Plot is no more than footprints left in the snow after your characters have run by on their way to incredible destinations.  Ray Bradbury said this in support of the crucial role characters play in our stories. But, I wonder; to play devil’s advocate, is this claim entirely accurate?  Is one more important to begin the story with than the other?   And like the good old chicken and the egg question, which should come first, character or plot?

We know every great story must contain a well developed transformational character arc in which the protagonist changes as a result of overcoming a weakness or fear, or her failure to do so. She begins the story with an unfulfilled yearning, a dream, a hope, a goal or a quest and her struggle to either achieve it, ignore it or dismiss it.  Though, if she fails to achieve it, it will tug at her like a bothersome shadow pinned to her backside all through the pages of her story.  Through the external forces she confronts, and the internal forces pressing upon the inner parallel road she simultaneously travels along her plot line, she may change directions often, but in the end the reader hopes to see her ultimately change, or become a stronger person as a result of her determination, persistence or effort.  Or at least our readers will hope for that.

In The Writer magazine 2020 article “Change of Heart”, Contributor Jack smith quotes author Jessica Keener as he describes the lack of change as a tragedy, “ Isn’t that what tragedy is: a character who is unable to change or adapt or find a different solution to a problem?”  In fact, a lack of change, if constructed correctly, can elicit the same emotional reaction by the reader as a change itself.  Missed opportunity, the relinquishing of one’s ability to fight for what she wants, acceptance of status quo because it’s safer, the fear of failure or risk, all present as a tragedy, and that also allows for a strong emotional response , all of which  contributes to the  idea that it is character that comprises the scaffolding to hold up our stories, rather than the plot.

After all, isn’t it the character’s motivations that prompt her actions and isn’t it her reactions to the events in her world that matter to the reader, not the events themselves?  In the March/April 2024 Writers Digest article on this subject, Sarah J Sover says it’s the characters and their interactions with the world that are primary drivers of any believable plot. ”Focusing too much on the action rather than on how the events impact the characters, or on what their reactions are and what makes them tick, robs your story of the dimensions it needs to engage your readers”

Similarly, keeping this idea in mind that it is the character’s reaction to events  that drive the story, David Corbett, Author and Contributing Writers Digest Editor, discusses the exploration of back-story  to uncover the raw experiences that lead to the character’s view of the world and her attitude toward life.  It is her reaction to events in her life that form her perception and beliefs, that her “yearning is not fulfilled yet because of the various forces of resistance that hold her back.  These forces take the form of weakness, wounds, limitations, demanding obligations, external opposition, or moral flaws.  The forces of resistance are developed by the individual’s needs to protect herself from the pain of life.  Yearning and resistance do not spring from thin air but instead are molded through experience. Specifically, they quicken to life in moments of helplessness, when emotion or action arise from within the individual but outside her conscious control, revealing a deeper stratum of her character.”

Character and plot, actions and reactions, events and character development.   Round and round it goes.

While plot is undoubtedly important to the story, there would be no emotional impact or connection between the story and the reader without the characters.  The reader must care about what happens to the characters being impacted by the events in the story, as she observes the character change over time through the trials of pain and suffering she endures . This change does not happen overnight, however. It may happen quickly in a short story or poem, but it takes time in a longer novel, similar to our own lives where it takes months, years and decades for us to change (if we change at all).  Realizing some uncovered truth we couldn’t see before is the epiphany that changes us, or even some part of us.  It may be a subtle difference that grows over time or a major transformation that provides the courage to alter the direction of our life in some huge way.

 In Jack Smith’s June 2020 Writer’s Digest article, Change of Heart, he quotes writer Robert Garner McBrearty when he claims;  “ Life comes at us sometimes that way. There’s a sudden curious scent in the air or a ray of light breaking through a cloud, and we experience some sense of sharpening or altered reality”, while Heraclitus, the Greek Philosopher said “ The only constant in life is change.”  This applies to our fictional characters as well as in real life.  As the characters face weakness and fears, they grow stronger, or become better people, the same way we hope to in our real lives. 

American Writer James Baldwin said” Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced” and likewise, Benjamin Franklin  said “When you are finished changing, you are finished.”  And what makes us change?  The situations we come up against, the adversities hidden within the events impacting us, the hills we climb along our plot-lines.

Albert Einstein once said, “In the middle of every difficulty, lies opportunity. “ That opportunity is change. Some way to learn, move forward, change direction, make things better.  One event at a time. one reaction at a time.   Author Orson Scott Card said it this way in his book” character and viewpoint,  “People are what they have done, and what has been done to them.” .  Plot- line and character- development going round and round

If a character remains flat, the story remains flat.  To have a story we need a problem.  It is the characters who face the problem, change the problem and become changed because of the problem, that makes the story.  No problem, no change= no story.

In plot’s defense, on the other side of the debate,  however,  Aristotle said “everything in a narrative, from changes of fortune to characterization must be demonstrated through action as far as possible, therefore plot”, he believed,  “is the most important part of telling stories, not character”.

But characters thoughts become their actions and that becomes the plot.  And round and round it goes.

Heraclitis said one’s inner life manifests in one’s outer life, thus it is what is inside the character that drives what is happening outside.  It is not what happens to us that matters but how we react to what happens that matters.  This is so in our stories, both fictional and real life.  If the story is only about a giant tidal wave set on course to destroy a village, the reader won’t care about the event, unless she has come to care about the individuals living in that village and how they manage to survive through it.  Only then will she care.

And so, we have established the important role of the character and how character development drives the story, but what really of plot? In essence, plot is the process of your characters experiencing and bringing about change. We already know how important plot is to the story and we agree that characters reactions to actions lead to who the individual will become as a person, but what of those actions in which she engages that lead to becoming that person.

There must be a journey in life to take filled with events that will alter and affect our characters and us in our real life stories.  We must climb those hills we discussed in last month’s plot blog.  In our lives we follow a plot line every day, from waking in the morning to driving to work, to cleaning and cooking and everything else before, between and after. As we follow that line we react to the external forces we face each day, from malfunctioning alarm clocks, to traffic jams, unexpected emergencies that throw us off our schedules, all to which we react.  Without events to inspire reactions , we would be nothing more than  a blank slate, a blob of nothingness, empty, shallow, boring, uneventful. Its, as Orson Scott Card said, the things that happen to us that make us who we are; “ Every story is an event story in the sense that from time to time something happens that has cause and results.”  The plot is essentially the sequence of main events in a story, but, as Card continues, “ the story in which the events are the central concern follows a particular pattern:  the world is somehow out of order- call it imbalance, injustice, breakdown, evil, decay, disease- and the story is about the effort to restore the old order or establish a new one. The even story structure begins when the main characters become involved in the effort to heal the world’s disease, and ends when they either accomplish their goal or utterly fail to do so.”

Therefore, yes, the story hinges on action – a plotline of events, but then we come back around to what makes the story matter or resonate with the reader. Is it the events or how the events affect the characters that suffer and live through them that provide the heaviest weight to the story?

And so, round and round it goes. We come back to the question; which one really drives our story forward, the plot -line we climb each day or the way those events affect us. Our actions or our reactions to the actions? And which, like the good old chicken and egg question, should come first?

The hills we climb along the plot line of our real life stories are the obstacles, adversities and challenges we must face, the ups and downs of life. This uphill track is not always easy however; as we struggle to sustain our momentum and maintain our pace on the way up and the way down. And, inevitably some will fall behind, become lost or give up completely as the hills grow steeper, more slippery or rocky, and multiply.  When we are starting out at the bottom, looking ahead to the open space in front of us the climb might not look so bad, but as we move forward, the landscape will inevitably change. It is how we adjust to those changes that determine the shape we will be in when we arrive on the other side of each hill. 

