Perfecting Plot: Charting the Hero's Journey (Red Sneaker Writers Book Series) by William Bernhardt

Author:William Bernhardt [Bernhardt, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: нонфикшн, Creative Writing
Publisher: Babylon Books
Published: 2013-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

Deus ex machina

Some of you may recall a discussion in English class of the principle of deus ex machina, a term derived from Greek theater that roughly translated means “the machine of the gods.” This plot device represents coincidence at its highest (and worst) form. In the ancient Greeks’ primitive stagecraft, a crank-and-lever contraption would literally raise an actor playing a god from below the stage through a trap door. The god would then use his magical powers to fix all the problems of the play.

Can you see where modern audiences might find that less than satisfying? A supernatural entity coincidentally appearing just when he’s needed? I’m not even sure this worked well for the ancient Greeks. Here’s a fact: starting around the fourth century B.C., it’s believed that several thousand Greek plays utilized the deus ex machina plot device, many of them written by major playwrights. How many have survived?

Maybe seven.

Thomas Hardy has also been criticized for excessive dependence upon coincidence. I’m a huge fan of Hardy’s work. I think he’s one of the greatest novelists of his era and a fine poet, too. But there is that nagging problem of coincidence.

Do you remember the tragic Tess of the D’Urbervilles? Do you recall how Tess confesses her past sins in a note she slides under Angel Clare’s door? When he remains affectionate to her the next day, she thinks he’s forgiven her. Only much later does she learn that the note went under the doormat and he never saw it. Do you recall The Mayor of Casterbridge, perhaps Hardy’s greatest work…and the letter that gets lost for twenty years, only to be discovered by Henchard on Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding day, informing him that Elizabeth-Jane is not his biological daughter. While Hardy’s reliance upon coincidence did not destroy these fine books, it did not enhance them, either.

In another classic novel, Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the author tells the story of five people who died when the same bridge collapsed. If these five were related in some way, say, they were all members of the same fraternity, or they all participated in the same murder, this might seem too coincidental. In this case, however, the five characters have no overt link. They simply die together. In flashback, the author tells their pre-death stories. The end result is almost the opposite of coincidence. The author is showing how cruelly random life can be. Some of the characters’ lives were happy, some sad. Some lived fine lives, some lived terrible lives. But they all died together, in the same purposeless, meaningless accident. The author is not relying on coincidence. He’s making a point about the illusion of destiny and our tenuous existence.

Permit me one example from the world of film, first because it’s a good example and second, because I haven’t referred to Star Trek in this book yet.

The first J.J. Abrams-directed Star Trek film, the reboot, was a marvelous adventure. Abrams may not have captured the philosophical underpinnings that distinguished Trek from other SF, but he told a rip-snorting adventure story.

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