 Mystery: December 18, 2013 Issue [#6052] |
  Mystery
This week: Consequences Edited by: Jeff  
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"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
-- Carl Sagan
Mystery Trivia of the Week: Baroness Orczy (full name Baroness Emma Magdolna Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála "Emmuska" Orczy de Orczi... wow!  ) is perhaps best known for creating the character of The Scarlet Pimpernel. At first she didn't have much success, but she turned one of her manuscripts into a play that ran on the West End of London for several years, broke many stage records, was translated into other languages, and saw many revivals. The franchise eventually expanded into over a dozen novels and was so successful that she was able to buy herself an estate in Monte Carlo.
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CONSEQUENCES
One of the most important aspects of your story (and the hardest to do well!) is setting appropriate consequences for your characters once they've chosen a course of action. Consequences are what contrast with those actions to give us a satisfying resolution to a story. We've all seen those movies and read those stories where the consequences are weak and/or don't match up with the weight of the story. Those are the sappy romantic comedies where everything magically works out in the end, or the action/adventure stories where, by the end of the narrative, everything's wrapped up with a nice, neat little bow on top. But in reality, we have to face consequences for our actions. Every time we make a choice, it comes at the expense of something else.
Not every consequence has to be a life-and-death decision or hold the weight of the world in the balance, but think about the choices you make in your everyday life and what they mean to you and those around you. The choice to stay at the office and work comes at the expense of time spent with your family and friends. The choice to watch a football game on TV comes at the expense of time that could have been spent watching something else on another channel. The choice to get up and go to church in the morning comes at the expense of a few extra hours of rest and sleeping in. Everything choice you make has a consequence. In economics, they call it the opportunity cost of a choice you've made; every choice you make comes at the expense of the next best option.
Think about some of the most memorable choices characters have made in movies and books:
(SPOILER ALERTS)
In THE DARK KNIGHT, Batman's choice to let Gotham City blame him for the death of Harvey Dent is a choice he made in the best interests of the city... but the consequence was that he became viewed as a murderer and a villain for something he didn't do.
In STAR WARS, Obi Wan Kenobi allows Darth Vader to kill him, so that he could become one with the Force and catalyze Luke into fighting against his father and the Dark Side... he inspired Luke but the consequence was that it cost him his mortal life.
In HARRY POTTER, Harry learns that Voldemort's soul is divided among his various Horcruxes... and that he's one of them. If he wants to truly destroy Voldemort for good, the choice to do that comes with the consequence that his own life (as he knows it) must be sacrificed in the process.
In THE HUNGER GAMES, Katniss Everdeen's sister is the one chosen to participate in the brutal tournament. Katniss makes the choice to save her... but her consequence is that she must take her sister's place.
Consequences are important because they give us context under which to appreciate an accomplishment; the significance of the choices your characters make are directly related to the significance of the consequences those actions have. You can't truly appreciate a character's choice to sacrifice himself if you don't know what he's giving up. You can't truly grasp the magnitude of the choice to leave one's career in order to spend more time with family if you don't understand all the things that made that career desirable. You can't truly appreciate someone's actions unless you understand the consequences and the price they paid to make that choice.
The next time you're writing a mystery, consider the consequences of your character's actions. What is the cost of solving the crime? What's the price to be paid for discovering the truth behind the mystery? Even if it's something as simple as never being able to look at someone else or a situation the same way again, the consequences of our choices matter.
Until next time,
-- Jeff
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I encourage you to check out the following mystery items:
“Morgan! You need to get up! Body found at Rosel Park,” yelled my partner Andre. My god, doesn’t anyone sleep in this town? I thought as I rolled over to the edge of the bed and swung my legs over to place my feet firmly on the floor. I stood up and walked over to the bathroom, where I saw the most horrifying thing in my life. ME! My god! My hair was atrocious and the sleep in my eyes was disgusting. I turned the sink tap on and scrubbed my eyes clean. With my hands slightly wet, I pulled my hair back into a respectable ponytail. I have no need to apply any make-up, so I simply walked over to my wardrobe to find some (hopefully clean) work clothes.
Selima would never get used to the smell, the worst part of having to help this silly man. As the both of them raised the corrugated metal sheet at an incline, pointing it down towards the open mouth of a well, the blood was first and sped down in painterly rivulets that would take the most scrubbing to clean off after.
"Wow, creepy." Shannon observed as he shut the door on his car and took in the sight before him. Tall, athletic and blonde, the young man is dressed casually in a light black sweater and blue jeans. A heavy gold Rolex watch is worn on his left wrist. The massive Victorian era building stood in front of him and Lauren, silhouetted in the light of the full moon high above.
Walking back into the hub of the party she smiles and waves to a few fraternity friends. Darkness suddenly overcomes her as two hands tightly cover her eyes. An unfamiliar voice whispers in her ear, "Do what I say and nobody gets hurt."
