Old poison is still poison, or my least favorite Sherlock Holmes story.

As a writer, I’ve been a reader for a much longer portion of my life. Not surprisingly, this included the adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes. In my boyhood years, one story in the collection came and passed without much of note beyond it being the great detective’s most felonious adventure, "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton".

Years later, and somewhat wiser to the ways of the world, I revisited it in audiobook format during a long drive and was in for a surprise.

I didn’t just no longer enjoy the story, I now despised it. It made me feel gross.

This was especially jarring as for most of the other stories in the collection I was having a load of fun strolling down memory lane. The problem was that the moral and philosophical framework underlying the story was, and I don’t use this word lightly, perverse.

This might shock some of my more liberally minded friends, who see me as a religious fanatic. What’s going on, Jon? You like the Victorian era, remember? I thought you said their culture had a much better grasp of human nature and making a functional society than current year?

They did. That does not mean they were right about everything. The framework in this particular short story is a highly concentrated example of this error.

The poison I’m addressing here traces its position in the west back to the 12th century and goes by the name of courtly love. Though these days, it is the behavior most people me when they use the word ‘chivalry’, which has nothing to do with being a strong man, a good fighter, or anything like that.

It is not a Christian worldview, even academics admit to that.

https://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/courtlylove.html 

The article calls it a ‘suave new form of paganism’ but I can’t imagine Odysseus, Hector, Alexander the Great, or even your average pagan from days of yore looking at this with anything but disgust and confusion.

The Christian idea of the ‘noble pagan’ is a pagan who can embody, or at least approach embodying, the four cardinal virtues of prudence justice, temperance, and fortitude. No noble pagan will come of courtly love, it destroys noble character and even the possibility of noble character. It tries to raise a woman’s base feelings to a moral force which men must fight for and submit to as the greatest honor they can achieve.

The man must be a spineless, put-upon, doormat of a simp and the woman a proud, frigid, unfaithful harlot who at best favors him lightly.

This is completely against any sane sense of honor or morality from both Christians and pagans and is baked into the setup, and you see permutations of it in so much once you know what to look for. C.S. Lewis goes into much more detail about ‘the religion of love’ in his writings, so if you’re interested in the details, go there. Or Darlock’s now inactive blog, there’s a lot worth reading there.

Suffice to say here, that the ideals had permeated British culture thoroughly in Holmes’ day.

Even now, the highest order of chivalry in England in the Order of the Garter, the symbol of which is emblazoned on their passports.

The most popular story behind that symbol that some woman had a suspiciously timed wardrobe malfunction and the king decided to protect her from the shame of having dropped her underwear in front of him and the rest of the court by putting it on and saying: “Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it)”.

Yeah… if you think on it for more than a second, you see what’s going on here.

This saying is also emblazoned on the country's passports to this day.

Very Lancelotian, but utterly alien to the eyes of knights like Roland, or even the older version of Arthur called the Red Ravager of Britain.

Now with the framework explained, let’s look onto the adventure itself:

Enter Milverton, the most honest crook around.

Sherlock Holmes is in the employ of a Lady Eva Blackwell, the most beautiful debutante of the hour. He’s tasked with retrieving some letters that would cause a scandal and end her marriage engagement to a wealthy and powerful noble.

He describes Milverton as such:

“I’ll tell you, Watson. He is the king of all the blackmailers. Heaven help the man, and still more the woman, whose secret and reputation come into the power of Milverton! With a smiling face and a heart of marble, he will squeeze and squeeze until he has drained them dry. The fellow is a genius in his way, and would have made his mark in some more savoury trade. His method is as follows: He allows it to be known that he is prepared to pay very high sums for letters which compromise people of wealth and position. He receives these wares not only from treacherous valets or maids, but frequently from genteel ruffians, who have gained the confidence and affection of trusting women. He deals with no niggard hand. I happen to know that he paid seven hundred pounds to a footman for a note two lines in length, and that the ruin of a noble family was the result. Everything which is in the market goes to Milverton, and there are hundreds in this great city who turn white at his name. No one knows where his grip may fall, for he is far too rich and far too cunning to work from hand to mouth. He will hold a card back for years in order to play it at the moment when the stake is best worth winning. I have said that he is the worst man in London, and I would ask you how could one compare the ruffian, who in hot blood bludgeons his mate, with this man, who methodically and at his leisure tortures the soul and wrings the nerves in order to add to his already swollen money-bags?”

Pretty passionate words here, but look at Milverton’s actions. Slimy? Sure. But the worst man in London? Shall we get into murderers, slanderers, and a lot of the behavior people got up to in Whitechapel (Jack the Ripper’s favorite haunt)? It’s easy enough to dismiss this on its own as mere drama, but that’s just a rationalization. It’s there and dead serious because of the philosophical framework of the story.

Holmes claims that the letters are merely ‘imprudent’ but this is Doyle trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Let’s take a step back and look at the situation with a bit more objectivity. Pretend Holmes said nothing about the letter’s contents.

Eva Blackwell is the most beautiful bachelorette in the game. She is due to be married to a powerful noble who is much, much better off than she is. Someone has some letters she wrote to a penniless squire some years ago. What’s in them? We don’t know, so let’s look at how she acts.

