How can it get any WORSE?

[Heliotrope]

Dude, I'm struggling to understand why this bothers you so much?

First you said it was stupid and dangerous.

Now you are saying it is the simplest thing in the world and you have been doing it since you were ten.

Then you say that really what bugs you is that I seem to care so much (but based on the length of the thread I would say lots of people feel it's pretty important).

Caged Maiden and I found a useful tool. We learned, and we grew from the experience. We would like to share how many ways this tool can be used in case other people need a little boost. I get excited about things that helped me, and like to share them. I am passionate about writing and like to talk about it.

This is very concerning to you for some reason?

 

[Chessie]

LOL Can this thread get any worse? *tee hee* Sorry, stupidest joke ever. I'm going back to writing now...

 

[Svrtnsse]

Edit: useless post removed because useless. Carry on. Nothing to see here.

 

[Alva]

I'd say Dexter and Breaking Bad are great examples of increasing amount of difficult. Both series present complicated character relationships and hard decisions. I personally enjoy "the butterfly effect" of hardship or how (for instance) a single lie that concerns just one person leads to more lies and unpredictable consequences that - in the end - concern a whole bunch of people. The story keeps going and the characters are forced to face actual challenges and thus learn things about themselves or even recreate themselves.

It's also captivating to follow how the writers are able to first create enormous super-knots of trouble and then solve them somehow. Really fascinating!

(Needless to say deux-ex-machina-solutions tend to drive me crazy.)

- - -

A compulsory word on GoT:

I found the first season of GoT very engaging. And then it just flopped and the story got really boring really fast. I like the visuals and I truly appreciate some of the characters - but I don't find the story interesting anymore.

This really puzzles me since I'd normally be an instant advocate for making characters lives increasingly complicated and I have no problem with violence as long as the story mandates it.

I guess the big problem with GoT - as I see it - is that it's quite monochrome to me. Everything and everybody are doomed to fail and thus rooting for any project or character feels just pointless. The tension falls flat, intrigue disappears and the overall picture appears void and nihilistic. I don't even care which party will win the war. The world of the story seems so devoid of real life I have hard time regarding it as worth "saving for".

Plus, as most of the characters and their motivations are really quite simple to read and their personal/family history and the relationships between the different characters are already known, the plot "twists" don't actually feel like any twists at all. It becomes all very predictable.

...or well, the exact manner how each character is going to suffer in any given situation might be a "suprise" - if it's just the mutilations and increasing violence that's enough for a suspense. Or a story.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

GoT or ASOIAF? If I only watched the HBO series, I don't think I'd dig it so much... I'd watch it, but not love it. The books (not shockingly) are better, although I still have issues with GRRM's writing at times. For me, the fascinating thing for the boooks & series is how they complement each other. But of course, to each their own, nothing is for everybody... Dexter and Breaking Bad don't intrigue me in the least but lots of folks disagree. That's what makes life interesting.

I'd say Dexter and Breaking Bad are great examples of increasing amount of difficult. Both series present complicated character relationships and hard decisions. I personally enjoy "the butterfly effect" of hardship or how (for instance) a single lie that concerns just one person leads to more lies and unpredictable consequences that - in the end - concern a whole bunch of people. The story keeps going and the characters are forced to face actual challenges and thus learn things about themselves or even recreate themselves.

It's also captivating to follow how the writers are able to first create enormous super-knots of trouble and then solve them somehow. Really fascinating!

(Needless to say deux-ex-machina-solutions tend to drive me crazy.)

- - -

A compulsory word on GoT:

I found the first season of GoT very engaging. And then it just flopped and the story got really boring really fast. I like the visuals and I truly appreciate some of the characters - but I don't find the story interesting anymore.

This really puzzles me since I'd normally be an instant advocate for making characters lives increasingly complicated and I have no problem with violence as long as the story mandates it.

I guess the big problem with GoT - as I see it - is that it's quite monochrome to me. Everything and everybody are doomed to fail and thus rooting for any project or character feels just pointless. The tension falls flat, intrigue disappears and the overall picture appears void and nihilistic. I don't even care which party will win the war. The world of the story seems so devoid of real life I have hard time regarding it as worth "saving for".

