The Worst That Could Happen: Facing the All Is Lost Moment

Last night at our online writers' group we had a speaker who gave a presentation on bringing about the "all is lost moment." You know, the scene in your book where your MC is brought to the bitter end of her rope, her greatest fears are realized, everything has changed for the negative, and nothing will be the same.

The writing craft experts she consulted for this were agreed that whatever it was, it had to be the worst thing that could happen to the MC. Well, not literally the worst, since the worst for any of us would be death and damnation. But the worst given the wants and goals of the character. It has to have, in the words of the presenter, "the whiff of death."

And I look at Sandy, my female protagonist in my work in progress Strong as Death, and I think, damn. Because for her, the worst that could happen would be damnation.

I am not going there. Not because I'm gutless as an author, but due to immutable, external reasons. The first reason is theological: I'm having her share my conviction that once the Lord gets hold of you, He keeps hold of you, so that in the direst circumstances He'll enable you to face death before you'll deny Him. Besides, she's been in that position before and stood firm, why should she change now? The second reason is that of genre. If I had her do that, it would destroy the novel. It's romantic suspense, which expects the MCs to defeat the bad guys and live happily ever after. It doesn't allow for one of the couple joining the other side to save her skin and/or following Job's wife's advice to "Curse God and die!"

What am I supposed to do? I could ignore this "All Is Lost" rule. But I'm not so experienced and successful a writer I can turn my back on what the big kids say is a crucial element in any well-written protagonist's character arc.

I've been chewing the problem over, and maybe I'll escape through the loophole of "worst given the wants of the character" . . . in this particular book. In fact, one of the other attendees asked what do you do with a character in a series, you can't have them undergoing the same crisis book after book. I admit I didn't retain the presenter's answer; there's something about Zoom meetings that makes me feel stupid and the presenter's connection was bad which garbled much of what she said.

From what I did get I'm wondering if I can dial back Sandy's Big Want in the situation. After all, the point of the All Is Lost moment is that the crisis should strip away what the MC thinks she wants and reveal what she really needs. It's supposed to make her understand she has to fix herself instead of controlling and fixing the situation.

Sandy already has an issue with wanting to feel in control of her life . . . So maybe in this situation Her Big Want should be to feel she is in control, not necessarily of what's going on around her, but of her own spiritual strength and welfare. Kind of like, "Stand back, God, lemme show you what I can do!" And then hit her with the A.I.L. crisis such that she feels she's betrayed, not God, but herself. And so on from there.

Ohhhhhh, golly. If I go for that, I'll have to circle back and rewrite a lot of the earlier part of the book to give her more confidence earlier on. I've been a little uneasy about how I've depicted her inner life anyway. She's got too much self-doubt for no particular reason, which I've imposed on her mostly to keep her "human." Maybe reinforcing her "I've got this" attitude will help me clean those scenes up and ready her for the All Is Lost.

On the other hand, I may have already screwed up this plotting rule beyond redemption. Apparently the crisis is supposed to come two-thirds or at most three-fourths of the way through. I've got it happening at . . . let me see . . . nine-tenths.

And I still don't know what my MMC's All Is Lost crisis is to be. Before last night, I didn't know he needed one.

Willing

Funny about this writing thing.  Just when you think you have a grip on rules and definitions and best methods, up pops a whole group of experts, in how-to books or on the 'Net, to let you know you've understood things all wrong.

Or have you?

Take the principle called "willing suspension of disbelief."  I was taught and always believed it meant--- no, let's hold off awhile before I tell you what I thought it meant.  At any rate, my perception was different from what the pundits I'm reading lately say it is.  They say it describes the overall approach of a reader to a work of fiction.  That is, when said reader opens your book he is fully aware that the world you have created is unreal and he doesn't believe a word of it.  But he wills himself, consciously or not, to turn off his doubt and enter your story anyway.  No less a writer and teacher than Orson Scott Card says in Characters and Viewpoint:

In a representational play, the actors all act as if there were a fourth wall between them and the audience.  . . . This technique helps the audience maintain the illusion of reality (or, as it is commonly called, the willing suspension of disbelief).

