How can it get any WORSE?

[Heliotrope]

"As more than one writer has said to me, "How many times can I put my guy through the ringer?"

During a story conference an author confided in me that she didn't know what more she could do with a character. "Has he ever killed someone?" I asked. He hadn't. I then posed the question. "What else has he never had to do, and how could it be what he fears most?"

Her answer was to promote the character from inspector in Special branch, the police departement assigned to cases of high political sensitivity, to commander. No longer responsible for just following orders, Pitt now has to decide in the first place which cases are to become active, knowing that the mere fact of openig an investigation itself ruins lives and reputations. In the twenty sixth book of the series Pitt not only faces this burden, but at the end, with knowledge of guit but in-sufficient evidence to prove it, faces a ruthless traitor alone with gun in hand. He must decide whether to shoot the man dead."

(21 C Fiction, Donald Maas).

Or, how about Butcher's great wizard Dresden:

Everything in me screamed no. That this was not fair. That I should not have to do this. That no one should ever have to do this.

But.... I had no choice.

I found myself picking Susan up with one hand. The little girl was curled into a ball with her eyes closed, and there was not time. I pushed he from the alter as gently as I could and let her fall to the floor, where she might be a little safer from the wild energies surging through the temple.

I put Susan down on the alter and said, "She'll be safe. I Promise."

She nodded at me, her body jerking and twisting in convulsions, forcing moans of pain from her lips. She looked terrified, but then she nodded.

I put my hand over her eyes.

I pressed my mouth to hers, swiftly, gently, tasting the blood, and her tears and mine.

I saw her lips form the word, "Maggie...."

And I....

I used the knife.
I saved a child.
I won a war.
God forgave me.

Make it worse means pushing our characters to the ultimate limit.

 

[FifthView]

@Helio:

It strikes me, with your examples and general gist, that "making it worse" doesn't necessarily mean giving the reader a feeling that a bad situation has just been magnified a thousand times, rinse & repeat. I mean, a conscious sense for the reader that things are piling up in sequential/chronological order for the characters. "Making it worse" can be a dictum used by the author in the pre-writing or editing phase.

So for instance:

I have a young character who's become an orphan in a city engulfed in civil war, with street-to-street fighting. (Science fiction, not fantasy.)

Yep. That's bad.

But wait, let's say that kid, aged 12, also has become infected with a semi-sentient parasite that gets a thrill whenever that kid's adrenalin rises. So this parasite sometimes influences this kid to kill another person for no reason or to take extremely risky actions like running fast atop the edge of a skyscraper, etc. The kid knows this is happening but often doesn't realize until after the fact that this is what has just happened. Terrifying!

Wow. That's worse.

But wait. That kid has twin younger sisters, aged 6, to take care of in the midst of this war-torn city. And food is scarce.

Whoa.

Now, write it.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Not precisely, Jordan couldn't keep my attention past 3 books, heh heh. I struggled through 3 as I recall. After 3 I no longer worried if 4 ever made it out. All successful epic fantasy writers are a Jordan waiting to happen, in some sense, because they tend to create expansive worlds that come to dominate their real lives. I don't see this happening with GRRM, although he may never truly escape the world he's created.

I recall once many many years ago at a bookstore specializing in SFF that I didn't like Jordan as a writer and the owner laughed and said something about that being because Jordan was taking too long to get out book #X(6 or 7 maybe?) and I just shuddered. I had no clue there were that many and people would actually keep reading his stuff, and I got the joy of looking the owner in the eye and saying, no, I just don't like his writing, and it was only desperation for any decent fantasy that got me through 3, heh heh.

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]

Yep. Now make it worse.

Some government officials have learned of this parasite, and would love to harvest it. Adrenaline junkie soldiers are a good thing. They are inticing people with the disorder to come them for testing and blood work, and offereing a pretty hefty reward if you turn yourself in...

But chances are you wont make it out alive, or they will recruit you.

Will he turn himself in to get the money to save his starving sister, at the risk of deserting her forever?

