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We know about romance arcs, about family arcs (both found and reclaimed), we know about redemption arcs, and corruption arcs. Those are all character arcs based on the development of a character. There are also plot arcs, which don’t center as much around a character as they do around the audience. One example of this is the mystery arc in the standard whodunit. We, the audience, start with a question, and by the end of the story it gets resolved.

Here’s a type of plot arc I haven’t seen described or articulated yet. Perhaps that’s why it’s so often underutilized or botched.

The Wonder/Discovery arc is a unique component (as far as I know) to fantasy and science fiction, I haven’t seen it in any other genres. It may well be what ties the genres together. It tends to appear more in fantasy and sci-fi, but I think that’s because fantasy writers are slightly more aware of it. Nevertheless, its potential is often missed.

Wonder in storytelling is not purely based on presenting something objectively wonderful. Magic does not happen simply by showing the reader magic. Marvel comics lost their marvel because they don’t get this anymore. Anything can appear mundane if presented as mundane.

Again; this is what many people love about children’s media that they’re not getting from adult media. Look at what Disney and Pixar used to be. These studios and their entire philosophy understood that magic is an end in itself. They were successful because they understood that “magic” isn’t just a plot element, it’s an emotion.

But you could be getting wonder/discovery arcs from adult media. Tolkien managed it all right.

Awe and wonder are emotions, especially from a writer’s perspective. Writers who miss this view magic as a means to a plot end. No shade on Sanderson, since his plots themselves are very emotional, but his magic does not use the wonder/discovery arc. Many DND inspired fantasies also do not use this arc. But at the same time, “magic the emotion” CAN appear in sci-fi. So how?

What is it?

I’ll describe three examples that utilize the wonder/discovery arc in fiction and do it well.

Lord of the Rings

Jurassic Park

Interstellar

Plot Points

Baseline

This is the part in the story where you introduce the concept of the magic as something your characters want to see and experience.

In Interstellar, Murph and her dad spend a lot of time talking about space before anyone actually goes to space. “Space, Murph.” In Jurrasic Park, dinosaurs are discussed for a long time before we see an actual dinosaur. In the Lord of the Rings, the story starts off in the Shire, a place relatively similar to average human life. However, Bilbo once saw the elves. Frodo wishes he could see them too.

2. The Hint

This is the part where the box shakes a little bit. The ground shakes a little at the approach of the dinosaurs. The magic item starts to glow. Something falls out of the sky. This could be considered the “rising action” phase. Its goal is to arouse curiosity and hint at larger potential.

3. The Lull

Take some time away from the magic, back to the mundane or the busyness of the plot for a little while. Was it real? is it really going to happen? is the promise going to fulfill? Make the reader wonder.

The school authorities teach that the moon landing wasn’t real. The characters doubt John Hammond really has anything to show them. Bilbo disappears and Gandalf doesn’t show up for an entire year.

4. The Reveal

The reveal is the emotional climax of the wonder/discovery arc. This is the moment where your characters find what they are looking for, or it reveals itself. This is the moment when two astronauts stop to consider “Wow. Space.” This is the moment when the Jeep stops in Jurassic park and the protagonists get their first look at the dinosaurs. This is the moment where the elves appear on their way to the Gray Havens, beautiful and sad, singing softly with an otherworldly light.

The Reveal is an emotional beat where everything slows way down. This is one of the rare moments where you have the right to not only show, but also tell your audience that something is cool. You’ve earned it.

If you doubt me on that, what do you think the music was for in Jurassic park? It serves the function of telling you that the dinosaurs are cool. You don’t just see them. You don’t just know that the characters are amazed by seeing their reactions. The music actively guides you on how to feel.

This moment should NOT be sped through or glossed over. Take a good long time to stop and look at the Magic! This is what you came here to see, right?

Ironically, with the full development and ease of CGI, movies have lost their magic and this is why. We are no longer used to sitting through 20 minutes of a movie to get to the part where we see a dinosaur. Additionally, special effects are considered too “normal”, so directors forget how to make cool things seem cool via good storytelling.

You don’t have to only show. It’s okay to Tell but you have to EARN the right to tell your audience that something is cool or beautiful or unspeakable and have them believe you.

Tolkien conveys magic with a kind of inverse ratio of detail. By the first time he tells us that something is unspeakable, he’s already spent at least 50K describing mundane things in  excruciating detail. We believe him.

A few additional pointers:

Build a story around the cool thing you want to show us.

Don’t let the characters accept the existence of the impossible too easily.

