fabula vs syuzhet

[lobelia321]

In my last post, I mentioned fabula and syuzhet, so now I'm going off on a tangent on this subject. These things are also called story vs plot; I prefer the Russian words because they sound so wonderful and exotic, and also because the English words can be confused with more everyday usages of the word 'story' but here are my problems regarding these.

Fabula (story) refers to the story events as they happen in chronological order.

Syuzhet (plot) refers to the events as they are presented in the actual text, i.e. in the fic. So in the 'story', a may happen and then b happens and then c, but in the actual 'plot' you are thrown in medias res with event c, and then there's a flashback to b, and maybe you don't find out a until the very end in another memory or flashback (or some other form of analepsis).

Nearly all of my fics so far have been fairly chronological. I didn't scramble story events massively, and only had the odd flashback. I didn't withhold events from readers until readers. Story and plot were more or less homologous.

But in this HP opus there is much more scrambling of events. And one of my difficulties is figuring out when to reveal any of the events to the reader and when to another character in the fic. Say that event x happened to Dudley at point y in his life. Do I tell the reader straight off? Do I tell a reader a little way into the fic, and if so, when? And when the hell do I allow Dudley to tell Draco?

I realise that I had this a bit in Desert Prince, but in DP I know the plot very well. And I've realised that it's much easier writing a complex plot with analepses if the narrator is first person. Because a first-person narrator is automatically an external narrator and a narrator who knows much more than the first-person character. Because Orli who tells the DP story in first person is telling it all, of course, in retrospect; he knows things at the time of narrating that he didn't know at the time when they were happening, so there's a whole lot of 'but I was young then and didn't know better' and 'little did I know what would come of this later'. It's like an in-built plot and tension generator.

HP doesn't have this one single pov. I'm trying my hand at Bakhtinian poly-dialogue and it's hard! It's very hard for me, and it's also hard fanfic-wise because it's not a mode much favouried in fanfic so there are few models to emulate. Most fanfics are restricted to one pov, or they are experimental, and I am also finding it very difficult not being experimental.

Anyway, the whole syuzhet/fabula/my own writing time is doing my head in.

I need to write my fabula events down on little pieces of paper now and stop rambling into LJ!!!!

Comments

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

In what sense are you trying your hand at Bakhtinian dialogue???

*is impressed*

Reading your plans for your fic always makes me feel enormously unambitious - your natural mode is epic and dense with plottiness and narrative experimentalism. Mine is lots of mooching about in kitchens and on the edges of parties and I hardly ever even use analepsis, despite teaching a lot of Conrad...

Re. your 'stuck and don't know what character is thinking' mail - I was trying to think what I do in similar circumstances. The 'write down anything' approach never works for me, as it makes me depressed at the badness. Often I go and do something mindless and repetitive and try not to consciously think about the fic - also, I genuinely think sleeping on something is valuable. Falling asleep, waking up drowsily, taking a bath, or listening to something very dull are always fruitful. Usually, I come up with some kind of word, phrase, gesture or thought for the character that rings true, and even though it might be something extremely minor, it crystallises into a kind of kernel (nice mixed metaphor) for what/who/why they are.

For my version of Sean Bean, in some fic, I was totally unsure how he was going to respond to an event, but a gesture seemed to arrive out of the blue - the fact that he liked folding his arms because it made him feel secure to be essentially defending his own torso ahainst (imagined) threats - and he evolved from there.

Might this help with your Draco?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Did I write dialogue? I meant Bakhtinian polylogism, or whatever it's called. Poly-vocality? The argument that the novel is intrinsically made up of many voices. I think that's true, and the novels I love most display this polyvocality very gloriously. I am not very good at polyvocality; it's what I meant with the ease of first-person pov vs having multiple povs. In the HP opus, I have, so far, four specific povs but others creep in, of course, in the form of dialogue and simply describing what those people are doing. Novels are all about characters' subjectivities, and fanfic is, too -- this is how fanfic is essentially novelistic, I think, even if an individual fic is only one drabble long.

your natural mode is epic and dense with plottiness and narrative experimentalism. Mine is lots of mooching about in kitchens and on the edges of parties and I hardly ever even use analepsis, despite teaching a lot of Conrad...
But it's not! It doesn't come naturally at all,;I struggle! The first plotty fic I wrote was the not-yet-finished Desert Prince wip and that was 1 1/2 years into fandom. And I am only now using analepsis and finding it very difficult! And Conrad has analepses? My knowledge of Conrad is rather inadequate and confined to a teenagey infatuation with Heart of Darkness and a love story (with someone called Freya in it?).

The 'write down anything' approach never works for me, as it makes me depressed at the badness.
Hm. I know the feeling which is why I baulk at the 'write down anything' advice but, otoh, the approach is probably good for me, like bitter cough syrup. I may be dismayed at the badness but it may, nevertheless, be helping me to figure something out (if only how these character do not behave). But I know what you mean about the awful psychological effect of badness!! Basically, I want my every word to be a jewel of literary glory and feel deeply dismayed if it's not. (You'd think I'd have gotten used to it by now...!!)

sleeping on something is valuable. Falling asleep, waking up drowsily, taking a bath, or listening to something very dull
The problem is I have been doing this for several weeks now. At some point, the writing proper has just got to begin! Because the doing nothing is now depressing me!

the fact that he liked folding his arms because it made him feel secure to be essentially defending his own torso ahainst (imagined) threats
Oh, I love this! This is marvellous. This is just the thing. How to translate mental attitudes into outer signs and the language of the body. Yes, this is inspiring!

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Well, much analepsis and prolepsis even in Heart of Darkness.

Happy to have been mildly inspirational. I do find this helpful myself - it's less the 'show' vs 'tell' dichotomy you dislike so much than working from 'show' back to 'tell'. Or unravelling 'visible sign' back to 'inner grace' to adapt Catholic definition of sacraments. Only obviously not grace but torment etc.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know! As I was admiring your crossing-his-arms ploy I found myself thinking, oh no, I'm falling into the show-not-tell trap!!!

Ah well, like Alice in Wonderland I am falling and don't know how to stop.

I like the Catholic interpretation of it, however. I live in a household of three Catholics (where t'h has actually taken to talking about 'his holiness' and 'the blessed pope' [meaning the dead one] in the aftermath of The Death) so I am very open to theological interpretations of any ilk!