Greetings, mutants.
There's a type of storytelling I call Scrambled Eggs.
Scrambled Eggs is when a story doesn't flow logically and becomes weak and disjointed. We've all read stories where there seemed to be many
different premises that didn't blend, or characters that didn't behave how they should.
To put
more firmly: If you've watched an episode of "The Simpsons" recently,
what you've seen is Scrambled Eggs. The main premise doesn't even kick in until after commercial break.
Scrambled Eggs are all-over-the-place. Why read a story when you aren't sure what the story's even about?
The pinnacle of bad writing and early mornings.
This
isn't to say every time a story has multiple premises, that they're
necessarily Scrambled Eggs. Most Sitcoms usually have A-plots, B-plots, and even E-plots, and any links between these storylines are superficial at best, and some
stories have subplots that only reinforce a theme while
tangentially touching the headline story.
But oftentimes, these
stories still have a wraparound where even the oddest unrelated part
somehow works with the whole. Tragedies are actually very good examples,
because usually everyone has their own motives but they all end up
getting murdered through series of coincidences. Like in "Sweeney Todd".
The love story between Anthony and Johanna, Judge Turpin's interference,
Sweeney Todd opening a barber shop, and the feud between Angela
Lansbury--er Mrs. Lovett and the Beggar Woman are all plots that seem
entirely unrelated, and then at the end they all clash.
However,
something can be Scrambled Eggs if premises don't interact, make sense,
or are logically explained.
This can be due to faulty cause-and-effect. I'll give an example in this fanfiction I've read recently.
1: Octavia is playing in a concert.
2: Because she's tired, she goes for a drink. Okay, logical.
3: Bar is closed. Okay.
4: So she goes to a different, more seedy bar.
5: She gets annoyed at the crassness of the bar and I'm like, "Huh? Why did you go here when the bar is called 'Jugs'?"
6: She gets super drunk on a drink she doesn't like. "Huh. Then why did you order Pistachio!?"
7: She gets pass-out drunk and has to be helped by the DJ.
8: After waking up, she argues with the DJ.
9: She sees how messy the place is and says so. The DJ is like "well this is pretty classy for me". So
10: She offers to cook for the DJ.
11: They argue more and she volunteers to show the DJ her musical work.
12: The DJ and her keep arguing and she keeps giving the DJ stuff . . .
. . ..
21: She's in the seedy bar again with the DJ? Why!? She already listened to the DJ play that funky music!
This is Scrambled Eggs for these reasons:
1)
This doesn't follow logical cause-and-effect. They argue, and then she
agrees to make her dinner to show her up? That just seems like a weird
way to make her make dinner. Versus, I dunno, they argue, then they
throw eggs at one another's face and suddenly go like, "hey you make
some good ass eggs."
2) Illogical characterization. This one's my
least favorite personally. This is where the characters don't commit to
their established personalities. Octavia hates the seedy bar, but she
still goes into them. Also she gets drunk
on a drink she doesn't even like. I mean, that's not exactly rare, some people are inherently spiteful, but she doth protest too much.
3) Lack of progression: There's no heightening stakes, nor does the story drive more into the relationship.
The South Park writers had this one supposed remedy that goes: If you
can link plot beats with "And", you're screwed. If you can link them with
"but" or "therefore", you're good.
Each "but" means something
has gone wrong for the main characters, while "therefore" means they're
reacting. You could link South Park's story advice with
Motivation-Reaction Units from "Techniques of a Selling Writer" by
Dwight Swain. Every motivation is turned by a reaction, and every
reaction is a motivation. This is cause-and-effect.
Stan wants to watch an R-rated movie, but his parents say only when he brings peace to Cuba, therefore he writes to Fidel Castro, but his parents say they were only joking, therefore he gets angry, but he learns of a magic word to make parents vanish, therefore he says that magic word, but everyone else does so, therefore South Park is left without adults. However, I
don't think this is a great exercise because most people will assume they're doing the "but" and "therefore" method. Scrambled Eggs can follow the "but", "therefore",
format, just that the "buts" are
superficial catalysts, and the "therefores" are the least logical
reaction. I'll give an example from Guild Wars I.
