An Odd Way of Categorizing Story Types

Writing The Midnight Files has had some interesting effects on the way I view stories.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, the basic premise of The Midnight Files is that story genres invade the real world, changing how it functions to match story conventions.  To set the world right, the Agency sends in agents who kill or unravel the story, often by using its own conventions against it.  Or, to put it another way: The Midnight Files is basically TVtropes.com mashed with Supernatural with guest stars from every popular novel/movie/videogame.

One of the things the Agency does to help its agents defeat story genres is by categorizing them into not only genre but strain, type, subtype, and variant.  (Genres are described as “infecting” the real world, so I use some infection vocabulary.)

For example, in Agency parlance:

 

The Haunting of Hill House: Horror genre, House strain (Decadent variant), Malevolent type

Five Nights at Freddy’s: Horror genre, Rules strain, Survive-One-Night type (Multiple Nights variant), Animatronic subtype

Sherlock Holmes: Mystery genre, Private Detective strain (Impersonal variant), Deductive type

Labyrinth: Fantasy genre, Coming-of-Age strain, Fairytale type, Challenge subtype

 

I try to create these categories based on what is most impactful to the nature of how the story plays out, based on patterns I see when related to other stories.  For example, in horror, location often defines a story’s tropes more than the villain: a horror ghost story that takes place in a house will more similar to a cursed mirror story that takes place in a house than it will be to a ghost story that takes place somewhere other than a house.

Part of the effect of breaking down story tropes in this manner is that sometimes I realize that stories I thought of as fairly different are actually fairly similar.  At the moment, I’m writing a Gothic Horror in the style of Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and I noticed two things:

1. Gothic Horror and Gothic Romance that take place in an Ancestral Estate are more similar to each other than they are to other types of Gothic in either genre.

2.  Jekyll and Hyde is basically the same story as The Picture of Dorian Grey, except for the differences caused by the characters of the protagonists.

I address the first point somewhat in the story, so I’ll tackle the second here, because I think it’s, well, interesting. 

First of all, I would categorize both stories as: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type.

 

Jekyll and Hyde: a man with secretly decadent habits makes a drug to cure his boredom.  This drug makes him transform into an evil version of himself.  The evil version is happier than the kind version and intrigues the kind version.  In fact, the kind version realizes he’d be happier if he stayed as the evil version permanently.  However, when he realizes the evil version is actually going to become permanent, the kind version repents and kills himself rather than let the evil permanently take hold.

Dorian Grey: a man, previously innocent, discovers the pleasure of decadent habits and indulges his evil side more and more.  A portrait of him transfers the effects of his evil onto itself, allowing him to dodge the effects of his evil.  At once point, he realizes that he has become evil, but decides he likes it too much to give it up and decides to keep it permanently.  When he sees the evidence of his evil in the portrait, he tries to get rid of the evidence by stabbing it, which ends up killing him instead.

 

If I were to create a template for a generic version of these stories, it would look like this:

In a Gothic Horror style: a man is tempted by decadence.  Given a magical means, he is able to indulge is evil side without being caught.  However, the evidence and power of his evil eventually catches up with him.  If he is, at heart, a moral man, he kills himself rather than let the evil spread.  If he is, at heart, an immoral man, he attempts to kill the evil rather than let him incriminate him (and in doing so, accidentally kills himself instead). 

 

The detailed categories of each would end up looking like this:

Jekyll and Hyde: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type (moral variant), transformation subtype

Dorian Grey: Horror genre, Gothic strain, Duality type (immoral variant), magical object subtype

 

Overall, Jekyll and Hyde would be not much changed if it utilized a magical portrait instead of a scientific potion, and Dorian Grey would not be much changed if Dorian physically transformed.  More important is the fact that Dorian, was at heart, a really horrible person through and through, and Jekyll had some redeeming qualities.  Despite this, for years I have thought of the two stories as quite different, not because of the nature of the protagonists, but because of the sort of magic/science used to effect the plot.  Which is, I suppose, a lesson more on the importance of window dressing than on anything else . . .

