McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Crowning moment of Awesome vs. Dramatic jeapordy

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sociotard:
How do you find a balance between placing your characters in dire trouble and giving them crowning moments of awesome?

As a reader, I need the former, or the story won't be interesting. At the same time, a big reason for my Dresden Fandom is that it makes my inner 14-year-old happy when I get to live vicariously through his crowning moments of awesome.

For those who don't know what I mean, here is the moment I got in Cold Days: (click to show/hide)I'm riding on the back of a renegade cop's motorcycle, which is also a flying black tiger because I'm leading the wild hunt itself. I have Santa Claus flying wingman on one side and the Goblin King doing the same on the other, and I'm charging to the one battlefield on earth with which I have a psychic connection. This is my Boomstick!
Even in that one little part, I knew things were going to go south soon, but for those few pages I was on top of the world.  How do authors find that perfect balance?

The Deposed King:
When doing awsome you have to run like a mad man away from the pit trap of bestowing upon your characters 'Phenomenal Cosmic Power!'.  Either to let them do the awesome or what they get after doing the Awesome.

Dresden does lots of big awsome!  But he's a tank, not an atomic weapon.  too many people make their characters the chosen savior and a demigod manifest among mortals.  Whereas Dresden is a mortal functioning amongst demigods.

By avoiding this pit trap.  When your character does his awesome coolness.  Neither before, during or after are we the reader ever left feeling that just because this game has been won the war is now over and done with.  Its a crushing victory on this one single battlefield.  By giving your readers the sense that there are other battlefields both smaller and larger you give perspective and allow for a natural Dresden like growth in strength, guile and cunning over the course of multiple books.

Hope I'm making sense?  We want our wins and our victories and some of them need to be definitive but its the 'struggle' that makes the awesomeness we write about so satisfying.



The Deposed King

Wordmaker:
One piece of advice I like to follow from author Janice Hardy is, whenever you're writing, think "how can I make things worse for the hero?"

A guideline (not a rule, but rather a way to measure yourself) is to effectively have your hero lose, repeatedly, until the very end. If they win a fight, have the authorities come after them. If they find a valuable piece of information, have them captured. If they outsmart the villain, injure them. If they beat one of the villain's agents, hurt, or even kill, a loved one. Make every victory, no matter how small, cost them something. That way you keep them mortal in the reader's eyes.

Aminar:

--- Quote from: Wordmaker on May 17, 2013, 03:25:59 PM ---One piece of advice I like to follow from author Janice Hardy is, whenever you're writing, think "how can I make things worse for the hero?"

A guideline (not a rule, but rather a way to measure yourself) is to effectively have your hero lose, repeatedly, until the very end. If they win a fight, have the authorities come after them. If they find a valuable piece of information, have them captured. If they outsmart the villain, injure them. If they beat one of the villain's agents, hurt, or even kill, a loved one. Make every victory, no matter how small, cost them something. That way you keep them mortal in the reader's eyes.

--- End quote ---
I've never enjoyed stories that go this route.  I prefer instead to have the characters voice some of their worries about what those things are, and then have success and failures throughout with a goal put in at some point earlier.  Because everytime I read a book where things just keep getting worse for the character they either A: could have probably averted that problem if they'd thought about things or B: don't feel like their in control of their own story.  I just get depressed when every time something goes right it makes three other things go wrong.

So Character gets to resolve problem A, but problem B is getting worse, and he royally messed up problem C, but the solution to problem A has moved him closer to problem D.  Where A is turning an enemy into an ally, B is other characters trying to kill said Enemy to ally, C is romantic tension, and D is the characters main goal for the book.  (As an example.)

Sir Huron Stone:

--- Quote from: Wordmaker on May 17, 2013, 03:25:59 PM ---One piece of advice I like to follow from author Janice Hardy is, whenever you're writing, think "how can I make things worse for the hero?"

A guideline (not a rule, but rather a way to measure yourself) is to effectively have your hero lose, repeatedly, until the very end. If they win a fight, have the authorities come after them. If they find a valuable piece of information, have them captured. If they outsmart the villain, injure them. If they beat one of the villain's agents, hurt, or even kill, a loved one. Make every victory, no matter how small, cost them something. That way you keep them mortal in the reader's eyes.

--- End quote ---
Now, there are series where this is used very effectively, and then there are series where the author takes it too far. Like the Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. The way she makes Fitz feel worse, and worse, with no real victories, betrayal and pain at every turn, is just way too far. I haven't even finished the second book, because it puts me in such a bad mood. Yes, the main character has to get beaten up, yes he/she has to lose. But you've gotta throw in some wins! Some actual wins!

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