Plus, as most of the characters and their motivations are really quite simple to read and their personal/family history and the relationships between the different characters are already known, the plot "twists" don't actually feel like any twists at all. It becomes all very predictable.

...or well, the exact manner how each character is going to suffer in any given situation might be a "suprise" - if it's just the mutilations and increasing violence that's enough for a suspense. Or a story.

 

[Caged Maiden]

@ Chesterama LOL!!!!!!



Yeah, I can't possibly distill anyone's anything down to a single sentence without fear of being bombarded with "I didn't say that"s but I agree, my original post clearly said that I couldn't write a story that had a wedding feast slaughter, and that I was taking the concept of "worsening" things and using them at critical points in my story where I want to make a big impact. And the rest of the time, I was using the questions Donald Maass suggests for coming to that "make it worse" mentality. Why is she going here? What would make it more immediate? Etc. And he sums it all up over and over, as "What would make this worse?" And he doesn't at all mean what would make it more crushing, more devastating, more brutal. He means what would make it matter more to the character and the reader, NOW.

See, that's what my stories were missing. I had things happening. Some very compelling things. But I had pacing problems, I had tension leaks. I had characters not fully realizing their potential to rock boats. And so the way I am looking at this rewrite now, is simply how can I make their situation worse/ matter to them more/ have more at stake. That might be something some writers do automatically as they write or plan. I am an exploratory writer, so I plan a little, then I pants a story, then I rewrite the story now that I know its secrets and what the ending is and how it all fits together. But the thing is, that first draft is pretty devoid of all the strong technical elements i'm capable of writing at this point in my life. Especially when I'm rewriting something I wrote in 2008. So now, "making it worse' is a perfect strategy for me.

How can I get a little more oomph out of that dialogue?

Make it worse by having someone guess her motivation and call her out on it.

How can I get the MC to decide to finally break away from her crime boss?

Make it worse by having her young ward too interested in the party and the booze and the men. She simply CAN'T stay and watch the girl's life ruined as hers was.

How can I make the eventual love interest important from the beginning?

Make it worse. He's charging her too much for a job, and he keeps looking at her weirdly. And he seems awful chummy with some of the wrong people. So now she's suspicious of him, rather than just disliking him out of hand.


I had to make things worse that were there but not good enough in the first draft. And I'm not the only writer this sort of strategy applies to. I could have kept all my original inspirations. Changed nothing. Stayed true to myself and my vision. But the thing is, it wasn't exciting. It didn't feel compelling to any readers. So...it wasn't working. And so far, margin it worse has been a step in the right direction. I now have reader engagement because the stakes are present, higher, and more immediate. And that didn't come by compromising my inspiration at all. If anything, Helio (in our many conversations abut this) has totally opened my eyes to the fact that my natural inclination to start slow is in fact detrimental to the story, because to readers, my non-action set-up scenes before the action begins is as dull to them as long paragraphs of description about the town or weather are to me when I begin a book. If I see that, I just put it down. I can't stand it, and it is the wrong kind of first impression to use to engage me. So, what I had to realize is that by making little tiny things worse at the onset of this rewrite, I overcame that original weakness of my exploratory writing methodology. Sure, I'm better at beginning things now, but i'm not enough better...

But later in this story, I'm going to make some big things worse. I have a scene where the lovers are already involved in a tense relationship, but are able to put their differences aside. For a time. Then, they find out they're related, and that scene came across rather calm. Sad. But only sad, with a little bit of shame and grief. Now, I'm going to make it worse. Rather than have a single reaction, I'm going to have a multi-level reaction, of both characters coming to grips with the fact on their own, and then a discussion that isn't my original calm vision.