In any case, if looking at and breaking down stories like this helps you at all, I recommend giving it a try!  It isn’t perfect by any means, but it can be both useful and fun if your brain works that way.

Writing Emotion

 One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever heard is this: if you want to have a character react with an emotion, take a moment and act out that emotion.  For example, for anger, you might think really, really hard about something that makes you angry, so that your whole body reacts—and then you observe.  How has your face moved?  What are your hands doing?  What are your legs doing?  Your feet? 

 Now look at an object in your room.  That is truly, absolutely disgusting.  Revolting.  It makes you want to puke looking at it.  What do you do?  Do you stay faced fully toward it, or do you turn away?  Do you want to keep looking at it?  How does the inside of your throat feel?

 That is one level of emotion: the immediate physical reaction.  But there is another: compensation.

 Often, with strong emotion, our reaction is an attempt to somehow get rid of the side effects of that emotion by dealing with other things in our lives that cause a similar or overlapping feeling.  As for me, when I’m stressed, I find any clutter far less bearable, because clutter also makes me feel stressed. When I’m under stress (or an emotion that causes stress, such as frustration, grief, or even excessive excitement), I tend to go on a cleaning spree.  I may not be able to do anything to lessen my grief, but by gum, this kitchen is not going to be adding to my stress.  It’s a form of exerting change on what I can control to compensate for not being able to fix what I can’t.

 Of course, everyone is different, and so everyone exerts this control on something different: for some people, a messy house is not going to be a cause of stress.  The question is then: what is?  And that comes down to your character’s unique personality.  Perhaps they find impending deadlines stressful, in which case they might do something to forget, or they might work overtime.  Perhaps they find decision-making stressful, in which case they might exhibit avoidance behavior or dump the problem on someone else.  In either case, these can be secondary reactions to the emotion that’s causing the bulk of the stress.

 At the moment, this is all theoretically, so let’s take a story case study.  We’ll use a classic form:

 Once upon a time, there was a humble village out in the middle of nowhere.  This village had been at peace for many generations, untouched by the great evils taking place far away. 

 Then one day, minions of the great evil attack the village, slaughtering the inhabitants.  Our protagonist manages to hide in a cellar, so they don’t find him.  When he finally emerges, once the attackers are long gone, he finds everything he’s ever known and loved destroyed.

 He could have different initial reactions: freezing, running around trying to find people, fleeing, hiding back in the cellar.  This is a good time to show character and initial shock.  But . . . what about after that?  Does he bury all the bodies and tidy the place up before either leaving or making himself a new home there?  Does he keep running all the way to the next village?  Once there, does he try to get people to help, or does he pretend not to know about the event, so he can’t be connected to it?  Does he work obsessively to get strong enough to defeat the evildoers?

 I used this beginning as an example for three reasons.  First, it’s reminiscent of the Call to Adventure in the Hero’s Journey.  Second, I actually recently read a rather different take on it in the beginning of Bog Standard Isekai.  Third, I spend the entirety of Sunday and Monday cleaning my house. 

 Goodbye, dear Flora.  You were the most wonderful dog.

12/8/2010-1/4/2025

Russian and German books I've desperately wanted to read that don't have English translations

I've read a great many books translated from Japanese, Mandarin, and Korean, because there are a huge number of fan translators who've made it their mission to bring those novels to an American audience.  But what about novels written in other languages?

I've long been a fan of Alexey Pehov's Chronicles of Siala, but only the first trilogy plus the first book of the following series have been translated.  None of his other award-winning books.  Some of them have been translated to German, which is slightly better . . . I took German in high school and a little Russian in college, and German's definitely more attainable for me.  I even started (very laboriously) translating the second of his Wind and Sparks books from German.

Then there's Lilli Thal, who wrote the staggeringly brilliant Mimus, a book so good I never realized it wasn't fantasy.  The only of her books that has been translated from German to English.  How I want to read more!

Say, did you know that Google Translate has gotten really good lately?  Turns out the combination of years of machine learning aided by a touch of AI makes the translation from German to English really smooth.  And did you know that with the Google translate app, you can hold up your phone in front of a book page and read the translation almost instantly?

