Writer Isaac Young on X, formerly Twitter, recently posted:

I really dislike Sanderson’s dichotomy of hard vs soft magic systems too. It superficially describes something real, but doesn’t get at the root of the issue. The dichotomy should be materialist vs spiritualist magic systems—whether the magic aims for the transcendental or not.

I thought it was very interesting, as I had never really considered the transcendental, spiritualist aspect of soft magic much before. I posted some thoughts in response on X, but thought I’d further flesh them out here to better organize my thoughts.

Hard vs soft magic

First, what exactly is Brandon Sanderson’s dichotomy of hard vs soft magic? One can find Sanderson’s explanation here, where Sanderson explains his “First Law of Magics”:

Sanderson’s First Law of Magics: An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

This should make intuitive sense, and is really derived from a more obvious general rule in storytelling: The reader must understand the causation of a conflict’s resolution to accept it. Otherwise, the resolution may feel like an unsatisfying overly-convenient deus ex machina. It may feel like the author cheated. A conflict, after all, inherently depends on the audience understanding rules of causation. If the resolution escapes the inferred bounds of these rules, it risks failing to satisfy the audience’s expectations. (Note, because the bounds are inferred, this is inherently subjective; what works for someone may feel like a cheat to someone else.)

As an example, imagine a story’s climax in which a bad guy with a gun chases a good guy through city streets. The good guy trips and the bad guy hovers over him, gun pointed directly at his chest. “So long, loser!” he laughs. All seems lost. Suddenly, the bad guy is struck by lightning and falls down dead!

Unless being struck by lightning was somehow set up as a possibility, this would likely feel like a lazy cheat on the author’s part, a deus ex machina, too lucky, too overly-convenient, too unlikely.

With Sanderson’s “First Law”, this principle applies equally to magic. If the magic is left unexplained, using it for conflict resolution will risk feeling like a cheat to audiences, especially at a climactic point in the story, or for conflicts that relate to the story’s theme.

With this law, Sanderson makes the distinction between “hard” and “soft” magic. Hard magic refers to magic in which the rules are laid out and explained in such a way that the author can use the magic for conflict resolution. Because the reader will understand the bounds of the magical resolution, it won’t feel like an overly-convenient deus ex machina.

Soft magic, on the other hand, remains mysterious and unexplained. Sanderson gives the obvious example of Lord of the Rings:

[“Soft Magic”] has a long, established tradition in fantasy. I would argue that Tolkien himself is on this side of the continuum. In his books, you rarely understand the capabilities of Wizards and their ilk. You, instead, spend your time identifying with the hobbits, who feel that they’ve been thrown into something much larger, and more dangerous, than themselves. By holding back laws and rules of magic, Tolkien makes us feel that this world is vast, and that there are unimaginable powers surging and moving beyond our sight.

…

There is a reason that Gandalf doesn’t just fly Frodo to Mount Doom with magic, then let him drop the ring in. Narratively, that just doesn’t work with the magic system. We don’t know what it can do, and so if the writer uses it to solve a lot of problems, then the tension in the novel ends up feeling weak. The magic undermines the plot instead enhancing it.

So the cost of using soft magic is that it can’t be used for conflict resolution, at least not too much. Obviously Gandalf does use magic to solve some problems, such as seeing in the dark, but they are rarely if ever the big story problems, like destroying the ring.

We can have stories that mix hard and soft magic, as in the Harry Potter series. Moving pictures, transparent ghosts: soft magic, not used for conflict resolutions. Spells in Latin that must be learned, practiced, and pronounced correctly, potions that must be mixed with proper ingredients: hard magic that can be used for conflict resolution.

Interestingly, note that Rowling does get away with using soft magic at the climax of the first book, as Harry fends off Quirrell by merely touching him! So it can be done, the rule can be broken. But, in general, it’s still a risk.

Another example of soft magic solving the climactic conflict may be found in The Wizard of Oz, both when Dorothy melts the witch, and when she taps her heels to get home. No explanation is really given as to why these solutions work.

I’d note, though, that in both these examples, using soft magic to solve problems is still rare in the overall story, and is used to solve the final conflict only after the hero has already effectively “proven their worth” by standing up to the villain in the first place. So it’s as if the soft magic solution is an earned gift rather than a deus ex machina (though, again, some audiences may still see such solutions as a deus ex machina; I always thought the ending to the first Harry Potter installment was rather weak.)

