IT DON’T MEAN A THING IF IT AIN’T GOT THAT ZING

Saturday night, I had an epiphany. Last February, I attended ConDFW. During one of the panels, some remarks were made about Romeo and Juliet. The comment was that it wouldn't have worked if Romeo and Juliet hadn't died at the end. I said: "Once the story was written, it may have seemed to the reader that there was only one way to conclude, but that "inevitability" is a function of the writer's premise."

Exactly.

Saturday night, I attended a writer's group. Most of the writers in this group are talented. They write lovely descriptions, create interesting characters, and devise workable plots. Mostly they don't get published. Why? They ain't got that zing.

Saturday night, I got a glimmer of "that zing." By Sunday Morning, I was pretty sure I had the whole thing, but my roommate wanted to finish mowing the backyard in the morning, and I had a meeting to go to in the afternoon. Writing got tabled. Again. Sigh.

That Zing

What I realized was a common flaw in all, or most anyway, of the amateur writing in this group is the lack of inevitability. There is simply no compelling reason for the character to act. This was very noticeable to me because I just reread The Obsidian Trilogy by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory. The first book, The Outstretched Shadow, starts immediately with conflict. We meet Kellan, an adolescent who is escaping his sterile home and boring schoolwork by running the streets. He finds and buys a set of books on magic. Of course, this magic is forbidden. Of course, he can't resist trying a spell when he misplaces his key. Of course, since it works, he experiments further. Of course, he gets caught with the forbidden books. Here is the catch: his city is run by magic, but the magic in the books is anathema to the magic that runs the city. So of course, in spite of the fact his father is the highest mage of the city, he is convicted of treason. Of course, he is banished.

Three books later the conflict between Kellan and the city is resolved.

When he is banished, his father storms at him, "You are just like your sister." Kellan doesn't remember a sister. Where does he end up? With his sister. Of course.

All of this is highly predictable. The reader can guess as soon as the sister is mentioned that he will find her and that she will be important to the plot.

Everything that happens is inevitable.

But in reality, the writer makes everything seem inevitable. The writer chooses to make the plot, the choices, everything the character does inevitable. Or else the story is not compelling. The reader is not caught up in events. And if the reader is not caught up, he gets bored.
Have you ever been reading a book and said to the hero/ine, "Don't do that!"? Have you ever known that the heroine was going to investigate the noises in the basement of the creepy house and that nothing good was going to come of it, but the heroine was going to do it anyway? I have just wanted to take the hero/ine and shake him/her. "Don't do that, you idiot!" But of course, the character does it anyway. And I know, as sure as I am sitting here, that the character, given his/her personality and the circumstances, is not going to do anything different. It's inevitable.

Shakespeare's version of Romeo and Juliet was written to make the ending inevitable. Other versions of Romeo and Juliet are written to make a different ending inevitable. Same plot, same events, different ending. Entirely possible. But the Romeo and Juliet of that version would be entirely different people, making different choices based on their different characters from the ones that Shakespeare created. And if the writer is skillful enough, his ending would seem just as inevitable as Shakespeare's.

Come to think of it, there is a Romeo-and-Juliet subplot in The Obsidian Trilogy. But of course, it ends happily. It's inevitable.

There are many other characteristics that distinguish great writing. Inevitability is only one. A very important one, but only one. A writer needs to be able to write in the basics of acceptable grammar, create interesting characters, describe action, setting, and characters vividly, and keep the plot on course without wandering off into side issues. Unfortunately, I see a lot of writers who can do all these things, but their stories are not compelling. They don't hold my interest. They don't have that zing.