A Top 10 for 100: Story Recommendations

After about 2 years, I’ve hit post number 100 on this blog. Obligatory reflections are as follows: This blog now contains about as many words as A Tale of Two Cities. To anyone and everyone who has ever stumbled upon this humble wordpress blog, thank you. To anyone and everyone who ever happens to stumble upon this humble wordpress blog from this day on, thank you. This place has only ever existed for me to practice an aspect of my art and to share what little I may claim to know about the art of storytelling with all of you.

Also, we’re nearly halfway through NaNoWriMo. How’s everyone’s 50k challenge going? I’ll front with you all, there’s some serious effort re-quadrupling that’s going to need to be done on my part.

Anyway, today I’m getting a little bit more personal. Today I offer you 10 of my favorite stories of all time. They have all been discussed at some length on this blog (save for one), so this will be a series of brief overviews of why I would recommend some of the things on here. The first five are in no real particular order, but you could say the last five will be essentially counting down my favorite stories with Number 1 being at the bottom. After 100 posts, let’s boogie!

10: Troy (2004 Film)

Not off to all that convincing a start are we? I’ve discussed the plot of this film at length a few months ago, and lost in all the babble about recreating myth in a historically plausible manner may have been the fact this is one of my 3 favorite movies all-time. Now before you storm off with what remains of my credibility, hear me out. As a history major, I found the manner in which the film was shot and the story told fascinating, considering our primary source of knowledge about the Trojan War is an epic poem, more rooted in myth than history. And before everyone gets their feathers ruffled, there is solid evidence that a war was fought around the city of Troy around the year 1200 BCE. Whether that means the Trojan War of myth actually happened, I’ll leave to you.

In addition to the myth building, the dialogue and monologues in this film are top notch. As soon as I hear Odysseus give that opening line: “All men are haunted by the vastness of eternity” I’m strapped in. If this film had released a couple years earlier, the fight scenes (particularly the large scale battles) would’ve been revolutionary (a la The Two Towers). As it stands, Troy does a fantastic job of fusing the grandiose battles that one would expect involving a war where a face launched a thousand ships, but also highlighting the duels and romantic vision of The Iliad.

9: The Invasion Cycle (Invasion (2000), Planeshift (2000), and Apocalypse (2001) Books)

For any of you Magic: The Gathering fans out there, back in the day every new expansion bloc had a novelized trilogy associated with it. Right around fifth grade, when I was first getting into MTG, I discovered this little dark fantasy saga, and my readings of not only The Invasion Cycle, but also The Onslaught Cycle, The Mirrodin Cycle, and The Kamigawa Cycle, have informed the types of stories I tend to tell ever since. Of these, Invasion and Mirrodin are my favorites, and for nostalgia purposes, let’s discuss the former rather than the latter.

As I mentioned above, The Invasion Cycle is firmly within the realm of dark fantasy. It is brutal, ugly, and at times downright depressing. Whereas Troy blends the poetic elements of war with a bit of the ugly reality, Invasion pulls no punches. Within the first two pages, you are thrust into the total war between the two planes of Dominaria and Phyrexia. The former contains everything that is beautiful about MTG, all the diversity (both beautiful and otherwise) and the latter contains monstrosities out of a realm of nightmares. There are reluctant heroes, all powerful planeswalkers, epic battle after epic battle, and a captured sense of what it might actually look like if two entire worlds went to war with one another. And yet, it’s the quiet moments where Invasion truly shines. While they don’t happen all that often, there’s a heart-wrenching look at infectious disease through the eyes of the main characters. There’s betrayal, there’s a series of questions regarding what is worth sacrificing to save what’s left. As action packed as it all is, The Invasion Cycle is a relatively quick read and comes with a recommendation from me, especially if you want to improve your action scenes and descriptive voice as a writer.

8: Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008 TV Series)

Back in the realm of familiarity for you long time readers. There is no family TV series I can praise more than The Last Airbender. With a plot straight out of the original Star Wars trilogy, a colorful cast of characters from multiple sides of the conflict, this show takes what Star Wars did well, and explores the themes a bit more deeply. It’s a show where you can see the characters’ growth from episode to episode, it’s not afraid to have its main characters fail, and in the end it has a powerful message regarding perseverance in the face of adversity, second and third chances, redemption, and the ultimate triumph of not only good over evil, but the triumph of right over wrong and justice over revenge. I’ve already typed out way too many words on this subject, so if you’re feeling adventurous, hunt down all the old pieces on this series on this blog.