P.S. For further reading, also check out writer Brian Niemeier’s excellent blog post on this subject: Why Not Every Fantasy Story Needs a Magic System.

Transcendental vs Whimsical

Now to the dichotomy pointed out by Young, quoted at the beginning of this post. Firstly, I’ll note that I’m inferring that the word “transcendental” is meant to mean pointing toward the divine, implying the existence of a higher spiritual power.

While I agree that soft magic certainly allows for the magic to be transcendental, I don’t think soft magic necessarily implies that the magic must therefore be transcendental. That is, if the magic is soft, it may or may not be transcendental.

For example, think once more about the moving pictures in Harry Potter. There’s no real explanation for them, the mechanics of how they work is never divulged, yet I don’t think they really point toward the divine either. To me, their existence feels more whimsical; they exist simply because they’re fun to imagine.

This is true for much of the magic in The Wizard of Oz as well. It’s not explained why Glinda can fly around in a bubble, why water should melt a wicked witch, why a brainless scarecrow or a heartless man of tin should be able to walk and talk, but none of it feels like it really points to the divine either.

Some examples of soft magic that does point to the divine: Certainly Gandalf’s resurrection in Lord of the Rings seems to qualify. There must be a spiritual force at work that has the power to grant such life.

Another example might be “the Force” in Star Wars (at least before Lucas tried to harden it a bit by introducing the ridiculous concept of midichlorians in The Phantom Menace). According to Obi-Wan: “The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” While this doesn’t necessarily point to a Christian God, it may be interpreted to point to the existence of a metaphysical reality. (Granted, this interpretation may be subjective.)

The Force perhaps straddles between hard and soft magic. Some aspects of it are hardened; we see Luke learn about what the Force can do before he uses it for conflict resolution (mainly mind tricks and telekenesis), yet it maintains a lot of its mystery throughout (feeling a disturbance).

Interestingly, the first Star Wars movie also features an ending that relies on soft magic… sort of. While the Force is used to destroy the Death Star, it’s really Luke’s decision to use it at all that serves as the climax.

In Conclusion…

I ended up drawing this little chart to visually explain how I’m thinking about these things.

Whimsical may not necessarily be the opposite of transcendental, but that’s the best I can think of for now; it certainly seems to be the case for all the non-transcendental soft magic examples I can think of.

Also, notice that it is the magic’s “softness” that allows it to be transcendental in its aim; I can’t think of any examples of magics that are hard and transcendental. To explain magic, to make it hard, is to redirect its aim away from the spiritual.

Note also that this is all a subjective spectrum. Magic may not be strictly in one category or another, and different people may have different opinions about whether some magic is hard or soft, transcendental or whimsical, and acceptable for conflict resolution or not.

Haven’t updated this blog in a while! Haven’t written any significant amount of fiction in a while either, for that matter.

As I recently wrote on my other blog:

I haven’t done any significant writing in a good long while. I’ve completely plotted several stories, and I’ve written several opening chapters, but I keep getting bored and abandoning projects. One could easily chide, “You’re supposed to stick with it, even if it’s boring!” Pshaw, I say unto you! In my opinion, if writing something is boring, then it’s a good sign you shouldn’t be writing it in the first place. Being bored completely defeats the purpose of such a creative act. If you’re bored writing it, why should a reader have any interest in it?

I kept thinking my getting bored had something to do with finding the right personal balance between plotting and pantsing, but as I reflect on why writing SON OF A DARK WIZARD managed to work for me, I believe it has more to do with how interesting I find the characters. Sorren in SON OF A DARK WIZARD, who was an arrogant brat wizard, was just insanely fun to write. So with whatever I write next, I really need to focus on making the character as interesting (for me) as possible. Of course, it’s not necessarily easy to do that. It managed to fall into place quite well for Sorren, but it isn’t obvious to me how to make a more virtuous character deeper than cardboard. Anyway, it’s something I’ll have to think more about before beginning a new draft. I have several more story ideas that I’m eager to get working on, but I want to make sure the main character really comes alive for me before I dive in.