In writing, the story’s plotline resembles the hilly landscape we travel in our real lives.  The story begins at the bottom of the narrative with exposition (introduction), an even steady ground from which to start the hike, before the plotline advances the protagonist along the trek uphill through the conflict and rising action.  But, it really gets tough as the incline grows more precipitous, propelling the protagonist upwards to the highest point of the story at the peak, or the climax of the story where she faces her biggest challenge.  Then, once she makes it over that hurdle, the descent along the falling action becomes less painful, and easier to think and to breath.  Ultimately, the protagonist reaches the resolution at the bottom where the meaning comes together at last. These pit stops dotting the hills of the plotline comprise those story elements that stitch together the bare-bones roadmap of the narrative. 

There are several different types of plots from which the author will select to lay out her tale.  Some resemble the hill we climbed in the previous paragraph and others are made up of multiple hills or parallel hills running alongside one another. But regardless of the layout differences, the one thing that must be a part of any strong plotline is the hills.  Without hills to climb there would be nothing worth celebrating at the end of the story, or worth the reader’s time to reflect on the meaning when she turns the last page. Much like our real life story plotlines.

Among the types of plotlines  from which the writer picks, the first one to consider is the Linear plot, which is a progressive chronological plot that glides from the beginning  with exposition, winding  through all the those elements that make up the hill(s), sliding into the story’s  ending in the resolution.  This is different from the second type of plot , the episodic plot, also chronological, but unlike the linear single hill plot line it includes a series of smaller  flimsily related stories that explore one or more characters and the social cultural aspects of different time periods to tell a larger narrative.  The parallel plot, on the other hand tells multiple stories that occur independently, joining together later, while remaining bound by the theme like a bridge connecting the hills to one another.  Finally, the flashback plot presents the story out of order, through memories, moving backward and forward to create depth.  

All stories contain an up and down rhythm to them, an action and reaction.  These “hills” must exist to provide meaning and excitement to the story.  There must be action and reaction, cause and effect, choices and consequences in our stories.  Without those hills, the narrative would be like a rollercoaster with no ascents or drops, no thrills and adventure mixed with peace and  relief. And, who would want to ride a flat rollercoaster?   

 Much like the  hills we climb in our real life stories, moving along the plotline through the many phases of our lives, the writer constructs a pattern of actions and reactions in which the character or characters take one step forward and two steps backward, making choices that create a cause or action followed by the reaction or effect that usually do not go the way the character(s) wanted or expected, propelling them into unintended consequences for which they must make another choice that initiates a subsequent action or cause, which in turn creates another reaction or effect.  And on it goes as the characters climb the hills along the plot line.

To illustrate the weight of the plotline on the story, Writer Digest contributor Jacquelyn Mitchard says in her “Gotcha! Let’s do the Plot Twist” article; When you create great plot turns, you build a strong narrative spine. The hills lend to the structural strength of the story just as they do to our real lives.  Like a house with a rotting foundation so soft you can slide a knife through it, a story with a weak plotline won’t ever be strong enough to hold up the whole narrative.

In our own large overreaching real life story plot line we continuously climb up and down hills as we ascend from childhood  adolescence  to adulthood, graduating from school, getting a job, pursuing a career, finding love and building a family, moving to our first homes, and creating friendships. However, as we scale this slope we encounter hurdles,  a building up and breaking down as we move from one hill to another. Then, boom, we reach the peak where there is a life-changing  explosion.  It may be a divorce, a death, a loss of some kind.  Maybe a job, a friendship, a home. A tragedy.  But, then the dust settles and we begin the descent down the other side, stumbling over smaller hills along the decline; car troubles, home repairs to tackle, kids in trouble at school issues, tax deadlines looming, law suits to untangle, minor health problems to work out, family discord, tough decisions to make, prices to pay, sacrifices to endure, ups and downs to navigate.  We keep going because we made it through the worst and we can do it again when and if we need to. And again. And again.  And again.

To this point, Writing Coach and Story Analyst, Deb Norton says in her 2017 Writer Digest article; Story structure, Simplified”;  “ Story structure, at its core, maps the archetypal journey of a human facing a challenge and navigating change- and this is something that every one of us has ample experience with. Both challenges and change, after all, are inevitable.” The hills may be steep at times and overwhelm us, but as long as we keep moving forward our muscles will grow harder, our bodies will become leaner and our endurance gets greater. We change… We become stronger…. We become better.

And so, as we lean forward into a new year, starting out at the bottom of this year’s hill looking onward, we’ll work our way along the hilly plot line, writing our real life and fictional stories.  As Jinnie Austin wrote in a 2015 article I found online about “How to Run Hills”, we should think of ourselves “ like a pencil angled when you’re writing. That’s your body going uphill, not exactly rigid but all of you straight and firm, pressing into that giant sheet and writing your story.”   

So,  leaning forward, we’ll  persevere through the hilly plot line landscapes of our real lives and our fiction, filling in the spaces between pit stops with narrative.  We’ll  lower the tension of our chain and downshift on our ride up the hill when we need to, ease up on the distance we cover as we get tired, back off on our stride during the times we run hard,  control our breathing when we feel pressure and want to give up,  and hold our breath when we peddle through  the explosions at the peaks.  Then, once we make it through that part, we’ll  smile, unwind and breathe easier as we coast downhill, and like the fictional characters in our fiction, we’ll  become stronger than we were before and changed for the better, one hill at a time.

When the writer contemplates the final chapter of her story, she decides between neatly tying up loose ends and leaving her readers guessing. She crafts the story’s final destination to work best for her characters and their journey, yet not necessarily the finish the readers expect or think they want. Saying good-bye marks the end of something- a relationship, a job, a dream or a story. While farewells can be difficult, they are an essential piece of the narrative pie.  Without a well thought final chapter, last line or epilogue our stories would flounder around in limbo like a piece of dead driftwood bobbing endlessly in a vast and desolated sea of nothingness.

In preparing the most fitting ending, the writer composes a memorable last line to highlight the theme, or she drafts a poignant paragraph to provide closure, or she may expand on the ending with a concluding epilogue to tie the tale together, to resonate with the reader’s emotional experience, or to help the audience grapple with any lingering questions and ultimately compare and reflect on their own life’s journey.

We write epilogues when we have more to say, to reveal the fates of our characters, to clarify events after the story has ended or simply to continue the story.  Epilogues allow the author to highlight the significant moments of her story before the reader must bid farewell to the characters and the journey upon which they traveled together.  Epilogues are written to make sense of the theme or story’s purpose, to provide some degree of closure, or to relieve tension for the audience, or at the very least hint of the characters’ outcome or future.

To illustrate this idea, I found a clever one in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy that releases some of the tension of the story while providing the audience with reflective food for thought;

      They play in the Meadow. The dancing girl with the dark hair and blue eyes. The boy with blond curls and gray eyes, struggling to keep up with her on his chubby toddler legs. It took five, ten, fifteen years for me to agree. But Peeta wanted them so badly. When I first felt her stirring inside of me, I was consumed with a terror that felt as old as life itself. Only the joy of holding her in my arms could tame it. Carrying him was a little easier, but not much.

  The questions are just beginning. The arenas have been completely destroyed, the memorials built, there are no more Hunger Games. But they teach about them at school, and the girl knows we played a role in them. The boy will know in a few years. How can I tell them about that world without frightening them to death? My children, who take the words of the song for granted:

  Deep in the meadow, under the willow. 

  A bed of grass, a soft green pillow

  Lay down your head, and close your sleepy eyes

  And when again they open, the sun will rise.

  Here it’s safe, here it’s warm

  Here the daisies guard you from every harm

  Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true

  Here is the place where I love you.

  My children, who don’t know they play on a graveyard.

  Peeta says it will be okay. We have each other. And the book. We can make them understand in a way that will make them braver. But one day I’ll have to explain about my nightmares. Why they came. Why they won’t ever really go away.

  I’ll tell them how I survive it. I’ll tell them that on bad mornings, it feels impossible to take pleasure in anything because I’m afraid it could be taken away. That’s when I make a list in my head of every act of goodness I’ve seen someone do. It’s like a game. Repetitive.  Even a little tedious after more than twenty years.

  But there are much worse games to play.

Restoring some level of peace where before there was perpetual uproar and turmoil, this epilogue provides a degree of closure that touches on the whole point of the story. While it does not completely wrap up loose ends it provides the reader with insight about the narrative and its theme. 

