Setting, Situation, Scene… Part Three – The Conclusion

Once, as a child, I read a very forgettable book with a memorable bit in it. I don’t remember the book at all, but I remember this: one of the child heroes (it was a kid’s book, after all) was in the middle of a Lassie movie when the call to action came. When he whined about missing the end of his movies, one of his friends pointed out that we all knew how it ended. Lassie saves the day.

Yeah, the first kid replies, but I wanted to see how.

In my previous two posts, I pulled together the elements of a story. We have an interesting setting, some character interaction, an intriguing situation, and even some nice conflict.

Will our heroes risk their jobs and possibly even their position in time and space in order to expose their employer’s dangerous experiments? And how will the odd, one-sided romance angle play out?

If you think about it, gentle reader, you probably already know the answers to those questions. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t been exposed to stories before. Of course our heroes will pursue both the dangerous truth and the romance. Wouldn’t be much of a story if they didn’t.

But, if I write it all up well, hopefully you will want to stick around to see how they reach those answers.  To be a story, to be a good and satisfying story, beguiling the reader or viewer or audience with all the fun bits isn’t enough. It’s just a start.

But the story has to resolve. To reach a conclusion. To reach a good conclusion consistent with and worthy of what has gone before. And your audience has to care enough to follow you there.

And if I knew all the secrets to making that happen I’d be rich and famous. But I tell you this: it can be done.

The Two Deaths of Andrew Dolbeck

There are two types of character death in fiction. (No, actually there are probably thousands. But there is a division of two that I would like to discuss. And while we are being parenthetical, today’s writing lesson can apply to more than death – feel free to substitute any dramatic plot event.) Let us call them the story-driven death and the reality emulating death.

The story-driven death suits the story. No surprise there. The deadly event occurs at just the right point in the plot, it fits the themes of the work, it advances the progression of the surviving characters.

There are many classic examples – the person who has done wrong, seeking redemption, dies saving the lives of others. Or, for a twist, the pure and good hero dies saving the person who has done wrong, adding value to their redemption quest. And let us not forget the mentor figure who dies in the middle of the classic Hero’s Journey. Or the passing of the sword from one generation to the next. In horror movies, the character that invents or unleashes the evil force is typically on the to-be-killed list.

You’ve seen these stories before – you know the drill.  And that’s part of the problem. Story-driven deaths can be effective and moving, but they can also be predictable.

I personally favor action genres, with cops and detectives and space pilots and characters who, for no reason, wear bright spandex costumes while fighting crime. These characters operate in dangerous worlds. In such worlds, death should strike unexpectedly. It should not be predictable.

Which brings us to the reality emulating death. The argument here is simple: people die. In real life, no one dies to suit the plot. Death occurs on its own time. 

There are benefits to having this kind of death in your story. In most fiction, a certain degree of willing suspension of disbelief is required. Having people dodge bullets all day without consequence doesn’t exactly make that suspension any easier.

The reality emulating death also makes a statement about hazardous environments. In war people die. People die unfairly and unexpectedly in space, in unsanitary conditions, and in the bad part of town.

And once a well loved character dies unexpectedly, outside what we believe to be the rhythm and structure of the plot, all bets are off. No one is safe. Anything can happen.  And that’s a fun place for the author to have the reader.

On the other hand, we don’t always want our fictions to be as haphazard and meaningless as our real lives. Character deaths that do not sync with the story may seem arbitrary and forced. Or, depending on the story, too harsh.

Of course, every reader will have a different opinion. In the end, as always, you need to weigh carefully what suits your story.

Because your readers certainly will.

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.

Unexpected Romance

I have a sneaking suspicion that the novel I am currently reading is a romance novel. They used to keep the darn things safely quarantined in the bookstore, but recently they’ve been allowed to sneak over and infect the fantasy and time-travel stories.

It’s easy to poke fun at the romance genre, with its ripping bodices and lurid covers. But to be fair, I am hopelessly devoted to other genres that are just as ludicrous when viewed from the outside.  “No capes!” as Edna Mode would say.

If this is a romance, it will be only the second I have ever read. I didn’t know what I was getting into with the first one, either. I hope this one is a better novel. But I am having a problem with it.

In the story, the female lead, who is also the viewpoint character, is forced to work with the male lead.  She considers him to be arrogant, condescending, and generally infuriating.

And so far, I like him a lot better than I like her.

