Notes on Plotting Grail Wars [a.k.a. "If Dan Brown had written Fate/Stay Night"]

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 01:45 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. The Madness Begins, plus POV wordcount outline - This post
II. Characters divided into factions, POV wordcount outline modified accordingly
III. Quick note on applying the above to Fate: Stay Night. The April Fool's Day forum joke screwed it up, though.
IV. Stream of consciousness notes about Brown's overall tropes.
V. An organized version of the above, Part I
VI. [...] Part II
VII. [...] Part III
VIII. [...] Part IV
IX. Word count outline with words tallied at each chapter.
X. Statistics on each POV's word count
XI. Keira Knightley, apropos of nothing
XII. The Lectures
XIII. Extreme, in-depth dissection of part I (first ~10000 words).
XIV. Summary of above.
XV. Dissection and summary of Part II (next ~20000 words)
XVI. Quick note on chapter length
XVII. Dissection and summary of Part III (next ~20000 words)
XVIII. If you think this is crazy, you should see what Heller did for Catch-22.
XIX. Dissection and summary of Part IV (next ~17000 words)
XX. Dissection and summary of Part V (next ~20000 words)
XXI. Dissection and summary of Part VI (next ~20000 words)
XXII. Dissection and summary of Part VII (final ~10000 words)

Goal [Spoiler: To eventually give Beast’s Lair a FLEXIBLE narrative structure/”frame” to write long, epic Grail Wars.]

In a nutshell, this thread will (try to) explain how to adapt Dan Brown's thriller structure to writing Grail Wars, and then give everybody the tools to do the same for their own fics. This may seem like a weird topic, especially since it’s analytical rather than fictional.

Allow me to explain:

When I wanted to write a Grail War, I started looking around for fast-moving plot structures that could support one. Grail Wars are tricky: they involve seven factions all jostling against each other. If you want to encompass their epic scope, you really need ~140,000 to ~180,000 words. Even then, you can’t really focus on all of the factions equally, or your fic will mushroom into a bazillion-word monster.

Unfortunately, few Western writers have actually written ~140k to ~180k battle royal plots. And if anybody did, I doubt that they’ve written much about how they composed it. (Surprisingly, the actual Battle Royale and its Western ripoff, The Hunger Games, didn’t fit well either).

So I found the next-best thing: a fast-moving urban thriller that involved ancient conspiracies, buried secrets, cast members trying to murder each other, and a Quest For The Grail.

Long story short: it fit a large percentage of Fate's plot points.

There are some differences – mostly thematic – but they’re fudge-able. The trick is boiling the formula down until you’ve got a skeleton that you can use for multiple types of Grail War plots.

And so, with that goal in mind…

This thread will be a depository for my ongoing attempts at analysis. I’ll try to pick apart how The Da Vinci Code’s plot works, and figure out how you would use The Da Vinci Code’s general structure to write a rapidly-moving Grail War fic of around 140,000 to 180,000 words. The analysis isn’t done yet, so this will be a work in progress. Naturally, feel free to use any concepts you want from this.

Approach

Although this will look at Brown's methods in the abstract, I recognize that examples help.

To provide that context, I’ll apply the Da Vinci Code formula to a test case: the Fifth Grail War. This thread will gradually develop a vestigial “story outline” of what Fate: Stay Night would have looked like through Brown’s lenses instead of Nasu’s. Most of it fits hand-in-glove. A few of Brown’s methods differ, though, and I’ll note them when they diverge from Nasu’s.*

(One of those rare divergences: Brown’s male MC would not have been a shounen hero – or if he was, he’d at least be more competent. Rin, by contrast, would have been very similar.)

* You could probably discard the Brown stuff that differs from Nasu's anyway and still get the structure to work. It's fairly flexible.

Sources

Unlike many of Dan Brown’s peers, you can actually find stuff about how he writes. It’s tricky, but it’s out there:

1) A few years before The Da Vinci Code, Brown wrote down seven tips for writers on his website. He’s since taken these down. Fortunately, an enterprising biographer found them and resuscitated them. The “seven tips” reflect an early stage in Brown’s evolution.

