Touchstones!

It's my son's third birthday today, so I'm going to try to be quick.

Touchstones. Usually when you hear this term, it's talking about an object, or smell, or something concrete, that you can look at and remember something good. Like a pin that reminds you of a vacation, or the smell of cinnamon and oranges that remind you of Christmas when you were seven. It's a term that comes, I think, from gold making, but I don't know why I think that, so don't quote me.

Let's quote wikipedia instead.

.A touchstone is a small tablet of dark stone such as fieldstone, slate, or lydite, used for assaying precious metal alloys. It has a finely grained surface on which softmetals leave a visible trace.

See, gold making. I was right!

Essentially, it's something common that shows gold in other things.

This term also applies to characters, and it a really useful tool in storytelling.

The Touchstone is one specific character who helps the audience decide who to trust. They are usually a minor character, someone who has a reach into upper class and lower class, who is likable. They are a character you sympathize for, but mostly they are just a character you trust, because they are smart, selfless, and the dog of the story that if you kick them you've gone too far. They are a common stone, but who they are reveals the character of more shiny characters.

The first one I ever heard of was...Touchstone from As You Like It. The world of that play is very gray and murky, and it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It's hard to tell who to trust. If you have a story like this one, consider adding a Touchstone character. Touchstone(the character) is funny, but  he's not over the top goofy, or stodgy. He's smart, and quick-witted, but not so courtly that you see him at a distance. He is the voice of the audience, so when he chooses a side, that side becomes the good one.

Another example, is Anna from Downton Abby. Yes, I talk about Downton Abby a lot, and that's because Julian Fellows knows his stuff. Whatever you think of the show, you have to admit he knows how to tell a story. Whenever I learn something, I think I wonder if they do this in Downton Abby, and the answer is often, yup.

Anna is a ladies maid, so she has a reach into both classes of the story, but she's more of a regular person. Even her name, Anna May SMITH, sounds common. You probably know someone very similar to her.

Her liking Bates makes him likable. Her not getting along with O'Brian, puts O'Brian on the outside of people we trust (also her hair does that, but that's another blog post) But the most useful thing about this storytelling wise, is how Anna liking Lady Mary makes Lady Mary likable. This is really useful when you have a slightly less than perfect or likable Hero.

Heroes have to grow, so that means they have to start off, sometimes, as weaker jerk-faced losers, and grow into their trophy and happy ending. While they are in that beginning stage, it's so important to have someone like them, otherwise the reader might just get fed up with the character, and not care enough to see the growth. If you make that someone a common man, a smart, all seeing, likable, regular person, then the reader will put themselves in that character shoes and like the character too, see the good in that character the way the Touchstone does.

Hero: Hi! I'm a whiny insecure hero to be.
Touchstone: But look how kind you are.
Reader: Look how kind that whiny insecure hero to be is. I like them.

Touchstones can be a larger Character (like Anna) and be useful for a long period of time. The reader will grow to trust their opinion on all people. While this character can grow, you have to be careful with them, because they are the face of the reader, so if you, say, have that character be attacked, it will feel more personal to the reader. You can use this, but you must be aware of this cost. And also, if you show them as wrong, it will dilute their effectiveness throughout the story, so you have to be careful. Weaken the Touchstone, and you weaken their effectiveness and the likability they have given. If Anna is wrong about Bates, then somehow that diminishes your opinion of Lady Mary, even though it's uncorrelated.

When you've created a Touchstone, how the Hero relates to that Touchstone is essentially how the HERO relates to the READER. So you can have the Hero be rude to everyone else, but they must be kind to the reader...i.e. the Touchstone. They must always apologize to the Touchstone if they are not, and if the Hero does something extra kind to the Touchstone,( like give her a present, or let him sleep in a warmer spot) even if the Hero just killed a thousand people, or just did something awful, the reader won't hate them. USEFUL!

Touchstones can also be really minor, and only really have a few moments in the story where they make the Hero likable and then go about their common everyday lives. But they are so useful, you can have them come back as needed whenever the hero needs reminded of their humanity, and their potential for GOODNESS. (Not greatness. Goodness.) So if you have a unlikable hero, and you want to make them likable simply, you can insert a Touchstone and move on with a damaged, but likable hero.