Now if I am correct and this is a romance novel, she will slowly come to appreciate his worth and he will ultimately prove worthy of her affection.  This means that the author has a difficult task – because looking back from the end of the novel, the male lead cannot have been so bad at the beginning that hooking up with him is unacceptable at the end.

So maybe I’m just not supposed to see the obvious, like not asking why no one can tell in a glance that Clark Kent is Superman.  The downside to relying on genre conventions to protect you is that the reader has to know what they are.

In any case, I appreciate that the author has set her viewpoint character up for a significant change in perspective. It should be a nice growth arc.  But so far, the change has to be in her, because the male lead is currently a lot better at knowing right from wrong and acting accordingly.  I think the sea change would work better if some of her accusations were a little more on the mark. (Ok, he is a little pompous.)

So maybe we can add a new thought to our early discussions of making a satisfying story:  It works even better if the reader doesn’t see it coming a mile away.

I’m only a third of the way into the book, so it is possible that it will break my expectations and prove to be something other than standard romance fare.  But if it wanted to be a horror novel, it is already too late.

More on that in our next installment…

Off the Map

We’ve been having intermittent power outages in the basement where I live. We also have for a pet a curious breed of Siamese Vomiting Cat.  As a consequence of these two facts, I spent part of my morning cleaning up cat barf by candlelight. And I’m thinking, “Yep. This is my life.”

Some stories start with a bang. Others take time to establish whatever passes for ordinary life in the protagonist’s world before they go off the map. Another common trick is to start with a prologue where someone other than the protagonist gets the bang  and then cut to establishing the ordinary world. But in most cases, that world does get established fairly early on.

Stories, the conventional wisdom tells us, are based on conflict. But it can’t just be any old conflict. It has to be sufficiently important conflict. One measure of conflict is how much it takes the character outside of his or her ordinary life.

In big epic stories, travel is often a metaphor for this internal journey – Frodo going from the comforts of the Shire to the fires of Mount Doom, Indiana Jones leaving a nice, safe university position to chase over the rooftops of Cairo – but a person can just as easily face a life-altering decision at home. If the decision is big enough, day-to-day affairs like cleaning up after the cat become hazy and far away.

Another way of looking at it is to consider what’s at stake. In any conflict situation, the protagonist can take action and succeed, take action and fail, or not take action at all. What are the consequences? The stakes have to be real and significant beyond the daily trials of our ordinary lives. In order to be satisfying, the conflicts can’t have an easy solution, either.

And one more thing: They have to be personal. Superman may spend a lot of time saving the world, but the good writers like to remind us occasionally that if he fails he doesn’t just lose a set of continents and oceans. He loses Metropolis.  He loses Lois. And that’s why even Superman has an ordinary life.

Got to have the map before you can go off it.

Story and Structure, Part Three

‘Cause there had to be three, right? Powerful number, three.

I had a few more thoughts about the Rule of Three since my last post. One obvious and easy-to-use pattern is to have the first two things be not quite what is needed. This is too hard, this is too soft. The third, as Goldilocks will tell you, is just right.

Three is also the minimum number you can have to establish a group and an outsider. How many fairy tale princes have two older brothers? And poor Cinderella, with her two wicked step-sisters.

I’d like to wrap this series up by swinging back around to story structure. Let’s see if I can do it in three parts.

ONE: Introduce, at a minimum, a character and a goal to be achieved or a problem to overcome. Even better if you can provide a setting as well.  Little Red needs to get to Granny’s house, but the path leads through the dark and dangerous woods.

TWO: The conflict must be dealt with. The woods must be entered. This is a good place to insert the Rule of Three. The soldier on the road is given a magic bag, a seeing glass, and a violin, each of which will be necessary to escape the ogre.

THREE: Resolve the conflict. Using the Rule of Three keeps the resolution from being too simple (and hopefully from being too complex as well). After dancing each night with the Prince in her three gowns – one silver like the moon, one blue as the night sky, and one gold as the sun – the Orphan Princess finds true love.

And that’s the sort of thing I thought about when I needed to craft a tale on the fly.

Story and Structure, Part Two

Once, back in the ancient days, there was a poor cobbler’s son, who wanted nothing so much in all the world as to marry the baker’s daughter and live a quiet life.

Still talking about the tricks I used in creating a satisfying story on the fly. Today I want to talk about stylistic language, the Rule of Three, and story structure.

Stylistic language is just setting and keeping a tone of voice that suits the tale. One of my personal rules when I was performing as a storyteller was never start with “Once Upon a Time.” To me, that phrase is reserved for either (a) working with very small children, or (b) making fun of fairy tales and parodying them.