2) Many of Brown’s early “Seven Tips” came from a book that deeply influenced him: an early 90’s instructional called “Writing the Blockbuster Novel”. I'm reading it as part of this project. The book explains how (some of) Brown’s plot construction works at a bird’s eye level. But Brown’s later developments are actually more interesting...

3) And here’s where the legal system enters the picture. A few years back, a couple (nonfiction) authors sued Brown for using their research. Although this lawsuit was incredibly silly, Brown submitted a 60-odd page court document that described exactly how he’d written The Da Vinci Code. Most of his general formula’s RIGHT THERE. I dug it up in PDF. It’s great for getting an understanding of the finer points. Seriously, people should sue bestselling novelists more often.

4) The text of The Da Vinci Code itself. I chopped it apart by word count per chapter, POV, and a bunch of other ways.

…Obviously, the “meat” of this thread will involve relating (1) through (3) to the text I’ve sifted through in (4).

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First thing's first: the broad topography of The Da Vinci Code. I'll probably refer back to this a lot.

At first, it looks pretty chaotic. Here's a breakdown of each chapter's word counts.

The main POV characters for the chapter are listed in Bold. The characters who only get brief snippets in the chapter are mentioned in regular text.

Where two characters each share a major part of the chapter, they're BOTH listed in bold.

So here's the broad outline --

EDIT: So for whatever reason, Beast's Lair's writing software is reading the Opus Dei bishop's name as "Arinno Hamoosa".

So I'm changing it to "Bishop A.". GRRGH.

Spoilers for the book, obviously

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Argh. I have no idea why Beast's Lair is reading Arinno homoosa as "Arinno homoosa". Give me a minute.

**The Geek** · April 1st, 2014, 01:50 PM

It's because "G U A R D" was changed to "no homo" for April Fools.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 02:06 PM

Originally Posted by The Geek

It's because "G U A R D" was changed to "no homo" for April Fools.

Ahhh...OK.

I temporarily changed it to "Bishop A.", and will change it back after April Fools.

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Right, so anyway...

The POV plot structure looks pretty chaotic at first (and will still look chaotic after this post, albeit a bit less so). But we can massage it a little.

Consider that all of these characters aren't acting independently. They're part of larger factions/schemes with shared goals.

Broadly speaking, these are --

FACTIONS:

1) Protagonists - Langdon, Sophie --> Chasing the MacGuffin
2) Evil Conspiracy - Arinno homoosa, Silas --> Chasing the MacGuffin
3) Pursuers - Fache, Collet --> Chasing the Protagonists
4) Stepping Stones -- Bieil, Vernet --> Guarding the MacGuffin
5) The Game Master -- Teabing --> Has own agenda; manipulating everybody else

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So on our first run-through...

Chart #2

Looks a bit more orderly, doesn't it? Notice that Brown concentrates a lot more on the protagonists than any of the other factions, and also that he ties each faction's shenanigans in with the others.

Notice, too, that Brown never lets us forget that everybody's in play. Even though Silas/Bishop A./Teabing/etc. get less individual screen time than Langdon and Sophie, they get frequent short chapters to remind us what they're up to.

Also note that the Evil Conspiracy doesn't really collide with the protagonists at first. And that the scheming mastermind becomes increasingly important as the game wears on.

**Kotonoha** · April 1st, 2014, 02:09 PM

g a r actually.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 02:11 PM

Now before I even get into Brown's own take on how his novel works, here's something kinda fun:

FACTIONS:

1) Protagonists - Langdon, Sophie --> Chasing the MacGuffin
2) Evil Conspiracy - Arinno homoosa, Silas --> Chasing the MacGuffin
3) Pursuers - Fache, Collet --> Chasing the Protagonists
4) Stepping Stones -- Bieil, Vernet --> Guarding the MacGuffin
5) The Game Master -- Teabing --> Has own agenda; manipulating everybody else

Read "MacGuffin" as "Grail", and read "Guarding" as "standing in the way of getting it."

And when we filter it through Fate/Stay Night...

FACTIONS:

1) Protagonists - Shirou, Rin --> Chasing the MacGuffin
2) Evil Conspiracy - Zouken, Shinji --> Chasing the MacGuffin
3) Pursuers - Ilya--> Chasing the Protagonists
4) Stepping Stones -- Medea, Kuzuki --> Guarding the MacGuffin
5) The Game Master -- Kirei --> Has own agenda; manipulating everybody else

Cool, eh?

