Tag: how to write a novel

What’s as Dangerous as a Fairy Tale Ending – and How to Avoid It

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Photo by Joe Penna

Photo by Joe Penna

Today’s topic comes to us from Jubilare:

“I worry a lot about the dysfunction of my characters being taken as an approval of dysfunction in relationships.…One can avoid idealizing the flaws, sure, but how does one accept that humans and relationships are flawed without sending out the message that people should be satisfied with potentially abusive relationships…without seeming to say ‘look at the nice romance you can have with people who have X dangerous flaws’?”

We have a tendency to write about seriously flawed people. Depressed addicts with childhood scars and abandonment issues. Let’s face it: they’re just more fun.

But through this, we risk giving our readers a skewed view of the world. Just as sugary-perfect princess endings can train little girls to believe their lives will be perfect once they get married, moving tales of troubled souls can lead readers to believe dysfunctional relationships are the only real kind; that the best they can hope for is to find poetry in the pain. Worse, they might even believe such relationships are romantic, something to chase after.

What guy doesn’t want to hold the manic pixie dream girl when she cries?

What girl doesn’t want to soothe the nightmares of the war-torn bad boy?

Now, some readers will romanticize dysfunctional relationships no matter what you do, just as some will find sexual innuendos, political statements, or religious dogma in places you never intended to put them. That can’t be helped.

But we have a responsibility to do what we can: both to faithfully represent reality and to give readers the courage to improve that reality.

Here are three ways you can do that when writing about dysfunctional relationships. Try using at least two wherever the need arises.

Know the signs.

Read up on the signs of abusive relationships so you know whether or not you’re writing about one. Also research the typical physical and behavioral struggles that come with your character’s flaws. Show realistic consequences; don’t pull any punches when it comes to the pain of living in an unhealthy relationship, even if your hero is the one inflicting that pain.

Show an alternative.

Use secondary characters to show a healthier version of the flawed relationship in question. For instance, if your hero’s parents had a horrible marriage, and he struggles with knowing how to treat the girl he loves, give him a happy aunt and uncle, or a best friend with a good marriage. Give him (and your readers) something to aspire to.

Include a victory.

Every story has a physical plot and an emotional one. A dysfunctional relationship is an emotional plot. Don’t just leave it as-is at the end: make your hero come to terms with these problems at the climax, have him make an ultimate decision, and lead him to at least a small victory in the end.

A note about victory:

Be careful how your hero comes by that victory. Real healing is difficult and painful; it doesn’t happen instantly. Her love alone can’t make him stop drinking. His love alone can’t pull her out of a clinical depression.

But maybe it can help them take the first step.

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Got a writing topic you want talked about? Drop it in the Suggestion Box.

What is Suspension of Disbelief?

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Photo by Adam Hodgson

Photo by Adam Hodgson

I felt awkward as the photographer told me to turn my head this way and that, and our production director played AC/DC from her iPhone to set the mood. Between instructions, the photographer kept up small talk about Jethro Tull and praised my modeling abilities. “You’re a natural!” he said.

I knew, of course, that wasn’t true.

But I was willing to let a part of myself believe it was true, because I’d be more comfortable if I thought I was doing well. Therefore I would take better pictures. He knew that. I knew that.

We had entered into an unspoken contract known as a suspension of disbelief.

This contract requires something from each party. I had to agree to believe, on a superficial level at least, something I knew was not true. He, in turn, had to keep the lie within the realm of plausibility. It was not too far-fetched an idea that at least one person out of several he photographed that day would be good at tilting their head at aesthetic angles.

But if he’d said I was the prettiest, most talented subject he’d ever had the honor of photographing, he would have broken the contract. I’d become uncomfortable, suspicious he was mocking me or insulting my intelligence with such a brazen lie.

So how does this apply to fiction?

Well, here’s another example.

I was in the third book of the Inkheart trilogy, reading about a couple of characters escaping from a dungeon. I’ll redact names to prevent spoilers:

——- threw a rope down. It’s didn’t come low enough, but at a whisper from above it began growing longer, lengthened by fibers made of flames…They would have to climb fast to keep from burning their skin.

“That’s ridiculous,” I scoffed under my breath, “They’d burn their hands as soon as they touched it.”