So I’ve been trying to think about what makes a character interesting, at least for me as a writer. There are probably multiple factors, but I realized that, for me, the most important factor is probably whatever it is that makes the character special. And what could that be? The three main types of character specialness that come to my mind are:

1. Special ability – This could be a unique magical super power, or a unique talent. Examples would include almost any super hero. Talent-wise, perhaps Mozart in Amadeus or the chess prodigy in Searching for Bobby Fischer.
2. Special social status – Perhaps the character is famous, or related to someone famous, or the leader of a lot of people, or is part of a royal family. The idea is merely that he holds some social status that is not widely shared among the rest of the population. Typically this will be a higher status, though it could be lower as well. Or it could be neither higher nor lower, just unique. For example, Frodo in Lord of the Rings becomes the Ringbearer, a position no one else can have. Also, I think a special status implies some sort of special ability along with it, an ability that comes from the status, such as the power to command an army in the case of a king. (And certainly the ability to make world-changing decisions in the case of Frodo.)
3. Special circumstances – This is when it’s the circumstances surrounding the character, which aren’t in his direct control, that effectively make his decisions meaningful. For instance, Frodo’s special circumstance is his uncle Bilbo having the One Ring before he passes it on to Frodo. Had some other Hobbit in some other hole in the ground had the One Ring, Frodo would remain a nobody. Another example might be Emmet from The Lego Movie. His finding “the piece of resistance” is merely a happy accident, yet it’s what earns him his unique social status and makes his decisions matter. If Wyldstyle had managed to find it before him, he’d be a nobody. And just as a special social status often implies a special ability, special circumstances usually imply a special social status and/or a special ability that go along with it. (After all, why else would the circumstances be all that special?)

Of course, characters can be special in all three ways for a special trifecta. Take Harry Potter for instance. Special circumstances: Voldemort couldn’t kill him, and in fact inadvertently damaged himself in the process of trying. His parents also leave him a lot of money. Special social status: Because the most powerful evil wizard ever couldn’t kill him, Harry Potter becomes famous in the wizarding world. And he’s rich! Special ability: None, except flying on a broomstick and playing Quidditch, which was likely thrown in there so he’d have claim to something ability-wise.

Three things to keep in mind about implementing one or more “specialness” traits:

1. The specialness should create unique conflicts that only this character can face. This is probably obvious. Why would being special be all that interesting if the conflicts one has to then face are not also special?
2. The specialness should create unique suffering for the character. Although I’ve been guilty of it myself, one of my pet peeves is characters who lament that they “just want to be normal” or “just want to fit in”. I find it to be very cliche, and often not very realistic or interesting. (Who the heck wants to read a book to imagine being normal?) And something like “oh, being the king is sooo tiring!” is not likely to elicit much empathy either. Perhaps better examples would be Harry Potter having his scar hurt and missing his parents, or Frodo feeling the fire and lure of the One Ring, or the pressure of having everyone depend on you, or whatever… just as their conflicts are unique to their specialness, so is their suffering. This also makes their suffering more meaningful (assuming it fits the context of the story… Harry Potter feeling Voldemort’s toothaches, for example, probably wouldn’t fit the tone of the rest of the story).
3. The character should know how and why he’s special, regardless of his feelings about it. Again, this is probably obvious. He will hardly be able to make interesting and important decisions if he has no comprehension of why he has a unique ability to make them in the first place. (The only counter-examples I can think of include The Man Who Knew Too Little, in which Bill Murray plays a man who gets wrapped up in some high-stakes international spy warfare or something and thinks it’s all fake the entire time; he thinks it’s all an elaborate party game. Another example might be Don Quixote, depending on how it’s interpreted, as his decisions are made in response to delusions. But even in these examples, the characters think they’re special, they’re just mistaken about how or why.)

So after thinking a bit about this issue of character specialness, I can look back on some of the stories I’ve plotted over the last year and see why have little interest in working them into novels; I haven’t given enough attention to making characters feel interesting and special to me. There’s something to be said about personality as well, but I hope thinking about specialness will at least help me get started on making some of my plot ideas come a little more alive through characters.

Quick update on my writing

I haven’t written much in a long while. I’ve been composing music and programming my “symphony generator” instead. Hopefully I’ll get back to writing something soon though. I still have parts 2, 3, and 4 of Insane Fantasy plotted and ready to write. Part 1 only sold like… 2 or 3 copies so far, which is terrible, so I wasn’t all that motivated to continue right away. I was hoping to write a standalone novel between parts. But I just can’t seem to finish plotting anything. I’ve started plotting several, but I keep getting stuck. I also tried writing some stories without outlining, but that didn’t work either. So I’ll probably just go ahead and start writing part 2 of Insane Fantasy while I try to finish plotting something else…

So that’s where I am with writing. Now onward to some random thoughts on character development and audience empathy.

