Avoiding Common Story Issues

There are a lot of traps that writers can fall into, and most of them are pretty easy to avoid when you have an idea of what the trap is. A lot of these traps should have gone the way of the dodo, while others are just emblematic of bad writing. And then there are those issues that are created when someone is trying to parody the problem but does it in such a ham-fisted way that it just comes off as bad writing.

A lot of these problems develop because too many writers find that they've put themselves in some very weird situations. In some cases, they've lost the plot thread or have no idea what it is. Others paint themselves into corners; they've been doing a lot of cool things, but now they have no way to resolve all of these problems. Others feel that their writing is too vanilla, and so try to spice things up, and….well…yeah, it doesn't work the way they wanted it. It's really horrible when you let things go just to see what would happen and end up with 57 subplots and have no idea which darlings to kill.

Admittedly, this is where a good, flexible outline comes in handy, but you don't always need an outline. All you need to do is take a step back, decide which ones are important, and put those aside. The rest, you line up and let go with a machine gun. Or copy them into a separate file hoping you can use them at some later point. Either way, you need to be able to stand back and prioritize what you want, what will work best for the story, and just go for it. Prioritization will save your literary butt almost every time.

When Subversion is Not Subversion

This is the thing I hate the most about reviewing a book: Someone will try so hard to subvert expectations that they end up in an entirely new realm of cliches. Zombies are the obvious example: The writer won't call them zombies, the explanation needs to be something other than a virus/chemical/curse, or the zombie needs to actually be sentient but needs a trigger to either lose or gain its intelligence. And the less said about zombie kingdoms or romances the better….

In short, the writer wants to do a zombie story but puts so much into it that it's no longer a zombie story.

The problem is that the writer wants to be original and show that they can subvert expectations so that they can do something original. That's fine, but don't get so carried away that you end up going too far into something else: Your target audience wants a zombie story, and there are certain expectations they have from a zombie story but now you've gone and ruined them. Worse, you can't shift it to another genre because it has so many tropes of the zombie genre that another audience won't buy.

I'm obviously not saying to never subvert expectations; what I am saying is to subvert enough of them to create something different but not so many that it becomes something too different. When you're doing the subversion, you need to hit that sweet spot where your subversion work. Figure that out and you're good to go. Or, you can always do a rewrite that either takes out a lot of the tropes of the one genre or buffs up the tropes of the second genre.

Zombie romantic comedies can work out pretty well, after all.

But It's Funny!

Too many writers try to take on a genre by poking fun at it. You know, the fairy tale where Prince Charming meets Snow White, Princess Aurora, and Cinderella, then has to romance all three due to complications; with those women, he needs someone to help him keep track of things and act as a buffer. There are three problems with this:

• The person is unfamiliar with the genre and so the jokes are surface only; that is, the jokes are great for someone who is not familiar with the genre but for someone who actually is the jokes fall flat. The Prince Charming joke works because there were so many stories with a Prince Charming. But, if I go Wives of Fairy Tales of Game of Thrones with it, it's just not making fun of the fairy tales anymore. I need to keep light and silly to make it work and show how ridiculous the genre can be.
• The writer adds political commentary to make it modern. While this can work, it needs to be done with a certain touch. That is, if in my Prince Charming story I exaggerate what happened then to show how badly women had it then and by extension in today's world, the satire is going to die hard and the book won't be fun. It also doesn't work with the fun people expect from fairy tales. However, if I have the women work out who Prince Charming is going to marry to the point where he doesn't have a choice, that is, I make it a personality conflict between the three…now THAT could be funny.
• You're trying too hard to be ironic. Never try to be ironically funny; it may work with your crowd, but will usually fail with a more general audience.

Not everyone can tell a joke, and if that's you, EMBRACE IT. Some people are awesome at writing poetry, but they can't even tell the Elephant Joke. This should not be seen as a deficit; there is a lot of work to telling a joke right. This isn't to say that you shouldn't try to learn how to tell a joke, just that you need to recognize the weakness.

The bottom line is that you need to keep in mind that just because you may think it's funny, not everyone may share your sense of humor. As such, you may want to debate telling jokes, especially if lots of people die in your jokes.

Shocking to be Shocking

Some authors, especially young ones, are worried about being too vanilla, or too boring. For a lot of people, vanilla ice cream is good but is seen as rather basic; some authors don't want to be seen as its literary equivalent. Rather than making the writing itself exciting, these writers instead throw in sex and violence against humanity that would shock a war crimes lawyer. The writer goes from tantalizing to titillating, and it just isn't as much fun to read. There's a reason it's a sign of horrible writing; it just stops being entertaining and becomes just a catalog of sins.