Sure, it's just one thing, one little scene, but it's a turning point for the characters. A choice. Originally, all they had to decide was whether they cared that they were distant relatives or not. Now, I need to find a way to make the choice multi-level, too. It's at the midpoint, so I have a long way to go before then, but i'm thinking about it now, letting it stew in my mind while I work on the beginning. And I'll ask myself the Donald Maass questions when I tackle that scene, or slightly before. Why does this matter? What would make it worse? Why would that matter? Who stands to lose the most? What would that person never do? Make them do it.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Hi Heliotrope.

I do not quite understand what you are presenting, because the definition of this advice has been changing as the thread has grown. At first, I understood it as "Character must suffer, you need more impact!" especially because it was connected to the talk about Game of Thrones and I thought that it was part of the gritty trend.

That's when I said my first line in this thread: I think that this whole Make it Worse thing is a very poor advice on Storytelling., because I took it to mean that the advice was about making characters suffer and create as much tension as possible, as you said yourself at post 13.

You also explained how it was great to stab our characters and make them bleed, take away their weapons, make things hard for them scene by scene and moment by moment. Put a nail in their horse's foot and in general get the characters in a seemingly impossible situation, so we can rescue them later.

Do you see how this advice could get new and inexperienced writers in trouble? How they could write themselves into a mess and possibly ruining their stories with too much suffering and difficulty?

Then you continued to speak about having more tension, more conflict, you said: Make it worse means pushing our characters to the ultimate limit. Again, I think this advice could get inexperienced narrators in trouble. As the advice was described at this point, it had all the potential to overwhelm new writers.

Later you said that tension is not violence, which goes against your previous statements about literally torturing our characters scene by scene and stab them, and making them bleed, and torturing the horse too. A few posts after that, it comes a moment when you were embarrassed of having been so carried away and said sorry.

You also added a comment suggesting that those who did not understand the concept (me included?) were like your students in class and you felt like explaining the lesson four hundred times. That felt quite derisive from my point of view, so I started to get a little angry at you, I admit it.

After that you started to slowly soften the concept, and when Chesterama said that you were throwing way too much information at us you again said that you were sorry and felt terrible. Please accept my apology you said, and I was thinking something like okay, she just got carried away.

Then it all just continued and continued, and the definition of the advice grew broader and broader and more complicated until apparently it means that any great thing in Fantasy Storytelling can be connected to M.I.W. in one way or another, or else it can be improved by the advice.

Later you posted Yeah, I'm really thinking most of us are arguing semantics, with some strange over exaggeration and extreme thinking thrown in for flavor... I think it is the "make it worse" phrase that is throwing people for a loop. When it was you who started all the exaggeration and loop to begin with.

In the most recent posts the advice has grown so much that it means any challenge or complication that our characters encounter, big or small (from living in a cupboard under the stairs, to fighting a powerful dark wizard) are all examples of M.I.W. and how wonderful it is for everything, either we do it on purpose or not.

So, what began like an advice to torture characters (and their horses!) as much as possible evolved to meaning simply any difficulty or harsh situation that the characters encounter.

Do you see now why I am so upset at this whole thing? You are making me go mad. Also, I tend to get upset when people think that Storytelling is something that can be figured out so easily.

Listen, if you are so happy with this and so sure of how valuable it is, I do not wish to spoil the fun and the incredible excitement that you are going through at the moment. Anyway, you asked why I was so upset and I have explained it.

 

[Heliotrope]

Sheila, my statements have not changed from my initial post.

My initial post reads: For me, "Make it worse" means a lot of things.

When I'm planning 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 absolutely possible.

The examples I gave, in my very first initial post were ALL complicating scenarios. NONE of them had to do with violence or making things more graphic.

I then went on to say: However, it is also a brainstorming strategy for scene planning:

Later I added: Make it worse can mean other things as well, such as combining characters.

And yes, Then I gave other examples of smaller challenges that could occur.

I also added this:

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.

Yes, I did say “Make it worse means pushing our characters to the ultimate limit.”... but both examples I gave were emotional limits.

I then went on to describe how MIW referred to inner conflict, not merely blood and violence:

"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.

I then went on to explain that I was NOT referring to blood and guts and violence at all... again...

