![まろ's writing classroom: Lesson 5 [Preparation Assignment] Elements and World View (Part 2)](https://og.vista.tw/s-writing-classroom-lesson-5-preparation-2.png)
まろ's writing classroom: Lesson 5 [Preparation Assignment] Elements and World View (Part 2)
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The author of this article まろ is the author of the light novel “Southern Cross”. He hopes to use his own experience to help more friends write good stories. Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby.
Working on a play is like driving a car. The accelerator, brake, and steering wheel cooperate and control each other. They must be taught separately, but the degree of integration is the value.
Recently, netizens have been asking me about “how to write good novels”. Therefore, I organized my experience in writing light novels into 34 themes, divided into three stages: [Preparation Assignment], [Plot Process] and [Writing Management].
Whether you want to write a novel, a biography, or a business history, these articles can help. No matter what your writing level is, I will guide you through the two stages of [preparation] and [plot flow] to complete a piece of work, so start right away!
A good worldview has a context and allows the conflict between the story premise and the characters to become more intense.
Whoa! After the previous ten lessons, we are finally going to finish explaining the four core elements of a play - premise, character, conflict, world view and context. As long as you complete the next lesson [Lesson 6: Narrative Methods and Storyboarding], the stage of [Preparing Homework] will be over! Please study with me! Before starting, it is recommended that you check from “まろ’s writing classroom tag” to confirm whether you have read the content of Lessons 1 to 5 (Part 2). If you don’t want to create a fantasy story, you can skip Lesson 5 (Part 1).
This article is a summary of Lessons 2 to 5 (Part 2). I will share with you the drama works that impressed me, and explain in detail the premise, characters, conflicts, world view and context. I think many people start writing plays as a tribute to their favorite works, including me. But I must say that tribute does not mean complete imitation, which is no different from plagiarism. If you are determined to create great works, you can think about this sentence of Picasso.
_Good artists plagiarize, great artists steal. _
You can refer to the premise of your favorite work, or its world view and context, but please at least change the character settings and conflict points. In fact, this requires considerable courage. Every successful IP (Intellectual Property, here generally refers to characters and settings) represents a proven and feasible trajectory. On the other hand, if you do not follow the existing trajectory, the success rate cannot be accurately estimated. So you should be able to understand why commercial works often change the soup without changing the medicine, because they must ensure a certain return on investment.
Therefore, it is understandable to want to refer to popular works when you have no writing experience. But as a creator who is proud of his originality, I would like to encourage you to try new works when there are no performance considerations. In a good work, all links are closely connected. When the “reference” reaches a certain level, other conflict options and character configurations will become unreasonable, so it will only become a copycat in the end.
So stick to the bare minimum - create new conflicts by constructing new characters and human emotions. So, let me share these excellent works with you. You can steal, but never copy.
Too many possibilities, happiness or pain? ─“The Pianist on the Sea”.
The protagonist 1900 is an abandoned baby on the piano of the steam liner Virginia. He was adopted by the miners on the ship and grew up on the ship. One night, there was a beautiful piano sound on the ship, and everyone knew that 1900 was a piano prodigy. From then on, 1900 worked as a pianist on the ship.
Although 1900 has superb piano playing skills, he has no desires and desires. Even if his friend Max in the band persuades him, he just doesn’t want to get off the boat. Even after winning the competition with the founder of jazz, he did not change anything and had no interest in success.
It wasn’t until he met a beautiful woman on the boat that he thought of getting off the boat because of love. But at the moment when he was about to get off the ship, he felt that land was too big a ship for him, the beauty was too beautiful, and the perfume was too strong, so he stayed on the ship. In the end, 1900 was buried at the bottom of the sea together with the Virginia which was blown up and scrapped.
Is it eternal life? Or forced death? ─“The Hour War”
This movie has a very interesting world view and completely embodies the saying “time is money”. In the year 2169, due to genetic engineering, everyone will be born with a digital clock on their forearm. People will not age after the age of 25, and the digital clock will count down one year. If the “time coin” is not obtained, the person will “time out” and die.