She is willingly offering every penny she can procure to get the letter back, and everything in the story says that she will be ruined if it reaches her husband to be. Not embarrassed, not put out, not even just having somewhat worse prospects than before, but ruined. She is willing to do anything to make sure they never reach her husband to be or the rest of high society.

What do you think is in them? Something just imprudent? Or something terrible?

If she’s really in love with her husband to be, then a little imprudence in one’s youth (actual imprudence, not using it as a euphemism) isn’t anything that can’t be worked around. If this was the case, then the sums talked about would be laughed at.

No man will break off a marriage because a woman wrote the Victorian equivalent of ‘I totes have a crush on you, here are some lines I mutilated in taking them out of a trashy romance novel I shouldn't have read’ years ago when she was young and stupid. 

But let’s say it’s purely pragmatic. Noble marriages and romantic love often don’t together, at least not in the set-up phase. Honor dictates one should be honest in business dealings, so dishonesty here isn’t any better.

Once again, the lady is paying literally all she can and had employed Holmes to be her champion. She will be ruined if that letter reaches anyone.

Can you imagine what it must be that will send all the men away from the most beautiful bachelorette and to literally any other girl? Is what you’re imagining simply ‘imprudent’? Is a woman trying to marry with that secret under wraps going to be someone anyone should trust at all?

I hope you know the answer to that.

Whether from a pragmatic or a romantic point of view, the situation simply does not allow Lady Blackwell to be merely imprudent at one time in her youth. This is something serious.

Negotiations with Milverton quickly break down. While Blackwell is willing to pay every penny she can scrape together, it does not come close to the asked for amount. Milverton laughs at this, claiming it is good to make an example of someone now and then so that others are more willing to pay in the future.

After he leaves, Holmes, in a chivalrous dereliction of his usual character as a cold, calculating thinking machine firmly on the side of justice and right, decides that this justifies any and all crimes on his part to destroy all the letters Milverton has. He even cracks a joke about sharing a cell with Watson if they’re caught.

Holmes might not have been overly-concerned with the strict letter of the law before or after this story, but the Holmes of the other stories wouldn’t turn to a life of crime merely for this. To drive the Lancelotian nature of the venture home, Watson even goes out of his way to call the escapade ‘chivalrous’ and notes how much that excited him.

After some working and spying, the pair break into Milverton’s home with the intent of destroying his collection of blackmail material.

Milverton is unexpectedly awake at the late hour and in his study, ostensibly to meet a maid who has offered some blackmail material on her mistress. To his surprise, the person who arrives is not a maid, but one of his previous blackmail victims who didn’t pay up. She's here because, to quote her:

“So you sent the letters to my husband, and he—the noblest gentleman that ever lived, a man whose boots I was never worthy to lace—he broke his gallant heart and died.”

Let’s again step back from the narrative and look at the facts presented in it.

Milverton showed her husband evidence of whatever it was she was hiding from him, and he died from learning it.

Repeat: Whatever she did was enough that it KILLED her husband, all but stated to be a well-known and powerful noble, to learn of it. This is not embarrassment or imprudence. It’s not even a social game that just hurts the girl's prospects but doesn’t make her really immoral per se.

Now let’s look at her actions.

Did she reveal her past before the marriage (presuming it wasn’t an event during the marriage) to let him know what he was getting himself into, even in the most private and discreet of ways? No.

Did she come clean after the wedding, or after the event in the marriage, of her own volition, perhaps thinking his love for her would allow him to graciously overlook her past sins and later lie of omission? Nope.

Did she even show real regret and, say, hold herself up as an example of what not to do to other young ladies so that they might not follow in her footsteps and bring death and dismay to decent men? The ending confirms that not a word as to her husband’s cause of death becomes known beyond the characters in the story.

Did any of her actions ever give any indication she’s sorry for anything but losing some standing and stability? Not at all.

You should be able to draw the right conclusions about her character here, but the story’s courtly love framework says “Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it)”, so you’re not supposed to think of this murderous, lying harlot as anything but a victim unfairly put upon for having her secrets revealed and thus justifying vigilante execution for a guy who is, at most, a petty crook.

That should tell you a lot about the narrative we’re being sold here.

This is terrible. This is what Holmes and Watson are fighting to support.

Compare this character to Milverton who… told the truth about some people. Sure, there’s blackmail, and not a nice guy, but there’s no slander. He goes out of his way to make sure his documents are real. This is the definition of actions having consequences.

This is what happens to him:

“The woman stood with her hand buried in her bosom, and the same deadly smile on her thin lips.

“You will ruin no more lives as you have ruined mine. You will wring no more hearts as you wrung mine. I will free the world of a poisonous thing. Take that, you hound—and that!—and that!—and that!”

She had drawn a little gleaming revolver, and emptied barrel after barrel into Milverton’s body, the muzzle within two feet of his shirt front. He shrank away and then fell forward upon the table, coughing furiously and clawing among the papers. Then he staggered to his feet, received another shot, and rolled upon the floor. “You’ve done me,” he cried, and lay still. The woman looked at him intently, and ground her heel into his upturned face. She looked again, but there was no sound or movement.”

