Category: revenge

I mentioned revisiting older topics last week and so now, rising out of the past—just when you were sure it was gone for good and there’s no way it was ever coming back…

I’d like to talk about revenge stories.

I think most folks love a good revenge story. Emphasis on most. Emphasis on good. When they’re done right they’re tons of fun, I think because we get a certain vicarious thrill from seeing someone get what they deserve. It could be a career-ending demotion. Maybe it’s getting embarrassed in front of the whole school. Perhaps it’s learning they’ve been left penniless by someone pulling a phenomenal heist.

And, yes, sometimes it’s them getting hunted across the tundra by somebody with a truly impressive collection of swords and pistols.

Now, this is just my opinion as a consumer of stories and occasional dabbler in the craft, but I think a good revenge story is a balancing act. Not too much of that. Just enough of those. A really solid foundation that can support all of it. If one of these things is off, my whole story can, well, become unbalanced. And once I’m off balance, it doesn’t take much for me fall over.

And we’ve all seen those, right? The revenge story that just seems kind of flat? Or maybe a bit… excessive? Possibly even a bit confusing?

So let’s go over four points I think a good revenge tale needs if it’s going to work. Again, just my own observations, and it’s always possible to find some exceptions, but I feel like these are four pretty solid points and I’ve yet to see them proven wrong since I came up with them.

With all that said… shall we embark on our path of vengeance against those who wronged us?

Well, actually, that’s a great lead-in to my first point. Has something happened that calls for revenge? I mean, there’s lots of bad things in the world but do they require me dedicating myself to balancing the scales of justice? A restaurant got my chimichanga order wrong once—does that require revenge? What about the person back in LA who broke into my car (well, jimmied the lock without causing any damage) but ultimately just stole a handful of change from the center tray. Maybe sixty cents, tops. Is that vendetta-worthy? Hunting that guy down doesn’t really seem worth it, right?

Some things absolutely call for revenge, but a lot of stuff just… doesn’t. A revenge story is a bit like a redemption arc this way. I need to have a sense of how my readers are going to see that initial incident. Will they agree it’s something that requires vengeance? Or are they going to think my characters are overreacting?

Which leads nicely to my second point. Is the character heading out to get revenge the one who should be getting revenge? It’s not unusual for one family member to avenge another, or for someone to avenge their dear friend or beloved. But as the relationships grow more tenuous, the motivation for my revenge story gets murkier. I may be a good customer, but I don’t expect the folks at my local sushi place to swear vengeance if something happened to me. I’ve chatted with the mail carrier a few times and she seems nice, but I’m probably not going to be carrying out a blood oath in her name.

Heck, I’m not even sure I know her name. Should I be the guy making that blood oath? I mean, if I should, it seems like a lot of other people should too…

Revenge is a personal thing. In its own way, it’s intimate. Personally, I’d say it needs to be a family thing. And yes, this can take the broader definition where my characters consider their best friends or teammates as family.

My third point is, to me, one of the most important parts of a revenge story. Simply put, the people my character’s getting revenge against must know why this is happening. If the team that killed my character’s family is being hunted down and killed one by one, but they don’t know why this is happening or who’s doing it… I mean, from their point of view how’s that different from a random killing spree? It might as well be Jason Voorhees out there.

I feel that a big part of a good revenge story is that it’s kind of symbiotic. It’s a relationship between the revenger and the revengee, so to speak, and relationships need to go both way (we can all agree one sided relationships are really weird, right?). So yes, we want Dot to get her revenge, but we also want Wakko to know why she’s doing all this. Why she’s coming after him. Why she’s been ruining his life. He needs that moment of understanding, one way or another—even if he just laughs it off (“…You’re the girl! And you’ve been looking for me all these years just to screw up now? Hah!”).

The reason for this is we understand—as readers and writers, consciously or not—that if Yakko doesn’t know why this is happening, he’s just a victim. He’s not an innocent victim, sure, but he’s still just a victim. He’s someone things are happening to for no reason. It’s the difference between someone seeing their house burn down and someone knowing why their house was set on fire.

Which leads nicely to my fourth and final point. Revenge can be a messy business. Very messy. Often reputations are shattered, blood is spilled, property is destroyed. And we’re all cool with that. We like seeing people getting what’s coming to them. Maybe even with a little interest.