To this point, Mirra R describes epilogues in her December 2022 article for Notion Press ;

  An epilogue is an opportunity to invite readers to reflect on the journey they’ve just completed. It allows authors to have an opportunity to close the story but not necessarily without any lingering questions…..it acts as a layer that provides a level of depth and sophistication that can grant sharp insight and closure into what would otherwise be a series of unfinished narratives.

Not all stories need drawn out expanded epilogues, however.  Some final chapter endings are complete on their own with a single powerful last line.  One such well known last line ending that is often debated is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby closing line;.  “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” 

Here, the author creatively sums up the story’s theme in one final bow to the audience.  Like the green light flashing across the bay, Jay Gatsby’s dreams for a happy future with Daisy Buchanan, the love of his life, continually recede into the distance or “ceaselessly into the past” , not unlike Fitzgerald’s dismal view of  the American Dream that he believes always eludes us.  While I am not necessarily in agreement with Fitzgerald’s perception of the American Dream’s impossibility to achieve as a result of hard work and perseverance, I do admire the way he illustrates his beliefs through these final words.  That last line conveys the tragic point of the novel, to diminish hope for the gainful pursuit of the American Dream, and the idea of true equality of wealth for everyone who desires it, regardless of class or where they come from. For all Gatsby’s acquired wealth and greatness, through which he could buy his place in society with his glitzy party invitations and flashy persona, he would never really be welcome in the old money society where people like the Buchanans, Jordan Baker and even Nick Carraway  live, in contrast to those who work hard to survive, like Myrtle and George Wilson and even Jay Gatsby himself, as they are excluded and ultimately fail.  In that meaningful last line of hopelessness Fitzgerald sums up his perception of human pointlessness and the futility of the American Dream.  (Again, in no way am I pointing to this example as an agreement with the author’s position; rather I include it as a credit to Fitzgerald’s cleverness in conveying his pessimistic and bleak point of view to his audience through fictional story and a well written last line.)

Closing chapters, last lines, epilogues, and final farewells  in real life can be painful, and yet they can close the circle. They can be hard to navigate and they can be life-changing.  They can deplete us and they can complete us.  We can walk away as a changed person for the better, ready to begin again in a new chapter, or we can crawl back under our old oppressive rock to accept defeat.  Like the writer who controls the fate of her characters, theme and plot, we can craft the ending that makes our own life story compelling, meaningful, memorable and impactful.

Whether it is a single last line, a poignant final paragraph or an expanded epilogue ending, the writer treats the story ending with the respect, clarity, and dignity her characters and their story deserve. Instead of mourning the ending to the story, after investing so much of our time and emotion, it is better to leave it as a changed person, better because of it.  As Margaret Mitchell wrote in her famous last line of Gone with the Wind, “After all, tomorrow is another day”, and another chance to write a new chapter even better than the chapters that came before it.

Likewise, in Kristin Harmel’s novel The Book of Lost Names  (spoiler alert, so skip this section if you have not read this wonderful book yet), the protagonist reflects on her past as she looks to the future ahead of her: “I’m twenty-five again, my whole life ahead of me, rather than behind, all the chapters still unwritten.” Writing farewells and endings is the finishing touch to our story, but we should remember and be grateful for the chapters that got us there and their value to the whole story.

And so, dear fellow writers and readers, my expanded last line wish for you as we close out another year is to neatly tie up the loose ends that you must,  allow some endings to transition into new beginnings, and that you joyously and  peacefully continue your story’s journey alongside  your own beloved characters as you fill the pages with the best words to steer you toward the last page waiting in the distance to be written when it is your time to turn the final page of your tale, and that in the meantime  you continue to draft each part of your story, from the first line to the last, as if your story as just begun.

The design and length of your story’s chapters will impact the overall pacing and rhythm of the narrative, in addition to the degree to which the reader remains interested and engaged.  While there is no right or wrong answer to how long a chapter should be, or what should be included within it, there is a general guideline to consider, while keeping genre differences in mind.

Children’s stories, thrillers, young adult, and mysteries in general, typically have shorter chapters to uphold a quicker momentum, whereas non-fiction and literary stories tend to contain longer chapters to provide more information and world-building.  While one purpose of dividing the story into chapters is to create pause for the reader, another is to allow the story to change direction, reduce confusion and highlight the theme that binds the chapters together.

To this point, Author Harry Bingham explains in his Novel Writing Article; “any story has beats in it, or punctuation marks, in effect. Moments when the story- and the reader- want a moment’s pause”. (See my archived blog titled White Space for more on this).  Therefore, providing the appropriate amount of text for the audience is an important component in the writing process.  Accordingly, Bingham defines the typical suggested chapter lengths as the following:

1000 words or less= too short

2000-4000 words= standard

5000 words or more = very long

While this is only a rough guideline, it does provide a good idea of where the writer should attempt to end up. Seemingly in agreement with Bingham and further emphasizing the significance in the chapter size development, Ghost Writer and Editor Pamela Koehne-Drube notes, in her NOVLR article:  Finding the Ideal Chapter Length for your Story, “the average length of a story should target between 1,500- 8,000 words”.

Similarly, in our real lives we could divide our own life stories into separate stages or time periods, like the chapters in fiction.  Only, we can’t freeze our favorite scenes the way the reader can.  To the contrary, we often rush into our next chapter before we realize, prepare for, or want the current chapter to end.  I know this is the way I feel when I think back to the earlier chapters of my own life when I was happily married, raising my four children in our first and second homes with fenced in back yards, while my dad was still alive to spend precious time there with us and the beloved yorkshire terrier we adored.  One minute I was living in that special chapter and the next minute I drifted into a new one, minus the marriage, the young children, the yard, my dad, and the dog.  Just like that… it was all gone.  The page turned without providing opportunity to fold its corner to hold my place.

Consequently, the varying lengths and design of the chapters helps the writer to control the flow between her story’s noise and the story’s silence, the contrast between the suspenseful moments of activity when outcomes are still a mystery and the quiet time to reflect on associated consequences, with the forewarning to prepare for what is yet up ahead, before shifting gears. In knowing how to design individual chapters, the author can manipulate her storyline’s pacing and changes in point of view, as well as switch locations and create time jumps, or do what she needs to do to achieve success or failure for her characters and the plot line.  In essence, the writer controls the fictional story the way we wish we could in our real lives.

To illustrate one of these techniques, to control time in the narrative, Pamela Koehne-Drube describes “Time Jumps” as the following: A new chapter for a time jump provides a clear demarcation between the different time periods, making it easier for the reader to understand the significance of the jump and how it relates to the overall story, as well as generally maintaining continuity and narrative coherence.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could control our own time jumps in real life, if we could hold our place to freeze time when we want to stay in a favorite scene just a little while longer or even if we could at least recognize the value of the present moment while we are still there.  Or if we could decide which chapters should be shorter and which should be longer or if we could hit the delete button for the ones that just don’t work at all for our story.

If only we could be like the reader, fully present to embrace the important moments before they fall away from us like autumn leaves spinning out of control toward their finish.  All stories, whether in our fictional narratives or in our real lives, have beginnings and endings, with middles between (see the dash we discussed in my last blog for more on this), but along the way it’s the separate chapters we create that connect the pieces of our story together.  It is the scene, pacing and rhythm changes, the new characters to whom we are introduced and with whom we form and preserve relationships, the time jumps and the blank pause pages between that complete and enrich our story, making the time we spend there immeasurable.

It is the DASH,

 for which we are tasked,

to enrich and hold dear,

 while it lasts.

        ……..(D.P. Ryersons)

Because the “In Medias Res” opening to the story takes place in the “middle of things”, it often follows with a trip back to the story’s beginning, where the writer explains how the characters got to their current situation.  This is one way the author slides the story back and forth along the dash between the start and the end, to reflect the story’s purpose.

