Author: hamishmacdonald

My mind can’t help drifting back to my bad reviews on Goodreads.

AND YET… This experience actually did me a favour: In approaching my next comic book project, I realized that I’m tired of plot, of conflict, of all my stories sliding into apocalyptic epics with so much going on that it’s hard to stop and spend any time with the characters. It’s probably the weakest thing about all the novels I produced.

Reading “Peanuts” and “Calvin and Hobbes” again lately, I’m struck by how much real life detail these classic strips are able to contain because they’re free of any over-arching plot. Sure, there are lots of little moments, but ultimately nothing really changes.

Then I re-read an old article about the Japanese storytelling structure of kishotenketsu, or “plot without conflict”. It seems to directly mirror four-panel comics, with an introduction (ki), deepening (sho), twist (ten), and resolution (ketsu).

I’m reminded of the beautiful, if slow, Ozu movies where stuff just happens, as in life, then kinda comes together in the end. Or even the Korean film The Host, which is about a sea monster, but not really: It’s about members of a family trying to resolve their differences.

To a lesser degree this kind of describes the wonderful Everything Everywhere All at Once, which is sort of a fast-paced time-travel action film, but, again, is really about a family, and things come together in spite of the main character’s attempts to take action.

I’ve always been disappointed by the way my sense of humour goes out the window when I’m facing a page, and now I suddenly feel free from plot, of having to do anything big or significant. Sure, the thing I’m working on is very high-concept (a billionaire starts a colony on Mars and our protagonist goes to work there as a janitor), but in mapping out the characters and setting, all I want to do is put them together and see what happens, like banging Barbie and Ken dolls together (which invariably results in pregnancy, right?).

The Charlottetown Comics Club is working on a collaborative publication, and I’m making a four-page prelude to the comic strip, just so I can put my brain to rest, knowing I’ve explained the thing somewhere. But I want the strip itself to just drop in in media res, and to let go of all notions of how everything’s all going to blow up in the end. (Though it’s going to be a shitshow, because how could it not be, right? It’s not like billionaires are doing any good for Earth.)

Maybe this is an offshoot of me surrendering, in therapy sessions earlier this year, the idea that I’m responsible for changing the world. Likewise, I don’t have to do anything important with comics — which, ironically, feels like it may free me up to produce my best work yet.

So this is where I’m at with storytelling.

P.S. Writing all this is my way of avoiding the overwhelming pressure of getting ready to leave tomorrow for three weeks abroad in Scotland.

Yeah, that “whole day” thing didn’t happen: It started raining just after I ate lunch, so I looked up the weather forecast (on my e-reader; my only online-time while camping), and it looked bad — thundershowers starting in the afternoon, continuing through the evening.

Of course, once I packed up, it immediately turned bright and clear. The forecast stands, though, so… I’m home.

Here’s a wee doodle I did while thinking through some stuff on a project:

 

(Turns out it’s spelled ‘wandelprobe’. And it’s a rehearsal with the cast, orchestra, and minor blocking. What I described is called a ‘sitzprobe’. Thank you, internet.)

 

I was searching for a Strategic Coach article yesterday, which brought up the quarterly book of the same name that I illustrated, which led to a listing on Goodreads (about our mass-market book, also of the same name — confusing), which led me to seeing reviews of my last book, Finitude.

OOF!

God, people are mean. And of the handful of reviews there, two really, really didn’t like it and said why in detail. They had valid points, but it was totally a kick in the nuts. The only emotional athletic support cup was that I’m not trying to write novels anymore. But seeing as I still feel compelled to tell stories in various forms, it… gave me pause.

One really has to learn not to care, eh? The locus of our creativity is inside ourselves, and to a degree we should be the only audience we’re writing for.

But still. But still. The world, the marketplace, the potential to reach more people — it all means putting the work out there.

Happily, I’m in a fairly good place right now, so I’m feeling much more resilient and “Ehh, feck off, whatever” about it than I would have a short time ago.

As Mr Aristotle said…

Criticism is something we can avoid easily by saying nothing, doing nothing, and being nothing.