I'm working myself up towards the ending of my current story and I got stuck musing on foreshadowing, expectations, and conventions. Here's the situation:
Now, conventional wisdom gained from taking in many a generic action story holds that things never work out as planned. As writers it's often suggested we make things worse for our characters.
Most likely, Alene will end up complicating the situation in some way when she shows up (whether through any fault of her own or not doesn't matter). Things will go pear shaped for her and Roy. In fact, Roy would probably have just done fine on his own but thanks to Alene showing up the situation gets that much trickier.
It's cliche and unoriginal, but that's how the story goes, right? You've seen the same thing in plenty of movies, right?
It doesn't have to be like that, but it's kind of fascinating how strong the call is to write it that way. It's a bit like Chekhov's Gun. The easiest way around it would probably be to remove the foreshadowing and just have the events unfold anyway.
To clarify, I'm not looking for suggestions on how to circumvent the expectations here (but that's welcome too), just musing on how strong the power of stories can be.
Alene predicts that the enemies will attack Roy soon, and she comes up with a plan to help him out. She daydreams a bit about showing up at the last moment, turning the tide of the battle, and saving the day (and herself and Roy in the process).
Now, conventional wisdom gained from taking in many a generic action story holds that things never work out as planned. As writers it's often suggested we make things worse for our characters.
Most likely, Alene will end up complicating the situation in some way when she shows up (whether through any fault of her own or not doesn't matter). Things will go pear shaped for her and Roy. In fact, Roy would probably have just done fine on his own but thanks to Alene showing up the situation gets that much trickier.
It's cliche and unoriginal, but that's how the story goes, right? You've seen the same thing in plenty of movies, right?
It doesn't have to be like that, but it's kind of fascinating how strong the call is to write it that way. It's a bit like Chekhov's Gun. The easiest way around it would probably be to remove the foreshadowing and just have the events unfold anyway.
To clarify, I'm not looking for suggestions on how to circumvent the expectations here (but that's welcome too), just musing on how strong the power of stories can be.