Limitations Are a Good Thing

In a previous post, I mentioned that I’m taking a couple of Holly Lisle’s writing workshops. In one, she discusses limitations. In her view, you have to limit your characters and world in some way. For example, in some stories, vampires can’t go out during the day because the sun burns them. That’s a limitation. Characters and worlds without limitations would be pretty boring.

Sometimes the limitations arise naturally from the world. For example, before cell phones came on the scene, it was easy to have a plot in which tension and conflict arise because a character can’t communicate with someone from anywhere, and at any time. Perhaps a woman is being followed. Before cell phones, she couldn’t pull out her phone and call 911.

Now writers have to resort to stuff like phone batteries dying. How many times have we seen scenes in movies and TV episodes where the battery-low light is flashing right in the middle of a conversation? Another tactic: “I can’t get a signal.” Mystery and thriller writers in particular say that their stories can be much harder to plot because anyone with a phone can usually contact someone from wherever they are, 24 hours a day. This is why limitations are good for stories and worlds. They create tension and conflict.

In the Deiform Fellowship series, Sam explains to Jillian that the gifts are watered-down versions of abilities that are usually associated with God. Imagine if I’d given them omniscience, omnipotence, etc. It would be pretty darn hard to have them investigate anything, because they’d know right away what was going on and who did it.

Despite limiting them, it can still be difficult to write a convincing scenario that the gifts can’t overcome. I ran into this when I was writing the climax for Deiform Three. On the surface, the gifts might appear to be rather weak. Jillian says as much when Sam tells her about telepathy’s range. But used in the right way, they’re actually quite powerful, and when you put two Deiforms together, even more so.

I wanted a particular thing to happen in Deiform Three’s climax, but every scenario I came up with led me to think, “Well, why wouldn’t they just shift? Why wouldn’t they stop a heart?” I was watching an episode of Covert Affairs last night, and I kept thinking, “Why doesn’t she just shoot him?” For the entire season, the heroes in Covert Affairs have been pitted against a certain baddie, and Annie, the main character, has had ample opportunity to just shoot the guy, and she’s not above shooting people. It’s driven me crazy throughout the season. I’m still enjoying the show, but that nagging question is always at the back of my mind.

I’ve also read books where I’ve wondered why the character doesn’t just do [something obvious]. I know the answer, of course: because it wouldn’t be as interesting or dramatic or tense. But in that situation, I always think that the writer should have found another way to write the scene. I didn’t want readers to ask or think the same things about Deiform Three’s climax.

I wrote that damn climax three times. The first time, it just sucked. I read it over and thought, “No. No, no, no!” The second time was dramatic and cool and interesting, but completely out of character for someone, to the point that after I finished writing it, I envisioned the next scene as another character saying to the character who’d taken action, “WTF? Are you serious? I don’t know who you are.”

When that happens—when you and one of your characters is protesting—you know that no matter how dramatic and interesting the scene is, it has to go. Character assassination, in the sense of having a character do something completely against everything you know about the character, is usually wrong. At that point, you have to flex the creative muscle and come up with something better that won’t blow away a character’s integrity.

It took me a while. I gnashed teeth over it. I remember when lightning struck. I’ve mentioned that some of my best ideas come to me when I’m doing mundane stuff. In this case, I was feeding the cats. I was setting a bowl on the floor in front of a hungry feline, and bam! My subconscious mind had been working on the problem and had come up with a great solution. I was able to write an interesting climax that makes sense all around—for the characters, for the gifts, for the story. I think I wrote over 10,000 words to get the few thousand I wanted. Writing is sometimes like that.

Have a great weekend! 

Limitations Are a Good Thing is a post from: Sarah Ettritch