On Fri, 13 Jan 2006, Karen J. Cravens wrote:

> I think I've identified one of the fuzzy points in my stakes/setbacks
> notion:  sometimes you end up winning and still suffering a loss.  That
> is, Luke gets the Death Star blowed up real good, but also loses Biggs and
> (temporarily; one might argue it was just color) R2D2 in the process.  A
> real setback would be *failing* to blow up the Death Star.  The losses are
> instead sacrifices, made (one could successfully argue) in order to
> *ensure* the success.

So, it's not really a "I want this, and am willing to sacrifice this," 
situation.  It's more of a "I want this, and need X points to do it.  I 
don't have enough points; how many points do I get if I sacrifice Y?"

> Once again, the real question in movie and book type fiction is never
> *truly* "will the main characters succeed" but "*how* will they succeed."
> You just have to make the latter suspense so convincing that your audience
> can successfully forget that it's not the former.

I'm not sure about that.  I'm reading the Dresden Files novels (again) and 
I never questioned if he would succeed in the long term.  The question 
through the books is always what succeeding will cost him, and how much 
more trouble he's in afterward.


-Bill Hamilton
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