Ken Lim's Blog

The released version of Wonder Woman 1984 shouldn’t have made it past first draft stage. Execution of the production aside, there are serious stumbling blocks that hinder the audience viewing experience.

Let’s look at some reviews :

“Wonder Woman 1984” is narratively messy

Adam Graham

It drones on for two and a half hours

Leonard Maltin

Somewhere along the line, Jenkins lost the plot

Chris McCoy

A meandering slog

Ian Thomas Malone

So, it’s pretty obvious that the negative reviews have focused on actual structural issues of the writing and plot rather than things like the special effects or the incredible lack of 80s music in a movie based in 1984.

The First Hour

The first 1:20, give or take, is the problem. The foundation of the film is shaky from the overly expositional start. As I’ve always said in writing prose, “NO PROLOGUES!” If the information in the prologue can’t be naturally disseminated in the narrative of the main story, then it’s not worth having. Related to that is Rossio/Elliott’s maxim, “If it’s bad, keep it short.”

The opening competition scene doesn’t do much narratively. There is a hint of character — Diana should not cheat (using magic wishes is a cheat, especially wishing Steve Trevor back), and the worldbuilding element of Asteria and the Golden Armour. But it’s a long sequence (a full 10+ minutes) that could’ve been cut into the main plot, or even better, each challenging moment of the competition made to resonate with 1984 plot elements that Diana has to overcome.

The second opening scene is Wonder Woman being Wonder Woman. It sets up the main plot with the black market trader, establishes Diana working under some secrecy as WW and her superpowers, if you needed reminding. It probably could’ve been edited and choreographed a bit better but, most of all, it should’ve been the movie’s opener. And it should’ve had a banging 80s song over the first part with WW being WW and the third part with the action in the mall.

This brings the run-time to around the 17min mark and the movie hasn’t even scratched the surface of Act 1. No wonder that it feels sluggish.

The next few minutes establishes Diana as Diana in 1984. It could be cut for brevity and instead introduce her and Barbara Minerva at the same time in the museum. This is where the movie needs tightening.

Once the wishes are made, the effects need to be made more immediate:

Barbara gets powers sooner, faster, more dramaticallyBarbara goes bad sooner and starts causing trouble at the GalaDiana meets Steve but before they can really talk, she has to handle BarbaraIn the struggle, Diana has lost a lot of her powerIn the confusion, Lord gets the wishing stone

In this way, we get another action sequence much sooner than the Egypt sequence (at the 1 hour, 20 min mark!), we get immediate conflict between Barbara and Diana, we get immediate information about the wishing stone, we get immediate character development with both Diana and Barbara with their new situations. In these sequences where Diana is shown to have lost some of her powers, we might get a glimpse into her training on Themiscyra and how a physical challenge helps her current-day.

While we’re at it, we can cut down the Smithsonian sequence or even remove it entirely. It’s has a nice nod to the invisible jet but it also breaks suspension by having us believe that the jet is fully fueled, fully maintained, has enough fuel to reach Egypt (they don’t), and that Steve Trevor can fly the thing when the last plane he flew was 60 years prior.

Powering down WW also makes Diana’s decision to go to Egypt more impactful — should she go into a potential conflict with lessened or little powers.

It’s OK from here

From this point, most of the movie can play out the same, with a few tweaks from having plot points moved earlier in run-time. More of Barbara’s fall can be shown, especially with her homeless friend, or with the way she sees herself (that would mirror nicely with the way Diana saw the random-guy/Steve).

The last hour is definitely the strongest but on the whole, the movie just felt unpolished, a lot like the DC Cinematic Universe itself. Fingers crossed for the next one…

Just released a quick little short story:

It’s going free from 9th May for 5 days.

Enjoy!

I’ve had a bit of down-time with some leave from work and getting away from my current project (the sequel to Informal Art of War).  So I thought I’d keep up my story instincts with work on a television pitch package for the game AFK Arena.

At first, I thought AFK Arena was just another Idle card-collecting game, and it is.  But it’s also a pretty decent team tactics game with quite a bit of lore behind the campaign and game events.  The developers have also put in quite good art-work for the characters.  It’s definitely a cut above other free mobile games.

I’ve made a post on reddit with the link to the pitch document here: https://old.reddit.com/r/afkarena/comments/eziwnl/afk_arena_a_full_television_series_pitch_package/

Please enjoy!

