In 1994, three friends discovered in the south of France a cave with magnificent cave paintings, more than 30,000 years old.
Under the ground of the Ardèche region, an invaluable treasure is hidden for its antiquity, its conservation and the pictorial quality of the representations; one of the oldest and most splendid examples of Arieñaciense parietal art, dating approx. between 40,000 and 30,000 B.C.
Everyone who’s only seen the movie is missing out on washed-up college rugby player Howl, and that’s a real shame.
I had an epiphany a while ago about the major difference between the movie version of Howl’s Moving Castle and the book version, and it’s all about the major stylistic difference between Ghibli as a studio and Diana Wynne Jones as an author.
It always bugged me that the movie changes so much of the plot, but I realized that they had to change it in order to make it a Ghibli movie.
Because, you see, Ghibli is all about making the mundane fantastical. That’s why you get a bunchy of people waxing romantic about things like food in Ghibi films, or the way the wind blows through the grass, or other small details. In order to match the tone of a Ghibli film, Howl’s secret had to be something romantic and important and grand, and Howl himself had to be someone romantic and important and grand. That’s why the black door leads to a big beautiful moment in his past.
On the other hand, Diana Wynne Jones’ entire project as an author is to make the fantastical mundane. Diana Wynne Jones subverts expectations in the exact opposite way that Ghibli movies do. She sets Howl up to be a big, scary, powerful wizard, and then reveals that he’s actually kind of a loser and an asshole. He’s an incredibly normal guy, albeit still a powerful magic user. And magic itself is actually pretty normal and mundane and petty, just like both Howl and Sophie are kind of petty as people. That’s why the black door leads to Wales. Like, actual Wales, from our earth. And that’s the secret of Howl, that he’s just a guy from Wales who found his way to a fantasy world and set himself up as a wizard.
Personally, I prefer the second approach to fiction, which is why I was so disappointed when I first saw the movie (I was already a fan of the book). But for years I was frustrated because I couldn’t understand why Ghibli had made the changes they did, completely negating a lot of my favorite elements of the book. So having this realization about the fundamental differences in style between the two has at least help me come to terms with the plot differences.
Also, this is a tangent, but part of why Discworld is one of my absolute favorite book series is because it manages to do both at the same time. It makes the mundane fantastical, AND it makes the fantastical mundane.
Anyway, read Diana Wynne Jones novels everyone. The Dark Lord of Dirkholm is one of my favorites and another perfect example of Diana Wynne Jones’ approach towards magic and the mundane.
there are a lot of really good ancient roman laws but i think my favorite is that, if you got struck by lightening and died, you couldnt have a proper burial because it meant that the gods hated you
just a reminder to my new followers that if were ever able to cross the explanatory gap and share our color perception qualia with each other, proving finally that we all do see colors differently, my red is real as shit and youve been seeing crap fake red. so come to terms with your shit fake red while it lasts
this past week i went out with two friends, one from middle school (havent seen him in 6 years) and another from high school (havent seen her in 10 years) and it was just so nice… we’re such different people now and care about such different things but it was still all the same
idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.
so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)
so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.
1) the world creates the characters.
this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.
2) the characters are limited by the world.
also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.
3) the characters carry the plot.
we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.
4) the plot pushes the characters.
if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.
5) the plot depends on the world.
you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.
6) the world is changed by the plot.
even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.
final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!
tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.
ppl “there are no ethical billionaires”-ing Kaiba is kinda true and funny, but also he’s a 15-year-old who stole a war criminal’s fortune so he could 1) dismantle the military industrial complex and 2) Make Fortnite Real
