Writerly Ways

[cornerofmadness]

Look, I have a topic and everything. I call it the 'make your characters do something dumb to advance the plot' trope. Between watching Buffy and reading The Dead Path, The Unremembered and Leviathian lately, this has bubbled up to the top of my mind.

You know what I mean, the characters do or don't do something that makes no sense. BtVS and AtS were great for characters not communicating information that any normal person would or someone would do something incredibly dumb that even the most brain dead would realize it (looking at you, Xander). Still loved the show but winced every time this would happen.

In the aforementioned books, I nearly quit reading all of them at these parts. The latter two books both contained similar situations, the older leader character says 'don't leave the shelter' and sure enough in both cases, even knowing the dangers go and do it. Leviathian is at least more acceptable since the boy in question is a young teen and he's trying to help. In the Unremembered they're about to undergo their welcome to adulthood ceremonies, countless creatures have tried to kill them, they're on the run and they decide to go party. Uh what?

This is the sort of thing that really can make me stop reading and put the book back on the shelf. Most of the time it just feels like sloppy writing. To give Leviathian credit, it deals very well with the aftermath of the stupidity so in a sense, it really did need to happen that way. Most of the time, however, I could think of at least three or four other ways to get to the drama without some character acting like an idiot.

I try to craft a story so that my characters don't have to act like a dumbass to get the drama to work. Granted, most of us Do make bad choices from time to time. I'm thinking more of the so completely obvious bad choices here. I'd rather not see characters go there. This is sometimes harder to avoid than one would think, especially in cases like BtVS when you have these super powered villians. You have a character with nearly no vulnerablities so then what? It takes some careful thought and planning to work around this.

How about you? Does this sort of thing bother you? How do you avoid?

Yearly word count -

39497 / 125000 words. 32% done!

Camp Nano - I'm using Riding with Strangers - NOT the word count I have already but I want to take this novella to a novel so I'm sure I have that 50K left to go. If not, I'm oddly NOT that jazzed to 'win' camp nano. I just want to get this moving. I know I need to add in more red herrings. We need to see the bad guy way earlier and more often. We need to see his girlfriend. I might have to adjust the time line to have some of it happening in nov after Halloween or else it has to happen much faster. Hmmm. Also I need to see at least two more of the victims before they die. Well one victim doesn't even exist yet and the other we only hear about as being a bitch after the fact. I need to see her earlier though that means adding in a third pov, Lily's which allows me to see the murderer through her eyes (since I really do not want to do a pov from his eyes). From those of you who've read parts of Riding with Strangers (or would like to), let me know what you think/ ask to see it.

Comments

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Out of curiosity, what are some of the Buffy examples you are thinking of?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

hmm 5 years ago I could have rattled them off. For one, the whole way Angel handled just about anything with Connor, especially the proving something's wrong with Cordy. Rather than keeping Connor around so he could see Cordy acting evil which would have been the smart thing to do given the nature of their attachment, he manages to devise a way to make it look like Angel himself is trying to kill innocent Cordy.

Xander not telling Buffy about Angel's being resouled wouldn't count since that was done rather maliciously

Including Andrew in anything counts. The man helped to set up the rape and murder of a young girl he wanted to turn into a sex slave, he kills Jonathan, he tries to kill Dawn and Xander and they turn around and bring him into the group, now that turn into a show ender for me. I stopped watching after that.

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

TV Tropes call this phenomenon, where a character does something uncharacteristically stupid to advance the plot, picking up the Idiot Ball (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiotBall). They have a whole section on the business, which has definitely helped me think through what to do.

I think this is often one of those mistakes which are a product of the writing process, a way of writing yourself into a corner. I try to watch out for it while plotting, especially when the plot advances because characters make a decision that goes wrong. I sometimes catch things during rewrites and editing. Betas are pretty useful too, especially when they're specifically watching out for this issue. I often fix Idiot Ball moments (uh, when I spot them) by adding extra practical impediments which (hopefully plausibly) stop the character from being able to do the sensible thing. We've all had those days where nothing goes right.

