How can it get any WORSE?

[Caged Maiden]

Good morning, Scribes.

Most of you know I'm going through some personal things right now, some time of self-reflecting, of deciding what my own truth is and admitting it aloud, if only to myself. And there are three things really helping me along in this time of great upheaval.

One, my friends. Folks I met here and have formed intimate friendships and partnerships with. Thank you so much. You really push me to be better. I need you to make me uncomfortable, because i seem to be unable to do it to myself.

Two, I began watching Game of Thrones when I saw it at the library, and though I didn't make it past chapter 8 of the first book, I thought why not give the TV series a try, since I couldn't commit to the actual reading.

Three, while at the library to pick up more seasons of my movie and fill my bag with kid books for a kindergartener who voraciously reads anything with a Disney princess on the cover, I happened upon a book written by Donald Maass--Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling.

And together, these three ingredients have become something of an emotional experience for me right now, and I just wanted to share it with you. (But I will spoil some things in GOT, so stop reading if that'll offend you).

First, Donald Maass is not who I thought he was. When I first submitted to him (as sort of a crap shoot, I have to admit) back in 2010, I pictured him as some crusty old man, sitting at a dark wooden desk from a bygone era, piled high with paper manuscripts. But that isn't who he is at all, I've come to realize. He's current, excited about his job, and his hobbies apparently include boat-rocking. He reaches out to writers, begging for something that will thrill him. And his book feels much less an instruction manual for how to "write right" and more a plea to all writers to wow readers by pushing themselves further than they ever knew possible. He asks us to be brave.

The one thing he asks over and over, is for us to "make it worse" and I've struggled with this concept for a few years now, never quite understanding HOW to actually make situations for my characters worse. How far to push it. When to up the ante. Why should things even GET worse?

Last night I was watching season 4, and it really hit me. It hit me like someone exploded MY skull in a tournament I thought was won...how WE the writers can truly MAKE IT WORSE!

I was sort of pissed when Robb Stark and his family were murdered at supper. I liked them and wanted to see them win. But that didn't happen. And as I picked my spirit up off that bloody floor in Frey's dining hall (sorry, I'll probably misspell all the names, because I didn't read the books, so please bear with me), I looked toward the future. I rationalized that if Arya had been returned to her family, her story would have ended. And I suspect she's going to be an assassin, and I really wanted to see that happen. And I like the Hound, so I wanted that story line to continue, and I realized that if everything went smoothly, I wouldn't ever see that eventuality. So I got over the massacre and put my hope into one little girl I wanted to see succeed, though her future probably isn't one I'd wish for my own daughter under the circumstance.

But last night, when the foreign prince met with Tyrion in his prison cell, offering to be his champion for the trial by combat, I felt my hope soar. Because let's be serious, we're all rooting for Tyrion, right? But as you all probably know, that didn't happen either. And it was such a spectacular failure, I burst out laughing, and I think my husband thought I lost my mind as that prince's head got caved in and Tyrion was sentenced to death. But to me, it was a victory! I had finally SEEN a situation that I thought was resolved, a happy ending that I wanted so badly, get MADE WORSE. I imagined that Mr. Maass would have reveled in how WORSE it got!

And until that moment, I had no concept of how a writer could take their story, where they're holding hope and success just out of reach for their characters, and simply "make it worse" without totally wrecking their story. I wanted Tyrion to go free, absolved of the crime I knew he didn't commit. I wanted the prince to get his revenge. I wanted the Lannisters to be taken down a peg. I wanted the stupid boy king to rot in hell and only wished the poison had taken months to kill him, and I wanted to see his mother weep when her imp brother walked free. But I got none of what I wanted. And now I can't WAIT to see what happens in the two episodes I'll watch tonight.

And that is what Mr. Maass has been whispering in my ear for days, weeks, months, YEARS. Make the whole damn situation worse. Don't give the character a moment of happiness. Don't let them get comfortable. Don't let their plans go accordingly. Don't let them win their freedom. Don't let them have their victory. Don't let them find their salvation, or family, or their home.

Burn their home, kill their family, torture their friends, cut them off from everything they know and care about. Make them survive against the odds (and it looks like the odds are particularly low in that book).

Make it worse. And then when that tragedy passes, make it worse again!