The protagonist Wilson lives in a slum and works as a factory worker to make a living. Due to inflation, he may not earn 24 hours of time coins after working in a day. One night, Will rescued an old man in a bar who was impatient and showed that he had a lot of time coins. The two hid in a secret location after escaping from the gangsters who were trying to steal the time coins. The old man revealed the truth about “time wealth” and secretly transferred a huge amount of time coins to Will while he was sleeping. Only five minutes were left to walk to the bridge and jump into the river, but this attracted the attention of the time police.
That night, his mother, who was dependent on him, did not have enough time coins to pay the fare. She was unable to obtain the time coins due to a difference of only a few seconds, and died in Will’s arms. Will therefore decided to go to New Greenwich where rich people gathered for revenge, and met the banker’s daughter, and took her hostage to start an adventure together.
This science fiction movie strictly abides by economics and psychology. You can see an interesting overtone from the story: when the pair of mandarin duck thieves robbed everywhere, most people did not resist. After all, as long as they still have time coins, they have the opportunity to live forever. Except for the tough guy time policeman Leon, no one else will take the risk of chasing the hero and heroine. It can be seen that the temptation of eternal life is enough to wipe out most people’s sense of justice and responsibility. Isn’t it interesting?
Is peace that wipes out humanity still peace? ─“Reloading Mission”
In the post-World War III future, in the name of ensuring peace, people have to take a drug called Prozium every day to remove their emotions. To prevent people from secretly discontinuing their medication, the government encouraged people to inform each other and established a secret police force known as “ideological committees.”
The protagonist John is an excellent ideological committee member who implements the committee chairman’s will every day and arrests terrorists called artists. He believed it was to achieve peace and create a better future, until one day he missed his medication and began to have doubts about suppressing emotions.
As he stopped taking his medication several times, his long-lost emotions gradually returned. And he finally made up his mind to overthrow this dictatorial regime under the banner of peace. He took advantage of the opportunity to receive a medal for destroying the artist’s lair, and was able to compete with the chairman and the escort team.
For sci-fi fans who are accustomed to dystopias, the structure of “Reloaded” has many loopholes. But I still have high praise for its premise, and the original martial arts in the film-shooting karate is also very interesting.
Guarding the peaceful and prosperous age bought with blood─“Excalibur”
We have mentioned in the third lesson (Part 1) the protagonist of this game, Himura Kenshin. In the turbulent last years of the shogunate, he and his comrades who defeated the shogunate defeated powerful enemies such as the Shinsengumi, finally ending the shogunate era and starting the Meiji Restoration. However, he was so famous for killing thousands of people that he encountered people pretending to be him everywhere when he traveled around. Until he met Kaoru Kamiya, the daughter of a run-down dojo who was being harassed by impostors, Kenshin also faced his own sins in the last years of the shogunate again as he helped people around him escape from bullies.
Let’s carefully examine the era (world view) in which this work is set. First of all, the author and Nobuhiro Tsuki obviously want the protagonist to be “the founder of the era who has experienced the war.” Based on this condition, “the Heian period to the government and the Kamakura shogunate” or “the Warring States period to the Azuchi-Momoyama period” will be fine. However, the author chose the era “from the Edo Shogunate to the Meiji Restoration”, which is fundamentally different from the previous two eras. The Meiji Restoration’s “four people are equal” policy abolished the nobility and samurai classes, which can make the characters resonate more with us as civilians.
In addition, the Meiji era saw great progress in military affairs. Compared to the matchlocks of the Warring States Period, the Meiji Era already had the ancestor of modern firearms. Therefore, in the [Kanyanagi Arc] Kenshin fought against the Gatling Gun, and in the [Kyoto Arc] it was upgraded to fight against an armored ship. These were conflicts that could only occur in the Meiji Era.
Therefore, it can be seen that the world view of “Excalibur” is the result of careful consideration.
