No, not someone to sell your work for you.
Those characters you are writing about? The ones with the serious problem that they have to do something about?
Yeah, them.
They have to fix the problem. Deus ex machina not allowed.
As a writer you try to stay somewhat in touch with what is possible for them to do. And sometimes it’s really hard. Sometime a story just isn’t working.
I’ve got a story that addresses a big turning point in my current World, and story just isn’t . . . well, it’s been sitting on my hard drive so long, it had to get transferred to my new computer, where its utter failure to work irritated me all over again.
So, tools to unstick it? My first go-to is to map it against the Hero’s Journey. Meh. Kinda complex. How about, how many try-fail sequences have I stuck in there?
Not helping? Wrong tool? All right. Back to the VERY basics.
See, at the most stripped down, absolute bare bones of “what is a story” the minimum is something like . . .
(1) Here’s a character.
(2) Here’s a problem that matters to him.
(3) Here’s how he solves it.
(4) Here’s what he’s like after he’s dealt with it.
Well . . . just spotted the problem. That’s unfortunate.
My main character isn’t the one doing the solving.
That’s why I can’t write any further.
(Yes, sometimes my back-brain has trouble explaining things to my forebrain. This time it must have taken three years for it to get through.)
So . . . now what to do? Well, with other stories I’ve added to the start and made the character who can solve the problem into the main character and former main character can just sulk around or get over it and help.
(No, it’s okay! You can call off the men with the white I-love-me-jacket! I know my characters aren’t real. Really!)
Or, as in this case, back off and see where the MC can in fact, have an epiphany (boot to the rear, BIG HINT, new information, whatever works!) then step up and solve the problem himself. Probably with some help from the characters that previously looked like the only ones who could figure it out, mind you.
But the Main Character had the agency. He’s the one who will make it work. And he’ll grow from the experience, and look forward toward a new, brighter future that he’ll also make work.
And this irritating itch of “unfinished business” will be off of my back as well.
I hope.
So . . . anyone else have a problem with the MC not getting the job done?
What did you do? Apart from tossing the story on the bonfire . . . however tempting . . .
6 responses to “Agency”
I think of those sorts of issues as “engine problems” — the engine is in the wrong place.
We are drawn in sympathy to “the one with the problem that’s hard to solve”, so it’s tempting to make the story go in the direction of making the “hard” part worse instead of the “how to solve” better.
My theory is that this has to do with the real life phenomenon of children. We don’t expect children to solve serious problems on first encounter in real time — they need our help to learn the problem-solving process. If our main character is not defined/positioned as someone who can plausibly do that, then the story-telling part is hard to fix. He needs agency, will, and competence (the ability to operate an “engine”) Some of that he can acquire over time, as children do, but maybe not in “storytelling” terms, unless you’re watching a character in an extended series grow into his responsibilities.
By the way, your Livejournal site isn’t working anymore.
Must have been a brief snit or whatever? Pam Uphoff’s Planet — LiveJournal seems to be working.
So you have a POV character who is not the protagonist, such as Dr. Watson vs. Sherlock Holmes or the like?
Can the POV character be given some lesser stake in the solution of the problem or a closely related one? Be heavily invested in the success or failure of the actual protagonist? What we does he stand to gain or lose, depending on the outcome for the protagonist?
Watson and Holmes is an unusual case of the point of view character not being the main character.
In a lot of detective stories, especially police procedurals, the detective doesn’t, so to speak, have any skin in the game. Other than a thirst for justice, incurable curiousity, or the hots for the accused . . .
Amature detectives often get pulled in by a personal connection.
It’s all a matter of what the writer decides on. I’ve figured out how the MC deals with his immediate problem, and have now realized that I’m also ignoring the underlying cause, which hadn’t previously involved him at all, but now he knows the other people, so he’s in it till that’s resolved.
So I’m over one hump, and now I have to figure out the next . . .
The viewpoint character does not have to have agency. The protagonist does.
Though, often, the protagonist has the exterior action, but it’s the viewpoint character who gains any insight and growth there is to be had.