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How can it get any WORSE?

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Chesterama, exactly. Thank you so much. That is important. Every scene (I believe) should be viewed in how it adds to the emotional journey of the character. Every make it worse should inherently mean something to the character.

So in fifthviews example of the assassin, I would try to mine for the emotion and make it worse:

He's afraid of heights? He fell from a tree as a child?
The guy he is killing is connected to him somehow?
He breaks into the castle to find that they don't just have his apprentice, but the holy relic they've been looking for, and he has to choose?
 

Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
I do see the usefulness of this advice, at least in moments when you need to take a scene that seems too weak and make it stronger and more challenging for the characters. In any case I would call the advice More Challenge! instead of Make it Worse, because the word Worse implies that you are making your characters suffer more than they need.

Also, have you considered that not all scenes need to be as challenging as possible, and that sometimes a more relaxing chapter is simply a legitimate and necessary part of the story?

I wanted to share an example as how following this M.I.W. advice could have ruined one of my recently finished stories:

This story in particular starts with a very simple scenario: There is a Kingdom that is under attack from a mysterious and yet unseen Witch. The King wants to send his Wizards to destroy the Witch. The Prince disobeys orders to stay home, and goes after the Witch himself because there is something that he wants from her.

That's it, that was all that it took for the story to get started. The complications and adventure come later, as the story follows its natural evolution. Now let's see what could have happened if I had been impatient and wanted the story to be immediately more exciting, and tried to make it happen by means of the M.I.W. thing:

M.I.W.! The King sends a Dragon after his son.

M.I.W.! The Wizards revolt against the King.

M.I.W.! A mysterious fire erupts in the castle.

M.I.W.! The Queen is actually a spy from an enemy Kingdom.

These added elements would have ruined completely the story that had just started to grow, because instead of telling the story as it really happened I would have simply turned it into a disaster from the very start. Allargon would have never sent a dragon after Grass, the Wizards would never revolt against their King and Felicia is a million light years away from being a spy and a traitor.

The resulting mess would have gotten me tangled like it was a trap of barbed wire, I would be fighting to tell a broken story and most likely the project would have been abandoned out of frustration and hatred.

Instead of doing such a crazy thing, I allowed for the seemingly simple plot to continue. Very soon Alice Silverthorn showed up and I knew that I was in for a hell of a ride, not to mention that some time later Ella appeared all by herself and she became a much more important character than I could have ever anticipated.

You seem to be reading more into this idea than is really there. I did not suggest it needs to be done "every chapter" (though James suggests that that) or "constantly" but rather that "overall" (my actual word) the tension needs to increase towards the climax.

You also seem to suggest that making things worse necessarily increases complexity. That is not true either. If my hero is trying to lift 500 pounds over his injured dog, and another hundred pounds get added, the situation is not more complex but rather simply worse.

Too much complexity, too many characters, or plot holes are not necessarily outcomes of "making it worse" any more than a broken thumb or windows are a necessary outcome of using a hammer.

The way other people were describing the M.I.W. really were attempts to take a simple, seemingly boring concept to start a story and very quickly turn it into something much more complicated. You present it as simply an increase of challenge during a particular moment, which is a very different thing.

Some stories do follow the system of increasing the tension towards the climax, which could be compared to climbing a mountain and then descending only after you have reached the summit. My system is more similar to a roller coaster ride, in which the tension and conflicts grow but also decrease sometimes and there are relaxing chapters sometimes.

I think both systems are useful, it all depends on what the story needs and decides to do.

To present another wood-related analogy: Let's say that a person without much experience in artistic wood carving wants to do something cool. The recommended way would be to start with something simple, like the figure of a five-pointed star... However, the person thinks that it would be too lame and decides to carve a realistic eagle complete with its feather patterns and everything.

Carving the eagle would take a much greater amount of practice in the art, and it would require special, more advanced tools that the person does not really know how to use. This scenario is similar to a writer/storyteller that gets him or herself into a corner by putting way more complexity in a story than what was really necessary, which often results in a mess.
 
Hi Guys,

So what you actually want to say now is that the advice isn't make it worse after all. It's make things more tense. You don't want to have your characters suffer more. You want them to be more anxious. That's fine. But my opening comments still stand. This is a meme. And memes are like practically everything else. Good servants and poor masters.

Making it tense may improve a book. But it may also completely destroy one. Think of some of the great reads out there and ask yourself - are they about tension? Catch 22 - one of my faves - not really. Stranger in a Strange Land? Don't think so. Most detective books? Not so much. So why add tension if the book isn't about that? Will it improve the read? Or damage it?

