S.B. Stewart-Laing's Blog, page 25

Out-Of-Character Moments

In real life, due to the biology of personality, people cannot act truly out of character without chemical or physical alterations to their brains. So absent illness, injury or psychoactive substances, people don't act out of character, but rather reveal facets of their existing character which are not immediately evident outside of particular environments.

This rule needs to be applied to characters, assuming they're human (or another Earth mammal). You could definitely write a magical or alien species which switches personalities, or can turn different aspects of themselves on and off at will. But for people, actions need to fit the character.

Because we see the characters for a limited portion of their lives, it's important to hint at character traits which will surface at a later point. Otherwise it will feel like an out-of-character moment, even if it fits with the character development in the author's head. This doesn't always happen in real life--particularly if someone is being faced with an entirely novel and stressful situation, a side of their personality may well be revealed and surprise everyone. But for the sake of fictional credibility, there has to be some character development pointing in that direction.

Finally, do not use an out-of-character moment to allow someone to solve a major plot problem. It's certainly reasonable to have out-of-character behaviour contributing to them plot, assuming it falls into the illness/injury/chemical cause (or magic, if you're writing a fantasy world). But don't give the bruiser with no brain-to-mouth filter a run of supreme diplomacy because that's what's needed to save the day.

Just a Coincidence

The problem with fiction, it has to be plausible. That's not true with non-fiction.— Tom Wolfe

Real life is full of weird coincidences. Everyone has at least one story about an improbable convergence of good or bad events in their life, and has seen well-documented examples of strange coincidences in the lives of other people.

Fiction, however, requires an internal logic in order to keep credibility with the audience. In many ways, fiction is a more distilled way to process life experiences, cutting out the random and extraneous and focusing on the largest conflicts. So peppering your story with coincidences is often a way to completely destroy your audience's suspension of disbelief. It can also feel highly contrived if the coincidences take the place of credible action to move the plot forward, or completely change the tone and pace of the story (if plot twists drop out of the sky with no buildup).
There are some situations where a coincidence is okay as a plot device:

In the beginning. It's completely reasonable to use a coincidence to kick off the story, as long as the action unfolds causally from that point. In a small pool of characters. It's highly probable that, say, your doctor hero who specialises in hand surgery could bump into your main hand-surgeon villain at a conference, or that they went to school together, or the like. Similarly, in a country with a small population and large extended families, the probability of two characters being related or knowing each other is fairly high. It's a nasty plot complication. The caveat is that this does need to be hinted at-- if a meteor strikes unannounced in the middle of your spy drama, it comes off as an ass pull. However, if there have been murmurs about a potential tropical storm building, it is definitely allowed to hit at the point least helpful to your characters. In comedy. Comedy, especially stories with an absurdist bent, can tolerate a degree of randomness or coincidence that would cause problems in a more serious work. If there's an overarching reason. The Hitchhiker's Guide series, which includes some of my all-time favourite sci-fi writing, introduces the Infinite Improbability Drive, which actually creates absurd and improbable coincidences around itself. One could also have a supernaturally unlucky person, a superhero who manipulates probability or the like. 

Because Destiny Demands It!

I see a plot hole in your future...I like suspenseful fiction.
And a key part of suspense is making it a very real possibility that the hero will fail, or will only succeed at a horrible cost.
There's also a really easy way to kill the suspense deader than a welk in a supernova: introduce a prophecy in chapter two that outlines how the main character is the Chosen One who will win at everything forever. For some reason, Fantasyland has a surfeit of really good seers who can nail down the details of who is going to defeat the Dark Lord in the gloomy fortress with the magic sword.
The Captain Obvious option is to dispense with prophecy entirely-- there's no reason to go visit the Dispenser of Plot Spoilers Local Fortuneteller in most stories.
Alternately, you could have some fun with prophecies:

Include a faker or three. If there are seers in your universe, or people believe in augury, it makes sense that some people will exploit that to various degrees. It could be someone spouting grand and mysterious nonsense for a fee, or it could be someone really clever who deliberately spreads false prophecies to further their own ends. Knowing the prophecy can mess with people. A number of stories turn on someone trying to dodge their fate, only to take the precise actions that make the prophecy come true. The prophecy has a twist ending. This has been done with regularity, and has to be done carefully to avoid a major audience facepalm. But a clever one can cause a very satisfying 'ah ha!' moment (or an 'oh no!' moment) when the audience and character both realise they were wrong. The prophecy only gives partial information. This gives you room for all kinds of plot twists, as well as potentially misleading the characters. 
There's lots of ways to play your character's encounter with the roving seer or the ancient prophetic text, if you must have them glimpse the future. Just please, no more Destined-to-Win heroes!

