Westerly Ideas Predominate

Two decent nights in a row. Very good. I've been alive for 23330 days and so nearly that many nights. I wonder how many of those were good nights for sleeping. I remember when I used to wake up once a night and I remember clearly a couple times when I slept an entire night. But the majority of them have been broken. Oh well.

So let's get warmed up here. I had some interesting dreams last night. Again, most of the dreams were from this morning before getting up. I'm trying to remember a couple of them so I could characterize them. I would get light and then go back and try to follow the same dream again. In a building, school or work, are common ones, I think it was a work deal this time. At least medical. It wouldn't surprise me if the dreams were desperate. Last evening Ben and I watched Hardcore Henry followed by In Bruges. Very intense but I didn't have any bad dreams.

So at some point during the evening I had a thought about the Dramatic Throughline thing and the protagonist's tragic flaw. Also at bedtime, after reading the News section, I read some more of Poetics. I think I should keep up on that until I understand more of it and then try out some of the ideas to see how they work.

I'm trying to remember what he said about the equation of the tragedy or drama. His words were very specific. Let me see. The protagonist must be seen to be a good man brought low by an error or flaw. Not by something bad he did. If he does something bad and the crashes, the audience will figure he deserved it. The important effect comes from the audience thinking he didn't deserve the crash. It must inspire pity and fear in the audience. Fear and Pity.

For instance, a man goes to war and then comes back to his loving family and starts to rebuild his life. But his twin boys find the hand grenade he brought back as a souvenir. And then we carry through the story a while. The reader knows what's going to happen and is dreading it. Same thing could go for a gun in the house. or a cliff out back overlooking the pacific ocean, an old well.

None of these work for a man alone in a forest working on wooden boxes. If I were going to do something like that I would have to show him working alone, show the dangerous thing and how he manages it, and then introduce his nephews and nieces or grandkids. Then show the proximity to the danger and let the fear take hold in the mind of the reader. Carry on a bit and then take the children to the danger and let them brush against it.

Anyway, that could be one way to do it. I will give it more thought.

More later,