The problem is that after reading ten of these scenes in a row, they quickly become so much white noise; the only way to maintain the momentum is to get bigger and more detailed, and so after a while you're no longer writing a book so much as a collection of shock. Now, a couple of shocking scenes, even one used as the main set piece, work but not when most of the scenes are all about shocking the reader; even a horror movie gives you a decent chance to recover.

As such, keep these scenes to a minimum to keep them effective. If you find yourself writing a lot of these for the same book, it may be time to take a break.

The Mandatory Surprise Twist

There are two types of twists: The deserved twist and the undeserved twist. The deserved twist has been properly foreshadowed, however obliquely, and gives readers a reason to read the book again to see the clues being dropped. It's satisfying because while it has been prepared for, it can still surprise the reader. The undeserved twist, however, comes out of left field and feels like it was added just to mess with the reader; finding out that Prince Charming was Cinderella's long-lost twin brother when they're determining who will marry solves the problem but just feels like the writer had no idea how to resolve the problem.

As such, avoid tacking on a plot twist just to add on a plot twist. If you really need a plot twist, then write the plot twist and then go back and edit in the foreshadowing. Add in the mysterious woman who knows Charming and Cindy, the paperwork showing up, first in a book, then the book moves a couple of times, and then the woman reveals what is inside it, even the midwife who birthed them; provide some sort of chain to show that a twist is coming and then everything fits into place. Work for your plot twist and your readers will love it rather than chucking your book into the nearest bin.

The Deux Ex Machina

Plays used to reach their climax and then that climax was resolved by a god literally coming out of a box; he would go around the cast and resolve each of their problems. Shakespeare did this by The Prince in "Romeo and Juliet", and The Pirates of Penance" famously lampooned it. While it does allow you to paint a door in that corner you have painted yourself into, it will always come across as bad writing; we have just evolved past the point where we need an outside force to solve our problems for us and prefer that the cast solve their problems.

Now, there are situations where this can work. Having a powerful character help the protagonist work out the solution that the protagonist then implements works. While you should avoid this in children's books, kids don't mind an adult solving the problem every so often; they expect it in real life, so it makes some sense to see it, but don't rely on it as the kids do need to usually be the ones solving the problem. And of course it works great in comedy. But…unless you have a really good reason for using it, don't.

The Mary Sue Dilemma

I'm not even going to get into a definition; no one can really agree on what one is. For our purposes, a Mary Sue represents bad writing; the character can either sidestep a lot of challenges and rely on someone else to solve the problem for her so she makes a lousy protagonist. Most Mary Sues just cause too much eye-rolling for people to really enjoy them.

[And even if the trope is named after a woman, the same logic applies to her male version. All that matters for our purposes is that the protagonist is ridiculously overpowered compared to everyone else in the book and their major flaw is relatively easy to deal with. Sex/gender/whatever doesn't matter here.]

However, three notes on how to deal with them:

• The Superman Solution: Give them opponents that can challenge them in ways other than direct confrontation. This is why Lex Luthor is such an entrenched character: He represents someone who can challenge Superman but does so by being his philosophical counterpart, and by being someone who Superman can't just beat up.
• The Social Take Down: Usually seen in anime, the Mary Sue's main weakness is usually social, and so therefore her main antagonist usually has a superior social setup (allies in both the administration and popular girls, access to more money, can go places with far fewer problems than the protagonist) and can use that social advantage with sniper-like precision. The antagonist even has no problem with forcing the protagonist into virtual slavery and/or humiliation for even minor favors.
• The Batman Solution: Every so often bring in a character that is even more overpowered than the protagonist. In the Batman books, this is typified by Bane, Hush, and Ra's Al Ghul have all been able to challenge Batman in different ways and by doing so, by showing that there is someone badder than the protagonist, you can keep things interesting for the reader as they know that there is a bigger shark out there and so wait for that shark to pop up.

No One Loses

One of the bigger mistakes, some writers forget that the protagonist needs to lose every so often. Losing is bad for the protagonist and that's the point; if he never loses then he never has a reason to get better at his skills or adapt to new situations; if he's the best, then let the world adapt to him! Also, there is never any real tension; we never have a reason to doubt him as he's always successful. As such, the protagonist needs to lose; he needs that reason to get better and your audience needs the tension to care about the story.

Fridging Your Women

It is way too easy to introduce a character, get them romantically involved with the protagonist, and then kill the new character. The reason this is done is to create a stronger link between the protagonist and the audience (you did just see him face a major emotional blow and that sort of thing tends to create more sympathy between the protagonist and the audience) and because the writer just doesn't want to mess with the established supporting cast.

