Being a Better Writer: Let Characters Fail · 6:27pm April 8th
Welcome back writers! As work continues getting Axtara – Magic and Mischief (I still miss Mayhem, but we’ll be getting a BaBW post on that next week) that hasn’t stopped Being a Better Writer from delivering!
Oh, but if you’re a fan of Axtara and weren’t around last Friday (or you’re brand new to the site), don’t neglect to check out Part One of A Trial For a Dragon, a free short story set in the Axtara universe starring Axtara’s older brother. A dragon becoming a banker is one thing, but what about a dragon becoming a wizard? You can check out the short here, and if you’ve stumbled across this post months (or even years) after the fact, read the rest of it by following the comment links!
That’s pretty much it as far as news is concerned. At this point Beta Reading/Editing is underway, and next up will be a cover … So you’re all caught up—
Wait, almost. Just a quick reminder to Patreon Supporters that you only have until the release of Axtara – Magic and Mischief to vote for the next book to come out! You can do that here!
Okay, that’s the news. Let’s talk writing. I’m sure a few of you writing vets have looked at the title and thought “Well, that seems pretty straightforward, but I must admit that today’s post is one that comes about due to a perceptive shift I’ve witnessed taking place over the last several years. A shift that, in the last six months especially I’ve seen on display more and more across various internet forums and even in reviews for books.
Because recently, one of the most common strikes I’ve seen leveled at characters in movies, books, and games, is that they’re failing. No, not as characters, but in their goals until the climax arrives.
Let me give you a direct example, one of the more memorable ones that, because it bugged me, stuck in my mind, and was one of the inspirations for this post: 2023’s Super Mario Bros. movie. Look, I’ll be the first to say the movie doesn’t shy from what it is: non-offensive child-friendly entertainment that’s greatest achievement, previously unmatched by Hollywood, was actually representing the property it was based on (which, for Hollywood, is like a lawyer refunding cash: a blank look followed by “I don’t know what those words mean).
But I was really interested in some of the criticism leveled against the movie, in particular the accusation that whole elements of the story were “a waste because the characters failed.”
In particular, if you’ve seen the film, the recruitment of the Kong army. Critics across the web will note that a good portion of the movie is spent on the recruitment of the Kong army, which includes Mario trying a training course—and failing, the critics either ignoring or forgetting that he does actually succeed at the course eventually—to show that he deserves to go along for the recruitment pitch, having to face a challenge to “prove” they can handle the army … and then the army is beaten anyway by the antagonist in a big battle sequence.
These critics argue that because the army failed, it’s a waste of storytelling time. That it shouldn’t have been in the story at all because due to the failure, the story didn’t move forward.
And these critics are not alone, nor are they just unhappy with Super Mario Bros. It seems any story that comes out these days—or even an older story—is increasingly being viewed with this lens. “Oh, the characters had this plan and it didn’t work out? That’s bad storytelling. It’s a waste of the audience’s time and attention. It’s padding to lengthen things out. It’s boring.”
Or my personal “favorite” accusation, that it’s “woke.” Which is about as empty and hollow a criticism as I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen some doozies.
However, with this criticism becoming more and more frequent, it’s been leveled at books and written stories as much as anything else. I’ve seen people post about famous books decrying them because ‘So-and-so waffled around not being able to face the big bad for two-hundred pages and getting beat. What a waste of my time. No one should read this as it doesn’t respect the reader’s time.’
Worse, I’ve started to see newbie advice handed out by these critics that such scenes should be cut or removed from stories. Advice given on writing forums that young writers should not include scenes or story elements where the characters fail because “This doesn’t move the story forward, therefore it is bad” (and lest you think this is hyperbole, I’ve see variations of that exact statement several times in the last month).
And while I can see where that advice is coming from, and how that conclusion has been reached, I’ve just got to say it, in as straightforward a manner as I can: It’s just plain wrong.
So hit the jump, and let’s break down this new bit of “advice” that’s circling the writing circles.
I’m not sure if this is as on-topic as it felt when I first thought of it, but… This reminds me of the last book of Harry Potter. Readers may recall when the protagonists ended up lost and wandering, seeking a solution with no clues and no idea how to go about it. This went on for a good while, creating a dragging and somewhat unpleasant sequence of non-events. I’ve seen more than a few people complain about it, and indeed, the movies shortened it considerably if I recall.
But me? I think it was a very smart move on Rowling's part.
Up until that point in the entire series, our characters had a direction in which to move. That direction might have changed or evolved, but a direction was always there. Then suddenly the direction is taken from them, and they have to find their own way. They stumble, they struggle, they start lashing out. They were forced to confront problems they had never confronted before, because always having a direction to move in distracted them from those problems. And perhaps the most interesting thing about this is that it changed the entire tone of the story; the protagonists were lost, and so too was the reader.
In some ways, I consider that period – that slow, plodding, uncertain, sometimes frustrating period – to be one of the best moments of storytelling in the series. Because it was a period where the protagonists couldn't win, were not winning, and in many ways lost a lot... and they went and won anyways.
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I can't specifically remember my reaction to reading that chunk of the novel as a tween. As an adult, I don't think I find it as much of a novel killer as most folks, and I think in theory it was a good idea, especially after the school year driven plot structure of all the prior books to that stage.
The reason it doesn't quite work for me as an adult is that the narrative style and voice Rowling employs for the series, and her talent as a writer, doesn't end up being a good match for it, and thus, the many scenes of sitting there in sad, lonely uncertain silence or getting recaps of how little has happened across several weeks just kind of… sit there. More damming is how the successes they do have along the way come out of luck or coincidence (that old adage of these being great things to get your character into trouble, but bad things to get them out of it), right down to the capture and abduction to Malfoy Manor that restarts the plot again being one such coincidence. And of course, it means the final 180 pages rush quite a bit to wrap the plot up, and so much happens off page, and the degree to which the Death Eater takeover of the Wizarding World unravels so easily stick out to me more.
Still, I do think there is something about it that works. It would just work better with a rethink of what actually happens within the specifics of that "what are we gonna do now?" third of the novel, without sacrificing that uncertainty and hopelessness.
It’s simple entitlement mentality. If you do not believe that you should have to work or struggle for what you want, then failure is unrelatable and wrong.
I... have never heard anybody claim that about any story. I'd have noticed, because it's such a stupid thing to say. Admittedly, there is at least one genre of story in which the main character might never fail at all: the pre-18th-century fairy tale, which is often about a stupid or roguish anti-hero who succeeds at everything because his stupidity makes him inherently virtuous and thus favored by God, or because it's his role as a rogue to outwit everyone all the time. Those can be good stories, but the form is quite strict, limiting, and not very interesting after you've seen it once.
Yet I'm not surprised. The path of avant-garde literary theory since at least the 1950s has been to discard one rule of storytelling after another, in an attempt to "deconstruct" stories. Plot, character relatability, clarity, action, tension, stakes, coherence, theme, individual initiative, and style have all been scorned as bourgeois. Why not character growth?
5776018 My knee-jerk response was to dismiss you a reactionary, but the more I think about what you wrote, the more possible it seems. Maybe "entitlement" isn't quite the right word. Young people today are quite willing to "struggle" (though by that they mean "form a mob and threaten someone"). But they're shocked if they're opposed. They have a sense of being the Chosen People, predestined to victory.
In a story, when the protagonist fails, and fails again, these failures are a learning opportunity. The protagonist has been doing something wrong, or looking at things wrong, and needs to stop and re-evaluate. And maybe that's the catch. Today's youth are willing to fight, but they're not willing to consider the possibility that they're wrong. Maybe that applies to protagonists that they relate to, too.