Or, this parasite laden blood is being harvested in the back allys and sold on the black market. Risking infection or death, but good pay out.

But yes, FV that is exactly what I'm saying. I'm not talking how much blood and gore and violence and damage you can accrue. I'm talking story. Make the story worse. But MOST importantly, make the choices worse. Make the choices so that there is no best option. Conflict really means having to choose.

"Conflicting feelings snare readers. They are a puzzle that demands a solution. A cognitive dissonance that is too loud to ignore. Conflicting feelings persist, escalate and cannot be easily resolved and can become inner conflict, which is one of the greatest ways to create fascinating and memorable characters.

The strongest inner conflicts plague characters with two choices that are mutially exclusive."

 

[Heliotrope]

For me, I like to brainstorm at least ten levels of worse before I start plotting.

 

[Chessie]

For me, I like to brainstorm at least ten levels of worse before I start plotting.

Can I hire you? LOL

 

[Miskatonic]

Not precisely, Jordan couldn't keep my attention past 3 books, heh heh. I struggled through 3 as I recall. After 3 I no longer worried if 4 ever made it out. All successful epic fantasy writers are a Jordan waiting to happen, in some sense, because they tend to create expansive worlds that come to dominate their real lives. I don't see this happening with GRRM, although he may never truly escape the world he's created.

I recall once many many years ago at a bookstore specializing in SFF that I didn't like Jordan as a writer and the owner laughed and said something about that being because Jordan was taking too long to get out book #X(6 or 7 maybe?) and I just shuddered. I had no clue there were that many and people would actually keep reading his stuff, and I got the joy of looking the owner in the eye and saying, no, I just don't like his writing, and it was only desperation for any decent fantasy that got me through 3, heh heh.

I mean he's going to die before he finishes the series.

 

[Russ]

I happened upon a book written by Donald Maass--Writing 21st Century Fiction: High Impact Techniques for Exceptional Storytelling.


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?

On a slightly tangential note, I thought I should mention that I think Donald is a great guy and is always trying to better understand writing and how to write and publish successfully based on the latest information.

His books are excellent, but lately he has been looking at a lot of scientific research and some of his ideas on writing have evolved lately. While I know he is covering this material in his paid seminars he spoke about a great deal of the core of it in a session at Thrillerfest last year. it is simply top notch material.

If you want to buy it the link is here:

THE THRILL IS GONE by Donald Maass

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Oh I know what you meant, but still don't think so. Not that he doesn't look like he could stand to lose a few pounds, heh heh.

I mean he's going to die before he finishes the series.

 

[Heliotrope]

@ Fifthview....

Oh man, and then when I'm brainstorming "make it worse" I always get hit with a theme. So I was just thinking "make it worse" and one idea was:

- One of his sisters is blind (possibly from gas from a riot?) and could undergo an eye transplant surgery, but he needs the money...

Theme: Monsters in the Dark.

Sometimes the scariest monsters are the ones we can't even see. The ones deep inside ourselves, eating away at us. Forcing us to do things we didn't think we would ever do. Monsters like fear, jelousy, shame.

Then the whole thing all ties together. The monsters inside him (his terrible feelings), the parasites, the mosters his little sister's face in the world around them. Hunger.... It all ties together...

 

[Sheilawisz]

I think that this whole Make it Worse thing is a very poor advice on Storytelling.

It's true that some stories are about dark settings in which characters suffer a lot and their lives are extremely complicated, but those elements do not necessarily result in the creation of a better story. My advice is to allow your story to be what it is, without making things worse for the world or for the characters just for the sake of following a trend.

I cannot criticize Martin's books because I have never read them, but I can tell you that the TV series based on them is a terrible influence on Fantasy and people are getting way too influenced by it...

Now so many people want to make their characters suffer as much as possible, and they create gritty worlds full of violence, gore and sex because they want to be like Game of Thrones. I think that some stories are indeed meant to be dark and gory, but if you abuse of these elements maybe the result is not going to be as good as you think.

