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.

The Best Schemed Lays

complacency--a feeling of smug sureness and being in control; a dramatic fulcrum for characters who are about to be tipped into the froth of story either by action or inaction; a delineation between characters who believe they have sufficiency to suit their needs and characters who are hungry for change.

When the reader encounters a complacent character, said reader receives the literary equivalent of Blue-Screen-of-Death computer warnings; something earthshaking is about to happen, be it a palace revolt, or the reply to an innocently voiced "Hey, what's for dinner tonight?" being met with a "Get your own damned dinner because I'm outta here for good."

Into the story come those commandos Jealousy, Guilt, and Grief, their faces blackened, their knit watch caps pulled down low, invading and occupying the terrain, driving the circumstances and responses. 

 Complacency is metaphorically the best laid schemes of which Robert Burns wrote, and we know what comes after that, they "gang aft aglay," and do so big time.

Show us a complacent character, F. Scott Fitzgerald might have written in his longish short story, "The Rich Boy," and I'll show you a story in the making. A complacent character is astride his or her high horse, vulnerable to the low-hanging branch. 

 A complacent character might ride that high horse into thinking to make a romantic conquest or achieve a dramatic promotion in professional or academic status, only to be met with the reality of the leveling effects of falling unselfishly in love or being forced to recognize that there are others of equal or perhaps higher qualifications.

Hint: take an interesting male or female character. In one paragraph, establish him or her as being on the cusp of an easy achievement of a relatively significant goal, say chairman of a department or starring role in a stage play of extraordinary range. 

Paragraph two presents the character striding into the crucible. 

Paragraph three presents the enthusiastic response the respective characters are accustomed to experiencing. Paragraph four introduces the surprise of reality: in recognition of the male's good work, the dean is keeping the male character on, serving as a minor assistant to the new department chair; the woman is eagerly recruited to play the role of the maid to the female lead. Now the story progresses.

Additional hint: a universal theme is the awareness that life is not fair. (See, for instance, the last few lines of Shirley Jackson's short story, "The Lottery.") How about a story in which a complacent character (as opposed to a truly competent or talented individual) wins. How about it?

Coincidence

coincidence--two or more events taking place at the same time in a dramatic narrative, seemingly by happenstance; unplanned simultaneous occurrences which appear to cast a meaning of predestination; any events in stories that happen without being planned and which appear to effect positively the outcome of the story.

Accidental pairings of events may add complications to stories. Dick and Jane may be forced by coincidence and a full house to share a table at a restaurant, whereupon they subsequently fall in love, because that is a complication. Coincidences should not, however, play a major role in providing the outcome. The outcome is the result of some decisive and planned act on the part of the protagonist; the reader will feel cheated by any other scenario. Similarly, if Bill Villain, arch bad guy, winds up being repaid for his evil ways by having a landslide bury him, Bill Galahad, arch good guy will have in some way caused the landslide to tumble.