Category: triangles

            Well, it’s that time of year again.  Time to cue up that playlist of holiday music and pick out your stack of favorite movies.  Maybe you go a little more unconventional with your choices, maybe you stick to the classics, but whatever your flavor is, I’m sure there’s a lot of them.

            Hell, holiday movies are pretty much a solid, dependable genre at this point.  Just between Hallmark and Netflix, I think there’s forty or fifty new ones just for this year alone.  I worked on one ten years ago and it still gets heavy circulation.  People go nuts about the “plague” of superhero movies, but seriously—Christmas movies are the real machine.
            Anyway…

            We laugh at a lot of these and roll our eyes because they often feature some kind of painful romance.  And that’s what I wanted to talk about.  Where that awkwardness comes from and why these stories kinda keeps us at arms length rather than pulling us in.
            The standard Christmas movie goes something like this.  A young woman (it’s almost always a woman) falls for a guy who’s a few weeks away from getting engaged, married, etc.  The two of them have chemistry, while his girlfriend/ fiancé rages away at her job or as a larval Bridezilla or maybe just as a generally awful, awful person.  Eventually the guy comes to see the error of his ways and our two impossibly good-looking people end up together just in time to kiss on Christmas Eve.

            I’ve talked about this general type of romantic triangle once or thrice before, and before we dive in at might be worth going back and glancing over that real quick—it sums up the ground rules of how and why these triangles work.

            Y’see, there’s a really basic flaw in how a lot of these holiday movies set up that triangle.  It’s why they always come across as a bit weird and the protagonists always seem a bit… well, wrong.  And I think it’s one of those things that’s really easy for me to avoid once I see it all laid out

            Let’s use that basic structure up above for our example.  Our test story, so to speak.  Amy (A) has a meet-cute with Bob (B), who is in a relationship with Kat (C, just to keep you on your toes).  Amy and Bob have chemistry, Kat is bordering on (if not openly) awful and clearly wrong for Bob.  And it’s Christmas because… y’know, that’s when this always seems to happen.

            Now, normally in a romantic triangle situation like this, our protagonist would be Bob.  Bob, after all, is the one who needs to make a choice here, right?  He needs to be active and decide if he wants to be with Amy or Kat.
            But…

            Our protagonist is Amy.  And the only way I can make Amy active in this situation is to make her… well, kinda unlikable.  If she does anything to improve things with Bob—all those standard romance bonding moments like long talks and quiet dinners and heartfelt discussions about shared passions—it kinda means she’s undercutting Bob’s relationship with Kat.  Which is a little rough, morally, no matter what we think of Kat.
            And geeeeez, if things get physical to almost any level, well, now they both look bad.  Amy’s making moves on somebody in a relationship.  Bob’s in a relationship and hooking up with someone else.  I mean, how bad does Kat have to be for us to be cool with Bob cheating on her?  And if she’s not that bad, then… well, yeah, he’s a jerk.

            And, yes—sometimes odd things happen between people in really specific situations.  Everybody reacts differently to stress and fear and all that.  Firm embraces may happen.  Maybe even a kiss or odd proclamation.  But that’s a reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally fine line.  Scary fine.  It’s so easy for that situation to go from understandable and excusable to what-the-hell inappropriate.

            Y’see, Timmy, when Amy’s this point in the triangle, she isn’t the one with a choice to make. Not a real one, anyway. She has two options. She can do nothing (which ends the story pretty quick) or she can try to disrupt Bob and Kat’s relationship. Those are her only paths, as far as our plot goes, and neither of them is a great one from a storytelling point of view.

            I think when writers do this, they’re confusing the outcome with the choices that lead to it. We’ve all heard “the ends justify the means,” but this tends to ignore the fact that the means I use also determine what kind of end I get. There are tons of ways Amy and Bob can end up together, but a lot of them can be paths that make one of them—or both of them—characters we don’t really like or care about. In some cases, we may even be actively rooting against them. Cause they’re horrible people.
           Don’t worry about outcomes. Outcomes are the conclusion of a story.  Think about the path to that outcome. The choices my character has to make in order to get there. 