The story begins with Charr invading Ascalon. Therefore, Prince Rurik says they
should establish ties with Kryta again, but King Adelburn says Rurik is
no longer his son because of the former guild war between Ascalon and
Kryta. Therefore, you and Rurik leave and go through mountains,
therefore you meet some good dwarves, but you get attacked by evil
dwarves, therefore you fend them off, but Rurik is caught and dies,
therefore you go to Kryta, but you find the White Mantle who are evil,
therefore you go and find more about their gods . . . etc.
"What about the Charr?"
Exactly. You end up fighting Mursaat and Titans and the Charr are all but forgotten.
So what makes this story "Scrambled Eggs" even though these are all logically linked events?
1) There's
no thematic link. You go from fighting one villain to finally fighting
the last, and they try to argue they're related somehow in a
bass-ackwards way. You can't say this story is about fighting the Charr
or fighting the Mursaat, or about the adventures into claiming a new
land. There are many different plots and the story ends simply to
end. The facts are, you can't sum this story up as "Who, what, when, where, why, and how" in any meaningful way.
Even something complex like Game of Thrones can be summed up as "Many families of Westeros are fighting to get on the throne in a medieval-esque world through trickery, deceit, marriages, and warfare so they can gain power."
Saying, "Well a bunch of Ascalonians are trying to get over to Kryta
after the Charr attacked . . . " still leaves out most of the
story.
2) The logical cause-and-effect meanders from a bird's-eye view. "We were attacked by Charr,
therefore we left, but we ended up being attacked by dwarves, therefore
we kept moving, but we got attacked by the White Mantle, therefore we
tried to investigate them." This is the type of plot you'd expect in an
eight year-old's writing where they get bored of one story and move on
to the next. While this makes sense from scene-to-scene, this doesn't
follow from act-to-act.
Versus, "A man is grieving over the death
of his father, but he soon hears from his father's ghost about the truth, therefore he goes to figure out the underlying mystery
while posing as insane, but everyone wants to know what is up with the
man, therefore he must keep up the charade while coercing the truth, but
once he finally thinks he's found the truth, he goes on a revenge
mission against his father's murderer only to attack somebody else,
therefore he's sent away in exile, but he manages to outwit the men
taking him away, therefore he's ordered to appear in a fencing match
against the son of his victim . . . " You could even recreate a story
from that alone.
3) No characterization. The main characters
could be anyone and the story would go exactly the same. You could
replace them with Spongebob Squarepants, would be just as emotional, would be just as logical.
4) No heightening stakes.
Beyond the fact that Mursaat are stronger than Charr, the threats or
stakes don't rise. The fear of going into a new land could be an
interesting journey, but that is quickly forgotten for new villains.
There's no social threats, there's no politics, simply one wave after
the next.
If the stakes aren't getting higher and higher, while
the goal of victory is paradoxically nearing and yet seemingly harder to
grasp, you might be doing jolly-bad with the stakes. While "The
Odyssey" has lots of side misadventures, ultimately, the final challenge
is taking the kingdom back from the suitors, and that seems like the
hardest job yet, but at that moment, Odysseus' happy ending is only a moment
away.
Common Victims of Scrambled Eggs
Tell me if you've seen a story like this.
There's an entire line-up of threats on the way to the main villain. Gretchen, in order, fights Strangle Von Strangler, then
in a bar accidentally finds Sergeant Gunsley, then somehow gets the
intuition to go to North Street where somehow Max Asswhuppin' knew to
wait for her, and then afterwards she just meets Frankie Freakin'
Fighter on the middle of the subway, until actually getting to the main
villain, Step-Father Michael Michaels Max Jones-Hernandez . . . the third. There's no
logic as to how she keeps meeting them and no logic how they know to
meet her.
Somehow, someone figures that since Street Fighter is
fun to play, the game must be fun to read. That's what these stories are like, where they chose a specific number of trials and challenges. Kinda like a fable, but more action-oriented. Characters take missions and
reply because they're supposed to, almost like they know they're on a
narrow track and must follow until the story's ending. The author goes
lazy. They have no reasons to go and do anything they're doing.
A great example of characters doing the tightrope of story is a horrible movie called "Golden Child".
Throughout Golden Child, Eddie Murphy actively points out how absurd
the plot is and how against everything he is, and yet . . . he doesn't
take any actions. No matter how stupid he thinks the storyline or
being the "chosen one" is, he goes along with every trial.