Either way, they're interesting. Now that you know about them, you will see them everywhere.

Happy hunting!
~Sheena

Downton Defense

Basically, if you haven't seen Downton Abby, go watch seasons one and two right now. It's available on Netflix.

Go on. I'll wait.

Welcome back. Obviously, you've seen seasons one and two, and so you won't be annoyed by the spoilers that are below. Carry on.

So yesterday, Trisha posted a great blog about how when you set the rules of the world of your story, you need to stick by them.

She outs Downton Abby in particular of breaking the rules, most clearly with the character Matthew Crawley's "I can never stand again. No wait... It's a miracle, let's dance." plot line.

I suggest you click on her post, because she makes some great points. It's a common fault for T.V. shows to present an obstacle, and then just drop it when it gets boring. The worst offender I can think of is Glee, where characters are despondently in love with one character one episode,  break up for a dumb reason the next, and then drop their hate just so they can sing a duet two episodes later. And don't get me started about how they never sing the same song more than once. I get why for a T.V. show the repetition is annoying, but as a real life choir dork, it strains believability.

And you can't stop believing.

But anyway. On topic. I have to defend Downton Abby, because the point Trisha raised is a huge one for me as a writer.

Season two of Downton Abby has Matthew just returned injured from war. The Doctor says there is a chance that he could recover, but most likely he will never be able to stand again. He won't be able to walk, to run, or... most importantly, he won't ever be able to have children.

This is a big problem, because as the heir, his child (if it's a boy) will inherit a huge fortune. And it's not just the vast amount of money, and properties that the child would inherit, it's the history of it that's important.  The tradition. And don't forget who the fortune came from, Cora's American money, Lady Grantham's traditional money. Above all of that, what's most important is the name.

 Lady Mary has been raised her entire life under the knowledge that she is entitled to a better life then others because of the name she was born into. Imagine the kind of self delusion necessary to live surrounded by people you like or love ( like Carson, Ana, etc.) who live feet from you yet in a completely different world. How can you justify that without giving the thing that separates you (i.e. family name and money) an enormous amount of importance.

Mary loves Matthew, but has lost him now more than once because of her need to prove the weight of her family's name. And now, here he is, in a wheel chair, engaged to someone else who will care for him more patiently than she would. By all tradition she should let him go. If she marries someone else and has a son, then she will carry on "the family show" the way she'd been born to do.

And then Matthew stands.

I love that, that shot in the dark that scatters the ducks. For me, it's not because it breaks the rules that this moment stands out, it's because it reinforces my most important opinion/rule of writing. Always scatter the ducks. Always go for the thing that changes a path, because a story ends once the path is set.

Yes, I see how it is jumping the shark for him to recover, and I'd be right by Trisha's side, complaining about lazy writers breaking their own rules, except that long before he stands, the doctor says that there's a chance that he will recover. By that one comment, the doctor put the dueling pistols onto the mantle.

But even if he didn't, I think I'd still be willing to look the other way, because to me it's not about the rule or the expectation of the audience that they are breaking, it's about the test the characters are going through.  If you are going to test a character, and change them emotionally, prove themselves morally, or just hold a character over a fire, there is a segment of your audience who will stay by you, just to watch the characters squirm.

Not everyone will stay, but I probably will.

Trisha brings up the Spanish influenza story line as another example, and yes, it seems improbable that the only person who died from it, was the obstacle in the way between Mary and Matthew. But hey, it's a love story. Obstacles have to be removed somehow. And the creators go to great lengths to say that historically that's how it happened, it was just when a person seemed recovered that they were at their most dangerous stage.

Yes, I did watch the PBS specials.

There are a few other times when the writers suggest a treat or a threat, and then take it back, but for every "We're going to lose Downton", there's a punch that's not pulled. Characters die. Love stories end. Characters are pronounced guilty. Consequences happen, though usually the upstairs gets off lighter than those in servant's garb. But that's kind of the way with it, now isn't it?

