I know I'm not the first person to have this idea and in fact I'm stealing it from other blogs, but I'm starting a series of short posts about common writers' mistakes. These posts will be a bit like my writing prompts: short and sporadic. If you see one, it will mean that either I'm too busy to write a longer post, or I've just read a book with that particular gaffe, or simply that I'm being lazy (because it's easy to write about someone else's mistakes).
Today's gaffe is one that is not really too common, as far as I've noticed, but is certainly annoying when you do come across it.
I ran into it most recently in The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer. *spoilers* Jack and Thorgil had made it to Mimir's Well and drawn the magic water and were returning home to save Jack's little sister. You'd think that after slaying dragons, surviving trolls, and convincing the Norse version of the Fates of their worthiness there wouldn't be any dangers left to face. Wrong. You can always throw in a few giant spiders to liven things up.
I ran into it most recently in The Sea of Trolls by Nancy Farmer. *spoilers* Jack and Thorgil had made it to Mimir's Well and drawn the magic water and were returning home to save Jack's little sister. You'd think that after slaying dragons, surviving trolls, and convincing the Norse version of the Fates of their worthiness there wouldn't be any dangers left to face. Wrong. You can always throw in a few giant spiders to liven things up.
I found the spiders boring. And not because they were unoriginal, but because after all the things Jack and Thorgil had been through already spiders were just an anti-climax.
Now technically Mimir's Well wasn't the climax of the story. The climax was when Jack *spoilers* defeats the evil troll-queen Frith. But Mimir's Well was the climax of the Jotunheim section of the story because it was the hardest thing Jack and Thorgil had to do there. Readers weren't in too much suspense about whether Jack and Thorgil would escape from the spiders—of course they would. They'd already killed a dragon, for heaven's sake.
I'll probably visit The Sea of Trolls in a future post about when a character's death is lame, but I'll leave it for now and go to The Lord of the Rings.
This book has an anti-climax towards the end where the hobbits *spoilers* return to the Shire after Sauron is defeated and find it has been taken over by Saruman. This part isn't in the movies because only the most die-hard fans would stick around to watch it. Nobody doubts for a moment that after destroying an evil Maian dark lord the hobbits can't handle a little ol' wizard (whom they already defeated once at the height of his power). The “scouring of the Shire” has a thematic purpose, but it doesn't fit well into the story arc. Kill me if you like, but I'm quite glad it got booted out of the movie.
Now technically Mimir's Well wasn't the climax of the story. The climax was when Jack *spoilers* defeats the evil troll-queen Frith. But Mimir's Well was the climax of the Jotunheim section of the story because it was the hardest thing Jack and Thorgil had to do there. Readers weren't in too much suspense about whether Jack and Thorgil would escape from the spiders—of course they would. They'd already killed a dragon, for heaven's sake.
I'll probably visit The Sea of Trolls in a future post about when a character's death is lame, but I'll leave it for now and go to The Lord of the Rings.
This book has an anti-climax towards the end where the hobbits *spoilers* return to the Shire after Sauron is defeated and find it has been taken over by Saruman. This part isn't in the movies because only the most die-hard fans would stick around to watch it. Nobody doubts for a moment that after destroying an evil Maian dark lord the hobbits can't handle a little ol' wizard (whom they already defeated once at the height of his power). The “scouring of the Shire” has a thematic purpose, but it doesn't fit well into the story arc. Kill me if you like, but I'm quite glad it got booted out of the movie.
The rule of thumb is make your protagonist face his demons in order of least to most intimidating. That's why the villain's lesser minions get killed off before the final epic showdown with the villain himself. That's why the author saves the scariest stuff for last (giant spiders don't always count, in my opinion). Once the climax is past, most of your suspense is gone and it's far easier to lose your readers' interest.
There's often an unexpected reappearance of the villain or a near death experience for the hero after the climax (what Blake Snyder calls a “moment of final suspense”) but cram in too many of these and readers start suspecting you of trying to boost your word count. One is good. Two is probably excessive.
The most notorious offenders are the post climaxes in which the defeated villain returns for his “revenge” (usually by attempting to murder the hero in front of his girlfriend or vice versa). After all, what villain's really going to bother doing that? A post climax shouldn't have the hero facing something he's already faced and overcome once. What's the point of making him face it again?
Build, build, build until the climax, give your readers one last shot of thrills and suspense, and then--you're done.
There's often an unexpected reappearance of the villain or a near death experience for the hero after the climax (what Blake Snyder calls a “moment of final suspense”) but cram in too many of these and readers start suspecting you of trying to boost your word count. One is good. Two is probably excessive.
The most notorious offenders are the post climaxes in which the defeated villain returns for his “revenge” (usually by attempting to murder the hero in front of his girlfriend or vice versa). After all, what villain's really going to bother doing that? A post climax shouldn't have the hero facing something he's already faced and overcome once. What's the point of making him face it again?
Build, build, build until the climax, give your readers one last shot of thrills and suspense, and then--you're done.