Hello, writers. We talked last week about a fiction dictum that my sister used to quote, which she attributed to Marion Zimmer Bradley:
A likable character overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds in order to achieve a worthwhile result.
Which doesn't describe all fiction, but does cover an awful lot of it.
Last week we discussed the likable character. This week I'd like to talk about the insurmountable odds and their natural companion, the worthwhile result. Nowadays these tend to be called, in combination, The Stakes. What does the protag want to accomplish? What does s/he stand to lose?
In reverse order:
The Worthwhile Result
This depends on the genre. It might be personal: finding Troo Luv, finding oneself, getting the lead in the school play. It might involve a need of the community: saving the Bijou Theater from demolition, solving the murder, stopping the chemical polluter. Or the protag might need to prevent the destruction of the society, the planet, the fabric of reality.
But the writer's job is the same in any case: help the reader believe the result is worthwhile, and help the reader care whether it is achieved.
This means the reader needs to care about and identify with the character (see last week).
The Seemingly Insurmountable Odds
Everyone loves an underdog. When your protag's got her back to the wall, but still isn't giving up, we all root for her.
What will happen if your protag doesn't achieve the Worthwhile Result? It needs to be earthshaking, at least to the protag, and we need to care.
Sure, Belinda is only 18, and if she doesn't marry Lord Postlethwaite-Praxleigh (pronounced Puppy) she's bound to find someone else. But her father died and left her penniless, and she'll be out on the street by Thursday, and evil Lord Dingeworth will carry her off and etc. But what will happen on their wedding night, when Lord Postlethwaite-Praxleigh finds out Belinda's actually a spotted salamander? Etc.
Detective Malachy O'Malley sees at least fifty homicide victims a year. Most of the murders involve drugs, and/or a spouse standing over the corpse with a bloody cleaver singing He Had It Coming. So why is he spending a whole book sweating over this homicide? Perhaps because it involves something dark from his past, and more people start turning up dead, and his beloved grandmother has been wrongly accused of the crimes and is being held on $1.5 million bail, and people are accusing O'Malley himself of covering her violent past by altering records, and he's suspended from the force, and...
By the way, the protagonist's flaws, which we talked about last week, are often useful sources of difficulties and obstacles. If only Belinda didn't have an irrational terror of string quartets. If only Det. O'Malley didn't scream at witnesses all the time.
The thing is to keep making the odds more insurmountable, not less. Keep piling it on your poor protagonist.
I find I have to do this on the revision. If I do it on the first draft, I end up not being able to figure out a way for the character to win through in the end. Of course, the protagonist can lose in the end. There are plenty of novels and stories where that happens.
Personally I don't find such stories very satisfying. YMMV.
Tonight's challenge:
Rewrite and/or continue this passage, throwing in a few insurmountable difficulties. (Note that the protag is a different party than in our previous challenges.)
The Dread Least Grebe had had about enough. Here they came, another Callow Youth and Stout Companion, complete with determined expressions, do-or-die attitude, swords, and a map.
These two would be after the jewel, of course.... the jewel without which the Grebe could not survive, for it aided his wonky digestive processes.
No problem. The Grebe breathed fire, and watched as the two adventurers fried to a crisp.
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