Strange Reverses

Conventional writing wisdom tells us that dramatic interest is generated by placing characters in conflict.  I’m  not saying it isn’t true, but I’d like to mention a couple of effective techniques I’ve seen that run a little bit counter to the notion – The Reversal and the Optimistic Cliffhanger.

Readers and audiences are quite accustomed to the notion of conflict in stories – they expect to see their heroes in peril (for horror and adventure stories) or in some emotional, social, or moral turmoil.  But they also like to see conflict resolved.  And it’s fun when the resolution doesn’t occur quite when you’d expect.

The Reversal is an old literary device when the fortunes of the protagonist change suddenly and unexpectedly.  The cool bit is that it works when the change is in favor of our hero.  It works particularly well when our hero creates the change in fortune, so his or her actions save the day. 

Isn’t that what’s supposed to happen anyway?  Sure, but the key to the Reversal is that it happens at an unexpected time.  Also, the Reversal isn’t necessarily the point where everything is tied up nicely with a pretty bow on top – its the point where things turn in favor of the hero, who may still have a fair bit of work to do before all conflicts are resolved.  But now, for the first time in several pages, we’re looking forward to the resolution instead of dreading it.

Not wanting to give specific spoilers here, but the second Star Trek movie, Wrath of Khan includes a great reversal if you need an example.

There’s a newer, similar technique that I’ve observed primarily in serial entertainments such as TV shows and comic books.  It doesn’t have an official term that I’m aware of, so I’ll call it the Optimistic Cliffhanger.  In a traditional cliffhanger, the episode stops at the worst possible moment for the hero.  (Note that cliffhangers work in novels, too – look for them at the end of chapters.)

The Optimistic Cliffhanger occurs when the episode ends a few minutes later – just after the hero has escaped from the trap.  The dramatic tension that keeps the pages turning, that keeps us coming back for the next episode, is generated by the promise of what the hero is going to do next.  Instead of ending when the villain plunges the hero into the tank full of sharks, it ends with the hero soaking wet, heading after the villain and grinning, “Now it’s my turn!”

It is interesting to me that both of these techniques draw their power from the promise of resolution.  They form that dramatic points in which the hero starts to create the resolution of the story, the point where we as readers suddenly realize that success might actually be possible.

The Protagonist Problem

Each new writing project brings new learning opportunities. My April movie project has brought me a challenge I never thought of before (although a little research shows that other screenwriters have noticed it). The challenge is not overshadowing my lead with more interesting secondary characters.

In my novels I focus on a single, significant hero. No problem there. In my stage plays I have a small cast of characters who are more-or-less given equal weight (not a bad formula for the stage). But for my movie, as I noted in an earlier post, I have an ensemble supporting a lead hero.

To use an extreme example, in the Star Trek movies, the invariably human captains have to compete with the all the aliens and psychics and shapechangers.

In my case, my lead competes with a mysterious thief, a big surly guy, and a know-it-all story-chasing bard. Jon Warder is pretty much the straight man to all these comedians.

So here’s what I’m trying: First, I’ve made Jon an extremely competent warrior. This means that yes, that early fight scene I discussed in a previous post will be rewritten. Any time there’s a fight, Jon needs to be ruling it.

Second, the secondary characters cannot be allowed to resolve all the conflicts. This one is a little trickier, because I want to show their special skills and abilities and I want those skills and abilities to be significant to the outcome of the story. And, you know, I only have so many conflicts.

But ultimately, if Jon Warder doesn’t shine as the hero, I’m doing it wrong.

That Magical Feeling

I have observed, on more than one occasion, that the comic book sorcerer Dr. Strange conducts his fights in pretty much the same manner as the starship Enterprise.

Since the good Doctor can fly, fights for both typically occur in three dimensions, moving through a spatial environment. Both Dr. Strange and the Enterprise raise their shields, which are often depicted as taking hits and losing integrity throughout the conflict. Both the mage and the ship start with their basic energy blasts and then escalate to more powerful bolts. Against especially difficult opponents, new and unusual tactics are brought out near the end of the fight.

This post is not about Clarke's Third Law or its inverse. My point is this: For all that I enjoy a good Dr. Strange story, magic should not feel something that happens on Star Trek. So how does an author make magic feel more magical?

Even when accomplishing ends that can be achieved with science or super-powers, magic can use methods that startle, amaze, and confound. There are a number of ways to disarm a gunman in a story, but how often is the gun transformed to moths? Even better, being a weapon, the gun could change into steel moths with sharp wings that cut anyone they brush against until, when they are exposed to true moonlight, the metal flakes off and they become ordinary lunar moths and flitter away.