When you check out where they first appear, and how involved they become in the plot at specific points, there's a surprising amount of overlap.

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...Okay, seriously. This April Fool's day joke text is making analysis a little difficult.

(Worst possible day to start writing this, I guess...)

**Andoriol** · April 1st, 2014, 04:24 PM

Yeah, it's annoying, though I'm interested in this so far!

What does Sakura qualify as in this situation? She doesn't seem to fit into any of the five categories you've posited so far except maybe Protagonists, and even then not so much.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 04:30 PM

Anyway...

Please Note: I’m going to edit this, since it’s still a little stream-of-consciousness for my tastes. But I’m going to write it all out first. Get it on paper.

Please ALSO Note: I’ll apply this to Fate / Stay Night and to Brown’s outline next.

Bird’s Eye View

Brown's novels have a few general foundational aspects that he puts in pre-construction. We might as well tackle these now, before getting back to the diagram.

1) The "Big Idea" -- A subject with a "gray area" that can be debated, with no clear right or wrong. Think about this as a morally-charged "issue" with a bunch of real-world data attached. The sort of thing that one sees either in the news or academic debates. “Is the NSA a menace?” was the Big Idea for one of his early works. “Science vs. religion” gave birth to his first Langdon novel. The Da Vinci Code’s “Big Idea” was a supposed conspiracy to suppress “the sacred feminine”.
-- He occasionally has a sub-theme as well. Another “grey area” that ties in with the first. In The Da Vinci Code, it’s whether (and how much) religions can convince their followers to commit evil actions, especially by falsifying their history.

2) The Setup -- A hero is thrown head-first from a familiar world to an unfamiliar one that he doesn't understand.

3) "Treasure Hunts" Linked by Clues -- According to his own testimony, Brown writes all of his books as treasure hunts for an object. (The Grail, antimatter, a gold ring). A string of linked clues leads the protagonists toward the object. What are these clues? Codes, puzzles, riddles, wordplay, anagrams, and a few other devices. As he puts it, these are “useful tools” for moving the characters along and moving the plot to the next stage. The trick is not to overwhelm the readers with too much information at once. You pare them down into bite-sized pieces.

4) Secrets, Conspiracies, Secret Organizations, and Secret Histories – All of Brown’s books include secret organizations (e.g., The Priory, the Illuminati), obscure bits of history (weird connections from the past that most people don’t know about, like the etymology of “Sincerely”; Brown is interested in showing how words, ideas, etc. change over time), and outright “secret histories” (Da Vinci was a goddess-worshipping grandmaster of an ancient conspiracy). Note that the second element – obscure /buried bits of history that change how we look at the present – is entirely conventional. But it paves the way for the third. For example: The reader wonders whether, if he didn’t even know that “sincerely” had something to do with wax originally (according to Brown…), what ELSE he didn’t know about the past. Brown fills the uncertainty with a conspiracy theory.
-- As far as “secret(ive) organizations” go, one or more of the factions in each of his books belong to them.

5) Strong Male and Female Main Characters / The Love Interest – Brown always picks two leads for potential romantic tension. (Langdon & Sophie, Langdon & Vetra, etc.) They are always experts in their respective fields, which allows them (1) to solve the puzzles he gives them, and (2) credibly deliver exposition to the reader as necessary. They’re also both strong, independent, noble sorts.
-- As a subset of the above: The strong male & female MCs should have COMPLEMENTARY EXPERTISE. For example, Langdon’s basically an art historian, while Sophie’s a cryptographer. Neither knew enough on their own to solve the story’s puzzles. The complicated problems linked them together.