Again, Milverton did nothing but report the truth. Anyone living clean is completely beyond his grasp. She’s the one who broke her husband’s heart (note he’s not mentioned in her little executioner’s speech, or anywhere else, but the one mention quoted above) by doing whatever it was she did. But actually, placing blame on women is impossible in the courtly love set up.

This is not a sane moral framework. This is the framework of courtly love. Of Lancelot and Guinevere being anything but terrible people. Of women being beyond reproach, and men debasing themselves in service of the worst in the female condition being the highest honor.

Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it)

There are plenty of people who unironically accept the story’s narrative. The attitude is so baked into our culture most people who read this now more than a century old story will see no issue whatsoever with the moral frame presented and reflexively submit it even if they normally proclaim beliefs to the contrary.

That why this poison is so evil, it is subtly woven into western culture at this point that we struggle to even see it. Equivocations and rationalizations are easy, and will be met with praise from many corners.

The worst part is, unlike a lot of good things in Victorian culture, this attitude wasn’t left behind by the current era. It's actually gotten much worse.

Don’t believe me? Then let’s have a test.

Stop me if you’ve heard this tale before.

A young girl is friends with a mentally handicapped guy growing up, he’s got an obvious crush on her but is pretty passive about it due to his mental disabilities.

The girl is being sexually abused by her father, something the guy doesn’t understand, but she is soon rescued by the police. After being placed in her grandmother’s custody, she starts sneaking out to slip into the guy’s bed, though despite the abuse it seems to be them both just sleeping in the bed.

Fast-forward to high school, they’re in separate schools but meet again at prom dance (the girl was at an all-girl’s school).

The mentally handicapped guy, still with a massive crush on the girl, sees her in a car and interprets her having sex with her date as her being assaulted.

After the guy is put off and leaves by with a fight despite the girl’s protests, the guy apologizes, not entirely sure why she is mad at him. The girl then takes him back to her place and asks him if he’s ever had sex. She then coerces him into a sexual encounter he completely lacks the ability to understand or meaningfully consent to.

Their paths don’t cross again until years later. The guy is now in the military and learns the girl has dropped out of college and is now a stripper. His limited mental capacity makes him interpret this as her having become a singer.

For some reason, after the last stripper leaves the stage, the girl does try to start singing instead of doing her job.

The crowd quickly becomes rowdy and the guy swoops in and protects her, taking her away from the violence at high personal risk.

She leaves him by the side of the road and hitchhikes with a stranger, out of his life again.

After having lucked into some medals and an honorable discharge, the guy accidentally gets lost when going to receive his medal and finds himself as a guest of honor among some antiwar activists.

The girl is in the crowd, sees him and goes to him as the antiwar activists ‘awww’ at what they see as a happy reunion.

She is now a particular flavor of hippie who take him to a violently radical left-wing organization’s rally where she is predictably slapped around by some of the guys, which seems pretty normal behavior both in the scene and for her in particular. The guy again rises to her defense, and they are both kicked out of the area.

She tells of what she’s been doing since then, revealing a life of drug abuse, promiscuity, and other forms of degeneracy, but the guy doesn’t get it, and she knows that. While he doesn’t understand how much of a degenerate she has become, the guy understands she is in trouble and, having achieved some mild success in the world, tries to offer her a way out and a different life.

She leaves him to go back to the guy who slapped her around.

She’d not seen at all for years. The guy mourns and does not move on. But his investment and hard work hit good luck years later. He becomes rich, richer than most kings, with more money than he could ever hope to spend. Word of his success gets out as he sets himself up to live out the rest of his days comfortably.

This is when the girl re-enters his life. She lives with him for a while until he, awkwardly, asks her to marry him because he loves her.

She rejects him, has a one-night stand with him, and leaves without saying goodbye.

He doesn’t see her for years, but clearly pines for her regardless. He then receives a letter from, asking to meet. She reveals that she has a son and the reason she reached out to him is that she is dying of the STDs she picked up in her life. She says the kid is his and this is accepted without question.

She lives in comfort and convenience, worshiped by the mentally handicapped man until she dies a few months later of her STDs (which she probably passed onto him, but that’s not made clear).

Now, if a story presented this girl as an angelic character, a nice girl and one who the guy should be happy to have that wedding ceremony with, one who is blameless because she had a hard life and is loving and worth the treatment the guy gives here, would you buy that?

Would you think this is a good story with a happy ending?

That’s the plot of Forrest Gump. What a prize, right? What a happy ending.

According to millions who’ve fallen for the old poison, it is.

I hope you never fall for it.

Meta Writing Advice: Go on a Journey, Return with an Elixir.

 

The problem of extruded story product

Extrusion is a manufacturing process that forces material through a hole and then slices it up. It’s cheap, fast, reliable, and made purely for identical products. Nothing else.

Terry Pratchett used the term ‘extruded fantasy product’ to describe how much of the fantasy genre is ‘Tolkien frozen and reheated’. If you’ve been around the genre long enough, you know what he’s talking about. If you’ve been around just about any story genre long enough, you know what he’s talking about.

