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Why We Need Tragic Stories, Now More Than Ever

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Well, I just finished another revision pass on my WIP. This one was for the final edition of a trilogy, and revising the ending has really gotten me thinking. Not just about the story. It’s also made me take a look at myself—at who I am as a storyteller, and how this process has changed me. As well as how my story and I reflect the times and fit into the world around me.

Before I go on, I’m going to offer a mild potential spoiler warning to anyone who plans on someday reading my upcoming trilogy…. Hey, stop laughing. Honest, it’s coming. Oh, I see—you’re laughing because you think it’s cute that Roycroft is worried about some dubious future audience. I suppose I deserve it. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Ready? Here’s the spoiler: My trilogy is a tragedy.

Some of you might now be wondering how much of a spoiler that statement could possibly be. I suppose we’d better lay down some definitions and parameters for the discussion.

Webster’s defines tragedy as:

1a : a disastrous event : calamity. b : misfortune.

2a : a serious drama typically describing a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny) and having a sorrowful or disastrous conclusion that elicits pity or terror.

Since we’re talking about a story, we’re obviously referencing the second definition. But if you look into the specifics of literary tragedy, you’ll find that most experts narrow the definition to the protagonist in question being “brought low.” In other words, for a story to be considered a true tragedy (not just a tearjerker or a horror), the hero ends up either dead, or better off dead.

Hence my warning.

My Tragic Storytelling Past

Seriously, when I considered broaching the topic, I really did pause for a moment. But only for a moment. I mean, does knowing in advance that a story ends with a protagonist’s death keep some readers away? Probably yes, right? But do I really want to court those readers? Probably not. Not that one and all won’t be welcome. But I certainly don’t want to invite people who are going to (hopefully) become invested, only to get to the end of three books to be disappointed. Or worse, outraged.

The potentially constricting nature of the element begs the question—why tragedy? I’m already dealing with a limited audience of adult epic fantasy readers. Why add another hindrance? [Read more…]

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Sinking Into The Bog

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In my last post ("Inspired to Emulation—or Preparing to Jump"), I talked about The Rule of No Rules, and how reading other writers you admire will provide the best writing advice you will ever receive. Not long after the post went up, one of my favorite novelists, Adrian McKinty—who writes brilliantly about Northern Ireland during the Troubles from the perspective of a Catholic detective serving in the overwhelmingly Protestant Royal Ulster Constabulary—posted the following letter on Twitter. … [Read more...]

Reflections on the Next American Tragedy

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In a recent piece in Foreign Policy magazine (“The End of History is the Birth of Tragedy”), the authors, both professors of strategic studies who have served in government—i.e., members of the “Washington elite,” by some lights—argued that, “Americans have forgotten that historic tragedies on a global scale are real. They’ll soon get a reminder.” The article drew parallels between tragedy as an art form and public policy, so as a writer I was naturally intrigued. But although I found the … [Read more...]

Editing’s Eternal Verities

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A lot of what I do involves helping writers give readers what they expect, and what readers expect has changed over the years.  Many modern novels include sex scenes or language that would have gotten them banned sixty or seventy years ago.  Movies and television have made readers less patient with leisurely story development than they used to be. Even little things like tolerance for –ly adverbs has evolved over time. But it’s worth looking at the principles of storytelling seem to hold … [Read more...]

Birth vs. Battle

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Let me kick things off with blasphemy: Conflict is not the engine of story. Allow me to explain. The longer I teach, the more writing texts I seem to read, if only to find out if someone else has a clearer, simpler, or more insightful way of presenting the material. (To my chagrin, that’s often case. Fortunately, I'm not too so old a dog that I've forsaken new tricks.) In some of my recent reading, though, I’ve detected a bit of an uproar over the supposed centrality of conflict in our … [Read more...]