            Because those choices are my story. They’re my plot.  And if there aren’t any real choices, or they’re all being made by supporting characters, or they’re the wrong kind of choices, or they’re just all bad ones… well…

            I shouldn’t be too shocked if people think it’s a bad story.

            Speaking of stories, here’ s one last reminder that books make fantastic holiday gifts, and to maybe check this out if you’re having trouble affording things this year.

            Next time, I wanted to talk a little bit about time.

            Until then, go write.

            I wanted to blather on about challenges  today. Simple, basic challenges.  Well, a type that should be simple, but still gets messed up sometimes.             

            That challenge is called choice.

            We’ve all used or come across choice.  As I said, it’s probably one of the easiest challenges a writer can create.  Character A has to decide between two options (B and C).  It’s s triangle.

            Sometimes these choices are tough. Sometimes they’re not. Sometimes A is pursuing B, but it’s clear C should be the priority.  Making the decision between B and C provides the conflict, the drama, and maybe even some comedy depending on how it’s done.  There can also be an opportunity for some character growth in there.

            You’ve probably heard of romantic triangles.  It’s one of the most common ones out there.  A is dating B, but then comes to realize C is their real soul mate.  Maybe Dot is engaged to an antagonistic jock, but can’t help falling for the free-spirited caterer.  The standard in most romantic triangles is that B is very clearly not the right person for A, while C is so blatantly right it’s almost frustrating.

            Another common one is “work vs. family.”  Will Wakko choose to spend the weekend with his family or working on the MacGuffin account?  There are a few versions of this.  Sometimes it’s family instead of friends.  It’s usually work on the other leg, but it could be any sort of mild obsession or compulsion.  Am I choosing my best friend or this treasure map?  My pets or my new apartment?

             Triangles are fantastic because they’re a very simple plot and framework that we can all immediately relate to and understand.  They make for easy subplots in novels, and in short stories or screenplays they can almost be the entire story.  This is one of the reasons we keep seeing them again and again and again.

            However…

            Simple as they are, there are still a few basic rules to a triangle.

            Actually, that’s a lie. There’s only one rule.  Triangles are so simple there’s just one rule to making them work.

            We have a triangle because there’s A, B, and C.  Three points.  If I toss out one of these—let’s say B—then I’ve only got two points. That’s a line.  Our structure is just A to C now.   

            Let me expand on the examples above…

            Wakko is so obsessed with landing the MacGuffin account that he misses his daughter’s karate tournament, his son’s piano recital, and the anniversary party his husband arranged for their best friends.  But Wakko keeps at it because this promotion will put him in a key position for the next account, and that’s the big one that’s going to put him in the corner office and change their lives. 

            The stress of all this is too much, though, and Wakko snaps.  He screams at a client.  When he’s called on it, he even yells at his boss and gets fired.  But after a week at home with his kids and husband, he realizes this is where he was supposed to be all along, with his family.  They may not be filthy rich, but the film ends with all of them happy together.
            Or what about this one.  Dot’s a painter-turned-graphic designer engaged to a square-jawed former quarterback turned TV producer. He’s crass, he’s mean to every waiter, and he undresses every woman he meets with his eyes—even when Dot’s right there with him.

            Then she meets their potential caterer, a free spirit who does watercolors and incorporates his talents into his food.  They talk art.  They talk careers.  They have a casual lunch and talk more art.  When Dot comes home early one night and catches her fiancé with his secretary (who he’s decided to marry instead for… reasons), she finds herself calling the caterer.  And suddenly, Dot’s heart is fluttering like it hasn’t in years as she realizes this is the person she’s supposed to be with.
            Do both of those examples feel a little… lacking?

            Y’see, Timmy, what happened in both of them was that character A never really did anything.  Once B was eliminated, there wasn’t anywhere to go, story-wise, except with C.   Character A didn’t make a choice, they just went with what was left. 

            Make sense?

             B and C both have to remain valid choices.  My story has to maintain that triangle up until the moment of choice.  B can still be a bad choice, but A has to actively realize that and then decide to go with C instead.  Once that’s happened, I can get B out of the picture, but not until then.
            If not, ending up with C isn’t a triumph.  It’s a consolation prize.  Which I’d guess isn’t terribly satisfying for C.

