Category: writing

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“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is one of my all-time favorite movies. Always has been, from before the time I had an inkling of what story structure and good writing were. And yet, when I think back on the movie, I wonder why it worked so well.

One of the basic lessons that any writer learns is that “Deus Ex Machina” endings are bad. They are unsatisfying because the characters are supposed to drive the story and the victory, not some hand of God. When this happens, rather than feeling a sense of wonder at the magical things happening, the reader usually feels annoyed that he/she had to see all the irrelevant stuff that came before.

And yet, what was that ending in Raiders if not, quite literally, the hand of God? Does this mean the ending is not Deus Ex Machina, or does it mean that all rules have exceptions and Deus Ex Machina is okay in some situations? I think I need to re-watch the movie. It’s been too long.

One of the difficult things, possibly the most difficult thing, about writing is figuring out how to convey information to the reader. In order for the reader to understand the story, explanation is necessary, but is usually also boring. For example, a conversation consisting of one character asking questions and another answering tends to be uninteresting, regardless of how natural it would be for that to happen. Likewise, having a character explain something in a lecture, read something in the paper, hear something on television, or look it up on the internet tend to be tiresome. The banality of these latter methods might even make them worse than simply dumping information into the narrative.

What is a writer to do? Fortunately, there are situations when the above modes of supplying information are not only acceptable, but eagerly devoured by the reader.

First, while the reader is fairly uninterested in what happened before the current scene, the reader is usually quite interested in what is happening to the character now. The reader wants to know what the character sees, smells, touches, and tastes, and wants/expects some description of the current environment.

Part of the reason is that the reader wants to vicariously live through the character. However, the degree to which description is desired by the reader depends on the emotional content of the scene. In key moments where emotions change or deepen, or when important decisions are being made by a character, the action needs to slow down to convey the character’s thoughts, precisely so that the full impact can be realized. The reader wants the chance to feel the emotion too.

Of course, the things described have to be relevant to the emotion or decision. Readers usually don’t care what the sky is doing. However, the description of the knife sticking out of the character’s chest matters a lot. How much the blade gleams, what the pommel looks like, and all the different ways in which the pain manifests (or doesn’t), should be spelled out in detail.

Descriptions of the scene can also be used as Trojan horses to carry information into the scene. By the description of a knife, the reader can learn whether the character is a cook or a killer. This latter method is interesting to the reader because it involves the brain at a deeper level, at deduction and inference.

The second major way is to present things backwards, to show the reader a result before clarifying the cause. Raise a question in the reader’s mind, and the reader will seek the answer. Make it a big enough question, and the reader will gladly read through an information dump in almost any form when it finally arrives.

If the main character of a story is named Artemis Gold, and he discovers there’s a professor with his name in three different universities, both the character and the reader will want to know why. When a fourth and fifth are discovered, the character will go out of his way to meet these other Artemis Golds and find out what they have in common. When the hero finds the millionaire who paid five couples to give that name to their child, the reader will be reading attentively during the question and answer session with the millionaire when it finally arrives. Actually, I almost want to read it now.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on valid ways to convey info to the reader. If anyone has more insights on this topic, I’m interested to hear about them. Please dump that info on me!

Galaxy Quest was one of my all time favorite movies. In part, this is because I’ve always loved Star Trek, and the parody is so beautifully done. I think all stories hinge on two key decisions, “The Fateful Decision” and “The Climactic Decision.”

“The Climactic Decision,” is something that needs to happen so that the story can end. It is a decision between two things, an easy way out in which the decider gets what they want, and something more risky. Notice that I said “the decider” and not the hero. That’s because the hero isn’t necessarily the one to make the climactic decision–very often it’s the villain, and this is true in Galaxy Quest. When Sarris has his enemy defeated, he refrains from killing Mathesar in order to make Jason Nesmith explain that “The Historical Documents” were nothing but a lie. He wants to rub salt into Mathesar’s wounds, and holds off from killing his enemies to do it. In this way he earns his defeat, and prepares the audience for the end of the movie.

In the last episode of “Elementary” this season, the villain also makes the Climactic Decision (spoiler alert), but there is a twist. Moriarty has gotten away with her crimes and achieved everything she wants. All she has to do is walk away and enjoy her riches–but she comes back to rescue Sherlock from his drug addiction. She doesn’t have to. Normally, when a character makes this choice, they are supposed to earn the reward–except she’s the villain, Holmes was faking his relapse, and she gets caught. The trick to this ending (as I see it) is that even though she gets caught and goes to jail, she hears Sherlock tell her he fell in love with her. Her reward is something she didn’t know she wanted, and maybe something she won’t appreciate.

