{"id":894,"date":"2017-09-27T09:29:57","date_gmt":"2017-09-27T13:29:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=894"},"modified":"2017-09-27T09:29:57","modified_gmt":"2017-09-27T13:29:57","slug":"the-dread-god-of-the-machine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2017\/09\/27\/the-dread-god-of-the-machine\/","title":{"rendered":"The dread god of the machine"},"content":{"rendered":"

On August 6, 2017, Melissa Mead wrote, The world of my would-be trilogy has humans, serpent-demons, the sort-of-angelic Aureni, and an omnipresent, basically omnipotent and benign deity, which the Aureni can heal people by praying to.<\/em><\/p>\n

Book 2 started out as a NaNoWriMo project, and in the name of fast word count I invoked the \u201cA wizard did it\u201d rule and handwaved a lot of stuff. Now I want to turn it into a serious sequel, but the central premise hinges on the villain doing something that only the deity should be able to do. (And I don\u2019t want to invoke deus ex machina any more than I can help.)<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m also somewhat worried about offending people\u2019s religious beliefs (it\u2019s already happened once), but I\u2019m hoping that readers will understand that everybody, including the deity, is fictional.<\/em><\/p>\n

This from me: I agree that the dread deus ex machina should be avoided! Can you go back into the first book, since it isn\u2019t published yet, and set up conditions that will make your villain\u2019s heinous act possible in another way? Seems to me this is another time for a list of possibilities.<\/em><\/p>\n

And from Moryah: The villain could harness the deity\u2019s power somehow? Coerce the deity? Coerce an Aureni\/some Aureni into doing it, through mind control or bribery or blackmail (would that even work?)? The villain has an object that connects to the deity? The villain coerced an Aureni into creating such an object? If only the deity can do whatever it is you need the villain to do, then logically the villain needs the deity\u2019s power (unless you change things up in the first book, or things in this book). So the question is how the villain can harness the deity\u2019s power \u2013 unless there are OTHER ways of obtaining a power of that magnitude. Maybe there\u2019s another deity (like, a light-dark balance good-needs-evil idea, idk). Maybe there\u2019s something that\u2019s not a deity that doesn\u2019t like the deity and would aid your villain in one-upping the deity in power (whether or not your villain is directly striking against the deity\/Aureni).Maybe a random portal opens up spontaneously halfway through the book and the villain reaches into it and rummages around and pulls out a recipe for a magic vegan cornbread that when eaten gives the eater a temporary power (read: a power that will wear off once the cornbread is digested) to talk to stars, and instead your villain enslaves the stars and uses them to blackmail the deity, or uses them to perform the act you said only your deity could do.<\/em><\/p>\n

Back to Melissa Mead: Mm, cornbread. Maybe I should put some cornbread in the story. I know a spot in Book 3 where it might be particularly plausible.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I wish I could give more context without being spoilery\u2026 The basic idea is that the Aureni have the healing touch, and the villain has twisted that around. I can explain that storywise on a small scale, but for the big thing I\u2019m thinking of\u2026.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2026hey, I may have just caught the tiniest whiff of an idea\u2026!<\/em><\/p>\n

BTW, I don\u2019t want to get rid of the actual \u201cdeus.\u201d (Don\u2019t think I could, actually.) I think the scenes between it and the MC are fun. I just don\u2019t want it acting when the finite characters should.<\/em><\/p>\n

First off, for those who don\u2019t know, deus ex machina means, literally, god in the machine. The term originated in classical Greek theater, where play conflict was resolved when a contraption bore actors onstage who portrayed the gods and solved all the problems.<\/p>\n

The charm of a deus ex machina is that the writer can pile on trouble after trouble without worrying about their resolution, because the gods are going to swoop in at the end and whoosh the difficulties away. I imagine that ancient theatergoers expected this and derived their pleasure from watching the train\u2013or chariot–wreck unroll.<\/p>\n

Fairies in most fairy tales as traditionally told operate as dei ex machina. And we who adapt these stories for modern readers struggle against this device to give our human characters agency.<\/p>\n