            Or for the readers.

            Next time….  Next time’s going to be golden, that I can promise you.

            Until then, go write.

             Yes, it’s that time of year again.  The time when a young writer’s fancy turn to thoughts of…

            Well, getting published, usually.

            But, that aside, there’s romance in the air this weekend.  And everyone loves a good romance because, pretty much across the board, we’ve all either been in love, are in love, or want to be in love. It’s a wonderful feeling.  Heck those first few months of giddy romance are just fantastic, aren’t they?

            Love is great because we can relate to it.  We believe in it.  For the most part, we enjoy seeing other people in love.

             (except when Wakko started dating Phoebe… those jerks… hate them so much…)

            If those three traits sound familiar—relatable, believable, likable—it’s because I’ve mentioned them two or six times as the traits of good characters.  So a good romance can be a powerful tool in a story, because it immediately grounds one or two of my characters.

            However…

            Have you ever read a book or watched a movie where, with no warning, two characters start professing their mad love for each other?  No preamble, no chemistry, they just suddenly  start flirting and making long-term plans.  None of us likes emotional fakery, and few things can sink a story faster than a pasted-on love interest.  It makes us roll our eyes while reading books and laugh while we’re watching movie.

            So, let’s revisit a few simple rules that can help craft a love story for the ages…

            The First Rule—  Okay, like I was just saying, love needs real emotions, and I can’t have real emotions without real people.  And real people, oddly enough, act in realistic ways.  Note that I said realistic—not rational.  Love is one of the most bizarre, irrational things most of us will ever encounter in our lives. 

            If my characters are real, though, they’re going to have needs, desires, plans, and tastes.  And it’ll stand out if they make choices that go against those traits.  Yes, opposites attract—they even have a lot of fun together—but if we’re talking about real emotions, odds are these two are going to have more in common than not.  To put it another way, the career-minded Army officer probably isn’t going to make serious long term plans with the quirky socialist musician.  Although… maybe she used to play guitar or violin, and he reminds her of another path she could’ve taken.  Having past conflicts and secrets can make a character seem real, too.

            Even then, how far and how fast they take things should be consistent.  Some folks schedule every hour of every day, others live in the moment.  People can be confident or nervous, experienced or awkward.  For some folks it’s a huge moment to have that first cautious, fleeting kiss on the third date, and other folks are in the parking lot tearing each others clothes off half an hour after they meet.
           Simply put, my characters need to be believable if their relationship is going to be believable.

            The Second Rule—  Quick show of hands.  Who’s ever been in a situation where someone’s been trying to push you into a relationship?  Maybe it’s friends or coworkers.  Could be the person you’ve been on one date with.  Hopefully it’s not relatives, because that’s always kinda… weird.

            Regardless, the result is it makes us want to get away from the object of our potential affection.  Nobody likes feeling forced into something, and so we don’t enjoy seeing other people forced into things.  That’s just human nature.

            Now, for the record, “someone” includes me, the writer.  Characters need their own motivations to get into a relationship.  I can’t just have them do things for the convenience of the plot.  If I’ve based my whole story around the folklorist and the soldier saving the villagers because of their mutual respect for each other, then I need a real reason for them to get together, because they’re real people (as mentioned in the First Rule). 

            And no, the reason can’t be something like “because they need to face Demosthenes the Elder-Lich in the third act.”  It also can’t be “I need a sex scene to hold people’s attention.”  If this is the basis of Wakko and Phoebe’s relationship… well, they probably won’t be celebrating any major anniversaries.  Not with each other, anyway.

            People get together because they want to get together, not because other folks think they should be together.

            The Third Rule – This one could actually count as real-world advice.  Don’t confuse sex with love.  There are lots of points in a story where it might be completely acceptable for two characters to have sex.  We’re all mature adults here (well, mostof us) and I’m willing to bet most of us have had sex with someone we weren’t madly in love with at that moment.  Or at any point later.  Simple fact—sex is fun.  It’s a stress-reliever.  It lets us avoid thinking about other things.  Heck, it can even keep you warm.

