Hard Choices

jigsaw puzzle pieces

This post contains spoilers for the Amazon Prime and BBC series, The Outlaws.

Over the past few months, I’ve taken a couple of wonderful Gotham classes on story structure, taken a fun standalone seminar on the shape of stories, and been reading Story Trumps Structure, by Steven James. I have thoughts, most of them jumbled around in my head like jigsaw pieces still in the box. So, I’m plucking a random piece out of the chaos and starting there. Let’s talk about hard choices.

James is pretty big on being mean to your characters. He has a chapter, called Dilemmas, devoted to the topic, but it’s a recurring theme throughout the book. I think this is excellent advice and I hate it. I love my characters and I don’t want to hurt them (a fact that may come as a surprise to my writing group, given the number of characters I kill). If Mr. James is to be believed, I’m not the only writer who feels this way. And I do believe him, because, as a reader (or viewer), I (usually) want tension driving the story. Yes, I hate it while it’s happening. Absolutely. If I’m rooting for a character, I hate to see them hurt. I hate to see them lose. But if there’s no stress, no sense of risk, no stakes, I’m going to be bored, and I’m probably not going to continue reading or watching. And, while I certainly can’t speak for anyone but myself, I’d be surprised to learn that I’m alone in this.

Despite my hatred of the advice over all, I find the framing of it in the Dilemmas chapter very compelling. Thinking about “what would it take” works for me, as a tool for creating situations I might not, otherwise.

(Lightly paraphrasing)

  • What would it take for a man to watch his loved one die when he has the power to save her?
  • What would it take for a detective who is dedicated to justice to let a rapist go free?
  • What would it take to get a woman who fears restraint above all to choose to be buried alive?

I happened to read this chapter shortly before sitting down to watch season 2, episode 2 of The Outlaws. I could not have picked a better story to illustrate these points if I had planned it. It was as if Steven James had written the episode. Things are looking dark for our protagonists right from the start of this season, and the writers have lost no time in asking, and answering, some pretty rough “what would it take” questions.

  • Ben is a young Black man who’s struggled to raise himself and his sister, and to take care of his mother, a junkie. What would it take to get Ben to start dealing drugs, which he blames for having ruined his childhood and his mother’s life? (Answer: A credible threat to his sister’s life. Threatening just his life would not have done it.)
  • Myrna is an older Black woman and life-long activist dedicated to supporting Black communities and fighting for equality. What would it take to get Myrna to compromise the organization she worked so hard to found, and to exploit the very people she’s trying to help? (Answer: The threat to Ben, his sister, and several other innocents. Again, a very credible threat.)

But there’s another thing the show does that James doesn’t talk about, but that I find pretty interesting.

  • John is a middle-aged White man, brought up with great privilege, although by an emotionally abusive father who’s just fired him from the family business. What would it take for John to go crawling back to his father and ask to be reinstated?

The answer is “not that much.” Really, it only takes a few failed job interviews, though granted, at least one of them was for a job he would have seen as menial. The distinction brilliantly highlights the differences, not only in the choices the characters are having to make, but also, the way they handle making them. John has less on the line than Myrna, and far less than Ben, whose life and the life of his sister are at stake, and yet it takes far less to get him to cave. He’s just not used to handling adversity. The contrast is stark.

When I consider “what would it take” to make my character do something that will violate their principles, humiliate them, or even cause harm to them or others, I go into it with an assumption that the answer probably has to be “something pretty damned big.” That’s definitely the conclusion James leads us towards in his book, and I think it’s usually the right answer. After all, these kinds of situations are creating needed tension in our stories. What had not occurred to me is that answering the question with “not that much” (subjectively) can illustrate character just as powerfully, provide illuminating contrast with other characters, and as is often the case with failures, set the character up for a later turnaround. It’s something I’m going to have to play with in my own writing.

Epilogue

I feel compelled to say that John is a great character. I’m highlighting one of his low points here because I found it so revelatory, but none of the characters are flawless, and he has his good moments as well. Writing this, I felt a bit like I was betraying him. (Because I love him and don’t want to hurt him, and he’s not even my character. You see the problem.)

References

Completed jigsaw puzzle