. . . If you know what to look for, you'll see the actors, the director, the lighting technician, the makeup artist, the playwright, and everybody else working hard to sustain the illusion of reality.

All this is in the effort to deal with the audience's constant query: "Oh yeah?"

Card says it works essentially the same for a work of fiction.

To which I (in my temerity) say, Non credo.

I don't believe it.  What reader approaches a book that way?  When we crack the covers or open up that Kindle file, we expect to be drawn in, to be immersed; ideally, to be so engulfed in the author's world that we lose all sense of the one we're physically in.  In fact, when the writer makes a misstep that jerks us out of it, we resent it.  If "willing suspension of disbelief" meant "Author, I'm willing for you to convince me this is real," we readers would be like lawyers piling up evidence for a court case, or scientists compiling data to prove an hypothesis.  But that's not how people read.

I would argue that, once an author has hooked us, it's actually a matter of willing extension of belief.  And, that trust once given, woe betide the writer who violates it.

But if I'm saying willing suspension of disbelief is not what Card, et al., claim it to be, what is it?  What understanding of it did my teachers pour into me, and what do I maintain it is, to this day?

Willing suspension of disbelief is that courtesy the reader extends to the writer when, for reason of genre, plot, or structure, the writer has to violate the reality of the world she is writing in.  I've found this happens quite frequently in the areas of human relations, technology, and the passage of time.

For instance, rarely do people fall in love at first sight and get engaged shortly thereafter.  But the insta-forever romance is the norm in romance novels.  These novels are (usually) set in the real world and involve real human beings with real psychology.  Those who read this kind of fiction know that, with real people in the real world, meeting a guy on Sunday and being engaged to him the following Saturday has maybe a .00005% chance of happening.  But they overlook that point, they willingly suspend their disbelief, and accept that of course, in the world of romance fiction, it must happen all the time.

We see it too as we reread early science fiction.  We know good and well no one could reach outer space with the kind of technology described, let alone survive there.  But we cheerfully overlook that and let the author tell his tale.

As an avid reader of Nineteenth Century fiction, I need to do this constantly when it comes to the passage of time.  The stories are set on our earth, with the same twenty-four hours in the day, but the time expands and contracts in the most extraordinary ways.  Women write diary entries--- by hand--- that would take a day and a half to set down, yet they do it at most in a few hours  (I'm thinking especially of Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White).  Men sit down in the smoking rooms of their gentlemen's clubs at ten in the evening, share a story that would take a half hour at most, then one of them jerks himself into alertness and says, "By Jove!  It's past 3:00 AM!"

Any sensible person knows these things aren't possible.  But we readers overlook the trick, because it's been worked for the greater good of the novel.  If our diarist didn't accomplish her superhuman feats of writing, we wouldn't have our story.  If we were subjected to five hours' straight of the gentlemen's chatter, we would be bored to tears and miss the story the author wants us to remember.  Whereas if she sends them all to bed at 10:30, we wouldn't get the spine-crawling incident that befalls one of them in the hallway in the wee, sma' hours of the morning.  So we willingly suspend our disbelief and let the author get on with the tale.

I've been thinking about this lately for a couple of reasons.  One, because I'm considering reworking some old material into diary form, and I'm not sure how far to push willing suspension of disbelief in my readers when it comes to the main character having time to write the entries.  I've kept a journal off and on since high school and I know first hand that the days when interesting things happen are the days that get skipped.  If I don't believe my protag would be able to record it all, how will anyone else?

Two, because of what's happening in my new writers' group.  Perhaps I shouldn't admit anything negative about my writing in public on this blog, but some members have made it clear they aren't willing to extend me belief when it comes to some aspects of my WIP.  No, they're not saying what I've written is physically or emotionally impossible.  Rather, I've been getting comments early on to the effect of "I don't know why this chapter is in here.  Cut it out."  The material in question is there for very good reasons, at least from my point of view, and if I followed the advice I'm getting I'd no longer be writing psychological horror, but the book version of a creature feature.

