[Advice req] Matching external/internal stakes

[cr47t 8]

Hi guys -

I'm trying to write a story on the smaller scale of things (my past projects quickly became too big for me). Right now I am struggling with outlining a rough idea of the plot, and in order to do that I'm trying to figure out the stakes.

For context: In the story the MC (not yet a teen) and her uncle are camping on an island: soon after arriving she discovers and befriends a creature who takes care of the life on the island. It is known, but becomes more weighted as time goes on, that the creature and MC will have to part when MC's vacation comes to an end, and that they might never meet again afterwards.

I have a decent grasp of what I want the internal stakes to be - whether MC will be able to maintain her childlike optimism in the face of departure and separation, or whether her worldview will fall apart because of it. But I'm not sure what external stakes could go well with it to create a throughline for the plot. I do envision it to be less about a positive change in fortune than about a negative change of spirit, kind of like coming-of-age combined with aspects of tragedy (b/c i can't think of a better comparison, sorry).

Does anyone have any ideas for what it could be, or for how I can figure it out?

[note: if this is the wrong subforum for this kind of topic, please forgive me and move it to the right spot - I'm used to YCM format]

[radio414 951]

Why do there have to be external stakes?

[(o ×) 232]

While you could go the ET route and having the creature in danger from those who would seek to catch it, I think Radio's on the money here.

While comparing and contrasting internal and external stakes can do quite a lot for a story, they are not a necessity. Your concept already has a conflict, and could be complete with it alone.

[cr47t 8]

On 7/17/2022 at 5:16 PM, (o ×) said:

While you could go the ET route and having the creature in danger from those who would seek to catch it, I think Radio's on the money here.

While comparing and contrasting internal and external stakes can do quite a lot for a story, they are not a necessity. Your concept already has a conflict, and could be complete with it alone.

i'm sorry for being so late, but could i ask for an elaboration?

some context to my question: while the standard story template is about a MC who wants to obtain something (an object, a relationship, status, whatever) and the obstacles he faces in trying to obtain it, i envisioned this current story of mine as: being about a MC who either starts the story with what she wants or gets it early on, but then faces the prospect of losing it, and the obstacles she faces in trying to hold on. (in this story, her relation with the wonder creature, and her own related sense of wonder and optimism, is the thing she's trying to "hold on" to.)

with that in mind, i feel a little pressure to have an external conflict/tension to match the internal one, but that may be because there's virtually no resources on the latter arc (out of the two in above paragraph) so i've been trying to borrow from the old one to bolster my confidence, and any potential reader's confidence, in taking my story through essentially uncharted territory. (although i do agree with you that the ET route would be counterproductive.) it doesn't help that i have a problem with my mind latching onto things and then i have great difficulty diverting my mind from that topic.

if this advice from the "old guard" of story is not necessary, in the context of my selected story arc, do you have any ideas for what to substitute for the classical internal/external duality, or otherwise something else to focus on?? if it is necessary to borrow from the old guard, what should i focus on that they have to offer?

lastly, before you answer: thank you for sharing with me your opinion, both of you! talking it out w/ others helps shine a perspective on things i didn't notice before, and that helps reencourage me to move forward.

[Hina's Simp 96]

Does it need to match? It seems to me that your focus is trying to posit both of these ideas at the same time without developing everything that is going on within the world. Stakes only matter when there is a form of uncertainty for the main character to establish, and that is already set: her internal and external stakes are already side by side, that the conflict should be just about navigating that form of uncertainty. First, to navigate the story, you need to establish clear ideas of what the motivation/curiosity are. The main character shouldn't have other focuses, especially at a young age; the character, instead, should focus more directly on the ignorance of that curiosity, since there is nothing else in front of her. 