I don't have a question today. I might not even have a conversation, because it appears I'm just musing to myself again. But, I wanted to share this really moving experience with you all, my friends, because I finally understand what people have been talking about. I finally understand that I've never made things worse for my characters. I've followed a logical path, I've thrown obstacles at them, I've dealt out pain with an unkind slap, but I've never crushed a prince's skull and doomed an imp to die unjustly. I've never come close to the kind of MAKING IT WORSE that makes for impactful story-telling. And I'm done playing nice. I'm over my need to tell happy and cute tales with a hint of grit clinging to the hems of beautiful characters' dresses. It's time for the gloves to come off and this fight to get dirty. And while I'm not writing a story that I can turn into a wedding feast slaughter, I can certainly shame my character more, punish her more inside herself, and generally wear down her hope in a new and interesting way.

Whereas in GOT, WORSE usually involves blood and death, there are an infinite number of ways to simply make social situations worse, insert some more raw human emotion into a situation. And with this very vivid mental picture of a chance for salvation gone awry, I will forge onward toward what I hope will be a riveting story, that just keeps getting worse and worse.

I'm going to be brave. And I charge you, scribes, to join me, if you have the stomach for it. Find a way to make that situation worse, today. Find a way to strip your character bare and parade her through the streets in all her shame. Try to break her. And let your reader wonder whether you're some sort of sadistic beast unfit to belong in nature for your very inability to experience sympathy. Because that's something that develops a reader's sympathy and keeps them turning pages.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It's an old drum that gets beat all the time, but for good reason. Even when you believe the mantra, you need reminded of it sometimes. Whenever there seems to be hope, bash it on the rocks... just like my stock holdings, heh heh.

Almost through my first draft, just a few thousand words to go, and one of the big things to check story wise is to make sure to have enough bad things happen... hope and collapse, hope and collapse. It's what makes a final victory satisfying, and makes a tragic ending all the more tragic.

In that train of thought... yesterday my MC made it home with half his family already dead, to a small island where refugees are flooding the town and castle, with demons overrunning the main island with no visible hope to defeat this enemy, when a man who the MC was thinking of as an ally assassinate's the MC's father, almost kills the eldest brother, and kills himself before he can be punished... It wasn't a very good day. And for the reader, it should be all the more interesting, as the assassin is a part time POV character who opens the book.

 

[Peat]

At the risk* of being a grumpy contrarian, constantly making it worse is exactly why I put down G.R.R. Martin, despite my immense affection for a lot of what he does. Ditto Robin Hobb.

Still, plenty didn't, so no need to pay attention to me Martin is very good at finding a way for his characters to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory though.

*Ok, certainty.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Ah yes, like I said, I'm not sure I can write his brand of fantasy, but it was certainly an experience, whether I subscribe to his thinking or not. I realized I play it too safe. I don't go far enough. I can't ruin my stories by killing everyone, but I can certainly push the envelope, like I said, parading my character in shameful glory through the metaphorical streets of her story.

GRRM isn't probably the perfect example of how everyone should design stories (because some readers simply respond to cute stories that have happy endings), but for me, I simply couldn't see a way to make things worse, and this was a very awakening moment in my quest for better story-telling.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

It can go too far for some people, but that is because of the extremity of bad things happening, I think. In general, rise and fall and obstacles are the heartbeat of story. They just don't have to be mutilation and death, LOL.

At the risk* of being a grumpy contrarian, constantly making it worse is exactly why I put down G.R.R. Martin, despite my immense affection for a lot of what he does. Ditto Robin Hobb.

Still, plenty didn't, so no need to pay attention to me Martin is very good at finding a way for his characters to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory though.

*Ok, certainty.

 

[Reilith]

This is a good wake up call. I've grown a lot as a writer after reading gritty fiction - not always everything ends happily, and that's okay. In comparison, a lot of readers are going to have a negative reaction to it - the personal satisfaction they get after the MC success in the grand plan is what they are looking for. In really good fiction - like really really good, it is never so. You might get saved, but heck, your family is dead. You might win the girl, but then she is raped and gets pregnant with the assailant's child. It is not simple shock value, it is the drama (some would argue those are the same), the emotion behind it, the growth of characters, the beauty in the ugly and all those horrifying scenes that keep you up at night. I value that sort of writing , I aim for it and I love reading it, even though it leaves me in shreds. Robin Hobb, Mercedes Lackey (although her writing is full of melodrama and looong descriptions), Joe Abercrombie, Brandon Sanderson and a few more that have that quality are what makes my reading exhilarating and make me aim for the stars reflected in the endless lake of suffering. Some can do it perfectly, while the execution with others is lost in bad plots, shock value (still not the same!) and bad bad writing.
I am very happy for you, that you've realized this hidden gem of writing. It can only get better for you now (and much worse for your characters ).
As a side note, I wouldn't base it all on GRRM, cause he's not the only one doing it. At the first glance I was sure he was doing it only to shock us - now I know he is not, but it's still too tedious for me to read. Check out those other writers if you haven't already, and enjoy the suffering complex worlds and characters give us in their grief.