Downton Abby, to me is all about the rules, and the traditions of polite society. The show is about  the fairness and impracticality of rules; from Matthew, a distant relation inheriting all the money, and not Lady Mary, because he's male, to the rules of conduct between the upstairs and the downstairs, to the unfairness of Lady Mary's affair compared to the maid Ethel's consequences for the same level of mistake.

I think writers can take notice to some of these rules. For example, a writer with a "name" can break a rule and survive just fine, but a lowly writer could break the same rules and have a huge fall out. Also, yes sometimes success can happen for someone else, even though by all accounts, it should have come to you instead. Speak up about it, or else marry the person who stole your opportunity. ( Downton suggest's that's fine).

If you can give me a character that I love, like Lady Grantham, or Walter Bishop, or Kristina Braveman, or Matrim, or Gen, or Katniss, then you can break any rule you want to, and I'll stick along for the ride.

The main reason, however, that I'm going to keep watching isn't because of the soap opera characters in Jane Austen clothing. It's not because of the seeping slow minutia of the lives and growth of the characters, or the picturesque landscapes, the house itself, or the amazing costumes.

 I will continue to watch for Lady Grantham.

That Dame Maggie is a treasure.

~Sheena

Breaking the OTHER Set of Rules

Every Sunday night, two television shows record on my DVR.  These shows could not be more different.  Once Upon a Time (which I've blogged about before) is set in a modern day town, peopled by various fairy tale characters.  Every episode features two plot lines: the lives of the modern day characters, and a flashback to their lives before they were transported from their world to ours.  I've said it before and I'll say it again--I love this show.

The other program I record on Sunday is Downton Abbey.  PBS fans will likely know the series, which is set between the years 1912 and 1921 in the Yorkshire countryside of England.  If this is the first you've heard of the show, I have to warn you spoilers are coming, though I'll try to keep them at a minimum.

There is one thing that ties these shows together for me, and I probably only noticed it because they air on the same night, so I end up watching them back to back the next day.  Like all stories, they both have to follow their own rules.  In Once Upon a Time, magic cannot exist in Storybrooke, Maine.  That is the entire reason the evil queen transported the fairy tale characters to our world.  She brought them to a place where they could not rebel, and then took away their memories, creating a version of life that suited her.

Downton has its own set of rules.  The plot follows the Earl of Grantham, his family, and the people that serve them.  Life in an English manner house in the early 1900s was extremely structured.  Clothes had to be changed several times a day, women had to be chaperoned when visiting with men, servants had to keep the house running without being seen by the family.  Everything was done just so, with attention to both detail and propriety poured into every aspect of daily life.

The first season, for each show, was mostly about setting up for later conflict.  Now that both shows are a few seasons in, some of those carefully laid out rules--the rules that govern the plot and character existence--are starting to come undone.  (Here's your spoiler alert.  Look away!)

In Once Upon a Time, magic has made its way to Storybrooke.  It started out small enough, with Regina crushing the huntsman's heart, or finding a loophole that allowed her to pull a poison apple through from the old world.  At the end of season 1, Emma kisses Henry and the magic of true love wakes him from Regina's spell.  Not long after, Rumpelstiltskin finds a way to bring all magic into Storybrooke, which means season 2 has been filled with every kind of rule-breaking imaginable.

People who died in one episode turn out to be alive in the next.  Emma and Snow White become trapped in the fairy tale world, with no hope of return, and yet after several episodes of searching and fighting, they find a way home.  Regina promises never to use magic again, but within an episode or two, she's back at it.  Rumple makes similar promises to Belle, but breaks them almost in the same breath.  In fact the only thing you can count on anymore is when a character says "This is never going to happen," it'll probably happen next week.

It might sound like a lot of backhanded storytelling, and I suppose it is.  Here's why it works, in my mind anyway.  Once Upon a Time is a fast-paced story.  Because you flip between the present and past, you get a more rounded idea of who these characters are.  It's also pretty normal for the characters to be embroiled in a physical fight in one era, while struggling with an emotional war in the other.  It helps keep the plot from feeling stuck.  It's the changes themselves, though, that usually set this pace.  When you think you have a grasp on what's happening, or how the world works, someone throws a wrench into the gears.

