You can't make me choose, and so I won't choose. Too much in both of those.

What does sighing competently mean? She has so little flow or mood in her stories that my brain doesn't fill in when one of hers really doesn't fit. But with her style of writing it's hard for me to be sure it's a mistake.

You have an argument with your wife because you've been spending kissy time with someone else, and when she blows her top and gets some space because she wants to avoid a divorce, you bring the other guy into the house, let him look at your wedding pictures, fuck him in your married bed (but only reveal this as a memory on the way to pick up Sam). Sam doesn't get to meet Cas because Dean has rushed Cas back to his hooking before anyone can see him.

What should he do????

Jump under a bus? He's fucking up two relationships, and if Sam has any sense he'll avoid him for a while too while he runs around from bed to be being neither shameful nor eager.

You discover you're bi and you cheat with a hooker--I want some emotions! I want drama! I want guilt...or not guilt, as you realise the hooker is making a part of you alive that your marriage just wasn't reaching, or you realise you can't have that dream with the whore because you have responsibilities that are bigger than just who you are with but it tears you apart.....

I don't know. I don't fucking write stories. But this is the shallow West. We do need a conflict in our plot. Be mundane that way.

Posted without comment: [link]

Jensen dances like Chandler Bing!

But this is the shallow West. We do need a conflict in our plot.

Where was I just reading about that? That other traditions don't require conflict?

I can't imagine it, frankly, but I grew up in that tradition, so. Although honestly, slice of life pieces and vignettes don't have to have conflict -- but they *do* have to illustrate something perceptively. If you're not going to show me someone in conflict, then show me someone doing what they want to do, but tell me why they love it, or at least why they do it.

Shit, I had a GIF of Jared dancing just like that, but I can't find it now. I can find this: [link] and this: [link] and this: [link] But not that. That will frustrate me today. Because it's better than worrying about real things.

For some reason, Amy, I'm vaguely recalling it being a statement about Chinese fiction? But my brain is for crap. Things you can substitute for conflict: PWP, intense mood setting, character or plot revelation or alternate viewpoint to canon.

But it's totes best if you've got, like, all of that in there.

Well, those .gifs are adorable anyway. Giant dancing moose.

I'm vaguely recalling it being a statement about Chinese fiction?

It had to be on Tumblr. Or possibly io9?

Aha! I found the article in question: [link] Is this the one you were thinking of? It's definitely the one I had in mind.

That's the one, although I think I only saw a piece of it on Tumblr. I didn't get as far as the four-act manga explanation, which does make more sense now.

Same here. And now I want examples of the kishotenketsu, so I can get a feel for what it means.

I do think the premise of its manifestation in the actual world of things happening (I think some people call it the "real" world, but that's so judgemental, isn't it?) is a bit...optimistic. Does it even really apply to how people parse history?

Surely we're not more violent (or feeling more violent) than Japan because all our stories are an odd number of acts. (If you need any other instances of summing things up more than they bear, I can be reached at my profile email address, and am happy to trivialise any complex position you wish).

It's just a different approach, and if you dug into it deep enough, you'd find motivations there that would probably serve as conflict anyway. (i.e. Why did he get the other guy a soda? Is he guilty about something? Is he in love? Does he owe him a drink?)

Whatever you want to call it, I just want a story to move somehow. Even in PWP, at least you get the action of the, uh, act itself, and the participants' reactions, which are (when they're done right) character notes.

Yeah--I'm wondering if it's a different lens or a different structure, I guess. And for that, I need examples.