[ SECRET POST #2786 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2786 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Legend of Korra]


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03.
[Digger]


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04.
[Transformers: Animated]


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05.
[World of Warcraft, Warlords of Draenor]


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06.
[Marvel]


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07.
[Benedict Cumberbatch]


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08.
[Orange is the New Black]


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09.
[Hemlock Grove]


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10.
[Hardy Boys]


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11.
[The Remains of the Day]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #398.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

OP

[(Anonymous)]

This is where it gets into the writerly side of things, since I've written a protagonist who had a similar nature and personality to Shadowchild, but fulfilled a similar narrative role to Digger. I couldn't personally rewrite Digger with Shadowchild as the protagonist, because I couldn't have written Digger in the first place--my writing style isn't remotely like Ursula Vernon's. I think most of what I did with my character could probably have been done with Shadowchild, and I can see places in the narrative where either Shadowchild or a slightly more stable version of Murai could fulfill Digger's role, but that might be outside Ursula Vernon's style.

(And in any event, I never posted my story anywhere, so it's possible it was a total failure and I just didn't realize it. Reader-wise and criticism-wise, Digger was definitely a success, which puts me in an awkward position to criticize it.)

I guess the one thing I would definitely argue with is the statement that Shadowchild couldn't be a protagonist--it has a lot in common with some versions of Pinocchio, and not all interpretations even give Pinocchio a Jiminy Cricket to learn from. Anything more than that is pretty murky.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I couldn't personally rewrite Digger with Shadowchild as the protagonist, because I couldn't have written Digger in the first place--my writing style isn't remotely like Ursula Vernon's.

I don't think that's a question of style, the actual story itself would have to be functionally different. The entire way the story is structured would have to be changed if you want Shadowchild to drive the plot, for the simple reason that Shadowchild does not do the same things as Digger does or for the same reasons, and it was Digger's actions and reasons that drove the plot. Shadowchild, at the point where it enters the story, can't do what Digger does. It can't interact with the hyenas the way she does, it can't interact with the Statue of Ganesha the way she does, it wouldn't have understood what had happened to Ed the way she did, in all likelihood with the way it was when it entered the story, it probably wouldn't have understood why the plot needed something done about it at all. I mean, you can do a POV switch to Shadowchild's POV, but that won't change the fact that the story as-is needs Digger to actually move it. There might be points in the narrative where other characters could have taken over (and points in the narrative where they did, including Shadowchild and, spectacularly and tragically, Ed), but the narrative as a whole hangs on Digger's decisions.

Changing the story so that a character like Shadowchild is a) in a position to move the plot, and b) knows enough to understand it has too, literally makes it a different story. It's not that Shadowchild can't be a protagonist, it's that making Shadowchild the protagonist of this story would involve changing the whole plot.

Your story, on the other hand, is already designed around your Shadowchild-like protagonist. It won't have that problem, the plot is already geared to be defined by actions from that quarter. But that's not about styles, that's simply that you've written a different story to the one Ursula wrote, though you may share a character type in common. That's ... I mean, that's fine? Writing your own story is the point. It doesn't change the one Ursula wrote, and it won't automatically be better or worse for being structured differently and starring a different type of character. Most stories do?

There's not just one type of protagonist, the same way as there's not just one type of story. The thing that matters is making the story you're writing hang together around the protagonist it's got, and I think Digger did that, and hopefully your story will too.