In the last few weeks or so I’ve mentioned what kinds of endings and what kinds of hopeful stories I like. I’ve come to the conclusion that there are three elements which create, for me, a fully satisfying story: they inform each other, and if just one of them fails, then the story fails to satisfy me also.
Hopefully having some of these words will help some of you figure out your tastes. These needs also define the kinds of stories I write and why. Let’s call them Pur’s Laws of Narrative Satisfaction.
1: The given universe cannot itself be villainous: it cannot be unjust or weighted toward cruelty or negativity for no reason.
2: Any values that apply to the protagonist must also be applied to any other person in the universe.
3: If the ineffectiveness of the status quo is a plot point, the narrative must be willing to break it.
Laws 1 and 2 are the ones that will make or break a story for me. Law 3 is a breaker because when it applies, and when it fails, it by its nature breaks Laws 1 and 2.
The stories of hope I want and need are predicated on the notion that the universe isn’t slanted toward grinding individuals beneath its heel. So, if a story is predicated on the idea that the inherent mechanics of the given cosmos are provably unjust or negative, I’m out. That’s why the question of the universe being the villain is important.
And if a narrative is at all hypocritical, if the story only mattered for the protagonist and not everyone else, then by nature the universe is unjust. Breaking the second law inherently breaks the first: if the endings you give to characters are slanted based on protagonist or not protagonist, you’ve lost me.
The third law is somewhat more specific, and I haven’t yet talked about it. Not all stories threaten the status quo: these stories are exempt from this narrative engagement. As long as they hit the first two points, they’d satisfy me. Navigating within the constraints of a given universe is fine, as long as the story itself doesn’t introduce a villain or some other narrative function which tests those constraints.
Of course, stories of worlds ending and great evils are pretty much the most common ones in the genres I read the most.
My problem is this: if you’re writing an urban fantasy or some other real-world analogue, the status quo is not perfect. For many, many people it is a torture. If a story has a villain that threatens the status quo and its protagonists seek to preserve it, without examining whether it ought to be changed, I’m gonna be judging it. And if a story promises some kind of massive change or magical revelation and then backs away from it, I’m gonna be judging it hardcore.
I’ve only once found an urban fantasy that was willing to upheave the world as we knew it due to the discovery of magic in some fashion or another. It was a side-effect of the hero’s choice, it was a juicy characterisation, and I loved it; but the story wasn’t about that reveal, so it happened at the very end and without much in the way of examination.
I have read numerous urban fantasies which dance around the edges of taking that plunge, and disappointingly back away from it. In some cases, the narrative got so far that the reveal seemed like it ought to be inevitable before changing its mind. This is worst kind of tease: a promise with no pay off.
The problem with using ‘will people find out about magic’ as a narrative stake is that it assumes that people finding out is inherently bad. That has terrible implications in terms of casting knowledge and making considered choices as evil. It also valorises the status quo as somehow better and preferable to any other options.
It hides the fact that people in our current world are poor, homeless, hated, tortured, ignored.
When a narrative threatens the status quo without being willing to acknowledge that maybe some people would benefit from the breaking of it, that narrative breaks both rules 1 and 2: it means that some of the people who exist in that universe don’t get the same dispensation as the protagonists, and it means therefore that the universe itself is built unjustly.
Is it possible to use that stake well, and still come to the conclusion that the status quo is better? Yes! Of course! There are some world-ending things which are so literally world-ending that staying alive is better than everything dying. These aren’t the instances I’m talking about. And it’s possible to examine the stakes and come to the conclusion that the worldwide conflict that might arise would cause more suffering.
But that’s the point: narratives which use the reveal as a stake rarely if ever contemplate this. That’s why the rule states that the narrative must be willing to break the status quo. A narrative that’s willing to do so by definition will examine the subject thoroughly, and come to a considered conclusion.
Most narratives aren’t willing: they just pretend to be, to varying degrees, without actually committing.
And yes, I do judge them hardcore.
I have a lot of trouble finding stories which meet these three laws, and I’ve been disappointed a lot. (It didn’t help that in the past I had no real words to articulate why otherwise well-written stories were failing the satisfaction test.) But now I can say, with certainty:
These are the stories I’d read, so these are the stories I write.
Aurichalcum Publishing 