Quantum Storytelling

As writers we spend a lot of time creating meaning. We create meaning in our characters, meaning in our fictional world. We try to create mythologies to explain aspects of our world, especially if writing sci-fi or fantasy. We try to create symbolism and depth wherever we can. Everything has to be meaningful, otherwise we don’t like to waste time thinking about it. But there’s something we’re missing when we do this…

Creating meaningful things isn’t the only way to go.

Sometimes meaningless things are important to a story.

Enter the concept of the one-off. A one-off is a disposable event or idea that you include in your story, and will only be used once. It is a novelty item. Some might refer to it as a ‘gimmick.’ It offers no long term value to your story, or even your intellectual property. So why bother thinking about it?

Let me use an example to illustrate why it’s important;

The big boulder that rolls after Indiana Jones at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It happens in the first ten minutes and is one of those things that people remember forever. It is used in pretty much every trailer or collage of different movie trailers. It is a hallmark scene for the Indiana Jones series. The most interesting part?

It’s disposable. It has no lasting meaning or value to the story or intellectual property. It is a throw-away, a disposable one-off. Not to mention the fact implausible.

There is no reason why the Hovito natives would spend thousands of hours, materials, and effort carving a huge, perfectly round boulder and the track it rolls upon, just to kill intruders to their sacred temple. The same might be said of the other traps Indiana Jones encounters, but the boulder is clearly the pinnacle, the Mother of All Over-Wrought Traps.

It has no use or place in the story in any meaningful way. It’s just there purely for entertainment. By that measure it doesn’t even qualify as a McGuffin. There is no connection between the huge rolling boulder and any other part of the story.

Yet it has become one of the most memorable moments in pop film history?

Perhaps we should all add a little dash of the disposable to our stories.

Following up on my last post whether creative people hate marketing, Buzz, Balls, & Hype has a great session with the doctor this week, helping a woman who suffers from the very problem I described. She’s despised self-promotion her whole life, and felt it was a compromise to artistic integrity.

The most beautiful part is where the doc addresses her issue with this brilliant sentence;

“Your revulsion at others’ self-promotion may, as you suggest, be proportionate to the degree to which you have suppressed your own need for attention.”

This is a golden observation. I could not have said it better myself. Any time artists rage against crass commercialism, and boast the superiority of being obscure, I can’t help but see the lonely, isolated, nerdy, awkward teenager who isn’t popular, and doesn’t quite fit in the group. Worse, such individuals often feel bitter about their social standing, and lack of attention.

The obvious attitude for a person in that situation is to say things like, “Well, I didn’t want to be popular anyway!” or “Popularity is overrated!” or the age-old “That’s being a sell-out!”

Deep in our hearts, we all know this is a simple rationalization for lack of success. Deep in our hearts, we all know it’s an attempt to compensate, an attempt to justify obscurity and sometimes even mediocrity.

One of my favorite things that Heinlein said was, “Obscurity is the refuge of the incompetent.” Some might find that quote offensive. But look at it this way;

You may be a master of your craft, but if your work is not out there and nobody knows who you are, then how will anyone know that you are the master of your craft?

It has nothing to do with the work. The ‘incompetence’ Heinlein spoke of has more to do with how you handle yourself and your work than the quality of the work itself.

You can be a competent craftsperson but an incompetent PR person for your work, or an incompetent brand manager, or an incompetent business person.

If you are incompetent in these areas, nobody will know or care how great you are as an artist.

When you boil it down, the goal of artists and business people is the same; To share their work with as many people as possible.

Using that yardstick for measurement, obscurity *is* the refuge of the incompetent.

But not all is gloom and doom. Obscurity can be used as simple feedback towards positive results. If you’re not getting the attention you crave, try harder! Set up a book signing, or go talk to a reading club. Start a blog! Start doing things to promote yourself.

You don’t have to settle for obscurity. And you don’t have to feel dirty about self-promotion!

“Many people bad-mouth marketing and advertising. They hurl all kinds of insults at it–until they have to market or advertise something. Then everything changes, and they realize the difficulty of effective marketing. They often resort to the tried and true, most of which is now the uninformed and the ineffective. What used to work in the past is impotent now in a world of clutter and complexity.”

This statement from Guerrilla Creativity highlights my perception of many creative people. They seem marketing-averse. There are a lot of game developers, writers, and filmmakers with an anti-corporate attitude, perhaps not realizing all the work the ’suits’ and ‘marketing gimps’ actually do?

If you ever plan to sell a book, you will suddenly have to think about marketing. Do creative people shoot themselves in the foot with an anti-marketing attitude?