This goes beyond Tolkien, you see it in every genre of story that becomes popular enough. Western films fell into this trap, which is why Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns felt so different. The same happened in mystery stories, which I’ll go into more later, it happens everywhere.

The process is pretty simple, a work in a genre creates conventions, which are then copied by other writers who are then copied by other writers, and then they fossilize long after their intended purpose was originally served.

Like a photocopy of a photocopy, each iteration loses something of the previous version and becomes less distinct and more detached from the original. Publishers like it because it’s a pretty sure way to get profits, for as long as the trend lasts.

When inspiration is copied from copiers from too long, a genre becomes like a stagnant pool. Festering, dull, and not at all like what first drew people towards it. This is also a large part of what makes people tempted to go the ‘subversive’ route, something you should not do, please see my last blog post for why.

Isekai, the subgenre that has taken over so much of anime, is a particularly bad offender in this regard. It’s gotten to the point that, despite literally meaning ‘other world’ or ‘different world’, the story type is completely predictable.

Ground zero for this particular issue seems to be Sword Art Online, which caused so many imitators in its wake and all but killed the very different type of isekai that came before it. The result is that it is currently one of the most stagnant genres of all time, and has become far too self-referential and predictable to be anything but a parody of itself.

So, what is one to do when their beloved story genres are faced with such a problem?

The cure to stagnation

Anyone who has been in writing circles long enough has come across the idea of the ‘Hero’s Journey’ as codified by Joseph Campbell.

As a disclaimer, I don’t take the ‘the hero’s journey be all and end all’ approach to this structure that some do. Campbell really oversold the ‘monomyth’ idea and simply ignored anything that didn’t fit the narrative. But it is an interesting structure and not without merit, even if many parts are far too specific to be applicable to half of what we’ve been told it is.

We won’t go over all the details of the cycle but the most relevant to this post:

1.      There is some kind of issue in the normal world for which no solution is at hand.

2.      The protagonist(s) have to leave the normal world for an alien world in order to find a solution.

3.      The main body of the adventure happens with challenges, growth, etc. along the way.

4.      The protagonist returns with the boon he gained on his journey and shares the blessing with the normal world. This boon is often in the form of an elixir, from which we get the step name ‘return with elixir’.

What does this have to do with writers in a meta sense? More than you might think.

A unique perspective

“No man who values originality will ever be original. But try to tell the truth as you see it, try to do any bit of work as well as it can be done for the work’s sake, and what men call originality will come unsought. Even on that level, the submission of the individual to the function is already beginning to bring true Personality to birth.” – C S Lewis.

Originality cannot be grasped by force, but it also requires a healthy, strong mind in order to come about. Forcing it gets a kind of ‘stunt originality’ at best, and lead to the subversive mindset at worst.

We’ve all seen a work written by someone who has spent far too long in their particular genre at the expense of other facets of life, both literary and otherwise. This is like a mind on an unbalanced diet, it’s not going to work the same way as one on a balanced diet. This is a large part of what brings about the stagnation of extruded story product. You won’t bring your ‘true Personality to birth’ without fixing this issue.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as a different perspective on the same genre free of the old trappings.

Super-author Adam Lane Smith channeled the grief he felt at the suicide of a relative into a story he later marketed to the Christian fiction crowd. The result was nothing like the usual, hallmark-style, feel good stories in that genre. It was brutal, dark, and raw.

The result? Last time I checked, Gideon Ira: Knight of the Blood Cross, was his most successful work.

Adam is not the first to go this route, nor does it require something like that level of grief, thankfully. Raymond Chandler wrote ‘The Simple Art of Murder’ (which can be read for free online) to describe this same issue happening in the world of mystery fiction, and proudly trumpeting the ‘hard-boiled’ school as a solution to the problem. This method wound up creating an entirely different subgenre with its own foibles and follies to come later.

The real father of the ‘hard-boiled’ school of detective fiction was Dashiell Hammett. Someone who worked as a Pinkerton detective himself and so knew a bit more about the reality of crime than most writers in the genre.

An even earlier example was G K Chesterton’s Father Brown, Chesterton, consummate professional that he was created the very abnormal detective in the priest Father Brown to meet the demand for detective stories. His unique little detective was very different from his contemporaries. Rather than deduction, science, etc. Brown’s skill came from his immense knowledge of the human psyche and soul. A guy who spends so long in the confessional is going to notice patterns eventually. Chesterton’s deep faith and worldview brought about this character who still endures past so many of his contemporaries today.

Such is what it looks like when an author returns with an elixir, as it were.

What this does not mean

There are lots of medicinal scams out there, both literal and figurative. Don’t fall for the following.

This does not mean Hollywood style shenanigans like forced diversity and proud perversion. Nor does it mean English class forced reading style ‘this but with whining involved over a thin story’. A unique perspective is not done by effort, it is a side effect of a healthy mind and a willingness to be a little adventurous in writing.

Neither does this mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Tropes are tools and a fear of being too conventional is just as bad, and financially worse, than being too shackled by them. We love story types for good reason, and readers want a level of familiarity as well as novelty. Trust what is trusty in your genre, you are presumably writing in it because you love it already.

Nor does it mean you have to live a super-interesting life of your own. While it probably would not hurt your writing, most of us don’t have too interesting lives, and are largely glad of it. But you do need a healthy mindset.

