There’s a storytelling style I’ve always been fascinated with, where a story methodically evolves from one state to the next, and before long, it looks nothing like what it did or where it was going before.
When done poorly, this can leave the audience behind.
When done well, it can be a lot of fun and increase the dynamic range of the narrative.
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This is an essential feature of Wonderland.
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One of my rules of story writing is:
Make the audience want some thing, and then give it to them.
The trick with this feature is to implement it without violating the above rule.
Potentially, a winding plot can rely on sequences of carrots, as long as the audience is periodically given previous carrots as new carrots are dangled.
Another requirement for this feature is the twists and turns need to flow.
The flow can either be concrete, relying on logical plot flow, or it can be abstract, relying on more poetic flow.
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The latter transitions are similar to a stream of consciousness.
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Contrast Alice in Wonderland with “Through the Looking Glass”. Most of the first book has a surreal flow, while the transitions of the second book are jarring and completely random.
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Similar to the feeling in Dark Souls where the player reaches a location and can see a previous location far in the distance, there can be a certain sense of awe in how far the story has traveled.
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That’s similar to an episode in Season 5 of Angel, where the characters temporarily revert back to earlier personalities. Joss Whedon wanted to show the contrast of how far the characters have grown since they were first introduced.
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This idea conflicts with stability, and will need to rely on Injected stability to keep this in harmony with stability.