Writing Right with Dmitri - Made to be Broken
Created | Updated Nov 17, 2013
Writing Right with Dmitri: Made to Be Broken
When everything's made to be broken,
I just want you to know who I am.
– Goo Goo Dolls, 'Iris'.
You're writing a fictional scenario. Doesn't matter whether it's a short story, a narrative hook for a fact-based piece, or the opening to your blockbuster novel. You're going to do two things, usually.
- You're going to start with a recognizable, ordinary scenario.
- Then, you're going to break something.
Everybody knows this. They're waiting. The kids go into the woods. It's a beautiful fall day. They're laughing, joking, playing with the dog. What's lurking behind the bush?
The couple fall in love. She's talking to her girlfriends about it, he's wondering how much to spend on the engagement ring. What's going to go wrong?
The day is warm and sunny. John is standing on his porch in his old bathrobe, admiring the view. What's going to strike – hurricane, tornado, or nuclear disaster?
See what I mean? No matter how nice the day is, you're going to mess it up. It's your job.
The Episodic Dilemma
TV writers have it hard. Whatever they break, they've got to fix, as best they can, in about 45 minutes. That's tough. Particularly if it isn't something that's easy to fix.
Take The West Wing. The Syrians have shot down a US plane? Oh, yeah. Let the President rave for a while, and threaten massive retaliation. Let everybody argue about 'proportional response'. Then, at the last minute, have him capitulate to the idea that, well, mass murder isn't what he's about. Cue syrupy patriotic music. Problem solved.
Don't do that. Okay, do that, if the client insists. But if you have a choice about it, show a little backbone. Do what you think is right.
Moral for TV writers: If you can't solve the problem in 45 minutes, don't bring the matter up in the first place.
What to Break
What should you break?
- Something you can fix.
- Something you can't fix, but is instructive.
- Something that will surprise people.
The greatest thing about the 1960s serial Dark Shadows was what they broke. Such as, Elizabeth's marriage. (Her husband turned out not to be dead, and buried in the cellar. He was alive and well in Rio, and bilking her out of hush money by proxy.) Barnabas' vampirism. (Call your local doctor, it's an autoimmune issue.) A haunting. (Would you believe, time travel?) Remarkable what they could break. They never fixed anything much, but it was a soap opera, and we didn't care.
What about serious fiction? The kind of writing that's supposed to be for grown-ups? Oh, you mean like Ian McEwan? Go back and see what he broke in Atonement. Did he ever fix it? Why or why not? Was this an honest approach? Did that ending knock your socks off?
Lord, yes. Just once, we had the pleasure of reading about the fading British Empire in tones that made sense. There is honesty in that book. If you break the right things, you'll make people cry. It will hurt. But it will also help.
What should you break? The situation, the characters, the system, the order of the universe? It's your choice. And you don't have to put it back together. You just have to learn something from the damage.
Ancient writers let the chips fall where they would. Think of Greek tragedy. The Greeks regarded catharsis as instructive. Modern people, on the other hand, prefer to fix things. We're can-do people. We want answers, darn it. And sometimes, those answers don't come easily.
My advice? Take your time with the problem. Once you've decided what to break, be honest with yourself and your readers about just how fixable the situation is. The result will be revealing.
Keep in mind that time and place have a lot to do with the options available to your characters. If what you've broken, say, is a legal issue, it matters a whole lot whether your character is living in 17th-century France or 21st-century Britain. When faced with injustice, a modern British citizen might have recourse to many channels of redress not open to the subject of an absolute monarchy. Let your characters work through the problem without the help of the Plot Fairy.
Breaking things can be not much fun. Personally, I'd like all my characters to go on and enjoy the picnic. But that's not why people read books, or scripts, or Guide Entries. They want action. They want tension. Above all, they want to see you work through problems. You're doing it for them, after all: it's therapy by proxy.
Just don't go around like a bull in a china shop.
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