“A successful resolution thwart the our expectation; it doesn’t (fully) satisfy them.“—-Peter Selgin, 179 Ways to Save a Novel: Matters of Vital Concern to Fiction Writers
Reversals sit at the heart of a successful resolution.
And since novels consist of a continual list of crises fostered by a string of obstacles, both physical and human, writers must embed our stories with a minefield of reversals.
But what is the true nature of a reversal?
A reversal turns the story or rather the path of the plot or action back upon itself. Reversals offer a mirror and window to both the protagonist involved in the juggernaut of action offering a boomerang effect also to the reader.
The line of cause-and-effect action brings the central character to an obstacle–a problem. The obstacle comprises a part of the larger dilemma challenging the protagonist.
The mini crisis presents a stepping-stone to the larger ordeal formulating the penultimate ordeal at the center or arc of the novel.
The central character’s actions and decisions during a reversal must seem plausible.
For instance, a man is driving his car 30 miles above the posted speed limit. He is on his way to the hospital. His wife is in labor. Her water has broken. She is also bleeding.
As he races down the highway a siren sounds. A police car is approaching from behind, its blue light is flashing. Frustrated and anxious, the man pulls over.
The police car continues past him. The man wipes his brow in relief. His wife lets out a cry. “I want to push,” she says, but knows she cannot. The man’s wife is a physician.
Already things are not occurring as we figured. The tension already pulled taut tightens.
A few minutes later and down the road the man encounters a roadblock.
A police car is flipped over and lying upon its roof. Behind it stands what seems a round and tall spaceship.
The man’s wife is bleeding profusely. She is carrying twins.
Nothing is going as it would seem. And the situation has worsened. The police car now lies turned upside down and lying in the middle of road. The officer is in no condition to help the man.
The symbolism of law and order, the police car, lying upside down and in front of the space ship speaks to the chaos of the situation. The rules have certainly changed.
The man, who we might more likely assume to be a physician, despite women’s equality is not a doctor. His wife, who is a doctor, is in labor and carrying twins.
What to do?
Whatever happens it will surely not be what we might have expected. Ideally it will surprise, reach the reader’s expectations, and go beyond–provide something new and inviting–something that will provoke us to think and step out of the box of our usual thoughts about the matters of birth, family crises and the confines of our thoughts and beliefs about those who work to serve and protect and maintain the law and order of our society.
To give the reader what she or he expects delivers an anti-climactic let down.
The tension already tight raises our expectations as readers.
We want to know that the man and his family, his wife and the babies will be okay.
And yet we would like to reach this land of “happily every after” by uncharted routes, new terrain.
And if they are not, deliver us something better.
This is where the skill of writing fiction meets artistry and perseverance.
The writer must stay with it, keep writing and re-writing, and revising until reaching an ending, a resolution that satisfies both the demands of surprise and reasonable logic.
Thwart the reader’s expectation.
Do not lead the reader down a wild goose chase. Neither send her or his thoughts chasing after a red herring.
Carry them into a new world.
Present a conclusion that guides them through an opening that has been present all the while clear, but also hiding right in plain sight.