 

[Peat]

It's not all about the extremity of it either. Yes, sometimes I feel uncomfortable about really bad things happening, but that's pretty rare. I've yet to see the author who can (or rather, will) gutpunch as hard as some historical and autobiographical accounts.

The main word I'd use is boredom. If things always get worse, then it stops being a surprise. If a character can only express varieties of pain, they stop interesting. Characters constantly getting removed, that can get boring too.

I completely agree that obstacles are the heartbeat of story. But to me, Rise and Fall, and Always Make It Worse, aren't the same things. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what people are meaning by Always Make It Worse.

In any case, I'm glad Caged Maiden made a breakthrough on the proper mistreatment of characters .

 

[Ben]

Robin Hobb? I only read her first book and my complaint was not the violence (very little that I remember) but the glacial pace, and the on-the-nose character names. To the subsequent books get GRRM-level bloody? That might actually make me give her another chance.

 

[Reilith]

Robin Hobb? I only read her first book and my complaint was not the violence (very little that I remember) but the glacial pace, and the on-the-nose character names. To the subsequent books get GRRM-level bloody? That might actually make me give her another chance.

Not bloody per se - but really heart wrenching. I might be biased, she is my favourte author, but do give her a chance. The story is captivating, characters are thought though, and especially the Liveship Traders trilogy that comes after Farseer trilogy is fantastic. A change of pace, multiple POVs, a really great bad guy (whose thought process we get to see and understand!) and very important questions raised. I adore her writing. It is not GRRM style, but the suffering is palpable constantly, and even good things may turn out not to be good at all.

 

[FifthView]

Robin Hobb? I only read her first book and my complaint was not the violence (very little that I remember) but the glacial pace, and the on-the-nose character names. To the subsequent books get GRRM-level bloody? That might actually make me give her another chance.

I've read all her Farseer books. Blood and violence happen, as with most fantasy novels, but I don't particularly remember things getting worse in the GRRM sense.

I love the Farseer books, but one complaint I have is particularly bad in the latest series: MC POV character is mopey, self-doubting, self-castigating, and all-around too darn whiney. So I don't particularly remember unusually extreme cases of "getting worse," despite the plot occasionally dipping that direction, but I might count the MC's attitude toward things as an example of getting worse and worse. At least, his own estimation of his life/situations seems to take a very negative route much of the time.

 

[Reilith]

I've read all her Farseer books. Blood and violence happen, as with most fantasy novels, but I don't particularly remember things getting worse in the GRRM sense.

I love the Farseer books, but one complaint I have is particularly bad in the latest series: MC POV character is mopey, self-doubting, self-castigating, and all-around too darn whiney. So I don't particularly remember unusually extreme cases of "getting worse," despite the plot occasionally dipping that direction, but I might count the MC's attitude toward things as an example of getting worse and worse. At least, his own estimation of his life/situations seems to take a very negative route much of the time.

He is a rather mopey character, that is probably the greatest flaw of the books.

But I disagree with you for the overall impression of not getting worse. It does get worse. He always seems to get it good, and then sh*t happens and he is messed up all over again. The world around him is changing for the worse most of the time, not even the "good" things are particularly that "good".

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Slightly off topic, what I think will be fascinating with GRRM is how the rise and fall actions will differ as HBO and GRRM follow parallel storylines. This will add to the tension when reading the final books in some ways, waiting to see who and what depart from the HBO series and which ones meet and all that.

In general, GRRM does a good job of rise and fall, but the falls are bigger than the rises... I'll call them a slinky going down the stairs, with a small hump up, and crash to the next step, heh heh. Slinky plotting! I like it. I'm officially coining that phrase, trademark it! LOL. I do think part of the problem is that obstacles/falls need to get bigger, and that can create a spiral of doom as the writer tries to one up themselves. New characters serve to relieve some of this pressure.