Again this is where the art of the story teller comes in. So the advice should be add tension - where it will add to the story / to the readers enjoyment. But don't add it where it won't. Think about what your stories about. Is it a story that relies on tension? Does it rely on it in parts and not in other parts? Then add that tension where it will help and remove it where you don't want it.

Just this morning I got a review on my latest work which sid among other things that there was too much violence. It was actually a good review, so I'm not complaining at all. But my point is that the violence was amped up a little bit during the battles because of my beta reader saying that she felt it lacked it. That the battles didn't feel real and weren't tense enough. So I added a bit, salted it as they say. And made the battles more close and more personal. Now I'm not saying that I regret doing that, or that it was wrong. What I am saying is that one of the underlying themes of my latest work is an exploration of power. What it means to be all powerful (in the fire wizardly sense of course!) And yet despite having all that power being essentially powerless in so many ways. Increasing the tension in the battle scenes decreased my MC's huge magical power advantage obviously, which in turn worked against my underlying theme. Bottom line, I had to write very carefully.

Telling people to just add tension and / or suffering is bad advice. Telling people to just use the active voice is bad advice. It's like telling artists to add black paint to their work when this may interfere with the overall colour palette of the work, and hence its meaning / aesthetic. Telling people to do just anything is bad advice. The correct advice is to use what works for your story in your judgement.

You are an author. An artist. You should have your own aesthetic. One based on your own vision for the work. And you shouldn't be compromising that aesthetic.

Donald Maas to bring things back to the OP, is an agent. His concern though he may be passionate about books, is about selling books to publishers. And what he's worked out at the risk of doing him a dissaervice, is that suffering / tension sells. He's seen the success of GOT etc and said, this sells. And I suppose that's fine. Save that next year sex may sell and his new meme may be "sex it up". And the year after that mystery may be king and his meme could be "write it strange".

And just to be clear, I'm an author making a living from my sales. I like selling. I liked that "The Arcanist" was a hit. I like that "Samual" seems to be heading in that direction. But I would hate it if I had compromised my work simply to appeal to what sells.

Cheers, Greg.
 
C

Chessie

Guest
And just to be clear, I'm an author making a living from my sales. I like selling.
Cheers, Greg.
Which makes your points all the more valid. Aka, I learn more about this business from midlist authors paying their bills with their books vs outliers, dead authors, and agents with a different agenda. Just saying.
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Psychotic, either I'm not explaining myself clearly, or you are missing a key thing to what I'm trying to say.

I find it really interesting that you used Catch 22 as an example, because I would say that Catch 22 is a perfect example of what I'm trying ot argue! lol.

Catch 22 and Detective Books are full of tense! Catch 22 is exactly what I'm saying because there is no right choice... the tension of "what is he going to do?" is built right into the story! This is what I'm saying! This is what you want! Detective books are the same... the tension is built into the story through the choices that need to be made. The clues that need to be uncovered.

Just this morning I got a review on my latest work which sid among other things that there was too much violence. It was actually a good review, so I'm not complaining at all. But my point is that the violence was amped up a little bit during the battles because of my beta reader saying that she felt it lacked it. That the battles didn't feel real and weren't tense enough. So I added a bit, salted it as they say. And made the battles more close and more personal. Now I'm not saying that I regret doing that, or that it was wrong. What I am saying is that one of the underlying themes of my latest work is an exploration of power. What it means to be all powerful (in the fire wizardly sense of course!) And yet despite having all that power being essentially powerless in so many ways. Increasing the tension in the battle scenes decreased my MC's huge magical power advantage obviously, which in turn worked against my underlying theme. Bottom line, I had to write very carefully.

This ^^^^^ Is exactly what I'm saying NOT to do! I'm agreeing with you in every possible way, but on the other side of the coin. I'm saying that tension is NOT violence. When a reader says there is not enough tension, they are not saying it needs more voilence, or more blood, or more battles, or more action. Tension is not any of those things. Tension is Catch 22. Tension is that deep, inherent choice that the character has to make. Tension is the inner conflict. You can't get that by upping the ante in a fight scene.

Donald Maas to bring things back to the OP, is an agent. His concern though he may be passionate about books, is about selling books to publishers. And what he's worked out at the risk of doing him a dissaervice, is that suffering / tension sells. He's seen the success of GOT etc and said, this sells. And I suppose that's fine. Save that next year sex may sell and his new meme may be "sex it up". And the year after that mystery may be king and his meme could be "write it strange".

