Complications

Complications are enhancements to make ordinary wristwatches more expensive, things that somehow make you feel you own a Porsche, things intended to inject excitement into timing a soft boiled egg, convince you that you really are the sort of person who cares about elapsed time in some contest, convince others that you have daily need of knowing such times.

Outside of watches, complications are man's closest companion and as a consequence, have effect on women as well.

Complications are the engines that turn the wheels of Reality; they rev up the action in story and send persons involved in relationships off into unintended orbits from which they struggle to recover.

Complications are things that were supposed not to have emerged in the Good Old Days, although those same Good Old Days were not so remarkable as a retrospective glance might make them seem. True enough, things cost less then--a nickel or a dime, because of their buying power then, were adventures waiting to happen; you could get a cup of coffee, an ice cream cone, a comic book, a soft drink--and you were undoubtedly younger, thus better able to duck, outrun, or merely stand still to endure confrontation. But things only seemed less complicated. Age and perspective cohabit in the cabal of complexity, providing perspective for it of not a full exploration. But the perspective remains the only relative thing in the calculus; complexity inhuman affairs, wherever and whenever it is found, seeks its level the way water does in an aqueduct or, more to the point, complexity, like a carp in a pond, grows to fill its enclosure. Wherever we are, at any given time, complexity has taken our measure as though a Hong Kong tailor had fitted us for a three-piece suit; it even allows for the waist to be let out should the need arise.

Our first awareness of complexity often arrives as a matter of a choice that has been presented us. You close your eyes to expedite the time travel back to a voice offering you either of two stunning prospects that you become lost in the interstices. Tentatively, you essay that exquisite choice, smug with the problem-solving approach that has come to your mind. A little of both, you venture, only to be made aware how quickly such simplistic answers depart your sphere of awareness. "No! Chose one or the other. Not both." The reason behind this, you learn, is the reason not of logic but of power. "Because I say so."

Soon, you will learn to use Because I say so, and without quite realizing it, you will have gained admittance to the Big Tent of Complexity wherein motives--yours and "theirs'--become paramount and your interpretations of them are now the determining factors in your future behavior.

Complications are as much you as they are of those about you; they are your interpretations, your reading of a script, your interpretation of what someone means or wants or means and wants when he/she tells you he/she loves you. Complications are your understanding of how it is you have nothing against chocolate but the flavor of vanilla is ever so much more subtle and representative of you, this awareness taken to a new level of complexity when you are heartbreakingly in love with one who prefers chocolate. This means there will be a thin coating of chocolate on everything in your life, your silver, your dishes, your tongue, your other body parts including your heart. You cannot get through life without one such complication, one such love, one such story; you cannot pour your heart into a story or a libretto or ballet in which you demonstrate the futility of war without encountering someone who tells you he or she enlisted as a direct consequence of having heard/seen/read that particular work.

You may think you can renounce all such complications by means of the monastic life but even there, choices are to be made, consequences of them haunt you as you are forced by conscience and heart to chose between the dualistic or non-dualistic approach. Even there you might be tempted to say, you'll have some of each, but the answer is always the complication of No! Because I or someone or something says so.

Were you to be successful in determining the source of the I who says so, thinking to work your wit and charm upon It,you would still find the complexity of It preferring chocolate to your vanilla, and you by now being heartbreakingly in love with It.

On Language

Sometimes--until you begin writing dialogue--you take language for granted, accepting it for the almost incredible medium by which members of the same and differing species communicate, not even questioning your ability to use it to inform the communication between you and the characters you create. In some lofty moments of spontaneity, you watch the screen in a state of being greatly impressed with yourself for having caught so much meaning in so few words.

You, who used to despair that you would ever achieve a metaphor or simile of any worth, who were openly envious of Raymond Chandler for the way these figures of speech seemed to appear as though from the reflex of need, now watch your own metaphor much as a tenement housewife would watch the clothing she put out on the clothesline, fearful of the neighbor's reactions to the very items of laundry and to any real or imagined defects in the way she did her laundry.

Language allows us to discover, to inform, to leave messages, to make choices, to warn. It reveals as much about us as we hope to convey to others, at once betraying our status in a relationship, our pretensions, our defensiveness, our social ranking, our attitudes, our agendas.