Don’t forget to explore potential! If your magic artifact has the ability to kill people, someone should die. If it has the ability to drive men to madness, somebody should go mad, or at least come close. If it has the ability to cure all the problems in the world, somebody should at least try to use it for that.

Cutaway discretion: sometimes what isn’t said is more powerful than what is said. A common horror adage is that monsters are scarier when they’re not shown. Likewise, a divinity is more powerful when you can’t look at its face. Write around the magic.

To Summarize:

I can’t emphasize enough that a lot of writers want the benefit of the reveal scene but can’t figure out why the emotion isn’t there. It’s because they think the emotion comes from the fact that they’re showing the audience a Cool Thing. That is not true.

A dragon is cool. A dragon that we’ve been waiting half the book to see with all of the characters speculating about what it might be like, whether it is sentient, what color it is, how big it is, etc. is Very Cool.

A lot of writers want the payoff without doing the work. “Don’t you think my sci-fi is cool? Don’t you think my magic is magical?” But they haven’t done the emotional prep to get there.

It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.

Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.

And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.

And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:

Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.

Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.

Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.

Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.

But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.

I know I could look the other way to spare you that

And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.

I cannot do that.

Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.

Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.

(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)

To bring this back to the point of the post:

quotes taken from the source

If you are in the United States and not employed by a zoo or sanctuary or a veterinarian working with a facility, if anyone for any reason offers to allow you to touch a big cat, please do not do it.

No matter how much you want to, no matter how much it is a dream, understand that it is a violation of federal law that could get the facility the cat lives at in very serious trouble. It does not matter if it is through the fence, or in the context of a trained behavior, or if the cat is on a leash. Even if it feels “safe” or they swear the facility condones it.

It’s starting to appear that lots of zookeepers have not been informed appropriately about the scope of the law - or in cases where they do know it’s inappropriate, they are sometimes being overridden by their management and forced to allow encounters. (Even at accredited facilities!)

We do not know exactly what the penalties could be for that happening within an accredited zoo (yay badly implemented laws) but it typically comes down to being risk to a) the cat’s welfare b) the facility’s ability to have any big cats at all and c) someone, either the facility owner or the person offering, could go to jail or pay serious fines. There are two instances of this happening at AZA zoos that were leaked recently and we may now find out how bad it’s going to get for them.

Lots of facilities will have big cat pelts as educational biofacts that they will allow you to touch. You do not ever need to take the risk associated with touching a live big cat - generally anywhere, and especially in the US.

When you're in school, the cognitive tasks are there for the explicit purpose of being brain exercises. It's weightlifting. It is FOR building your mental muscles and making you a stronger thinker and planner. "Offloading the cognitive tasks", then, is just Not Doing The Weightlifting. What happens when you pay for your gym membership and just stand around messing around on your phone? Nothing. Nothing happens. Just money leaving your wallet. Nothing else.

Using AI is a short term pleasure that is going to fuck you over in the long term, and by the time you realize that you didn't build the necessary muscles you need for the cognitive tasks required of your ACTUAL JOB (or, like, adult life in general), it's going to be too late to do anything about it... except going back and doing the real work all over again to get you up to speed.

A "book" is (a slightly outdated beyond this specific topic) term for your union card, which states that you're a member in good standing of your local/union and ostensibly means that you have the coinciding skills that go with the title of journeyworker or apprentice or whatever. Typically, to become a journeyman, you serve an apprenticeship (usually 5 years) and then have to take a test of some sort to prove you've acquired all the necessary skills to earn the qualification. The card/book is the proof that you have a basic level of competency.

Sometimes though certain locals, usually in the South or other places where right-to-work or similar attitudes are stronger, will "sell books," which is to say they will allow people who either haven't served an apprenticeship or passed a skills test to buy their card so that they may work on union jobs.

There's a myriad of reasons and reasonings on why a local might do this, but on the ground, it means that if I'm on a big job, anyone from areas or locals that have a reputation for selling books is automatically assumed to be under-qualified. This sucks, because I've known plenty of badass hands from Southern Locals, but because they come from book-selling locals, they had to overcome that stigma. To an extent, this whole thing is self-regulating because if you bought a book and can't hack it, you only come to a travel job once before they will never invite you back, but it is a constant source of sand in the gears for the whole labour management process.

You are not going to pass a skillcheck against a rip current once it has you.

Waves will not bow to your physical prowess no matter how impressive.

Shock does not care that you used to be on your school swim team.

If you hit your head, being good at swimming isn't going to turn you face-up while you're unconscious.