6) Setting: Exotic Locale(s) To Chase Each Other Across [see below] – Pick somewhere interesting as the setting, and allow the characters to explore / interact with it. Teach the reader a bit about it as you go. In this respect, Brown differs slightly from Nasu/Urobuchi. Brown opts for breadth. He sends Langdon and Sophie on a fun-filled (for the reader) tour of Europe that could have come from a Frommer’s guidebook. (Actually, some of it did.) Nasu and Urobuchi, by contrast, draw their characters into a single weird setting: Fuyuki City. It’s a deep, murky place. Langdon and Sophie wander around; Shirou and Rin dig. And in Fate Zero, the setting actually constricts from half-a-dozen scattered places across the world to a single field in Fuyuki as Urobuchi tightens the noose. In any event, Brown’s approach required him to keep the readers apprised of where exactly his characters were at all times. He seems to do this by including tiny “tags” whenever he introduces a new POV in each chapter / appearance to let readers get their bearings. (“Outside the door, Silas heard everything they were saying, blah blah blah, etc.”) This is helpful advice regardless of setting.
-- Also, Brown made a point to ground as much of his mundane stuff in reality as he could. Most of his infodumps are “facts” (the height of a building, its date of construction, its style, etc.), not wild goofy theories. He looked up a menu for a specific restaurant in Zurich, for example. As far as which facts get in: Brown prefers interesting, surprising, or quirky ones, although a lot depends on whether the setting has any.
-- Brown chose three broad “locales” for The Da Vinci Code: London, Paris, and Edinburgh. I’m pretty sure he also chose three cities for his most recent book. Naturally, you could do the same thing within a single city if the individual bits are different enough.
-- Later on, Brown will sometimes link individual locations with ways to solve his “puzzles”. They’re often part of the solution. (E.g., Rosslyn Chapel’s codes). They can also serve as fodder for lectures by Langdon or somebody similar.

7) A Chase – The treasure hunt is one element of The Da Vinci Code. Chases are the other. Silas & Co. are pursuing the Priory, Fache is pursuing Langdon, and Langdon is also pursuing the Priory – albeit not entirely on purpose. Pursuits add tension, connect your characters, and allow those characters to swoop through the Exotic Locale(s) described above.

8) The Murder / Hook – Not necessarily a murder, but Brown flags murder as a helpful device in his summary. His first two Langdon books began with a murder. I think his third (less well received) one did, too. Need to check that. Anyway, on a more general level, Brown’s “Prologue” flashes a quick, exciting glimpse of the mystery to come, before the main narrative switches to Langdon. It’s a common thriller device. Give the reader a taste of the conspiracy / secret early.

9) The Ticking Clock / 24 Hour Rule – All of Langdon’s adventures take place in 24 hours, and the characters feel the “ticking clock’s” time pressure. Brown always bears in mind when things are happening to keep the action moving. And he makes sure that the reader remembers how quickly time is passing as well – and that the characters are on a tight schedule.

10) Academic Lectures – The infodumps. Yes, Brown deliberately included these as part of the entertainment value. And they work, sorta. They vary in length. Brown highlights a few as particularly important: Bishop A.’s summary of his organization (p. 50), The Mona Lisa (ch. 26), Goddess worship and the suppression of the “sacred feminine” (ch. 28, 56), the Templars & Priory (ch. 37), the Grail and Early Christianity (ch. 55), the Priory conspiracy (ch. 58) the invented discipline of “symbology” (ch. 56), the ratio PHI (p. 131), Fibonacci (p. 92), hidden meanings in paintings and art (ch. 58 and 61), Rosslyn (ch. 104).
-- Notice that these are pretty decently spaced, and all deal with the “Big Idea”. As far as I can tell, their relationship with the “Big Idea” is what distinguishes them from Brown’s regular descriptions of secret histories and exotic locales, which were more for flavoring and entertainment.

Writing Style Notes

The Need for Specifics as a Function of Plot -- Ever wonder why Brown obsessively gives tiny details (e.g. "a Fiat" rather than "a car") and still makes his novel readable? Generally, it's because he doesn't just infodump. Brown gives these details -- which serve the dual function of worldbuilding and creating a "factual" atmosphere to make his sillier ideas seem plausible -- when the characters are interacting with them. Langdon doesn't observe the make and model of cars in the street. He is thrown into one as part of the plot. The world becomes relevant when it interacts with the characters. But when it does, the world is described in detail to create verisimilitude. ("Writing the Blockbuster Novel" has a similar principle. It assumes that the reader partly reads to learn. As long as the details affect the protagonist (and are doled out in small doses) the reader wants to learn about the inner workings of an airport, or the Mafia, or the French police, or the Priory of Sion.)