This is absolutely NOT what he is saying. I really feel like you are missing the point here. He uses all levels of fiction as examples, and he is not at all telling authors to sex it up, or try to be like Game of Thrones. He is saying the exact opposite. He is saying that violence without tension is boring. Explosions without tension are boring. Action without choice, consequences, stakes that matter, emotion... is boring.

Give your character a Catch 22. Dig deep.
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Geez, this was an explosive thread.

My two silver would be to simply note that high stakes != audience interest.

In my experience, NOTHING is more effective at killing an audience's interest in a story than realizing that nothing is going to get better. I have legitimately watched entire shows where basically nothing of consequence happens at any point, and they're some of my favorite things to watch. Low tension only bores an audience if there isn't anything to the story but tension. It can be more enjoyable just to observe two engaging characters eat lunch and have a pleasant conversation than it is to see them have a fight in the rain on the rooftop of a burning cathedral.

In contrast, why would I want to read a never-ending parade of people's dreams being crushed without variance or relief? I could replicate that sensation by simply watching a piece of roadkill decay on the street while eating a sandwich made entirely out of ingredients I hate. Stories are called ARCS for a reason. Every fall needs to have a complimentary rise. The worse you make things for your cast the more satisfying that eventual rise needs to be, otherwise your audience will eventually catch on that the situation is hopeless and there is absolutely no reason to invest in the story because the road doesn't go anywhere but deeper into a pit of refuse.

Despite every writer and their dog banging the 'tension is everything' gong, I've never actually seen a story fail because the stakes were too low. If the stakes are low and the story fails, it's almost always because I didn't actually care about the cast. And you don't make me care about a character by spilling their juicebox, kicking their puppy and burning their house down. You make me care about a character by making them interesting people. By contrast, I can stop caring about interesting people if the stakes get too high because why should I waste the emotional energy? They're doomed anyway, so why keep watching? If I leave and hear about the outcome later I can generally assume that whatever it was it was miserable.

I'm a big believer in the "Earn Your Happy Ending" trope. And viewed in the right light, it even gels well with this whole "Make It Worse" thing. The harder it is to reach that happy ending, the more satisfying it can be when you finally reach it and declare "this was worth it." So by all means, make it worse. Drag your characters through the mud and jagged glass until they're little more than a mass of filth and scar tissue. But make it goddamn pay off with something.
 

Reilith

Sage
I'm a big believer in the "Earn Your Happy Ending" trope. And viewed in the right light, it even gels well with this whole "Make It Worse" thing. The harder it is to reach that happy ending, the more satisfying it can be when you finally reach it and declare "this was worth it." So by all means, make it worse. Drag your characters through the mud and jagged glass until they're little more than a mass of filth and scar tissue. But make it goddamn pay off with something.

Well, I don't see what the problem is with this thread? The way Helio and the others explained it was exactly this! And it is exactly how I feel about "make it worse". It is far more rewarding to see characters win after so many failures and tension.

I would also like to add that if you are using "make it worse" you must make sure that the consequences of it are visible, even in victory. Look at Katniss at the end of the third book for example. You can make your MC walk through fire and come out a victor, but if it doesn't leave any scars, it's not going to be beliveable.

Sent from my HTC Desire 820 using Tapatalk
 
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Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
I know. I'm sorry. I get so carried away about these topics because I feel very passionately about them, and then when someone doesn't understand the teacher in me wants to hold everyone after class to explain it for the four hundredth time :(
 

Drakevarg

Troubadour
Well, I don't see what the problem is with this thread? The way Helio and the others explained it was exactly this! And it is exactly how I feel about "make it worse". It is far more rewarding to see characters win after so many failures and tension.

With the thread as a whole? Nothing in particular. But I came in after the fact, so I was pitching my views as applied to the whole discussion from start to finish, not just with the most favorable conclusions reached within.

That said, I still say tension is overrated. "Happy Bear's Nice Day in Pleasantville" can easily be a fully enjoyable story as long as Happy Bear and Friendship Dog are interesting people you like seeing interact with each other. If anything it can be a more interesting read simply by virtue of how hard it is to keep a story going without raising the stakes. Anyone can invoke Chandler's Law and kick the story into gear by making a ninja attack squad bust through the window. It's much harder to simply make the characters think of something interesting to talk about for the next few pages.