When the writer starts the story in the middle, the audience will need to learn who the characters are, what drives them and why they are there, in the “In Medias Res”. Flashbacks and changes in point of view are two ways that help the writer do that. By providing flashbacks and changes in point of view to make sense of the storyline’s dash, the writer deepens the reader’s emotional connection, understanding and appreciation of the meaning and overall purpose of the story.

Similarly, in our real lives, it is the time along our own dash between the beginning and the finish that matters, where flashbacks are memories and changes in point of view become our changing perspectives of the many situations and people we encounter, as we continuously face adversity, help others to do the same and where we learn to forgive, and inspire love, joy, hope and peace.  Just as in the fictional stories we create, it is the connecting line between our beginnings and endings that determines our life’s worth, and whether the finish justifies the beginning. From life’s sunrise to its dusk at nightfall, it is the time between, when the hours are long and there is blank space yet to fill…. with good deeds to perform, mistakes to forgive, connections to make and strengthen, and love to give, that matters.

It is said that while our tombstones are marked by the dates of our birth to the dates of our death, connected by the short little dash in between, it is in that dash where we make life worth living. In fact, this idea of the importance of the middle is the premise in Linda Ellis’s poem that later became a book; The Dash -Making a Difference with Your Life.  In her poem she says: 

For it matters not

 how much we own,

The cars…. The house… the cash,

What matters is how we live and love,

and how we spend our dash.

“In Medias Res” is defined as “into the middle of a narrative, without preamble”.  No introduction, preface, or explanation to help the reader understand how and why she arrived there.  It is simply the place she was dumped, with the expectation to figure things out as she stumbles, skips, or runs through the author’s storyline.  This technique is often used to maintain the reader’s attention, to keep her thinking about what is going to happen next and what happened already to get the characters to their current situation.  It is a way to engage the reader’s thoughts, introspection, and emotions.

Just as the reader moves back and forth along the author’s storyline, we as individuals think, feel and act along our own dash-line.  We have the power to decide what is important or trivial, what makes that thin line stronger or weaker, and whether we make the best of our dash.  It is in our gratitude of blessings and the way we employ that awareness along the line in the middle that either memorializes or diminishes the time we spend here.

Pointedly, this idea, which follows along with Linda Ellis’s poignant message, is depicted further in Ron Tranmer’s own interpretation of The Dash Between, in which he states the following:

The dash serves as an emblem,

of our time here on earth,

and although small,

it stands for all,

our years of life, and worth.

 (Both full poems, by Ellis and Tranmer, follow at the end of this blog.)

We can waste the time we have wishing we had more money, more time or more likes on our social media, but in reality, money only goes so far, we only have so much time to make the best of, and well, I don’t think I need to say anything more about likes on social media.  What IS important to create, nurture and execute along our dash is love, forgiveness, and compassion.  It is the love we share, the connections we build and preserve, the people we help, and the good deeds we perform, that thickens the dash-line, just as the impacting scenes we write strengthens the story-line in our fiction.

As I sit here in the middle of the year, in the middle of my favorite season of summer, in the middle of the week, and in the middle of my day, I think of all the middles I’ve lived so far.  The afternoons between the morning dawns and the twilight’s to close each precious day, the time between my children’s birth and becoming adults, the middle of my life in which I made the most differences ( admittedly, some of which were not positive), and achieved and witnessed the most important milestones, and created the best memories.  It is the middle of things, in the “In Medias Res” of my own story that connects and validates the first chapter with my last and it is this special section, or season, of our stories that measures the value of the dash between our chapters and our years.

THE DASH by Linda Ellis

I read of a man who stood to speak

At the funeral of a friend

He referred to the dates on the tombstone

From the beginning … to the end

He noted that first came the date of  birth

And spoke the following date with tears,

But he said what mattered most of all

Was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time

That they spent alive on earth

And now only those who loved them

Know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own

The cars… the house.. the cash.

What matters is how we live and love

And how we spend our dash.

So, think about this long and hard.

Are there things you’d like to change?

For you never know how much time is left

That can still be rearranged.

If we could just slow down enough

To consider what’s true and real

And always try to understand

The way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger

And show appreciation more

And love the people in our lives

Like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect

And more often wear a smile,

Remembering this special dash

Might only last a little while

So, when your eulogy is being read

With your life’s actions to rehash…

Would you be proud of the things they say

About how you spent YOUR dash?

THE DASH BETWEEN, by Ron Tranmer

I knelt there at the headstone

Of one I love and cried.

Name, with dates of birth and death

Were perfectly inscribed.

I pondered these two dates

And how little they both mean

When compared to the tiny dash

That lies there in between.

The dash serves as an emblem

Of our time here on earth

And although small, it stands for all

Our years of life, and worth.

And our worth will be determined

By how we live each day.

We can fill our dash with goodness,

Or waste our life away.

To ourselves, as well as others,

Let’s be honest, kind and true,

And every day, live the way

We know God wants us to.

May we look for opportunities

To do a worthy deed,

And reach out with compassion

To those who are in need.

For if our hears are full of love

Throughout our journey here,

We’ll be loved by all who knew us

And our memory they’ll hold dear.

And when we die, these memories

Will bring grateful, loving tears,

To all whose lives were touched

By the dash between our years.

When writing begins to feel like an obligation, and no longer a passion, it is time to check on the butterflies…. to make sure they still feel safe and sound and to bring them back if they’re showing any signs of boredom or distress.

In the February 2023 article titled Fall in Love with Writing Again, Anica Mrose Rissi provides advice on rekindling the flames; “To keep the flame alive, you must protect it from the wind, rain, and tsunamis of doubt”. She suggests changing your routine, setting the scene for something special like lighting a candle or playing soft music, ditching the daily drudgery, and finding fun in your project.  She further advises to question what attracted you to it in the first place, what it has meant to you over the duration, and what made the occasional struggles worth it.

Just as our relationships slide into ruts, drifting from the “I have to be with you every moment possible” to “Maybe it is time for a break”, our relationship with writing can face the same struggle.  One minute the light inside burns so bright it stings as we feverishly pour words onto the page until our fingers cramp. Then, as we progress forward, feeling comfortable with the routine and status quo, the words gradually begin to slow to a sluggish trickle until they stop altogether.  The light inside dims little by little until we find ourselves blindly groping our way around in the dark wondering what happened, what went wrong?  Where did the butterflies go?

In the online Writer’s Digest article; Why Writing Your Passions is so Important to Writers, David Adams Cleveland says to “let your passions be your guide and your inspiration.”  He tells his readers to write it “with a depth of imaginative enthusiasm and passion for your subject matter, to become a heart and soul engagement with your narrative.”  As Ernest Hemingway once said, “In order to write about life first you must live it”, writers -and individuals in general- should find, nurture, and maintain their passions in everything they write and do.  This idea coattails on a previous blog in which I quoted Zadie Smith’s proclamation that she writes so that she does not sleepwalk through life.  In failing to discover, create or carve your passion in your writing, as in your living, you risk missing life’s great opportunity to write- or live- fully.

We should already know in life that passion comes from inside us.  We might discover things on the outside that help to fuel the passion on the inside, but it must start, grow, and thrive from within.  If we search for our passion or happiness only on the outside, we will never truly live (or write) our passion.   Passion is something we treat seriously and feel intense about, with a deep degree of emotion and substance attached to it, unlike a hobby about which we feel less deeply.  We enjoy our hobbies, but we NEED our passions.  Our passion extends from our beliefs and values, ultimately serving as our north star.  It does not have to be any one thing we do, but it is the driving force behind what we do. 

To illustrate this idea more clearly, a personal example is my passion for health wellness.  While in this case I do not enjoy or “like” exercising (as a hobby), I do love how it makes me feel overall.  I cannot NOT run or workout.  I NEED it in my life. It is a part of who I am- like my eyes or the limbs attached to my body. Passion is big and all encompassing and it drives our thoughts, desires, missions, and behaviors. As the force inside individuals who strive to become better people, spread world peace, end world hunger and homelessness, discover a cure for cancer or other suffering, build spiritual awareness or political understanding, address mental health, or inspire children with special needs and disabilities, the passion burns deeply. From it springs speaking engagements, non-profit organizations, volunteer groups, fund raising projects, political campaigns, better habits, or best sellers, to name a few.  