So at the very beginning of the story, I had to make a decision that helped set the tone of voice. And I kept a number of stock beginning phrases available to select from.

The other interesting thing in the example above is that contains a lot of compressed information. A good rule in performing is to say what you need to say and then shut up. My intro above  introduces in one sentence a setting reference (back in ancient days/fairy tale), a hero (poor cobbler’s son,) and the goal that must be met for the story to end happily (marry the baker’s daughter). 

Important side note: The goal can change if the character grows and changes. The story can end happily if he learns that the baker’s daughter is not really for him and he marries someone else. But it’s easier to simply meet the conditions set at the beginning.

So in order to hang a story on these bare bones, the hero needs to overcome an obstacle between him and his goal.

And this is where the Rule of Three comes in. Three is a measure of complexity. One is simple and unsatisfying. So he asked for her hand in marriage and she said yes. End of story. Yawn. Two is not quite enough to clearly establish a pattern. Four is more than we need.

So the hero must do three things. Or maybe one complex thing with the help of three friends or allies. Or three kindnesses he does to strangers along the way get him the three tools he needs to succeed.

Story and Structure, Part One

I used to do this trick where I’d tell a story, totally impromptu, making it up as I go along. I’d do this performing to a live audience. The general consensus from the feedback I got is that, over time, I got fairly good at it. I haven’t tried it in years, mind, so I don’t know if I still have the knack.

But I’ve been thinking recently about how I did it. I relied on a number of tricks – stylistic language, the rule of three, creative repetition, and a basic, even formulaic, idea of story structure.

I’m going to start with that last one first, because it is actually the most important one for writing. The others are mostly embellishments, so we’ll get to them later.

Usually, in impromptu work, the performer is given a topic or challenge. This does two things: first, it keeps the performer from just telling some already memorized work and second, it gives the performer a starting point. I tended to work from three things, often a character, a place, and an item, which I asked the audience to provide.

So, basic story structure: We start with a hero (character) in an established situation (place) who has something that he or she needs to do (perhaps acquiring or delivering an item). The necessary conflict is generated when doing the necessary thing doesn’t turn out to be easy.

The story is resolved when the hero succeeds. How satisfying the story is depends on how cleverly and how easily the character succeeds.

And that’s where the rule of three comes in, which I’ll explain next time.

The Moment of Doom

So I’m rewriting my April Project D&D movie script (see any of my posts from April for more info). Now as I noted before, I’m rewriting to establish stakes for the hero’s quest, to make his success or failure more meaningful to the audience.

Only, now that I’m rewriting, I’ve hit another snag. I am questioning now whether I need a moment where things go really bad, where the hero fails and the quest seems impossible.

It’s not that there are no conflicts. But the pattern is something like: monster attacks, heroes find a way to beat monster, heroes move on to next monster. Rather like the source material, actually. And I have some personality conflicts along the way as well, just to add a little spice.

But the heroes are never captured, hope is never lost, the fellowship of the core team is never truly tested. And I’m afraid the quest will seem too easy without such a moment, too unsatisfyingly simple.

I’ve not followed any of the movie formulae – this isn’t meant to be the classic three-act pattern or the Hero’s Journey – but now I find I’m questioning whether I am missing a fairly classic element. What I’m looking for here is the Descent into the Underworld.

So I guess I’ve got a bit more rewriting to do before we can all have that script-reading party.

Anticipating Explosions

The bomb wants to explode.

I don’t know where I first heard that, but it’s a great phrase. Generally speaking, if you see a bomb in a movie, it’s going to go off. That is its function, after all.

When something big and exciting, like an explosion, becomes possible in a story, the only satisfying way to have it not happen is to replace the event with something equally dramatic and powerful. This is why, when bombs are defused in action movies, our hero is always deciding between the blue wire and the red wire with only three seconds left on the clock.

The impending event doesn’t have to be an explosion, of course. It can be a divorce, a confession, a sex scene, whatever. But once the possibility of drama and excitement is raised, anticipation sets in. The reader/audience wants (or dreads) the fulfillment of that possibility.

There is a famous example from Hitchcock, defining the difference between shock and suspense. Two people walk into a room and a bomb goes off without warning. The audience is shocked for a moment. Two people walk into a room where the audience knows there is a bomb and have an extended conversation while the counter slowly ticks down… Now you have suspense.