Make it worse forces you to dig deep. That's why I force myself to think of ten things, then ten more. Forcing myself to do that up front makes me really mine the the potential of the story idea so instead of something generic I end up with something really new, full of themes, conflict, choices, etc.

As part of that, I went into how something as simple as raising stakes could be considered “make it worse”.

So as I mentioned before, Maah's notes that the #1 reason they reject manuscripts is because of lack of tension. This does not mean too low of body count. They mean the stakes are just not high enough (or the stakes are just death... which is boring. Find something worse than death). There is not enough going in the world to compell the reader. There is not enough going on in the heart and mind of the character to compell the reader. It may be lots of episodic action, but it is shallow.

Etc, Etc, Etc.

I have never, once changed my argument. From the very beginning I stated that MIW means many things, and tried, over the course of this very long thread, to explain the vast array of ways that it could be used. I also, repeatedly explained that MIW was NOT about simple blood or violence.

I apologized because I felt bad for confusing anyone or offending anyone, especially Chesterama or FifthView, both of whom I respect.

EDIT: However, with that said, there is a vast range of writers on this forum. I honestly could care less about 'confusing' new writers. I came to this forum to have discussions with other writers about writing. Some of those discussions may be more advanced. If new writers want to have a peek, good for them. They WILL get something out of it. I agree with CM that I have never, ever seen a new writer go too far. Ever. Usually they don't go far enough.

I have never once suggested that this strategy will create easy story telling. If anything I have shown that this makes story telling more difficult because you must dig deeper. You must go further. You must look not at just episodes, but at the inner conflict of the character himself.

I have never once said that this was a formula, or a method for plotters. Every example I gave could be used by any author regardless of their style. I have never once (until the very end) engaged in the GRRM debate. I tried as best I could to use examples from non-violent fiction to show how this tool trancends genre.

The advice I have given has not grown or changed in any form since my initial post. If you are upset, I’m sorry, though I can’t begin to understand why you would care about a discussion about a tool you seem so vehemently opposed to using.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Yeah, well apparently it means too many things and you have confused the hell out of me.

I am sorry for having been so harsh against you. I am upset and quite annoyed at you at the moment, but I know that it will pass very soon and I hope that there will be no harsh feelings between us.

Hugs, and have a good night.

 

[Steerpike]

Problem is, people don't often distinguish types of stories and purposes of writing when it comes to these topics. Yes, if you want to have a commercial best-seller, 'make it worse' tends to be good advice. That creates a page-turner. People have to know what happens next. They have to see how the characters resolve the ever-increasing threat/obstacles the author has put in front of them. A large portion of successful commercial fiction on the shelves right now follows this. Fantasy, but not just fantasy. Pick up thrillers, SF, westerns, etc. Very many of them go this route. It works.

On the other hand, if you're writing artistic or literary fiction, there is no reason to think this is a necessary or even desirable approach. Proust, Woolf, Conrad, Melville, Dostoevsky, Joyce etc., they're not following this in the modern sense of the advice. Sure, they're increasing conflict to a climax (OK, maybe not Proust and Woolf), but they're not employing a stepwise ratcheting of the stakes. In those works, the stakes might be understated, the conflict hidden beneath a veneer or ordinariness, and the resolution a simple but irrevocable transformation in the character's psyche.

So you have to know what kind of work you're writing. If you're going for popular, commercial fiction, the advice seems to work. Still doesn't mean you have to follow it, but the marketplace has proven it to be an effective tool. If you're writing primarily for artistic and/or literary purposes, then you certainly might have good reason to avoid this strategy. It might not work for what you are attempting.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Thank you for that excellent post, Steerpike.

I completely agree with you in the statement that the super tense, constant page-turner style of story and narrative is the one that is best for marketing and best-selling purposes. That is, I think, what the agents and publishers want these days: A book that readers can barely put down to rest even for a few minutes.

In that case the advice to make a story as tense as possible is great, but still it's not even nearly as easy to do as it has been presented here.