With this introduction: "soon after arriving she discovers and befriends a creature who takes care of the life on the island", have the main character focus on building that relationship. How does the main character learn to communicate? Why is she curious in this creature? How do they meet? The biggest concern that needs to be addressed in your story, before you develop their separation, is this relation and freedom. This main character has the ability, freedom, and curiosity to explore the area of her vacation. In that, she needs to have motivations that push her to explore. In My Neighbor Totoro, the relationship was a matter of curiosity and child wonder, nothing more: there was a sense of freedom and safety that push the character forward. In Kiki's Delivery Service, the main character was pushed into the world and had to discover it alongside her journey. There was not "stakes", but a idea to explore.

The one thing that comes to mind with this idea, that you should focus on, is the internal conflict that pushes the main character to first explore and pursue the relationship with the creature. Look at what pushes your character out into the "world" to explore, to traverse, and what sparks her wonder toward the character. To help with this, think of what characteristics the character has and how that aligns with this journey. In this, the stakes start to develop on their own; The relationship and what separates them becomes more clear. If it is like Gravity Falls, then it is that there is a limited amount of time that pushes the relationship away. If it is The Chronicles of Narnia, then the idea is that characters grow up and grow out into the real world away from the fantasy space.

If we develop this relationship between the creature and the main character: they are brought together by some idea that motivates the main character, yet the creature lacks something as well. The creature doesn't need to have internal motivation, but needs to express something outwardly toward the main character. It needs to be something that connects them: what makes the creature safe/certain/understanding of the main character? If we take something like The Jungle Book, then it is because the main character needs to be taken care of by the jungle, and only knows of the jungle from a young age. If it is something like Kara from Superman, then the Kal-el cousin is both the learner and the mentor as she connects Superman to Krypton and Superman connects Kara to Earth.

In all of these stories: the stakes are not separated by internal/external binaries. They are separate in the ways that they are explored. If your main character is navigating the "vacation" space on her own, even with the creature, it is a lonely and exclusive journey, a sense of escape. The parents/guardians/adults have no knowledge of this, so the main character lives "two" moments in her revelation, her life home and her exploration home. This already develops a form of stakes: learning but with limited time, friendship with an end, etc. Something to more reference will be closely related with Where the Wild Things Are: The kid was punished to a room, and yet was able to escape through imagination: the limits of the world were only the limits of the punishment, but this hadn't mattered, as the main character sought to explore and develop a relationship with the creature. It wasn't a matter of escape, it was something more aligned with the freedom to travel. Upon returning from that imaginative space hadn't mean a return to punishment, but a way to bring that journey back with him and invite his mother back into that space.

My advice is: Build the stakes of the relationship. What connects them together? What pushes them away? Why is the main character interested? What makes the creature certain or safe? Sure, this implies the idea of both internal/external stakes, but that shouldn't be where the concern is, as it undermines the main focus in which this idea seems more fruitful.

[cr47t 8]

5 hours ago, Hina's Simp said:

Does it need to match? It seems to me that your focus is trying to posit both of these ideas at the same time without developing everything that is going on within the world. Stakes only matter when there is a form of uncertainty for the main character to establish, and that is already set: her internal and external stakes are already side by side, that the conflict should be just about navigating that form of uncertainty. First, to navigate the story, you need to establish clear ideas of what the motivation/curiosity are. The main character shouldn't have other focuses, especially at a young age; the character, instead, should focus more directly on the ignorance of that curiosity, since there is nothing else in front of her. 

With this introduction: "soon after arriving she discovers and befriends a creature who takes care of the life on the island", have the main character focus on building that relationship. How does the main character learn to communicate? Why is she curious in this creature? How do they meet? The biggest concern that needs to be addressed in your story, before you develop their separation, is this relation and freedom. This main character has the ability, freedom, and curiosity to explore the area of her vacation. In that, she needs to have motivations that push her to explore. In My Neighbor Totoro, the relationship was a matter of curiosity and child wonder, nothing more: there was a sense of freedom and safety that push the character forward. In Kiki's Delivery Service, the main character was pushed into the world and had to discover it alongside her journey. There was not "stakes", but a idea to explore.