One of the big rises right now is actually Tyrion... all things considered he is in a much better place than not long ago, and yet, his challenges are formidable to say the least.

 

[Heliotrope]

For me, "Make it worse" means a lot of things. Bare wth me through this long post.

1) "Make it worse" is something I spend a lot of time brainstorming when planning my own scenes and stories. To take from the book CM is talking about from Donald Maahs:

The strongest inner conflicts plague characters with two desires taht are mutually exclusive. When believably built, inner conflict leads to unsettling actions. It tests, torments, and defines. It becomes utterly necessary. It becomes part of the plot....

The snappy heroin of Joshilyn Jackson's literary crime hybrid success "Gods in Alabama" has conflict poured into her foundation. As a graduate student in Chicago, Arlene Fleet has sworn to God (Big G this time) three things:

1) She will stop screwing every boy who crosses her path; 2) She will never again tell a lie, not even a small one; 3) She will never return to her family and hometown of Possett, Alabama. Arlene has good reasons for this. Before leaving Posset she had sex with fifty-two of the fifty-three boys in her sophmore class, in order of their sixteenth birthdays, and lived a whopping great lie. Fact is that ten years earlier Arlene murdered a boy, Jim Beverly, her high school's golden boy and football hero whose body was never found.

Having given Arlene good reason not to return to Possett, however, Jackson makes it imperative for her heroine to go back.

When I'm plannig a story or novel or scene, I brain storm all the ways it could be worse. All the ways I can infuse it with as much tension and conflict as absotutely possible.

So, for example, just because my current short is on my mind:

- Woman had a baby brother who was considered a demon by the community, blamed for a fire that killed a family, and he was taken away and destroyed.
- Her mother couldn't handle the shame and grief and commited suicide.
- Woman is now pregnant, and terrified her child will be like her brother was.
- Yep. She delivers a demon.

OK... so if I were making this a novel, how could I make her suffer? How could I make it worse?

- She has to go back to her home town where her mother died, and face all the same people who condemned her mother.

Make it worse.

- She has spent her whole life being a pious *B*tch* in an effort to avoid this happening. She has been critical and judgemental of everyone her whole life in an effort to keep herself safe, and now everyone is judging her.

Make it worse.

- She was the one who accidentally started the fire so many years ago, and blamed it on her brother, and now harbours that guilt.

Make it worse.

Her husband, and father of her child, is the only survivor of that fire she started so long ago...

Does that make sense? So for me, "Make it worse" is a brainstorming strategy for story planning.

However, it is also a brainstorming strategy for scene planning:


Whenever you have planned a scene or story, sit back and brain storm, how could this be worse?

Try to come up with ten answers, then stretch your brain and come up with ten more.

Example:

Two guys are having a sword fight, one guy loses his sword and now it is two guys with one sword.

How could this be worse?
- They are in the princesses room where there are literally no weapons except some perfume bottles and some lingerie.
- MC gets sprayed in the face by perfume and is partially blinded.
- He has to try to make a weapon out of the princess's lingerie… but it is cleaning day and there is nothing in the drawers.
- The only lingerie available is currently on the princess.
- The princess is his sister (or perhaps hideously obese or deformed) and last thing he wants to do is have her take her clothes off.
- The poor princess has to take her clothes off and now he is evading the swords man, swinging, blinded, from the rafters of her room (or the top of her canopy bed?) trying to craft a weapon from her delicates.
- the princess is actually not the princess at all, but an assassin disguised as the princess and taking his clothes off will reveal his identity.
- The assassin disguised as the princess trys to conceal himself with a sheet, knocks over a candle and lights the canopy bed on fire…

Etc.

Make it worse.

*maybe it isn't as assassin at all, but the king's footman, who likes to go to the princesses room and wear her underwear? And if he is caught then he would be executed? And the prince is too blinded from the perfume to notice?

 

[Heliotrope]

Make it worse can mean other things as well, such as combining characters:

So you have a story where James is cheating on Jennifer with a co-worker. You have four characters. James, Jennifer, The 'girlfriend' and Jennifer's best friend who she confides everything to. What if you combined the girlfriend with the confident? Made them one character? So now Jennifer is confiding to her best friend about her husband's affair, and the confident is actually the girlfriend? Now you have some serious tension.

