Writing Excuses: Writing Excuses 10.29: Why Should My Characters Fail Spectacularly?
July 26, 2015 9:09 AM - Subscribe
Character failure is a big part of making the middle of a story work. We talk about why, and offer tips about how to make this work well for you.
Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Edge of the World: Terra Incognita, Book 1, by Kevin J. Anderson, narrated by Scott Brick
Writing Prompt: "Yes, but/no, and..." Think of the smartest thing your character can do. Now have them fail with either "yes, but" (they technically succeed, but something else has gone wrong) or "no, and" (they fail, and the failure deepens the mess.)
Audiobook Pick-of-the-Week: The Edge of the World: Terra Incognita, Book 1, by Kevin J. Anderson, narrated by Scott Brick
Writing Prompt: "Yes, but/no, and..." Think of the smartest thing your character can do. Now have them fail with either "yes, but" (they technically succeed, but something else has gone wrong) or "no, and" (they fail, and the failure deepens the mess.)
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The bit I liked about this one particularly was the discussion of how what they call the try/fail cycle can feel artificial, and what to do about it - in general they use a pretty mechanistic method of talking about and/or constructing stories, and acknowledging the flaws in that is useful to me.
posted by restless_nomad at 9:11 AM on July 26, 2015 [1 favorite]