I have been so agitated by this discussion because yeah, I come from a completely different world than most people that have been involved in the thread. I tell stories for artistic and entertainment purposes only, no marketing in mind, and from my point of view making the characters suffer as much as possible is a very bad advice.

The thread has been like a collision between two worlds. Your words are all that I wanted to hear, and they bring a great happiness to me.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Sheila, I respect artistry as well as page-turning drama. I don't see why it must be one way or another. I am growing tired of your statement that you continue to see "make it worse" as an over-simplified concept of "making your character suffer as much as possible". In every example I gave of this experience I'm undergoing and the way I'm personally applying "make it worse" to my own work, I'm not at all making my characters suffer as much as possible. Far from it. I'm taking elements that I feel are weak-ish and making them matter more. I'm making it worse by not just having a character muse about her young ward who is exposed to debauchery, but SEE the girl at the party getting involved in the debauchery. It perhaps is graphic for a paragraph, if it could be called graphic even, but it isn't complicated, it isn't suffering, it isn't even shocking. It's just a slight worsening so that rather than simply say, "she wants to leave so the girl is safe" I SHOW a little snippet of what the threat looks like. I even gave a perfectly valid explanation of this process when I mentioned Cedrick and his journey to defeat some undead creatures. How I could show a scene three different ways, each progressively "worse" (read: more immediate, dramatic, and compelling).

When I spoke of making my character suffer during certain scenes (not throughout, as you continue to interpret we're all advocating), I spelled out exactly what I meant. I mean that where my character feels guilt, I'm going to blow that guilt up a little by adding an extra layer of guilt. I'm going to make it more personal. More specific, rather than more general, less specific, and less personal. THAT is the whole message Donald Maass is trying to get across. When your MC is left standing at the altar (not a violent scene, but certainly something that has an emotional impact), consider how it can be made worse. Her family are all there, sure, but what if her best friend had warned her in the previous chapter that her fiancé was a dick and he wasn't serious about her? Oh, and what if that friend had once dated the fiancé? That could be worse (and maybe it didn't occur to me when i first designed the scene). Especially if they had been carrying on a relationship behind the bride's back for a while, early in their relationship. That certainly makes the situation worse for the bride left at the altar. It gives readers an extra reason to care. It makes the woman maybe not just experience loss and heartbreak, but shame too. And her friend can feel guilty, like a bad friend. This is worse, but not shocking, complete and utter hopelessness, or story-breaking. This is spinning a good tale, which you mention repeatedly is your only goal. So why are we so unable to agree that some people can possibly freeform great ideas from the beginning, and perhaps I'm not one of them, and I need to take my initial ideas and add depth later? And the simple way to say that is "make it worse", as in, make it matter more, connect it deeper, give it some extra impact, etc..

The idea of making it worse is absolutely a brainstorming tool, foremost in my mind. If I understood how to use it years ago, I'd have been finished with editing some of these books by now. I would have clearly pictured how to raise stakes and get to the more compelling story underneath the ideas I let clog the surface of my stories.

Now, I've already said that we're writing different kinds of stories, and I know we all have come to grips with that fact, but I still don't see why this very concept is causing so many negative implications. It's as if you want to put forth that by acknowledging that our (MY) initial ideas and processes are sometimes flawed, the process itself of initial creativity is somehow lessened by the fact that for many writers (like me), digging deeper is part of the way they find success.

No one's asking anyone to worsen anything if they don't want to. No one is calling anyone out as a creative black hole just because they're using different tools, or no tools, or every tool in the garage.

If a writer is writing a literary work meant to explore an emotional experience, then they wouldn't want to use a tool like Make it Worse, just like they might not want to Show not Tell. I mean...if you transfer your tone and argument to Show/ Tell, I think it becomes obvious why people are taking offense at your seemingly unflinching mistrust for the tool. Show don't tell is great advice that is absolutely taken too far by folks all the time. SO is a ton of other advice.