Amusingly, striptease works on the same principle. The possibility, the anticipation, and what, in the end, does or does not get delivered.

There is a Jackie Chan fight scene on an adhesive-covered treadmill in a glue factory. In order to move, the fighters have to remove their shoes. When someone is knocked down, he has to take off his pants to stand back up. They fight standing on abandoned articles of clothing. The longer they fight, the less they end up wearing.

Once the pattern is established, Jackie’s beautiful female assistant, an Indian woman wearing little more than a long flowing sari, jumps up on the treadmill…

Admit it – aren’t you curious how the fight scene ends?

No Worries

It’s the last week in April. As I write this, I have about 20 more pages to go to reach the 100 page deadline. I have no clue whether reaching that goal will bring me to the end of my storyline or not. Not sure what I’ll do if it ends at only 93 pages. Start the rewrite, I guess.

I hope my little experiment has worked for you, my readers. After several months of blogging randomly about the craft of writing fiction, it’s been good for me to have a single project to focus on. Helps me find new things to blog about.

I had forgotten, for example, how much I worry when I write. On this particular project, I have worried –

-- that my characters talk too much, that I am not trusting the actors to convey the meaning without too much explication, that I am not trusting my audience to keep up.
-- that my scenes are too cliché, too much things we’ve seen before.

-- that there isn’t enough magic, that I’m providing a fantasy world that is too ordinary and plain, and not taking advantage of the movie format to push for grand spectacle.

-- that there aren’t enough explosions. Currently, there aren’t any explosions. But really, I’m using explosions as a metaphor for big, screen-filling moments of pure awesome.

-- that my characters are not growing and changing through the movie – this is a tricky one because I chose not to start with the inexperienced hero archetype.

-- that my characters aren’t likeable enough, or relatable enough, and that may lead hero, particularly, is too bland.

So you gotta’ be asking – does this guy ever just shut up and write? And that is, of course, the answer. It’s a lot easier to decide if a scene is good, bad but fixable, or ready for the recycle bin if the scene actually gets written. Same with a character, a bit of dialogue, or a plot point.

It’s okay to worry. It probably even results in a better product.

But only if I don’t let it stop me from writing.

The Promise of a Pending Monster

In one of my earliest posts on this blog, back when we were discussing writing in the general rather than the specific, I wrote about keeping implied promises to the reader as a means of crafting a satisfying story. One of the points of this whole April D&D scriptwriting experiment is to show my writing process. And I’ve just found a great example to illustrate that point I made, so many moons ago.

I was writing a monster-fightin’ scene and I felt at the time that another such scene would be a good thing. So after all my monsters were all good and killed, I wrote this bit of sterling dialogue:

DARRION: The beasts of the Night Wood are old legends. There have been no accounts of them in living memory.

BARR DRUMHAND: Not really worried about their history.

DARRION: Nor am I. What concerns me is who may have woken them. And what else they may have awoken.

See that last line there? That’s the promise. Either something else has to have woken in the woods, or that line has to go. Sure, Darrion could just be flat-out wrong. Sure, I could have him speak and then have nothing happen. But the the audience will feel something is missing. They know the promise when they hear it.

Of course, when I got to the scene where I thought the next old night terror should show up and I realized there was something even better I could do instead. It’s actually a little confounding. I knew when I wrote the promise that I was doing it to set up a follow-up scene. I like the line (it’s a little hokey, but that fits with both the genre of the movie and the character delivering the line) and I don’t want to cut it. But I’ve overwritten the follow-up scene with something better.

So we’ll just have to see if I can squeeze another monster in there somewhere. My one consolation: If I cut the line, the audience will never know it was there (unless, of course, they read my blog). But, yes, I do fret that much over the implications of a single line. I do it because my audience will.

I guess I just have to figure out when the worst possible time for a monster to attack would be.

I’m off the map.

Admittedly, it wasn’t that good a map to begin with.

But I still feel lost.

What the map said was this: Jon Warder goes into the big city, sees the plight of the dwarves, feels responsible because he helped lead them here as refugees after a war, and decides to do something about it.  And since this is a fantasy movie, doing something will involve going on a quest and fighting lots of monsters.

I’m nearly half-an-hour into the film (by rough estimate). I’ve got Jon into the city. I’ve shown injustice being done to the dwarves.

But I don’t have the moment.

The moment that stands as a metaphor for all the cumulative injustices that are going on.  The moment when Jon says, enough, no more, I’m doing something about this.