It also allows the writer to maintain the protagonist's bachelor status.

This is arguably one of the hardest cliches to avoid as it makes so much sense (your character gets a major development point and you don't need to change your world's background) but is also one of those likely to cause a book being chucked into the garbage. As such, this one needs to be highly debated whenever you use it, so don't use it unless it somehow fits with the protagonist (such as the death of Tracy Bond in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"). Even then, try to use it only once, at best, in any given series.

All Tokens Must Die

While the joke among horror fans is that you can count on the black character to die (as usual, it's not quite accurate), nonetheless being a minority does seem to ensure a shorter lifespan, especially if the character is gay (ergo the "bury your gays" problem). The problem is that some authors tend to focus on one type of character (usually straight white male) and all other types tend to do all of the dying and other suffering. While there are some times when this is unavoidable (some historical moments come to mind), you should try to avoid this as a writer, and "it just happened that way" is no excuse when you're the one controlling the universe.

There are two obvious side issues here: Obvious discrimination and not-so-obvious discrimination. Having your white protagonist shooting up black gang members is pretty obviously racist; sure, you can claim some sort of reason, but the optics is just off. The opposite case also needs to be looked at: Unless you're being satirical, shooting up straight white males simply because they are straight white males is just bad as targeting black lesbians; all forms of discrimination are bad, no matter how good it may feel at the time. Diversity should always be the byword, even when it comes to killing fictional characters, if you want to make your readers happy.

Gay Subtext Issues

Too many authors try to add a gay subtext to their characters because it's a way to fake inclusivity: "These two characters spend a lot of time together so they are really gay! HONEST." This is problematic on two fronts: It limits relationships and reinforces stereotypes. Two guys should be able to have a loving, caring relationship based on years of knowing each other; platonic relationships should be encouraged, regardless of the sex/gender of those involved. These relationships are perfectly healthy and encouraging them in fiction encourages them in real life; even joking that they may be sex-based is more likely to take readers out of the story

The second just reinforces stereotypes and generally gets a lot of history wrong. So much evidence of whether or not Abraham Lincoln is gay is based on him having a male roommate and them sharing the same bed. You know, because poor students are a recent invention and controlled heating isn't. By looking specifically for the gay subtext, you tend to ignore the nuances of the relationship and thus all relationships are assumed to have a sexual aspect to them. That is just not a good thing.

The Problematic Villain

Villains used to be based more on stereotypes than actual people, such as the obviously gay villain or the black bad guy from the ghettos. While it's fine to give your bad guy all of the best lines, you need to give him some sort of nuance; he needs to have a good reason for what he does beyond "it's necessary for the plot". You can have a black guy, a lesbian, or even a soccer mom as your Big Bad; you should be free to have whatever Big Bad you want. However, before you make Karen the Soccer Mom your psychopathic villain, flesh her out, or your audience will justifiably roast you.

Monocultures

SF and fantasy fans know this one way too well: If you pick two random entities from the same culture, they are virtually indistinguishable; the only difference is how powerful the two are. That is, an orc warrior and an orc warlord are the same character, but at different points in the same career; you just don't see a lot of orc farmers, orc merchants, or orc druids. Look at Vulcans: They're all scientists, with no farmers, artists, or even rebels. This even applies to action/adventure stories where every terrorist apparently comes from the same village.

This is bad on several different levels: Any successful culture is based on not everyone having the same job. Any large population will fracture; unless there's a hivemind in the story, two cultures even a few hundred miles will be radically different; no planet should have the same culture on opposite sides of the planet. Even in the same small city, two characters of different socioeconomic classes may as well be from different worlds. Sure, I understand the convenience factor, but even in a post-scarcity universe monocultures just don't exist. Please keep that in mind when you do your world-building.

* * * * *

This is obviously not a complete list. However, a lot of the problems here should help guide through a lot of other problems as they come up. The basic idea is to figure out why you are using the cliché you are using and then work backward until you figure out what happened. As noted, these are usually because you've painted yourself into a corner, feel you need something special to punch up your writing, or have no idea what to do next. A good outline should solve a lot of these problems but in general just figure out why you're doing it and try something else.

Just remember that nothing is set in stone until you print, that you can always change it until you send it to the printers, and you should do okay.

The Elephant Joke (like I would leave you hanging!)

Person A: Do you know why elephants paint their toenails?

Person B: It's to hide in jelly bean jars.

Person A: Ever seen an elephant in a jelly bean jar?

Person B: No.

Person A: Works pretty well, doesn't it?

[Blame Mike Pondsmith, gaming guru!]