h
ere's that essay i've been talking about
thanks to shaggy for telling me to go in a different direction with it
if your reading this your gay
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Also, over time, it it has become more and
(under Self-Insert) you duplicated "it"
Useful - I particularly like the "You should use this method if…" sections, as sometimes essays don't have that practical edge that helps people apply their lessons. The one area that might be useful to expand on is how character can be best included in each of the methods (or perhaps which methods are most compatible with characters). For example, the expository method tends to introduce characters at one remove, whereas the self-insertion method obviously involves characters more intimately.
It might also be interesting to get Hippo's thoughts to dovetail in here - while their draft essay was more about pacing, there might be some overlap.
It's instructive to try to break down one's own articles using these frames of reference:
- SCP-2136 - Self-Insertion Method, using first-person research diaries
- SCP-2139 - Expository Method, to my mind, as the communiques are not house style
- SCP-2162 - the full story (including the tale supplement), and even the skip on its own, are a combination of Incident Log and Detective Methods - I'd suggest that Incident Log is the most compatible structure with Detective, as it allows easily for omission and obfuscation behind clinical tone. It's interesting that you mention "dramatic irony that comes from you puzzling something together" in the Incident Log Method section, which I think reinforces that connection.
- SCP-3512 - in some ways my most complicated skip, but the analysis as an Incident Log Method narrative is simple
The one area that might be useful to expand on is how character can be best included in each of the methods (or perhaps which methods are most compatible with characters).
I avoided paying special attention to character because, really, there's no reason to privilege it over any other element that might go into a story — besides, SCPs are great at letting authors avoid that question entirely. Not that I couldn't whip up some advice along those lines if pressed, but I find essays to be more helpful the more focused they are, and the only way I could justify giving special attention to character here is that is if I covered all the major story elements, and fuck that.
I could certainly write a separate instructive essay on character writing in SCPs, but since I've literally just thought of that, I don't know ahead of time that I would carry over the categorization I used in this SCP, or that it would even make sense to divide it up by the method of telling a story.
It might also be interesting to get Hippo's thoughts to dovetail in here - while their draft essay was more about pacing, there might be some overlap.
Once that essay gets published, I'll probably link to it. I like essays to stay focused, but if another piece of writing talks about similar problems, I'll definitely recommend it to readers.
It's instructive to try to break down one's own articles using these frames of reference
I hesitate to endorse this essay's use as an analytical framework. The reason I call these "methods" is that they're practices that can be implemented to transform a set of ideas into the overarching structure of an SCP article. There's no reason for them to exist independent of helping someone write; while you can identify these methods in finished articles, you don't actually learn anything about those articles, and unless you take joy in the act of analysis itself, doesn't enhance the experience of reading. I include examples in this essay purely for the sake of clarification, not edification.
If I'm ever convinced that it would be anything more than a curiosity, I could come up with a Grand Unifying Theory that can describe most SCPs by multiple criteria (which authors could then apply to their articles for… some purpose?), but I think only a few elements from this would ever make it into that.
if your reading this your gay
A lot of the fun of reading SCPs is the dramatic irony that comes from you puzzling something together, but the Foundation doesn't, because they're either thinking too scientifically
In my experience, this doesn't always go over well.
Other than that, a good, comprehensive essay, kudos. :)
Maybe in the bleedingly obvious cases, but more subtle versions of it happen all the time.
if your reading this your gay
While the concept of the second one would appeal more to me on the whole,4 the first would be dramatically more engaging.
Since the second one is Gallant and the first is Goofus, I believe these should be the other way around?
Otherwise, it's a great breakdown of narrative styles. I like this.
Fixed. Glad you enjoyed it!
if your reading this your gay
Goofus and Gallant? Those brothers from the Highlights magazine?
As someone who has written at least one of these narrative-based scips, I approve of this article. +1 Nicely done, comrade
I'm a first time SCP writer and I keep hearing that my ideas lack a narrative but no one has ever been able to explain it correctly to me, but this essay actually helped me to understand it way better. Thank you for writing this essay.
Harold K Caztovski
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page revision: 1, last edited: 02 Apr 2021 15:16
