{"id":627,"date":"2023-10-31T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T18:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/?p=627"},"modified":"2023-10-31T11:12:02","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T18:12:02","slug":"the-narrators-desire-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/the-narrators-desire-line\/","title":{"rendered":"The narrator’s desire line"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In my last post<\/a>, I shared a revision of the outline for Part 1 of Kingdom of Fief<\/a>. I realized I needed to make Aliyah’s desire line stronger \u2014 what she wants both as an internal motivation and as an immediate, concrete goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wants to be a knight-errant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her immediate goal is to go to the Kingdom of Fief theme park so she can participate in a knighting ceremony they do there for visitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past week, I began rewriting Part 1 based on this new desire line and streamlined plotting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I realized while writing that it still meanders. The reason for this, I suspect, is that the desire line of Lester, the narrator and Aliyah’s cousin, is also still not strong enough. So this week I’ve been rethinking his motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the notes I made about the problem this morning:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aliyah \u2014 Lester
Royal \u2014 commoner
fighter \u2014 peacemaker
idealist \u2014 pragmatist
rank \u2014 equality
honor \u2014 disbelief, doubt, distrust, skepticism
sacrifice \u2014 gratification
rigid \u2014 flexible
risk \u2014 caution
magic \u2014 science
faith \u2014 reason
rules \u2014 loopholes
incurious \u2014 curious, questioning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I need to figure out Lester\u2019s goal \u2014 it needs to be more concrete \u2014 and completely at odds with Aliyah\u2019s \u2014 time to go back to basics<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lives with his single mom, they\u2019re divorced \u2014 the father, where is he? \u2014 does Lester like him?\u2014 his mom sees his father as irresponsible, a dreamer, a drifter, an excuse-maker \u2014 she\u2019s afraid Lester is going to become like his father \u2014 she\u2019s terrified, really, \u2014 she thinks it\u2019s already happening \u2014 he\u2019s smart but lazy \u2014 does the bare minimum at school to pass \u2014 always getting into trouble \u2014 scam-artist \u2014 doesn\u2019t see the point of school \u2014 always looking for shortcuts, loopholes, the easy way out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

honor, courage, belief in magic
belief in a magical world \u2014 purpose, order, immanence, providence, goodness<\/p>\n\n\n\n

more than meets the eye \u2014 where Aliyah sees magic, Lester sees a magic trick, an illusion, a deceit<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So his mom resolves to take radical action \u2014 to send him to her sister\u2019s to go to a better school \u2014 in his mom\u2019s eyes, his aunt\u2019s family is rich, successful \u2014 they live in a wealthy neighborhood with high property taxes and good schools \u2014 a school that will give him the attention Lester needs \u2014 resources to push him to achieve, to realize his academic potential<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lester feels abandoned \u2014 first, by his father, now, by his mother<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this is all very serious \u2014 but I need to find the comic angle to all this \u2014 not make it feel all so tragic \u2014 this should all come out in the climax \u2014 the build up to the battle and the self-revelation, but the signs should be there all along, hinted at in the beginning, in stating the theme<\/p>\n\n\n\n

itchiness \u2014 not being comfortable in one\u2019s skin \u2014 feeling out of place, out of sorts \u2014 the intuition that something is wrong with my place in the world, with the world itself<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lester \u2014
weakness\/need \u2014 to believe in something, to care, to fight for a cause
desire\/goal \u2014
opponents \u2014
plan \u2014
battle \u2014
self-revelation \u2014
new equilibrium \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so his mom sends him to his aunt\u2019s house \u2014 what does he want? \u2014 how does KoF represent the maximal test of Lester\u2019s weakness? \u2014 to see injustice<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lester\u2019s worldview has to crystalize around one clear idea \u2014 unfairness \u2014 that\u2019s not fair \u2014 that\u2019s not just, injustice \u2014 he\u2019s destined to be a loser \u2014 the odds are stacked against him<\/p>\n\n\n\n

maybe Lester is excited to go to his aunt\u2019s place \u2014 he remembers it as a wonderland of fun \u2014 video games, tech, gadgets, fun activities, pizza parties, soda, candy, etc. \u2014 all the trappings of wealth, as he sees it \u2014 a cushy life \u2014 he\u2019s excited to enjoy all that \u2014 maybe Aliyah\u2019s parents mean well, but they\u2019re distracted \u2014 they throw money at problems<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when he gets out of (what he sees as) the limo, he\u2019s expecting an amusement park \u2014 initially, Aliyah\u2019s house, her family life doesn\u2019t disappoint \u2014 take-out every night, all manner of comforts and desires gratified \u2014 rec room, popcorn machine, ping pong table, foosball table, air hockey table, romper room, excess, her parents\u2019 feeble attempts at restraint look like total indulgence to Lester and he loves it \u2014 so it\u2019s a complete shock that Aliyah rejects all of this \u2014 for this obsession for the \u201cDark Ages\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lester wants to be rich \u2014 to be king of world \u2014 but he doesn\u2019t want to work hard for it \u2014 he believes those who are rich are lucky \u2014 that the odds, and the rules are stacked against nobodies like him \u2014 he doesn\u2019t buy into the New American Dream \u2014 work hard, and you can become president \u2014 the way to be king of the world is by figuring out the cheat code, and gaming the system<\/p>\n\n\n\n

does he miss his mom? sure, a little bit, actually, a lot \u2014 but he\u2019s putting on a brave face \u2014 his scam on himself is that he\u2019s not hurt, not feeling abandoned, unloved<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lester needs to brazenly declare all this at the outset \u2014 in that first debate with Aliyah \u2014 they both reject the world as it is \u2014 for very different reasons \u2014 Lester is a knave, embraces it \u2014 but he\u2019s just bad at it \u2014 he\u2019s a lovable scoundrel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

so his desire when he arrives is to enjoy, thinks this year is going to be a vacation \u2014 mom thinks it\u2019s going to be hard for him \u2014 that he\u2019s going to be pushed to shape up \u2014 he\u2019s defiant \u2014 thinks he\u2019s going to be able to crack the code of this new school, the cheat code \u2014 every game has a cheat code \u2014 find it, exploit it \u2014 that\u2019s his motto<\/p>\n\n\n\n

this is starting to sound a lot like my Tony character in Confessions \u2014 not quite \u2014 Lester wants to hide out \u2014 or does he? \u2014 to live in the shadows<\/p>\n\n\n\n

what\u2019s his concrete, specific goal when he arrives?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In my last post, I shared a revision of the outline for Part 1 of Kingdom of Fief. I realized I needed to make Aliyah’s desire line stronger \u2014 what she wants both as an internal motivation and as an immediate, concrete goal. She wants to be a knight-errant. Her immediate goal is to go … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-craft","category-process","no-featured-image-padding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":628,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627\/revisions\/628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seanmiller.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}