A setting or story coated in the darkest grit and suffering is just as bad as a story coated in honey and perfect happiness for all the characters.

My own characters do suffer terrible things sometimes, but only as much as is needed in the story. I am not going to make it worse for any of them just for the sake of making things worse, that's a very stupid thing to do in Storytelling. We need to tell the stories as they are, as they happened, instead of forcibly changing them just like that.

For those of you who think that the GoT style is better or more realistic, think about this:

What is it like in real life? It's true that in reality the good people do not always win, do not always get what they want, but it's also true that many times good people do have great achievements, happy lives and happy endings. The bad guys get away with their stuff sometimes, but many other times things go terribly wrong for them.

Real life is a combination of good and bad things happening to everyone.

In the other hand, Game of Thrones presents a very unrealistic world in which good people never win anything. There are no heroes, no great moments of sweet victory, no happy endings for anybody. The likeable characters get killed over and over again in a world in which nobody is safe and nothing really matters, which is a very nihilistic and cynical approach to life.

Like I said I cannot speak about the books, but I suspect that most of the success of the TV series is based on the very large amount of almost graphical sex, unnecessary violence, crazy gore and countless scenes of naked women always featuring perfect and beautiful breasts.

That is how HBO has attracted a very large audience of people that would otherwise not be interested in Fantasy.

Fortunately all this trend that Game of Thrones has started will eventually pass, and people will realize that the best Storytelling comes when you are true to your stories instead of just making it worse.

 

[FifthView]

@ Fifthview....

Oh man, and then when I'm brainstorming "make it worse" I always get hit with a theme. So I was just thinking "make it worse" and one idea was:

- One of his sisters is blind and could undergo an eye transplant surgery, but he needs the money...

Theme: Monsters in the Dark.

Sometimes the scariest monsters are the ones we can't even see. The ones deep inside ourselves, eating away at us. Forcing us to do things we didn't think we would ever do. Monsters like fear, jelousy, shame.

Then the whole thing all ties together. The monsters inside him (his terrible feelings), the parasites, the mosters his little sister's face in the world around them. Hunger.... It all ties together...

I'm leery of tying things together too neatly. So government seeking those parasite-infected individuals to make semi-mindless soldiers: nope. Selling that parasite-infected blood: nope. Compounding the hunger with now blindness to be cured: nope.

I'm thinking: There would be other street gangs, young and mixed aged. Many types of people struggling to survive, many taking advantage of the lack of order. There would be the threat of rape, for him and his sisters. In fact, the ultimate plot would probably be one of the sisters being kidnapped and he'd have to go after her, dragging her twin sister along (which compounds the problem of protecting her.) His ONE goal, the only thing that ultimately matters is protecting his sisters. But problematically, his religion would be a peace-centered religion, something like Christianity probably (but not Christianity), that his parents had. So he'd face the conflict of what he'd have to do to save his sisters, whether hold/follow his parents' model, which is important to him; or, kill and kill again. (The imperatives his parasite would give would also conflict with this, not to mention conflicting with keeping his sisters safe.) His would be a tragic story, but I think that his sisters' story would end happy. The price he'd pay.

 

[Heliotrope]

Sheila, I have to disagree. The same concept works even if you are writing a teenage babysitter story.

Girl is on summer holiday and needs to get money to buy a car.

Make it worse.

The only job available is a babysitting job. She is not really good with kids.

Make it worse.

The people who hire her are snobby, stuck-up and want nothing to do with their child and she is worked round the clock.

Make it worse.

There is a boy she likes, and he asks her out, but she has to work.

Make it worse.

The boy is from the same social circle as the stuck up pair, and the girl lied to him when they first met and told him she was their neice, staying with them for the summer... not just the babysitter...

Etc.

It works for any story type.

 

[Sheilawisz]

That is simply making things more complicated, not necessarily worse.