The one thing that comes to mind with this idea, that you should focus on, is the internal conflict that pushes the main character to first explore and pursue the relationship with the creature. Look at what pushes your character out into the "world" to explore, to traverse, and what sparks her wonder toward the character. To help with this, think of what characteristics the character has and how that aligns with this journey. In this, the stakes start to develop on their own; The relationship and what separates them becomes more clear. If it is like Gravity Falls, then it is that there is a limited amount of time that pushes the relationship away. If it is The Chronicles of Narnia, then the idea is that characters grow up and grow out into the real world away from the fantasy space.

If we develop this relationship between the creature and the main character: they are brought together by some idea that motivates the main character, yet the creature lacks something as well. The creature doesn't need to have internal motivation, but needs to express something outwardly toward the main character. It needs to be something that connects them: what makes the creature safe/certain/understanding of the main character? If we take something like The Jungle Book, then it is because the main character needs to be taken care of by the jungle, and only knows of the jungle from a young age. If it is something like Kara from Superman, then the Kal-el cousin is both the learner and the mentor as she connects Superman to Krypton and Superman connects Kara to Earth.

In all of these stories: the stakes are not separated by internal/external binaries. They are separate in the ways that they are explored. If your main character is navigating the "vacation" space on her own, even with the creature, it is a lonely and exclusive journey, a sense of escape. The parents/guardians/adults have no knowledge of this, so the main character lives "two" moments in her revelation, her life home and her exploration home. This already develops a form of stakes: learning but with limited time, friendship with an end, etc. Something to more reference will be closely related with Where the Wild Things Are: The kid was punished to a room, and yet was able to escape through imagination: the limits of the world were only the limits of the punishment, but this hadn't mattered, as the main character sought to explore and develop a relationship with the creature. It wasn't a matter of escape, it was something more aligned with the freedom to travel. Upon returning from that imaginative space hadn't mean a return to punishment, but a way to bring that journey back with him and invite his mother back into that space.

My advice is: Build the stakes of the relationship. What connects them together? What pushes them away? Why is the main character interested? What makes the creature certain or safe? Sure, this implies the idea of both internal/external stakes, but that shouldn't be where the concern is, as it undermines the main focus in which this idea seems more fruitful.

thanks for stopping in! even though i've moved on to newer projects i'm grateful that people here still care about helping out - it encourages me to share more in the future. i'm sorry i don't have much else to say, b/c i've put this on the shelf a while ago but might revisit it to learn lessons for a possible future idea i have, which does have a more relationship-based angle than how i was viewing this project or how i view my current one. (if you wish to discuss the current one further, i'd rather make a new thread about it though)

but i do have to ask - and that is quite a bit to take in so sorry if i miss something or if my response post has been too short but - how can I find out the most 'fruitful' (as you put it) aspects of a given project(s) i have going, without delving into details i may not be ready to share?

Edited March 14, 2023 by cr47t
thought i said too little

[Hina's Simp 96]

On 3/14/2023 at 3:35 PM, cr47t said:

thanks for stopping in! even though i've moved on to newer projects i'm grateful that people here still care about helping out - it encourages me to share more in the future. i'm sorry i don't have much else to say, b/c i've put this on the shelf a while ago but might revisit it to learn lessons for a possible future idea i have, which does have a more relationship-based angle than how i was viewing this project or how i view my current one. (if you wish to discuss the current one further, i'd rather make a new thread about it though)

but i do have to ask - and that is quite a bit to take in so sorry if i miss something or if my response post has been too short but - how can I find out the most 'fruitful' (as you put it) aspects of a given project(s) i have going, without delving into details i may not be ready to share?