However, the writers always ensure the changes are plausible.  Magic isn't possible in Storybrooke because of a curse, but as the first season unfolds, it becomes more and more evident that Emma is going to break that curse.  And once the curse is lifted, all bets are off.  It's no wonder then that they start to find fairy dust, or that Rumpelstiltskin's previously worthless antiques start to exhibit strange new properties.

My only criticism is how often rules are set and then broken.  Most recently, a character crossed the town line.  In the first episode of season 2, the writers laid down a rule: anyone that crosses will lose their memory of their fairy tale life.  I suspect the rule was put in place for two reasons.  One, to keep the characters contained, and therefore keep the story on track, and two, to make it a gut-wrenching moment when this character fell over the barrier.  They will never regain who they are--something the character's love interest pointed out with great pain.  And yet, having spent as long as I have with this story, I'm not buying that for one moment.

The solution will be plausible--magic, true love, whatever they come up with, will fit with the story enough that it'll pass.  The writers are too smart to have an easy solution on hand right away.  The characters are going to suffer, and struggle.  Sacrifices will be made, but in the end they'll find a cure for this unfixable memory loss.

This false suspense is okay in small doses, and forgivable when the solution is plausible.  But what about when the writers just cram something in to tie up whatever plot line they're struggling with?  What happens when you break the rules of your world for no good reason?

Enter season 2 and 3 of Downton Abbey.

In season 1, the audience was given a very intimate look at life within the Grantham household.  Sibling rivalry, scandal, even housemaids with a grudge all had their moment in the story.  All the rules were set, and when they were broken, the offenders were met with consequences.  Mary's adventure with Mr. Pamuk had particularly dire consequences for most of season 1 and all of season 2.  It was season 2 that really dropped the ball, though.

Matthew, heir to the current Lord Grantham, sustains an injury in the second season which, according to the doctor, will leave him crippled for the rest of his life.  His miraculous recovery is never given a satisfactory explanation.  In fact, the doctor merely shrugs his shoulders and sweeps the whole thing under the rug.  Later in the season, several of the characters catch Spanish flu.  Again, most make another miraculous recovery, and the one character who dies does so unexpectedly.  I'm not sure I want to be sick under Dr. Clarkson's watch.  Seems to me every time he gives a diagnosis, it goes the other way.  (Is this some kind of foreshadowing for poor Mrs. Hughes?  I hope not.)

Season 3 is driving me crazy.  Lord Grantham swore he'd never allow his runaway daughter Cybil and her less-than-respectable husband to visit Downton, and yet the season kicks off with them staying for several episodes.  Lord Grantham also lost basically every penny he owns and faces ruin, but of course an unexpected inheritance for Matthew means they can keep their home, and fortune, if only Matthew would get over himself and accept it.

There are so many convenient, hardly plausible events that pop up in the latter seasons of Downton Abbey.  It's almost as though the writers threw up whatever obstacles they could think of, and when they got tired of them, they magically went away.  If it had only happened once, maybe twice, I think I could overlook it.  But it happens constantly, and it's getting out of hand.  I'm ready for this season to be over, and while I hear there will be another season in production soon, I'm not totally sure I want to watch it.

It doesn't matter if the world you're building is complete fantasy or if it's set smack dab in the middle of your hometown.  There are always going to be rules you have to follow.  If your character is blind, she can't regain her sight just in time solve a murder simply because it's convenient to the plot.  If your character loses all his money at a game of craps and he's wandering through the street destitute and hungry, he'd better have a good reason for finding that million dollar lottery ticket.  Otherwise you're just slapping a band-aid on a problem you aren't ready to deal with.

If you find yourself doing this, I hope you'll take a step back and figure out why you've chosen this route, and start asking questions.  What other path could you have taken?  Maybe your character can use her other senses to solve the murder case, or your gambling addict will finally see he has a problem and start the slow path to recovery.  You can break your own rules, by all means, but not without a good reason or a lot of skill.

Better yet, maybe a little of both.