This article was birthed by a repeated observation of many modern cultural works to fall into the same flaw again and again. I haven’t come up with a catch name for it (or found the tvtropes label) yet, so the commentator who helps me figure out what to call this will win… High Praise! (and/or I’ll give them some ‘reputation’ on the II forums – whichever is worth less)
While Asahel and I were settling in to watch a movie a weekend or two ago, we saw a trailer for a movie called I Love You Man. Time for a game! I’ll give you an over view of the movie’s plot, you see if you can spot the flaw.
Protagonist (Prot) has proposed to his girl and is going to get married. During the preparation, Prot realizes that his friends are all girls and he doesn’t have any ‘buddies’ he can ask to be his best man. After talking with his father and brother over dinner, he decides he’s going to have to learn to be “one of the guys™” and find a best man before the wedding. Hilarity ensues.
If you thought the flaw was ‘who is this film marketed to’, well you get half points. I’ll give you time to think about it while we look at the Spider-man travesty arc, ‘One More Day’. For those who don’t know the plot is:
Prot’s 90+ year old aunt/adoptive mom gets shot. He sells his marriage with a hot redhead to Satan in order to save his aunt’s life.
Hilarity ensues.
What do these two plots have in common? They both suffer from a criminal plot flaw that has a staggeringly easy solution.
With I Love You Man, the problem is that Prot is in need of a best man and he has a brother. For those who might be too young to know better, it’s traditional for your brother to be your best man (unless you’re a girl). How do you fix it? Remove the brother from the movie. But then who then does Prot go to to talk about ‘man-dates’ and ‘making-friends’? His father! (since it is a rarity and not traditional for the groom’s father to be a best man)
What was the solution to OMD? Have Mary Jane (the hot, redhead wife) be the one that was shot! Then the decision to sell their marriage to save her life is compelling, sensible and better writing.
So what can you (hopefully a better writer) do to prevent yourself from making an easily fixed mistake in your work? There are the usual techniques of thinking, using common sense and having good editors that you listen to, but I want to go into detail on a method of recycling.
One of the demarcations of good and poor writers is how well they recycle any part of the story. A poor writer will invent a whole new character and then dispose of them after they’ve served their purpose. Example: The protagonists run into a mysterious figure who says: “Hello sir. The plot is in that direction. Good-bye forever.” A great writer will not add anything new to the story unless he/she absolutely has to. Example: The protagonists run into a mysterious figure who says, “Hello there. The plot is in that direction – but I’m really the villain/main henchmen in disguise, leading you astray! See you in the final act.” This is also good for avoiding character glut. Don’t be afraid to have someone fill multiple roles (as long as it’s within character). The same goes for events, artifacts, pretty much any facet of the plot (ex: the Ring from LotR).
If you look for solutions among what you’ve already done, you’ll reduce the chance of having an easily preventable flaw in your story.
Homework: Compare any number of the Harry Potter series with an equal number of the Inheritance crime and compare how well or poor each author uses this technique.
SlyShy on 4 March 2009, 01:24 said:
Huh, interesting observation. I’ll have to think about this for a bit. I’ll get back to you in a bit.
Ty on 4 March 2009, 02:03 said:
I think you could quite simply call this the Blind Spot, or Blindspotting. It seems like the fatal flaw here is the inability of authors to step back from their own work and think, “Hm, what would an actual person do? How would this situation turn out in the real world?” It’s an authorial blind spot of sorts — the author gets so pulled into his/her work that he/she utterly fails to notice the gaping hole in logic right before his/her eyes!
Anyhow, great observation — this is something I absolutely need to work on in my own writing (:
OverlordDan on 4 March 2009, 11:21 said:
I believe that the tvtropes label for the first would be genre blindness, they don’t know what kind of movie they are in.
That spiderman thing though? Both Parker and the writers were juggling the idiot ball.
Juniper on 4 March 2009, 17:21 said:
I would like to see this subject more deeply mined. You mentioned letting a character fill more than one role, like Gandalf filling multiple “roles” through the series. What about bad recycling causes writer’s glut?
“Hello sir. The plot is in that direction. Good-bye forever.”
…and here’s an ancient, legendary plot device…er, sword, that once belonged to an important figure (your father, incidentally) that will aid you in your quest. Bear it well.
Snow White Queen on 4 March 2009, 20:54 said:
Yes, Rowling is quite adept at plucking out random things from earlier in the Harry Potter books and making it suddenly important. Some people don’t like that though…but I think it works for her.
Rand on 5 March 2009, 22:50 said:
I do not understand how recycling plots (title) has to do with managing your plot solutions (article). Explanations?
SlyShy on 5 March 2009, 23:00 said:
Actually, the title doesn’t say it is about recycling plots—it’s about recycling. I think the word choice might be a little bad here—Nate means “Reusing”. The idea is that instead of using each of your characters for just one thing, you can use the character for multiple things.
Nate Winchester on 9 March 2009, 14:48 said:
Authorial Blind Spot… High Praise for Ty! (what’s your forum handle) Of course, it’s not just a gaping hole in logic, but one that has an obvious and ready solution right in front of their face. (like the cartoon with a ladder factory on fire and one worker on the 5th floor turns to another and says “wait, what was that about needing a way down?”)