Outside genre inspiration

Not all genres stagnate the same way, and they’re not always the same level of stagnant. I’ll let you in on a little secret, genres are really more about selling books than anything else. They’re a large part of what causes the extruded story product effect. They’re not necessarily bad, but going further afield in the literary world can be a fine journey in and of itself. You won’t just see different stories, tropes, etc. but get a clear look at new styles and literary techniques from a very different perspective to boot.

The old pulps were NOT afraid to be weird and dangerous outside of genre norms, and were better stories for it.

Super-Author Kit Sun Cheah’s thriller flavor of fantasy and sci-fi, aided immensely by his great knowledge of martial arts and tradecraft, are a pleasure to read. Sometimes, the inspiration for a new perspective is just a bookshelf away.

A wider literary pallet will have more options and a deeper understanding than a narrow one. Which brings us to.

Going back to roots

Finally, we have simple literary backtracking. We’re in a sad state where the idea of a literary ‘canon’ is all but dead. Cut off from the roots, a plant will wither and die. I honestly think this situation is by design, but that’s a subject for another post and others have written on the subject already.

Going back to the original photo instead of a photocopy can undo much of the extruded story product effect right there. It will also open up doors that those who don’t know their heritage simply cannot access. Knowing what trends happened and when may also help you get a handle on future ones to boot.

For the genre writer’s, I strongly recommend Jeffro Johnson’s “Appendix N: A Literary History of Dungeons and Dragons” as a starting point for your ‘canon’. Going back, and understanding why conventions become what they are and when, you can easily find inspiration for changes for the better for your own story. There is a much deeper history to fantasy than many realize, going well before Tolkien himself, much less all his copycats.

For others, do a little digging and find your own genre’s history, and you may be surprised at the wealth of stories that you weren’t aware of.

This can and will lead you out of the genre itself. Fantasy will lead to folklore, history, religion, etc. Even devout atheist H.P. Lovecraft recommended writers read the King James Bible. Which brings us to my final point.

Principle informs examples

In my post ‘Martial Wisdom for Writers: What is the Best Technique?” I noted that good technique followed good principles. The fractal nature of reality means that not only are the principles of one man defeating ten are the same as ten defeating a hundred, but that the importance of principles is true in all stages of writing, not just simple technique.

Don’t aim to be the next whatever name author comes to mind, inspiration is fine, but this is simply too limiting a way to go about things. Just like no student of the martial arts will be a copy of their teacher, nor should they try if they want to reach their full potential, no writer should try to be another writer’s clone.

Instead, aim for what they aimed for, the creation of a good story, and do so to the best of your particular abilities. Ideally, fiction should help us see deeper truths and help us move towards them rather than away from them. Escapism as a journey to the otherworld can be very good for you and leave you stronger than before, so long as you are not trapped by a danger there. Old folklore knew this very well.

Ask yourself: What inspired the people who were the biggest names in your area of fiction and biggest influences on you? What did they seek, find, and show? Can you journey to the same goal and perhaps through your own perspective see the truth and express it in a way only you can?

Perhaps, or perhaps not. I’m not you, so I do not know, and I won’t make silly promises to people on the internet.

But if you go on this journey, your elixir cannot come from within the genre that is suffering so much under the extruded product effect. A stagnant pool will only continue to stagnate, and this can be a tragic thing indeed. It has to come from outside the normal world, and there’s a slew of new and strange ones out there to be explored. And they offer an infinite number of possibilities to bring back home.

-

If you want to see my effort to bring a western elixir to the fantasy genre, check out my book, A Stranger in Sorcererstown for what a recent review on goodreads called ‘a breath of fresh air’.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KWBV4LY?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

Subversion: Mephistophele’s Old Con.

Let’s take a look at a recent image:

If this tells you “Well, this show is going to be garbage” you are not alone. You are one of a vast number of people with the power of basic pattern recognition.

We’ve all seen this play out and know how a ‘subversive’ fantasy will play out, like we’d know the most formulaic of trad-pub schlock will play out.

To add insult to subversion, the Wheel of Time is one of the most ‘classical fantasy style’ stories of classical fantasy style stories. It is not a ‘subversive’ story by any means.

And because it is not subversive, despite heavy criticism from many corners, it is an immensely popular even long after the author’s death.

Why would anyone think it is a good idea to ‘subvert’ something that worked so well for so many? Fans want to the story they enjoyed come to life in a new medium. Some changes are inevitable with medium changes, but the idea that it needs to be ‘fresh’ is inane and insulting to the extreme.

But in the end, that’s the point.

Suspense and subversion

The curse of English is that we have a messy language. On the one hand, ‘subverting expectations’ can (or used to) simply mean it surprised the audience. A good detective story, for example, could easily subvert your expectations when it reveals that Bill the mailman was actually the killer all along. At its best, this is a clever example of suspense being built up, clues laid out that a savvy reader can pick up on or at least suspect, and coming to a thrilling conclusion that the majority simply didn’t see coming.

This is fundamentally a side effect, not a goal in and of itself.

