally gave your character at the start of a series it's like you gave your readers a totally new character who happens to share the same name as the pervious one did. That means the person your reader has been growing with, and been watching grow, is gone. The person that connected them to your story is now gone and they no longer have a reason to keep reading.

3) Never have death be meaningless! 

Death should never be meaningless when you write a story. The reason is because death isn't a laughable thing, it is the end of a life and nothing can change that. Now in the previous Thor movies they handled death well. They showed that Thor, who started the movie out wanting to kill all the Frost Giants, learned life isn't just something to take willy nilly. The movies do a good job of showing that death means something, like when the Odin son's lose their mom, and Odin loses his wife. That death has an impact not only on the characters but also on us who are watching it. But in Ragnarok death is treated as nothing. We see Thor lose his father, we see Thor's best friends (the warriors three, who have proven themselves as warriors who could handle themselves, but that's a side note as a reviewer) die without any fight, tons of Asgardian warriors fell, innocent people killed, we even see Asgard itself destroyed. But yet none of these deaths mean anything to us or even to the main characters. Because they are all treated like a joke. We can't truly connect to the characters and their own pain because they are not even in pain. Which leads us to my last point.

4) Comedy has a place, don't over use it! 

Yes it's true. Comedy does have a place in a novel. But don't ever overuse comedy, because it will then become that overused joke that everyone (including your readers) will find annoying. The biggest problem with Thor Ragnarok is that it has a very serious story idea, after all it is about the fall of Asgard, but yet the movie itself doesn't take it's own premise seriously. So if the movie can't take itself seriously then how can we? And it's the same when it comes to writing, if your characters can't take their own premise with the needed level of seriousness that is called for by the premise, niehter will your readers. I would say the use of comedy should be determined by the author, but never overused.

Well there you have it, the 4 things an author should never do when writing an epic story. I'm sure all of you already knew this facts, but I felt like posting something about it (plus taking a stab at Thor Ragnarok is a plus) So yeah. 

If you have anything to add to this list I would love to hear it! Or maybe you have a different opinion, I would love to hear that as well! But keep the comments clean. Anyways I look forward to hearing what you have to say! 

Until next time, Stay True to the King!

23 comments:

  1. YES TO ALL OF THIS. I wasn't fond of Ragnarok for all the reasons mentioned above. Compared to the first two EPIC movies... it fell FLAT. Utterly flat. Past lessons were forgotten. Characters meant NOTHING. This post was a great insight of how... not to do things. xD

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    1. Yes! I feel the exact same way about Ragnarok! Finally someone else who didn't like it for the same reasons I didn't! Thanks I'm glad you liked it!

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  2. I can't handle you posting twice in the same month, so I'll have to come back later...jk, jk. XD

    Every point you made was absolutely true. Awesome post!

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    1. I'm sorry. I was gonna post three times just to give you all a heart attack but thought better of it :P

      Thanks!

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    2. Yeah, I would have fallen over out of my chair if you did that... except I'm sitting on one of those large yoga ball things that people use instead of chairs... so I would have rolled off of it if you posted three times in a month. XD XD

      Just kidding. It's nice to see you back in the blogosphere. XD

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    3. That sounds kinda dangerous, I should get one Thanks Ivie!

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  3. Agreed on absolutely everything. For those very reasons, this film is my least favorite Marvel movie. Just awful.

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    1. Well first off I want to say Hello Jackie, thanks for stopping by and dropping a comment! I hope you enjoy your time here!