 

We want our characters to have earned their way through the story.  They don’t get pivotal knowledge without a cost.  They don’t overcome obstacles without a struggle.  They don’t get a victory without loss.

For most audiences, the death of a character is the ultimate cost.  We don’t get to see how they turn out by the end, or how they act and react towards the rest of the story and situations.  And for characters who are valued by the audience, a death can also be an emotional and personal gut-punch.

As much as writers want, unfortunately, that emotional attachment doesn’t just happen.  It takes time to develop between the audience and the story.  It’s the audience knowing the character’s mother’s maiden name, relating to the character’s first day at their new job, knowing that the character sprinkles brown sugar on their cornflakes (not white sugar) at 8:15am instead of 8:00am on weekdays because they don’t use an alarm clock but instead rely on an app on their phone which has a bypass function.

The death of a character only has emotional value if the audience has these attachments.  Otherwise, the death will only be seen as a mechanical cost of plot progression.

If the character is a viewpoint, then it’s more likely that the audience will have formed the emotional attachment.  The death of the character ends that viewpoint and the rest of the story would likely be taken up by another viewpoint (although it would be interesting to see the narrative completed by an omniscient narrator).

If it’s not a viewpoint character, the audience needs another character to latch onto.  Otherwise, the audience will feel adrift, detached from the story and lose interest.  Characters are the medium by which the audience experiences the story.

This is simplest in a story with multiple viewpoints, an ensemble cast — common in epic fantasy.  This is most difficult in smaller stories with fewer viewpoints, unless you kill a non-viewpoint character, but then we return to the difficulty of creating an emotional attachment with a character who doesn’t benefit from being the viewpoint.

Killing a character should be done with care and planning.  Make sure it fits the story and the rest of the characters.  And outside the story, make sure that it hits the audience in the right way.

 

Spoilers for An Informal Art of War…

Endings are difficult.  But because they are the final impression of a story, they’re as important as capturing the audience at the beginning.  Just from around the internet and hearing of and watching behind the scenes of Hollywood screen-test anecdotes, there’s plenty of evidence that a great ending can actually overcome a lot of other shortcomings in a story.  Basically, sticking the landing is imperative.

We can break up the ending into 3 large chunks:

Completing the internal goal of the main characters
Completing the external goal of the main characters
Giving the audience a crowning moment of awesome

 

Go for the wrong goal

‘Going for the wrong goal’ was identified by Rossio and Elliot in wordplayer where they analysed top grossing movies and whether or not each movie had 2 or more goals in the plot.  Of course their analysis was descriptive rather than prescriptive but it does seem that audiences like that layer of sophistication in a movie, compared to only having a single goal.

In the lead-up to the ending, Hollywood structure often has the protagonists aiming to complete their objective in the hopes of ending their predicament.  This doesn’t end up going as planned and can either reveal a greater scheme at play or cause a development in the world or story that changes everything.  In this case, it’s often the midpoint turnaround.

When it occurs later on, or if the midpoint turnaround has already happened, this can be the end of Act 2 – the lowest point before recovery.  In a rom-com, it’s a betrayal of trust.  In an action-adventure, it’s a major defeat for the protagonist.  In a drama, it’s the protagonist’s worst fears and doubts coming true.

In Informal, this was the discovery of the creatures used by the Company and the subsequent raid – the thinking being that removing the creatures would remove the power of the Twelve Skies.  This, of course, was not the be all and end all, and led to the final act.

The final revelation about the world or a character

Throughout the story, the audience learns about the world, the setting, the characters, the rules and culture, and a tonne of other fictional things.  While it’s good in itself, pushing this to have an effect on the story is gives the audience an extreme sense of satisfaction when they understand and appreciate the implications.  This also is a big part of feeding into a crowning moment of awesome in the finale.

The lead up to and the final development of power

Right along side the final revelations is the lead-up to a final display of power or competence.  Throughout the story, the audience experiences the highs and lows of the protagonist as well as their journey, development and progress.  While this is satisfying in itself, the audience will want to see all of it put together.  And just about every story archetype has this big scene.

Reaching the internal goal

If the characters’ internal goals are not met by the end of the story, the audience will feel like the story hasn’t actually ended.  The protagonist must overcome their antagonist.  In an action-adventure, this might be the same person as the villain.  In other genres, however, it’s often not the same person as the villain character – it can be a family member holding them back, a situation, an environment or even themselves.

