The Clever Club

It's all over modern narrative: The practice of writing a long-form piece and making every single loose end tie in by the end, causing seemingly throwaway characters/plot lines to balloon into what-a-tweest surprises and/or forcing casual readers to flip back hundreds of pages to remind themselves of insignificant details which are now inflated with meaning. It's so endemic in a certain author's work, I call it Gaiman-ing. This is bad writing, for a number of reasons, but it's alluring as hell. In the process of creating my world for Soil, Ocean, Air, I found myself skirting this approach. Time to "Stop, breeeathe, think," as my mother (and Blue's Clues, I believe) would encourage.

I started grouping together the reasons why I crave such neat wrap-ups, but it turned out that they were all facets of one thing: Pay-off.

I get a little endorphin rush when I solve a puzzle. Doing so in a story with the fewest pieces possible feels economical and smart. Then I feel smart and I want to show it off.  "Wow," the throngs will cheer, "I totally see what you did there. That is so smart. I am in the Clever Club with you, Wirtz! What a great book!" Then they will do the thing I want most--more than reading my work once, they will read it again, now a little smugger because they are in the know. And then they will tell the people they know to read my book because they, like their dear author, will want their friends to join in the satisfaction with them. Gold!

Or is it?

Never Ever

I just finished reading a webcomic (I'll save which and my feelings thereon for a review post) wherein the male lead risked getting shot in the head. It made a lot of sense, as far as I could tell as a first-time reader: It would have solved a lot of problems, in most of the characters' minds, and would have certainly punched up the action a bit.

Of course, he was the male lead, so as I read along and saw his defenseless head cradled in the female lead's arms, I knew that he was not going to be shot. There was, I assumed, going to be a twist where shooting him in the head no longer became a reasonable solution and lo, I witness swathes of exposition that explained this twist and made everything okay for the leads to have their lives and get married and all that. Happy ending.

Don't mistake me: I didn't really want him to get shot in the head. I thought the character was well-written and I was feeling girly enough that I was hoping for some more romance (although watching this particular illustrator stretch her wings and draw some gore--clearly something that doesn't interest her--would have been nice). I don't like twists for the sake of twists. And some of my stories have happy endings. I find tragedy interesting, but not, again, for its own sake.

But just so we're all clear, if I had been writing this story, I would have very seriously considered having my male lead get his brains blown everywhere. It's not like there wasn't a twist coming anyway, but predictability is beside the point. I wouldn't do it for shock value, or because it runs against what's expected (reactionism is just as deadly to the creative impulse as plot armour). I would do it because the man holding the gun believed it necessary.

My characters are never, ever safe. Not from each other, and certainly not from me.

If it makes the most sense in the story for something horrible to happen, for one of my characters to be cruel or cowardly or simply snuffed out while they're crossing the street, then it happens.

Yes, I put the gun in his hand, but then I asked him what he wanted to do with it. If he answers "Shoot that dandy in the head," I only have two options: Go back and find a way to take the gun out of his hand--make him a different man, in essence--or let him pull the trigger.