Obviously that's an exaggeration to make a point, most stories should hopefully be somewhere in the middle. But seriously, there are kinds of engagement besides adrenaline rush.
 

Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
Kipper the Dog is one of the happiest nothing ever really goes wrong shows in the universe, but still, there is micro-tension.

But let's look at some hard core literature... If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, he's going to want a glass of milk, when you give him the milk, (note that little comma there as we move to the next page... that's right, it's tension... what the hell is that danged mouse going to want next!?)

he'll probably want a straw.

Every page, we know that mouse is going to want something else, do something else... what is it, oh what is it!? What trouble, what mess might he make? That silly, demanding little mouse!

Tension tension tension. Make it worse... in these children's examples the worse is very lightweight and that's great, it still works... the mouse's mom doesn't need to be eaten by a cat, heh heh, but the principle is the same. Folks get worked up over nothing.
 

Heliotrope

Staff
Article Team
Ok, Ok... This will be my last post I promise :)

I really think the issue here is with terminology. I think that is where people are getting confused... So at risk of totally embarrassing myself, I will try to clarify as best I can:

Tension: Tension = tense. That feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you are nervous about something. Tension is created by posing questions to the reader that they need to have answered. They get that 'tense' feeling and they want it releived. Creating tension comes from posing that over arching question at the beginning of a scene or story:

"Will the boy and girl get together and live happily ever after?"
"Will the girl out smart her stepsisters?"
"Will they find the treasure and pay off their debts?"
"Will they defeat the alien invasion?"

These questions stick with the reader through the whole story. That tension in their gut stays until the story is complete. That is inherent tension. It is tension built right into the story itself.

Inner Conflict: Conflict = Choice. Preferably a catch 22. A choice that has no good options.

The girl is stuck in the Hunger Games with a boy who loves her. Only one will survive. We know she is the stronger. Will she kill him? Or will she let him kill her?

That is inner conflict. The choice. The catch 22. But it does not have to be violent!

The teenage girl is pregnant. She wants to keep her baby but knows she has no future. Will she give the child up for adoption, never to see it again? OR will she keep the baby she loves?

Inner conflict also poses questions to the reader, and lasts through the duration of the story. The inner conflict is what drives the character to move forward and make choices and suffer. Inner conflict is what adds gut wrenching emotional impact to a story.

Outer Conflict: Fights. Arguments. Obsticles. Stuff in the way. Bad things happening. Zombies.

Ok... so what I'm trying to explain with "make it worse" is NOT outer conflict. I'm not saying have more fights, or more battles, or more adrenaline. Please don't think that is what this is about.

Make it worse is about increasing the tension (The over arching question of the novel sitting in the reader's gut) and the Inner conflict, the other over arching question sitting in the reader's gut. If these questions are big enough, you can have no outer conflict at all and the reader will be engaged.

I will use two examples.

Elysium

Ok, so I chose a Sci-fi. The main character is trying to live a good life. He is trying to stay away from stealing cars (something he used to do). He has a decent (crappy) job. He gets hit with some radiation and needs medical help, but the only medical help is up on a fancy man made ship called Elysium, where all the richy's live.

Over arching question: Will he get the help he needs before he dies.

Inner Conflict: The writers ramped up the inner conflict in a few ways. First, they make him go back to his old crime boss (something he swore he would never do) to ask money to get to Elysium. He has to do a nasty job for the crime boss. Second, at the inner city hosptital he runs into a girl he used to love, and her daughter has cancer. Yep. Is he going to save himself? Or is he going to save the girl? Inner conflict.

The Notebook

So we can get away from adrenaline and violence for a minute.

Tension: Are the two love birds who are obviously meant for each other going to overcome their differences and get together?

Inner Conflict: The girl wants to please her parents, but she wants to be with the boy. She wants to love her new fiance, but she misses the boy....

So long as the reader is invested in the characters and the large over arching questions then you are golden. You don't need to have huge bloody war scenes to keep people interested.

So, how do you make readers invested in characters and over arching questions?

You make it worse. Lol.

Here is my last example of the night :) I promise.

Article A

Bob gripped the leather steering wheel. His heart throbbed. He wasn't sure what was more concerning: The fact that he had just seen a UFO hovering over Chicago, or the fact that if that were true, then the pot he had just puffed back at Slap Jack’s hadn't been as pure as was promised. Either way, alien’s or hallucinations, both would be preferable to what was waiting for him with Martin if he delivered bad weed.