At
this point, the dialogue is almost a separate entity from the character,
wherein they just keep babbling and the story keeps occurring.
Personally, I'd rather have a cliche movie than a movie that
pretends to be subversive based on slight misbehaviors of an archetype.
Then
there are stories I call the "Paw Patrol" story, wherein the story is
about a band of a few characters who go around helping people for
seemingly no reason. How they get money is unknown, why they care is
unknown.
And sure,
that's like every Pokemon Movie. Ash is helping these people through
their life crises, but like . . . Pokemon movies are well-animated. Your
story . . . isn't.
Not pictured: Your story.
I think these are vaguely worse simply because instead of one person,
we get an entire squad of "personality-only but no character, no morals,
no principles, no substance" swamp monsters. And I say they have a
personality, but their personalities are usually, "fashion diva", or "dumb brute". Beware the man who has deluded himself into thinking that
defying simple archetypes makes him more unique, therefore he has the
"mean girl with heart of gold", or "smart barbarian". As if these
haven't appeared eighty-seven times this past year.
In "Sweeney Todd", we know he's wrapped up because he needs his revenge.
In "The Odyssey", we know he's wrapped up because he needs to get back home, then get revenge.
In "Hamlet", he's wrapped up because he's escaped, needs to get back home, then get revenge.
In "Pokemon 3: Spell of the Unown", Ash's mom has been taken and he must rescue her, but he doesn't really get revenge. Huh, maybe that's why this isn't classical art.
Plot Progression and Stakes
Something else, more stakes related, is no one gets stuck in the plot anymore.
Like,
you've probably heard of a Key Event before or First Plot Point from
the Hero's Journey. Sure, there are more story-structures, but the
reason these moments are proposed is so the character is forced into the plot (hopefully by their
own choice!). The door has shut. If your character can literally go on a
trip to the Bahamas and never come back and sleep soundly at night, you screwed up, you have a
fragile story.
Back to Guild Wars, they don't have to fight the
White Mantle, and instead they could say, "You know what, maybe we
should try Canth or Elona." Meanwhile in "Hamlet", he can't turn back
after he performs the play because now he knows Claudius knows he knows.
When Sweeney swears revenge, sure he could simply live by the beach
with Mrs. Lovett, but he wouldn't, because he wouldn't be able to rest.
Without any moment where the characters have to commit, many storylines simply fall apart or seem random
"How Do You Prevent Scrambled Eggs".
Welp,
you've probably realized all the main causes. Remember, we don't have
to avoid writing Scrambled Eggs, we have to look at our roots.
1) Cause-and-effect
2) Characterization
3) Progression or lack of Stakes
4) Thematic Link
But the root cause seems to be: Having a plot or plan in your head, and then going through without caring to justify anything. Hopefully, over the course of the following "exercise packet", you will learn how to justify your story and fill in plot holes.
A Few Exercises:
Not
all of these exercises will necessarily benefit your story. But some of
these will likely help reduce instances of Scrambled Eggs, or firm them
up into a Sunny Side-Up Story.
For Cause-And-Effect
Firstly,
take each page, and turn that page into a sentence, and soon each
chapter should be a paragraph. The entire story should fit on a page or
two. Now, you have an entire bird's eye view of your script. If you want
to go a step further, try to turn each paragraph into a sentence. Does
everything logically make sense? Go ahead and tell this to someone,
prostrate to them while half or entirely naked and see if they have any
questions, and if they do, and that question isn't addressed in the skeleton,
maybe go and fill that in. If there's an explanation that's only minor,
maybe make the explanation more obvious or more intrinsically moving.
Come up with a couple of phrases or "themes" that are meant to link together the story. Does every storyline touch on these themes, even the seemingly most unrelated point?
For Characterization:
Replace the main character with a
side character. If the only difference would be the powers used, there's
an issue.
Some of you will try to cheat by saying, "Oh, well
this character has to rescue her because he's the one in love with Her." And never
bring up how everyone else probably loves "Her", simply they don't love
her romantically.
Her.
Question what is the hero's
motive, and separate what they want and what they need. Want is
something they are seeking, while need is something that would actually
bring them enlightenment. Then give them a choice between either. Now,
the character's growth along with the plot are linked.
Sit with an individual scene and ask, "Why are they here? What is their purpose?"