Random thoughts on character development and audience empathy

I was thinking about this last week because of an interesting blog post about the “pulp revolution”: “No Real Plot” in ERB/REH Books

In the post, the author writes:

But consider this: how much more poignant, how much more depth, how much more interesting would the whole Barsoom cycle be if John Carter had been torn away from a wife and child, or (worse!) a young, pregnant wife on Earth?

That would make his attraction to Thoris a conflict. That would make his return to earth after asphyxiation a mixed blessing. That would add emotion to his every success on Mars: it all came at the expense of an innocent woman and child back on Earth…and yet, it wasn’t of his own choosing, he is powerless to go back (so why shouldn’t he make their loss mean something good for Barsoom?)…and since his complete disappearance means she is also moving on with her life back on Earth…?

I commented on the post with the following:

I read A Princess of Mars a month or so ago and, overall, really enjoyed it. (It was slow to start. Lots of pages with no dialog was boring me, but the pace eventually picked up.) One thing I really liked about it was that there were no big moral conflicts or conundrums, John Carter doesn’t have to struggle to figure out the morally right thing, so he’s able to have a pure straight-up adventure.

If John Carter had been torn away from a wife and child on Earth, for instance, that would not be a very interesting conflict to me in the moral sense because I would already have a strong attitude about what his moral obligation would be, which is that he should be faithful to his wife on Earth. Conflict solved.

Now if the character of John Carter agrees with me and is not tempted to sway, there’s no conflict (in the moral sense).

If he agrees with me, but struggles with the willpower to stay true, that inner conflict would bore me, and, if anything, make me like him less.

If he doesn’t agree with me in the first place, then his character would annoy me, and if he comes to change his mind, his “character development” would feel very forced to me.

I couldn’t help but think about the issue a bit more. I still feel the same way about John Carter; the fact that he doesn’t do much in the way of character development in the moral sense works nicely for me, because he doesn’t have to. He starts out as a good honest respectable man, so there’s not much development needed in those regards. (I’d argue there’s still character development in his relationships with other characters and his understanding of Mars’s “Barsoom” culture.) Since he’s an honest man, I can root for him the whole time, in a way I would not be able to if he had a wife he was tempted to cheat on, for example.

(Digression: This is precisely why I thought Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance was ultimately weaker than The Way of Kings; I went into the second book considering the character Kaladin to be a pretty honorable man, as the first book seemed to establish. Instead, he’s still stupidly racist (there’s eye-color racism in his world, “eye-ism” I suppose), and at one point in the story he’s tempted to assassinate a powerful figure because the ends seems to justify the means, but he snaps out of it later. These character flaws felt completely out of character, and felt very forced by the author.)

That said, there are stories that I love in which the character is faced with moral conflicts and develops through them. Examples include The Lion King, Les Miserables… um… what else? A Christmas Carol perhaps? Come to think of it, I can’t even think of that many. Usually character development deals with one or two particular flaws, and they’re usually not moral ones. They’re usually about relationships or the acceptance or understanding of something, which I wouldn’t necessarily equate with a moral conflict. Likewise, I wouldn’t equate a moral ambiguity with a moral conflict. “You can save the king from assassination, as is your duty as a guard, or your wife! Choose one! Haha!” That would certainly an interesting conflict, but not really a moral one.

In Les Miserables (the musical, I haven’t read the book), the moral development happens right at the beginning, when the priest gives Jean Valjean the silver and “buys” his freedom and his “soul for God”. Jean Valjean then swears to turn his life around in “What Have I Done?”. “What spirit comes to move my life? Is there another way to go? … Jean Valjean is nothing now, another story must begin!” No more moral conflicts, and we can root for him for the rest of the musical. The character development takes precisely one story beat. He doesn’t brood over it, or go back and forth, which would be agonizing for the audience. A priest treats him with kindness, and boom, his heart changes. (On a side note, I think these sorts of heart-changing beats work especially well in musicals, as you get all the energy of the music to help stir the emotions. Sometimes these sorts of moments can be difficult to write in novels and screenplays.) (Jean Valjean makes another moral decision with the song “Who Am I?”, but it’s not really much of a struggle and takes less than three minutes to decide to do the right thing.)

