What Ails the Gunjin
Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 11:27 pm
The Gunjin, it seems to me, is dying. At least, compared to my prime days of activity here, it is merely a shadow of itself. And why, might you ask? Truly, I don't think it's because the nature of the board has changed all that much, and since there are still familiar faces, it's not that the vanguard has been replaced by a green crowd.
I believe what ails the Gunjin is the way people perceive the art of writing combat. People seem to view these fights as adversarial endeavors, where you are trying to defeat the other character, but also the other writer. This is not the right angle of approach. The well-written fight is a collaborative endeavor between both authors that, like any good fiction, should tell a story. Furthermore, this story is one part in the ongoing story of the participants' lives.
This is where the breakdown occurs. Somehow, despite many characters in the Gunjin having lovingly tended backgrounds and personas, each fight ends up being about beating the other guy, rather than create something enjoyable. I believe this is largely because these characters don't really do much other than fight each other. There is no context for them or their battles.
Hastily constructed meetings-of-chance are fielded as the explanation instead of any real relevant discussion about how and why these characters cross paths as opponents which means that, when they do, they're just fighting to fight, really. They have no proper motivation, and consequently, neither does the writer. All you can hope to gain from writing such a fight is praise for your brutality. In such baseless combat, your character lacks room for growth and therefore becomes stagnant throughout the fight. Rather than truly writing, you are engaging in mindless self-indulgence.
Driven by the sole goal of victory, writers of the Gunjin will enable their characters to survive beatings well beyond their means in hopes of pulling off successively more desperate maneuvers, all of which inevitably fail because the other guy is driven by the same basic notions of the undertaking. Now, I like epic clashes as much as the next geek, but really, no out-and-out brawl between two characters should ever take ten minutes to read, and certainly not because the authors refuse to let themselves take a loss. (Oh lawd, your internet credz will go down!) If you've read Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa, there is some awesome samurai action going down, but the longest it ever took me to read a fight scene was four minutes for the actual action part (six minutes including pursuits). A well-written fight does not suffer from brevity, but benefits from it!
Two other problems perpetuate the novella-length fight-scene trend of the Gunjin along with the unwillingness to bite the bullet. The first is that many people take a DBZ approach to the combat, and whip out progressively more powerful/elaborate moves and forms as the battles wears on, saving the best for last with a sort of showman mentality. Real fights don't happen like that. Gangster A doesn't take a punch from Gangster B and suddenly drop the crowbar he was trying to hit him with to whip out his gun and say "Now, behold my true power!" No, he shoots Gangster B in the face right off the bat.
Seriously, if you're not fighting to restrain someone, there's no reason to be concerned about excessive force; use the abilities at your command like a real fighter would, not in a fashion that creates fake drama and an overwrought climax.
The second problem is that sometimes, people try too bloody hard to be clever in their writing. Sonic devices overplayed until cartoony, excessive repetition of 'power' words, forced emphasis via italics and other devices which would be legitimate when used sparingly and in appropriate spots are slapped unto otherwise run-of-the-mill writing to make it seem more sophisticated or deep. This has to stop. The pressure to include such contrivances prompts writers to spend way too much time telling their part of the story, time that is not in any way used to advance the actual flow of the plot.
But, to return to the main issue; the answer lies in a paradigm shift among the writers. Stop challenging people because you want to beat someone up, and start taking fights that will be valuable writing. Develop your characters some, and work with your fellow writers rather than against them! Your battles will always be wastes of space and time if they do nothing more than speak of the exchange of blows. If they tell the story within which such an exchange occurs, however, then we have a rewarding venture on our hands.
~Holokostos
I believe what ails the Gunjin is the way people perceive the art of writing combat. People seem to view these fights as adversarial endeavors, where you are trying to defeat the other character, but also the other writer. This is not the right angle of approach. The well-written fight is a collaborative endeavor between both authors that, like any good fiction, should tell a story. Furthermore, this story is one part in the ongoing story of the participants' lives.
This is where the breakdown occurs. Somehow, despite many characters in the Gunjin having lovingly tended backgrounds and personas, each fight ends up being about beating the other guy, rather than create something enjoyable. I believe this is largely because these characters don't really do much other than fight each other. There is no context for them or their battles.
Hastily constructed meetings-of-chance are fielded as the explanation instead of any real relevant discussion about how and why these characters cross paths as opponents which means that, when they do, they're just fighting to fight, really. They have no proper motivation, and consequently, neither does the writer. All you can hope to gain from writing such a fight is praise for your brutality. In such baseless combat, your character lacks room for growth and therefore becomes stagnant throughout the fight. Rather than truly writing, you are engaging in mindless self-indulgence.
Driven by the sole goal of victory, writers of the Gunjin will enable their characters to survive beatings well beyond their means in hopes of pulling off successively more desperate maneuvers, all of which inevitably fail because the other guy is driven by the same basic notions of the undertaking. Now, I like epic clashes as much as the next geek, but really, no out-and-out brawl between two characters should ever take ten minutes to read, and certainly not because the authors refuse to let themselves take a loss. (Oh lawd, your internet credz will go down!) If you've read Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa, there is some awesome samurai action going down, but the longest it ever took me to read a fight scene was four minutes for the actual action part (six minutes including pursuits). A well-written fight does not suffer from brevity, but benefits from it!
Two other problems perpetuate the novella-length fight-scene trend of the Gunjin along with the unwillingness to bite the bullet. The first is that many people take a DBZ approach to the combat, and whip out progressively more powerful/elaborate moves and forms as the battles wears on, saving the best for last with a sort of showman mentality. Real fights don't happen like that. Gangster A doesn't take a punch from Gangster B and suddenly drop the crowbar he was trying to hit him with to whip out his gun and say "Now, behold my true power!" No, he shoots Gangster B in the face right off the bat.
Seriously, if you're not fighting to restrain someone, there's no reason to be concerned about excessive force; use the abilities at your command like a real fighter would, not in a fashion that creates fake drama and an overwrought climax.
The second problem is that sometimes, people try too bloody hard to be clever in their writing. Sonic devices overplayed until cartoony, excessive repetition of 'power' words, forced emphasis via italics and other devices which would be legitimate when used sparingly and in appropriate spots are slapped unto otherwise run-of-the-mill writing to make it seem more sophisticated or deep. This has to stop. The pressure to include such contrivances prompts writers to spend way too much time telling their part of the story, time that is not in any way used to advance the actual flow of the plot.
But, to return to the main issue; the answer lies in a paradigm shift among the writers. Stop challenging people because you want to beat someone up, and start taking fights that will be valuable writing. Develop your characters some, and work with your fellow writers rather than against them! Your battles will always be wastes of space and time if they do nothing more than speak of the exchange of blows. If they tell the story within which such an exchange occurs, however, then we have a rewarding venture on our hands.
~Holokostos