A good test to see if this is good is asking yourself, “Can the reader enjoy the book after reading it once?”. If they can, then congratulations, you have the ‘good example’ on hand. The ability to enjoy reading it again is a strong indicator of a story’s quality. Even in mysteries, surprise happens once but suspense is forever.

This is the innocuous version, and some would have you believe that is all it is. They’ll often equivocate as well and claim that’s all it ever is. But we’ve seen this pattern before, they said the same thing about ‘strong female characters’. But we have more than enough data to form a pattern of angry square-jawed men with breasts and bad haircuts to know it’s not innocuous. The same goes for ‘subverting expectations’, we know it doesn’t mean ‘Bill the mailman is the murderer after all? What a well set-up, nicely crafted surprise!”. To quote Dan Miucchi, "subverting expectations" has come to mean "deliberately craps in your popcorn."

If re-readability is a mark of quality, most mainstream entertainment doesn’t pass the test. It is ephemera, doomed to be forgotten and soon. Look at how quickly Game of Thrones fell from popular grace. This is, in part, because it put shock value above storycraft and thus failed.

I neither read not watched it, and have no plans to, but from what I have been told it is obvious the show writers and GRRM are more interested in playing a game against the audience than they are with actually telling a good story. It didn’t matter what the setup was, what the most logical act for characters was, how it affected themes, or anything of the sort.

All that mattered was the ability to go, ‘bet you didn’t see that coming, did you?’ to the reader. It is sadly common. Both as a way for petty writers to pat themselves on the back and for readers who only want that brief rush of ‘Wow, I’m surprised!’ and nothing else. It is the low quality, chemical rich, junk food of the story world.

But this doesn’t explain why so much of the subversive sphere has become so painfully predictable. There is another level to this.

What is it, and how does it work? 

Let's ask a doctor:

“If ever I should tell the moment:  Oh, stay! You are so beautiful!  Then you may cast me into chains, then I shall smile upon perdition!”- Faust’s deal with the Devil, from Faust, Goethe.

The old story goes that Dr. Faust’s deal was that the demon Mephistopheles would serve him for his lifetime, and in return he would serve the devil for eternity. In folkloric fashions, Faust made the deal for a number of reasons, but most come down to wanting to know basically everything there is to know and see the greatest secrets of the universe. To go beyond mortal bounds and dare for it all.

Faust dealt with Mephistopheles in search of a grand vision. He swiftly fell into a petty need for novelty and an inability to be truly satisfied with anything or dwell on anything too deeply lest he be caught by his ‘benefactor’. And so, Faust became an even more miserable SOB than he was when he was simply angry at God for his own limitations. His increasingly petty and disgusting actions lose even the surface level of his original vision of knowing all in the world. He becomes such a slave to a hunger he cannot satiate that he almost might as well be in hell already.

Some later versions have him repent when he steps outside his own misery and starts seeking the good of others, but older and many other versions have him take the elevator straight down to the bottom floor of the afterlife.

A petty, angry, repulsive being whose inability to be happy or achieve anything worthwhile has led him to lash out at others who are happy because misery loves company. Did I describe Faust, Mephistopheles, or tortured artist types they force on English class students?

Whether Faust repents or falls deeper and becomes more like his benefactor depends on the version. But there is a level lower than the need for novelty, which can be achieved once that brief pleasure wears off. Once you become less like a human and more like a demon, you reach this level.

Demons can’t create.

In some plays back in the day, a demon coming on stage was accompanied by a cease in music to represent this fact.

You see this metaphorical truth play out in reality in the skinsuit IPs they march out with regularity. Whether it be the new He-Man, Wheel of Time, or something else entirely. They hollow out the original, wear its skin, and demand respect while spitting on anything that made it good in the first place. No longer can they get pleasure from novelty. No longer do they even try for it.

It is simply angry desecration and insults towards what they themselves cannot make or have. The same feeling extends to those who enjoy the original, good stories which pointed at some truth the subversives cannot stand.

They are eternal enemies of the old ways and stories, yet cannot exist without leeching off them. So they try and desecrate them and invert them.

Super-author Jon Del Arroz has a number of videos showing examples of this in the world of comics. Here’s his most recent on Superman (who was honestly always inferior to John Carter) shows the nature of the situation well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI5XlQdxtLw

Like Jon says, in this fantasy world, racism is the highest crime you could commit. Murder isn’t that bad, assault isn’t that bad, nothing is that bad as long as they like it and can frame it as an -ism no matter how huge a stretch it must be.

Truth, justice, virtue, the american way, or even simple healthy lifestyles are all made into vices in this inverted world. Neither Faust nor Mephistopheles can stand to be too near them.

Not to mention it will be irrelevant bad-think soon enough. They cannot say ‘stay, you are so beautiful’ even to their current favorite ‘-ists’ and ‘-isms’. We’ve this happen plenty of times as well in the long decline of fiction. JK Rowling was turned on by her own mob for one famous example. They always need to focus on ‘current year’ issues and so are doomed to the ephemeral, yet ironically are also doomed to always repeat themselves.

The snake always eats its own tail.

Let’s take a look at one last illustration:

 

Gandalf bad because he represented and sided with civilization. Orcs good because 'oppression' in a society they weren't part of. 

