Secrets of Writing: Reversals

When we try to perform a task, things don’t always happen the way we expect them to. In many cases, the opposite result occurs. It’s called a reversal. You go to do something and you’re prevented from doing it because of something else. 

In your story, the hero will try to take the path or least resistance. You can’t allow him to get away with that. If everything he tries works the way he wants it to, the story will be uneventful and dull. On the other hand, you need to make the reversals believable. If you have a hero jump in his car to chase the Villain and it doesn’t start, you need to set up car problems first. If the car looks like a junker, that’s all the set up you need. But a new car should start. People expect a certain amount of realism.

Reversals work best when they are part of an elaborate set up. you build immense anticipation in the audience as the hero goes to perform a task. And when he tries it seems to work for a second, but then—POW! Major complications result.

The opening sequence of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is a good example of this. Indiana Jones has to deal with all sorts of problems and death traps to get into an ancient temple so he can take a golden idol that’s hidden deep within. He fills a bag with sand to try to approximate the weight of the idol. He switches the bag with the idol and everything seems to be cool. No problems. He turns to leave and that’s when it becomes apparent he screwed up. Now he’s under real pressure to save himself. Before he could take his time evading the death traps. Now he has to run for it and hope he doesn’t get killed.

Reversals should only be the beginning of a set of repercussions and further reversals. You’re trying to apply Murphy’s Law (“If anything can go wrong, it will go wrong.”) to your story, but you need to do it in a way the audience can believe.

In bad fiction we’ve seen reversals that seem to be arbitrary plot devices. They aren’t Murphy’s Law in action. They feel more like Sturgeon’s Law (“95% of everything is crap!”). If a complicated reversal occurs, we need the set up. It can be subtle, but we must be clued in as to why the reversal may have happened.

Another form of reversal is the telegraphed reversal. In this one, the audience knows the hero is going to fail when he throws that switch or opens that door. But the hero doesn’t. The story first sets up the hero’s plans, then shows in a sub-plot that the villain or an antagonist already anticipated this move and has countered it. So when the hero tries to do something he thinks will work, it blows up in his face. Because the audience was told to expect this, they are filled with dread before the hero makes his move. They might even scream at the page “Don’t do it!” This technique is very useful in suspense stories.

REMEMBER: Reversals create a feeling of realism, but only if they’re believable.

<< Back to main