My belief is that “The Climactic Decision” is necessary for the audience to feel like they’ve heard a complete story. But whether this decision belongs to the hero or the villain, or whether the decision merits a reward or punishment are choices for the writer.

I came across the story “You’re Not a Cop Till You Taste Them” while reading “On Combat,” by Dave Grossman and Loren W. Christensen. The story stuck in my mind because (a) it is a compelling and emotionally satisfying story, and (b) it is less than 1200 words. A link to the original is below:

http://www.donnellannbell.com/youre-not-a-cop-till-you-taste-them/

More often than not, short stories leave me feeling unsatisfied, even when they’re more than 5000 words in length. I used to think that short stories left me flat because they didn’t have the space to develop 3-act structure or the time for me to invest emotionally in the tale. But “You’re Not a Cop Till You Taste Them” proved to me that a short story could truly satisfy. How did it accomplish its task?

I used to think of three-act structure as the essence of a story, but now I think it’s more a side-effect. My current theory is that a story is two decisions connected by a journey: the first is the “Fateful Decision” and the second is the “Climactic Decision.” The “Fateful Decision” is a decision made by the protagonist which determines whether or not there will be a story. The classic example is the Matrix, when Neo has to choose between the red and the blue pill. The “Climactic Decision” is also a choice between one of two things. One decision gives the protagonist an easy way out. He/she can get what she/he wants, but has to sacrifice his/her principles a little bit. The other choice is fraught with possible danger and/or martyrdom. When the protagonist chooses this option, he/she becomes worthy of achieving her/his goal and the resolution can follow.

The Fateful Decision in “You’re Not a Cop Till You Taste Them” comes in paragraph 5, when the protagonist decides to ask the tall grey-haired officer what it means to say you aren’t a hero till you “taste them.” We now know what the hero wants, and thus the story begins.

The Climactic Decision comes in paragraph 9, when the protagonist decides to stop and see if the little girl is having any trouble. Key details make this moment important: (1) only five minutes remain until the end of the shift, and it’s been a hard day, (2) there’s no good reason for him to think the girl’s in trouble. It would be easy for the hero to justify driving home and having a beer. By choosing to stop, he proves that he’s not just a good police officer, but an exceptionally committed one.

The rest of the story is resolution, the consequence of the hero’s choices. He gets what he wanted, namely to know what “tasting them” meant. It’s a hard price, and so when the grey-haired police officer assures the hero that, “There was nothing you could have done differently.” We feel the bittersweet reward in all its fullness. The hero is no longer a rookie.

Dear Agent Name,

“The Turquoise Bones” is a 125k word young adult science fiction novel set in a bronze age culture on an alien world.

Apjay is a sixteen-year-old boy who belongs to a tribe known as the Astronomers, a people who believe in the stars even though they lost the ability to see them in the distant past.

When Apjay discovers a skeleton of turquoise bones with a gem inside the skull, he tries to give them a proper burial. Apjay’s father opens the grave, hoping to steal the gem, but instead he is caught and executed for his crime.

According to a vision from an ancient hero, Apjay’s father’s spirit will be damned unless Apjay completes a spiritual quest to see the stars–and Apjay not only loves his father, but feels guilt because his attempt to give the bones a decent burial led to his father’s death.

To succeed in his quest, however, he’ll need the help of the green-skinned girl who rose to life from bones Apjay found.

My name is Steven R. Brandt and I have a Ph.D. for studying simulations of rotating black holes from the university of Illinois, which informed the science fiction component of my story.

Thank you for your time.

Ideally, these two words describe the ending of your book. The question is, how do you achieve it? Not every story can be as clever as “Gift of the Magi,” O’Henry’s most famous story.

The key, I think, is the same one used by stage magicians: misdirection. The problem is, if the reader thinks about the story elements in the right way, the answer will be clear. The solution is to offer them a false explanation for events. The first novel in the Mistborn series does this when it tells you (spoiler alert) that the Lord Ruler wears metal rings to show his bravado (wearing metal is dangerous for allomancers, the main type of wizard in the book). Some of the other nobility copy this fashion statement, reinforcing its seeming truth in the mind of the reader. None suspects that the Lord Ruler is also a ferrochemist.

Another way misdirection can be used is to call the readers attention away from the critical element, not bringing it into play until it’s too late. In Star Wars, we don’t expect Han Solo to save the day in the end. He’s not a good guy–after all he shot Guido first. All through the movie he’s consistently interested in money, and before the climactic battle he deserts the heroes. It is his change of heart that provides the unexpected element in the inevitable outcome of the attack on the death star.

What other examples of misdirection to provide the unexpected ending can you find? Does thinking about the use of misdirection to provide the unexpected element of your ending help you to plan the ending better?