Plot Types You Love or Leave

[Tallyfire]

I wonder if Sapkowski wrote them initially planning that format for release. Apparently if you didn't plan it beforehand, linking it together afterwards for release is called a fix-up Fix-up - Wikipedia.

As for why, it might just not be as broadly satisfying the common formats. TV dramas seem to move towards stronger plot arcs.

On the other hand, something like that might stand out among all the novel trilogies and anthologies today.

Interesting point! It does almost read like a fix-up. The early examples of those from the man who coined the term sound… slightly terrible.

It would certainly stand out to me, but i feel as if I should know more examples if it was actually a “good” format.

I made a thread with the question.

 

[X Equestris]

I wonder if Sapkowski wrote them initially planning that format for release.

I know the original short story, “The Witcher” was written for a contest put on by the Polish SFF magazine Fantastyka, came in third, and was published there. I couldn’t find much on any of the others, so it seems like they were written with a collection in mind. Though one was written as a wedding present for a friend, so maybe not.

Why don’t we see more books following a similar format as TV shows with “episodes,” where some episodes further the plot and some are only for character development/worldbuilding?

Aside from the fix-up and its relatives talked about here and in the other thread, there’s also serialization. You don’t see it nearly as often today, but stories written specifically to be serialized in a magazine do often feel more like TV or old-time radio dramas since each entry in the serial needed to be compelling in its own right even if it didn’t stand alone.

 

[X Equestris]

Mysteries are a favorite of mine. A lot of the stories in my backlist are some sort of mystery, predominantly fantasy but also a few sci-fi or weird western ones. Whodunnits and howcatchems alike, though I definitely have more of the former than the latter.

Hunts are another favorite. Lots of overlap with mystery, so I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.

I actually constructed a lot of my main fantasy world with these two in mind; the Order of Watchers exists to eliminate arcane threats, so there’s lots of investigating crimes committed with magic, hunting monsters, and looking into unexplained phenomena.

I love a good romance, too, but I need it intertwined with strong external conflict to hold my interest most of the time. SFF romance, military romance, romantic suspense, some western romances…all good stuff. Mundane contemporary romance? Not my cup of tea.

Heists are fun to read and write, even if I haven’t done a ton of the latter.

Every time The Heist comes up in fiction it feels tedious. I'd only be interested in writing it is if I find a way to somehow obscure the 'getting the crew together' part. Otherwise I'll probably pass on it.

I actually managed to pull this off in my last heist, “He Who Sows”. When the story kicks off, the heist is already in motion. The main characters have infiltrated a festival and used it to cover their approach to the temple where the ritual item they want to steal resides.

But the “crew” is only two characters, and it’s a short story/borderline novelette; “start late, leave early” works well in short fiction, but I’m not sure a similar setup would lend itself to a novel.

Now, as for plots I don’t like, time travel. I hate time travel, and I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s all the paradoxes, maybe it’s how often those stories follow the same beats, maybe it’s the fact the status quo tends to be restored and make the whole plot feel useless. I don’t know, but there’s no faster way to make me drop a story than the inclusion of time travel. I have to be really invested to tough it out (like I was with Dragon Age: Inquisition, and even then, the time travel is why I prefer “Champions of the Just” to “In Hushed Whispers”).