Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Choice is the catalyst for story

“You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.”
                        ~ Morpheus

Choice is a catalyst. Characters who make difficult choices in order to gain something they want or need are a vital component in a good story. Whether the character's choice is good or bad, it will be the catalyst for a journey, and the character will have to live with the consequences of choice, and make many more decisions that stem from the first. Neo chose the red pill and as a result learnt the truth. He then had to choose whether to fight. Characters who want something and are strong enough to pursue it make interesting subjects!

Neo’s choice was easy. Live a lie or know the truth. How could he go on living a lie when he knew it existed? We already knew that the character Neo was portrayed to be wouldn’t be able to do that. If he’d chosen the blue pill … well, story over.

What if Neo’s choice had been made for him? What if he'd chosen the blue pill, but through forces outside his control had ended up on the adventure anyway, would he be the sort of character we’d want to follow through the whole story? If he never acted on his own decisions, but was thrust into situations of other’s making. A passive character being acted on by the rest of the world.

Your characters need to want something with enough conviction that they will make the hard choices (the red pill), and lead the reader through a story worth knowing, instead of bumbling along in the dark, steeped in passivity.


Which pill would you choose? I think I know the answer - we’re all story readers here.

A to Zers, I'm trying to get around to as many of you as possible, and will return the love of all who visit, but I have a 13 hour day today with a work/uni combo so probably won't be able to visit till tomorrow.

13 comments:

  1. There was a Choose Your Own Adventure book (possibly Goosebump style) and in the first chapter it says something like "You see a glowing green blob in the next room, what do you do?"

    I selected "Walk out of the room." and the corresponding page said something like. "This is supposed to be an adventure. Why don't you put the book down and come back when you're ready."

    Of course I'd picked the wimpy answer, because half the time in these books I end up choosing wrong and my character gets stung by a scorpion and dies or they drown in a leaky life raft.

    As much as I enjoyed a good adventure story, self preservation is also a redeeming quality.

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    1. Kimberlee, self-preservation is indeed a redeeming quality! Just as there's no story without the catalyst of choice, there's also no story if our MC is dead (unless it's a ghost story).

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  2. Great post, and I love Kimberlee's comment. I know I'd choose to know more - I'm too curious - but I wouldn't have believed that it would be totally life changing. For the most part, I think people exaggerate so my choice would be ill-informed. :)

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  3. I'm not sure he made the easy choice. I mean, I don't think that choice was easy.
    And it's not a choice most people would make.

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    1. Hi Andrew,
      You're rigt, it's not an easy choice, but it was the only choice for him. Given who the character Neo was before he was even aware of the choice, was it ever possible that he'd choose the blue pill?

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    2. I think it was possible. I mean, we all knew he would take the red, because there was still 90 minutes to go in the movie, but there was tension in the scene over whether he'd choose the red or not. If there was no belief on the part of the audience that he -might- pick the blue, there would have been no tension.
      However, it's been too long since I've seen it to remember why that tension was there.

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  4. Really deep thought! We can nudge our characters in a certain direction, but they must make the choices in order for it to seem real.

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  5. Totally agree. There's nothing worse than an apathetic protagonist! Great post, Sari. :)

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  6. I really like to think I'd choose the red pill, but sometimes we surprise ourselves - for good or bad - when the moment of truth comes :-)

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    1. Too true, Sarah. I'm sure I go on all the time about what I'd do in a certain situation, but you just never know!

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  7. When is a choice not a choice? When it's in a story :)
    He doesn't actually have a choice because, as you pointed out, if he'd taken the blue pill there would be no story.
    A story is needed therefore he must take the red pill.
    Semantics but choice is one of those things which fidgets me. To hear 'We must do this because we have no choice' is nuts. There are always choices albeit situated ones.
    Ok, I'll get off my soap-box now. Thanks for pointing out this Sari :)

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    1. So true! Our characters never have any real choice because we are the grand masters! Muahaha. Although, I would question that very logical statement, too. Often my characters seem to be in complete control of the story as I write, and I'm just following along for the ride.

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