The definition of life is the survival of consciousness or body? ─“Startup source code”
Army pilot Kurt suddenly found himself sitting on a train, and his identity became high school history teacher Sean, heading to Chicago with Sean’s female companion Christina. Not long after, the train exploded and Kurt returned to the cockpit of a wonderful machine. Only then was Kurt informed that he had just been investigating a terrorist attack on a train within a mechanism called the “Source Code System.”
The setting of the original code system is very special. It is based on quantum theory and can accurately reproduce past events and simulate the consequences of being affected. Simply put, the entire train bombing case has been archived. Kurt can use all means to find out the real culprit before the train explodes. If he fails, he will suffer the pain of the explosion and then do it all over again.
After experiencing several explosions, Kurt finally caught the real culprit and found that he was still alive with only consciousness. He asked the mission liaison officer to shut down his own life support system so he could rest in peace. Of course, the doctor who leads the source code project disagrees. He also plans to erase Kurt’s memory and continue with the next mission. Faced with the dilemma between a sense of justice and human empathy, the liaison officer finally disobeyed orders and turned off Kurt’s life-support system. But during the last mission, Kurt’s consciousness entered a parallel time and space where the train did not explode. He continued to live in the world as history teacher Sean, and lived a happy life with Christina.
The most powerful thing in the world is the technology of manipulating people’s hearts. ─“Miss Sherlock”
Regarding the content of this album, please refer to the film review I wrote [“Miss SherlockExquisite and Gorgeous Crime Sonata”](http://blog.hukaka.com/2018/06/17/%e7%a5%9e%e6%8e%a2%e5%a4%8f%e6%b4%9b%e5%85%8b %e5%b0%8f%e5%a7%90-%e7%b2%be%e7%b7%bb%e8%8f%af%e7%be%8e%e7%9a%84%e7%8a%af%e7%bd%aa%e9%b3%b4%e5%a5%8f%e6%9b%b2/), and then go directly to the point. The main highlight of this adaptation is that both Holmes and Watson are replaced by women, but I think there is another more important thing, which is the villain [Professor Moriarty] in the play (https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A9%B9 %E5%A7%86%E6%96%AF%C2%B7%E8%8E%AB%E9%87%8C%E4%BA%9A%E8%92%82%E6%95%99%E6%8E%88), from a mathematics professor to a psychiatrist.
Why is this important? A mathematics professor will become the leader of a world criminal organization. In fact, I don’t think this setting is very reasonable. But if you want, if someone can control others to commit suicide attacks and thereby become a terrorist leader, to a certain extent, a psychologist is a very suitable role.
Because of their profession, psychiatrists are inherently exposed to mental depression or [PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%89%B5%E5%82%B7%E5%BE%8 C%E5%A3%93%E5%8A%9B%E7%97%87%E5%80%99%E7%BE%A4) patients, it seems that it is indeed possible for psychologists to guide them to become more extreme (but I believe that psychologists in the real world will not do this). At least, I think it’s far more reasonable than a math professor.
This is an excellent example of paying homage but not plagiarizing. The writing team certainly knows the charm of Professor Moriarty. If you are lazy, you can just set it as a mathematics professor, but setting it as a psychiatrist will have a completely different impact. This is one of the few settings that has shocked me in the past few years. As a playwright, I admire the courage and professionalism of the playwriting team.
Okay, I have seen many examples before, but I believe that when you weave a story yourself, you will still encounter a problem in the world view - how precise should the depiction be?
I once read a vague answer in a playbook called “It just has to look presentable.” I don’t think you will accept it, so after some consideration, I would like to give you this definition:
The level of detail in describing the world must be sufficient for the character to carry out his story. Furthermore, the level of detail must be comparable to works of a similar nature.
For example, the main characters in “Southern Cross” are all high school students, and the world view they need can generally satisfy ordinary shopping, campus life and play. Because they are underage, they cannot drink unless you intentionally break the law, and naturally they have no knowledge of alcohol.