And then I burst out laughing at myself. This was a story about people who could read things into being. Where women could turn into birds and back again, where men could command fire to take the forms of animals. And I hadn’t had trouble believing in any of that. But climbable fire – this was too much?

Yes. Because magic doesn’t eliminate the necessity of rules in a story. Anything can happen within fiction—but only within the framework of the fictional world and the tone of the story.

It’s perfectly acceptable in Douglas Adam’s Hitchhiker’s trilogy when Arthur Dent discovers the secret to human flight is to throw yourself at the ground and miss–because that nonsensical-yet-witty logic fits in a universe where six times nine equals 42.

But in a serious story—even a magical one—fire cannot support weight or fail to burn the skin instantly when grasped. Otherwise it’s not fire.

The moral of the story

Don’t blame your readers for failing to suspend their disbelief if you write something that breaks the laws of your own world. Most readers pick up a book with every intention of suspending their disbelief.

It’s up to you to make it possible for them to do it. Take it from Mark Twain:

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

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4 ways to betray your readers (and I’m not moving to Germany)

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Side note: I hope Monday’s joke didn’t cause any serious distress. I didn’t mean for it to. Please have a chuckle over what happened last time April 1 fell on a posting day.

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Photo by Kelsey

Photo by Kelsey

The beginning of every book is a promise for the end. Every fear mentioned in the first chapter must be faced by the last. Every problem introduced must eventually be solved. Every question must be answered.

It’s an unspoken contract between the writer and the reader.* You promise closure, answers, victory, in exchange for which your readers agree to keep reading. Fail to keep your promise, and you will have robbed them of their time, and left them with an empty feeling.

Here are some ways to do it (or, more accurately, four endings to avoid).

1. Build a mystery you never solve

The plot thickens until it’s practically a solid. You add clue after clue, but the reader never seems to actually get closer to the solution. They expect to find the answer at the end, but you don’t give it to them. You’re good at building suspense, but it’s all random – none of it actually ties together. So you make up a ridiculous half-explanation, that doesn’t offer the “aha!” moment your readers were counting on.

Examples:

2. End it just before the hero succeeds (or fails)

The hero has been striving for something throughout the entire story. Your readers ride the ups and downs with him, watching him overcome every obstacle, until—

That’s it. You’re not even going to finish the

Examples:

3. Have an awesome hero make the wrong ultimate decision

The hero always has to make an ultimate decision, which has a moral component, around the climax of the book. If the hero makes the right one (even if he loses something to the villain in the process), your readers feel a sense of victory. If he makes the wrong decision, you leave them with a sense of hopelessness.

Example:

  • Mockingjay (though more than one person I’ve talked to interprets the ending differently, I don’t see the logic of it, sadly)

4. Kill the hero for no good reason

You’re probably tired of me harping on Nicholas Sparks by now, so this is all I’ll say.

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Have you written anything like these four endings? What endings have left you feeling betrayed?

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* This does not apply to flash fiction.

Your plot is useless without this

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Image by Francisco Osorio

Image by Francisco Osorio

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A hundred strangers cling to one another as their runaway train thunders toward a dead end.

Across town, the only woman you’ve ever loved is strapped to a time bomb.

Save her, keep your heart from breaking. But a thousand other hearts get broken instead.

“My husband!” a woman screams as she runs up beside you, clutching a small boy to her chest. “My husband is on that train!”

Save the train, do the right thing, the city will throw you a parade. But all you’ll see through the floats and confetti will be the grief-ridden faces of your true love’s family and the knowledge that you’ll never see her again.

You inhale the deep breath you’ll need for the flight across town.

You’re frozen in mid-takeoff. You can’t take your eyes off the boy in the woman’s arms. He’s the age you were when your father was killed. Young, but you can see in his face he knows what’s happening. Because you felt the same.

Oh, snap. You curse and hammer the keyboard. You threw the little boy in to milk the drama, not to change your hero’s mind—but now you see there’s no turning back. This is going to mean rewrites.

For all the dramatic events that happen around your hero, there are equally dramatic events happening inside him. Events that move him to action. If you don’t keep track of what’s going on inside his head, you won’t be able to predict how he’ll react to any given situation, and by the time you realize it, you might be in a terrible plot bind.

