Picture this charming scenario…
One evening, you and your spouse --- you’re both successful lawyers --- are hanging out in your apartment. It’s a warm, comfortable space without being ostentatious, perfect for relaxing after another day spent wrestling with the (theoretically) blindfolded forces of justice. You’re interrupted by the arrival of another lawyer, a guy you both know… and who, incidentally, you’ve jointly been (rather inexplicably, all things considered) targeting with a number of petty stunts and scams designed to humiliate and destroy his reputation.
Howard, the schlep in question, has finally figured out it’s you folks who’ve been the authors of his misfortunes, and understandably, he’s pretty upset. He, too, finds your actions inexplicable and isn’t shy about expressing his outrage. However, in the midst of his soaring peroration, a candle near the door flickers, heralding…
…another visitor’s arrival. This guy’s appearance is just as unexpected as Howard’s, but a helluva lot more terrifying: it’s Lalo Salamanca, member of a Mexican drug cartel with whom you’ve had dealings. (Of the legal kind, that is. No pun intended. Maybe.) Unfortunately, he isn’t satisfied with previous explanations you furnished concerning those prior dealings, and he’s come for… well, what, exactly? Clarification? Retribution? He says it’s just to talk, but the fact that, while doing so, he pulls out a pistol and attaches a silencer to it is really not an indicator of happy times to come.
Howard, who’s watched things unfold with bemusement deepening to alarm, belatedly realizes this entire confrontation has become the equivalent of stepping directly onto a very large, steaming pile o’ poop, and tries to heed your urgent admonitions to leave. Unfortunately, Lalo isn’t having that --- after all, Howard is now witness to probably several incipient crimes --- and…
…completely without warning (apparently not even looking directly at Howard), Lalo raises his gun… and shoots Howard in the head. Howard drops like a stone, blood pooling around his lifeless body. You and your spouse are… blindsided? Terrified? Sickened? Aghast? Appalled? All of the above? Stop me when I reach the right descriptor. Lalo, meanwhile, is calm and composed. This utterly senseless, heinous act obviously means no more to him than swatting a resting housefly.
If you watched the brilliant TV series Better Call Saul, this little episode will be familiar. It’s one of the more shocking moments in the sixth season, and gave rise within me to some questions regarding writing techniques.
The first question coming to mind was: when was the last time I was as stunned by a character’s sudden demise as Howard’s? And why? I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s been several eons (at least in dog years), to the point where I’ve started to wonder if I’m so jaded by the (mostly mediocre) torrent of what passes for literature and/or prime time visual entertainment these days that I’ve lost the capacity to be surprised. For example, when watching the latest offerings on Netflix or Prime or whatever, my wife and I frequently play the game of blurting out characters’ lines before they speak them, then turning to each other triumphantly and crowing, “See? I can write this shit, too!”
But Howard’s death really was shockingly unexpected. The entire scene I related at the beginning of this epistle takes less than two minutes to play out --- I rewatched it on YouTube to check. Less than two minutes before moving from rubbing our hands with glee, thinking, “Heh, heh, heh… gonna be some serious trash talking here!” to “Holy shit! Howard’s dead!”
I think a major part of it was the lightning-fast way circumstances deteriorated; there was just no leadup. The shot almost literally came from nowhere. Many times, in both literature and film, the antagonist spends an inordinate, unrealistic amount of time musing on the horrible way they’re going to off the protagonist --- which, all too often, results in the protagonist either being able to escape or be rescued. (I can trace this way back to the Batman TV series of my misbegotten childhood. They’d end an episode on what seemed an ironclad cliffhanger, only to mightily let me down at the beginning of the next, when Batman and Robin walked away from their scrape with nary a scratch.) In the Better Call Saul episode, Kim and Jimmy and we, the audience, were apprehensively aware Lalo’s appearance was unlikely to prove a jolly reunion, even before he brought out his gun, but… I don’t think anyone expected things would go sideways quite that fast. I know I didn’t. Catastrophic life events frequently occur with extreme suddenness, without warning, without huge gobs of exposition or information dumps.
Another thing I wondered was: how can we as writers make a character’s death so shocking, so unexpected? A major factor, I think, is tied up in whether we care about the character. I recall an interview where J.K. Rowling discussed the death of Cedric Digory in… let me see, the fourth Harry Potter. Anyway, Rowling expressed disappointed surprise her daughter wasn’t more upset about Cedric’s demise, a death Rowling felt both came without warning and was totally shocking. Well, I could’ve told you, Jo, why your kid wasn’t upset about Digory’s death: sure, it was sudden, but… nobody particularly cared about him. You didn’t take the time to establish him in our hearts. He was just an amiable cipher from another Hogwarts house who, in the film, vaguely resembled a vampire from a different (and shockingly badly written) franchise whose name I won’t dignify by mentioning it. In contrast, I liked and cared about Howard. Yeah, he was a bit of a stuffed shirt at times, but his character was fleshed out and well-written. I was disturbed by Jimmy’s and Kim’s mistreatment of him, and shocked at his casual murder. Bottom line: if we’re not invested in a character, regardless whether they’re a force for good or evil, we’re not going to care about their demise.
Ultimately, it boils down to good writing, or lack thereof. There’s too much sloppy storytelling these days, where plot holes the size of barn doors and unimaginative, derivative writing styles loom everywhere. Come on, folks.
After all, you don’t want your work mistaken for AI now, do you?
