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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    RedSorcererGirl

    Join Date
    Jan 2019

    Default Written myself into a corner

    Ok, so I kinda written myself into a corner cause I kinda changed the motivation of a character slightly cause that would lead to a better story, but then I realized that this made it so that a main conflict he had with another main character needed to be changed too, and this kinda escalated until I pretty much changed what this webcomic I'm writing even was about in the first place. Problem being? I already had completed about 5 pages of the damn thing, and now I just feel kinda silly lol

    Basically my story is a bit of a parody of the getting the band back together trope, but in this case being about an adventuring party that is getting together to pull their wizard out of an existencial depression. Basically the wizard is suffering from the existencial dread of living in a world where tropes and narrative are a factor, and he's kinda cursing whatever uncaring god made him smart enough to realize the implactions this has on stuff like free will and things like that.

    The main thesis here being that the wizard is wrong. Yes his world follows tropes and storytelling traditions sure, but characters and settings aren't just a bunch of tropes pilled together, narrative isn't just a checklist basically.

  2. - Top - End - #2
    Pixie in the Playground
     
    AssassinGuy

    Join Date
    Jul 2019

    Default Re: Written myself into a corner

    Can you share what you already completed?

  3. - Top - End - #3
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    diremage's Avatar

    Join Date
    Sep 2015

    Default Re: Written myself into a corner

    Plot twist: the wizard is being driven to madness and depression by powerful demons from The Beyond, for whom tropes and narrative causality are as real as forks and knives, and who manipulate curious wizards into becoming evil for the purpose of physically manifesting these eldritch abominations.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Dwarf in the Playground
     
    RangerGuy

    Join Date
    Jul 2009
    Gender
    Female

    Default Re: Written myself into a corner

    Decide what part of that initial conflict you need to hold the main plot together, then use alcohol or some other mind-altering substance to make it the source of the conflict so the character can still perform the actions required by the plot. In other words, his motivation may be whatever you now have it as, but because of the drinking (you could even couch it as because of the depression) the character doesn't care that he's wrong. He's still mad at or blaming the other character. The situation (ie alcohol) gives him the crutch/excuse the plot requires him to have to initiate the conflict, but still allows you to re-direct the reader back to his original intentions later when the story demands it. The character can return to his true motivations through an epiphany, intervention, or whatever scene you want to create to explain their throwing away their crutch. You could even merge the now unjust conflict (since the motivation as changed) into something that gets used later to convince the character that they need to change.

    Without more specifics, it's hard to say this would work, but it could account for 'behavior A' until 'incident B' where things change dramatically.
    I’ve known people who play chess like this. They can’t think their way to a checkmate, so they spend their time trying to clear the board of the little pieces. This eventually reduces the game to a simplicity they can grasp, and they’re happy. The perfect war is a fool’s mate.
    -Miles Naismith Vorkosigan

    ranger avitar created from site paladin avatar

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