I've received some very nice comments about what I've done here in Knews Not News, and it has taught me the value of this kind of writing. I wish I had the time to do it justice. There certainly is a market for this. But...
The options for continuing this blog are clear: rearrange my schedule to permit continuation, redesign on a different platform, more content, steady updating, guest posting, create a destination. All excellent suggestions and very appreciated. But I unfortunately don't have that last critical element that is required for this blog: hours 25 and 26 packed into a regular 24 hour day.
I will be taking those suggestions, just not for this vehicle. My other blog, Turning Springs, will utilize most of the suggestions I've received about this blog in the coming year. And I'll continue to highlight some of the weirdness I encounter in my journey through life in a section of the Turning Springs updates called The Wind-Up. So it's not all the way gone.
But, as Yogi Berra said,"It ain't over till it's over." And Knews Not News is. Thanks for reading.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Complexity of Simplicity
KNN grew up on a steady diet of The Brady Bunch. First-runs and re-runs both. There. It's out.
In our defense, it was harmless enough. Except for the eye-searing wardrobe. And Alice. Never got Alice. And the singing jumped the shark long before Happy Days. Hey, it was the 70's. Silly was the norm.
But, as it turned out, we had better taste than we thought, as described in this article from the Boston Globe. Even when their lives were at their most mundane, it just flat out mattered what was going on. Mattered to us.
Why? That's where the complexity comes in. You have to have a sound story, as lived by sympathetic characters, who say and do things that are in keeping with both the point of the story and the revealed traits of those characters. Stakes with personally high investment from the focus character. A few yuks to make the medicine go down well. Complementary subplots that reveal other points of view or considerations, but come together with the main line of storytelling. A beginning. A middle. An end. A surprise or two. A point. And here's the greatest complexity of all: it's not life, but everyone expects it to be just like it, whether you're talking about hobbits or rabbits or revolutionaries. Or a blended family.
"That's the way they became the Brady Bunch." (We hear the music, don't you?)
In our defense, it was harmless enough. Except for the eye-searing wardrobe. And Alice. Never got Alice. And the singing jumped the shark long before Happy Days. Hey, it was the 70's. Silly was the norm.
But, as it turned out, we had better taste than we thought, as described in this article from the Boston Globe. Even when their lives were at their most mundane, it just flat out mattered what was going on. Mattered to us.
Why? That's where the complexity comes in. You have to have a sound story, as lived by sympathetic characters, who say and do things that are in keeping with both the point of the story and the revealed traits of those characters. Stakes with personally high investment from the focus character. A few yuks to make the medicine go down well. Complementary subplots that reveal other points of view or considerations, but come together with the main line of storytelling. A beginning. A middle. An end. A surprise or two. A point. And here's the greatest complexity of all: it's not life, but everyone expects it to be just like it, whether you're talking about hobbits or rabbits or revolutionaries. Or a blended family.
"That's the way they became the Brady Bunch." (We hear the music, don't you?)
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