In terms of "fruitful", I am more taking from the adage of "bear your fruits" — that the outcome must be worth the invest into the reading, coming from both the side of the writer and that of the reader. It goes into, at the surface, the level and effort that is put into understanding the story, the characters, the events, the build up. It is about understanding the plot and the ways in which the plot leads to its end. If I am spending the time to read the book, then I must ask the question: Will I get what I want out of the reading of it — will the harvest bear its fruits? I can't exactly describe the ways in which this is more explicit in your own craft of writing, but I can start with some areas in which this might be relevant.

I really want to use euphemisms in the title to get my point across.

Length Matters? On Length and Satisfaction in the Discourse of the Novel vs. Short Story

I think it bears in mind the length of the story/text: Each genre of writing and storytelling has its advantages, that is for sure. Some are more suitable for different purposes. If we look at the short story versus the novel, then are some ideas that lead into this. Ursula LeGuin is one who has traveled across the generic plane and had much to say about these ideas. In one interview, she regarded a certain comment on this: " You don't want to end up with a teacupful of story in a big fancy bathtub... but we've all read novels like that... And if the story's really too big to be a short story, it'll get shortchanged."

No matter the length of the story, what is important for her here is that a story must be told but each genre leads to their own level of development in that idea. Having a novel on the adventure of a nightclub might be luxurious, but does it have enough insight to fulfill the dedication of the reader? Le Guin wrote a wonderful story in the form of the novel The Dispossessed, a world ravaged by a revolution. Instead of pursuing more novelistic readings of this event, she turned to the short story to discuss an important character that lead to the story that took place. In "The Day Before the Revolution", a precursory novel to The Dispossessed, she turned to the short story to involve Oda (the protagonist) to complete her own story. As she said it, "To embody it in a novel, which had not been done before, was a long and hard job for me, and absorbed me totally for many months. When it was done I felt lost exiled--a displaced person. I was very grateful, therefore, when Odo came out of the shadows and across the gulf of Probability, and wanted a story written, not about the world she made, but about herself."

In just a matter of ideas, the size of the story might be worth considering the manner in which the fruitfulness of the story is relevant to the size of the story that you want to tell. It is surely something to keep in mind: What would it take for you to not only tell your story, but to have it met in it entirety, something worth speaking and writing about? Edgar Allen Poe was one who took this much into consideration, especially when it not only came to the telling of the story by for the reading to take in what is necessary to satisfy their reading. Of course, I only want to focus on his perspective on short story vs. the novel, since that is something to keep in mind here.

Poe's take on this dichotomy is on the ability to read the novel and the short story, on a the limits of reading within a single sitting: For one cannot complete a novel without distractions, the short story (or brief tale in this retrospective) is where this limit is only a boundary and placing of the reader's time. He goes on to the regard that the text in its totality is about the time not only placed on the reading, it is also about the time spent in the acclimation of the individual times to read a story. In this idea, he posits that "[a]s the novel cannot be read at one sitting, it cannot avail itself of the immense benefit of totality." The reading of the novel does not task itself to meet the reader's ability to traverse the narrative, or get through the reading, but to spend the time to meet its end adequately. His idea of the short story, however, it one that is tasked to the reader to complete in both opportunity and task, for "the soul of the reader is at the writer's control."

This only regards the length of writing to get into what the either the writer or reader need to meet the satisfaction or "fruitfulness" in feeling relieved when closing the book that they thought was worth while in reading. So, to complete this idea: think about the story that you want to write and the means to read its conclusion. What length is worth pursuing this idea? And will the length it takes to read the story be worthwhile in the effort that it takes to understand it?

The Motion of the Ocean; Or Moving Me With Words in Writing Style

In we talked about the length of the text, we should also talk about the style of writing as this is also something that matters. When writing prose or poetry, this is something comes at the hand of not only telling your story or the length at which the story is written, but the style of the writing. Of course, you will hear people often say that someone's prose has a poetic effect to it. This really only presents the reading of the writing has an emotional side to it, a rhythm of writing that goes beyond the linearity in the writing itself. It easy to identify poetry against prose, but that is something that elevates style rather than sustains it.