Doling Out Information Slowly – A subset of the above. Most of his chapters include some “insider” details about the setting or organization that the chapter focuses on. The inner workings, the history, the way people behave, the surroundings, how it looks, etc. But not too much to slow the action.

End Almost Every Chapter with a Cliffhanger – Seriously. Go back to the Da Vinci Code and check them. It was deliberate. And so is the fact that most of the chapters are short.

Symbols – This is a general one. Brown looked at his “Big Idea” about goddess worship, grabbed a book on symbols, and SATURATED his novel with goddess imagery. Some of it works on the reader subconsciously. In other cases, Langdon points out the symbolism offhand, in a “Oh, isn’t this an interesting piece of the setting; let’s move on now” sort of aside. When the payoff comes and Brown finally exposes his “Big Idea” to the reader, he’s already prepped us.

Everything Is Connected To Everything Else – Brown chose his genre well. Conspiracy theories automatically give a story thematic unity, since they’re often invented by paranoid people who connect every dot to every other dot.

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Originally Posted by Andoriol

Yeah, it's annoying, though I'm interested in this so far!

What does Complete and total whore qualify as in this situation? She doesn't seem to fit into any of the five categories you've posited so far except maybe Protagonists, and even then not so much.

Sakura is an oddity; she's one of those bits who doesn't fit perfectly into Brown's outline.

You'd probably stick her with Zouken's faction, though. Notice that not all members of an "Evil" faction are in fact evil. Bishop A. was just a dupe who never expected Teabing to kill people with Silas.

**Bloble** · April 1st, 2014, 04:59 PM

Well, this is actually kinda fascinating.

It also makes it obvious where the Nasu formula differs from the Brown formula.

FSN and Tsukihime tend to (from my inexpert observation) have many 'interaction moments' that consist solely of the characters doing day to day things and interacting with each other over unimportant stuff that doesn't impact the plot (Shirou and Sakura's cooking scenes are a big one) while occasionally sprinkling in hints as to the deeper meaning of their actions and how that reflects on them. I'm assuming this is strictly because of the romance and visual novel aspect of the fiction, though, since romance can't really go much farther than sexual tension when you spend the entire story running around and doing plot things.

**CompositeGNFNR** · April 1st, 2014, 05:27 PM

This is really interesting, keep it up.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 05:41 PM

Applying Stuff From The Bird’s Eye View To Grail War #5 - PART I

The "Big Idea" --

The Big Idea should be: (1) an emotionally charged issue with no clear right or wrong, and (2) wrapped up in a mystery that the protagonists must unravel.

Let's start with (2). FSN has a lot of mysterious threads, but few carry as much weight as the Fourth Grail War. It touched every major protagonist. Rin, Sakura, Shirou, Ilya, Kirei, Shinji...you name 'em. (Well, except Medea). Fuyuki has a lot of little places where the protagonists can explore the previous War. So it would definitely make a good backdrop for a mystery.

So we know the BACKDROP for our mystery. But what specifically should the mystery about the Fourth War be about? A: Something connected to a Big Idea.

That brings us to (1).

The Fourth Grail War offers several Big Ideas: Tokiomi's pride-and-family dilemma, Kirei's struggle over right and wrong, etc. etc. But I would suggest that the biggest dilemma -- the dilemma that started and ended the War, and tied everything together -- was Kiritsugu's search for meaning through utilitarianism. Fighting for the good of the many through some very creepy methods. Kiritsugu's dream to become a superhero was just the embodiment of this drive. He sacrificed others and himself to pursue that goal. And he passed his goal on to Shirou, which gives us thematic unity across time.

Utilitarianism vs. The Individual works pretty well as a Dan Brown premise. It's vaguely philosophical. It has two edges. Lots of people have debated over it. The villain, Kirei, represents one twisted extreme of the question, since he completely abandoned "the many" in favor of "the one" -- in this case, himself. Kiritsugu, of course, represents the other end of the spectrum. He destroyed himself and his family for the sake of the many, and the Grail took it away.

So DanBrown!FSN Shirou and Rin will race through exotic locales, and will gradually discover what happened in Grail War #4. What they learn will shape Shirou's ideas about his own place on the utilitarian spectrum. They will also race toward the Grail: a physical embodiment of Shirou's (and earlier, Kiritsugu's) desires.