But the fact they're saying this shows me I've failed to do something.  I haven't achieved their trust such that they say, "Hmmm, the MC is talking with this person at this point.  What I'm finding out must be important.  I'll read on and find out how."  That's what I would do, especially in the first part of a book.  But the same has not been done for me.  They haven't willingly extended their belief, and I'm not sure why.

Regarding minor points, I'm taking some of their suggestions.  But I'm keeping the overall structure and progression of the novel as is until it's done.  By then I'll have my own better picture of what should stay and what should go, and I can send it out to beta readers to see what they have to say.

For that, I'm willing.

“But That's the Point!" She Exclaimed.

Having received certain feedback on my writing this summer, I was moved to pen the following scenario:

Critic:  I see you have quite a few exclamation points in your work.  For instance, this line here:  "'I didn't hear that!'"

Author:  Oh, yes.  That's the male main character fighting with the female main character over the antagonist's intentions.  I put that exclamation point there to show how upset and annoyed and disbelieving he is.

Critic:  Well, you can't have it.  It's lazy.  Show his mood some other way.

Author:  Oh.  (Thinks).  How about, "'I didn't hear that,' he fulminated"?

Critic:  You can't do that, either.  "Fulminated" is what's known as a "said-bookism."  They're always bad.

Author:  "Shouted"?  "Exclaimed"?  "Scoffed"?

Critic:  No.  Stick with "said" and maybe "asked."  Otherwise the speech tag draws too much attention to itself.

Author:  Really?  Well, okay.  I'll try again.  "'I didn't hear that,' he said defiantly."

Critic:  (Holding head in hands)  Oh, no, no . . .  You just used an adverb.  They're even worse than exclamation points.

Author:  (Nonplussed)  Could I say something like "'I didn't hear that,' he said, his spluttering voice and red face betraying his angry mood"?

Critic:  No way.  You've got adjectives in there.  Three of them.  They're lazy, too.  And three nouns.  Didn't you read that article that said nouns don't do anything?

Author:  I guess I missed it.  And that's too long anyway, especially if I have to do it every time.  I'm way over the word count for my genre as it is.  (Considers.)  So what's left, verbs?  That gets me back to something like, "'I didn't hear that,' he spluttered."

Critic:  (Sighing prodigiously.)  Didn't you hear me?  No said-bookisms!

Author:  But then--- oh, I have an idea!  Oh gosh, sorry, I used an exclamation point there, didn't I?  Anyway, maybe I could get the meaning across by inner monologue?  Like this:  "I didn't hear that.'  How dare she imply I wasn't paying attention?"

Critic:  Oh, my goodness.  Inner monologue is Telling, not Showing.  And I heard those italics in there.  Whatever shall I do with you?

Author:  I'm sorry.  It wouldn't work anyway--- this scene isn't from his point of view.  (Looks frustrated.)  But--- but--- if I can't use exclamation points, or adverbs, or adjectives, or nouns, or inner monologue, or any speech tags but "said" or "asked," how am supposed to communicate how he's saying this?

Critic:  Why do you need to communicate how he's saying it?

Author:  Because if I don't, the reader might think he's admitting he wasn't listening.

Critic:  What's wrong with that?  Don't you want to let the reader bring his own interpretation to the work?  It's the modern thing to do.

Author:  The Post-Modern thing, you mean.  To heck with it!  I'm leaving it with an exclamation point.  It's clean, it's efficient, it does the job I want it to do.

Critic:  (Robotically) You can not do that.  It is bad, lazy writing.  It is immature.  I will have the Writing Police on you, just see if I do not.

Author:  Not very passionate about it, are you?  So why should I be?  See you around!

Critic:  Aaaaaaahhhhgggggghhhhh.