So, if we are talk about moving the reading, where does this play into the satisfaction of "fruitfulness"? If we are to take fruitfulness, in my earlier comments, as something that leads to a moment of relief and pleasure for the reader, we have to regard not just where these ideas come from, but what they mean. To begin, let's look at poetry; or, more specifically, Stephen King's comment on poetry: "I won’t try to argue that “A Gradual Canticle” is a great poem (although I think it’s a pretty good one). The point is that it was a reasonable poem in a hysterical time, one sprung from a writing ethic that resonated all through my heart and soul". Satisfaction is not about the literariness of the poem, but about how much it breathes into the reader's emotions.

So, the style of writing is one that evokes the reader in ways that they have to sit down and settle on it; this can come in the forms of length, but it is more about how the words move the reader. If we want to get into layman's terms about this, the literary devices that play into this are more along the lines of metaphor rather than metonymy, on the art of words rather than their literal meaning. If you want an easier idea: connotation vs. denotation. But I want to use the binary of metaphor and metonymy. If you want to develop this idea in ways that I do not present, read Roman Jakobsen's essay "On Language". I will, however, use examples to get more onto the difference between these ideas.

Take the phrase "it rains". Jakobsen comments on the way that this does nothing to establish the effect of rain, the significance of rain, or why rain is even touched upon. Unless the reader establishes this idea of rain, then there is nothing worth considering on the comment. Or, as Jakobsen comments, "The sentence 'it rains' cannot be produced unless the utterer sees that it is raining". There is nothing to develop the event of raining, unless it is witnessed and noticed. In writing, it is noticed in the poetics of the work. Readers cannot acknowledge the situation of the text until there is a frame of reference, and that comes from dictating the situation.

If we want to express this idea clearly, it needs to have some emotional boundary connected to the reading that the reader feels, having that frame of reference in something more than just understanding. In Joseph Conrad's short story, "Typhoon", this is more explicit. He might not say that it is raining, though, "not even Captain MacWhirr, who alone on deck had caught sight of a white line of foam coming on at such a height that he couldn't believe his eyes—nobody was to know the steepness of that sea and the awful depth of the hollow the hurricane had scooped out behind the running wall of water." This first part of this sentence establishes a visual, where the second part begins to play on that visual. "white line of foam", a wave hitting against a surface. We see it at the beach, we see it when waves meet other waves. But only when it hits a surface. Now, we not only see it hitting the surfacing, but building to something not easily witnessed.

Instead of trying to portray it in detail, he portrays it in a lack of detail: the character "couldn't believe his eyes". Why I didn't want to say "show, not tell", because it is not about the senses that build a poetic effect, but the frame of reference. Try to imagine something unimaginable, and you can't. He still states that it is unimaginable, relying on that idea to build a frame of reference. When considering the style of writing: Know what needs to be used to give that weight that moves the reader, but know that before moving the reader, you have to allow them a chance to understand what is happening. Metaphor allows for this, where metonymy makes this idea clear. Each point is useful in writing.

Since I used Conrad's story to express connecting with the reader, I want to close this idea on that which he ends his short story: "'There are things you find nothing about in books.' I think that he got out of it very well for such a stupid man". The metric for writing style is not in the difference in poetry vs. prose, in metaphor vs. metonymy; it is about the ways in which these ideas are used to help the reader reach a satisfy conclusion, that even if the book goes into developing its story, it is not about what the book has on the page, but the ways in which the reader is moved by the writing. The way to get to that point is to have them have something to connect with, and then have them develop what that connection might be.