7: Honey and Clover (2005-2006 Anime)

Despite my love of Shonen Battle animes like BLEACH and Akame ga Kill, my favorites are the quirky, borderline slice of life ones like Shokugeki no Soma and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya. And my favorite of them all is Honey and Clover, which is full-on slice of life. The story of five kids at varying stages of their young lives going through art school and finding jobs and personal direction afterwards. My go to example for producing a story full of drama and emotion, without the presence of a single villain. There can’t even really be said to be an antagonist either (for you wisecracks who would point me in the direction of my own post on Princess Mononoke where I discussed the lack of villains there). If you’re looking for something to experience in a relaxing manner, where you can find high drama in a group of kids searching a clover patch for a four-leafed shamrock, this is the anime for you.

From a storytelling perspective, this is a prime example of a narrative that is entirely character driven. The only outside force acting upon the characters is the ever present forward march of time. And it’s a show that takes it’s time, but like life, it’s never going to let you linger in a moment for too long.

6: To the Moon (2011 Game)

Where do I even begin to express my love for this masterwork of the visual novel genre? To the point where I recommend it to non-gamers wholeheartedly and trampling over the “but really I don’t play video games” excuse. Play this one. It takes 4 hours. Come back to me when you’re done and we can share a box of tissues.

To the Moon is a tightly weaved story in the vein of Inception and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (both of those incidentally have my recommendation). It takes full advantage of the world it builds, namely the existence of a company that can go back and alter dying people’s memories to fulfill their final wishes. It avoids questions of morality and elects instead to focus on the mystery of one man’s life, namely: why does he want to go to the moon? For you writers out there, this is how you revolve a story around outside narrators who are simultaneously the protagonists of the story and not involved in any way. As beautiful as it is heartbreaking, tears will likely be shed, To the Moon can’t be praised enough from my point of view.

5: Final Fantasy X (2001 Game)

But my favorite game of all time has to go to the first Final Fantasy I played. As I replay it now, I’ve come to realize that Tidus’s narration throughout the game is actually spot on. It provides a sense of retrospect that by the time the final act comes around, the decisions that are made carry that much more gravity. At the same time, it never completely removes the player from the moment. It could almost be taken as his thoughts immediately following an event, which for someone who isn’t aware that he is, in fact, telling the story as the player plays it, keeps them from getting lost.

At the same time, FFX utterly nails pacing. It takes advantage of the fact that the player-characters are on an epic quest that spans their entire world. The amount of information and plot isn’t drip fed through player exploration and having to puzzle everything out yourself, but at the same time there are very few exposition dumps. Everything that can possibly be communicated through gameplay is. And to top it all off, for a 15 year-old game, the cut-scenes are to this day, extraordinary. In short, if you’ve got 40-60 hours to throw into something and care to know how to write a good epic, almost any Final Fantasy game can give you that. This just happens to be my choice.

4: The Scott Pilgrim Series (2004-2010 Graphic Novels)

While the film is a fantastic adaptation of the novels, it’s really more of an entry point to the series than anything else. It introduces you to the everyday, yet completely bonkers world that these characters inhabit. It covers the visual spectacle and the struggle of young adults trying to find their way in the world. But if it’s context, depth, and pacing you’re after, then the graphic novels are for you. The character development is sublime, the pacing between everyday drama and high-spectacle action is a thing of wonder, and by the end you will have a complete understanding of everyone involved in this saga, for better and for worse. Like what I said about FFX above, the graphic novels take advantage of the length they are allowed to make the reader feel the length of the journey. Entire characters and backstories that aren’t included in the movie can be found in the novels. Here, the fights against the evil exes are not the main attraction, but rather the climaxes of each episode. The lie and share of the pages you’ll flip through are day to day life more in the vein of Honey and Clover than BLEACH.

Of note here, pay attention to the balancing act between providing flashbacks and context, and actually pushing the story forward. Exposition is something that doesn’t need to come right away. It only needs to be known to the audience by the time it will be relevant. The trick is making the exposition entertaining without a flashback sequence coming out of nowhere. O’Malley nails it here.

3: Star Wars (1977-Ongoing Films, Books, Video Games, TV Series, etc.)

