2.4 – The knot
Did you know that trilogies have a reputation for being good at the beginning and good at the end, but that the second book is the most forgettable of the three? It does not happen with all, but it is quite common. If we think about it, it makes sense. The first book is in which they introduce us to the cool things, what is cool and attracts us, they present us with the conflict and the characters. In the third book is when the conflicts are resolved and we see the characters in the most intense moments.
But in the second? In the second... things happen.
This is also due to one thing that in psychology is known as the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect says that the first elements of a series have more relevance to our brain than the rest, and the recency effect says that the last elements of a series are the ones that are freshest and therefore best remembered.
Therefore, half is usually the least fertile soil. People will remember it worse and like it less, or so popular knowledge says. Maybe that's why biology is so fashionable now?
That's a simple solution to the problem. Don't write the second book! Don't write trilogies, so you won't have to write second parts!
The middle part of a story we can not skip, so we will have to make it worthwhile.
In the knot is when we have to develop the elements of the story. This includes but is not limited to: Characters, conflict, setting, tone, plot... Development implies that we have a path between two points. Just like a ring that has to travel from the Shire to Mordor, or a tough police that has to open its perspective of the world, we have a point of origin and a point of destination. The development would be the path that is traveled from that point A to point C, passing through B.
Returning to the easy examples, the knot of the story is the journey they make between the region and Mordor, they are the small changes of perspective of the hard police. They are the first attempts to resolve the conflict, which can lead to more problems. It is possible that the three tests take place here before the final confrontation, or the couple has their first encounters.
Development not only involves change, in a novel an escalation of intensity is expected. The further we advance, the more at stake, the greater the reward and the more serious the danger becomes. The level of difficulty grows and the demands become more and more intransigent. We will look at this in greater depth when we talk about it in point 2.6.
But if there's one thing important during the knot of a novel, it's the sense of progression.
The progression of history
We've already talked before that the measure of the plot is change. However, I think we have not talked about the fact that the important thing for those who read us is not only that there is change, but that that change is directed in the right direction.
Haven't you ever felt like a story isn't going anywhere? To give a fictitious example, if we know that at the end of the story they have to go to Mordor, what would we feel if at the beginning of the story they started in the opposite direction? It can also happen that sometimes we read a story that we have no idea where it is going (it has not presented its conflict clearly) and therefore we see it stumble without knowing exactly what it is doing.
One of the complaints I often see about the two books of Chronicle of the Assassin of Kings is that they feel that they are full of straw, that the book is not going anywhere. This is in my opinion because people feel that the story is not progressing because after the second book Kvothe does not seem at all much closer to finding the Chandrians after everything that has happened.
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2.4 – The knot
Damn, this is the chunga part.
Did you know that trilogies have a reputation for being good at the beginning and good at the end, but that the second book is the most forgettable of the three? It does not happen with all, but it is quite common. If we think about it, it makes sense. The first book is in which they introduce us to the cool things, what is cool and attracts us, they present us with the conflict and the characters. In the third book is when the conflicts are resolved and we see the characters in the most intense moments.
But in the second? In the second... things happen.
This is also due to one thing that in psychology is known as the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect says that the first elements of a series have more relevance to our brain than the rest, and the recency effect says that the last elements of a series are the ones that are freshest and therefore best remembered.
Therefore, half is usually the least fertile soil. People will remember it worse and like it less, or so popular knowledge says. Maybe that's why biology is so fashionable now?
That's a simple solution to the problem. Don't write the second book! Don't write trilogies, so you won't have to write second parts!
Oh, wait, we're talking about writing the knot of a book. Shit.
The middle part of a story we can not skip, so we will have to make it worthwhile.
In the knot is when we have to develop the elements of the story. This includes but is not limited to: Characters, conflict, setting, tone, plot... Development implies that we have a path between two points. Just like a ring that has to travel from the Shire to Mordor, or a tough police that has to open its perspective of the world, we have a point of origin and a point of destination. The development would be the path that is traveled from that point A to point C, passing through B.
Returning to the easy examples, the knot of the story is the journey they make between the region and Mordor, they are the small changes of perspective of the hard police. They are the first attempts to resolve the conflict, which can lead to more problems. It is possible that the three tests take place here before the final confrontation, or the couple has their first encounters.
Development not only involves change, in a novel an escalation of intensity is expected. The further we advance, the more at stake, the greater the reward and the more serious the danger becomes. The level of difficulty grows and the demands become more and more intransigent. We will look at this in greater depth when we talk about it in point 2.6.
But if there's one thing important during the knot of a novel, it's the sense of progression.
The progression of history
We've already talked before that the measure of the plot is change. However, I think we have not talked about the fact that the important thing for those who read us is not only that there is change, but that that change is directed in the right direction.
Haven't you ever felt like a story isn't going anywhere? To give a fictitious example, if we know that at the end of the story they have to go to Mordor, what would we feel if at the beginning of the story they started in the opposite direction? It can also happen that sometimes we read a story that we have no idea where it is going (it has not presented its conflict clearly) and therefore we see it stumble without knowing exactly what it is doing.
One of the complaints I often see about the two books of Chronicle of the Assassin of Kings is that they feel that they are full of straw, that the book is not going anywhere. This is in my opinion because people feel that the story is not progressing because after the second book Kvothe does not seem at all much closer to finding the Chandrians after everything that has happened.
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