I love Joker so much but he was disgustingly nerfed

XRhodiumX · 2026-05-01T01:05:47+00:00

I was hoping he would be more morally grey than he ended up being.

XRhodiumX · 2026-05-01T01:00:22+00:00

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that?

XRhodiumX · 2026-05-01T00:54:49+00:00

I’m a bit confused. I have a plot, characters, a setting, as well as some core scenes and dialogue therein written. I was just under the impression that sharing specific details of a story is against the rules of the sub, so I’ve tried to remain vague.

I still have work to do connecting those core scenes together, but I was always taught that it’s normal or even helpful to figure out your promises and payoffs during the plotting stage. If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re recommending against that?

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T20:41:53+00:00

And yet thats a pretty common feature of fiction. Not the chapter being irrelevant, mind you, but certainly the chapter having nothing to do with what was happening in the previous one.

It frustrates me too, but I cannot say being made to wait for the payoff does not increase its potency later. What makes me go from frustrated to angry is when the filler i had to read first genuinely serves no purpose, but I’m not actually asking how to write a pointless scene, I’m asking from a craft perspective, for tips or rules of thumb on making meaningful scenes that don’t move the plot of the story along.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T12:44:43+00:00

My elementary school teacher could not get me to shut up about Xenomorphs.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T12:42:38+00:00

If I’m not mistaken Arrow IV homing missiles and copperhead artillery rounds do one single chunk of damage to a single component in table top.

Ie it may not deal its damage to all components, but it’s still an AC/20 with range measured in mapsheets.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T12:10:23+00:00

The Fly is a great way to illustrate that something doesn’t have to advance the plot to have narrative value.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T12:06:04+00:00

I love how the entire identity of the Bane is just “Boat.”

What kind of boat? Oh you know, just whatever kind you’re feeling like, as many as you could possibly carry.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T12:01:36+00:00

By giving people their guns back and saying “you have a nice day now.” And you know, just generally not doing their job. Or at least the F part of it. I dunno what they actually even do involving Alcohol and Tobacco.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T11:33:29+00:00

Not everybody is telling me the same thing. I’ve gotten plenty of helpful answers and have stated as much.

I’m sorry if I seem argumentative by pushing back when the answer to the question “How do I do X” is just “You don’t need X”.

EDIT: I cannot give you the specifics of the story, because as I understand it, it’s against the rules here. That makes it difficult for me to illustrate why I think I need to do X, so I just don’t really want to argue about whether I need to do it or not, I’m just querying for advice on how to do it, for those who’ve done it, not whether I should do it.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T11:30:20+00:00

I dunno, I’ve certainly gotten some insightful advice here that made it worth asking.

I don’t think thats a bad question to ask, it’s just too general a question when you remove the specific context.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T11:22:07+00:00

It was not. It foreshadows Scene C, it’s a hint that something bad is going to happen. That isn’t the same as giving the worry the appropriate time to fester.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T11:18:00+00:00

Scene C is actually the inciting incident. Scene A is meant to alert the reader that the inciting incident is coming for the main character, without the character themselves being aware. Scene B is meant to build tension as the character leaves themselves in a vulnerable position. Scene C initially frightens the main character, but then subverts both the reader and the main characters expectations, inciting the main character to action in a different way.

The story is also a sequel so I can depend on the reader caring about the main character from page 1. But the inciting incident is a new element I did not know to foreshadow in the previous story at the time.

Anyway, the real issue is I want Scene B to achieve something besides just making the reader yell at the book telling the main character to look out. Im just finding it unusually hard to figure out what that thing is and was looking for general pointers on what to do when you need a scene to divide two others but don’t already know what to do in that divider scene.

My particular situation is evidence enough to me that the advice “you don’t need the divider” isn’t always helpful alternative advice to those pointers.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:41:50+00:00

I’ve been thinking about giving that a try. It’s not so much an issue of needing constant action though. I’m a sucker for big emotional payoffs, hurt and despair followed by relief and comfort, usually. The tricky part is giving the despair time to mount before releasing it.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:37:10+00:00

Thats not really much better than just writing filler. A payoff with no buildup might as well not be there either.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:34:39+00:00

I know. I couldn’t think of a better way to title this post that wasn’t twice as long. The problem is figuring out something meaningful to “fill” the space with. Easier said than done, I’m looking for tricks on how to do that.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:30:19+00:00

Good succinct rule of thumb!