If someone opened a discussion about why Showing was important, and the conversation became "Show don't Tell is stupid advice in storytelling. It can lead to dangerous things when new writers begin to show all the time and then they ruin their stories by only showing and it becomes a horrible mess" I think you'd see that it's such a definitive stance, it becomes hard to relate to.

Now, I'm not arguing whether YOU should make things worse or show not tell, or whether you should do anything. But I've been trying to keep neutral in what you've taken offense to in this thread, hearing your comments and accepting your viewpoints as different to my own and worth consideration (like the things you said about Harry potter and how you enjoyed the world as much or more as Harry's story, and some characters much more than I did, and I considered how that differing viewpoint affects some things about how I relate to stories vs. other people). Anyways, I don't feel like you've heard a thing I've said, and I've been very calm, clear, and honest about how I went through this process and what it meant, and what I realized.

You mentioned that people weren't taking your experience into consideration before writing off your argument with the concept at hand, and I want to simply say that it feels like you want your cake and to eat it, too. You speak of having experience putting out strong stories that readers respond positively to, so therefore, people ought to listen to you, and then in the next sentence you caution me to avoid praising a tool or tactic that might influence a new writer to make a grave mistake in their stories. Okay. But have you thought at all about my experience? How many stories have I put out? How many have been GOOD, vs. how many have I admitted needed work? And that WORK I'm talking about, that thing that I was missing in large part, is the exact thing I'm talking about. I needed to push the envelope. I need to make things worse if I'm ever going to make the kind of reader connections that I need to make my stories successful.

I'm not saying YOU or anyone else needs to push the envelope. But so far as people want to participate in this discussion, I'm going to damn well talk about how I'M pushing the envelope at this point in my journey. And I'd like it very much if I can say my piece, offering up my personal experience to this community of writers, some of whom may actually take something positive away from the heart of the message I posted.

We've heard your disagreement with the tactic I'm using, and I'm glad you weighed in on your POV on that. I certainly see the merit in all facets of discussing the craft of writing, whether we consider ourselves literary writers or genre writers, poets, or old school storytellers. The one thing I'm dangerously close to taking offense to is that you seem steadfast on refuting the tool I think is perfect for my current situation, and yet your main argument seems to be "don't tell people how to write." But you've told us all several times what to do, in this thread. How to write.

In fact, you've repeatedly flat-out said that "Stories should flow like THIS" and "A writer should be true to THAT" without ever considering that to me, that advice is volumes more silly sounding than any craft meme people want to spout. Technique advice can become repetitive, I understand, which is why I simply share my heartfelt experiences here with you guys, and this isn't the first time it's gone awry. Last time, it was over a breakthrough I had, and I got the same negative implications, "Don't talk about advanced editing strategies, because you're inadvertantly going to confuse newer writers." Which I'm calling bullshit on right now.

I'm going to say this only once. If anyone here considers my strategies or the way I put across my personal experiences, neither asking for acknowledgement nor guaranteeing results, as some sort of advocacy on how I think EVERYONE OUGHT TO DO THINGS, you probably aren't cut out for being a writer. I mean, if my sharing my personal breakthrough feels like a loaded gun...please feel free to drop the gun at any point and just walk away.

I'm trying really hard not to take your recent comments personally, but I've been a member of this community for five years. I've spent a lot of my time here, playing games with you guys (including chess with you, where I proved only that I know nothing about chess), creating and contributing to challenges, critiquing hundreds of stories, sharing my personal thoughts on hundreds of questions, giving my own personal experience to people who reached out to me in PMs or emails, asking for help or wanting to talk craft or whatever, and generally being a good citizen. I feel like perhaps you're being intentionally contrary right now, and I don't appreciate that.

I don't want to talk about who took offense at what. I don't want to see my friends antagonize each other. I really care what people have to say about their experiences with making situations worse. I want to understand how we can achieve a better effect from our plots and characters by increasing tension, specifically during revision, when we have to weigh whether our initial concept held water, or whether we have to "make it worse."

Thanks.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Maiden, I am very and truly sorry for making you feel so bad and offended with my comments.

