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[lapis_lazuli022]

The Well-Tempered Plot Device by Nick Lowe

linked by ijon

Really renders sci-fi and fantasy writing down to its plot skeletons, and not kindly. A very interesting and amusing read.

But actually, it's not always necessary for the author to put in an appearance himself, if only he can smuggle the Plot itself into the story disguised as one of the characters. Naturally, it tends not to look like most of the other characters, chiefly on account of its omnipresence and lack of physical body. It'll call itself something like the Visualization of the Cosmic All, or Seldon's Plan, or The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, or the Law, or the Light, or the Will of the Gods; or, in perhaps its most famous avatar, the Force. Credit for this justly celebrated interpretation of Star Wars belongs to Phil Palmer; I'd only like to point out the way it makes sudden and perfect sense of everything that happens in the film. "The time has come, young man, for you to learn about the Plot." "Darth Vader is a servant of the dark side of the Plot." When Ben Kenobi gets written out, he becomes one with the Plot and can speak inside the hero's head. When a whole planet of good guys gets blown up, Ben senses "a great disturbance in the Plot."

Comments

[cygnus.livejournal.com]

Great stuff. This especially: "It's hardly any wonder that the series, at its peak, got through chunks of red kryptonite so frequently that someone calculated that, for that amount of planetary debris to arrive on Earth by chance alone, the original planet Krypton must have been about the size of a galactic supercluster."

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

Which still doesn't even touch on the other convenient byproduct of the Kryptonite deluge; "mysterious radiation."

"Guys, we want to turn Lex Luthor into an evil cyborg as well as an evil industrialist."
"We'll give him Kryptonite poisoning! Brilliant!"

[cygnus.livejournal.com]

If only they'd used their evil genius for the forces of good...