Secrets of Writing: Revelations

Have you ever ready a story where you were fed tiny little clues that made no sense on their own, then suddenly one scene comes along that makes everything clear at once? Did you get rush of insight and a slight buzz?

That’s called an epiphany. A moment of intense realization. If you manage your set ups properly, you can create them for the Audience. You do this by layering set ups into the story and back story. Set ups that on their own don’t seem to have a connection to anything in particular. They seem like trivia more than anything else.

Then...when the Audience is caught off guard...you hit them with a pay off that links all these set ups together in one simple fashion. The trick is to make it simple. Don’t get too complex. Otherwise you’ll create confusion instead of amazement.

The Audience can absorb a lot of information if it’s given to them visually. This is why visual set ups and pay offs always work better than verbal ones. People have a tendency to rewrite conversations in their head. Words are also easily forgotten. But strong visuals stick.

So you hit them with images now and then that don’t quite fit into the over all picture.  Our attention is either drawn to these images for no apparent reason, or they stick out like a sore thumb in the midst of their scene. These cues are like road signs to the subconscious. They tell us “watch for falling rocks.”

Then, in your key scene, you create the linkage. The Audience’s mind will rush back through the story they have just experienced and all the pieces will fall together in a landslide. A rush of insight.

Pull off a trick like that and everyone will think you’re a genius. But it’s all the application of technique.

Setting up characters

This works in a similar way to the standard set up, but there are differences. Characters who play an important role later in the story need to be set up early on. But they also need to have a logical place in the relation of things.

In some stories a seemingly harmless character will turn out to be the true Villain, while earlier the Audience was tricked into thinking it was the guy with the electric hand. This is character set up through misdirection. The Audience doesn’t mind that, and kind of expects it in some genres. The trick is never to make the true Villain too innocent and never make the false Villain too obvious. People will read a false Villain right away if he’s too obvious. And a hidden Villain will stand out if he is too innocuous. It’s better to give them faults, but a solid alibi so no one thinks it’s them.

False Heroes are also useful set ups, as we saw in SOUTH PACIFIC. These characters are introduced in a way that makes them look like the strongest contender for the hero spot. They have a strong goal, they look and act right, everyone sees them as a leader in the story. But this is done to hide the real hero, who needs to emerge by the middle of the second act as a major player and a pivotal character. Usually false heroes are set up to be killed later so the real Hero is forced to make a crisis decision. In the GODFATHER, Michael Corleone had no intention of getting involved in the “family business.” But when both his father and his brother are shot, no one else was qualified to take the reigns. He had to step in and become The Godfather.

Supporting characters need to be set up based on their eventual role in the story. An expert who helps the hero later in the story should be set up first. When heroes can pull experts out of the air it makes the story look bad.

It also looks bad when a character is set up that’s an obvious device to help out the Hero. Like a explosive’s expert and lives and breathes his work and right away asks the hero when they can blow something up. You need to make sure these characters come across like real people and their talents are incidental. They can still be experts, though the term “the best in their field” is a cliché.

It’s better to demonstrate how good someone is rather than tell it. If I told you I was the greatest writer who ever lived, you’d think I was a jerk or an ego maniac. It’s highly unlikely you’d agree with me. People have to prove how good they. They can’t just make boasts. And even their friend’s boasting isn’t enough on its own.

The same rule applies to characters. Saying someone is “the best” at what they do is not only an over used cliché, it’s a put off. It’s better to show how talented someone is, rather than tell.

Also, making someone “the best” at what they do weakens the conflict unless they’re on the side of the Villain. The hero shouldn’t have the deck stacked in his favor. The Hero should have a hard time meeting his goals. Giving him too much ammunition is boring.

There is are exceptions to the set up principle, however. If something is set up or implied in the backstory or a character’s backstory, it can be shown later, even if it’s never been shown before. In THE GODFATHER II, a character is introduced during the senate hearings against Michael Corleone. This character was never mentioned or shown before, but he gets Michael off the hook by just sitting in the background of the hearing and not saying a word. In fact, this character has no dialog in the film. But he works because he is implied in the backstory. The character is the brother of the man testifying against Michael Corleone. When the federal witness sees his brother in court, he recants his story against Corleone. Because one of the themes in the Godfather films is the importance of family, this character was set up by the theme. By implication rather than direct action.

This sort of pay off is acceptable and can lead to major surprises and plot twists. But it must be done carefully if you want it to work.

REMEMBER: Set up discreetly and pay off grandly. 

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