You
can also retell the story from one character's perspective. "Yeah, so
this dude was acting weird one day, and then my sister drowned herself,
and then he stabbed my dad, so I wanted to fight him." While that's
quite a story, that still makes logical sense. And finally, so all else fails,
Go over an exhaustive list of ways the character could react
to each scene and instead of going with the most obvious one, look at
them closely. Simply write out about fifteen different reactions. Like
sketches of scenes.
For example, while Cyras might handle a surprise flood in the treehouse by getting on a mattress, why would there be a mattress there? Could she simply stand on the roof? What if she tried to swim? Maybe she bounces along on tree tops? And so on and so forth.
For Progression And Themes:
List
each antagonist force from characters to natural disasters. Are they
threats in terms of power, finance, sex, or intelligence? How do they
increase from a previous villain of the same attributes, and how do they
increase in threat overall?
What's the actual main antagonistic
force? If the character is afraid of losing custody over the family
Mustard Business because they're too busy fighting in a crusade against
the heathens in Sargonia, the heathens aren't the real main threat. The
real main threat is their slick jackass cousin who says he can get a 25%
increase of shekels if the rest of the family simply listens to him.
Robert
McKee also listed some advice and said that stories are usually one
force versus the negation. The protagonist force is something like
"Wisdom", then the negation is Ignorance. Then to get profound stories
you want to reach the Negation of the Negation. What is more Ignorant
than Ignorance? Ignorance posing as wise. He also talks about half-steps
such as "naive".
So Mustard McMahon is wise, and his family is
naive, but in their letters to him on the campaign, they think to give
the business for extra money, but know he's kinda . . . dangerous. So
McMahon must handle them and persuade them to stick with him. However,
private stockholders don't think that way, and are entirely ignorant,
and they want that money now. Then his cousin isn't simply ignorant, but
he's much better at talking and manages to get everyone to believe he
knows what he's talking about in increasing business even with a lack of
sustainability.
So, go ahead and try to identify the many
sources of antagonism and any common links. How can the final bosses
exemplify a negation of a negation?
This, however, is only one way
to increase progression. With stakes, for example, let's say characters
are hiding something, like the fact they got paint on someone's dollar
like in Spongebob Squarepants. There isn't an increase in the thematic
power, or even in the severity of the stakes. They'll get their butts
cut off either way.
The increase of stakes is how the threat
looms closer. First, they have to be careful never to cause damage, then
they have to cover-up, then they have to cover-up as Mr. Krabs is home.
To
do something like this: Ask what could make the
situation worse. And here's a fun exercise, you have someone say, "Oh
that's good", then you explain "no that isn't good". And here's an
example, I can't remember from where, but goes like:
"This man fell out of a plane."
"Oh that's bad,"
"No that's fine, he had a parachute."
"Oh that's good."
"No, his parachute wouldn't work."
"Oh that's bad."
"Nah, he had a back-up."
"Oh that's good."
"Well the back-up didn't work either."
Explain that in terms of your story.
"If they got paint on the millionth dollar, they would get their butts chopped off."
"Oh that's bad."
"Nah, they were careful about the paint."
"Oh that's good."
"But then they got some on the dollar."
"Oh that's bad."
"But they tried to wash the dollar off."
"Oh that's good."
"That didn't work though."
"Oh that's bad."
"Then he comes back home."
"Oh that's really bad."
All these exercises will help you in some way, especially with Scrambled Eggs.
In Summary:
Basically,
Scrambled Eggs storytelling is awful because usually you don't know
what you're reading until the end, and sometimes not even then. You
can't get invested in anything if you aren't sure why the thing is
happening.
This is why most movies suck. You can't engage because
there are characters who have no reason to be doing anything, taking
illogical actions, in a stagnant plot, that doesn't mean anything. This
seems like a tall order to fix, but if you develop each character, make
sure your plot's tension and stakes increase, and foolproof the logic,
and look at this both scene-to-scene and bird's-eye view, you will
probably avoid Scrambled Eggs.
Now we got to fight Hashbrowns next week.
And feel free to comment about stories where you were like "what's even going on". Go ahead and tell me how my Guild Wars I opinion is actually incorrect. Say "Hamlet" is overrated, and how obviously a plebian like me chose that instead of "The Great Gatsby". Tell me what you'd like to see next.
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