The more you think about language, the more it takes on a shape and purpose of its own, as though it were a leviathan whose size and function is incomprehensible to us. Language makes you realize how difficult it is at times to set your feelings down with a satisfying degree of accuracy. Language is the space in between "I had a good time" and "The world suddenly seemed to open with a dazzle of opportunity and learning." Language is a dazzle of opportunities, the trail of crumbs set in the forrest by the witch for Hansel and Gretel.

As you do on occasion by replaying in your mind some favored music, some theme from Ravel, some Gershwin invention that speaks out to you as though you'd been lifelong friends, you replay a line of dialogue, a phrase or sentence leading a story deeper into the forrest or incrementally out of it, you stop in mid stream, stunned by the implication of using language. You are near breathless because of the enormity of choice to be made, because of the hush that surrounds you as language waits for you to make up your mind, to choose a word.

Two of the geniuses of music you have discovered, Mozart and Beethoven, worked in wildly differing ways, Beethoven's notes seeming to come more slowly and deliberately, Mozart's with the ease of turning on a spigot which would allow melody and idea to flow forth. Each made uncounted choices, each has left a legacy of work that seems to proceed from one note to the only possible next note.

When language is working well for you, you don't have to go back and remove things, qualifiers, hesitations, defenses. When it is significantly working well for you, you are able to come back to it and read it with a kind of shiver of wonderment, the wonderment being Who wrote this? I am impressed.

From time to time you find yourself becoming evangelical when you tell your students (and yourself) the best practice is to write the way you think and think the way you write. And do each without hesitation.

Chance, Choice, Consequence

Chance has a limited role in fiction; too much of it suggests a heavy authorial hand, manipulating outcomes that seem increasingly unlikely. If closure is achieved through too many coincidences, the role of the protagonist has been undercut. After all, a protagonist is the protagonist in the first place because the burden rests or falls on his or her shoulders, and he or she is supposed to be the architect and engine of the outcome. An amicus curiae brief comes from fantasy and fantastic adventures in which magic plays such a large part. Even in these, the protagonist is supposed to figure how to use the magic to outwit the antagonistic forces. The best you can say for chance as a tool is that it can cause some remarkable complications, those pesky, mischievous events and missed connections that get the protagonist in deeper troubles, somewhat of a piece with afflicting Sisyphus with athlete's foot by way of making his eternal task not only boring but itchy.

In real life, chance has a greater opportunity to upstage events because while there may be a temporary throughline such as a drought or a famine or a misguided election in, say, Massachusetts, there are also cycles, changes, and the monotonous locked step of mere presence in which things happen each as an independent contractor. Thus trees and flowers volunteer because seeds were blown or caught in a dog's fur, or perhaps momentarily trapped in some unsuspecting trouser cuff. Equally, in real life, a slab of a hillside may dissolve in a rain storm to reveal artifacts enough to make an archaeologist's career.

Oliver La Farge, the anthropologist, once wrote a short story about a rather scuzzy academic who was always seeming to stumble upon magnificent finds from the distant past. But we knew better; this academic was guided to these finds by supernatural agencies. Thus was fun made of scientific method and by implication the lifting to respect of the ways and beliefs of our elders.

Choice is another matter. This is so because of the recognition of the number of choices we make every waking moment and, often enough, during the dreaming parts of sleep. Choice ultimately yields consequence, a circumstance well known to us because of the number of consequences we face every waking moment and, yes, during the dreaming parts of sleep. We chose to do something or opt out or dither. Each produces a litany of consequences, some of which may be totally unanticipated and indeed not justified. This leads us to confront another Cosmic Truth: Consequences do not have to be justified. They simply are. Much in the manner of Chance, in which a given segment of time is merely a window through which we can see the passing parade of events.

And here, the two come together; chance meets choice. We gaze out the window and see a procession of events, or perhaps no event at all, merely a tree, some shrubs, even a flower or two. Now a bird lands on a branch of the tree and begins looking about. We become curious and in a way invest in the bird. Now comes into the picture a cat, whereupon we, who have nothing against cats, nevertheless have some understanding of the nature of cats. Some among us may already visualize a mere pile of feathers instead of the bird. And of course the more we learn of the bird, its mockingbird-edness or its blue jay essence, the more vivid that pile of feathers becomes. As we switch our attention to the cat, depending on our individual preferences, its very coloration, say tiger-stripe or marmalade, add to its potential for bringing about that pile of feathers. We are caught up in choice and consequence. Do we rap sharply on the window, thus to frighten the bird away? Do we dither? After having frightened the bird off, do we, from a consequential guilt, invite the cat in for a snack?