Worse, looking for that moment was leading me on a downward spiral, where each bit of inhumanity was worse than the one before. I mean, I’m writing a D&D knockoff here, not District 9.

So I cheated.  I brought in a quest-giver figure to say, Jon, you must help us.  Take the McGuffin to the Dungeon of Doom. Fight a lot of monsters while you’re at it.

Had to rewrite three pages and I’m still not sure I like it.

But I know a secret: If I can get the plot moving again, I can move on to the end of the story. And once I have the end of the story, then and only then will I have the perspective to adjust the steps that lead up to that end.

This doesn’t end at the end of April. It doesn’t end at 100 pages.  It ends when I say it’s done.

Storytelling and Storytelling

Several years ago, I was teaching classes on storytelling (the actual performing for a live audience version, not storytelling as a hip term for writing). One of the points I kept coming back to in those classes was doing things intentionally. I was trying to convey the value of making conscious decisions about the performance. You have to stand still, walk around, or sit down, for example, so you might as well think about which one works with the performance instead of just doing one at random.

So, moving to the other form of storytelling -- crafting the written word to tell a tale to readers -- is the advice still good? Well, yes and no. The difference here is that the work is done before the audience sees it, which gives you a luxury that live performance does not. When the manuscript is done, it needs to have intention and reason behind it. You need to be able to look at a given scene and know why that scene is necessary, what it adds to your plot, what it says about your characters.

But how you reach that point is up to you. Some authors write with detailed outlines. Some discover the story as they write it, finishing the work just to see how it ends. Either way, here is a bit of wisdom for you: When the words are flowing and the writing is coming easy, don't stop to analyze and edit. Get the words down on paper first.

When performing on stage, every word and every gesture is a commitment. There is no rewind button. The audience is watching and it remembers. But when you are writing, you can always go back and rewrite (or delete) later -- your audience only sees the finished product.

The desired end result is the same: You want a story that is well crafted and well presented. And the best way to reach that goal is to think about what you are doing and make the decisions that serve your story.

Note: There will be no blog entry next Thursday.

Tensioning the Reader

In my last post, I discussed a simple formula for conflict: Find what the characters want and don't give it to them. This time, I'd like to discuss a more advanced and more difficult version: Figure out the readers (viewers, audience, etc.) want and don't give it to them.

Ultimately, you want to satisfy the readers but you can keep them waiting for it. You have a villain that they need to see thoroughly defeated? You have a couple that are so perfect for one another that the readers want them to fall in love? You can tease the readers with almosts -- the hero looks like he's going to trounce that dastardly villain this time, but no, this isn't the final showdown. Not yet. And there's still that pesky ex to deal with. It's another way to create dramatic tension.

The longer we have to wait for that grand moment, the better it is when it finally arrives -- at least to a point. You don't want to go on so long that the reader loses faith that we will ever get there. And the more you build to a climax, the more, well, climactic it has to be. The pay-off has to be worth the wait. It's back to that idea of keeping your promises to the reader in order to make a satisfying story.

And there is another danger as you steer the plot to tease the reader. The reader might see what you are doing. The actions of the plot still have to develop naturally from the decisions and actions of the characters. If a character does something the reader thinks they are unlikely to do and the result of that character action is clearly the creation of an additional plot wrinkle -- it all just ends up feeling contrived by the author.

I suppose all action in a story is contrived by its author, but the reader is willing to suspend some awareness of that point if the actions appear to be derived from the characters rather than the needs of the writer. If the audience asks "Why did the writers make her do that?" instead of "Hmm, why is she doing that?" you've already lost the battle.

Writing about Thinking about Thinking about Writing

Over the past several posts, I've reflected on various aspects of writing and story creation. I've poked at word choice and character development and object significance. I've rambled about making stories satisfying and characters likable. And a question has occurred to me. I think it is a fair question and a question that needs to be asked. Do writers really think about this stuff?

I don't know. Maybe?

I think most of the other writers that I've had the pleasure to speak with would agree that when you are actually writing -- when the words are flowing from your brain to your fingertips to your keyboard or notepad -- don't stop. This is not the time to wonder about where to place the commas. That's what rewrites are for.

Me? I think about this stuff in the shower. I think about it when I'm taking long walks, wondering if my background characters need more screen time. When the resolution to my big conflict feels too easy. When the funny bits actually need to be, well, you know, funny.

All these reflections and ideas that we've been discussing are tools. Mostly I pull out the tool box when I think the story is broken. The story isn't ready until you say it is ready. There is always time for a few good repairs.