Similarly, in The Lion King, the “moral development” all happen in contained story beats. Simba’s never brooding in constant moral conflict. “Should I go back and claim the throne? Should I stay? I’m not really sure…” No, or at least we don’t see it. He embraces “hakuna matata” in the scope of one catchy song, and changes his mind pretty instantly when a patriarchal cloud tells him to “remember who you are!” And in the moral sense, we’re only rooting for Simba after the moment. Before that, why do we root for him? Probably because we know he’s been manipulated and lied to by his scheming uncle (injustice almost always creates empathy). Plus he’s cute furry royalty, I guess, and not really too much of a jerk.

Ultimately, even if the characters at first have some moral lesson to learn, they don’t really struggle with it. They’re either sure that they’re right, or they don’t even think about it at all. They don’t go back and forth, they’re not wishy washy or indecisive. And when they develop, it takes place within a solid story beat (or, perhaps, a pair of beats; action and reaction (scene and sequel)).

What about anti-heroes?

But why might we root for an anti-hero or a tragic figure?

Some of my favorite films are about despicable characters. In Amadeus, Salieri is hardly a model of virtue. He’s a scheming envious petty egotistical God-hating maniac. In Sweeney Tood, the title barber murders a number of innocent people in cold blood. In Once Upon a Time In America, Noodles is a gangster.

Since these stories all end in tragedy, I wouldn’t say we’re really rooting for these characters at all, or at least not in the same sense. Our interest in their journeys lies somewhere else. They all feature some injustice, real or perceived, to which the character responds to in a clearly immoral way. In Amadeus, Salieri accuses God of being unjust, as he believes he deserves the talent given to Mozart. In Sweeney Todd, the barber was framed by an evil judge who wanted to steal away his wife while he rots in prison. In Once Upon a Time In America, Noodles is battling even worse gangs.

In a sense, it’s not really the character we root for, but the settling of the injustice through the character. And, ultimately, often despite him, as he usually gets his comeuppance in the end. Salieri ends a mad house after a suicide attempt, Sweeney Todd dies by his own knife, and Noodles loses the love of his life and all his friends.

I suppose there are some movies in which an evil character gets away. Especially in horror films, but those films are meant to be unsettling. I can’t think of a movie in which an evil character gets everything he wanted and the audience is meant to feel good about it…

Anyway, those were just some random thoughts. It’s something I’ll probably keep thinking about…

I’ve been plotting some new stuff lately, and trying to think up some interesting endings. Endings always seem to be the most challenging part for me; you want something that will both surprise the audience, yet feel completely acceptable, and resolve the conflict satisfactorily. And it’s not just a matter of what happens (the good guy kills the villain) but how it happens. How specifically does the good guy kill the bad guy? Especially since the story preceding the climax needs to convince the reader that the hero’s task is impossible.

So I’ve been thinking about endings, and I’ve come up with three elements endings (or climaxes, at least) are typically composed of:

(Beware: since I’m talking about endings, any examples are give are by their nature spoilers.)

1. The Secret Weapon

It may not necessarily be a “secret”, but the hero utilizes a “weapon” of some sort that he was not planning on using at first, or that the audience was not expecting. This is typically employed when the climax is physical in nature, such as the hero needing to destroy someone or something.

Examples: In Star Wars, Luke uses the Force rather than his ship’s auto-target system to blow up the Death Star. In Jurassic Park and Jurassic World, T-Rex saves the day, once by sheer luck, and once by a character’s decision.

2. The Trick

Typical in heist movies. The trick is when the hero comes up with some clever “trick” to defeat the villain or get what he wants. He may “trick” the villain into basically destroying himself. Typically if the trick works flawlessly, the audience doesn’t know about it until after it succeeds. If the audience does know about it, then it will likely fail, and the hero will have to improvise and utilize some new trick or secret weapon. Otherwise, if the audience knows about it and it works flawlessly, there’s completely no tension for the audience (even if the audience already knows the story and knows the trick).

A common example is the creation of a “diversion” … heroes pull the enemy’s attention away from something important, giving them just enough time to deliver a fatal blow.

Examples: In Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen. Well, I’m not going to explain the elaborate tricks of those endings, but of course they’re tricks. After all, they’re classic heist movies. In Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Aragorn and his motley crew draw Sauron’s forces out of Mordor so that Frodo and Sam can reach the fires of the Mount Doom. “A diversion!” as Legolas so proudly acclaims for the slow audience members. Yes, thank you elf man. In Fun with Dick and Jane, Jim Carrey tricks Alec Baldwin into signing a check so that his wife can forge his signature onto some other documents (after their original “trick” is destroyed by a lawn mower). In Inception… well, that’s another heist movie, so of course the climax is the trick being successfully pulled off. “I was disappointed that you tried” and all that.