If you feel that your original idea for a story is too simple and not exciting enough, then yeah: You can add more layers of complexity to challenge the characters a little more, but many other times the best stories are the simpler ones and making things unnecessarily complex is not going to result in anything better.

Something else that often happens is that a story can begin simple and easy to follow, but it starts to develop on its own and becomes a more complex creature if you just allow it to do what it wants.

Again, I can assure you that making it worse just for the sake of it is a very stupid advice in Storytelling.

 

[Heliotrope]

@Fifthview: Sounds great. I love wrapping my stories up in tight little bows

@Sheila: Really? Stupid advice? You can absolutely assure me this? After I have heard the same advice by many agents, writers and publishers?

 

[Sheilawisz]

Indeed, I remain firm in my belief that you should not follow that advice.

I am not sure what Agents and Publishers are looking for these days, and I accept that I know nothing of the best publishing and marketing strategies. I am speaking against that advice from a purely artistic point of view, because Storytelling is a form of Art and the best stories result when you stay loyal to the story in question.

Also, my advice comes from my personal experience in Storytelling after having finished many stories myself.

During my experience with Joan of England, Winter Hollow, Whispers of the Witch and even parody stories like Halley Wolffer, I encountered many moments in which I could have made things much more complicated or worse than they were. However, adding those new elements would have altered the real story and most likely would have taken me to a block.

We have to let our stories be what they are, and starting with a simple concept and easy plot is alright because it can all become more complicated and more challenging later as the story develops.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I have to disagree with Sheila, too. Not entirely, but in many ways. The success of GoT isn't based on boobs and gore, and although GoT is only one way of working the "make it worse" premise, it's pretty much a must for storytelling in one form or another. Yes, you must do what the story needs, but much of the time, what a story needs is tension and that tends to mean bad things, whateevr it might be that fits the story.

Now making it worse for the sake of storytelling being stupid? This depends on how you define what you're saying. Obviously one can go overboard, if in the movie Armageddon if suddenly aliens attacked Bruce Willis to try and keep him from detonating the nuke! Yeah, that's overboard. But in general, whatever the tension is in a story, emotional, physical, whatever, for the sake of the story, it is best to draw out as many hurdles/bad things happening as plausible. Whether that's Steve Buscemi going nuts, or a fourth person entering a love triangle in some other story, or a giant marshmallow man in Ghostbusters... obstacles/bad things, must arise.

 

[Chessie]

Again, I can assure you that making it worse just for the sake of it is a very stupid advice in Storytelling.

I like to think of it as the try/fail cycles engrained into the 7 point plot structure. The 'making it worse' part comes from the character trying to solve a problem that's important to him/her. The problem is tied into a story goal, and the try/fail cycles are also prompted from the character's personality weakness.

I completely agree with you, Sheila, in that making it worse for the sake of it isn't storytelling. Character leads in this regard (which is one of the main reasons I personally don't outline). Storytelling is leading character through change, and the plot points and try/fail cycles trigger growth and change within the character.

However, this is what I understand others saying here, too. I think we just write it out differently. (and now, back to my writing)

 

[FifthView]

I don't know. Think of the many ways a court trial can go bad for either side. Add to that personal problems, like maybe an elderly parent having a stroke, requiring the MC to focus on that as well as leading the prosecution or defense in the trial. Life is not simple, nor is it perfectly smooth sailing, in my experience. Even the happiest people in the world will probably have relatives or friends who are not happy, or will notice that other parts of the world are filled with tragedy and may feel compelled to do something about what they see.

 

[Chessie]

I'll add though that I believe the extreme happenings in Westeros is what draws fans in. We have a friend who will put her life on the fact that GOT is scifi. She doesn't read fiction. In fact, MOST of the people we know that are fans of the show have never even cracked open one of the books. I read the first one and didn't like it. Not for me. But Martin is a really good storyteller and if the show is similar to the books, I can understand why people get hooked.

Story is what's kept me watching The Walking Dead for every running season. And there's plenty of gore in it.