The first movies I can remember watching as a kid were the original Star Wars movies on VHS. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve watched them. I love the prequels too and the expanded universe books. I’ve played my share of Star Wars video games, watched my share of TV series, and have pretty much loved all of it. The amount of depth that has been put into this universe is something that no single individual can do. It is the result of not only George Lucas’s original vision, not just the additions made by Disney, but combined the efforts of thousands of fans producing their own content to flush out an entire galaxy worth of history, and millions more adding their thoughts and interpretations as well.

At the end of the day, the original trilogy is a fairly straight forward “I Am the One” arc plot. If you were to remove the setting and philosophies of the series, you’d have something that’s actually quite stale. So that means that the setting and themes are A+ grade and are worth studying for all you storytellers out there. As expanded upon in the prequels, Star Wars is less about the battle between good versus evil and more about the rise and fall and redemption of its characters. It’s more interested in the drama between its protagonists and antagonists than it is about the galactic conflicts happening all around them. It’s an important lesson in the value of producing a high quality world, but also creating higher quality characters to inhabit it.

2: Spirited Away (2001 Film)

For anyone who has skimmed just the titles of the posts that I… uh… post here, you should get a sense of the fascination that I have for this type of arc-plot. While not the first instance in the history of story telling of a character getting zipped away to another world and forced to find their way back home through myriad adversities, it is in my opinion the defining one. Everything about the story, the characters, the pacing, the visuals, the themes, is perfect. As we’ve progressed through this list, I’ve spotted a common theme in a lot of these recommendations: the storyteller takes their time. There is no rush to get to the end, no concern that the reader will get bored, but at the same time there is very little in the way of extra fat added on to fill out the story. Everything that is presented to the audience is to the betterment of the audience’s understanding of the world, characters, and circumstances that they find themselves is.

Furthermore, this is a movie of pure imagination, and it allows the audience to immerse themselves in it. Visually, this may be the most stunning movie I’ve ever seen (of course, I’m biased towards animated films so take that with however much salt you need). While the characters are colorful and fantastically realized, this is a story with a distinct focus on the journey, and overcoming all the trials the spirit world can possibly throw at you.  And it passes those trials with flying colors.

1: The Wheel of Time (1990-2012)

And despite all of that, my favorite story, the one that has most certainly influenced my writing the most over the years, is Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time. I’m not entirely sure where to begin, so I’ll start by pointing you to the handful of retrospectives (I’ll finish them someday, promise!) I’ve already posted here. This is a fantasy series that fuses everything about the high fantasy genre perfectly. From world-building, to character arcs, to political intrigue, explanation and exploration of everything other-worldly to the point where by the time you’re done it seems everyday. The Wheel of Time immersed me like no other book series ever has into its world. Phrases that out of context are little more than gibberish produced audible gasps, and to this day I’m convinced no one has mastered the art of the cliff-hanger to quite the extent of Robert Jordan. Furthermore, I have yet to find a story that uses prophecy to its advantage this much. Because of the story’s themes and nature of the world’s history, prophecy is able to be both completely accurate and completely surprising when it is fulfilled.

To compare to the flavor of the day, A Song of Ice and Fire: both Jordan and Martin produced incredibly detailed worlds, with deep history and varied cultures and characters. Suppose that the act of storytelling is like casting a net. The grander the story, the more characters, the bigger the net has to be to contain it all. The net is made of plot threads that must be navigated correctly or else you end up with a tangled net and muddled story. Martin has solved this problem by cutting the threads and killing characters, not to imply that this is wrong or an ineffective means of storytelling, but after a while you can’t help but wonder if such a grand net was needed in the first place. Jordan, with pretty much no exception, casts his net, flushes out his world, tells his story, and then pulls the net back in undamaged. Every single character has a complete arc, from the main character to a random palace guard you meet on one page in book 3.

Yeah. He comes back.

And it all makes perfect sense. That’s something I feel I can’t stop reemphasizing about The Wheel of Time. Every arc is natural. Yeah there are 14 books and some of them feel like not a whole lot is happening, but I can’t imagine the characters arriving at the endings they arrive at if even a single chapter were removed. And somehow, despite all the immersion, and all the prophecy, the ending is somehow a complete surprise while at the same time being completely in line with everything contained in those books.