Well, now you know.  You can.  

It's not perfect.  Quotation marks tend to get lost, and there are a few other issues -- and I'm grateful that I have just enough German to help me along. 

 But.  But........

I feel like a supervillain who has just accomplished his goal of taking over the world and needs to raise his long, spiky fingers in the air and break into maniacal laughter.  

But I'm reading it!  I'm reading them, the books I've wanted to read for years!  And they're good.

Well, not all of them.  I read a dud from Pehov, though I have hopes for the next one.  But, regardless, the first 100 pages of Lilli Thal's Die Puppenspieler von Flore (The Puppeteers of Flore) is definitely extremely good.  And I am happy.

Like this: 

:)

But more like this:

:D

or even . . .

*raises hands to the crackling lightning, throws back head, and lets out echoing laughter*

What Caused My Year-Long Writer's Block (And How I Obliterated It)

 I finished writing The 50,000th Stair just over a year ago.  At 145k words, it was my longest book to date, and I had written it in under two years--about double my normal writing rate.

As a writer, I'm a long-distance sprinter, and I almost always take 6+ months off between books.  The thing was, though, I wanted to keep writing.  I knew in detail one of the scenarios for book 3 and a significant amount of about half of the rest of the book.  I felt like I ought to be ready, but my brain was desiccated, and even when I tried to write, nothing good emerged. 

During this time, I went through various life changes.  For part of it, I was busy and happy but had a lot of time off; for part of it, I was drudging and unhappy and had every second devoured.  It didn't matter: the creative juices didn't flow.

Now, the #1 way of conquering writer's block that I've traditionally found is read more.  But no book seemed to interest me.  I found myself increasingly spending more time on my phone, especially watching YouTube videos of varying degrees of value.

Then, about a month ago, something happened.  I was thinking about eating a food and wondered if it would be bad for me.  My immediate response was to pull out my phone to ask Google, but I was in a place with no service, and I thought --

What am I doing?  Why am I asking the internet if this food is bad for me?  It's full of sugar and oil.  If I think about it for two seconds, I know it's bad for me.  In fact, why do I need to immediately look up the answer to any question that flashes past my brain?  Especially as the result of looking it up is that I stop thinking about the question.  

In short: more googling = less thinking.

Uh, oh, I thought.  How has this crept so out of control?  So I pulled up Focus mode on my phone and set it so that all internet browsers + YouTube are blocked all day.  The only time they're unblocked is 5pm-8pm.

The difference was vast and immediate.  Instead of YouTube garbage, I started listening to a superb audiobook of Nicholas Nickelby while I did housework.  Every morning at breakfast, with no other entertainment, I found myself picking up notebook and pen and writing for an hour and a half while listening to music.  Once my brain was no longer so stupid it couldn't understand them, I began enjoying books again.  At first, I was actively using my phone for stuff between 5 and 8pm; but after a couple of weeks, I found it no longer interested me. 

There's been increasing research out there about how the way we use our phones is making us (and our children) stupider.  It certainly made me stupider.  It may be making you stupider.

If you're having any writer's block, I highly recommend my experiment: block your phone for a few weeks, and regain your brain.

Rereading The Lord of the Rings After Many Years

 It's funny, but I haven't actually read The Lord of the Rings for more than a decade now.  I've started to read it several times, and gotten through the prologue, which I quite enjoy.  But somehow, I'm either in the mood for some lore or for a story, and I never get any further.  Or maybe it's that I didn't like my copy.

But my brother-in-law is finally reading the books for the first time, and so I decided: all right, here it is.  And so I started . . . 

At Chapter 1.  Having skipped the Prologue.

Old Obsessions Are Still Possessions (to quote my sister):

Travesty, I know.  Or maybe I know and you don't, so let me give my credentials.  