Reading Orientation; Or the Type of Books Readers Go For

I want to start with a comment from Eric Bulson, who was written often about literary tours and the maps that come from novels. He writes well about the navigation in reading, to which I will allude to throughout this section. "Readers do not simply see the world: they get a distorted, biased glimpse rooted in a particular time and place", as he posits. When it comes to entering into a text, the genre is one of the first things that readers will continue to sift through. This was more seen in times where the book store wasn't as virtual, and where books were not as individually pushed as it is on Amazon storefronts or TikTok BookTok, but there is still something about the type of books that people will want to read.

It comes from familiarity, whether it be with the fandom of the text, the characters in the story, with the type of story, etc. Familiarity is what draws the reader into the text. This is only what draw them, in though, as it is what the reader does not know that keeps them interested. Why I want to use genres as the point of interest for this section is because genre is the most familiar tool that helps to categorize stories. In Japan, many animes are categorized by the audience type: Shounen target young boys as their audience, even if there is a similar trope that these tend to follow. It is the same for others, as well. (We can get into other systems of classification, but there is not point for this idea).

When it comes to the fruitfulness of one's own story, know that it also comes with what the audience expects first before the turn to the first page of the text. Then, have the reader get lost in the text. Here is where genres as useful tools to have to recognize this dynamism: Playing with that familiarity is a practice that rewards the writer for knowing what to put the reader through, and how to keep them vested into the work. This is another form of frame of reference, as a way to lead the reader to your story and then build up a worthwhile practice into reading it.

Genres play with a familiar formula that is expected to be seen when reading. To more understand this, let us just focus on the fantasy genre since it is one of the most familiar genres while also being one that has enough theoretical perspectives to pursue the line of thought in this section, where familiarity is something to toy around with. Le Guin complained about the formula in fantasy, to which she states that:

"Commodified fantasy takes no risks: it invents nothing, but imitates and trivializes. It proceeds by depriving the old stories of their intellectual and ethical complexity, turning their action to violence, their actors to dolls, and their truth- telling to sentimental platitude. Heroes brandish their swords, lasers, wands, as mechanically as combine harvesters, reaping profits. Profoundly disturbing moral choices are sanitized, made cute, made safe. The passionately conceived ideas of the great story-tellers are copied, stereotyped, reduced to toys, molded in bright-colored plastic, advertised, sold, broken, junked, replaceable, interchangeable."

Rather than writing to the familiarity of the formula, use the formula to only frame your story. If I want to be more clear on this: take it from the idea of expectations. No one wants to have their expectations met. Even a bad story sticks with people. But when a story meets expectations, it does nothing to be memorable. It does nothing to bear its fruits and stand out amongst the thousands of stories that do the same thing. I will talk more about this in relationship to characters. But, what draws a reader in is not what keeps them interested in the story. It is only what brings to to pick up the book in the first place.

What keeps them together is not the genre: it is how the genre is toyed with, see as what comes next and to play with that idea. To turn fantasy not into a genre, but into an interpretative compass that orients and disorients the reader, it is not a map or anything as that, but it is the guidepost. It is the "specific time and place" that puts the readers into the world of the text, and pushes them to find their own way. Tzevetan Todorov was one who expressed this similar sentiment, "The fantastic is that hesitation experienced by a person who knows only the laws of nature, confronting an apparently supernatural event”. In the hands of the writer, the genre is the moments in which the reader is put to the test and fails to meet it. We want to reader to fail in their reading, to hesitate and succumb to what they do not expect.

This is where familiarity and expectation of the reader leads to the fruitfulness of the text: we satisfy their inability to read, as they have something they use as a reference but to grow in their reading and coming across that which they do not know. To be in a place where getting lost is part of the enjoyment, and to have their familiarity to help guide them in being lost. But do not do it for too long, or they will get exhausted.

Pleasing Yourself and Representing the Reader

The story is always something that takes place between the reader and the one who put the words on to the page. I use this idea, because in "Death of the Author", Roland kills the writer as the authority of the text and places in their stead, "the scriptor". I rather not get into this whole idea, but the regard for this helps to understand where stories come from and how they represent characters. An introduction to an essay on Le Guin's The Dispossesed help us into developing this idea in the perspective of storytelling. In this essay, Victor Urbanowicz comments that "As [John] Milton made no secret of his Christianity [in Paradise Lost], Ursula K. Le Guin has said that anarchism 'is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting of all political theories".