Story is in some part the experience the viewer brings to the artifice of the writer; it always has some consequence associated with it, somewhat like the tin cans we used to tie to the fenders of automobiles when we were mischievous kids. As we grew older, we eschewed the tin can for a handful of gravel or perhaps two or three loose bolts or nuts, just enough to fit inside the hub cap we'd have carefully pried off with the bottle-opener blade of our pocket knife. The unsuspecting driver, after moving a scant few feet, would hear this inner serenade, stop, get out, look, shake head, return to car, ad infinitum, a monument to the practical joke nature young boys have to evolve through in order to have even a shot at the consequences of being grown up.

It All Depends

contingency--an event that has potential for occurring; a possibility without being a definite certainty; something liable to take place as a consequence of a previous action.

The behavior of a character in a story is contingent on 1) that character's reaction to another character, 2) one or more events in a character's past, 3) a character pursuing an agenda, 4) a character suffering a reversal. Contingency is the excitement of story, mixed with ambiguity and plot design to create a simultaneous atmosphere of causality and uncertainty in any given narrative. A splendid example of contingency in operation is Iris Murdoch's first novel, Under the Net, the net in the title mischievously referring to the net of language and the potentials therein for misunderstanding. One of the lead characters, Jake Donaghue, is writer who has just written a novel, The Silencer, from which comes this contingency-describing quote, "All theorizing is flight. We must be ruled by the situation itself and this is unutterably particular. Indeed it is something to which we can never get close enough, however hard we may try as it were to crawl under the net." Many of Jake's actions ironically reflect his being driven from place to place by his inability to interpret facts and choices presented through the reactions of other characters.

Some modern critics have made names for themselves by linking closure with contingency, a useful way for a writer of stories to link the payoff of a story with the writer's personal take on the zeitgeist or ambiance of a historical time. For examples of this useful equation at work, consider Thomas Pyncheon's huge romp of a historical venture, Mason & Dixon, Joan Didion's The Last Thing He Wanted, and Philip Roth's American Pastoral, each of which has a historical overview against which characters are driven to choices that are defined by contemporary forces.

It may also be argued that science fiction and the subgenre of fantasy dealing with alternate universes are providing a contingency for readers as well as for the characters. Contingency ranks high as a forceful factor in the writer's mind because it allows the writer to simultaneously deal with the structured necessity of drama and the seemingly anomalous plausible surprise offered by the very ways and means contingency is used. Although tightly plotted, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials Trilogy provides contingencies that further define the various characters and their goals, bringing the tension of impending crisis into collision with delightful surprise in the crucible of dramatic event.

In the framework of contingency, Moby-Dick reflects a search for the nineteenth-century American psyche, and in Mark Twain's often neglected Pudd'nhead Wilson, the author literally and figuratively reverses black and white.

Hint: the message of contingency is to keep presenting characters with junctures, points at which they will have to make choices. These points of choice are where the contingency-based story begins.

What Is This Thing Called, Love?

inevitability--the story-governing certainty that something will go wrong; a presentiment that circumstances surrounding one or more characters will worsen; the likelihood that a character who is given a menu of choices will select the one most probable course for disaster.

Fred has decided to attend a ten-year reunion of his college graduating class. Still smarting from the painful break-up of his marriage, Fred is thinking the reunion might be a place to reenter the relationship market. By the time the evening is over, Fred has been given four email addresses of former classmates, all of whom he considers attractive, all of whom have hinted their willingness to let him take her home. They are all attractive, each in a different way. They are all bright, each according to her particular interests. Aroused and lonely, Fred makes his choice. Most readers will recognize the landmine Fred will have stepped on as a consequence of his choice. Most readers will know that the one Fred chose will be afflicted with a rusted-out Honda and have at home a cat with a urinary infection. Moreover, she will cry loudly at unexpected times, and want to know from Fred why people cannot learn to be more respectful to one another. Not that any of these qualities are of themselves disastrous, but to Fred, they are complications he does not think he needs. As such inevitability goes, Fred will have subsequent contact with the other three former classmates who signaled their availability, finding each in her own way borderline remarkable. But the added inevitability is that Fred is drawn to his first choice and is last seen advancing to her apartment with a large container of rust remover and a copy of Cat Care For Dummies.