Whatever their internal conflict or goal is, it must be resolved by the end of the story.  Whether it’s a resolution that occurs before the finale (and therefore gives them the strength to be successful) or just after the finale (because the ending gives them the strength/confidence/realisation).

The big ending – or putting everything together

The most satisfying ending is the one where the characters’ internal goals, external goals and the story’s finale all come to a head as close together as possible.  It sounds trite but imagine a story where the main character’s internal goal was satisfied half-way through.  There would be no reason for them to actually stick around in the story.  That would be perfectly OK for a side-character but not the protagonist.

Or could an external goal be completed before the end of the story? We’d be left with the protagonist puttering around their house for the rest of the book/movie/episode.

Now, if all of the above occurs reasonably close together, and of course, are all tied into the ending of the story, we end up with a hell of a finale.  The characters’ internal goals and motivations are satisfied so the audience feels emotionally complete.  The audience gets to experience the completion of the external goals of the characters and any implications and developments of the setting and knowledge they’ve gathered.  And it’s all tied into the ending, leaving a lasting impression of a story completed.

Spoilers for An Informal Art of War…

Middles.  Or really, the middle of middles.

It was pretty early on when I decided I wanted to not just write novels but also movies and television episodes.  At the time, it meant that I had to branch out a bit further in learning how to write.  All in all, not a bad thing to be able to do more and learn more and know more about storytelling.

The amazing articles by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot at wordplayer.com — which, back in the early days of the internet, was an unmatched resource for the nitty-gritty of screenwriting — form the backbone of my screenwriting education.  One of the surprising things (at least to me at the time) that I learned was that the 2nd Act is actually the longest act.  Some screenwriters actually refer to the 4-Act structure, such that the Act 2 is the first part of the 2nd act, Act 3 is the second part, and Act 4 is the final act (or the old Act 3.

For simplicity in this post, I’ll just refer to the traditional 3-Act structure but keeping in mind that Act 2 is still double the length.  This means that the middle of Act 2 is around the middle of the story and in mainstream screenwriting, one of the defining features of the middle is the Midpoint Turnaround.

There’s plenty of information about this in just about every writing book and guide and website, and I guess, now this one is included.  The Midpoint is a major development in the story; sometimes it’s a big twist or a game-changer; sometimes it’s a development or revelation that casts everything in a different light; sometimes it’s a complete reversal of roles or switch-up in terms of viewpoint characters; often it’s a change in motivation or goals for one or more of the major characters.

Whatever it is, the Midpoint Turnaround is the single biggest contributing factor in keeping the attention and engagement of the audience.  And it just so happens that almost every commercially and/or critically successful movie has one.

Even though I’ve primarily written novels, I’ve maintained a Midpoint in every single one of my stories.  They’re just way too useful to not include.  The other advantage I’ve found is that it’s a reliable landmark in measuring exactly how much ‘stuff’ or ‘ideas’ need to be in the story.

Informal was no exception and for what it’s worth, the Midpoint Turnaround did not change from the first version of the outline to the modified version.  How the characters got there and where it went in the story, however, were completely different.

 

Spoilers for An Informal Art of War…

When I changed the first draft, I had reached somewhere after the first act but not quite up to the midpoint of the outline.  Uprooting everything at that point meant that the entire structure of the manuscript had to be changed.  I had spent a few weeks trying to think of any way to salvage either the outline or the existing prose but in the end, I could only keep the characters and setting.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t a matter of changing the first act so that the rest of the outline could still be used, nor was it possible to keep the existing draft and rewrite the outline.

It’s generally accepted that a story has three main acts.  There are lots of philosophies how this is split up but it all comes down to the start, the middle and the end.  While all of the main 3 acts of a story are important in their own way, the 2nd act is often the culprit when the reader or audience complains of a dragging story or bad pacing.

This is because the audience has:

experienced the opening hook;
where did the hook take the protagonist and what happened next;
finding out what the protagonist’s internal motivations and wants are, an introduction to the antagonist;
the first bits of information about the world/setting;
the consequences of the opening hook/sequence (and probably the first call to action);
the introduction to peril, the villain;
A push/pull into the main plot.

All of this hits the audience in the first act to grab them and immerse them into the story and the characters’ world.  It’s hit after hit to keep the audience engaged, often cresting at the end of the first act and leaving them wanting more.

