One simple rule...

...nothing is simple.

THE INSPIRATION: Complexity

“The ideal art, the noblest of art: working with the complexities of life, refusing to simplify, to ‘overcome’ doubt.”

—Joyce Carol Oates, The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates: 1973-1982

I’ve spent quite some time lately trying to simplify the basics of storytelling so I could teach it, and what I’ve discovered is that simplicity doesn't exist as a destination. It is always just a starting place.

Nothing is only one thing. Everything has nuance. Part of the reason why we’ve been having so many problems societally is that our desire to simplify and understand everything conflicts directly with the realities of what that thing is, so we live in a constant uneasy state of cognitive dissonance, our brains wishing to understand all of something, when understanding all of anything is kind of impossible.

Our job as writers is to express complex things as simply as possible so the reader can pick up what we’re putting down, while allowing the complexity to also exist.

It’s not easy. But it’s worth it.

THE FAT ORANGE CAT: Walk and chew gum

Sometimes it’s hard enough to have a scene fill one purpose, let alone two. But today, I want you to try it. If you’re writing an opening scene, establish your character and setting and get your conflict launched. If you’re writing a sex scene, get them banging and escalate your conflict. If you’re writing a twist, be sure that whatever you’re writing makes sense in both the context of what the reader thinks is happening, and what is actually happening.

Two narrative birds. One stone. Have fun.

The “Get Your Stuff” link will bring you to an item I selected specifically to accompany this post, but you do not have to buy that thing in order to support me. Just keep popping through Amazon and buy the stuff you were going to buy anyway.

THE TROPE: Metaphor

Okay, metaphor isn’t exactly a trope. It’s more of the dream language of fiction. Metaphor allows one thing to stand in place for another thing, and its power is awesome to behold.

You may ask yourself… why use a metaphor to stand in for a thing when you can just use the thing itself? Well, that’s just the thing… as I stated earlier, nothing is ever just one thing. So if you want to talk about complicated individuals becoming a mindless mob, you have to walk them from their individual traits—which may include goodness and intelligence—to the mindless mob state. You’ll have to work out how the psychology works and walk them slowly to that place so that we can understand why they’re acting the way they are.

But if the story you want to tell is what happens after the mindless mob attacks, then you’ve got to spend just a whole bunch of your story real estate on explaining how it all happened in the first place.

Or… you can just use zombies.

THE QUESTION: Dual protagonism in Romance

“I have an idea for a story, specifically a romcom about a couple renewing their relationship after one realizes she's a trans woman and the other a lesbian.

In every romcom I've seen or read (admittedly not a ton), one member of the couple (to be) is the protagonist, with the other as the romantic lead. But I can't picture this story without both women being a protagonist.

Is there a history of romance or romcoms where the couple is a deuteragonist? What advice would you give to structuring a romance where both members are the protagonist??”

—Double Duty

Dear Double Duty,

First of all, big points for pulling out deuteragonist. I had to look it up. The definition I found said that the deuteragonist is the person second in importance to the protagonist in a drama… which in romance circles, I’ve heard referred to as the ‘secondary protagonist.’ But based on your context, I think what you’re looking for is a story where both protagonists are equally important. If I’m getting that wrong, let me know.

Now, to answer your question as I understand it… my advice for structuring this kind of story would depend on whether you’re creating parallel, but separate, conflicts for each of your protagonists, in which case you are setting up two stories that are just contained in the same novel, or if you’re doing one conflict shared by co-protagonists.

To do parallel stories, you’d need to create a separate central narrative conflict, and separate structures, and then just escalate them alongside each other. Susan Elizabeth Phillips tends to structure her stories this way, along with a secondary romance that will often have smaller parallel stories. Match Me If You Can is a good example of that kind of wizardry.

The other way to go is with both halves of the romance functioning as co-protagonists in the same conflict, which would mean that they share a goal and are both fighting the same protagonist equally in the fight. They may have different motivations for their goal—Romancing the Stone comes to mind as an example of this—but they share the goal, and hence, the antagonist blocking that goal.

So, my first bit of advice is, figure out if they share a goal and an antagonist, or if they don’t.

Once you’re there, you need to figure out the central narrative conflict or conflicts, depending on your answer to the first question. If they are parallel protagonists with their own individual conflicts, then you need to structure each of their stories and run them independently, having the stories interact with each other so you can develop the romance.

If they are co-protagonists, you treat that as you would a single protagonist; one goal, one central narrative conflict, one structure.

Hope that helps! Good luck, and I’d love to hear back on how it went!

THE PRACTICAL: The Leftovers

On my recent run through the dark side, I started the HBO series The Leftovers which has been recommended to me by a bunch of people but most recently by Joanna Robinson, whose opinions I respect a great deal. And now that I’ve watched it, I can’t tell you what I think about it because I’m still not entirely sure what happened.

Did I understand all of it? No. Did it make me think? Yes. Was I entertained? Definitely.

So what did I learn about writing from The Leftovers? That women can be written as complex characters with just as much motivation, internal conflict, and moral muddiness as men without sacrificing their character.

I mean… I already knew that. But it was lovely to see that reality burning up the screen in this show. Whatever you might think about the rest of it, purely for the writing of the female characters, I would recommend it.

Everyone can be complex. Engage in fiction written by people who know that, and it’ll improve your own writing.