Their subversive myths are so predictable the takedowns of Tolkien (who has outlasted so many of these already, because of course he has) obviously have never read Tolkien.

“What if Sauron was good?” is literally what lead to the creation of the rings of power in the first place.

Which is what they want, just like it is what Sauron wanted. To ensnare you in their own fantasy and be company in their misery.

The difference being that at least those rings were actually powerful. Subversion is not.

Those who have gone all in on 'subversion' as a philosophy want stories where the evil monster, angry that there is happiness and joy not far from him, and he can never have anything like that, is the good guy because he whines, is miserable, some sort of ‘-ist’, and the happy, good, virtuous people are all really Snidely Whiplash level villains.

They don’t want Beowulf to show up and defeat Grendel. They don’t even want to think about the hero unless they think they can mock him. He represents something they can never attain and thus despise.

In the end, that’s what gray goop subversive story-telling is. It’s a fantasy world for villains, the pettier, the better. They want dragons without St Geroge, giants but no Jack, Grendel but no Beowulf.

They don’t even want the tragedy of Faust to be told, it reminds them that they have already fallen and taken the deal. Even in tragedy, we see the light exists and know there is a better way than the doctor's.

Grey goop is fantasy written for the monsters. It is a world of monsters, with nothing to stand in their way. In it, they’ll still be as miserable as ever. Because they can no longer build anything, or be happy with anything.

And they want everybody else to be like them.

You don't have to deal with Mephistophele's shysters. He won't come through on his end of the deal anyway.

There’s a whole other, better world out there besides their schlock.

-

If you would like some actual fresh and exciting fantasy written by a non-subversive, check out my novel “A Stranger in Sorcererstown”.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09KWBV4LY?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420 

Kishoutenketsu vs 3 Act Structure

 In a response to my last post, somebody asked me (on another site) what ‘kishoutenketsu’ means.

Simply put, it’s a dramatic structure popular in the far east. If you’ve watched anime, read manga, or played a jRPG, you’re probably already familiar with it.

Let's start with the more familiar 3 act structure as a point of comparison and refresher.

We’ve all seen plenty of stories like this, the structure is popular for a reason- it works. Set the stage and start the conflict, build on that conflict until the climax (act 2 should be the majority of the story) and then descend and wrap up.

Star Wars followed this structure. You had:

The setup with the characters on all side and the inciting incident that brought them into conflict in R2D2’s message.

The confrontation is when Luke and company start to butt heads with the empire. The conflict then escalates all the way up to the climax, where Luke destroyed the Death Star.

The dénouement, wrap up in the aftermath and, celebration.

Kishoutenketsu isn’t quite like that.

Sometimes called ‘the four act structure’ there is a misconception that it is a style that de-emphasizes conflict.

This is incorrect. It is true that the structure can be used for less conflict heavy stories than the 3 act structure as that one is more specialized in conflict, but as anyone who has watched Akira Kurosawa (at least something he didn’t rip off from Shakespeare), or a good anime, or jPRG can tell you, there is plenty of room for dramatic conflict here.

This structure traces its roots back to ancient Chinese poetry and has a long history. It is probably seen in its purest form in 4 panel manga shorts. A little research into those, and it should become very clear how it works out.

I’m going to use the famous film ‘Yojimbo’ as an example.

Introduction (Ki)- a drifting ronin (masterless samurai) comes into town in the grip of a bloody gang war.

Development (Sho)- scenting an opportunity, he sets off playing both sides against each other for a mixture of fun, profit, and justice.

Twist (Ten)- the introduction of the character Unosuke and how he sees through the ronin’s tricks and almost has him undone.

Conclusion (Ketsu)- The ronin is able to triumph over both Unosuke and the remaining gang members. Work done, he sets off on the road again.

The twist here is not the same as the twist of a three-act structure, that’s more like a plot twist or something the characters didn’t see coming. A kishoutenketsu twist is a new element introduced to the setup and seeing how it interacts with the others. In the case of Yojimbo, it is a new character. The three-act structure doesn’t allow new major characters to be introduced so late in the game like that, and the foreshadowing only arguable counts, as it was pretty light. 

The closest to a ‘twist’ in the sense of the three-act structure in Yojimbo is the ronin’s act of pure kindness at great risk and cost to himself towards a poor family shortly before Unosuke’s arrival.

Additionally, there isn't necessarily an inciting incident, though there can be one if you wish. This method just has the introduction of elements and then how they play out until the twist. It is a bit more flexible than the relatively recent 3 act structure. Yojimbo's 'inciting incident' is only arguable, while the ronin is hassled upon arrival it is really his own choice to get involved above all else. For more slow paced or reflective stories, there isn't even that to argue.

Which structure is the best? See my previous post for a more detailed answer, but the brief response is that it depends on your story. Both have been used to create great stories, either might be just what you need for your story’s pacing and structure.

Or perhaps Shakespearean 5 act structure is the way to go, or Lester Dent’s proven pulp formula. In the end, what the best answer is, depends on the story. Meditate on the advantages and disadvantages of both and see how they might be useful to you. And if one or the other is not useful then, contra Bruce Lee’s famous ‘reject what is useless’ put it aside for the moment. You may find new value in it at a later date.