The Setup --

A hero is thrown head-first from a familiar world into an unfamiliar one that he doesn't understand.

DanBrown!Shirou doesn't know much magecraft either. And he knows very little about the HGW. So no major surprises so far. You can see what I mean about compatibility between Brown and Nasu.

**Imperial** · April 1st, 2014, 06:03 PM

I find this all incredibly fascinating. Please proceed

I may have to consult this guide in the future.

The April Fool's placeholder names make it even better.

**Kirby** · April 1st, 2014, 06:11 PM

Will these posts be indexed in the OP?

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 06:21 PM

Applying Stuff From The Bird’s Eye View To Grail War #5 - PART II

"Treasure Hunt"

In every Dan Brown novel, the characters are chasing a physical object linked to the Big Idea and its associated mystery.

The treasure is the Grail.

Clues That Link The Treasure Hunt Together

This has two parts: (1) The clues, and (2) The bite-sized pieces of information about the Big Idea and its mystery that the clues unlock.

The clues will require a much deeper explanation later on. You have lots of options though:

- Rin and Shirou piece information together from what others tell them (they ask around)
- Or from historical research / newspapers
- Or from Tokiomi's notebooks
- Or from bits of information that Kiritsugu left for Shirou to find
- Or whatever.

Dan Brown himself probably would have done something like THIS, though:

A Very Dan Brown Approach

But as I said, you could pick all sorts of methods. I'll get into it more later. Moving on...

Secrets, Conspiracies, Secret Organizations, and Secret Histories –

This part involves the murkier areas of history / social science. They include:

(1) Secret Histories -- Conspiracy theories about the past, presented as true.
(2) Secret Societies -- At least one of the factions will be one.
(3) Obscure / Buried Bits of History -- Factoids about how things you believe are familiar actually have weird roots or less-discussed aspects (e.g., Christmas trees started as pagan winter festival decoration; Lincoln never freed the slaves on UNION soil).

Again, not too hard.

(1) Secret histories outright overturn our views of the past, because they're probably nonsense. That's where the Mages' Association and the Burial Agency come in. Rin will throw bits and pieces about all that stuff into conversation / interior monologues, and CONNECT IT with everyday stuff that the readers (or Shirou) take for granted.

(2) Secret societies? Mages' association. Burial Agency. A bunch of ancient clans of magi like the Matou and Tohsaka. Just make sure to describe these in some depth. Probably greater depth than most stories would, although remember to keep the narrative moving.

(3) Obscure / Buried Bits of History -- Whenever possible, insert weird or obscure TRUE stuff from occult/European/Japanese history and folklore studies that you can tie it in with the above. (Or the plot. Or setting.) Everything from the underground history of the Kirishitan movement to little-known details about the Arthurian cycle. This upends a lot of the reader's assumptions about the "real" world, which allows you to push your secret history to the forefront.

Strong Male and Female Main Characters / The Love Interest –

(1) Two strong characters who can eventually become romantically involved.
(2) Both experts in their fields
(3) Both have different but complementary talents, which will help them solve problems
(4) Both capable of delivering long-winded lectures when necessary.

Here's our first major stumbling block.

Rin?

Rin's a PERFECT Dan Brown character. Aside from romantic passivity (which Langdon also suffers from), Rin is driven and highly competent. She loves blathering on for ages about obscure magecraft topics. She's a prodigy who understands her field inside and out. She revels in solving problems.

Shirou...is none of those things.

Well, I guess technically he's driven, but as far as the rest goes? He sucks at the beginning. At the end, he's learned how to smash things better, but is still no intellectual dynamo. Snarky, yes, but hardly a genius like Rin. He's a refugee shounen protagonist.

You could go a couple directions with this.

(1) You could just delegate the exposition and problem-solving to Rin, but that makes Shirou kinda superfluous unless you include a lot of fights. (Which Rin can also participate in).

(2) You can change Shirou.

Or you can figure another way out of the dilemma. I'm sure there are plenty I haven't thought of.

Again, putting on my DanBrown!FSN hat for a moment, though...