            However… sex doesn’t always translate to love.  In stories or in the real world.  If my two characters fall into bed (or onto a couch, up against a tree, on a kitchen counter, etc), I need to make sure I’m clear what it means for both of them.  Forcing something casual into something serious will just read as forced (refer back to the Second Rule).

            So… sex and love are not the same thing.  Don’t forget it.

            The Fourth Rule— This is a tough one, because Hollywood keeps trying to tell us otherwise.  How often in movies can you immediately spot “the love interest” as soon as s/he is introduced?  It doesn’t matter what kind of film it is or what’s going on, it’s easy to pick out him/ her the first time we see them.  You may have heard this moment called the “meet-cute,” usually in screenwriting circles.

            Y’see, Timmy, the simple truth is…  romance doesn’t always fit in a story.   Someone could be fighting for their life, painfully wounded, or so scared they’re a moment away from a heart attack.  Maybe they’re already in a relationship with someone else.  Maybe they just have no interest in a relationship—emotional or physical.

            Forcing a relationship in these situations also risks making one or both characters seem very unlikable.  There was a television show a few years back where a police officer was presumed dead and in hiding, but kept sneaking off (in his new identity) to check on his wife and son.  Thing is, he was also spending a lot of time with this sexy blonde contortionist (no, seriously) and there was a lot of, shall we say, tension between them.  And chemistry.

            Thing is, this made the officer a very hard-to-like character.  Is he cheating on his wife?  Or has he moved on and found something new?  Is he sympathetic or a heel?

            Similarly, I read a screenplay once where the two protagonists start feeling strong urges toward each other while they’re searching for the woman’s abducted daughter.  Not years-back abducted, mind you—four hours ago abducted.  But, wow, doesn’t this private detective have great arms and his eyes are soblue…

            In ten words or less—sometimes it’s just not going to happen.

            So there are the rules.  Now go forth and spread the love.

            Where appropriate.  Don’t be that guy.  Or woman.

            Oh, and before I forget, this Sunday is the Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, please swing by and join us as we talk about writing, publishing, and all the different areas they overlap.

            Next time we’re back here, I’d like to talk to you about a couple of ideas I’ve had.

            Until then, go write.

            Long overdue, I know. I could make excuses but… well, the honest truth is I just took a few weeks off to recharge the batteries a bit.  I watched some movies.  Built some LEGO sets and a few little toy soldiers.  There may have been some drinking, too.

            Yeah, selfish of me.  I’m not a nice guy.

            As some of you know, a few years back I was hired by Amazon Studios to do a movie treatment for a very loose idea they had about robot soldiers (nothing ever happened with it).  I even went in and chatted with some folks at the production company they’d farmed the movie out to.  As we talked about stories and motivations, one of the producers told me about a great sign she’d seen outside the door for one of the development heads at Warner Brothers.

WHAT’S THE BAD GUY’S STORY?

            Let me follow that up with another story before I explain.  You may be aware of a CW show called Arrow which chronicles the adventures of the Green Arrow and a number of related DC heroes and villains.  Well, a while back one of the characters they started hinting at for season three was Ra’s al Ghul, the leader of  the League of Assassins.  And one actor name that briefly floated around was Liam Neeson, who’d played Ra’s in the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy.  Much to everyone’s surprise, when MTV asked him about it on a press tour, Neeson said he’d take the part again in an instant if they offered it to him (they did not). 

           He also offered some advice about why Ra’s was an interesting character and how an actor should play him.  “They have to believe in their philosophy,” Neeson explained.  “Ra’s al Ghul absolutely believed what he was doing was ultimately saving civilization, and it was quite a good argument he comes up with.  Throughout the ages this fraternity, that brought the plague to wipe out a section of mankind because it needed to be regenerated again.  Very dangerous, but you have to believe it.”

            See where we’re going here?

            Pretty much every story has an antagonist of some kind.  A flat-out villain, maybe a misguided but well-meaning opponent, perhaps a few mindless pawns of the system, but somebody.  It’s the rare story that has no antagonist of any sort.