So concludes this round of recommendations. Here’s to hoping I’ll have 10 more to provide 100 more posts down the line. Thanks again for reading. If you like what you find here, why not try and share it? Writing and storytelling tends to be a solitary act but you should never have to go it alone. I’ll see y’all next week for a return to business as usual.

In the meantime, I’ve got a few dozen… thousand… more words to write for NaNo. Happy writing!

Drawing Inspiration: Shokugeki no Soma

As we’ve discussed in the past, whenever you’re inspired to create, the creation itself must be fantastic enough in your own mind to carry you through to completing it. You must be able to clear the inevitable hurdles that will spring up in your path. A bout of writer’s block, illness, friends coming to town, and a myriad other distractions. Your creation must be able to stand without the support of whatever framework first brought it to the forefront of your mind.

This series is about that framework. The spark that ignited the powder kegs of your creative mind and set you on the path to create whatever it is you’re creating. Maybe you saw something that reignited the flame of a long-dead passion project. Maybe you were introduced to a new character archetype, a fusing of storytelling elements you’d never thought of before. Inspiration can come in many forms and have many outcomes. But whatever outcome it is for you, just make sure it isn’t nothing.

As I mentioned a month ago when I was first introducing this series, when it comes to film, most of my inspiration is drawn from animation. As a fantasy writer, there’s a certain realism that’s achievable through animation that would risk shattering an audience’s suspension of disbelief in a live action production. Whether the monster is CG or a really elaborate costume, there’s a disruption of aesthetic, an inconsistency in the appearance of the human character (played by a human) and the monster (also played by a human or nothing at all). In animation, a monster wouldn’t have to be able to squeeze in without disrupting the aesthetic, the monster is part of the aesthetic.

But enough philosophizing, how on Earth does an old-school fantasy writer draw inspiration from an anime about cooking? Also known as Food Wars, Shokugeki no Soma is about a group of kids in their first year of high school (just like every Shonen anime ever). The twist is that it’s a culinary school built on the principle of the students sharpening their skill against each other. With a minuscule graduation rate, the students are encouraged to defeat each other in battles known as Shokugeki where the winner is destined to climb ever closer to the coveted top seat and the loser is left to wallow in their own mediocrity.

It’s a bizarre mashup of a Shonen-battle and slice-of-life anime, with just a little bit of hentai thrown in for good measure. And it’s glorious.

Apart from getting me to cook for myself more and eat out less (which everyone should do by the way. It’s cheaper, it’s a fun skill to practice and get better at, and it’s healthier.) (Steps down from soapbox), Shokugeki no Soma is at the end of the day a story about a group of kids pursuing their dreams and perfecting their art. It’s a common theme shared with my favorite anime of all time, Honey and Clover. There aren’t really villains, just antagonists who step up from time to time to threaten our main characters with expulsion, humiliation, or both. It’s a show about learning, overcoming your shortcomings, and ultimately triumphing.

Plus it’s genuinely better cooking entertainment than anything the Food Network can offer. The attention to detail in both the animation and the explanation of food prep is infectious.

So what does someone who typically sticks to the realms of fantasy while occasionally dipping into the realms of magical realism take from an over the top cooking show? Honestly, not a whole lot. In regards to character arcs and story elements, everything that’s done here has been done before in literally every other Shonen out there. The elements of one-on-one battles, of growing stronger from past experience, of pulling out a trick never before seen to beat an opponent who thinks he’s got the main character over-matched. They’re all straight out of the likes of Bleach, Narruto, and One Piece.

In regards to themes, as a slice-of-life Shokugeki no Soma takes a different tact than Honey and Clover. While the latter is more down to earth and less fantastical, the focus in Honey and Clover is on the characters and their relationships with each other. The fact that they’re going through art school is merely the backdrop. It produces interesting drama, but the exams and evaluations fall to the background in the face of searching for love and friendship.

In Shokugeki, the character relations fall to the back and the pursuit of perfecting art rises to the surface. Granted, Shokugeki (37 episodes and counting) has already eclipsed Honey and Clover (36 episodes) in regards to run time, so the character development can sit on the back burner so to speak and be given more time. Each individual episode focuses on one or two dishes and their perfection. The passion that the characters have for their cooking and the absurdity of the high stakes created by the conceptual backdrop of the show blend perfectly. It makes me want to go down to my local bookstore and challenge someone to a write-off.

