CATCH-UP 1 (CHAPTERS 1 - 5)
HOST:
Welcome back to the Daniel’s Nemesis Podcast, Catching up on X, Squared, Chapters 1 through 5. Plus Prologue.
CRUNCHY:
Knock Knock! Who’s there? It’s Crunchy. It’s Crunchy who? It’s Crunchy time!
HOST:
Shut Up!
X, Squared. Vague competence. And that’s an improvement!
We are five chapters in. How have I been doing so far? That’s the point of this particular episode. A kind of job performance review. Because everything’s broadcast these days… Got to squeeze that cash out of something.
CRUNCHY:
And yet, you won’t let me do any jokes.
HOST:
So, yeah.
In typical DNP fashion, I’m going to look at the chapters that have been read out thus far, and analyse them, focussing on story beats, how the characters have been introduced, and world-building.
Spoilers for the first five chapters.
Let’s erm… let’s get started!
CRUNCHY:
And you used to teach university students how to write essays?
HOST:
Teaching is not the same as doing. Those who can’t teach, remember?
CRUNCHY:
You taught English!
HOST:
Wel… I mea… umm, it’s … [OTHER VAGUE NOISES].
General Notes
HOST:
Let’s begin with structure. That’s usually something that I’m able to talk about before things fall apart.
We are a quarter of a way in. So far, we should have established the protagonist and their relationship with other important characters around them, got the story kicked off and introduced the threat, and the protagonist should have taken their first steps to overcome the threat.
Have I done that?
Well. There is a prologue that hints at Crunchy’s Un Chien Andalou-inspired normality. However, rather than linger on the pre-inciting incident setup, I’ve taken Crunchy straight out of his comfort zone, and thrust him into the upside-down world. His Call to Action is the letter telling him to come and do work experience. His Point of No Return is the Battle Royale-style collar that is put on him. The threat is a spate of suicides that is being investigated.
His entrance into Act 2 seems to happen pretty quickly, doesn’t it? We’ll get into the real Fun and Games section as the world of Act 2 begins to be explored properly, but we have gone through passport control, declared our customs, and are in the taxi leaving the airport, headed for downtown Act-Twosville. All this was done with a ruthless efficiency that was missing from my earlier works. Oh, and the inciting incident? It’s just been buried.
As for the other characters? I’ve read out five chapters. Ask yourself, at what point did you feel that you knew how each character works? And, whilst Hemmingway may have some clue as to Crunchy’s importance in the story, none of them are exactly on Crunchy’s side, are they?
What about world-building? I am building up this new world as I am phasing Crunchy in. As shocking as it may be to him, the shocks keep happening, the layers keep being pulled back. His transitioning, as he compares the new world to what is normal, is my way of addressing the setups that need to be in a typical first act. The Un Chien Andalou prologue, Annette, and Crunchy’s own weirdness should all be making it very clear what type of world this story is in.
Themes are discussed. There are seemingly continual debates, mostly around “Is Crunchy good enough?” For Mitsuko, he’s a freak, and he’s inexperienced. For Hemmingway, he’s inexperienced and getting in the way of other things. For Crunchy himself, he’s carrying a lot of baggage along with his damaged ego. There are other themes and debates along the way, but I won’t put emphasis on those just yet, as those plotlines haven’t quite activated yet. Setup, setup, setup.
Back to the start, though. The prologue, I admit, needs a bit of work. I wanted something off-kilter to set up the tone. Something that would cause a reaction. And the thing that I chose certainly did that - 100 years ago in Un Chien Andalou. The edge-lord humour that I attached to it, is cringey, and I feel sets up the wrong tone. My question is, is it the right reference to go for? It’s infamous, but how much so today? Would a different film be better - Nosferatu’s shadow, perhaps. Dr Caligari’s exaggerated and serrated world, maybe?
So, that’s it.
Umm…
The Psychologist’s Chair
HOST:
It’s the part of the show that—
CRUNCHY:
My grievances are:
You’ve made me look as if I cannot make friends.
You’ve revealed a lot of my secrets. Even if the other characters don’t know, the listeners do.
The way that you read me is very strange. It’s as if you are trying to make the listeners hate me just by the rhythm of my so-called speech.
You haven’t given me anything to do to show my talents.
Do you really think that I would masturbate to someone having their eye cut up?
And there’s something else. What was it now? Oh yeah, seems quite trivial really, but the fact that YOU TRIED TO KILL ME TWICE!
HOST:
—typically goes wrong. Formats are a fun thing, aren’t they?
Well, I’ve already acknowledged that masturbation was the wrong tone.
