Counterfactuals
Oct. 8th, 2021 06:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
primeidealHere is the plot of a tragedy (some identifying details erased):
A: Okay, so the plan is, we do X.
B: While X sounds good, there are a bunch of boring reasons why it would actually be a bad idea at this time. *infodumps* In conclusion, let's not do X now.
A: Thank you for your feedback. *proceeds to do X*
*something terrible happens*
A: ...
B: I really wish this hadn't happened, but as it is, I did tell you so.
Here's a similar story with a happier ending:
A: Okay, so the plan is, we do X.
B: While X sounds good, there are a bunch of boring reasons why it would actually be a bad idea at this time. *infodumps* In conclusion, let's not do X now.
A: You make an excellent point. *doesn't do X*
*nothing happens*
It's easy to imagine these counterfactuals after the fact; it makes the tragedy even more poignant when you consider that it wasn't inevitable, someone came very close to making the "right" decision and screwed up. But how do you make the second story into a narrative? The upside of doing it right the first time is that you don't have to look back and wonder about counterfactuals. So in the second world, neither A nor B is inclined to view the conversation as momentous, even if it was. And I'm the sort of person who thinks that it's important to celebrate the second story and not always have everything be tragic. But it's difficult to properly depict that kind of dramatic irony without some mechanism to step outside "what really happened." (I guess it would be easier if this was just an alternate history from a known divergence point, but not if it's about entirely fictional(ized) events.)
[Edit: this is the kind of premise that the fanfic style of "5+1 things" is really good for! But I'm more interested in focusing on the theme of X-adjacent stuff than "btw here are alternate universes now."]
Brought to you by "I finished one WIP and now I can't stop brainstorming about three or four different plot bunnies even though I really should only be working on one draft at a time..."
A: Okay, so the plan is, we do X.
B: While X sounds good, there are a bunch of boring reasons why it would actually be a bad idea at this time. *infodumps* In conclusion, let's not do X now.
A: Thank you for your feedback. *proceeds to do X*
*something terrible happens*
A: ...
B: I really wish this hadn't happened, but as it is, I did tell you so.
Here's a similar story with a happier ending:
A: Okay, so the plan is, we do X.
B: While X sounds good, there are a bunch of boring reasons why it would actually be a bad idea at this time. *infodumps* In conclusion, let's not do X now.
A: You make an excellent point. *doesn't do X*
*nothing happens*
It's easy to imagine these counterfactuals after the fact; it makes the tragedy even more poignant when you consider that it wasn't inevitable, someone came very close to making the "right" decision and screwed up. But how do you make the second story into a narrative? The upside of doing it right the first time is that you don't have to look back and wonder about counterfactuals. So in the second world, neither A nor B is inclined to view the conversation as momentous, even if it was. And I'm the sort of person who thinks that it's important to celebrate the second story and not always have everything be tragic. But it's difficult to properly depict that kind of dramatic irony without some mechanism to step outside "what really happened." (I guess it would be easier if this was just an alternate history from a known divergence point, but not if it's about entirely fictional(ized) events.)
[Edit: this is the kind of premise that the fanfic style of "5+1 things" is really good for! But I'm more interested in focusing on the theme of X-adjacent stuff than "btw here are alternate universes now."]
Brought to you by "I finished one WIP and now I can't stop brainstorming about three or four different plot bunnies even though I really should only be working on one draft at a time..."