It was a rookie mistake. Everyone knows never make eye contact in a public place if you want to be left alone.
My head was pounding, and I yearned for the refuge of the park, for peace and quiet to ease the throbbing. I sat on the park bench, facing the tranquil lake, when movement caught my attention on the periphery of my vision. Before I had a chance to think about what I was doing, my head was turning.
“It's OK Nate, no one here wants to hurt you, we just want to make sure you get better,” They're liars. Each and every one of them lie. The faces change but the statement remains the same. I don't know how long I've been here. Struggling to remember how it happened. They kidnapped me, they must have. I wouldn't come to this dank dungeon of my own accord.
The grotesque marionette faded into the arboreal abyss beyond the pond. Creaking noises whispered through the decaying forest as tree bark began peeling off, molting nature to embrace the supernatural. Bandit turned to behold a thick congregation of white birch trees in an otherwise desolate patch of land. The senseless eyes that covered the trees taunted him, watched him.
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Feedback from my last newsletter about damsels, The Bechdel Test, and female roles:
aegreenfield writes, "I thought about my female characters in my novel. I realized that they followed none of this criteria. My damsels will be reworked."
Happy to hear that you're endeavoring to write more substantive female roles! 
Voodoo Shampoo  writes, "i see why one should take care to also include women in their stories, all humans are equal. too bad the bechdel test would fail a movie about adam and eve that don't have any kids! (god doesn't count as any gender). in fact the bechdel test would fail any genderless movie in it, think about a dramatization about a bunch of androids that don't represent any gender ... now that would fail the bechdel test massively although it has no males in it either"
As with all of these kinds of literary analysis, I think the real value is not necessarily in adhering rigidly to any objective set of criteria, but instead in challenging us to consider the way we approach something and see if there isn't a better, more equitable way.
Nixie🦊  writes, "It's me again, Jeff. The problem is I've been thinking—thinking about television where so many shows have female protagonists and emasculated males. My brother suggested women must like shows with these deflated men who exist to highlight gorgeous women. Seriously?
As to the newsletter, as always, a professional presentation with thought-provoking content. In particular, I laughed at the thought of a woman worrying about being tied down to one man. Your point was noted. When the economic downturn began, men started looking for successful women with good health insurance.
I've cycled back through several of my stories and my women pass the test. Mostly because I write unconventional stories with odd plots only a few understand. "
Thanks for writing in and sharing your thoughts!
Tornado Dodger  writes, "Not just a great topic but written clearly and expertly without talking over your audience's head. Awesome! Your editorials are by far the best. Thank you for all your hard work my friend. :)"
Thanks, Brooke!
PatrickB writes, "Excellent essay, Jeff! What an incredible way to force us all as storytellers to recognize unperceived patterns in our thinking, and at the same time, figure out ways to avoid them. Arch-types don't have to be clichés. You also make excellent points about the subtle but narrative-quaking results of changing a main character's biological sex. It casts everything in the narrative in a completely different shade if the change is truly to be accurate: we would want not a woman acting and reacting like a man, but a woman acting and reacting like a woman. A lot easier said than done. Thanks for this!"
Thank you for taking the time to write in and share your thoughts, Patrick! Much appreciated.
Quick-Quill  writes, "Jeff- I am very interested in your response to reading Deception Point. It has become my favorite referral and I haven't had a bad response yet."
It's on my reading list for next year. Will definitely let you know!
Ben Garrick writes, "There is a gigantic difference between equality of opportunity without regard to gender, and trying to pound a female character into a male hole (tongue-in-cheek comment on purpose) so as to be sure to be politically correct. Our society is so overwhelmed by the joyless pursuit of gender-errors that, too much of the time, nothing worthwhile is accomplished.
Let's, instead, celebrate those differences that 'make the world go around'. I invite your comments. -cammerfe"
While I do think that substantive female roles are under-represented in fiction, I do agree that the solution is not to merely create female characters purely for the sake of adding to their numbers. As I mentioned in one of the comments above, I think the real challenge is for us, as writers, to take the opportunity to reflect on the characters we write and see if there isn't a way to write more substantive female roles that are significant to the story rather than merely adding a hash mark to the "girls" side of the character roster.
Rhonda writes, "Jeff, I loved the editorial this week and your challenge to writers to consider using anything other than stock characters. I couldn't agree more how much just the change of one key character's gender can change an entire story. Great job on the newsletter, thanks for sharing your thoughts."
Thanks for writing in, Rhonda!
opus writes, "A writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. A writer who omits things because he does not know them only makes hollow places in his writing. —Hemingway explained the iceberg theory in Death in the Afternoon (1932) Many historical settings are cloistered. That is the way the past -was. To introduce female interaction solely for its own sake is rather dangerous."
I tend to agree that just adding female roles "just because" is dangerous and really, ultimately, misses the larger point of the exercise, which is not to say "We need a larger quantity of female roles" but rather, "We need a better quality of female roles."
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