The question about offending readers has come up before, and I\u2019ve written posts about it, which you can find under the category \u201cgiving offense.\u201d But I\u2019ll revisit the subject briefly. I worry about this, too, although I tell myself not to. We can\u2019t control our pesky (hah!) readers, who may take offense at story elements we think are completely innocuous. As long as we aren\u2019t intending to give offense\u2013I don\u2019t even want to write that! I don\u2019t want to give offense in my books for kids, but I don\u2019t much care in my poems for adults, who can watch out for themselves, and some of you may be writing for grownups. And I think an argument can be made even in children\u2019s books for being willing to give offense. A writer may want to challenge readers, for example. My guess is that YA author M. T. Anderson wasn\u2019t very concerned about giving offense when he wrote Feed<\/em>, which is a terrific though disturbing book.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I don\u2019t want to encourage people to write stories that, for example, reinforce stereotypes. As a newly old person who just turned seventy, I often cringe at representations of the elderly in the media. How many forty-year-olds can drop down and pop out twenty push-ups, heh? I can, though of diminishing depth after the first ten.<\/p>\n

And, of course, I oppose any writing that may incite violence.<\/p>\n

But I think we know when we\u2019re crossing a line. Most of us are probably over-cautious and keep the danger zone too far from our writing.<\/p>\n

Onto the deity!<\/p>\n

Melissa says that the second book\u2019s central premise hinges on the villain doing something that only the deity should be able to accomplish. If this is a central premise, we need to take time to set it up.<\/p>\n

We can ask ourselves, Under what conditions might this villain be able to do this impossible thing? I haven\u2019t in decades, but I used to read super-hero comic books, and this kind of cosmic shake-up would happen regularly, especially, if I remember right, in Superman<\/em>. I\u2019d say what I always say: make a list of conditions, and, just saying, there\u2019s no shame in putting a few of Moryah\u2019s ideas on it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m assuming that the villain is defeated in the end, so I don\u2019t think it\u2019s out of bounds for the villain to accomplish this thing if the reader understands how it\u2019s done. I love the idea of a villain wily enough to usurp a deity\u2019s power. I\u2019m thinking of the bible story of Job. I\u2019m not a biblical scholar, but my recollection is that Satan manipulates God into testing Job. If Job loses all his good fortune, Satan says, he will curse God. Game on. God takes away Job\u2019s wealth, health, and, worst of all, his children.<\/p>\n

So Satan, a much lesser being, has pushed God into an action He wouldn’t have taken otherwise. And Job, unwittingly, can also spur God to action. His fate hangs on his response to his losses.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thinking also of the very old Ingmar Bergman movie called The Seventh Seal<\/em>, in which a medieval knight plays a game of chess with Death. Presumably, if he wins, he lives forever. In the movie, the knight loses, which the reader expects, but one can imagine a different story with different results.<\/p>\n

Melissa has kind of a David-and-Goliath situation going, with the villain the underdog. There\u2019s fun to be had in playing that out. And if the villain wins, he (she? they? it?) becomes even more scary. Look! He can out-maneuver a god!<\/p>\n

Melissa says that this god is omnipresent and omnipotent but doesn\u2019t mention if she (he, etc.?) is omniscient. If she isn\u2019t, the villain can use her ignorance to get the power he wants.<\/p>\n

As a pantser, I regularly get myself into this kind of trouble. For me, it’s setting something up without realizing the long-term consequences. One solution, which both Moryah and I have suggested, is to reexamine the conditions that underpin the story, looking for elements we can use to approach the story from a new direction. For example, does the villain have to wield this particular power to do what he needs to? Does he have to do this particular thing, or can some other action bring about the same result?<\/p>\n

As I suggested when I first responded to Melissa, she can go into the first book and tweak things to give the villain the power to do whatever has to be done. In a single book, we can go back to an earlier point in our story to make the changes.<\/p>\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2219 Set your story in a world where water is limited. Two kingdoms are vying for control of the mighty Nipar River, and each kingdom has a hero\/heroine who will do most of the heavy lifting. On the supernatural side, there\u2019s an elf king, a dragon, and a goddess of justice who has limited powers. Each being backs one side or the other, though allegiances may shift. Write a scene or the whole story.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Pick one or more of Moryah\u2019s ideas and use it in a scene.<\/p>\n

\u2219 Taking off from the fairy tale \u201cAladdin,\u201d have Aladdin usurp the power of the genie of the lamp and do something only the genie could do.<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On August 6, 2017, Melissa Mead wrote, The world of my would-be trilogy has humans, serpent-demons, the sort-of-angelic Aureni, and an omnipresent, basically omnipotent and benign deity, which the Aureni can heal people by praying to. Book 2 started out as a NaNoWriMo project, and in the name of fast word count I invoked the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57,15,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":895,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}