I was in middle school when the first movie came out, and so I read the books first, which set me up to dislike the movies.  Ii started out my time on the internet on tolkienonline, where I was, for the first and last time in my life, a Big Deal on a forum and story-based website.  People recognized my username.  I wrote a popular (and very ridiculous) fan fiction and collaborated on a larger story with many others.  I read and commented on Every Single Story that was posted.  It was my place, my home . . . until it started changing (it has a new name now and is unrecognizable) and I fell off.  But still, it was my first online-based obsession.  

And on top of that, I have played The Lord of the Rings Online MMORPG since beta.  And that game is made by the most obsessive fans who have ever obsessed.  I'm not kidding when I say I know obscure lore and have the maps imprinted on my brain.  

And yet . . . and yet . . . I've only read the Silmarillion all the way through once, The Children of Hurin Twice, The Tolkien Reader four or five times . . . and I've never read the histories.  I memorized some words in the Black Speech but hardly any of the geneologies and only two of Tolkien's poems.  Which I know some would say makes me a fake fan.  :)

Starting Without the Prologue

So anyway, I did the unthinkable and skipped the Prologue.  I'm now about 100 pages in; we're just reaching Woodhall.  And I love it.  I love that cold start, right into some magnificent storytelling.  (And somehow, through all the slogging through histories, I forgot that Tolkien is just a really good, compelling writer with a lot of sly wit and frankly easy prose.)  Beyond that, reading is so refreshing.  It says to me: "This.  This is what truly good writing looks like.  This is what no-question-but-it's-five-stars writing looks like.  How have you forgotten?"  But it seems, reading it, that there were several details I forgot -- even as, on a deeper level, far more details spring to memory.

Thinking of Fellowship as having been published much later than The Hobbit

If I'd grown up having obsessed over the Hobbit, it would've been devastating to me to see Bilbo so old.  I did read The Hobbit first (or my fifth grade teacher read it aloud), but only two years before; and though I liked it, I wasn't madly in love with it.  But imagine if I had loved Bilbo so deeply, only to see him so old, so tired . . . 

But as is, for me, The Lord of the Rings stands out more; and so I see The Hobbit more as a prequel; and so I am not sad to see old Bilbo but happy to see young Bilbo when I read that book.

It's Just a Start

As I said, I'm only 20% of the way into the first book.  I've barely dipped my toe in.  And yet, how striking . . .

I'll post further if I have further reflections.

A Spoiler-Filled Rant on Undertale

. . . that probably won’t make sense unless you’ve played the game and might disagree with you if you have.  But here I am anyway.  If you haven’t played the game, I do recommend it.

So, for Christmas, a friend gave me Undertale, which I had heard of but not played.  I knew a few things but not that much—mainly that there were different paths based on whom you decided to kill or spare.  I should mention that I have played fairly few video games in my life, though I sometimes watch Let’s Plays, and therefore am fairly slow; it took me about 10 hours to finish the game.

Knowing what small spoilers I did, I thought about how I wanted to play the game, and decided to try not to let my knowledge influence me.  It came to me very quickly that I would play as follows: kill only those characters I found it absolutely necessary to kill and do my absolute best to spare everyone else.

 

TORIEL

The first monster I killed was this psycho kidnapper who imprisoned me in her home and decided to make me her child against my will; then, when I tried to escape, dragged me back again and again before finally violently attacking me.  Aside from the fact of kidnapping and wrongful imprisonment, it became clear to me that the only way I’d ever be safe from her was to defeat her.

After that, I didn’t kill any monsters.  I went way out of my way to be merciful and spare them.  The only time I slipped up was once monster that attacked me.  I tried to spare it, but it refused, so I hit back . . . and hit way harder than I expected, since I didn’t fully understand the fight mechanics.  It died by accident.  A pity, but since it had attacked me first and I’d done my best to spare it, I wasn’t too broken up.

 

UNDYNE

The next monster I killed was this psycho stalker who followed me halfway across the world, repeatedly attempting to murder me.  I offered to spare her, to talk with her, anything—and she refused.  She screamed at me again and again that she was going to murder me and use my soul to open a portal to the human world, where she would murder all humans.  (And she dared call me a murderer!)  Se refused to back down, but I wasn't about to let her murder not only me but all humans.  I therefore fought back and I killed her.*

(*The game went all sad-music and then silence, as if I should be sorry for what I’d done; as if I’d been ruthless.  You know, because it was so wrong of me to prevent the monster who’d hunted me across the world from murdering all of humanity. . .)

