Primacy-Recency in Kushiel's Dart
May. 5th, 2005 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsOne of the things I got out of reading Story by Robert McKee was a notion of something called primacy recency. This is a target that most filmmakers aim for: getting the last act, the last 20 minutes, absolutely right. Everything that has happened before the last 20 minutes has to add up to a story that will make the last act make sense, but that last act has to be perfect. Because that's what the audience will remember; it is the last thing the film impressed upon their brains. When they talk to their friends about the film, it will be that last act that they'll recall and whether or not it completed the story in a satisfying way.
In writing, you also have to lay gold coins for the reader, because if they're not given small jolts along the way, if they're not emotionally engaged in the story, the easiest thing they can do is put the book down and never pick it up again.
I thought of both of these issues when reading Kushiel's Dart. I can't tell if Carey did it intentionally or not, but her story is full of both of these qualities. Some chapters have no real payoff, while others have their moments, and every five or so has a big payoff of some kind. She has her acts-- six, I think-- and each has ten or so chapters, with a mid-act high or low, and and end-act low or high, and scattershot through those are smiles and frowns that pay off handsomely for the reader. And she tries hard to get the second-to-last scene in every act to pay off; readers understand the concept of denouement, so it's the second-to-last scene that has to be perfect. For Carey, it usually was. I understand why the book sold well. Readers remember the mid-point and end-point moments because Carey made them the ends of scenes, and each scene had a beginning, middle, and end as well.
The book is pure craftsmanship. It's almost a shame that, for Kushiel's Dart at least, the themes were hampered by the necessity of first-person telling, and almost never delivered. Without those, the book's impact was lost. Nobody will love Phedre the way people love Honor Harrington or Miles Vorkosogan. She's too wind-blown, too destined, to be much more than a storyteller of the inevitable.
In writing, you also have to lay gold coins for the reader, because if they're not given small jolts along the way, if they're not emotionally engaged in the story, the easiest thing they can do is put the book down and never pick it up again.
I thought of both of these issues when reading Kushiel's Dart. I can't tell if Carey did it intentionally or not, but her story is full of both of these qualities. Some chapters have no real payoff, while others have their moments, and every five or so has a big payoff of some kind. She has her acts-- six, I think-- and each has ten or so chapters, with a mid-act high or low, and and end-act low or high, and scattershot through those are smiles and frowns that pay off handsomely for the reader. And she tries hard to get the second-to-last scene in every act to pay off; readers understand the concept of denouement, so it's the second-to-last scene that has to be perfect. For Carey, it usually was. I understand why the book sold well. Readers remember the mid-point and end-point moments because Carey made them the ends of scenes, and each scene had a beginning, middle, and end as well.
The book is pure craftsmanship. It's almost a shame that, for Kushiel's Dart at least, the themes were hampered by the necessity of first-person telling, and almost never delivered. Without those, the book's impact was lost. Nobody will love Phedre the way people love Honor Harrington or Miles Vorkosogan. She's too wind-blown, too destined, to be much more than a storyteller of the inevitable.