3. Rebirth (realization) and sheer force

In drama films, where the main conflict tends to be more thematic or internal, the ending may consist simply of the hero realizing something new about himself or someone he admires, which gives him the inner strength to solve the conflict through sheer force. He doesn’t need secret weapons or tricks. He just needs to face his foes head on.

Examples: In Shrek, which is basically a male-POV romantic comedy, Shrek only needs to learn that Fiona wasn’t talking about him earlier and that he loves her, and he’s off to stop her from getting married. Granted, the dragon is a sort of secret weapon as well, but Shrek’s “rebirth” and newfound strength are the main drivers of the ending, along with Fiona’s revelation that she is also an ogre. In Inception, after the successful “trick” of the heist, Leo’s character also confronts his dream-version of his dead wife and finally lets go of her. (Which is why it doesn’t matter whether or not his totem stops spinning in the film’s final shot; the point is that he doesn’t care about it anymore.) In The Truman Show, Truman tricks the cameras into thinking he was asleep, but then braves the sea through sheer force, forcing himself onward even as Ed Harris threatens to drown him. (Always a definite rebirth when characters are submerged in water at moments like that; it’s baptism!)

—–

Of course, these examples may overlap quite a bit; an ending could include all three. A character realizes something, which gives them the strength to use a trick as a secret weapon. Sometimes one character will be utilizing a trick to get the enemy where they want him while another character deploys a secret weapon.

Also, these tricks, weapons, and realizations are often not completely new elements to the story. What makes them convincing is that they tend to be hiding in plain sight all along. The storyteller has to find a way of making them not too obvious, yet there all along. If they come out of nowhere, we risk getting a deus ex machina ending which can feel very weak and arbitrary. I particularly loathe time travel solutions in stories that are not about time travel, such as in Signs, Interstellar, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (and Hodor’s revelation in Game of Thrones, for that matter).

There was something else I wanted to say, but now I can’t remember…

Anyway, hope that’s helpful or interesting for someone out there. Are there any elements you think I may have missed?

Oh, now I remember what I wanted to say:

Endings often also include a martyr beat, a moment when the main character or a strong supporting character puts his own life itself on the line, often for the sake of someone else (a “stakes” character… saving the world means nothing if we don’t care about a specific person in it). If a supporting character gets the beat, especially an unnatural character (as in Netflix’s latest original series Stranger Things, or Hodor in Game of Thrones), the character may indeed die. The martyr beat may also be more metaphorical for dramas in which actual death is not a threat. In romantic comedies, for example, characters won’t die if they don’t get together, but they will die metaphorically, I guess? So the romantic lead throws away his business opportunities or something for the sake of stopping a wedding.

The point of the martyr beat is that idea of rebirth; by giving up fear or a piece of himself, the character is able to obtain a new self, which is capable of defeating the enemy. (A good Christian can see how stories reflect the story of the human spirit in Christ, and why the human spirit feeds on stories so much. God is a storyteller, after all, and we are the characters in his story of knowing Himself. So in Heaven will I get to meet and/or become the characters in my novel? I think I should… haha.)

OK, I think that’s all I have to say. Just writing this post gave me some new ideas for my novels ending, so I guess I will get back to plotting…

I was watching a movie last night which began with a guy meeting a bunch of other characters. One character was clearly younger than the rest. The moment he spoke, I thought to myself, “He’s gonna die.”

And he did.

By the end of the film, he died like storytelling clockwork.

How did I know he would die? Is it because I’m a genius?

Well, I’m sure that’s part of it. 😛 But it’s a trope I’ve noticed over and over again. If there is a supporting character who fulfills the “pure believer” archetype, he usually dies by the end of the film.

Who is the “pure one”? I’m still not quite sure how to define this archetype. Often, he’s the youngest of a group. Or he could be a “less-human” character, simple and closer to nature. He’s not necessarily “pure” in the sense of “innocence”; he maybe criminal or a murderer in a story about mobsters. He’s just the most “pure” out of all the hero’s supporting characters. As far as I’ve observed, he’s always a supporter of and believer in the hero, at least in the sense of supporting what the hero needs to learn. And often the main character supports him in return, perhaps being a mentor to him.