            As both of those stories above explain, the antagonist has to have their own reasons and motivations for what they’re doing.  That producer had gotten tired of villains who twirled their mustaches for no reason, or for extremely weak reasons.  If one of my characters is going to shut down the prom, rob a casino, or blow up the United Nations, they’d better have a real reason for doing it.

            A lot of stories fall apart because they don’t have a good villain.  All too often, writers just think their antagonist just needs to do bad things and—done!  Why are they doing it?  Well, they’re the bad guy.  Bad guys do bad things, right?

            And, please, for the love of Tzeentch, do not say “because they’re insane.” That’s the cop-out answer.  If I say my villain’s motivation is “they’re insane” I’m aiming about three inches below the dirt-simplest, first-choice answer.

            Why do I need a well thought-out villain?

            Well, my villain’s arguably the second most important character in my story (after my hero).  He or she is why the story is happening. After all, if they weren’t posing some sort of challenge to my hero… well, heck, why even put pants on today?  Why do anything?  My hero might as well spend the day in underwear and a t-shirt, drinking and getting caught up with Star Wars: Rebels or Animaniacs.

            The problem, of course, is that it’s tough to logically explain why someone would decide to be the villain, right?  Aside from vampires or demons or some kind of inherently evil thing… why choose to be the bad guy?  Why would anyone decide to be a Nazi? I mean, how could anyone do that? 

            As it happens, that Nazi reference did set something up for me (go Godwin!).  A great way to explain this is with Magneto, the X-Men’s recurring nemesis.  If you aren’t a big X-Men fan, Professor X and Magneto used to be allies.  They were friends who shared the same beliefs and goals.  But at some point, Magneto decided he needed to follow a different, more extreme path.  He became the villain of the series, and the arch-enemy of the X-Men.

            So….why did Magneto decide to become a villain?

            That’s the interesting point and what this is really all about.  He didn’t.  Magneto decided everyone else was doing things wrong and that—much like Ra’s Al Ghul up above—he was going to start doing them right.  In his mind, Magneto is the hero of the series while his old friend and the X-Men are a bunch of well-meaning idiots who, alas,  keep getting in the way of his bigger-picture goals.

            Y’see, Timmy, for every character, the story is about them.  In the same way I’m the main character in my life story and you’re the main character in yours, the villain believes the story is all about them. Try to think of the most reprehensible character you can, then put yourself in their shoes.  They all believe they’re in the right.  Yes, even if it’s a drug lord or a DVD pirate or a mutant master of magnetism. 

            Part of my job as a writer is to get inside their head and figure out how someone could rationalize things like this.  What makes someone think being a bully or a hit man or a far-right fascist Nazi is a good decision?  What’s their motivation? How do they continue to justify it as time goes on, and how do the people around them justify it? 

            We’ve talked about something like this before—triangles.  In a romantic triangle, all too often one of the two choices is made absurdly ridiculous.  We’ve all probably made a bad choice in partners at some point in our lives, but not one that bordered on being a flat-out evil dictator or sociopath.

            When someone’s significant other shows signs of being cruel, a bully, manipulative, dishonest… that’s usually when we end up asking “why the hell are these two people together?”  These triangles fail because that first choice isn’t a person, they’re just a caricature.  We don’t see why someone would act like that, let alone why someone else would choose to be with them.

            And let me toss out one last bit of advice. I heard years ago—and you may have heard it, too—that the three most common motives for murder are love, money, and revenge.  If I’m going to pick one of these as my villain’s motivation… man, it better be spectacular. The greatest love story evercommitted to paper (without being even slightly cheesy).  A sum of money beyond imagining (but, of course, not so huge it would destroy the world economy).  The most elaborate revenge-worthy crime ever (yet not taken to such an extreme that my antagonist becomes a joke).  If I’m going to have someone wear the bear suit… I have to earn it.

            A great villain deserves no less.

            Next time, I want to talk about big ideas. And ides that may not be as big as they seem at first glance.

            Oh, on another note, if you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, this Sunday is another Writers Coffeehouse at Dark Delicacies in Burbank.  It’s open to writers of all levels, it’s completely free, and it’s at least as adequate as this blog.  This month we’re going to be talking about editing, drafts, and some social media stuff.  Stop by and check it out.

            Until then… go write.