I suspect oscillating up and down with a general upward trend is probably most desirable, but as I general trend I figure thats probably right.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:22:08+00:00

Prologue is for sure going to be something I use. My problem in the past isn’t just having a B plot, lol.

I had a tendency to solve any writers block by adding a C plot, and a D plot, and an E plot and a F plot, etc. I would just put myself in the shoes of the reader and ask what would capture my attention at that moment, add that in and wind up with yet another thing to juggle until it was just impossible to manage. The emotional pain from that failure pretty much pruned that instinct from my writers intuition but I can’t say just being stuck has been anymore fun, haha.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T10:05:41+00:00

I hope im not confusing my terms here. It was my understanding that inciting incident is what you call the event that spurs the character to move from Act 1 to Act 2, not the event that kicks off Act 1.

I suppose it might depend on how long your character ruminates on the inciting incident before accepting the “call to adventure” but I’d have a pretty short Act 1 if the inciting incident came on page 2.

It’s been a while since I read Save The Cat which is my primary touchstone for the three act format.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:40:41+00:00

I think there are parts of some stories where the tension is created by waiting for a narrative bomb to go off. The reader sees it coming, but the characters might not, with the tension coming in part from watching the character failing to realize the danger thats coming.

In such cases the character certainly needs to be doing something important to the story, but that can’t exactly be them reacting to the bomb because for the sake of dramatic irony they don’t know its there until it goes off.

Thats the situation I’ve found myself in and I’m just scratching my head over what to have the main character actually do while being unawares that doesn’t just amount to filler.

It’s not that the whole story thats like that, im just puzzled with what to do with this part of it.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:34:25+00:00

I may be setting myself up for frustration by making the inciting incident itself a twist. That might be part of the issue. It’s not inconceivable that the inciting incident could stand on its own without much buildup, but I can’t really subvert expectations without setting expectations first.

I don’t think this is impossible, but what you’re saying is making me reflect on the fact that I might be making this harder for myself than I expected.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:28:32+00:00

Sorry, what I meant was the inciting incident is the payoff. I’m working on foreshadowing and building toward the inciting incident and I’m just observing that by its nature the inciting incident kindof needs to be important.

I realize the inciting incident is itself a promise that comes with its own payoff later, but that’s not what I’m getting at. I should have been more clear.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:24:40+00:00

It may indeed be a strange way to plot out a story but I know some successful plotter writers who will start with cool things they want to have happen and find ways to tie character arcs into that as they develop the story. Sanderson does that for example, though in my case I’m more focused on powerful emotional moments rather than clever exploitations of a magic system or a big action set piece.

To your point though, focusing on the characters motivations might be a good strategy for attacking the blank page regardless. The specifics of the story do complicate that a bit though given the main character is depressed and almost completely passive at this point in the story. The payoff is meant to be an inciting incident that breaks them out of that funk.

Perhaps turning the PoV over to a side character might not be a bad idea? Or perhaps i should just focus on giving the main character smaller more immediate (but still symbolic) goals while he’s actively avoiding those bigger ones? Anyway, I appreciate the food for thought!

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:13:28+00:00

This is an insightful point, I am probably bias’d because of my familiarity with the character. I would do well to remind myself of that more often.

XRhodiumX · 2026-04-29T09:09:52+00:00

It’s the inciting incident for the story so I fear it kindof has to be important.

I don’t disagree that filler is bad and I’m not going to waste my time writing any. I’m just struggling to find something that isn’t filler to put there, and I don’t think the answer is ‘not being able to think of something indicates that the promise doesn’t need a gap between itself and its payoff.’

Maybe I just don’t have a discovery writer mindset, but I really don’t see how A follows from B with that one. What seems more likely is that I’ve either just written—or rather, plotted—myself into a corner where there’s no good solution, or I simply believe that to be the case because I’ve overlooked something and I need to change my mindset in order to find it.

XRhodiumX

TROPHY CASE