“Shit,” he said, and let his eyes close. It was this god-damned job. He needed some rest. He needed to get off the road.

Veering off to the edge of the 94 Bob took a ciggarete from his back pocket. His mouth felt dry. He needed a Coke.

He opened his eyes when this smoke went out. Beyond his windshield Chicago exploded.


Ok, so in this opening scene we have a drug runner, all alone, hates his job, smoking. Then Chicago explodes (maybe from aliens). What does this guy have to lose? Not too much so far. He is a criminal. He doesn't care about anyone (yet). Does the reader care that Chicago exploded? Not so much. I mean, it sucks, but it is not enough yet. There is not enough story there.

How could I make this worse? How could I make this more compelling? How could I make him have more to lose? More at stake?

What if I gave him a family? What if I gave him a wife that he loved and a daughter?

Article 2

Bob gripped the leather steering wheel. His heart throbbed. He wasn't sure what was more concerning: The fact that he had just seen a UFO hovering over Chicago, or the fact that if that were true, then the pot he puffed back at Slap Jack’s hadn't been as pure as was promised. Either way, alien’s or hallucinations, both would be preferable to what he’d have waiting for him with Martin if he delivered bad weed.

“Shit,” he said, and let his eyes close. It was this god-damned job. He needed some rest. He needed to get off the road. How much longer are you going to do this, Bob? Julie’s voice reverberated through his head. She hadn’t been as angry as he would have liked. If she had been angry it would have been easier to walk away.

Veering off to the edge of the 94 Bob took his phone from his back pocket and pressed Julie on the screen. For a time he wondered if she would just let him hang. There was a click. Then,

“What?”

“Can I say good-night?” His mouth felt dry. He needed a Coke.

“Fine.” Silence. A voice.

“Hello, Daddy.”

“Hello, baby…” Bob opened his eyes when the phone went dead. Beyond his windshield Chicago exploded.


Ahhhhhh, now we are getting somewhere. Now Bob has something to care about. Something to fight for. Something to find when these aliens descend. Bob has something to live for and the reader has something to hold on to. Bob is not just going to fight aliens, he is going to make up with his wife, save his daughter, maybe straighten out his life. There is more to this story then just aliens.

The action is the same. The explosions are the same. The outter conflict is the same... and yet the story is deeper. More impact. Because I made it worse for Bob.
 
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Sheilawisz

Queen of Titania
Moderator
Heliotrope, you are giving way too much importance to the Tension of a story.

Having enough tension is of course very important, but there are other elements that are part of stories too. Some Fantasy stories are all about adventure while others are about tragedy, others can be a comedy and so on. Each story carries its own amount of challenges and tension, and that must be respected by the author of the story.

M.I.W. can be useful for helping with Tension, but it can also lead to the creation of too many divergences that may spin out of control and make the story much more complicated than it needed to be. This is why using M.I.W. as the primary force behind your Storytelling process is a dangerous advice, one that can ruin a good story before it even gets started.

You cannot expect that any story will get better simply by crying out M.I.W.! and make it more tense and all that.

You are presenting Tension and M.I.W. like it was a perfect formula for incredible Storytelling, but the most tense story of the world is not necessarily going to be a good story in case it lacks other elements.

There are really no ideal formulas in our craft, because Storytelling is a form of art and not a science. I know that maybe I sound like crazy to you with all my talk about stories as living creatures, characters acting on their own and the idea that instead of creating a story we are reporting about something that really happened, and take me as crazy if you want, but I just wanted to protect people from what I consider to be a dangerous advice.

Good luck with your writing and storytelling.
 
Hi Helio,

Catch 22 is not a war story. It is an anti-war book. It has only a minimal amount of tension in it, and it doesn't ramp up during the book's progression. Yossarian is in no more danger of immediate death and no greater fear of it at the end than he was at the beginning. Nor does his struggle change during it. He only wants out.

The book is an essay and a critique on war. It's a brilliant analysis of war as a machine. A feberian style bureaucracy that lets nobody out. And Yossarian's struggle ends when he realises that the machine is never going to let him go and it has no sanity as portrayed by the various generals etc behind it. No matter how many missions he flies he will always have to fly more. That is the catch 22. There is no out. Which means that his only solution is when he realises and accepts that he cannot beat the system so he must cheat it. And Yossarian himself is not so much a character as he is a representation of the little people caught up in the war machine.