But I suppose there is also something to be said for craftsmanship. The carpenter who has a good set of tools and knows when to use them will make a better table, right from the start.

Thinking about writing, about the craft of writing and the tools of writing, can help improve your writing. How could it do otherwise?

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.

Talkin' Conflict

Drama comes from conflict. No big revelation there. That's high school English level stuff. But here is the tricky part -- quality drama comes from seemingly insurmountable conflict. It comes from seeing our protagonist face a problem with no obvious solution. Because, after all, if there is an obvious solution and our hero doesn't see it, then our hero is an idiot.

In my second novel -- speaking of missing the obvious, I never established my credentials before starting this project. I am, in fact, a published novelist. You can look me up on Amazon and everything. So, where was I?

In my second novel, my hero is a rock star and she's on a special intimate venue tour where she's playing accoustic versions of her hit songs. She loves the tour. She believes she needs the tour. So, as a typical sadistic author, I want to create conflict by taking the tour away from her. I need her to leave the tour in order to grow and learn what she really wants and needs.

So I wrote this scene where her management shuts the tour down because it is not promoting new songs and they want a new album. Nice conflict, right? But the thing is, there was this trend awhile ago (and the book was written awhile ago) where rock stars were successfully selling albums recorded off of live accoustic tours. The tour could be the new album. And if I could think of it, the reader could think of it.

You can't be smarter than all your readers. But you still want to try. So I went back and re-wrote the scene. Management threatens to shut the tour down, the band says "Hey, let's make a live concert album!" and suddenly our hero looks smarter because she's found a solution to a conflict instead of missing a solution to a conflict.

And everyone is happy. Except the author, because the plot isn't going the way he intended and he doesn't want the characters happy at this stage of the book. But that's a conflict that's invisible to the reader and that's how it should be. When you buy a chair, you don't care how difficult it may have been for the carpenter to make. You care whether it's a quality chair.

Quick note: Next Thursday is Christmas Eve. If I don't get the regular Thursday post out, I will pick up again the next Tuesday.

Nothing is Irrelevant

There is an axiom in theater, attributed to the Russian playwright Chekov, that goes something like this: If a gun is visible onstage in Act One, it should be fired by the end of the play. And if a gun is to be fired during the play, it should be visible onstage in Act One.

In theater, or really any kind of fiction, the day-to-day details of life are chosen for the audience. Strolling down the street, minding your own business, you may notice several irrelevant details: a tree, a drugstore, a small boy with an ice cream cone. In fiction, however, it's more like the author is walking beside you, pointing things out. "Look," the author says, "see that tree? And the drugstore? And over there, there's a boy with an ice cream cone."

This gives the details of the story a certain weight. They have been selected from all the possible details that could have been provided. If the details are not important, than the author becomes a bore and the reader stops listening.

This doesn't mean there can't be stage dressing -- details may exist only to set the time, place, or mood. Boy with ice cream is significantly different from boy huddled close under the shelter of his mother's umbrella.

But any detail that stands out, that appears odd or fraught with additional significance, must be resolved. A gun, for example, or perhaps a child eating ice cream on a cold rainy day --must have a pay off or the reader will wonder why they were there.

Satisfaction

Today I want to raise (but perhaps not truly answer) the question of what makes a satisfying story. I think it's a question we will be discussing for some time. I want to start with the basic notion of considering what promises have been made to the reader or audience and paying attention to whether the promises have been kept.

I remember back when the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was airing on TV for the first time. At the time, I predicted an upcoming surprise plot point. (I'm going to try to do this without spoilers, if I can.) There was a lot of talk early in the season about how cruel and evil the new villain was. There was also a part of the ongoing background soap opera that was starting to repeat itself. So there were two things the show needed to do -- (1) show the villian doing something beyond the typical attacking of nameless guest stars and (2) shake up the soap opera.

Looking at it that way, using the villian to mess with the soap opera seems obvious. But when it happened, it took most of my viewing friends by surprise. I only caught it because I asked a writer's question -- What does this story need to be satisfying? The villian needs to hurt us, I thought, what will actually hurt?

Another way to look at it (and this is what I often do) is to ask why the story isn't satisfying. Is the villian all talk and no action? Unsatisfactory. Are the character relationships going around in circles? Unsatisfactory. Seeing the problem often suggests the necessary fix.

And if it doesn't? Well, that leaves us something to discuss for later.