This morning, readers, I found out I had done a stupid thing. Last night, a program on my computer asked me to update a password. I did. I didn't realise that what I was updating was the password I needed to get back into the computer. I spent all morning wrestling with Elektra's magical laptop (it doesn't follow the laws of physics, just the Laws of Elektra) in order to get the passwords off my backup portable hard drive and reset the one for the computer so I could get back in.

What is the moral of this, other than 'paper was invented for a reason'?

The moral is: be alert for moments of decision, especially in your writing. Here's what I mean.

No matter what you privately think, no human being is always clever or stupid, ignorant or knowledgeable, right or wrong, pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad. Most of the time, when we make a mistake, we have a chance to correct it. (I eventually got my computer back.) The problem is when events cause us to take a snapshot of our actions by making the last one count. Then we've got a moment. The decision in that moment could lead to glory or ignominy (or a locked-out computer).

Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side.

Some great cause, some great decision,

Off'ring each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

'Twixt that darkness and that light.

James Russell Lowell (1845)

What does that mean to writers? It means that when writing, we need to identify those contingency moments for the characters in our stories. Even if the stories are true. (Even if the stories are made-up.) What makes that moment important is that the characters will be forced to deal with the consequences of their decisions in that moment.

This is true, even if you cheat and claim it was all a dream. At least, it will be true until you push the dreaded Reset Button of Fate.

Some contingency moments are obvious: choosing a life partner, choosing a profession, pulling the trigger, jumping off the building. Others are not: booking passage aboard Titanic, deciding to go to work in New York City on 9/11, accepting a speaking engagement abroad in 1938 when you live in Munich and are Jewish…. You get the idea.

Can anyone alter fate? All of us combined...or one great figure...or someone strategically placed, who happens to be in the right spot. Chance. Accident. And our lives, our world, hanging on it.

Philip K Dick

When you write, you are in control of your own universe. You can decide how fatal, or fateful, your characters' decisions are. Someone may join the Nazi Party, wise up later, and become a resistance fighter. Or may refuse to change, and meet a miserable end. You are free to indulge your pettiest gripes: you can make that irritating so-and-so of a noisy neighbour die at the tentacles of a giant octopus. Do not be surprised if readers notice, though.

A few years ago, a college student in California started one of those Youtube vlogs that young people are often unwise enough to go for. You know the kind: where they point the camera at their own face and launch into insouciant tirades that sound really humorous to a 19-year-old. This would be a fine way to practise for one's chosen profession of media personality if only they would remember to keep their Youtube channel private. Invite a select few friends, let them critique your technique. But youth is ever impatient for fame, and so the young lady in question headed straight down the path of personal destruction.

She chose as her theme 'pet peeves around campus'. One of her pet peeves was mobile usage in the college library. According to her, the worst offenders at her school were Asian students, who spoke loudly into their mobiles in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, or Korean. Which she proceeded to imitate, as only a snarky 19-year-old could….

The resulting hate caused her to be expelled from her college. No matter how much it offends you when people make fun of other people's languages – it offends me, too, and I'll bet I've experienced it more than you have – that's a tragically over-the-top response to youthful lapse in judgement. Was it tasteless? Yes. Did the young woman look particularly disgusting when pretending to be 'witty' at other's expense? Oh, definitely. But to pick that moment of a teenager's life and inscribe it in stone is to lack both empathy and mercy.

If you can, give your characters (and the reader) a break and let them learn rather than perish. If you can't – if your story hangs on the idea that chance decisions can be fateful – then make it clear that you're operating in that kind of universe, the one where there are no do-overs.

And then, of course, you can go and push the Reset Button of Fate.

NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT: I will gladly discuss contingency moments, alternate history theories, and the Reset Button of Fate with you all. I will ignore all discussions of passwords and data back-up.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

22.07.19 Front Page

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