The book would be very badly served by having the tension as you want to call it - though you seem to be broadening the definition - ramped up. It is meant to be what it is. A brilliant, poingnant to an extent, wickedly funny satire with a message about the war machine and the people's struggle within it.

Cheers, Greg.
 

Ray M.

Scribe
I'd think there's a fine line between "always making it worse" and just doing your best to write a realistic story. Martin himself has said that what can be found in ASOIAF "pales in comparison" to what can be found in a history book. His story feels natural, it's a story from life, events from which have likely happened in human history already. The storytelling principle to be learned here is that life in a cruel world like the medieval one can indeed make for a shocking and gut wrenching story. In a story where you inflict punishment upon punishment, you risk also throwing things in there which might not make sense, just for the sake of them being there. There's only a number of shitty things someone can go through in their lives, after that it becomes forced. I've read from writers who fall into the drama trap; their story sways away from reality because of all the drama they throw in there, it never ends and they keep throwing and it piles up. It becomes ugly after a while. Really ugly. For me, at least. So take care that you make it unfair for your characters, but not unfair for your story.

Now, if you feel like you have to go all the way with violence, in order to counterbalance the way your storytelling has been so far, then I'd say go for it (it has helped me in the past personally) - it might help you in the long run, if you learn to find the meaning in each violent act you commit as a writer.
 
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Drakevarg

Troubadour
Martin himself has said that what can be found in ASOIAF "pales in comparison" to what can be found in a history book. His story feels natural, it's a story from life, events from which have likely happened in human history already.

Except not even remotely, because ASOIAF is a never-ending parade of misery and death, and as horrible as things got throughout history it wasn't only that all the time. In Martin's world, everyone is a bastard and if you hand someone a sword they will immediately become a thieving rapist 99% of the time.

Yes, the real world can be worse. But the only reason we notice is because it usually isn't. It's precisely this reason that I was emphasizing the dangers of losing the audience with excessive grimness. If there's nothing in the forecast but relentless pain and disappointment, why bother continuing? Darkness finds meaning in contrast with light, otherwise you're just staring at pointless monotony.

Martin's failure as a writer is in that he is convinced that nobody will take his story seriously if characters can ever obtain any form of victory that doesn't immediately somehow turn around and leave them worse off than they were before. Which might have been engaging ramping of tension the first 17 times he does it, but after shocking failure number 51 it's hard to care anymore.
 
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Demesnedenoir

Myth Weaver
It's fascinating how people have different views of ASOIAF. Good fun.

Except not even remotely, because ASOIAF is a never-ending parade of misery and death, and as horrible as things got throughout history it wasn't only that all the time. In Martin's world, everyone is a bastard and if you hand someone a sword they will immediately become a thieving rapist 99% of the time.

Yes, the real world can be worse. But the only reason we notice is because it usually isn't. It's precisely this reason that I was emphasizing the dangers of losing the audience with excessive grimness. If there's nothing in the forecast but relentless pain and disappointment, why bother continuing? Darkness finds meaning in contrast with light, otherwise you're just staring at pointless monotony.

Martin's failure as a writer is in that he is convinced that nobody will take his story seriously if characters can ever obtain any form of victory that doesn't immediately somehow turn around and leave them worse off than they were before. Which might have been engaging ramping of tension the first 17 times he does it, but after shocking failure number 51 it's hard to care anymore.
 
It's fascinating how people have different views of ASOIAF. Good fun.


Many of the characters have had resounding success. Even Robb Stark and his mother experienced his many victories and election as King of the North before the Red Wedding happened. In fact, that's one of the reasons I was one of those readers who threw the book down, pacing my room in absolute fury, when they were killed; he had been my favorite character and had been following the common path of "Victim successfully following a course of extreme revenge."
 

T.Allen.Smith

Staff
Moderator
Yesterday, while listening to a Writing Excuses podcast about Try/Fail cycles, this post came to mind. The podcast was largely devoted to the concept of making it worse for your characters.

The example used was the opening sequence to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Indiana Jones finds the cave, but is covered in spiders. No big deal...moving deeper.

Indy finds the statue, but triggers the booby trap, a massive boulder, rolling toward him.

Indy's partner clears the pit, but double crosses Indy to steal the golden idol for himself.

Indy leaps across the pit, finds his partner killed by another trap, retrieves the idol, but it is stolen from him again by a rival backed by dozens of native warriors.

This opening sequence, and the movie as a whole, is one try/fail cycle after the next. It is a good example of "Making it worse" where it doesn't necessarily mean grim calamity pervading throughout the story.
 
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