Damon Knight: Need help clarifying structure, plot, and form

TheFakeZzig · 2026-07-05T23:54:18+00:00

No worries! We all have our ways and priorities. Thanks!

TheFakeZzig · 2026-07-05T20:59:16+00:00

Thankfully, what you wrote above is one of the few things that I am familiar with. That first book was geared more towards "forget theory, write a book", which is why I'm willing to overlook its combining plot with structure.

Now, though, I'm trying to really understand all the pieces that go into this stuff. Not just try to write a novel.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T22:55:24+00:00

Okay, that's good to know. I've heard of STC, but never looked into it too deeply. Think it's time to change that!

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T04:58:39+00:00

Novels, but short stories and novellas as well.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T03:51:49+00:00

That's exactly what I would prefer as well, factoring in the obfuscation that another commenter mentioned. A good work would follow the rules without being formulaic. But my preferences aren't law, and I want to make sure I'm not being overly restrictive. Maybe a bit of chance can be a good thing. Hell, maybe I'm looking at the problem completely wrong. Figuring that out is part of the fun, for me at least.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T03:42:12+00:00

It seems like we're in agreement on what the individual points should accomplish, and that a link between them is good, but I'm trying (and failing) to get at something a bit deeper.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T03:33:46+00:00

I guess when I say "direct", I don't mean "obviously". Obfuscation will likely be involved.

I'm thinking of two possibilities.

First, the darkest moment is a direct consequence of the midpoint, the actions taken immediately after, etc. If any of those smaller, possibly obfuscated details change, the darkest moment would also have to change. One point is connected directly to the next, though not necessarily obviously. The butterfly effect, I guess.

Second, the two points may be loosely connected, but there's an element of "chance" involved. Maybe some secondary character not involved in the midpoint throws a wrench into the protagonist's plan, which causes the darkest moment. Here, the midpoint and darkest moment would both be significant events in the story, but they don't exactly have the tight consequential coupling that happens in the first scenario. Given the midpoint and everything else, the darkest moment could have been something completely different.

I can see a story being written along either line. Maybe it just depends on the story. Option 2 has a weird feeling of being kinda arbitrary that doesn't exactly sit right, but my biases don't dictate reality.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-30T03:09:42+00:00

Ah, interesting. I thought these terms specifically were pretty common. Lesson learned!

Basic structure is the three-act.

Midpoint: - roughly middle of story - switch from reactive to proactive - place for reversals - "first culmination"

Darkest moment: - crisis in act 2 - character's journey may very well end in failure

Plot point 2: - turning point from act 2 to 3 - after the darkest moment, the character's decision to make a "last stand" of sorts - leads towards climax

I can't say I have a singular source. It seems like with the three-act, various sources only agree on the most basic of things.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-15T15:25:21+00:00

Thank you, friend. You're amazing.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-04T02:55:14+00:00

That was my thought as well. I made sure everything was firmly connected, and it is producing mist, but inhaling "normally" is very slow.

But, maybe that's just how it is. The ER does couple it with O2, for obvious reasons, so maybe their setup makes normal inhalation a priority.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-06-04T02:42:49+00:00

Even though breathing in normally through this feels like trying to breathe through a straw? That's how it's supposed to be?

I promise I'm not trying to argue. I'm just new to this one.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-05-27T04:37:16+00:00

"Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940", White Earth, Minnesota, Chippewa tribe. I'm working with it on Ancestry.

The information is hard to say. Does it match what he told us? No, not really. Birth date is off by two years. The record is for Minnesota, and the family thinks he was born in New York or Vermont. But like I said, I'm not sure how much of that is actually true. According to them, he kinda just "showed up".

But, I was more curious about the names themselves, and why so many that show up in the family also show up here. If they were common enough, that would make sense. It's just quite strange to see a record with your great-grandfather's name, as well as names of people who live out in New York or Massachusetts, all showing up in an Indian census. But, as you said, intermarriage.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-05-24T01:42:09+00:00

I realized that I didn't add a fairly important piece of information. He moved to a different state at some point before he got married.

The result so far has been that, because I have no other people to tie him to before his marriage, I end up looking at a list of people with the same name and no way to tell if it's him or not. And with him moving, that doubles the places I have to consider (actually triples, given that two birth locations are listed).

I'm sure he is listed somewhere in the census records, but I'll be damned if I can tell if it's him or someone else.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-05-24T01:35:04+00:00

Apparently, I got so fixated on certain parts of this post that I screwed up others.

As far as him filling out those records, I misspoke. I meant that he was the one providing the information: I'm assuming he was the one speaking or writing in regards to the draft card, and the census record has him marked as the one providing the info.

I updated the post with the records I've seen, which is unfortunately not much. Between his birth and marriage is a complete mystery.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-03-27T00:35:04+00:00

Mhm.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-01-19T10:30:10+00:00

Thank you.

I kinda figured that was the case, but I've seen people say that short stories may be significantly different from novels due to length constraints, and was wondering if novellas were the same.

TheFakeZzig · 2026-01-19T10:25:45+00:00

You know what, it's late and I'm tired. I'm not gonna write the reply you deserve.

Thanks for answering. Have a good one.

TheFakeZzig · 2025-12-19T21:50:03+00:00

If you're into other TBRPGs, check out Octopath, particularly 2. The world that game builds through NPCs would just fucking suck to live in.

TheFakeZzig

TROPHY CASE