The more competent the characters, the more difficult this is! The last time I dealt with this one was the big cliffie in The Riderless Horse. I did start knowing what I wanted to happen, but after crafting a way to get Roy arrested, I chewed over if there was any way Roy and Riza could have been expected to head it off.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

thanks for the link. Glad it has a name.

I think that in some ways I might be prone to it since I'm more of a spinner than a plotter but I try to be careful but yes you also hit it with the competency thing. It's like you have a character that should know better but you NEED for XYZ to happen, so now what?

idiot ball

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

Sometimes you can fix it up pretty simply with putting practical frustrations in the character's way. Why didn't they make an important phone call? No cellphone reception.

Of course, that doesn't fix up big messes like Andrew joining the Scoobies, but I think when you have a mess on that scale (TV Tropes calls this an Idiot Plot - when half the cast have to be carrying Idiot Balls for the plot to work) it's sadly time for a rewrite. In prose you're freer to do things like ditch characters or weave them in and out without worrying about actors' contracts, etc.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that's another way to deal with it for sure

yes, TV is its own animal when it comes to writing, especially writing on the fly. The stupid Jasmine plot because Cordy's pregnant, the continuing B.S. with Scully for the same reason.

Andrew just should not have happened but what can you do?

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

I agree, I hate the stupid stuff. It always makes me whine. I notice it more in TV plots than anywhere, though, unless it's terribly blatant. (It always seems to be more blatant visually than on the written page.)

In the mean time, yeah, I try not to put my characters in that sort of situation.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah there was a time you and I could have answered likeadeuce's question easily but I've forgotten. I'm just seeing this trope or whatever it is more and more in both books and TV and it annoys me

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

It's been too many years since I've seen BtVS/AtS. Practically anything with Xander, I swear, but I may just dislike the character that much.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I said Andrew

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Andrew definitely.

Willow and some of her shenanigans, but I'm thinking those are season five when she started to become Evil and may've had an excuse.

Jennie researching Angelus? No, WATCHING Angelus, because surely, warning them that Angel's curse had the stupidest clause ever might be a good idea.

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was a pretty badly designed curse there. XD

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Because how can you be sure someone's going to be alone and miserable forever? Hmmm?

*headdesk*

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

this is what happens when you never thought a character would get popular and you'd have to explain yourself

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

all excellent points

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

And and - Angel got hold of Giles and asked for help in Not Fade Away - and we have to assume Giles didn't tell any of the Slayers what happened in L.A.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

see i knew all of these once...

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Then FMA ate our brains.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

among others

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Wasn't there the, "We figured out who Glory Was" and didn't say who it was? Didn't someone figure out Ben was Glory and didn't say anything? Was that Buffy? Or am I imaging things?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

maybe, honestly, I never paid too much attention S5

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

*nod nod nod*

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I think you can sometimes get the "do something stupid to advance the plot" or "don't tell someone something to advance the plot" to work if you earn it. If you establish rashness or reticence or pettiness as a part of the character's personality, so much so that you have the reader cringing because they're afraid the character's going to do exactly that and screw things up.

Not earning it and using it anyway? Is a sign of a bad writer (or in TV, a good-but-rushed writer taking short cuts).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no argument. like i said of Leviathan, they made it work (it helps when the character is 13)

[ital-gal.livejournal.com]

yes oh yes, totally drives me crazy, and thank you for including anything that includes Andrew..

plus I learned a new tv trope (that website makes me lose hours.... )

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

Andrew is one of the reasons I quit watching Buffy, no lie. It was right up there with too much Spike (they actually managed to kill my Spike love) and Giles acting like an asshat etc. Andrew willfully murders and rapes (or at least wants to) and he's forgiven and Connor is not.

that is why I try to avoid that site. too much fun stuff