DanBrown!Shirou

But yeah, you could go a couple ways with this. You just need somebody (perhaps even one of the Servants, if you choose not to focus on Shirou) who can match and complement Rin's abilities.

To Be Continued...

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Originally Posted by Kirby

Will these posts be indexed in the OP?

Eventually, yes.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 07:02 PM

Applying Stuff From The Bird’s Eye View To Grail War #5 - PART III

The Ticking Clock / 24 Hour Rule –-

(1) All of the action happens within a short time, preferably 24 hours

(2) Keep track of when everybody's movements happen

(3) Find ways to remind the reader that everybody's on a tight schedule.

(4) If possible, make time part of the pressure on the characters. Everybody's working toward a deadline.

Twenty-four hours might theoretically be possible for a Grail War, but not a popular choice.

Brown himself would probably do it within 24 hours anyway, just to ramp up the stress and insomnia. He'd have had the Masters preparing for months/years ahead of time, with plenty of recon, so that everybody knows how and when everybody else will move.

For our purposes, though, 2-3 days would do it. As for reminding the reader that everybody's on a tight schedule: beginning each chapter with "Monday, X o'clock" is one simple way to do it. And you might want occasional notifications from the Mages' Association / Burial Agency / Rin's store of knowledge that you can't keep fighting a Grail War forever. Wrap it up quickly, people.

(Irisviel provided a more metaphorical "clock" in Fate:Zero. As the finale closed in, her body deteriorated more and more until she was just a cup. Something like that might work for FSN, with Ilya.)

A Chase –-

(1) The protagonists should be involved in a chase, either as the pursuers or the pursued. Possibly both.

(2) Add other chases to taste. They connect the characters / factions together and raise the stakes.

(3) Chases should lead the characters across the Exotic Locales described below.

The outline that I presented above actually works well here.

- Ilya's chasing Shirou & Rin because of her daddy issues.

- Rin & Shirou lead will likely chase the "Stepping Stone" (Medea) at some point when she sucks the life from their schoolmates. On a more metaphorical level, they're also "chasing" the truth about the Fourth War. They are also running from Ilya and her invincible murder machine.

- Zouken & Shinji are "chasing" the Grail more directly -- by chasing down other Masters and trying to kill them.

Incidentally, Dan Brown probably would have totaled Rin's and Shirou's houses in the first third of the novel. Probably by Act of Ilya. After that, they'd be on the run, exploring new settings.

The Murder / Hook --

The story begins by "flashing" the reader with a short, exciting glimpse of the mystery to come. Often a murder. Narrative will then switch to one of the protagonists. Think "teaser trailer".

You could do this in a lot of ways. For FSN, I think you could get a really interesting effect if you "flashed" to Medea killing her Master. It hints at the nature of the Grail War, danger, death, the supernatural, the stakes, the sheer volume of REALLY PSYCHOLOGICALLY DAMAGED people in this mess, etc.

But again, you could go many directions here. Complete and total whore suffering in the worm bath (perhaps only described as "the girl" to keep the reader guessing who she could be later on), a flashback to War #4, whatever.

One Dan Brownish Approach

To Be Continued...

**Vagrant** · April 1st, 2014, 07:44 PM

Really liking this. If no actual fic of the Grail (Mystic) Code comes out of this I'll be disappointed, but it's a great guide. I've often thought a fortnight is so long for sonething like a HGW, it was always a pure VN conceit.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 1st, 2014, 11:15 PM

Applying Stuff From The Bird’s Eye View To Grail War #5 - PART IV

Setting: Exotic Locale(s) To Chase Each Other Across

(1) The locations involved in the story should be interesting. Think of the chase as an extended travelogue, almost like a Frommer's guidebook. (Which Brown actually used for some of his scenes).

(2) Remember, though, that the locations must be INVOLVED in the story. They must do more than sit there. The locations must mean something to the plot or characters. Maybe the smell of bread at a baguette shop reminds Langdon that he hasn't eaten for a while, increasing the psychological pressure on him. Or maybe Rosslyn contains codes that will advance the plot.

(3) Whenever you switch POV, you may need to orient the reader about where the character is. Quick reminders are fine.

(4) Details. Be specific. Ground the reader in the reality.