To further illustrate this notion, the comparison of passion to hobbies is described in the Morning Coach Blog:

Time plays a significant part in distinguishing a hobby from a passion. Therefore, a hobby is generally a “time-killer”; it’s something that you may do to pass the time, so you won’t get bored. So, whenever you have some free time after finishing work or during breaks, what you do during these periods are generally your hobbies: playing video games, browsing the Internet, reading a book, watching TV, etc.

A passion works differently: you “make time” to do these things. So, no matter how busy you are every day, you ensure that you dedicate some time to your passion. You may even find a way to integrate your passion while doing your job. A hobby is something you can pass on doing if time doesn’t permit it, but with passion, you try your best to do them even for a short while because they are that important to you and gives you immense satisfaction and drive from doing them.

Hobbies generally involve activities that make you feel good and happy. So, whenever you feel down and want to unwind, they are the things you turn to do. They are generally light-hearted activities that don’t need great skill or motivation to do. The same things may also apply when doing something you are passionate about; however, they lean more towards positive reinforcement and encouragement. Passions tend to give you that inner fire to do something, and they are things that may bring significant positive changes in your life by fulfilling goals or unlocking more opportunities in your life. On the other hand, passions have a heavier emotional investment, and they are things that may bug your mind whenever you aren’t able to do them because you are just that invested in doing them.

Butterflies come and go in relationships, in our seasonal adventures, next chapters and in new projects.  They provide us with a euphoric feeling of happiness and peace we hope will last forever. But, yes, because passion is that important to our dreams, our goals, our agendas, or our relationships- whether a relationship with one person, a community, a task, an idea, or our writing, we also risk heartbreak, disappointment, bitterness, or loss. But, as the saying goes, nothing worthwhile in life is free or easy and whether it is the passion driving our writing or the passion in our daily living, life philosophy or relationships- the risk attached to it is a chance worth taking.

To lose sight of, or control over, the passion inside us should not mean the end of our writing or whatever it is in life we feel might be in jeopardy of slipping away.  Instead, the threat of it disappearing is the wake-up call we needed to re-ignite our passion, to realize and appreciate its precious value, and to do what it takes to bring the butterflies back before they get away or ever feel the desire to leave us again.

The word Pantsing in the writing world comes from the term ‘to fly by the seat of your pants,’ meaning to write the “stuff” that spontaneously pops up in your head and arranging the story as you go, without first planning out the details. This method differs from Outlining, in which the writer establishes sense and order before beginning the first draft in which she pre-determines every nook and cranny into which her characters will go in their story journey. 

For some writers outlining is the preferred method because it prevents the writer from getting lost or backed into a corner with no way out.  If that is what works for you stick with what works, especially if you have that “plan- everything- out” mentality. However, for other writers, diving headfirst into the first sentence of the first page and writing non-stop as the story unfolds, without a detailed map for guidance, frees the flow of imagination to fill the page.  By allowing herself to trust her muse and to truly believe in herself, the writer unshackles her buried inherent impulse, simultaneously lending magic to her narrative.  In contrast to relying on a rigid pre-constructed outline, the pantsing path- to tether the story together later when the time feels right, liberates the writer’s creative yearning from its dormancy.

To this point, Toni Morrison said in Song of Solomon: If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.  In giving yourself over to spontaneity in addition to believing in yourself and your ability, you can accomplish things (or create things) you never believed you could. Joanna Penn, award-nominated, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author says it this way:  There’s a moment where the story clicks, it all suddenly makes sense, and things that I invented cross over into the real world in unexpected ways. That feeling makes the creative potential of the discovery process almost addictive. You need to have a certain amount of trust in your innate story sense, but that is also part of the enjoyment. We have all read so many books and watched so many movies and TV shows that we have a deep understanding of story as human beings. There’s a sense of ‘knowing’ how a story works, and in discovery writing, it’s about leaning into this feeling. Trust that your subconscious story brain will give you what you need along the way.

Just as individuals differ in lifestyle preferences, whether to live “off the cuff” or plan every detail out every day, authors differ in their writing styles.  Where some writers advocate strongly for outlines, such as Ernest Hemmingway who said: Prose is architecture, not interior design, and J. K Rowling who graciously shares copies of her outline notes created on napkins, joined by super successful author of more than 200 books James Patterson, who writes out detailed and plotted outlines before beginning his first drafts, others feel stifled by outlining or detailed planning. In writing exploratorily, Pantsers discover their story along the way.

Preferring to pants, Science Fiction, Mystery and Fantasy Author, Dean Wesley says in: Writing into The Dark:  Getting stuck is part of “writing into the dark”. It is… a natural part of the process of a creative voice building a story. Embrace the uncertainty of being stuck, trust your creative voice, give it a few moments’ rest, and then come back and write the next sentence.

As we all know, fear often becomes the wall that immobilizes us when facing uncertainty. Rather than build a staircase to climb over that wall, writers and individuals in general, might freeze in place or turn back in perceived failure.  But when we write into the dark we build that staircase as we begin to trust ourselves to get over the wall. Joanna Penn reflected on this idea in The Creative Penn:  To reframe the blank page as the promise of unlimited possibility, rather than the fear of the unknown.

Also lending his theories to this pantsing process, to play with the exploratory thought process further, Will Storr, in The Science of Storytelling puts it this way: Story emerges from human minds as naturally as breath emerges from between human lips. You don’t have to be a genius to master it. You’re already doing it.

Write a sentence.

Then another one.

Then another one.

Repeat until done for the writing session.

Whether in writing or in living, once we land on our feet on the other side of the wall, we discover the talent or ability we’ve had all along and we recognize how far we can take it. Pantsers write as ideas surface. They do not let fear intimidate them. Although they may have an idea about the general direction in which they want the story to go, with a vague concept of the beginning, middle and end, they do not yet know precisely where the protagonist will take them, or with whom the character will meet along the way through the chapters, or even the obstacles and antagonists the hero will come up against.  Pantsers start with the seed, plant it, and then let their natural instinct take over.

Along these lines, Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Author Scott H. Young said: To live spontaneously is to be in the present, beyond the past, and free of the future. It is to respond to what arises now, without hesitation, without self-doubt, without conflict.

Instead of writing in a linear manner, with each scene in order, Pantsing allows the writer to respond to what arises now, to jump around and write what her muse suggests as new ideas present themselves, piecing everything together later like connecting the dots -when the time feels right. In Pantsing, the writer learns to trust herself that the story will emerge organically despite the daunting blank face of the wordless page glaring back at her.  This does not mean the writer should not learn the craft of writing altogether. Just as individuals learn the alphabet, vocabulary, and principles of grammar to write effectively, and musicians learn the basics of song structure with its beats, melody, harmony, and bass lines before composing, writers should study the craft of writing, whether a Pantser or Outliner. The key is to have faith in your muse, then to fuse that with instinct and knowledge. In other words, learn the basics, be true to yourself and your story, and then let your imagination go wild!

The poet Ben Okri said: We are magnificent and mysterious beings capable of creating civilizations out of the wild lands of the earth and the dark places in our consciousness. In the same vein, Walt Whitman quoted: I am large, I contain multitudes. Humans, whether artists or individuals, are comprised of an endless mass of unique thoughts, ideas, memories, and dreams.  We are infinite beings over-filled with an abundance of potential if we open our minds to that knowledge.  If we believe in ourselves enough, we can do anything.

As a self- proclaimed Pantser, Stephen King creates stories with a variety of characters, multiple points of view, and often with complicated plot lines. In On Writing, Mr. King talks about starting with a character in a situation (the seed) and writing from that point (planting it and letting instinct take over):  Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground, which will be uncovered through the writing process. He writes multiple drafts and revisions to deepen and enrich the story, but his first draft is pure discovery (and likely a pure inky mess!). He says, “I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible”.  He likes to experiment and explore, playing with ideas until they take the shape he sees fit, or that his characters see fit.