Inevitability makes no distinction in gender. Nicole, herself still uneasy from a painful break-up with a man who was compulsive to the point of arguing with her about the only proper way to allow toilet paper to spool, has gone to the same reunion as Fred. She has urged herself to go, thinking the experience will be good for her, even though she knows in advance that she will leave that night with the one man in the entire gathering who will be the most disastrous. Indeed, the individual Nicole chooses can't wait to get her to his place in order to show her his collection of breakfast cereal boxes, including his prized Wheaties box with the still florid image of Duke Snyder smiling forth. The evening ends with her moodily watching him as he pours bowls of corn flakes for both of them.

Although inevitability takes human psychology well into consideration, dealing as it does with such tropes as victims, compulsions, ego, avocations, and the very nature of individual identity, inevitability is causality and consequence writ large. It is the dramatic distillation of forces observed in reality but often buried under an array of distracting signs and misinterpreted biological responses to stimuli. All it takes to trigger in the reader the awareness of inevitability is for one character to ask another, "You'll wait for me, right? We'll be married as soon as I finish grad school." Not to mention one of the most famous of all story tropes, the all-purpose, one-size-fits-all "Is this safe?" which could relate to robbing a bank, a sexual encounter, crossing the street in the middle of a block, risking savings on a business venture. Yet another inevitability catcher: "I'll be right back," and not to forget: "I'll call you."

Why, oh why did Colm Toibin's character Tony, so deeply in love with Eilish in Brooklyn, plead with her to marry him in a secret civil ceremony before returning to Ireland for a funeral? Why, he did it to add considerable depth to both characters, and to introduce the worm of inevitability into the apple. Who among Toibin's readers did not suspect that Eilish would experience a heavy pang of temptation while away from Tony.

Inevitability is like the black keys and the white keys on the piano; the composer knows which to designate and when to produce the most plangent results.

I Can't Decide; You Decide for Me

decision--the result of a choice being made; an outcome arrived at either by logical deliberation,intuitive reach, or emotional propulsion; a character's solution to the need for choice.

Go on with a relationship (criminal, professional, religious,romantic) or end it; opt in or out, accept or reject; ignore or notice; deal with or let slide. Characters in dramatic narratives are constantly faced with such forks in the road; they've learned from experience that dithering only worsens their situation, thus they, unlike their real life counterparts, struggle with the choice. After some deliberation, they pursue a course of action. The equation in fiction is: decision triggers choice, choice triggers action, and of course action triggers consequence. One instructive example has the word choice in its title, William Styron's Sophie's Choice. Lack of action, you may argue, also triggers consequence, but the effect of those consequences is often cerebral. Unless you can cause your cerebral consequences such as guilt, remorse, or denial to trigger specific actions, your characters will begin dithering before you on the page, awaiting some directorial input from you. Dithering characters often wander into the dangerous verges of stopping the story dead in its tracks with such internal wonderment as Where had it all begun? or, worse, How had she let herself get in this situation.

The key to dramatic writing is to bring characters to the awareness of a decision point, from which position they will make decisions as their nature directs them, from which point they will become aware of consequences. This stream of events was true in Don Quixote, in Hedda Gabler, in Lonesome Dove, and in Lush Life, accordingly spanning dramatic writing from at least the late sixteenth century to the very present.


frustration--an emotional response to the blocking of an agenda or goal; a sense of the lack of power to perform a motivated behavior; a triggering device for aggression or passive-aggressive behavior.

Characters in fiction frequently find themselves with frustration as a pole star, alternately inflicting it and being victim to its consequences. Given the very nature of dramatic writing, frustration is a key component, the leavening agent in story, motivating protagonists to take steps to slough through its quicksand-like impediment and as well motivating antagonists to step up their behavior.

If a story line appears to be faltering, add more frustration in the form of reversal or surprise. Keep the goal to which the main character aspires in sight but just beyond reach. An out-of-sight goal may be forgotten or trumped; a goal within reach may be moved or shattered or stolen.

As an illustration of the far-reaching effects and landing sites of frustration, consider the universal desire to be understood, then recall the comedies and tragedies in which two individuals, believing they have the same goal in mind, begin to act upon that belief, only to encounter the reefs and shoals of awareness that they have completely misunderstood one another. Thus dramatic irony, the bedfellow of frustration.