And that’s where it gets tricky. In a revenge story, it’s easy to go a little too far with the reputation shattering and the blood spilling and the property damage. And when I do, that’s when my characters stop being the hero and becomes monsters in their own right. Yes, Phoebe embarrassed Yakko in front of his friends and deserves to be taken down a notch, but holy crap now she’s naked in front of the whole school. And they’re all taking photos! That’s going to cause years of emotional trauma. And okay, Wakko’s getting revenge on the drunk driver who killed his daughter by… wait, he’s killing all the guy’s pets and children right in front of him? WTAF?

This shift is something I’ve talked about before. When those scales tip the other way, our mood’s going to shift, too. We stop feeling good about the revenge and we start feeling sympathy for the people getting revenge exacted on them. Suddenly they’re the victim and my hero’s become, well, the villain. Which, understandably, alters everything. The whole tone of my story will change, and a lot of things will be questioned. Not in a good way. Which, I mean, if that’s my intent, cool (digging two graves and all that). But if it’s not…

Y’see Timmy, a revenge story should be all about the characters. That’s how I see it, anyway. Why are they seeking revenge? How are they doing it? Are they managing to walk that fine line between being a hero and being a monster? Or have they fallen off it…?

Speaking of which, next time, I’d like to talk about the consequences of my actions.

Until then… go write.

Okay, I’ve fallen waaaaaay behind in ranty blog posts over the past two months, so let me take a few minutes and try to make it up to you

As it happens, I wanted to talk about redemption stories. You know, where our hero has done something awful in their past and is now seeking to balance the scales one way or another. Maybe by actively trying to make up for it or by punishing themselves for it.

Right up front, if I want to write about redemption a key thing is empathy. A good redemption story depends on me knowing how my readers will respond to various incidents and actions. If I don’t have a good sense how something will go over, it’ll be easy for my redemption tale to seem pointless, silly, confusing, melodramatic… or, y’know, all of the above.

And, as usual, none of this is ironclad, heavily researched and sourced literary theory that I rigorously defended for my thesis or anything like that. It’s just observations from many, many years of reading and watching stories. Your mileage may vary.

That said… a redemption tale could either be the main thrust of my story or it just part of a single character’s personal arc. Either way, I think my story has to hit a couple of key points. Not in an “introduce the first conflict by page 23,” way, but more in a general “let’s talk about the characters and the story” way. If I don’t have these points in mind, there’s a good chance that my “redemption” story may end up a little lacking

1) Does my character need to be redeemed?
This is one of those “obvious” things that I’ve seen a fair number of folks mess up. If I’m going to tell a redemption story about Wakko, he needs to have actually done something that requires redemption. It’s really cool that Wakko wants to sacrifice himself to make up for his past sins, but if he doesn’t have any past sins… well… That’s not redemption, it’s just a pointless sacrifice. Wakko needs to have something in his past (or do something very early in my story) for which some form of redemption is required. For this post, let’s call it his key event.

This is my first big empathy moment as a writer. If I can’t predict what actions (or lack of actions) my audience will see as needing redemption, my story can get silly pretty quick. There are some things—even things we’d all agree are bad things—that just don’t tip the scales into that “I need redemption for this” territory. Accidentally kicking my cat is bad, but it’s probably not worth a novel of me trying to make up for it Wakko should not be going on a ten year penitent crusade around the world as penance for putting a red sock in the wash (unless comedy is my goal). If he’s really guilt-ridden about that nickel he picked up off the sidewalk when he was six… again, I’d better be writing a comedy.

Also, please note I’ve been referring to the key event as something in the past. That’s going to come up again.

So what was Wakko’s key event? Did he knowingly write a bad check? Peek in someone’s bedroom window when he was fourteen? Sabotage a relationship? Steal a car? Blackmail someone? Maybe… kill someone?

This leads nicely into…

2) Can my character be redeemed?
Somewhat related to the first point. Much like the key event needs to cross a certain threshold to be redemption-worthy, I think we can all agree that there’s another threshold where it’s going to be a lot harder for someone to balance the scales. Maybe impossible. That’s true in pretty much any society, past, present, or future. Sometimes people do things that are beyond redemption. It’s really tough to imagine anything a serial child rapist could do to make up for what they’ve done.

I’m sure some of you immediately thought “well, they could die,” but that’s not redemption, is it? It’s just death. Possibly revenge, but that’s a whole different animal.

So when I’m writing Wakko’s redemption tale, I need to really think about what he’s done. Again, this is going to be an empathy issue. Will my readers think his key event is a redeemable act? Or is it so extreme nothing could ever make up for it.