By the same token, TD Storm in the Storm Writing School says in:  The case for Pantsing; Plotters advocate outlining and preparing before beginning the story, claiming that doing so will save a lot of time in the long run. Pantsers—so named because they write “by the seat of their pants,” advocate discovering the story as they write. E.L. Doctorow famously articulated what is more or less the attitude of Pantsing: “Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

Another similar viewpoint -to grow trust in ourselves comes from Author Steven James: It’s a matter of constantly asking questions of the story as you move forward into the narrative and then letting the answers inform the direction you take as you write it. Interestingly, James further advocates to follow rabbit trails, a course from which an Outliner or Planner would run in the opposite direction: Forget all that rubbish you’ve heard about staying on track and not following rabbit trails. Yes, of course you should follow them. It’s inherent to the creative process. What you at first thought was just a rabbit trail leading nowhere in particular might take you to a breathtaking overlook that far eclipses everything you previously had in mind for your story. You’ll always brainstorm more scenes and write more words than you can use. This isn’t wasted effort; it’s part of the process. Every idea is a doorway to the next.

Any fiction writer knows that it only takes a very small thing within a scene to radically change the direction of a character’s arc and action. And this brings us to one of the more interesting concepts having to do with discovery writing: when you pants your way through a story, you have to live in uncertainty. And as David Bayles and Ted Orland point out in Art and Fear, “Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable, and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art. And tolerance for uncertainty is the prerequisite to succeeding.

Having attempted to employ each method in my own writing projects I often flounder regardless of the extreme process I follow.  Consequently, after many episodes of trial and error I learned to compromise, to marry both methods together into a hybrid combination writing style that works for me. Ironically, while I agree with the magical components of Pantsing, in real life I was always a full-fledged type A individual who writes a “to do” list every morning. But, when it comes to writing, as opposed to living, I find that detailed outlining is far too restrictive.  Like a bad knee or a wide spread puddle blocking the path ahead of me- threatening to derail my daily run, outlining prevents me from freely moving between ideas, scenes, and chapters. But when the hybrid writer within emerges to encourage me, she can propel me to get to the other side of the wall.  Although my muse does not act alone, she is my guide.  And when the outliner joins forces with the pantser, they create a super power kind of partnership to build the staircase together.

This works in real life also.  Learning to loosen control over my “to do” agendas without sacrificing them completely, I can achieve greater peace, sense of empowerment and story, and then when I do confront the wall, I can surrender to the wind and ride with it high above it and even the staircase to land safely on the other side.

And so, when it comes to the debate between whether to Pants (or to discovery write) verses to Outline (or to plan) we look to our own real-life choices.  Do you plan your life away and feel anxious when something unexpected throws you off course (which will inevitably happen at times), or do you live on the edge, making quick decisions that have the potential to negatively alter your plan?  Or are you somewhere in the middle and meld the two together into a modified pantsing process in which you are open to unexpected surprises while remaining steadfast on course.  Neither choice is wrong. The correct answer lies in the one that works for you as the writer or as an individual in real life.

To outline is to check the weather several times before stepping outside, to turn the headlights up high regardless of the time of day and to clear the path of obstacles before daring to carry on, but to pants is to surrender to the wind to ride with it, to write into the dark to embrace uncertainty, and to feel comfortable going down rabbit holes with only a bare bones blue print as a guide. .But, in forging both methods into a combined hybrid super version in which you feel no or less fear, you will breathe fresh life into your story, both on paper and in life.

To create a RED HERRING, the writer plants details that purposefully mislead readers, to lead them down a phony trail which prevents the audience from predicting the sought-out conclusion. Red herrings are techniques the writer employs to steer her readers astray and thereby surprise them when the truth is finally revealed.  As a plausible misconception in which unrelated material is presented alongside relevant information, the red herring shifts attention from the predictable outcome the writer strives to hide from her readers.

To illustrate this idea further, Savannah Gilbo, a developmental editor and book coach who helps fiction authors write, edit, and publish stories, instructs writers to “use a mixture of “true clues” (to play fair) and “false clues” (to send readers down the wrong path). She explains how these “false clues” called Red Herrings might include any of the following:

• A character who seems evil or suspicious.

• An object that seems relevant or important.

• An event that seems to be significant to the story or protagonist.

• A clue placed by the antagonist or a secondary character that sends investigators down the wrong path.

She further elaborates that Red Herrings are a type of foreshadowing (all the different ways that an author can give readers hints or clues about what’s coming):

            Readers pick up on these hints and clues to try and figure out what’s going to happen next (or at the end of the story). But not all these clues will lead to the truth. Some will be used to deceive the reader about what’s coming—and in these cases, the “false clues” aka red herrings, do their job.

            Red herrings aren’t easy to craft–they must tread a fine line between visible and invisible. They have to be obvious enough that most readers will pick up on them, but   subtle enough that the reader believes it and follows the false trail.

So, how do you write effective Red Herrings in your story? Here are Savannah Gilbo’s top five tips:

1. Incorporate the Red Herring into the fabric of the story.

           Red herrings aren’t something to be pulled out of your hat when the plot lacks tension, excitement, or conflict. Like most storytelling techniques, Red Herrings have to serve a purpose and feel like they’re an organic part of the story. Not only that, but they need to be logical and have some kind of impact on the story.

2. Give your innocent characters motivation, means, and opportunity.

            If you’re planning to use a character as a Red Herring, you’ll need to convince readers that this person could legitimately be guilty. To do this, you could create an innocent character that either:

• Benefits from the crime
• Had the means or opportunity to commit the crime
• Has a strong motive
• Or all of the above.

• 3 Give the reader no (obvious) reason to suspect your guilty character.

            In contrast to an innocent character having the motive, means, and opportunity to   commit a crime, you’ll want to do the opposite with the real culprit. In other words, give the real culprit no (obvious) motive, means, or opportunity to be involved in the crime. To do this, you could have a guilty character who is acting strange but the protagonist can’t put his or her finger on why (at least not yet).

You could also discredit the guilty character by giving them a personality or skill set that doesn’t feel typical of someone “bad”.

• 4. Focus the reader’s attention elsewhere when you plant clues.

            Misdirection is not about withholding information. It’s about giving the reader extra information and focusing their attention on that instead of the truth.

• 5. Always play fair with the reader.

            When someone reads your story, they give you their trust. They expect that what you tell them is the truth. They build on each bit of information, trying to understand the big picture and figure out what’s going to happen next.

   Tricking the reader by misleading them is fun (both for them and for you). But if you fool them by leaving out information they would legitimately have expected to be given, then you are just messing with them.

 Like so many writing techniques I suggest, based on my unending desire to learn, the idea of creating Red Herrings in our fictional narratives are often relevant to our own daily life stories as individuals.  In fiction, a Red Herring is a good thing, a helpful tool created for the reader who does not expect it, or ask for it- or is aware of how much she needs it, but it is always in her best interest.

 
On the contrary, in real life a Red Herring might be compared to an outright lie, a manipulation, or some kind of deceit to satisfy its creator’s selfish need or intention. A Red Herring in our fictional narrative is a good thing that allows our readers to get what they came for.  But, in our real lives, not so much!  And this, in the end, is what makes the Red Herring sparkle. It is the prickly thorn on the stem of the rose that enables the velvet petals above to shine. We know the rose is beautiful, but we sometimes forget that the thorns on the way up there often cut.  

Use red herrings skillfully as authors and beware of them in life.

“…And they all lived happily ever after….

Each of us has a dream, a heart’s desire. It calls to us. And when we’re brave enough to listen, and bold enough to pursue, that dream will lead us on a journey to discover who we’re meant to be.

All we have to do is look inside our hearts and unlock the magic within…”

This Walt Disney World Fireworks display opening which lasted from 2017 to 2021 provided its audience with a few magical moments of believing that dreams can come true if only we embrace the power of courage and hope and the belief in ourselves to get us there.