There were three more encounters, over the course of the game, in which monsters attacked me and I couldn’t figure out how to save them, and who died while I was trying to get them to accept mercy or at least let me run away.  One of these encounters was the royal guards, so there were two of them.  My overall kill count was now up to six: four by accident, in defending myself, and two on purpose, out of reasonable necessity.

 

ASGORE

I then encountered the king, the one who had ordered everyone in his land to murder me in order to further his plans of genocide—for which plan he had already murdered six children.  To quote the king’s exact dialogue: “I said that I would destroy any human that came here.  I would use their souls to become godlike… Then, I would destroy humanity...”

(**The wiki says he plans “to kill seven humans and use their SOULs to break the barrier that traps everyone Underground. However, he is not evil or malicious” . . . Did whoever write the second sentence bother to read the first?)

I wished to accuse him of his crimes, of the deaths of the children and of the deaths of his own citizens (who had only died because he'd ordered them to murder me.  And . . . the game wouldn’t let me accuse him.  Instead, it made me listen to this child-murdering genocide-plotter give a long whiny speech about how it wasn’t his fault he murdered children.  He didn't want to do it; he didn't like it.  He just had to, y'see?

You are king.  You are king.  How dare you not want to dirty your own hands.  I guess it’s easy to order murder when you don’t have to do it yourself!  But it is your responsibility.  You evil murderer, how dare you!

Then the king attacked me, and I defeated him but didn't yet kill him.  As he lay wounded, he gave another whiney speech about how, really, he wasn’t a bad guy; he just murdered all those people because he wanted to give his people hope, but now doing that was too much bother (how tiresome child-murder and genocide had become!) and all he wanted was to go have a nicer life, so how about I just do what I like and leave him alone?  

How unbelievably selfish, capricious, and evil can you get?  But beyond that: what would happen if I did leave, and left you in charge, you murderer?  Of all the monsters I have met, it is you above all who deserve the name “monster”!  

And so, rather than let the king continue to do what he pleased, I killed him, determined to take his place as king: to rule the monsters as they should be ruled, to protect them without resorting to the evil methods of my predecessor.***  And without taking the monsters to the land of the humans, where their peaceful society would have been shattered into bloodshed.  Maybe someday, in small pieces, when the time was right.  But for now, when the monster society was peaceful and the king's prejudice strong and it had been established the monsters would easily be wiped out?  No.  I would bring about a fruitful society where we were.

(***But did the game allow this?  No, it crashed, made me fight a flower, and then had my character leave for the world of the humans, saying a robot was now king.  But that was not my choice.  My choice was not to leave.  My choice was to take responsibility and act as a king should act.)

 

I AM FRUSTRATED.

The story of the game accuses me of being a murderer and has all sorts of sad music for the actual murderers when they die.  It says—you must be a pacifist (but everyone else can be a murderer) or you’re just the worst!

Ultimately . . . this game, which is full of seeming choice, did not give me the choices I wanted: to accuse the king and to rule in his place.  (And yes, I’d have been allowed to rule in that society.  Apparently, any old person can rule it, based on how some endings allow a dog to rule, a celebrity robot to rule, the unknown Papyrus to rule, etc.)  

To survive with mercy, with sense, and with strength, to take what was broken and work with it, to take responsibility . . . these things, the game would not allow.

What a pity.  What a waste. And yet I stand by my character's decisions, every one of them, as reasonable and just and necessary.  

I would have been the king they needed.  And whatever the game says, I declare this my ending.

 

 

The Midnight Files has ended its serial novel run.

 After 2-1/2 years, I have taken The Midnight Files down from Amazon.  It had a good run, and I'm proud to say that it ended at #33 top faved across all genres and #6 in fantasy.  Thank you for everyone who read and enjoyed it!  It will be back some day, newly edited and in hardcover format.

Happy 2025, everyone!