The Rebellion PR Department

As I've mentioned before, there has to be a compelling reason for people to be OK with a high risk activity such as overthrowing their government. Your Evil Overlord (or colonising empire, or whatever) essentially must have crossed the 'Godzilla Threshold' in the public consciousness, to the point where the average person decides that an indefinite period of government instability and heavily armed people lighting things on fire and a major rebuilding effort is preferable to carrying on as usual.
Now, if this is more of a coup than a full-on rebellion-- ie, one powerful person wants to topple and replace the person above him-- one can see a scenario where the public is unwillingly dragged into a conflict that will go on whether they want it or not. However, if you've gone with the ever-popular intrepid band of upstanding citizens fighting the Evil Overlord (or have been issued this by history), you should really think about how they go about keeping the good will of the general population.
Before you say that they can get on just fine doing the hunter-gatherer thing, remember that an organised group which wants a regime change needs the following:

Supplies, such as food, weapons, warm clothing, access to water, and transport;Secrecy, even if it's only in the form of people who shrug and play dumb when asked if they've seen any rebels lurking about;Safe passage, again, even if it's someone just allowing the rebels to cross your property;Support after the regime change, when everyone is putting the pieces back together. Again, under some circumstances, the general public might accept a quick change of government, particularly  if the switch has little effect on their everyday lives (see my earlier frothing about evil governments who don't do anything actually evil). However, if this is a radical change that requires widespread action, there needs to be some level of public support, and the rebels should be working overtime to maintain it, or be shredded by public opinion when everyone is sick of the conflict. 

Cultural Taboos

When I was a wee undergraduate, I worked as a caterer specialising in kosher and halal cooking*. This meant not just knowing the letter of the rules, but understanding how this manifested in food culture for these two groups, which carried a bit of culture shock.

Even when there aren't a culturally dominant religious guidelines governing things like food preparation, sexuality, or public conduct, most cultures develop a set of socially acceptable behaviour, which will almost inevitably include some unique taboos. For this discussion, I'm considering something taboo if it induces a major cringe reaction in most people from that culture.
 
When doing your worldbuilding, it's good to think about these things during your research and/or world creation process. Remember that all cultures are unique, and never assume something that's forbidden or icky in one setting will be viewed the same way in another. You should ask:
1) What are taboo behaviours? This could be anything-- eating particular animals, travelling or working on a holy day, performing certain sex acts, or refusing hospitality are common taboos across the globe.
2) Why? It could be left over from a serious health issue (for example, if you live in an area where it's usually unwise to eat the shellfish-- this one pops up in various parts of the world), religious meanings (Celtic squick over horsemeat is a throwback to pagan tradition), or related to some group trauma or historical event.

Thinking about taboo behaviour can add some punch to existing conflicts with your story-- incorporating these elements can add events which really push the character's buttons-- and also tell you (and your audience) a lot of information about your setting.

*There is a niche market for people who understand the food prep involved in creating a kosher or halal meal, but are not practicing Jews or Muslims and can thus work Friday or Saturday.

Hivemind Memory

One of the crucial elements of worldbuilding is creating-- or researching-- the historical events which lead your world to the situation portrayed in your narrative. Not just what those events are, but how much accurate detail the characters know about them, how much mythology has been built up around those events, and how those events are viewed by the specific characters and by the general population.
The collective memory is a powerful thing. I come from cultures which have a strong oral tradition, and an amazing ability to pass on correct historical information. However, the further back you go, the more likely facts are to get muddled or elaborated upon or lost or turned into allegory.
This also means that life expectancy will have a major effect on the collective memory. If your population has a number of people over 80 who clearly remember what life was like before the aliens landed 50 years ago, your society will have a different narrative and outlook than one in the same world whose entire population is under 30, so no one remembers anything different than the status quo except by hearsay.

Book Teaser!

[image error] Michael and I have info on the new book. We're hoping to get it out next winter.
The title is another Robert Burns shout-out-- bonus Scottish Lit points and virtual cookies for anyone who can write the full verse in the comments section!

Also, we are teaming up for a wee promotion spree with Magpie Games. They make cool roleplaying games AND tie-in fiction, so yous should go check them out.