Breaking down the story behind Happily Ever After, Jennifer Heymont writes in her Tour blog from 9-11-22 titled: 5 Reasons I’d be Thrilled for the Return of Happily Ever After, about the six distinct sections (or chapters) of the happily ever after story leading up to the finale.  She explains that the first section speaks of longing and dreaming, followed by empowerment and change in the second section, before the third section of exploration and friendship, leading into the fourth section in which the audience learns that some people are worth “melting for”, followed by the fifth section in which she says: “The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all.”, playing tribute to struggle. Finally, she ties the end up with the sixth section in which the castle is rebuilt better than ever after having been destroyed in section 5, as the story heroes are projected on the castle in their moments of triumph. 

This is a typical story structure in which a protagonist/ hero (or heroes) embarks on a quest to overcome adversity and not only resolves her or his problem by the end, but comes out better because of it.  And that is indeed a happily ever after ending, right? Doesn’t it make sense then, that our story endings should end this way in fiction since we want those happy endings in our real-life stories?

Or not?  Perhaps this perfect ending is an ambition toward which we should look more closely.

Rob Blair Young questions this idea when he writes in his 2013 Literary column, with regard to endings: Unless you define it (the end) by “the last printed page,” it can be hard to put exact definitions on what makes an ending an ending. “Happily ever after” does a favor for audiences: It affirms that the story has reached its conclusion. There was a major conflict, it’s been resolved, and these characters never had a major conflict again.

But he does not end his thought there.  He further questions whether this Happily Ever After conclusion is the best option for our fiction.  Is it about creating endings to tie everything up in a neatly placed bow, or is it about creating an ending to mirror reality, to guide readers toward real-life expectations instead of away from them?

Is this Happily Ever After the ending our readers truly want or expect or need or deserve?

Most readers expect to escape into an undiscovered pretend world when they begin a new story, away from the real world in which they struggle to remain healthy, find love, make a living, pay bills, raise a family, find purpose and feel joy. In between the day to day chapters of their real lives they seek to find a temporary respite within the chapters of someone else’s dreams, hopes and life, where they spend time with a character to whom they connect or relate. Therefore, naturally they would seek and expect a happy ending in the grand finale.

 But would they really? And if so, is this the best ending for them?

Further dissecting  this debate, H.E Edgmon attempts to answer this question in his November/December 2022 Writer’s Digest article; Sometimes Happily Ever After is a Lie. He writes the following:  “Rose colored glasses don’t exist in my work, but I don’t think of my stories as dark, either. They fall in the middle- they’re hopeful.”  His point is that while he understands writers who want to protect “jaded” children (or anyone really) from their own realities by writing happily ever after stories, it could sometimes “erase” them entirely.  He says the writers’ hearts are in the right places, as they don’t want to imagine the nightmare world to which these children are waking and living every day, therefore; in creating a world in which individuals can live free of pain for a few hundred pages, so be it.

But, on the other hand, in a way it might invalidate their pain at the same time. While Edgmon questions these writers for the idealistic happy endings they provide, he also does not want to write stories of darkness and pain to persuade children (and people) to give up hope entirely.  Consequently, he wants to blend the two extremes into a practical middle ground, to provide realistic hope.  He says the following: I believe that hope is  necessary. The knowledge that things can get better is the only reason some people keep waking up every day.  And I write for them.  I don’t promise happy endings, because sometimes, happily ever after IS a lie.  I don’t promise that my books will be tied up with a neat bow, that all of the problems will be solved by the last page, that my characters will conquer bigotry once and for all. But I promise there will be air in their lungs and people who love them exactly as they are and hope for what comes after the last chapter.

In creating a story that mirrors the real life struggles with which the individual battles, ending in credible hopeful ever afters, Edgmon believes he touches on both the need for the reader to feel she is not alone, and the hope that she does not struggle in vain.  While the perfect fairy tale happy ending is meant to provide a view of and hope for a better world, and a path beyond one’s limiting circumstances, with possibility for success or happiness, Edgmon warns to avoid blurring the lines between fantasy and reality so much that only feelings of disappointment, rejection and victimizing might generate as the reader’s consequential lingering emotional response once the story is over.

Likewise, Author Jane K, Cleland says in her October 2018 Writer Digest article “Grand Finale” , Just as there are countless inspiring and effective ways to tell a story, there are countless inspiring and effective ways to end it.  She believes the best endings are those that allow the story’s themes and characters’ revelations to linger in the reader’s mind long after the last page. Likewise, it is our goal as writers to make sure first that there will be feelings that linger, and next to make sure those feelings are of inspiration, open-mindedness , deeper positive thinking, of connection and the desire to  take the risk to start over in a new story.

As Rob Blair Young summed up in his column article:  “This is the 21st century”: We may be hungry for joy, but we are starving for that morsel of authentic human connection.  Along our journey toward the ending we work to create, the connections we make, whether in a chapter way back in the beginning of our story or in the chapter we are writing now, shape us into who we are and build the message we wish to share.

Yes, we as individuals seek the happily ever after in our own real life stories, as we write our life chapters of youth, chapters of mid-life, chapters of end of life, and the chapters in between- of the legacies we hope to leave our loved ones and even society, but in our fiction it is our job to provide grand finales that provide that magical illuminating balance between dreams, hope and reality, and the power of human determination and the capacity to first discover, then create, and finally to blend all of this into the happily and hopefully ever after narrative meant for us and the readers and individuals  who connect with us.  Although our story may not be the fairy tale we envisioned when we first set out on our journey, it can be the right story with the right ending for each of us.  Like the North Star the three kings followed, our happily ever after is out there waiting to be written as long as we believe in ourselves to find and create it.

And so, dear readers, here we are together at the end of another year filled with our past struggles and accomplishments, our pains and our joys, our losses and our gains, as we stand on the edge of the brand new sparkling year ahead.  We remember the adversities and losses we faced while recognizing the value they brought to our lives and the lessons they taught us.  We remember the people and moments we had hoped would remain a forever part of our story only to end up as a turned chapter or two.  We can accept this because we know those chapters and people and moments can NEVER be deleted from our manuscript draft of life on which we continue to work.  They created the bridges toward new connections and moments and chapters ahead, and the dashes that link the chapters between the beginnings and endings, while magically propelling us forward to the present moment in which we will always land.

 And so, we say farewell to 2022 with a pat on our backs to thank ourselves for  “a job well done”, and we welcome in the tomorrow facing us from the immediate and distant horizons of our future that promises to bring more challenges and battles to overcome. But, with that promise comes new wonderful connections and moments that will come and go, and the abundant life lessons, experiences and memories they will create, and the feelings of accomplishment and peace we will derive, that will lead us through the chapters and years to come, toward our own better than happily ever after ending down the road- for the new year ahead and the forever in the distance that will follow.

HAPPILY EVER AFTER LYRICS

Ready to begin?

Let the wonder take hold.

Feel it draw you in.

Watch the moment unfold.

Spark a dream that we’re meant to follow,

Setting out for a new tomorrow.

Every step we take

Brings a new hope, a new day.

Every choice we make

Helps us find our own way.

Every wish finally put into motion,

Diving in with our hearts wide open.

The story comes alive

When we look inside

A new adventure there in your eyes.

There in your eyes

It’s just beginning.

Feel your heart beat faster.

Reach out and find your

Happily ever after!

Find your happily ever after

Wishing all my readers a Very Merry CHRISTmas, Happy holidays and the Happiest, Healthiest and most Hopeful Happily Ever After EVER!  Thank you for accompanying me so far on my writing journey these past 10 years in January 2023! God Bless Us, Everyone! (In the words of Tiny Tim, who always believed, and remained positive and hopeful through adversity!)  XO

The separation between the story’s hero and the villain is wide, and yet at the same time it can be narrow.  Each character has a goal to achieve, a journey to take, and a stake in the game. The protagonist, or hero of the story moves outside his comfort zone to pursue his goal while the antagonist or villain does everything he can to oppose him.