 

[Heliotrope]

Instead of a sword fight on the ground, why not in a moving carriage? Or on top of a burning buidling? Or on a desolate beach with the tide coming in?

There are always ways to make things worse.

don't be afraid to stab your characters. Make them bleed. Poison them. Take away their weapons. Make things hard for them, even scene by scene and moment by moment. The horse they are using to run away has a nail in it's foot.

Make it worse.

Make things seem impossible, then get them out of it.

 

[FifthView]

The world around him is changing for the worse most of the time, not even the "good" things are particularly that "good".

In general, GRRM does a good job of rise and fall, but the falls are bigger than the rises... I'll call them a slinky going down the stairs, with a small hump up, and crash to the next step, heh heh. Slinky plotting! I like it. I'm officially coining that phrase, trademark it! LOL. I do think part of the problem is that obstacles/falls need to get bigger, and that can create a spiral of doom as the writer tries to one up themselves. New characters serve to relieve some of this pressure.

Obviously, there will be different ways to do it. I somewhat question:

• Whether a progressive but gently sloping downward path is as effective as more substantial rises followed by sudden sharp drops.
• Whether a progressive worsening is improved if the drops that do come are sudden and/or rather severe in comparison to a previous situation.

My problem with remembering significant "making it worse" moments in the Farseer books may be a matter of poor memory; it's been awhile since I read the first couple of trilogies. Also, almost all books that I can finish reading (i.e., not bad books) have incidents that make things worse, so what happens in the Farseer books (of what I can remember) doesn't really stand out to me. Plus, I wonder if the MC's general attitude and malaise dull the effect of "getting worse."

 

[Miskatonic]

At the risk* of being a grumpy contrarian, constantly making it worse is exactly why I put down G.R.R. Martin, despite my immense affection for a lot of what he does. Ditto Robin Hobb.

Still, plenty didn't, so no need to pay attention to me Martin is very good at finding a way for his characters to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory though.

*Ok, certainty.

When he actually writes something. He hasn't put out a book for ASOIAF in nearly six years. He's another Robert Jordan in the making.

 

[Heliotrope]

The biggest complaint agents have about new manuscripts is not enough tension. Not enough conflict.

And they don't mean "not enough explosions, fights, or car chases."

They mean that deep inherent tension that holds up an entire novel.

A man in hiding discovers that a detective is looking for him. When that detective turns up dead, the hiding man has to figure out who else is looking for him, and why. (The basic premise of Tripwire by Lee Child).

When a kid finds himself in a living maze with other boys and no memory of how he got there, he sets out to find a way out. Only to discover that he built the maze himself, and must find out why. (The premise of The Maze Runner).

When a girl volunteers to take her sister's place in a deadly contest, she must try to stay alive. But when a boy from her district confesses his love for her.. will she be able to kill him? (The Hunger Games).

Do you see how the tension is built right into the story with the inciting moment? There is enough tension (both internal and external) to hold up the whole story. This is what I think of when I think of "make it worse". Not enough manuscripts are going far enough to have enough inherent tension. Most manuscripts Agents get are only going half way.

A hidden man discovers someone is looking for him.

A boy finds himself in a maze and has to get out.

A girl has to fight to survive.

The inherent conflict is missing.

 

[FifthView]

There is enough tension (both internal and external) to hold up the whole story. This is what I think of when I think of "make it worse".

Now that I'm trying to remember the Farseer arc...I think the MC's personality and internal and external conflicts helped in creating that tension for me in the first two trilogies. He's a bastard brought into his father's household (albeit after his father is already dead) and there's tension internally because of this and externally because of the political situation. Other factors add to this over the course of the two series, including more external problems. But the third trilogy is problematic because so far, into the second book, there's only one major solid external threat and its corresponding internal tension which could be summarized as

Spoiler: Too Much Reveal

"I'm the worst father in the world!!!!!!!!!!!!"

In many ways, the third trilogy feels like a lot of later books in extended series: Somewhat fan service, and limp. Well, I've bought into the character so far, so I'm going to continue, despite the irritation I feel regarding his extreme mopey nature.

 

[Miskatonic]

The character Guts from the Berserk manga is the poster child for "Put him through hell and then some". I love the series but to me it's almost overboard. This series is far more extreme than ASOIAF or anything you see on GOT.