Regardless of what the authority of the author is, there will always been an effect of their own ideas in their writing. They will express, represent, and ultimately use their writing as a way to please themselves in telling a story that they wanted to tell. But where this idea is going to help our understanding of fruitfulness in reading is how the writer goes about representing these ideas in their writing without pushing that idealism onto the reader, and more-so having the reader use the text to come to their own terms of this idea. To start off, let's talk about the discourse of representation.

One familiar conversation that is often mentioned is about the the tale of redemption. I will use this to simultaneously talk about representing ideas, characters, themes, etc instead of writing individually about all of those ideas.

Let's start of with a consistently discussed one that is seen as the pillar of redemption: Zuko's redemption arc in Avatar: The Last Airbender. To summarize, Zuko is the exiled son of the Fire Lord, the leader of a colonial power and authority in the world of avatar. In order to redeem himself of the failure as son in the eyes of his father, he has to capture the threat of his father's authority: The avatar. He will pursue the avatar in efforts to redeem himself to that which gives him value. But the real moment of redemption for this character is seeing the fault in this idea, and to work on the side of morality instead of authority. He redeems himself, instead, by joining the object of his pursuit to fight against the terrors of his father. Zuko's redemptive moment is often that which he saw something outside of his own world; he saw the terror that his father both pushed onto him and the world, and wanted to overcome it in both instances.

A redditor comments on this idea, as to not only why it is important to understand, but to also see it play out: "At the same time, it wasn't a very smooth shift. You could see him struggle and struggle with the ramifications. There were many false dawns in which you almost thought he'd redeemed himself only to go back to who he was". When it comes to expressing ideas on to the page, we have to see the ideas play out not just to their conclusion, but also to the ways in which reading these conclusions might seem impossible. Just as with what has been talked about before, the reader not only must get lost and fail in their reading, they also must bear witness to problems that lead the narrative off its own track.

We should expect the characters to fail and then succeed; But for every time they succeed, their should be enough moments of failure. In trying to lead the reader to the writer's own ideas, they must question and then come to their own answers. Here, in the layer of ideas, it is about presenting the necessary information that gives the reader the tools to meet their own understanding. We see the characters and themes play out, but not draw to their own ideas behind it.

What I really want to use this section to discuss, as I could go onto every detail possible, is to know where expression and representation lead the reader down their own path of reading instead of having them follow you to that idea. In pursuing the conclusion of ideas, whether it be in character or in theme, it is about having to say just enough that the topics to which you want to write about are stated, to do just enough that the reader acknowledges the troubles that are presented, and to leave just enough out that while the story comes to an end, it only presents the end and not an answer to that conclusive statement.

In the fruitfulness of writing: Satisfy the reader only to the point where they feel relieved; the idea of fruitfulness in writing is finding the ways in which you writing does what it needs to to have a satisfy effort that reaching the closing of the book is not the end of the story, but the end of your story and the beginning of the story in the reader's hands.

Did I get your there? Do you want to go again?

These euphemisms have a point. Somewhere else I talked about Freud's death-drive and pleasure-principle, and that is something that comes up plenty of different ways. But in working with these ideas, there is no way to have a story that is fruitful to everyone, but there are ways to have a fruitful story. And I think this does enough to express that point, hopefully it does enough to set in point some ways to go about presenting these ideas.

It is possible to connect this back to what I discusses earlier with the plot and the stakes of the characters; That is something I already stated though. You can go back and read about how giving the characters stakes, problems, plot advances, etc. I thought repeating myself would be rather redundant, since it would be akin to what I have already written. Hopefully this leads into different angles to approach your writing, something more to think about than just the plot of the story.