3) Does my character want to be redeemed?
This may sound obvious, but I can’t force redemption on someone. That’s not how it works, despite everything the Inquisition tried to teach us. Wakko needs to want it.

And… maybe he doesn’t. Maybe he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong. Perhaps he paid his fine or wrote his apology letter or served his time and considers the matter closed. Or it could be he knows it was wrong and just doesn’t care. Maybe he feels he’s beyond your petty ideas of right and wrong. Some people are like that. If that’s the kind of character I’ve written Wakko as, it’s going to be tough to do a convincing redemption story about him.

4) Why hasn’t my character done it before?
Okay, for this one, I want to toss out what I personally think is a pretty solid rule of thumb… Feel free to agree or disagree down below.

In a good redemption story, a notable amount of time needs to pass between the key event and the redemption for that event.

Y’see, Timmy, in my opinion one of the main elements of redemption (from a story point of view) is guilt. If I don’t feel guilty about the key event, why would I want redemption?

With that in mind, if I’m taking care of things immediately after the key event, this isn’t so much redemption as it is… well, cleaning up. Wakko may feel awful about having to clean up the mess he made, but does he really feel guilty? If I hit someone with my car, it’s the difference between calling 911 and sitting with them until the ambulance comes… or switching my headlights off and speeding away. I may feel bad in both situations, but they’re two very different situations.

So what made Wakko run from his key event? Why didn’t he clean up his mess right then? What’s kept him from admitting it or doing anything about it until now? Denial? Fear?

And this one leads nicely to a sort of two in one, Watsonian-Doylistic point…

5A) Why is my character doing it now?
If I accept that Wakko’s tried to hide that key event for weeks or months or years… why is he looking for redemption now? What’s changed for him as a character that he’s decided to acknowledge this and make amends, starting today? What’s his (and I hate myself for saying this) inciting incident?

This is yet another empathy moment for me, the writer, because this is a big decision for any character. It’s a major change of course. They’re going against what they’ve done up until this point in their lives. If this isn’t a believable change of heart, my whole story could fall apart.

5B) Why is my character doing it now?
Looking at this as the writer, from a story point of view, why is this happening now? Odds are Wakko’s going to start thinking about redemption in this story, because I write about active characters who actually do things. So why have I included this? Am I just looking to give him some flavor and round him out a bit as a person? Is it the main plot of my whole novel? No matter why I’m doing it, this decision and the repercussions from it need to fit into the structure of my story and into Wakko’s arc as a character.

6) Does it balance the scales?
At the end of the day, every redemption story comes down to this. Has Wakko made up for what he did? Does he believe he did? Do other character think things are even now? Are my readers going to think he’s redeemed himself, or is it going to come across a little thin or forced?

I mentioned death up above—well, you thought about it, I mentioned it—so it’s probably worth talking about that. A lot of folks try to use death as the ultimate balancing agent. A life for a life, redemption achieved, and so on. I mean, sure, Wakko robbed, raped, and murdered his way across the country, leaving hundreds of people physically and/ or emotionally scarred, but in the end he died saving that little kid from getting hit by a bus And that makes it all okay, right?

No, of course it doesn’t. In fact, if not handled just right, death can come across as cowardice or a “he got off easy” situation. It can even look like laziness or a cop-out on the writer’s part. I mean, I don’t have to deal with all these complex emotions and repercussions if Wakko just gets a bus in the face. But it still counts as a strong resolution, right?

Right?

And there you have it. This is the kind of stuff I think about when I’m trying to do a redemption arc story. And if I don’t have good answers for most of these points, well, maybe I need to look again at how I’ve set up my story. Or my character.

Because there’s a decent chance they’re not on the road to redemption.

Next time I’d like to say something about said

Until then, go write.

This is one of those posts some folks may feel the need to argue with. It’s a writing tip that’s going to feel obvious to some of you, and ridiculous to others, but I truly think a writer needs to follow if they want any measure of success.  And when I say “success” I refer to the classic definition—“making money off your material.”

If I want that kind of success, my hero has to win.

Fair warning, there’s going to be a couple spoilers coming up. Kind of necessary if we’re going to talk about how things end for a character in a story. They’re for pretty big things I’m sure most everyone already knows the ending of, but there’s the warning just in case. If you’re way behind in your required reading or viewing, you may want to stop here.