But if your story is like “Shizuku God”, which is a career story with wine tasting as the core, you must have the basic concepts of wine tasting, such as the country, year, manor, brewing method, etc. The current wine tasting works may not have a “biochemical” perspective, so you don’t necessarily need to adopt them. But on the contrary, maybe you can also create a new wine tasting story based on biochemistry.
At the end of this lesson, I use the illustration of “Southern Cross” to let you understand the precision of our settings.
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▲This festival still is drawn with reference to real photos of the shrine. We reproduced the style of the Kasuga-zukuri Shrine in Kansai, Japan. Because the story takes place in a town famous for its maple leaves, my setting is Wakayama Prefecture in Kansai. Even though the story never specified that it was set in Japan, I still adopted a realistic basic setting.
As night falls, there are fewer people coming to worship. In front of the torii gate, I heard the sound of drums coming from the distance. Looking up, I realized that the shrine in the town was so big, and that the roof of the main shrine was made of elegantly raised spring-shaped rays. It turns out that the halo of the whole row of paper lanterns hanging from the stone steps is so simple and beautiful. And…it turns out that this is how it feels to hold a girl. “Southern Cross” Chapter 1 Part 3
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▲You should notice that the sleeper pattern behind Yizhi (what everyone mistakenly calls the zebra crossing) is different from that in Taiwan. The design of this tram stop is based on a real Japanese town tram stop.
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▲Yizhi’s formal dress in the drama “Puss in Boots”. Can you tell how this dress combines those styles? There are three types: modern Milan, modern Bohemia and **medieval France.
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▲It is also a princess costume from the drama “Puss in Boots”. In order to emphasize the dominance of the royal family, this dress uses a lot of triangles. For example, triangular lace and sleeves, as well as military double-breasted buttons that are rarely used on dresses.
congratulations! Finally completed the most core course! The next class [Lesson 6: Narrative Methods and Storyboards] (click to read) will be much easier and you can take a breather (laughing). Having said that, before we enter [Lesson 7: Plot Process: Prologue], please read this series of articles carefully. Please remember to start from “まろ’s Writing Classroom” tag**” Check to see if there are any missed courses.
There is quite a lot of extended reading for this course. Please go to my booklet to read some of the books.
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[Movie “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”](https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%9D%99%E8%9D%A0%E4%BF%A 0%E5%B0%8D%E8%B6%85%E4%BA%BA%EF%BC%9A%E6%AD%A3%E7%BE%A9%E6%9B%99%E5%85%89)
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The legendary magician in the mythology of England and Wales: Merlin
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[Movie “Death Fight between Demon Boys”](http://shoovi.pixnet.net/blog/post/58208283-%E3%80%90%E5%A8%98%E5%A8%98%E4%B8%8D%E5%B0%88% E6%A5%AD%E5%BD%B1%E8%A9%95%E3%80%91%E9%AD%94%E7%94%B7%E7%94%9F%E6%AD%BB%E9%AC%A5the-covenant%282006%29)
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[Miss Detective Sherlock
Exquisite and gorgeous crime sonata](http://blog.hukaka.com/2018/06/17/%e7%a5%9e%e6%8e%a2%e5%a4%8f%e6%b4%9b%e5%85%8b%e5%b 0%8f%e5%a7%90-%e7%b2%be%e7%b7%bb%e8%8f%af%e7%be%8e%e7%9a%84%e7%8a%af%e7%bd%aa%e9%b3%b4%e5%a5%8f%e6%9b%b2/) -
A Certain Hemp Book Grid: World Literature Myths and Fairy Tales
If you have any thoughts and suggestions about this article, please feel free to write to maro.huang@hukaka.com and I will reply to you personally.
Further reading
- まろ’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 5 [Preparation Assignment] Elements and World View (Part 2)
- まろ’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 5 [Preparation Assignment] Elements and World View (Part 1)
- Misaki’s Writing Classroom: Lesson 7 [Plot Process] Prologue (Part 2)
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