The pure one might die near the beginning of a story to serve as a catalyst for the hero’s journey. (“Noodles, I slipped.” Dominic in Once Upon a Time in America. The kid brother in Road to Perdition. Carl’s wife in Up.) If this happens, there will probably be reminders of him throughout the story to remind the hero of what he lost, such as an old photograph. The pure one might die at the midpoint or somewhere in the second half of a story to raise the stakes and remind the hero what he’s fighting for. (What Blake Snyder would call a “whiff of death”, perhaps?) Lastly, the pure one might take a martyrdom beat right before or as part of the climax. (Or right after the climax. I think that risks making the beat much weaker, but it’s been done.)

And, of course, the pure one’s death might be only symbolic in nature; actual death is too weighty for certain sorts of stories. And the pure one might be “reborn” after his brush with death to continue aiding the hero. For example, in Jurassic Park, the child Tim is resuscitate after he’s electrocuted and stops breathing. In The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Samwise almost drowns as he wades out to Frodo to join him on his quest to Mordor, and is saved just in time. (On a side note, it’s also a trope for these sort of rebirths, whether it’s the hero or a supporting character, to involve emerging from something, especially water; it seems to evoke something very primal, the sense of water bringing new life. Baptism, anyone?) In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is shown a potential future in which Tiny Tim dies and decreases the surplus population. In It’s a Wonderful Life, the hero is shown an alternate reality in which his children are never born. These aren’t really “deaths” in the traditional sense, but they serve the same purpose: the hero must internalize (or become, or find, or learn, or whatever) what the pure character represents for him.

As I noticed this trope of the death of the pure one, I was of course reminded of its parallel trope: the death of the mentor. When the character has an older and wiser mentor supporting and believing in him, he often bites the dust as well. Obi Wan, Gandalf, and Dumbledore being some obvious examples. And there are plenty of stories in which the death of a parent or some supportive older character launches the hero on his journey. It seems like mentors and pure ones are kind of two sides of the same coin. They believe in and support the hero, but the hero needs to learn to internalize what they represent before the story’s end.

And I suppose that’s why they need to die. Because the hero has to find them in himself, as cheesy as that might sound.

As a dying pure one once said, “Stay gold, Ponyboy.”

Years ago, I wrote a post about character chemistry archetypes in which I defined the five most prominent character relationship archetypes I could think of. I thought of another one while watching the recently released film Big Hero 6 (which was a good movie, by the way):

The Human and the Inhuman / Less-human

Examples: Baymax and Hiro, Toothless and Hiccup, Stitch and Lilo, ET and Elliott, Terminator 2 and John Connor, The Iron Giant and the kid in that movie, Groot and Peter Quill & company, Ludo and Sarah in Labyrinth

In this relationship, one character is clearly human (or at least more human-like), while the other is less human. The less-human character might be an animal, a robot, an alien, or even a human with, for example, a mental disorder that makes him more difficult to relate to. These characters usually communicate differently; they may have limited vocabularies or be completely mute. They are often closer to nature than the human character; they may have a special relationship with plants or animals (or even rocks in Ludo’s case). They may have a healer’s touch, in the case of E.T. and Baymax. Often the human character will try to teach the corresponding less-human character how to be more human, sometimes with humorous results. On the other hand, the less-human character will often teach the human character something important with his unrelenting loyalty, courage, persistence, and willingness to sacrifice himself for others. In this way, the less-human character, while he may be difficult to relate to and simple and ignorant in many regards, is also closer to the divine. In fact, in stories in which these relationships are at the center of the plot, it’s the less-human character who often gets the “martyr beat” instead of the main character. In Big Hero 6, Terminator 2, The Iron Giant, E.T., and even Guardians of the Galaxy, these less-human characters sacrifice themselves to save the main character (sometimes resurrecting, sometimes not). How to Train Your Dragon is interesting because Toothless and Hiccup actually share the martyr beat.

These human / less-human character relationships can be quite powerful when well-written. I think the reason they can work so well is that the less-human character represents something already inside the main character that the main character must learn to reconnect with. That is, the less-human characters leads the human character to a needed self-discovery.

I’m preparing to write some short stories, and I’ve been thinking about plot structure a lot lately, and plotting endings especially.

Of course, endings are always a challenge in plotting any story, whether it be a novel or a shorter work. But novels have much more time to establish the rules of a new world, establish multi-dimensional characters, and build tension through plots and subplots. Short stories must be much more economical in their approach; their endings must resonate emotionally while being based on far less development. They don’t have time to take characters through long emotional arcs, or build up world-threatening doom.