Also, I’m using hero in the gender-blind sense. If it makes you feel better, feel free to swap in heroine or protagonist. I’m not against any of these terms or the characters they attach to, I’m just using hero because it’s short, and quick and I’m trying to stay focused on this instead of everything going on in the world. So for this post, I’m just talking about the hero.

And the hero wins.

Pretty much always.

Now, there’s a belief in some circles that having the hero of the story fail and die somehow improves the story. That it’s more dramatic. It’s the belief that having something depressing and random happen to my hero is more “honest” because life is often depressing and random. I think this ties back to the frequently-waved buzzwords realism and art. Art imitates life, so if I’m imitating life, I must be making art. That’s just logic. Right?

As I’ve mentioned once or thrice before, this kind of ending sucks. It sucks because we all inherently know the hero is supposed to win, since we identify with the hero. If the hero loses, it means we lost. We’re losers, identifying with another loser.

Believe it or not, this sort of statement doesn’t go over well with most people. I mean (as we’re currently seeing in the real world) people have a lot of trouble dealing with it when a character they’ve invested so much of themselves in doesn’t win.

Now, before people start scribbling down below (for any reason, although I’m sure at least one person already has), let me finish.

I’m not saying every book has to end with happy smiles and people rolling around on piles of money in their new twelve-bedroom mansion. My hero doesn’t need to defeat the cyborg werewolves, save the world, and fly off into the sunset with nymphomaniac heiress Margot Robbie in her private jet.

Truth is, the hero doesn’t necessarily need to enjoy winning. I just said they need to win. They may be damaged physically, emotionally, or both. In fact, if my hero ends up wounded or broken after all they’ve done, it just makes us identify with them a little more, doesn’t it?

When they win like this, we often call it a pyrrhic victory. Maybe our hero solves the murder mystery, but loses their best friends in the process. She got revenge, but her lover’s still dead and now she’s a wanted criminal herself. He won the contest, but now his family’s humiliated and wants nothing to do with him. The team tried to save all the hostages but only half of them got out alive. As I mentioned above, victory isn’t an all-or-nothing thing, and my hero can still have a pile of losses even though they’ve succeeded in their main goals. A partial win is still a win.

Hell, the hero doesn’t even need to survive the story in order to win.  There are plenty of characters in books and film who didn’t live to enjoy their victories. At the end of Rogue One (here’s that spoiler alert) our two surviving heroes are literally incinerated in the blast from the Death Star’s test firing. And note I say surviving heroes. The rest of their team has already suffered a series of brutal and violent ends. Nobody gets out of that movie. Same with Tony Stark in Avengers: Endgame, cooked from the inside with a single snap of his fingers.

And yet, in both of these examples, the heroes win. No question about it. Anyone who’s seen these stories will tell you the good guys won and the bad guys lost.

A key thing here is my character’s motive. What are they trying to do? Keep in mind, their stated goals and their actual goals might not always be the same. Phoebe may say she wants to date the head cheerleader, but what she’s really looking for is romantic love and companionship. Wakko may say he wants revenge, but what he really wants is justice. So they may fail at that obvious, stated goal (dating the cheerleader) or even a broader, more universal goal (keeping their left leg attached), but still succeed with their actual, motivating goal.

Now, I want to mention one other thing, because my friend Stephen Blackmoore brought it up when I mentioned this theory of winning at the Writers Coffeehouse once. There are some stories (a lot in the noir genre, for example) where the hero doesn’t win. In fact, in some cases they fail completely, on all levels, and end up much worse off than they began. This can absolutely happen in stories. Great stories, some of which get a lot of praise and awards.

But…

I think if we named some stories where the hero fails in this complete way, we’d probably realize… they’re not all that well-known. And they’re probably read even less. Again, not saying they’re bad, but it is a much smaller niche of potential readers who’ll enjoy a story where the hero, well, doesn’t really accomplish anything. Even if it’s beautifully written. So there’s nothing wrong if those are the stories I want to write, but I should have my eyes open about how wide an appeal they’re going to have.

Y’see, Timmy… we encounter enough failure and losing in real life that most folks aren’t going to also enjoy it as entertainment. We want to see victories and success and heroic sacrifice because these are the things we dream of in our own lives, and we relate to those people because they’re the kind of people we wish we could be. Even if just for a little while.

So if I’m my plot ends with a massive failure or my hero dies for no reason… maybe it’s worth rethinking that.

Especially if I want to win.

Next time, I’d like to talk about Flashdance.

Until then, go write.