9/05/2014 - Minding My Own Business

The degree to which writing is about creating mirrored bookends may be reduced down to each turn of phrase. In my The Story – Ending Stories piece (found at fav.me/d6352sr ) I talked about how a story's beginning and ending can be seen as a pair of mirrored bookends, meaning that if you're stuck for how to end a story, simply look at the beginning. But a chapter should do so as well, and a paragraph should do so, and a sentence should do so. The beginning should foreshadow the ending, and the ending should call back to the beginning. The beginning should lay out the goal, the premise of the experiment or the foundation of the castle. The ending should be spent reaching the goal, summarizing the results of the experiment or putting the final stone in the castle wall. And in-between those two? That's where you put the beautiful fluff, the action and the drama and the suspense that is needed to keep the reader's attention. That's where you run the long race, where you do the careful experiments, where you build your mighty castle. Do I like the piece? I like how well the old dragon metaphor works, along with how useful that dragon-slaying sword became in talking about foreshadowing … but not so much for the talk of realism, when a better word would be consistency, and also the piece as a whole needs some rearranging and focusing. What did I learn? Have am ending in mind, but keep it simple; the story will change as you write it, and the ending must reflect that.

This week it's part 3 of High War's chapter 14! Armor is recovered and the secret of the missing animals is revealed! Our heroes face an army, but Teal's second transformation makes her a one-woman army! And there's going to be a part 4 of this chapter with an even bigger battle! But next week, the Game perhaps!

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Minding My Own Business
by Rainer Koreasalo

Home: mmob.comicgenesis.com/
First: mmob.comicgenesis.com/d/200202…

Is persistence a virtue? Protagonists are made virtuous for trying to do the right thing even after they fail, but on the other hand not when they persist in trying the wrong thing. Antagonists who persist in committing crimes even after being stopped once or twice are not more virtuous, although an antagonist who is simply an opponent or rival of the protagonist does seem more virtuous if their persistent opposing is meant to better the protagonist. This only leads to the idea that persistence is a virtue when the persisting is done for a worthy goal or using worthy methods, which seems uninteresting; the virtue would come from the worthiness of the act, not the persistence it took to get there. Perhaps instead we meant to say persistence is a virtue in terms of character design, that a fictional character is better designed for having persistence as a character trait. Consider the central protagonist of this webcomic, whose life seems bent on breaking him of his sometimes-virtuous persistence. He starts a most mysterious man, wearing shades and a suit, speaking little other than the brutal advice he dispenses on relationships and happiness. Women are drawn to him despite his claims of indifference or even distaste towards them, there is a long section where he is much rumored to be gay, but in the end it turns out that he is simply pining for an impossible love. He has devoted himself to her even though he cannot have her, and so he remains single despite the women overtly and very persistently trying to seduce him. Then the dam breaks when someone he was once cruel towards – back when they were both very young children – approaches; his guilt causes him to spend an evening with her, which becomes a night when the mutual attraction becomes too much. From there the comic becomes almost an absurd parade of his friends also meeting that someone they were always looking for, as if the world is granting relationships to the entire cast for our hero's decision to loosen up. The comic almost devolves from there in to a series of best first dates, heavy flirtations and a lot of pinup shots. The art does improve with time by a bit, while keeping a moody black and white.

Why you should read this: If you like crude and sexual “guy” humor, because the characters often spend multiple strips doing nothing but that, and to the point where the plot seems forgotten. The comic is deeply thoughtful on love and relationships - though you may not agree with those thoughts – with a little philosophy and spirituality, so if you want to have something to think about.

Why you shouldn't read this: There isn't much focus to the plot or maybe the pace is just very slow, mostly because the comic wants to be both plot based and gag-a-day; there are subtle hints of a dark plot behind every silly thing that occurs, though it takes a dramatic twist too far down the road to maybe just barely see it. The comic has been on indefinite hiatus for years now, with the author promising to continue but not doing much.

Other cool stuff: First things first, the grainy green-lines background of the site is probably a pretty good example of how not to do a website, but anyway … There's not much here to be honest, it's an old and somewhat forgotten site. A blog, a link or two to the author's favorite webcomics, and a piece of fan art.