In Media Res- " who? what? when? why?"

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Monday, January 17, 2022 13:22
VIEWED: 779
PAGE 1 of 1

SIGNYM

Monday, January 17, 2022 3:52 AM

Quote:
The Menticide Manual – In Medias Res
2721 Views January 16, 2022 4 Comments

By Thorsten J. Pattberg for the Saker Blog

In medias res is the literary device to start your story “in the midst”. This trick will create in the minds of the audiences the illusion of distance to a beginning and an end. As in: They are throwing you in the middle of it.

All epics – from Homer’s Odyssey to Asvaghosa’s Buddhacharita to the anonymous Beowulf – are necessarily written in the mode of in medias res. That is what makes them epic.

But it can be done with every story, and with every part within that story. A trained propagandist can and will use in medias res to make any character epic, any story epic, any news piece totally epic.

In this concise chapter, we shall talk about how to write extraordinary distance into any event, thing or character with the intent to deify them – to make them appear god-like.

This lesson is going to knock you over the head, so please find a quiet place and sit…

From Epic Poems to Modern Media

Once this “in the midst” device is repeated in first, second, and third-slot stories, an extraordinary depth is created. This can be cycled indefinitely. The readers are confronted with the extraordinary experience of “reading something backward.”

You may have heard this in grammar school, when your English teacher read a commentary which stated in passing that the Iliad or The New Testament were actually written backward. And you probably didn’t pay much attention.

In literature, we call this ‘the backward-building technique’ or ‘backward linearity’, but this is really misleading terminology, because we cannot write backward, obviously. We just never start at the beginning. So we later relapse, flashback and remember. In editorial work, scholars call this ‘intertextuality’. This is just another sophisticated word for saying we are experimenting with narrated chronology and non-linear order. Yes, we do that for you.

This “reading it backward” is the addictive habit those magicians with 6-figure salaries in Tinseltown use in order to get us hooked for eight consecutive years on Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead and other infinitely epic crap.

The new epic story tellers write stories within stories, endless weighting, say a modern King Arthur, with new deeds and twists and fatalities, introducing ever more interrelated characters such as the adventures of Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad and Wizard Merlin, and ever more backstories to the new Holy Grail and Camelot, and it just never ends and goes on and on, with new, multilayered deaths and rebirths and [a new stylistic device:] subverting expectations.

You will think, by watching or reading these, that those stories and characters are far more epic than you and your small life. It is a demonic technique, so please do warn your kids…

Those publishers and studios do not roll dice. Writing is a science. They know exactly what certain techniques are doing to your brains. You – I mean “Us” really – are all experimental rats to them.

Epic poems existed for thousands of years, long before writing emerged. They were orally transmitted, and only later written down, such as the Nordic Valhalla mythologies or the Hebrew Old Testament or the Vedic Ramayana. This means that in medias res has an evolutionary psychology explanation.

When our ancestors met a new member or a new situation about which they did not know the backstory, they were excited to know more about it – but also alerted.

If our brains find themselves “in the midst” of something, with information missing as to why and how it got here, neurotransmitters respond and release chemicals that contribute to the excitation of adjacent neurons like a cold flow. It feels like you were in free fall. Of course, the brain will quickly counter the excitation by signaling molecules that inhibit the neurons.

Because if the brain doesn‘t do that, or if the receptors wear out and if the inhibitors can’t inhibit any more, we end up with seizures or in epilepsy. And this is pre

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME

SIGNYM

Monday, January 17, 2022 8:48 AM

Once upon a time, I was taught that a news story should cover everything you need to know: the who, what, when, where, how and why of a story.
THAT, apparently doesn't create audience engagement!

Instead, if you're plopped into the middle of a story, your brain will instantly start trying to figure it out. THAT is engagement! And it's a device that scriptwriters and advertisers and influencers and propagandists know well.

Interesting point.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

1KIKI

Monday, January 17, 2022 10:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Once upon a time, I was taught that a news story should cover everything you need to know: the who, what, when, where, how and why of a story.
THAT, apparently doesn't create audience engagement!

Instead, if you're plopped into the middle of a story, your brain will instantly start trying to figure it out. THAT is engagement! And it's a device that scriptwriters and advertisers and influencers and propagandists know well.

Interesting point.

-----------
Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor - William Blake

Whenever I see a movie or TV show or episode or whatever that starts with an 'action-packed' or 'gripping' scene - man runs across beach then gets shot in the back by an unseen shooter and dramatically falls dead on the sand - or - couple argues loudly with youngster crying in the background then man storms off - I mentally roll my eyes and prepare for a badly-written slog. I know it's 'supposed' to engage me, but it just irritates me. (The only time I think it's acceptable is in murder mysteries, where, in the interest of brevity, one often starts with a mysterious unexplained murder, or at least dead unexplained body.)

Also I usually skip past things like breakfast scenes, dinner scenes, bedroom scenes, restaurant scenes and so on where we're being treated to imo pointless diversions of nothingness. I skip to the next thing to try and get to what happens plot-wise.

When it comes to news stories, the whole 'we need to start with a human story to grab people' drives me nuts, along with a lot of the meaningless backs and forths of past and present, here and there, detail and outline, and so on. I USED to spend a lot of time rearranging news items into a concise complete read, but meh - too much work, honestly. Now I just try to find the salient point, (presence or absence of evidence, and if it seems like something important, I look for additional information from original sources), and if people want to look further, they can go read it themselves.

When it comes to 'sagas' I get alerted when a character is being expanded, probably due to audience interest, but unless there's some new meaningful thing, or at least something interesting, I drift away.

So mostly - idk - I don't THINK this works on me all too well. Maybe that's a benefit of having severe ADHD.

BTW, the popular series 'Lost' lost me about 3 episodes in. I felt like it was a pointless exercise in being jerked around by writers who were desperately trying to throw more and more stuff into the plot b/c they didn't have a clue where any of it was going.

JEWELSTAITEFAN

Monday, January 17, 2022 1:22 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SIGNYM:
Once upon a time, I was taught that a news story should cover everything you need to know: the who, what, when, where, how and why of a story.
THAT, apparently doesn't create audience engagement!

Instead, if you're plopped into the middle of a story, your brain will instantly start trying to figure it out. THAT is engagement! And it's a device that scriptwriters and advertisers and influencers and propagandists know well.

Interesting point.

Methinks the current term for this is "clickbait"