F is for Failure
Feb. 22nd, 2013 10:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snowynightFailure and setback stories are among the hardest story to tell about us. We screw up. We know it, but we may not want to admit to ourselves, let along to others. Failure creates a rift between ourselves and others. We fear that the others will lose faith in ourselves. Worse, our failure may hurt others. It 's equally hard to account for the characters we like as it's hard to be objective about it. Success is easier to be accountable fdor failure, but perhaps because of this, failure often define a character. This's why I 'm trying to do this post to provide my thought on writing about the characters' failure.
What's failure? Failure 's when you can't met your goal, either despite your best effort or because your effort is not enough. Failure is usually, hopefully not the end of the story, so it's characters' reaction to this that makes it worth telling.
Before we write about the characters' failure, we may consider a following framework of questions.
Control: How much control do the characters really have in the incident, compared to how they will think they have? Some characters think they are totally helpless and we all hear the infamous phrase. "I'm just following the order." On the other hand, some characters are control freak enough to think they're responsible for everything, including the direction the sun shone.
Obligation: How much do the characters own up to this? In public? In private? We're all annoyed with people who own up to nothing, or those who refuse to correct their own mistakes. Different personalities may lead to different behaviours in showing their obligation.
Relevance: How many people or things are affected by the failure? Do they threaten what the characters consider or realize to be important to them? How do the other characters respond to this? Can our character be resilient enough to face the failure? Or from then on do they completely collapse?
Endurance: How far reaching is the impact of the failure? Does it fade with time? Or does it come up to affect the characters even after a lot of time have passed? Do they learn a lesson and take corresponding measures? Or do they never learn to grow? Is the failure temporary? Do our characters keep their desire, find an alternate choice or just give up?
Writing about failure can be a way to show the characters' ability to survive and thrive against obstacles, to how that they have learnt the lessons and how they can be changed, though one may take into mind that for your readers, some may think the characters' failure have led them go beyond the moral event horizons and are nonredeemable. It's a matter of different one's bottom line and at the end, we have to admit that it's beyond our control. However, it can be a great chance to let the characters fail, because invincible heroes are just boring and unlikely to understand the fallibility of people. Sometimes your character fails, and this is all right too.
Question: How do you write or read about your characters' failure?How do you regard these kind of failures? What kind of narrative do you usually write or read a failure as?
What's failure? Failure 's when you can't met your goal, either despite your best effort or because your effort is not enough. Failure is usually, hopefully not the end of the story, so it's characters' reaction to this that makes it worth telling.
Before we write about the characters' failure, we may consider a following framework of questions.
Control: How much control do the characters really have in the incident, compared to how they will think they have? Some characters think they are totally helpless and we all hear the infamous phrase. "I'm just following the order." On the other hand, some characters are control freak enough to think they're responsible for everything, including the direction the sun shone.
Obligation: How much do the characters own up to this? In public? In private? We're all annoyed with people who own up to nothing, or those who refuse to correct their own mistakes. Different personalities may lead to different behaviours in showing their obligation.
Relevance: How many people or things are affected by the failure? Do they threaten what the characters consider or realize to be important to them? How do the other characters respond to this? Can our character be resilient enough to face the failure? Or from then on do they completely collapse?
Endurance: How far reaching is the impact of the failure? Does it fade with time? Or does it come up to affect the characters even after a lot of time have passed? Do they learn a lesson and take corresponding measures? Or do they never learn to grow? Is the failure temporary? Do our characters keep their desire, find an alternate choice or just give up?
Writing about failure can be a way to show the characters' ability to survive and thrive against obstacles, to how that they have learnt the lessons and how they can be changed, though one may take into mind that for your readers, some may think the characters' failure have led them go beyond the moral event horizons and are nonredeemable. It's a matter of different one's bottom line and at the end, we have to admit that it's beyond our control. However, it can be a great chance to let the characters fail, because invincible heroes are just boring and unlikely to understand the fallibility of people. Sometimes your character fails, and this is all right too.
Question: How do you write or read about your characters' failure?How do you regard these kind of failures? What kind of narrative do you usually write or read a failure as?
