Yesterday, I talked about those situations where a scene generates a lot more emotional
friction than you thought it would, and your characters start refusing to do
what the outline says they’re supposed to do.
One classic
version of this, which I encounter all the time, involves pride. In my outline, I’ve got two characters
who are hashing out a heated disagreement. Each character passionately argues their side, until finally
my hero pulls out a devastating argument that demolishes all opposition. The obstacle character has no choice
but to admit that they were wrong.
Now they’ll come clean, admit the truth, and help the hero after
all...
...Except
something goes wrong. My hero
delivers the coup de grace, and the obstacle character does realize that he or she is wrong, but then
they won’t admit it. Their defenses have been destroyed, but
their pride is still getting in the way.
I try to write the ending of the scene, where the obstacle character says,
“You’re right, I’m wrong, now let me tell you the truth,” but the character
just won’t say those words.
Luckily, I
have one simple trick to get out of this situation: split the scene in half and
cut to the next morning. This is
how life works. I know that every
time anyone has convinced me that I was wrong (which is to say, both times) I
haven’t been willing to admit it until I’ve slept on it. By the time the sun comes up, my last
lingering illusions are gone.
More than
once, I written a scene and workshopped it with a writing group
where all the writers said that
the victory came too easily. In
response, here’s all I did: After the hero delivers the coup de grace, the
obstacle storms out and says “Go to hell!” leaving the hero to lament that they’ve lost this
battle. The next morning, the
obstacle sheepishly knocks on the door and comes clean. Every time, this two-day version of the
scene received no complaints from the workshop.
I noticed an
example of this in Winter’s Bone, when
Jennifer Lawrence is trying to borrow her friend’s car, over the objections of
the friend’s abusive husband.
Lawrence pulls out all the stops to convince her friend, but can’t. In the morning the friend shows up with
the keys… and a black eye.
On a
cheerier note, that scene where a girl awkwardly rejects a guy’s profession of
love at night only to think better of it and jump his bones the next day always
works, because we all know cases where that’s happened in real life.
These are examples
of the way that friction can slow stories down, which is ultimately a good
thing. You never want things to be
too easy for your hero. If your
characters object, listen to those objections and accommodate them.
No comments:
Post a Comment