Keep that from happening by mapping your hero’s emotional journey along with the plot. Here are a few guidelines to help.

Outline your hero’s history.

Three forces influence your hero’s decisions: logic, emotions, and morals. What makes sense? What feels best? What’s right? How each of this forces affects him is first determined by his past. So start by outlining his history with questions like:

  • What’s the most traumatic thing he’s ever experienced?
  • What’s the safest he’s ever felt and why?
  • What’s the worst sin he’s ever committed?
  • Which two people have the biggest positive and negative influence on him?
  • What does he want most?
  • (Here’s more help getting to know him)

Use his history to determine how he will react to each major plot point.

The severity of each situation relative to his personal demons will determine his decision. And every decision he makes will affect future events, which, in turn, affect him right back. As the story progresses and the stakes are raised, his decision process will change. Emotional turmoil clouds his moral judgment. Righteous anger clouds his logical judgment. It’s a tumbling system of cause and effect, playing on your hero’s weaknesses and leading to the climax.

Equip him for the ultimate decision.

At the climax, your hero must make one final decision between right and wrong. The forces influencing him are now one big mess of everything that’s happened so far. Of longing and pain and fear.

Make sure that mess includes the motivation for him to make the decision he is supposed to make. If you want him save the people on the train, kill off his father; plant the boy. But if you want him save the girl, you’d better plant something early on that will undermine his empathy for the boy and push him in a different direction.

And if you want him to find a clever way to save everyone (like they do in all the movies), you’d better give him a memory that inspires the answer.

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How to Introduce Your Hero Without Exposition

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Image by Pat Loika

Image by Pat Loika

Your protagonist is up for a job interview.

The position: adventure guide.

The hiring company: your reader.

He’s only got a few paragraphs to make that first impression and convince the reader to take him on for the next 200 pages. He’s got a resume full of great skills like sword-fighting and cat-saving, with a detailed peril history, but your reader isn’t really sure what qualities she’s looking for. Exposition isn’t going to help. She wants to see proof he’ll take her on a wild adventure, and that it’ll be fun, moving, thought-provoking, or all three.

It’s a working interview.

And this working interview—also known as his grand entrance into the story—must be three things:

  1. Memorable. It should be strange, clever, charming, funny, or disturbing. Something that makes the reader wake up and take notice, even if just to figure out what the heck he’s up to.
  2. Insightful. It should show something unique about the character. Elements of his appearance, his actions, and anything he is carrying can all illustrate the kind of person he is, and hint at his background. This can be as simple as mentioning his bum leg, and how he tries to hide it when he meets a pretty girl. Or maybe how he scares his grandkids by driving a fork into it.
  3. Relevant. It should relate to – or introduce – the problem that leads to the plot. The moment normal life gets turned upside down, whether the hero realizes it yet or not. Like Luke Skywalker buying a couple of used droids to help on the farm.

Think of great hero (or villain) entrances in movies and TV, where it’s harder for writers to sneak in exposition:

Pirates of the Caribbean

Captain Jack Sparrow standing on the topcastle of a sinking boat, one hand on the mast as he rides smoothly into harbor, past crowds of astonished eyes, to reach the dock just in time and stride nonchalantly on.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Arthur Dent in pajamas lying in front of a bulldozer he’s just been informed wants to knock down his house to make way for a bypass. Moments later, a friend arrives informing him he’s got to forget the bulldozer because the Earth is about to be destroyed to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

Doctor Who (new series)

Rose is incredulous to find herself chased by a gang of animated mannequins. The first sign we see of the Doctor is his hand grabbing hers. Rose looks up to see a cheeky grin framed by large, goofy ears. “Run!” he says.

Mary Poppins

Flying in by umbrella. Looking exactly like the imaginary nanny Jane and Michael described. Pulling several large items out of an average-sized carpet bag (evidently it is bigger on the inside).

Star Wars IV

Darth Vader stepping through the hatch to board the rebel ship, surveying the dead with approval, the sound of the soulless breath clicking in and out of his metal lungs.

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What do these entrances say about the characters? What do they say about the adventure to come?

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