      I know right! They totally messed Thor up, it was so bad and didn't make any sense. Thanks for giving this post a read

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  4. While I have not seen the movie, nor the ones leading up to it (I know, *gasp*, I wasn't supposed to keep reading due to spoilers. Oh well), I do agree with the points made for sure. Especially the meaningless death aspect. I HATE when novels do that - kill off a character FOR NO REASON other than the shock factor. Makes me so angry. XP I read a book recently that I loved, and I absolutely loved this side character - he added the right comedic relief, had a strong character, and would have made a great hero of a sequel book, BUT then he got killed for no reason. And there's a certain series that just about everyone adores so I won't mention it, but that also had a very needless character-death. Just for the shock factor. I do not like things used just for shock. If it has a purpose, fine. If it grows the characters, fine. But not just to shock the reader.
    Okay, rant over. ;)

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    1. *Gasp!* How could you 0o0

      Aaaaa I hate when they do that! Death shouldn't be meaningless, I mean come on! That's just annoying! Naaa it's fine, I like the rant every now and then, you could stand to do some more actually

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    2. I know, it's crazy; I mean, me breaking rules?? What has this world come to.

      Yes, yes, yes. Like, it's a topic that I shouldn't even get started on. XD
      Ah okay, well I shall direct any further rants your way! My family gets rather sick of them, because when I get on a book-rant...well.

      I was actually thinking about all the conversations we used to have, and realize that I definitely could've handled them better, though they were helpful still. I think that with time gone by, the maturity level strengthens and discussion conversations become a bit easier.
      But that is a bunny-trail. ;)

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    3. 0o0 I don't even know what is going on in this crazy world anymore -_-

      Hahaha Hey I know what you mean, sometimes our little writer rants can go on for a while. Yeah I know what you mean :)

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  5. Did you go see Infinity Wars?- Jose

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    1. No. But it looks really cool!- Jose

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    2. It was! I'm planning on doing a review of those movies I haven't yet.

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  6. *nods* I agree with it all from a writing perspective. That said, I must admit I did enjoy the movie. Though not seeing past movies in a long time, and only seeing #2 once or twice probably makes some difference in that I don't quite remember where everyone is supposed to be personality wise. :P

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    1. Thanks Hope! Well I didn't get into why I hate it from a movie perspective just because that would go on my movie review side

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  7. I have not seen the Thor movies, and (confession) none of the other Marvel stuff... Just not a super hero girl!!! Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli suffice for wonderful heroes
    I have however heard that the last Thor movie that came out was a little on the goofy side. Which is actually the reason that the last couple Star Wars episodes have been ruining Star Wars... Too much goofy humor!!! Harison Ford humor is one thing, but goodness! The past episodes have been so silly! Rogue One nearly saved it all, but... I totally agree that humor has it's place, but when it ruins the movie or book for that matter, it's just basically makes the whole thing stupidness with laser beams.
    And I liked your point about not taking death lightly. That's a concern I've heard about video games, movies, etc. Too much senseless killing! It's one thing to have self defense, but to shoot the guy next to you because he will give you away by his panic attack. I mean really, are movies trying to blur the lines between the right time to take life? Life is sacred, what happened to characters who are willing to lay down their lives for others? And furthermore, isn't that the reason to fight?
    Great post!!!
    astoryspinner.blogspot.com

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    1. o0o how could you!?!?… I'm just kidding, I understand they are not for everyone ^_^

      Exactly! It's like they can't handle writing a very serious story so they just throw in humor to "make us happy" with it. It totally is! if death is meaningless then that means that giving ones life to save someone else is really meaningless, which is sad because that is what made heroes so cool. They disregarded their own life to save that of another person.
      Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!

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  8. I actually didn't see Thor Ragnarok so most of this post was just scanning and looking at all the pictures and gifs and such :P But the points were all very good every though I tried not to read any spoilers lol
    mostly this comment is just for me to say hi *waves*

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    1. Hahahaha Thanks, well in that case *waves back* Hello!

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  9. *shows up late to the wrong party*

    Full disclosure, I disliked the first two Thor movies because they had so much potential but seemed like caricatures/shadows of what they could have been. They seemed too self-serious because they didn't have the depth to pull off a weighty, serious story. But I adore Ragnarok BECAUSE they changed the tone and personality, BECAUSE they trimmed off the bland dead weight, BECAUSE they totally surprised me.

    Of course, all that is just my opinion, and I am clearly in the minority here. *hides*

    But I definitely agree with your points as the general storytelling rules! :)

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I love seeing what you have to say, and I try to always respond to every comment so feel free to come back and check