Normally, the reader expects to place himself inside the mind of the hero, to accompany the story’s hero on his journey, to route for him to win – but what would it be like for the reader if he were to place himself in the perspective of the villain- instead? Would it make the story more interesting?  Or, conversely, would it cause too much anguish to step inside the villain’s inner world, to join him on the same wavelength, as someone who wants to do harm, destruction or evil to someone else? 

Upon reading this month’s book club book, I did not miss the author’s curious choice to have the writer within the writer’s story use a villain’s point of view to tell her story.  To write a non-horror/thriller from the perspective of someone our readers are normally persuaded to fear adds a compelling twist to the narrative.  And beyond that, it allows the reader to question the things that would create a villain, or to cause an individual to turn bad to begin with.

Isn’t this something many of us attempt to do in our real lives, to understand why another individual would do harm to someone else? When we hear about someone in the news who subjects another or others to pain, or we observe someone we know behave out of character, don’t we wonder what happened to cause that person to become so troubled to the point that his behavior turns negative, bully-like, malevolent, or downright evil?  Don’t we want to press ourselves up against his story like a scientist studying a foreign specimen, to understand his thought process and behavior?  We become addicted to the stories unfolding before us and we can’t stop ourselves from watching safely from the sidelines.  Afterall, there is something compelling about someone who turns bad.  But, perhaps – getting inside with him instead might be the only real way to figure out how  to protect ourselves and our loved ones, not only from becoming a victim, but from leaning into that “bad” side laying dormant in each of us.

In Verity, by Colleen Hoover, one of the main characters in the story is a writer who writes her life story behind the scenes. (Warning: this paragraph contains a major spoiler if you have not read it yet.)  She writes her autobiography from the point of view of a villain, supposedly the opposite of her true “normal and good “ self. The autobiography is to be a writing exercise suggested by her editor, referred to as “antagonistic journaling” to help the writer cope with her grief. Her editor suggests it to help Verity get inside the mind of a villainous character, by writing “phony” journal entries. However, the catch is to write the inner dialogue contrary from her actual experience, to essentially lie to the reader. “It was never meant for anyone to read and believe. It was an exercise … A way to tap into the dark grief that was eating at me,” she writes.

Hoover creatively places the reader uncomfortably in Verity’s head when she writes:

No one is likable from the inside out. One should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for its author. I will deliver. What you read will taste so bad at times, you’ll want to spit it out, but you’ll swallow these words and they will become part of you, part of your gut, and you will hurt because of them.

From this excerpt, the reader anticipates that what is coming will be something bad, making the assumption that Verity suffers from a troubled mind. The point is to get the reader to be told the story from the other side, to fully feel the evil, to become so embedded in it that she becomes a part of it, -a creative and smart way to gain a perspective of someone’s objective without dancing around it to second guess what is going on. 

Or at least it is an interesting idea to ponder.

In the May 16, 2022 blog post written by Stina Leicht; “Empathy for the Devil; Villains, Antiheroes and Origin Stories, Leicht says about writing horror in general, but it also explains the relevance of writing and reading from the villain’s point of view;

It forces us to gaze into the darkness and learn advanced lessons about being human. Because concentrating on only the Good means ignoring the shadow, and as every religious fanatic has demonstrated since the beginning of time, we ignore our shadows at our peril.

In life, as in writing, we have our heroes and our villains.  Every day we encounter individuals with good intentions and sometimes those with not so good intentions, although I truly believe there are substantially fewer of the latter, than of the first type.  The idea to probe around in someone’s head to examine the thoughts that drive him, allows us to gain an awareness, to discover the reasons why someone does what he does.  It’s like the surgeon who opens up his patient to locate and remove the tumor that is destroying her.  The writer does the same thing, only she explores the insides of the mind from the outside instead.  The goal is the same, to locate the root of the sickness, or malevolent thoughts and behaviors, to discover both how to handle it, and how to prevent it from growing inside our own selves or in others.

Sometimes, the individual is not necessarily evil.  It could be a slip up, a one-time temporary moment of weakness or extreme vulnerability, a moment in which any one of us could find ourselves.

Stephen King explained this notion in Scott Meyers’; November 7, 2021, Sunday’s with Stephen King’s “On Writing”:

Not only that, by immersing ourselves in the lives of our characters, we set out on a path in which we discover their complex nature. Villains who have self-doubt. Villains who feel pity. Good guys whose desire is to turn away from their responsibilities.

Through the journey into the antagonist’s inner world we hope to uncover the reasons behind his thoughts and behaviors to understand and potentially (and hopefully), treat, cure or save him, while saving the rest of us in the process.

It might, in some cases, also help us identify who the villain really is, to distinguish between the alleged heroes and supposed villains in each story we encounter.

In Jason Sechrest’s “Who is the true Villain in Carrie?” from May 25, 2018, we gain another interesting perspective; In Carrie we learn that behind the fire in every angry woman’s eyes, there exists a lifetime of sorrow, and that behind that sorrow lies great pain. This is most notably evident in one of the book’s most quoted lines:

 Sorry is the Kool-Aid of human emotions. It’s what you say when you spill a cup of coffee, or throw a gutter ball when you’re bowling with the girls in the league. True sorrow is as rare as true love.

What this says, Sechrest claims, is sometimes there is the need to pay attention to the sorrow within someone before labeling that individual as a villain. Perhaps, the individual is only a broken hero in her own story, with the basic need of repair.  And that repair does not have to cost much.

While people may associate Stephen King with horror, it’s rarely the pervasive feeling one gets as a reader. Sometimes it’s nostalgia. Sometimes it’s desperation. With Carrie, it is heartbreak. For we all knew (or perhaps, were) a Carrie White in school. We may feel shame for how we treated that individual when we were “just kids,” or perhaps we stood idly by, and allowed bullying to occur. But to read Carrie is to be enlightened as to what it’s like to be in such well-worn and tattered shoes; to know the madness that ensues behind closed doors by night, which makes one so awkward by the light of day.

It is interesting that Carrie would become one of King’s most infamous villains over the years when in many ways she is in fact a victim. The question remains a common discussion point among readers over 40 years later: Is Carrie White the villain of Carrie, and if not, then who is?

Stephen King took the black-and-white out of Carrie and began painting its characters in beautiful shades of gray. They were not good. They were not bad. They were just… human. Much less like characters in a book, and more like the flesh and bone people who would be reading it. It made Carrie White instantly likeable, but more than that it made the book itself instantly relatable.

I love how Sechrest describes the reader, as the flesh and bone people who would be reading it.  This is to whom I write, both to the writer who creates the story, the reader who reads it, and to the individual just trying to live her life. So, when we ask ourselves who the villain really was in Carrie, we might learn that the true villain in Carrie is- us.  The villain is the possibility inside us to judge, to condemn, to ostracize, to exclude, to label, to treat badly, to misunderstand,…  lurking around in each one of us.  And if making a short trip to the insides of someone’s inner world could possibly make us more sensitive and empathetic to another- who might feel troubled or is going through a “down period”, to which we have the opportunity to step in to help, perhaps it might prevent any other Carrie’s from being created, if we visit that place just for a bit.

And so, if the villains of Stephen King’s stories, and in other stories, both fiction and non-fiction, or in real life, could help us learn how not to become a villain, or a victim, then the idea to see the world from inside that point of view, if only for a brief period, could help us become more caring individuals, then writing in the antagonist’s perspective is a trip worth taking.

Stephen King’s characters are painted so perfectly human—so flawed and so fallible—they show us there is light and darkness in everyone. Carrie holds up a mirror to expose the potential villain that exists in each of us. The bully we can become. The judge. The zealot, or control freak. The man or woman scorned, hellbent on revenge.

So, the next time we contemplate whether to step inside the villain’s point of view for a few uncomfortable moments, to take a shot at understanding his or her story, to write from the his or her point of view, I say go for it. Like the cross and holy water that keep the vampires away, if understanding what makes a villain a villain, or a seemingly normal person think and act out of the ordinary, could keep evil away or from developing, then the temporary discomfort of glimpsing a different perspective- to write from the villain’s viewpoint, should be worth the temporary uneasiness that might work toward saving each of us at the end of the day, or in this case, at the end of the story.