So I pondered the art of the ending for a while. And while they may still present a creative challenge to the writer, I have noticed at least two ingredients endings tend to have. Understanding these ingredients may help a writer come up with ideas for a story’s ending more easily.

Endings tend to consist of two things: a resolution of the stakes and a thematic revelation.  (I’m not sure if these are the most precise terms for these ideas, but they’re what came to mind when I first thought of them.)

The resolution of the stakes

The resolution of the stakes is basically the climax. Whatever was at stake throughout the story is no longer at stake. The threat is vanquished. The hero saves his own life or the life of a loved one, the villain is defeated, etc. (Or the reverse of this in the case of a tragedy; the anti-hero himself is defeated or meets his doom.)

This may seem fairly obvious, but if you’re having trouble coming up with an ending, it may be because you have not defined the stakes in your story clearly enough. That is, coming up with an ending may be difficult because you’re not exactly sure what’s at stake in the first place.

So first, you need to know the stakes of your story. Typically it is the hero’s death or the death of a loved one, eternal separation of a loved one, or eternal suffering of some sort. If your hero doesn’t achieve his goal, what is the worst that could happen? (If nothing bad could happen, beware — it could mean you don’t have a very strong story. It’s hard to care about whether or not a character achieves his goal if failure holds no threat.)

Then ask yourself: What threat needs to be removed for the stakes to be resolved? How can the hero remove that threat, directly or indirectly? This is the story’s climax.

Thematic revelation

Following the climax, stories often end with a revelation of some sort, the story’s final note, the closing image. The revelation reveals some sort of new information. It could hint at what the future may hold (“and they lived happily ever after”). It could shine a new light on what has happened before (rosebud!). It could simply be a reminder of one of the story’s themes, or it could illustrate how things have changed since the beginning. Remember Dr. Grant looking out at a flock of birds at the end of Jurassic Park, with children now asleep on his shoulders.

Often, the thematic revelation mirrors something that happened near the beginning of the story, and together they “frame” the rest of the story. Since the final thematic revelation is the last thing the reader imagines, it’s the image he’s left with in his mind as he looks up from the page and thinks back about your story as a whole. He will then decide whether to catalog the story in his brain as something special, or to forget it as a silly or boring waste of time. The final revelation should not be taken for granted.

In conclusion

I have only recently come to this understanding of endings, though of course I think anyone who reads a lot of stories or watches a lot of movies understands this on an intuitive level. When endings feel flat or anti-climactic, it’s usually because something about resolving the stakes didn’t work or the final thematic revelation didn’t fit the spirit of the rest of the story.

Anyway, these realizations have already helped me come up with ideas for endings. It still takes work and creativity, but its easier to get ideas when you understand what functions those ending scenes play in the overall story.

How can you make a character instantly relatable and sympathetic?

Make him suffer for his super powers, of course!

That is, ask yourself two questions: What makes the character special? And what makes the character suffer for it?

I could wax philosophical about why we as readers enjoy characters who suffer for their super powers. Is it because we are vain? Or is there something deeper? I leave this for you to think about as an intellectual exercise.

By “super powers” I do not necessarily mean fantastical super powers. I would consider being royalty a super power, or being exceedingly talented in some way or another. A musical genius? That’s a super power. A talented ninja? That’s a super power. A famous actor? Super power. The point is that it is something the reader would want for themselves. It’s something that makes the character special in a good way. Certainly if you read and write a lot in the fantasy genre, the super powers tend to be fantastical in nature.

But if we stopped there, we’d merely have a short daydream, not a sympathetic character who can drive a story. The key ingredient to putting this special-powered character through a story is to make him suffer, and, more importantly, to link that suffering to his super power somehow. In this way, it is that very power that makes him special that also becomes the source of his problems.  Using super powers always backfires on the hero, at least at the beginning of a story.

Some random examples:

Ender of Ender’s Game. He’s a genius. And he’s thus torn away from his family and forced to undergo extensive military training that pushes him to his psychological limits. He suffers for his powers.

Batman of, well, Batman. He’s insanely wealthy. But when he uses wealth to make himself into Batman, he’s forced to push away important relationships and hide his true self from the world.

Jean Valjean of Les Miserables. He’s insanely strong. But when he uses he strength to save a man trapped under cart, he blows his cover and is chased by the law. He suffers for his powers.

Really, almost every story features a hero suffering for his powers in some way, but the sooner and clearer you can introduce these elements to the audience, the more effectively you can get them into the hero’s shoes, and they’ll care about your character and his story.

At least, that’s my theory.