It's Not You, It's the Audience

As I was scrolling through my twitter feed one day, I happened across the following:


Now, since this is an article is a reflective essay about the author's struggles with alcoholism, but that obviously didn't stop golden shower fans (links mildly NSFW) from latching on.
The takeaway lesson here is that you can't control how your audience reacts to your story. Although you can take steps to think about your story through outside eyes and head off gaps between authorial intent and what makes it onto the page, there are as many experiences of your story as their are readers.
Because we all we all interpret stories through the window of our own experience, it's not as though someone's take on your work isn't valid because it's not exactly what you intended. I've seen quite a few authors get fairly wound up about everything from unintended social critiques of their stories to weird fanfiction. However, there's not much you can do besides appreciate that people are enjoying your work, even if it's not quite in the way you intended (just accept that Rule 34 and Rule 36 happens).
Yes, it can be frustrating at times to have your intentions misread, particularly if you have strong views about the issues which arise in your story. But the only way you can write 'message' fiction that won't get misinterpreted is to bash your audience over the head with your preaching, which will chase away most of your readers (and it still may be seen as a parody criticising itself!). The most effective message fiction asks the reader to think for themselves by interpreting the story, and the inherent risk of asking people to think for themselves is that they may end up disagreeing with you.

Diversity Erasure

 Being the descendant of both notable pirates and Caribbean natives, I often get asked to give an opinion on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies*. Usually, people home in on the sequence with the cannibal tribe, who are possibly supposed to be Kali'na, and ask if I'm offended.
Actually, the movie has a much bigger problem (also, I rather assumed the tribe was more a universally problematic 'Ambiguously Brown Savages' fantasy setpiece rather than anything specific). The pirates are overwhelmingly white, in a time and place where the Afro-Caribbean folks should outnumber those of European descent** 10 to 1, even before you factor in the people of Asian, Native or mixed ancestry. 
This happens a lot in historical fiction, as though people believe non-Europeans were invented in the 20th century. However, modern media can be just as guilty, with improbably homogeneous casts of characters appearing in incredibly multicultural areas. The only route is to do your research (no, watching period dramas doesn't count!) before making any assumptions about the ethnic/religious/racial makeup of a particular setting. 
It's part of human nature to like statements like 'all X are Y', simply because our brains prefer tidy categories to complexity. People also tend to gravitate to those with whom they share some common traits. However, you will have a much more realistic--and much more interesting-- setting if you dig in to demographics (or invent some interesting demographics for your fantasy world) and have a more varied cast. 

*My official, Serious Business opinion is that I have enjoyed them, precisely because they know they're not Serious Business.
**There are Celtic people being factored in to both tallies, so I'm calling it a wash to spare you an explanatory thesis.

Token Majority

One weird and uniquely problematic manifestation of forced diversity can show up as someone from the majority group being shoehorned into a cast of characters who hail from a distinctly different background. In some cases, this is functionally the same as the 'token minority', where the character is essentially a diversity statistic (and in some settings, this may also be an accurate one, which will be discussed further on Friday).
But unfortunately, the more typical case involves the Token Majority actually taking over and getting the spotlight in stories where this is inappropriate to the setting and narrative. (I add the 'appropriate to the narrative' caveat because I don't think there is automatically an Issue at play if there is--in most of these cases--a white, hetero male lead. There can be cases where this is a plot point, and this particular character has a uniquely compelling story. Or perhaps it makes sense in a particular setting.)
A recent example that has drawn a lot of flack is The Impossible*, which chooses to follow the story of a white family who survives the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami rather than follow some of the millions of residents who lost everything when the earthquake struck. But this essentially started during the early 1800s, when the 'white guy goes on an adventure with ethnic people' trope kicked into gear-- The Last of the Mohicans is a particularly obnoxious example, since we follow a white guy who is following the Native Americans who are having a compelling conflict when it would be much more expedient to follow the title character directly**.
Honestly, this trope is bad for storytelling, since it often generates extraneous storylines for the sake of supporting the incongruous lead, and pulls focus away from the most interesting conflict in the story. Also, it's insulting to your entire audience. To borrow a thought from Tim Wise, it assumes that people of the majority group are so socially inept that they cannot relate to someone who isn't a carbon copy of themselves (ie 'all white people are racist', etc.), which is a pretty offensive assumption. That's aside from the very obvious problem that you're telling anyone in the 'minority' group that no matter how interesting their story is, it will never hold a candle to the life of someone from the dominant category. Really, this trope is a no-win.

*In all fairness, I have heard the acting is top-notch, and that the movie is good in an of itself.
**For everyone who has been asking for me to pick on James Fenimore Cooper-- this is that moment.