I think it’s an idiot ball all around. Since genre blindness doesn’t exactly apply (even in a chick movie). It’s not a rule of the movie’s structure, just a plot problem with an easy solution.
Yes I admit, this isn’t my best article, I just couldn’t get the thoughts nailed down ya know? I probably will change it to “reusing” but it’s not limited to just Characters. Think of LotR + Hobbit and how a little gold ring goes from simple plot device to mcguffin. Rowling is a BIG fan of reusing stuff.
Rand on 10 March 2009, 18:46 said:
Right, tying your story into a neat package with details from previous chapters or books. Sometimes solving problems along the way. Gotcha.
Godslayer on 19 March 2009, 16:44 said:
Why is it better for MJ to be shot? What if the aunt was an important person to him? What if part of his character conflict is between choosing his past and choosing his future? What if he’s torn apart between his lover and his family? What if, the action of his aunt being shot, effects him so much that he cuts all ties with his planned future? Sounds pretty interesting to me, like part of some greater plot
Same with the first plot. Maybe part of the story is how he holds a kind of grudge against his brother—maybe even not knowing it, makes it even more interesting! Hilarity can ensue if done right.
Just tossing some ideas here.
Nate Winchester on 19 March 2009, 18:25 said:
If he had a grudge against his brother, than Prot wouldn’t be eating with him or asking advice later about “man dates”.
You don’t know much about Spider-man do you? The aunt is 80-90 years old. Even if he saves her from the bullet Prot has, what – 10 years or less with her? MadGoblin explained the myraid of problems with OMD quite well. It was poorly done. Very very poorly done.
Godslayer on 19 March 2009, 22:40 said:
Then I must respectfully disagree with you.
What I mean by he doesn’t like him much but is not aware of that either is he has no idea why he finds himself acting aggressive or not taking his brother seriously or even considering him, in his mind, an ideal best man. You can think everything is fine between you and someone, but you just can’t understand why you lose your patience with them so easily. Hasn’t this happened to everyone at one point in their lives?
I’m not talking about spider man or the movie anyway. I’m wondering why it’s necessarily a bad thing to have characters who don’t always serve multiple purposes. The examples you gave don’t seem to gel quite right.
Are you saying that all characters must be as logical as the creator who makes them? Even if he has less than 10 years with her doesn’t mean he will not have an emotional response to her being in danger.
The examples you gave are very easy to brush away by a competent storyteller. Maybe the brother brings out a certain theme in the prot’s character that his father doesn’t quite do so. Even if plotwise something seems useless, it could be quite important to the story behind the plot. Plot is a sequence of events, and story is meaning.
I’m not claiming they are well-written; I am stating that the examples do not necessarily prove the point you are trying to make. I personally think in many cases the point can be moot. Sometimes there are one-time characters that work out just fine.
Nate Winchester on 26 March 2009, 10:02 said:
Let’s see how much respect you give… (very little apparently)
Except you can clearly see in the trailer that this isn’t the case. Ken’s rule of plot holes: You’re putting more thought in excusing the narrative’s actions than the writers are. While we’re at it, let’s just assume that it’s a family of time traveling marmosets in disguise and the brother is stuck in a time period different from the finance. Besides, the driving point of the story is looking for a best man and you only have to put with the best man for a few hours at most. (for comparison, see the King of the Hill episode 801 “Patch Boomhauer” which dealt with the issue better in 30 minutes)
Then stop complaining about the examples if you’re not going to use context. What’s next? You’re going to use loaded dice to complain about a game being rigged?
Because you fail at reading comprehension. Sometimes a creator is forced to use a 1-shot character but they should generally be a last resort. Why? Because then it’s a lot easier to end up with these plot holes as shown. Hole Filler Joe serves a purpose in scene 3. Why then (the reader will ask) doesn’t he serve a similar purpose that is needed in scene 8? Not to mention that reusing anything adds depth and re-readability to any work.
You’re seriously asking if characters have to be logical. Are you really Paolini? (considering your screen name could be applied to Eragon… odds favor yes) Yes, they do and (more importantly) they have to be true to themselves as well. I’d try explaining this to you but since you’ve already established a contempt for context, that would be a fruitless endeavor.
1) It’s true about ANYTHING that such and such problem can be fixed by good storytelling. How does that help anyone? Editor: “You should really write this better.” Author: “…” Congrats GS, you’ve given less than useless advice.
2) You do realize that most all narratives have limited space right? Movies around 2 hours, comics a few issues, etc. Reusing characters, devices, and so on are great ways to keep within one’s time limit without having to get bogged down in developing side plots and minor digressions.
3) Someone really needs to brush up on their learning. Here you go,
bq. Aristotle wrote in Poetics that mythos (plot) is the most important element of storytelling. Thus, a narrative must have a plausible chain of events for it to evoke the desired emotional or artistic response from an audience.
TLDR version: screw your plot -> screw your meaning
Hey, pretty much this entire paragraph contradicts itself. Epic fail – try again. Come again soon PaoPao.
VikingBoyBilly on 30 April 2011, 17:21 said:
I think you were too hard on GS, nate.
Nate Winchester on 3 May 2011, 09:50 said:
Must have caught me on a bad day. But then, this was around the dark times of One More Day when the pain of the wound was still fresh for a lot of comic fans…