I did went overboard in my defense of Storytelling as I know it, as it helps me with my purposes. It's clear that we have very different purposes in mind, very different goals, it's like being from two different worlds. I respect you as an experienced writer and storyteller, and please note that I never denied your skills in the craft.

At least, I hope you understand how I felt when my own experience and skills were discarded just like that.

Again, I am sorry for having offended you. I hope that there will be no harsh feelings between us, I do have fond memories of our chats and conversations and I think you are great.

Sheilawisz

 

[FifthView]

Problem is, people don't often distinguish types of stories and purposes of writing when it comes to these topics. Yes, if you want to have a commercial best-seller, 'make it worse' tends to be good advice. That creates a page-turner. People have to know what happens next. They have to see how the characters resolve the ever-increasing threat/obstacles the author has put in front of them. A large portion of successful commercial fiction on the shelves right now follows this. Fantasy, but not just fantasy. Pick up thrillers, SF, westerns, etc. Very many of them go this route. It works.

I've wanted to bring up the idea that certain genres (not to mention certain sub-genres) already often have that expectation built in. It's not even a matter of what publishers are looking for, or commercial viability, except to the degree that readers, also, look for it.

Fantasy as a genre generally brings the expectation of conflict, tensions, and so forth.

For instance, look at the pre-industrial settings for fantasy. If you have swords and daggers, you'll probably have conflict, possibly murders and assassinations, and so forth–even if not every book has a bloodbath every other chapter. If you have travel by horse, sail, or foot, it's likely to be more arduous than sitting in a passenger car on a train or in first class on an airplane. Not all fantasy is set in a pre-industrial era, of course.

If you have a feudal system or a monarchy, you'll probably have the sort of political conflict and machinations that are not resolved by parliamentary votes and elections–even if not every fantasy novel includes those things or focuses on that. Crime and punishment are likely to take a different route when the policing force and judiciary aren't as walled-in with long-standing political constitutions and laws, in the hands of political institutions rather than individuals.

If you have a world that has magic, how that magic is used comes into question. Magic often will be a focal point of tension: some people have it while others don't; or, some use it for good while others use it for evil; or, it is extremely dangerous to use and threatens to destroy the MC who has it; some people in the world may hate the existence of magic and the users of magic; etc.

If you have worlds with multiple races of intelligent beings, they are likely to come into conflict at some point; at the least, they might have very different ways of living, different cultures, and disagreements because of this.

Naturally, fantasy is such a broad genre, not all of these factors will be treated as high-tension factors in every book, and some approaches to fantasy may not follow the common route. But I do wonder if the genre itself tends to bring expectations for some level of tension and conflict in the story, and to what degree the expectation is for higher levels of tension. When the average reader thinks, "I want to read a fantasy novel this week!" what is it he or she seeks? I do agree with Sheila that fantastic elements like the world, the magic, and strange and wondrous creatures and characters are a draw, a major element in enjoying fantasy for many readers. But I think that the "What if?" question that seems to lie behind fantasy–What if this or that was different, this or that existed, this or that could be done?–carries within it a certain expectation of tension, even if that tension is not the extreme sort requiring a worsening for the characters every paragraph.

 

[Heliotrope]

I wanted to post this link because over and over again we keep coming back to thrillers, swords daggers and car chases.

Fiction University: What Downton Abbey Can Teach us About Tension

 

[FifthView]

I wanted to post this link because over and over again we keep coming back to thrillers, swords daggers and car chases.

Fiction University: What Downton Abbey Can Teach us About Tension

Helio: I'm not sure that it's always necessary to yell "Rectangles!" anytime someone brings up squares.

Anyway, I like bringing up swords and daggers.

 

[Heliotrope]

I just found it last night and thought it interesting. Swords and daggers are fun

 

[Amanita]

Browsing the forum as I usually do, I’ve noticed the unusual length of this thread and I’ve been wondering how it came about.

