Should a story be allowed to end in the same place as it started, without the characters going through any sort of change?
I'm taking a creative writing class, and my professor claims that a story's character must end up in a better or worse position than how they were at the beginning, in order to make a good story. The first thing that came to mind was the ending of Waiting for Godot. By his definition, that play isn't a story. Also, isn't most erotica like this?
Should I drop?
No, you should take Russian literature to class and call out the professor for (her?) fucking retarded perspective.
At least 3 authors whose names I can't recall, but whose stories I can, have written short stories and novels in which the main 3-5 characters don't change much throughout the narrative. A lot of the time, they face some ridiculous slice of life shitstorm, go from point A to G, G to M, and wind up touching after Z and back into A by the end.
An example:
>A man's and his wife have several children. +1
>The wife dies, or ekes out her existence, leaving him to do all the work. -1
>He finds a hot, young woman and sluts up with her, usually in a hotel in a nearby town. +1
>Either his wife or her fiancee and the travelling gets between them. -1
>They commit to each other in secret. +1
>One of them faces a family tragedy, shattering their relationship. -1
>Usually the man leaves his family for the young girl, and she says fuck no gtfo. -1
>She somehow gets money or an estate and elopes with the protag. +1
>They get married in some faraway place where they now live. +1
>The protag gets bored with the new wife, realizes he's in the same spot he was in with his last wife, and it was all for naught because the passion he was chasing left again. =0
Not only in Russian literature
And she is creative writing?
Tom Clancy, Lee Child, Robert Ludlum, Rowling, etc.
Maintaining the same character is important for building a franchise.
There are always exceptions to rules and Godot is one of the few examples. In general, and especially for beginning writers, it would be better for some change to happen to the main character or one of the important side characters.
yes, but you're not samuel beckett so listen to your prof
He replied to my email and said that a failure to change is a choice, and that a cyclical narrative is but a situation, not a story.
I have a feeling he'd argue that that character in your example has actually come out in a better emotional space than when the story began. In the end, hasn't he realized a better understanding of his situation? That he'll never realize true love and that he's forever bound to be a bachelor?
This is a Stanford professor. I just got here, so I'm not used to these types of profound thinkers. I cannot tell if I should listen to this man or not.
I don't even deserve to be in his class, in all honesty, but that doesn't mean that I can't question what he says.
>creative writing
that's a really plebbish name for a class
A Clean Well Lighted Place
Old waiter had insomnia and still does at the end
>Should
cuck
Take the Bible for example. God doesn't change throughout. God never changes. Sure, he went through a lot of shit as Jesus, but in the end he's still God, eternal and immutable. Is the Bible not good story then, or not a story at all?
You're misunderstanding the ends of that directive, which is the guidance of inexperienced writers (and likely inexperienced readers) away from naive writing into writing that has a coherent structure and a purpose beyond 'I wrote a story."
The professor might belive it to be a universal rule, but that's really their critical values. You can have different critical values but don't be surprised that you're not convincing your professor if you speak no critical language but just use contradicting examples. You also might just be misunderstanding the technical use of the word "story." It might be your professor would class these other things as anecdotes or narratives or whatever, and the whole problem of "should you write this" is immaterial here, it's just a category he's trying to define.
But the truth is the majority of good stories, and stories historically, do contain some change in the characters of the stories for better or for worst.
It's totally possible to write stories to different ends but you're not dealing with people who have been writing seriously for five, ten years, who are looking to write something original.
As the old saying goes, you need to learn the rules before you can break them or subvert them or adhere to them so slightly they basically don't exist.
I would say you belong in an advanced class if I knew you could actually write a story of the traditonal kind, and this isn't a dodge that lets you write some kind of shitty purple prose scenery for ten pages.
>Is the Bible not good story then, or not a story at all?
The Bible is not a story, it's a loose collection of historical narratives.
Following on from the "seven basic plots" idea, some people have tried to break things down even further.
One idea is there are just two main types of plot:
a) where the characters end up somewhere different from the start
b) where the characters end up unchanged
The most obvious example of where b) is necessary is in TV writing where each episode has to leave the basic environment the same.
A James Bond book (or film) is the classic example of this.
START: JAMES BOND IS JAMES BOND
VILLAIN HATCHES PLOT
JAMES BOND THWARTS PLOT
JAMES BOND GETS GIRL BUT WE KNOW IT ISN'T GOING TO BE PERMANENT
END: JAMES BOND IS JAMES BOND
Of course James Bond is not very highbrow but still there are plenty of works with merit which leave the situation unchanged.
e.g. Sherlock Holmes stories.
START:
Holmes is Holmes, Watson is Watson
Mystery
Solved
Holmes stays Holmes, Watson stays Watson
Good post
>I'm taking a creative writing class
I found your problem.
is teaching creative writing sort of like teaching how to make money on the stock market, in the sense that if you actually knew how to make money on the stock market, wouldn't it be more profitable to spend your time on that than to teach it???
Thanks for this, by the way. I wasn't ghosting you.
You're totally right. Thanks.
Have you even read Delta of Venus?
Yes, drop the class, you're clearly retarded
Obviously, I'm retarded. That's why I'm taking the class.
thumbs up, guy.
you earn one verified-not-a-pseud-card
copy paste that post and this post and compile them together in ms paint and reply with it the next time you are called a pseud.
>but seriously good post
I bought this book without knowing it is porn
>it's porn
The absurd circle causes either the character to self-reflect on their attempted escape from absurdity or causes the audience or reader to do so....