However, you’re right. You are an intentionally unlikeable character. That makes the Save The Cat moment even more important, one little thing to say that this dweeb is worth following, worth the time and effort that a novel demands.
So, how have I introduced Crunchy?
CRUNCHY:
Pretty fucking poorly!!
HOST:
Well, let’s begin with absolute first impressions. The speech. It’s laboured. Emphasis or stress on every other word, it seems. It’s off-putting and cheapens emotional moments. It’s definitely an example of sentences being written for the page, for the eye, and not for the mouth. The sentences are difficult to say, and I would wager the best actors on stage or screen would struggle to make them sound natural. However, it does kind of work in favour of this as an audiobook. It’s yet another example of why Crunchy would be off-putting to many people. It would only be a very loving mother who could deal with that stilted delivery on a daily basis.
What about who Crunchy is?
CRUNCHY:
I am right here, thank you very much.
HOST:
He is paranoid, as shown by the constant checking of his two items. He imagines danger when there is none apparent, and faints when a gun is pulled out on him at his destination. And that’s just the first chapter. We get to learn more about him in the next few chapters.
He is uncertain. Overthinking himself in each new situation he is in, and getting himself in a tizzy so that he almost always does the wrong thing and brings a poor first impression on himself.
And he has powers. If you listened to XBook, you’ll know about this. He even brings up a couple of details that were story points in XStory. However, with his powers, I decided to be clearer as to whether others are aware or not. There are times when, very definitely, Mitsuko and Hemmingway react to one of Crunchy's outbursts. And there are clearly times when an outburst is purely in his head.
He makes excuses. In his head, he hasn’t been doing anything wrong, it’s all been interpreted incorrectly. If people could just see what he was really like then they might understand. Of course, he denies people those opportunities. He comes across like a dick, and people react accordingly. But it’s never his fault, is it?
He has some major issues. Five chapters in, and he’s attempting to shoot himself? This part is handled with humour. However, if this disturbs you, for the sake of a spoiler in the guise of a trigger warning, there are more troubling chapters ahead. To go back to the humour, Blake Snyder does talk about a whiff of death as a metaphor for jeopardy. This is more a stench.
And there is something going on with his attitude towards mirrors. For someone so stuck in his head, and his past actions, he is very concerned about, if not disgusted by, his external appearance.
CRUNCHY:
Is this how you see me?
HOST:
Well, it’s less to do with how I see you, more to do with how I wrote you to be. Perception is in the eye of the beholder. Or the mind of the creator.
CRUNCHY:
Don’t I get any good moments? It’s like you choose which moments I go through to put in the book.
HOST:
I mean, yes. That is story-telling.
CRUNCHY:
But why these moments?
HOST:
It’s better to show a character in conflict. How they deal with things.
CRUNCHY:
I don’t think they sell me well. I mean, I seem pretty unhappy. Why can’t you show the moments when I am happy? Like when I’m watching TV? I’m pretty happy then.
HOST:
That’s not very interesting though, is it?
CRUNCHY:
Well, what’s interesting about a car ride? Or me travelling on the Underground?
HOST:
It’s less about the situation being interesting, it’s more what it tells us about you. Yes, these situations are mundane. Things that millions of people do everyday, yet you seem to react to and deal with these situations differently.
CRUNCHY:
I watch TV! That’s mundane, and I react! Looks like these days the Internet is only reactions to film and TV, anyway.
HOST:
But again, what does that tell us about you? And also, how many times do you need to be seen watching TV?
CRUNCHY:
But you make the other characters look so much better than I do!
HOST:
Do I?
Squiggle, who’s a Boris Johnson, Donald Trump archetype long before either of them had a hint of power, but is as damagingly useless as both of them?
Mitsuko, who seems unstable?
The woman in chapter 5 with her racist undertones, but tones nonetheless?
And Hemmingway, so far the best of the bunch, but hardly a bag of charm, is he? He’s just getting by due to me having cast an air of mystery over him. But with his dealings with Annette, we know his weaknesses more than we know of his strengths.
So, yeah, I’ve focussed on you. I made you the star. But none of these characters are going to have the Hollywood A-list lining up to play them.
CRUNCHY:
Why did you create those characters then? Couldn’t you have created characters that like me?
HOST:
Okay, here’s another way of thinking about it. It’s about contrasts. You are an element in a mixture. You're the awkward wreck. Mitsuko’s the resentful aggressive one. Hemmingway is washed-up, slightly mysterious. Squiggle is boisterous. In reality, were you all put in a room you’d probably all compromise and find some aspect of each of your personalities that you can all display. You’d highlight one part of yourself that is likeable to the others, downplaying other elements that won’t wash so well.