But by the same token, it’s only the first act!  By any measure, the majority of the story has yet to take place, so how does a creator keep the audience as engaged as they were in the first act?


For Informal, keeping the entirety of the story within Kesora City physically restricted the plot and the characters.  In a creative field, it’s counter-intuitive but limitations often force more creativity.

Withthe characters staying in relatively close proximity with each other, this should result in:

The characters always staying active. This is James N Frey’s notion of characters always being at maximum capacity.  If the characters are always thinking, always scheming, always acting as best as they can, then the audience will never wonder why they didn’t do ‘xyz’.  The audience will never feel like the story is dragging.
Keeping characters intertwined until the end (another concept of a story conflict from Frey’s story analysis).  The action of one character will always affect another one.  There is no physical distance which results in minimal plot distance.
Constraining everyone into one place promotes world building details in a concentrated area, ie Kesora, and should keep reader attention and imagination.

Reworking the manuscript gave an opportunity to revisit the last act and how the characters end up.  It also gave me an opportunity to revisit how Informal sat in the larger arc and world.  But that’s the subject for a different post…

Spoilers for An Informal Art of War…

So, what the hell happened with the first draft of Informal?  I had everything outlined, I had the universe remodelled as far as I needed and I had the characters created and ready to play in this new world.

I reached 40k words, about 6-8 months worth of work including all of the planning and outlining, and had to ditch almost all of the prose.  It wasn’t the world or the city of Kesora or the surrounding places of interest.  Even though I had the outline as I wrote, I didn’t have the same level of excitement about the characters and story that I usually had.  There was no glee in the build-up to key scenes, nor any of the thrill of writing the big sequences and set pieces.  Everything felt stale, rote.

At a technical level, the story had almost reached its half-way point but the characters hadn’t really been in much danger or peril.  Certainly not from a reader’s point of view.  Sure, a certain death scene had occurred, just as it occurs in the current version of Informal, but there weren’t any other major stakes for Sera and Maratak.  In the old version, they eventually escape from Kesora and flee into the outskirts of the city, reaching the Batanese settlement.  But they never really lost anything except time, effort and perhaps a little dignity, as Maratak is wont to do.

In writing theory, characters’ external motivations are meant to be reflective of their internal ones.  There are four main drivers that keep them “in the plot”:

A benevolent push.  Like a parent bird pushing a chick out of a nest to teach them to fly.
A benevolent pull.  “Come with me if you want to live.”
A malign push.  Getting thrown into the deep end.
A malign pull.  I’m going down and you’re coming with me.

In the old version, Sera and Maratak had almost none of this, except for a nebulous presence (the Liaisons) pursuing them.  But that was nowhere nearly enough to keep Sera and Maratak in the story.  They could’ve wandered off, gone for help from the Artificers, followed Jayat’s path or almost anything else.

A major part of the rewrite consisted of two things: to tighten the motivations for all of the characters and to tighten the story constraints around the characters to keep them “in the plot”.    This meant there had to be in-world story reasons why they would not leave Kesora, why they would stay and most importantly, why they would continue to interact with one another.

 

 

An Informal Art of War (hitherto known as Informal) took a long time to write.

Sometimes there’s just no way around it — being a parent, having a full-time job, having other hobbies… each one takes a big bite out of writing time until you’re left with writing time taking a big bite out of sleeping time.

Informal is an average length novel (just under 90k words) and it took around 3 years from the first word of the outline to pressing publish on Amazon.  In comparison, The Sundered Moons took 1 year and a bit to write and clocks in at 240k words.  On top of that, longer novels have more parts to juggle so the effort and planning goes up exponentially with the length.

Was all of the 3 year development time spent on writing and planning?  Thankfully, no.  It also includes time spent on developing the greater plot arcs and large-scale world-building; time developing the outline for the next novel; and, as mentioned in a prior blog-post, the time spent planning and writing 40k words of a first draft that had to be binned.

Even at this point in my writing life and having a number of novels completed, I’m still learning.  Sometimes, you just have to trust your instincts and go with what you know.  If I’d had done so, then maybe this retrospective would’ve been written a year or two ago.

Framed for high treason against an all-powerful Empire.

With thieves for friends and an invention that’s not supposed to exist, the only way to fight back is An Informal Art of War.

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