(5) You're showing the reader the "inside story" about your setting. Describe the interesting things about it; especially its past and (if a group, institution, social gathering, or machine) its inner workings. Some of this "inside story" should involve the out-of-the-way historical details we already discussed above. Others may be outright conspiracy theory nonsense.

(6) Rotate through settings quickly. The Da Vinci Code used three cities, as did Inferno.

Here's where Brown differs a bit from Nasu, and to a lesser extent from Urobuchi.

Urobuchi STARTS his story in all sorts of exotic locations (Einzbern castle, Our tea is better than yours, Tokiomi's meeting with Kirei, etc.), but then shoves all his characters into a box and watches them eat each other like starved rats. Nasu, by contrast, creates a single city, but keeps adding layers and layers. Reading The Da Vinci Code is like touring Europe; reading Nasuverse is like exploring a mineshaft.

Nevertheless, you can handle it in many ways:

(1) Your audience is primarily Western. You could work with that, and reveal all sorts of peculiarities of Japanese urban culture.

(2) You could take Nasu at his word, and really DIG into his setting. Add noncanon areas and details to Fuyuki if you need to. Find every scrap of historical lore you can. Send your characters to the weirdest parts of Fuyuki. Invent older traces of the First, Second, and Third Wars that still survive, and let the characters discover them.

(3) Set part of the action outside of Fuyuki, for some reason.

And then, there's the solution that Dan Brown probably would have chosen:

DanBrown!Fuyuki

In any case, your protagonists will need to MOVE. They can't sit behind Bounded Fields and hope for the best. Which is fine, since that's probably a bad strategy anyway. If Rin and Shirou lead individually know pieces of each area's history (Rin more of the magic stuff, Shirou everything else), your readers will get an interesting little tour as they watch the protagonists run from the Forces of Evil.

Needless to say, you don't need to take any of the four options listed above, but one or more may be helpful. Especially the second.

Academic Lectures –

(1) Yes, these are actual lectures delivered by the characters, whether by interior monologue, flashback, or directly speaking to another character.

(2) They're embedded in an action-packed story. Never forget that part.

(3) Unlike the general setting details described above, they reveal a very specific type of information: the Big Idea and its associated mystery.

(4) They're spaced at predictable intervals throughout the story, usually preceded by solving a clue. I'll discuss how and where later on.

(5) Each lecture builds on the others until the reader has the whole story.

Not much to say here. Here's where you'd dump Grail War lore, especially involving the Fourth War. Bits and pieces about Magecraft are great, too. It gives Rin a chance to pontificate, and gives everybody else a way to enter the convoluted world of Nasuverse mechanics.

Plus, the lectures eventually flesh out everything that happened in War #4 -- at least the plotline involving Kiritsugu's Quest To Be A Benthamite Superhero.

TO BE CONTINUED...

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Vagrant

Really liking this. If no actual fic of the Grail (Mystic) Code comes out of this I'll be disappointed, but it's a great guide.

Thanks. I may eventually use this for a fic.

It's certainly a lot more flexible than it looks. Really, though, it'll depend on what it looks like when I finish it.

**Vagrant** · April 1st, 2014, 11:56 PM

Doesn't necessarily have to be you, I just like the idea of a proper race against time Grail War. Not some namby pamby hide-and-cook game of occasionally poking about for others.

**Zalgo Jenkins** · April 2nd, 2014, 02:16 AM

And now a list of each chapter with tallied word counts, so that we can see how far along in the narrative each chapter is.

It's a boring step, but a necessary one. (The total word count for the novel is ~140k words according to my novel diagramming software, but it's probably undercounting).

As before, characters who are the main focus of a chapter are BOLDED. Characters who only appear in snippets at the beginning / end of the chapter are in normal-sized text.

Chart #3 - Tallied Word Counts

TO BE CONTINUED...

**Dullahan** · April 2nd, 2014, 02:32 AM

How does anyone tell a story in a mere 140,000 words? :P

**Bloble** · April 2nd, 2014, 02:40 AM

Originally Posted by Dullahan

How does anyone tell a story in a mere 140,000 words? :P

He must've forgotten two or three zeroes in there.

Thread: Notes on Plotting Grail Wars [a.k.a. "If Dan Brown had written Fate/Stay Night"]

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