Drama is about keeping different personalities separate. Conflict occurs easier and more naturally when people keep clashing. It’s why, unfortunately, it’s so easy to fall into stereotypes, or character tropes as, although we’d all like our characters to be truly 3 dimensional, it’s easier when they’re just 2 dimensional, and the best a writer can hope for is 2.5-dimensional character - a character that shows other elements of themselves, but not too much to erode the necessary personality clash.
It’s what reality TV does all the time. Downplays real people’s real 3D personalities to display more TV-worthy interactions. Chatting on a sofa gets boring, as TV isn’t a podcast. But chatting on a sofa might be what reality TV contestants do 99% of the time. So, producers focus on that other 1%, even if it does mean that contestants get horribly represented. Audiences love the conflicts.
CRUNCHY:
But why do I have to be like that? Why can’t they clash with me because I’m so funny and amazing all the time? I could be solving everything, and doing everything, and they get pissed off at me for that.
HOST:
Because you know where I was writing this from. If I was the life of the party, I’d probably have created a main character that was like that. It’s less dramatically interesting, but that would be the truth I would have been writing from.
I don’t think you’re an especially easy character for readers to like. Getting others to be interested in you, to relate or to care is going to be a tough thing. The best I can do is add in humour, to exaggerate. Humour is often brutal in its need to get a laugh. Sincerity is the enemy of comedy. For me to have written this book, this is how you need to be. For there to be humour, Mitsuko has to hate your guts.
In a similar vein, challenge and strife maketh the hero. Right now, at this stage of the book, getting the two agents on your side is your challenge.
I am introducing you to the readers by getting you to meet the team. I am setting up the team dynamic by having all of you figure out how to work as a threesome (ahem). Or failing to do so. The three of you have your own personalities and motivations pulling each of you away from the group goal.
For you, you’re the newbie in their world. You think I’m going to make it easy for you?
CRUNCHY:
I don’t like it.
HOST:
That’s drama. Them’s the breaks.
CRUNCHY:
It’s just embarrassing for me, people knowing about these things that I do.
HOST:
But you do do these things.
CRUNCHY:
Well, all right, how about that bit with Hemmingway asking me about my life? I chose not to say a thing, but you put out all that information! Why is it okay for my thoughts, my needs to be ignored like that? If I want things kept private, they should stay silent.
HOST:
Well, you know, that’s our shared information. Those things happened to me. I gave them to you. It’s my life, it’s my right to put it out there if I choose.
CRUNCHY:
If anything, that’s worse! You didn’t involve me in a decision that affects me! You didn’t get my consent!
This isn’t making a first impression, you know, this is revealing personal stuff! Not only are you only showing people things that are going to make me look like an idiot, but you’re telling people about things that happened years ago that aren’t even anything to do with the things happening in the story!
How would you feel if I started revealing your secrets? You’ve given me your life, how about if I tell everyone else?
HOST:
I’ve only given you what is in the book. So, yeah, you can try. But in the process of me reading the book, the only things that you know about me are going to get revealed anyway.
CRUNCHY:
There’s got to be laws about this!! Ethics, morals, something!
HOST:
Maybe if you were real. But you’re not.
CRUNCHY:
People don’t like you very much, do they?
HOST:
Well, that’s a bit unfair. For a start, the vast majority of the world hasn’t yet found me. Ignorant apathy is perhaps the best way to describe people’s reactions to me.
CRUNCHY:
That’s not what I see here.
HOST:
What do you see?
CRUNCHY:
Lots of good things about me on Twitter. Lots of bad things about you.
They say that you’re uninspired. You’re just rehashing old ideas. You're bored. That you have no idea what you are doing.
HOST:
Just fuck off! You’re all just things… you, OG, Ginger, all just things in my head.
And Crunchy, you're the worst! You’re the whingiest piece of shit! Having to actually deal with you, well I’m on Mitsuko’s side here! I don’t need my characters to actually exist.
Not when I’ve written them to be cunts.
[TWITTER ALERT]
HOST (cont’d):
And turn that shit off when I’m recording! Try to have some professionalism, you listless little shit!
CRUNCHY:
Actually, you’re the one who got the message.
Be The Man?
HOST:
I am the.. I… This is my podcast!
CRUNCHY:
That’s who sent it.
HOST:
Let’s just finish it here, shall we?
I’ll be back after chapter 10 with more analysis.
Until then, TTFN!
CRUNCHY:
Toodle—
HOST:
Crunchy, fuck off!
Written and produced by Daniel’s Nemesis.
X, Squared also by Daniel’s Nemesis.
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It’ll be a hoot!