Just remember that this is more of a ‘behind the scenes’ deal for the reader than some think. Most readers won’t really know or care what specific structure you use. Some (mostly writers themselves) might argue this way or that to try and fit in your story to a structure after the fact, I know of at least one Japanese site that used Little Red Riding Hood to illustrate kishoutenketsu. But so long as it entertains, the audience doesn’t care any more than the average restaurant goer cares about the chef’s methods.

To illustrate further, Akira Kurosawa’s Shakespeare homages/rip-offs are quite popular in Japan. Yojimbo was remade almost shot for shot into ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ which brought Clint Eastwood to stardom.

So much for these methods. Now let’s get back to writing.

Martial Wisdom For Writers: What is the Best Technique

 In a nutshell: There is no best technique. Only best techniques.

This is true in both the art of pen and combat. If this seems like a cop-out, it’s not. Neither fighting nor reading are situations with all the factors set so that a most advantageous move can be applied to all forms. Even in specific areas, there is much variance. Even on a personal level, what works for one person might simply not work for another.

In the end, the martial arts are about learning how to win in a fight. To this end, there are only 2 goals to account for 1) doing unto others and 2) not being done unto by others.

In the end, storytelling is about inspiring readers to feel something. To this end, there are only 2 goals to account for 1) remove obstacles to making them feel and 2) provide the necessary materials they need to feel.

The best martial technique is the one that brings you victory in the fight.

The best writing technique is the one that creates the desired reaction in the reader.

Now we get into the rub, because there’s always a rub. Good technique follows from good principles and sound mechanics. Unfortunately, principles and mechanics can only be mastered through specific manifestations and forms. A student of the martial arts may be able to recite George Silver’s Four Governors or Musashi’a various points in the Go Rin No Sho. They may even have a broad appreciation of something as simple as timing and structure, but without seeing them manifested in technique, it won’t matter.

A writer may be able to recite the idea of an opening hook, the three-act structure, or kishoutenketsu. But without looking specific versions of these in a story, whether their own or others, the ideas will be all but useless and impossible to master.

So practice, practice, and practice, right? Write until your hand is sore and punch trees until the environmentalists come for you?

Not quite.

Dirty little secret: Not all practice is created equal. Don’t believe me? Find a local martial arts class with a good (big key word and caveat here) instructor. Practice on your own before visiting, then try it under their eye.

Even on your own, mindless repletion will do you more harm than good. You need an idea of what you’re aiming for, to analyze what you are doing, and why.

“It’s not technique that begets technique, it’s understanding that begets technique.”- Silat Guru Stevan Plinck.

It’s easy to get lost in the details of technique, many have done it. Sometimes, entire schools and styles have done so. There’s an old karate joke: “How many karate instructors does it take to change a light-bulb? 100. 1 to do it. 99 to go ‘that’s not the way we do it in our school’.”

And what happens when writers lose sight of the purpose of a technique? Same thing as martial artists, they become style-fanatics. You might have heard one of these:

Never make a prologue.

Never start with a gerund.

Always do this.

That requires the other thing.

Ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Only writers and martial artists love to make up the most restrictive, specific ‘rules’ they can and proclaim them as gospel.

This is a departure from purpose and ultimately self-defeating. Perhaps even more so for writers, they have more wiggle room than a fighter. They have a wider and nicer audience. Few people try to kill an author because they disliked his book. They also aren’t working under the effects of extreme adrenaline, where the brain shifts gears to pure instinct and everything not burned into muscle memory may as well be a cloud in the sky. They can choose their audience, big or small.

Not to mention, the ‘rules of good writing’ are immensely more varied than those of good fighting. We’ve seen entire era’s fashions come and go that would never pass muster in this or that writer’s workshop. They’re simply not as well-defined as the martial arts. By their nature, they cannot be.

In the end, hitting a reader’s emotions is simply much less tangible than ‘do but don’t get done unto’. In both cases, the details are astronomical and varied. But in both cases, once you move away from the purpose of the techniques of either art, you’ve lost sight of the truth.

There is no best technique but the one that achieves your goal.

Understand why certain methods were done the way they were, what they accomplished, and the advantages and disadvantages of each option you have as a martial artist would study the advantages of different weapons and training regimes to incorporate them into his practice.

And if someone tells you have to change something because of a rule but breaking the rule is better for the story, you can safely ignore them. Keep the goal first in mind, and you shall not go astray.

Contact me

Feel free to reach out to me and be added to my mailing list at jonw7896@gmail.com

Blog rules

Basic manners are to be observed. We're not formal here, but we do want to be civil.

Argue in good faith- This may be the internet, but it is my corner of it. Reply to good faith questions and arguments in good faith or not at all. Do not give bad faith questions or arguments.

Keep it clean, don’t be crude, rude, or vulgar. This means no NSFW material.

No blasphemy- Christ is king and there is only one God and One True Religion. You don't have to share my Faith but you have to at least respect it.

Do not test boundaries. Trying to dance as close to the line as you can without getting banned is a violation of basic manners and will get you banned.

Don’t be a low-quality commentator. Commenting here is a privilege not a right. I will not allow people to track mud into my house or into my blog.