Please allow me a personal comment before I start with my thoughts on the topic. People’s approaches to the matter of writing and story-telling vary considerably. In my case (and I think Sheila is experiencing something similar) stories appaer in my head disconnected from any written words be they story or outline and the task consists of modifying this into something other people can understand or share. Even though I’m not writing anything without this kind of inspiration, the inspiration doesn’t go away midway if the story is worth anything. I’ve finished two non-fantasy books and various fanfictions and I’ve been working on my big fantasy project for eight years now. The level of quality in this case still hasn’t reached my goal but the thought that it never will has never crossed my mind. This is the place where writing advice comes into play for me. It may or may not resonate with enough other people to earn me an income but it’s part of my life.
This kind of attitude has become more and more unwanted on the forums a fact which doesn’t bother me much, no one makes me spend time here after all but after reading this thread I’d still like to ask for some empathy for people with a different approach. Comparing them to stupid or stubborn school children isn’t very helpful.

Now let’s finally talk about “making it worse.” Someone mentioned quantum physics earlier on this thread. I’d be conceited if I called myself an expert in this area but I do have some amount of learning there and it’s enough to see the vast differences between physical laws of any kind and the matter discussed on this thread.
My first thought when reading the title were stories like Martin’s. These have many fans but are hated by a significant number of people as well. I don’t feel hatred but they don’t appeal to me either. Writing like Martin definitely isn’t right for everyone and there’s a considerable number of adults who enjoy magical storied set in world’s not dripping with blood and semen at every edge, the huge numbers of older HP-fans for example.
My second thought were the many stories where suffering of various kinds is heaped onto the protagonist and most of it doesn’t further the plot. It mainly exists to buy sympathy for the character and fill up passages where the plot isn’t moving. This is a sign of poor writing and people interpreting the advice that way is likely to do more harm than good.
Later in the thread, it was defined as creating obstacles for the hero and raising the stakes not necessarily by sheding more blood. This is good advice to make a story more gripping in most cases and if “make it worse” is interpreted that way it is helpful. It’s not clear that this is the right interpretation though
Dark stories are fashionable nowadays but at least for readers like myself who have a very vivid imagination visiting horrible places is a demanding task, one I don’t want to face everytime I open a book. For us, hints at the things the villains are capable of is often enough. Authors have to give me a good reason to follow them on this path, the story needs to resonate with me really well.
Other people feel differently of course but I’m sure most will agree with me that Orcs sacking Rivendell, killing Elrond and raping Arwen wouldn’t have improved LotR in any way but many people could interpret €œmaking it worse” this way. Sometimes, reprieves and lighter moments have their place even in serious stories.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Other people feel differently of course but I’m sure most will agree with me that Orcs sacking Rivendell, killing Elrond and raping Arwen wouldn’t have improved LotR in any way but many people could interpret “making it worse” this way. Sometimes, reprieves and lighter moments have their place even in serious stories.

This a straw man argument that could be turned on its head with neither direction making a logical point.

 

[T.Allen.Smith]

I'm going to derail this thread for a moment. Please, bear with me, read, and then continue the ongoing & on topic discussion.

Earlier in the thread, a respected member of this community with an exemplary record on Mythic Scribes, may have erred in memory and/or judgment by insinuating that Sheilawisz (one of our moderators) edited her earliest comment to, in effect, change her argument. That would be considered a misuse of her moderation powers.

I personally do not believe any insult was intended. However, I do want to make it clear that this sneak-editing DID NOT occur. That is clearly evident in the fact that all edited posts are marked as edited while also annotating the editor's name and time of the action ( I have edited this thread in case you don't know what I'm referring to - See below). For transparency's sake, I assure you all, that changing the record of editing is not within the scope of a moderator's power.

Public apologies have been rendered & any further apology or discussion on that specific argument will take place privately.

This thread has been thought provoking, and that is a positive thing. That is what this community is all about. Civil discourse, especially when in opposition, challenges us to consider our own positions and stance on the craft of writing. That is also a good thing. We, as artists, cannot grow if we don't challenge ourselves continually.

Lastly, as always, we need to approach contrary opinions with an open mind.

Thank you all.