Magic can be subtle. A series of happy circumstances that might not have been magical at all, except for that crazy person claiming to have made it happen by lighting a single red candle at midnight. Magic is also often depicted has having a price, a cost to the user in terms of temptation, corruption, or risk to the immortal soul.

And magic can harken back to myths, fairy tales, legends, and stories. We have a great treasure trove of folklore giving us magic rings, dragons, and swords of power. Stories of shape-changers, tricksters, and unquiet spirits. Magic has its own recognizable toolbox, as surely as science comes with robots, computers, and starships. Sure, you want to be careful of being too cliché, but the archetypes do exist. When was the last time the Enterprise summoned a demon?

And for those of you poor souls who, unlike me, have no interest in writing stories with magic, consider this: The lesson still applies. Want to write romance? What feels right for romance? What are its elements, its clichés, its strengths? Want to write crime fiction? Same questions. Because your film noir shouldn't feel like a superhero story.

Unless, of course, that's what you really wanted all along.

Power

A lot of today's popular fiction involves power figures. Our adventure stories are full of cops, tough guys, and gunslingers. The fantasy section of the bookstore is full of vampires, werewolves, and witches. The summer movie screens are filled with superheroes and space aliens.

A degree in psychology is not required to understand the appeal. By identifying with powerful figures, we indulge our own power fantasies. If I could fly...

But powerful figures can be tricky to write. Drama requires conflict and greater power requires greater conflict. It's harder to threaten a character who is bulletproof. It's harder to fool a mind-reader. It's just plain difficult to find good challenges when your hero is a god. Finding excuses to make the hero weak (on anything other than a temporary level) only dillutes the power fantasy for the audience.

Power is relative, however. One common solution is to make the antagonist even more powerful. The hero is still strong -- it's just that the villain is even stronger. Then the challenge is for author to find the hero to some believeable way to overcome the more powerful foe.

There is a danger of escalation, espescially in ongoing serial adventures. The villain can't let the trick that worked last time beat him again. As the protagonist develops more tricks and therefore becomes more powerful, it becomes harder to account for what he can do. "Why didn't he do that mind trick he did three episodes ago," departing fans will ask. Or "C'mon, she's already been established as a better fighter than that!"

There is another type of conflict that can be used with powerful characters. There is a drama in considering how power should be used. One of my favorite Star Trek episodes involves a case when the Enterprise was the most powerful ship in the conflict. There was no question of who would win if the phasers started firing. The drama came from the question of how that power would be used and what the potential long-term consequences would be.

Spider-man's origin is a classic example. Spidey is the only one in the story with super-powers at all. But his failure to use them rightly leads to the death of his Uncle Ben and thus drama, conflict.

My current set of published novels involve people who gain magical power that they never asked for and don't know how to use. They have to learn the responsibilities of power. I rather suspect that more of us dream of having power than dream of having the wisdom to use it well.

Powerful characters are fun, no question. But writers should think carefully about how to challenge them.

Breakin' Rules

A lot of current fiction is serialized. Television is the obvious example, where we tune in to a new episode each week, usually following the same characters in the same setting or overall situation. It's not just TV. Moviemakers love franchises -- how many Star Trek movies are there now? How many James Bond films? Novels too -- I could name several continuing book series.

With consistent, ongoing characters and settings, stories begin to follow certain patterns, develop certain rules. There are, for example, directions the stories just don't take because it would be too counter to what the audience (viewers or readers) expect. An action series may flirt with horror elements, but will likely lose audience if it becomes a totally horrific, just as a horror franchise would lose audience if it failed to terrify.

But I'm not just talking genre. Rules are implied by character, by setting, by story structure. . . I suppose the classic example is Gilligan's Island. No matter what crazy things the castaways try, they can never escape the Island. If they do, the show is over.

But sometimes rules should be broken. If a rule is implied strongly enough that the audience has come to accept it, the breaking of the rule is an obviously dramatic event. The rules represent the way things are. If the rules are broken, the implication is that things will never be the same again.

The catch, of course, is that you can't go home again. Efforts to restore the status quo, to return to the way things were, will be obvious to the audience and will undercut any value gained from breaking the rules. The first run of Star Trek movies suffered from this -- promoting Kirk above Captain and then demoting him, removing Spock and then returning him, destroying the ship and then replacing it.

Imagine the new and different stories -- the brave new worlds -- we could have had if all the changes had stuck.