I kid. Sort of.

What Shokugeki no Soma does for me is it imbues me with this desire not to create something new, or try building new characters, or placing old characters in new circumstances, but to perfect what I’ve already crafted. To rewrite drafts, to find every stray mark in a manuscript, to soak up all the knowledge I possibly can in regards to the art of storytelling.

At the end of the day, when I send out a query, it’s my work against the agent’s judgment. The metaphorical dish to the judge’s tongue. If the agent rejects me, the fault was clearly with my work, not the agent. And I have to come back, learn, and be better in the next query. Disarm them, make them take that second bite, because if you can’t do that, and you’re unwilling to improve, then you’re just destined to be a stepping stone for other creators who are willing to pursue their art with the reckless abandon required to succeed.

And that’s what Shokugeki no Soma is all about. The pursuit of a dream across the endless wasteland, gathering every scrap of knowledge you can, growing, improving, and ultimately triumphing.

Hope you liked it.

Making the Small Things Big: Honey and Clover

No matter what kind of story you’re telling, your characters must carry a minimum amount of gravitas and the events that whirl about their lives must pose a minimum level of intrigue. It doesn’t matter whether you’re trying to tell a grand epic or your average middle school romance. In general, stories follow an established format where things start out in a status quo, get disrupted, and tension mounts and mounts until pressure is relieved by one resolution or another. For grand epics, it can mean certain events like battles need to be scaled back so as not to throw off the balance of the story. For romances, issues need to be played up for the same reason. The mundane must be made meaningful.

Enter my favorite anime of all time: Honey and Clover. The general concept is that we follow five undergrad students at all at different points in their studies at an art school as they try to figure out what they’re going to do after graduation, love, self-discovery, and so on. Not a singular antagonist to speak of, and relatively little disrupts this status quo. The most that ever happens in a singular episode is one character confesses their love for another, in the final scene of the last episode of a season. There’s never really a threat to anyone’s well-being physically, financially, or otherwise. Rather, it’s a show that focuses on its characters’ spiritual well-being. A slice of life if you will.

So how does the story keep its viewers interested? It’s the tension that creates interest for and desire to see the resolution. The characters themselves need to be relatable, and when there are 5 of them, odds are you’ll find one or two you like. But if not all that much happens, where does the tension come from?

Tone.

This where content creators of all kinds can draw and learn from slice of life character dramas. While Honey and Clover is at its strongest in the quiet moments, it separates those moments with over-the-top reactions and exaggerated moments that, in a sense, generate fake tension. The biggest moments are the quiet ones, but it’s amazing how much a loud outburst from a sudden entrance can mount the expectation of resolution between two characters where it felt like we were oh so close, only to have the moment halted and the tension reset. The longer we go without resolution, the more we want to see it. So long as we feel like we’re continuing to move towards it.

Honey and Clover also benefits from being able to come at its characters from so many different angles. Through the series we come at five different characters from their familial, work, school, mentor, and friendship relations, as well as the occasional existential crisis where some of these kids come to realize they really don’t know what they want to do with their lives. And there’s the ever ticking clock: time until graduation and real life. As opposed to what might be expected from a drama set at a school, exams are hardly an issue for these students. Their stress comes from the uncertainty of the future, and when done right, the future’s pretty easy to make a big deal out of.

And don’t forget your symbolism. The title of the anime only comes into relevance in 2 out of 36 episodes. The first time is an instance of applying tension to the act of looking for a four-leaf clover in a field, and the second instance is a magnificent moment in the final scene of the series. The audience is rewarded for paying attention, they’re allowed to translate their own experiences onto the experiences of the characters. All thanks to a little vagueness and a little patience from the writers. And it helps that the show aims to present romance from as many different angles as possible. Scenarios explored include: loving someone who loves someone else, loving someone who doesn’t return your affection, loving someone who may reciprocate those feelings but doesn’t think romance appropriate at this point, and so on.

So remember, no matter the story you’re telling, recognize what matters most to your characters. Recognize what will throw them off, recognize what triumphs they can win, but always have that end game in mind. And pull them towards it, but always keep them at arm’s length. Keep the tension, and remember that you have many tools to create it. Even if the task is as mundane as looking for a clover in a field, every moment can carry great weight if it’s set up right.