One evening, you and your spouse --- you’re both successful lawyers --- are hanging out in your apartment. It’s a warm, comfortable space without being ostentatious, perfect for relaxing after another day spent wrestling with the (theoretically) blindfolded forces of justice. You’re interrupted by the arrival of another lawyer, a guy you both know… and who, incidentally, you’ve jointly been (rather inexplicably, all things considered) targeting with a number of petty stunts and scams designed to humiliate and destroy his reputation.
Howard, the schlep in question, has finally figured out it’s you folks who’ve been the authors of his misfortunes, and understandably, he’s pretty upset. He, too, finds your actions inexplicable and isn’t shy about expressing his outrage. However, in the midst of his soaring peroration, a candle near the door flickers, heralding…
…another visitor’s arrival. This guy’s appearance is just as unexpected as Howard’s, but a helluva lot more terrifying: it’s Lalo Salamanca, member of a Mexican drug cartel with whom you’ve had dealings. (Of the legal kind, that is. No pun intended. Maybe.) Unfortunately, he isn’t satisfied with previous explanations you furnished concerning those prior dealings, and he’s come for… well, what, exactly? Clarification? Retribution? He says it’s just to talk, but the fact that, while doing so, he pulls out a pistol and attaches a silencer to it is really not an indicator of happy times to come.
Howard, who’s watched things unfold with bemusement deepening to alarm, belatedly realizes this entire confrontation has become the equivalent of stepping directly onto a very large, steaming pile o’ poop, and tries to heed your urgent admonitions to leave. Unfortunately, Lalo isn’t having that --- after all, Howard is now witness to probably several incipient crimes --- and…
…completely without warning (apparently not even looking directly at Howard), Lalo raises his gun… and shoots Howard in the head. Howard drops like a stone, blood pooling around his lifeless body. You and your spouse are… blindsided? Terrified? Sickened? Aghast? Appalled? All of the above? Stop me when I reach the right descriptor. Lalo, meanwhile, is calm and composed. This utterly senseless, heinous act obviously means no more to him than swatting a resting housefly.
If you watched the brilliant TV series Better Call Saul, this little episode will be familiar. It’s one of the more shocking moments in the sixth season, and gave rise within me to some questions regarding writing techniques.
The first question coming to mind was: when was the last time I was as stunned by a character’s sudden demise as Howard’s? And why? I don’t know about you, but for me, it’s been several eons (at least in dog years), to the point where I’ve started to wonder if I’m so jaded by the (mostly mediocre) torrent of what passes for literature and/or prime time visual entertainment these days that I’ve lost the capacity to be surprised. For example, when watching the latest offerings on Netflix or Prime or whatever, my wife and I frequently play the game of blurting out characters’ lines before they speak them, then turning to each other triumphantly and crowing, “See? I can write this shit, too!”
But Howard’s death really was shockingly unexpected. The entire scene I related at the beginning of this epistle takes less than two minutes to play out --- I rewatched it on YouTube to check. Less than two minutes before moving from rubbing our hands with glee, thinking, “Heh, heh, heh… gonna be some serious trash talking here!” to “Holy shit! Howard’s dead!”
I think a major part of it was the lightning-fast way circumstances deteriorated; there was just no leadup. The shot almost literally came from nowhere. Many times, in both literature and film, the antagonist spends an inordinate, unrealistic amount of time musing on the horrible way they’re going to off the protagonist --- which, all too often, results in the protagonist either being able to escape or be rescued. (I can trace this way back to the Batman TV series of my misbegotten childhood. They’d end an episode on what seemed an ironclad cliffhanger, only to mightily let me down at the beginning of the next, when Batman and Robin walked away from their scrape with nary a scratch.) In the Better Call Saul episode, Kim and Jimmy and we, the audience, were apprehensively aware Lalo’s appearance was unlikely to prove a jolly reunion, even before he brought out his gun, but… I don’t think anyone expected things would go sideways quite that fast. I know I didn’t. Catastrophic life events frequently occur with extreme suddenness, without warning, without huge gobs of exposition or information dumps.
Another thing I wondered was: how can we as writers make a character’s death so shocking, so unexpected? A major factor, I think, is tied up in whether we care about the character. I recall an interview where J.K. Rowling discussed the death of Cedric Digory in… let me see, the fourth Harry Potter. Anyway, Rowling expressed disappointed surprise her daughter wasn’t more upset about Cedric’s demise, a death Rowling felt both came without warning and was totally shocking. Well, I could’ve told you, Jo, why your kid wasn’t upset about Digory’s death: sure, it was sudden, but… nobody particularly cared about him. You didn’t take the time to establish him in our hearts. He was just an amiable cipher from another Hogwarts house who, in the film, vaguely resembled a vampire from a different (and shockingly badly written) franchise whose name I won’t dignify by mentioning it. In contrast, I liked and cared about Howard. Yeah, he was a bit of a stuffed shirt at times, but his character was fleshed out and well-written. I was disturbed by Jimmy’s and Kim’s mistreatment of him, and shocked at his casual murder. Bottom line: if we’re not invested in a character, regardless whether they’re a force for good or evil, we’re not going to care about their demise.
Ultimately, it boils down to good writing, or lack thereof. There’s too much sloppy storytelling these days, where plot holes the size of barn doors and unimaginative, derivative writing styles loom everywhere. Come on, folks.
After all, you don’t want your work mistaken for AI now, do you?
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