In Part 1, I described how a theme is sometimes shoehorned into a story in a way that sidelines the heart of the story. By way of example I invented a fictional crime series, which I called Fast: Fast being a police officer, Slow being Fast’s sidekick, and Boss being Fast’s boss. I outlined a robbery gone wrong in a school prior to exams and demonstrated how the theme of exams might be inserted artificially by steeping the lives of every character in some assessment or other, however…
It turns out that the robbery was not for the papers, it was for money, and the death an accident—or in an extreme case, the night watchman was an ex-spy and this was a revenge murder made to look like robbery-gone-wrong. But who cares? That is not the point. Having nailed the theme, the writer is required only to insert a simple short crime scenario to justify all the cameos on theme that are now set to fill our 55 minutes of entertainment. It only remains to frame any theme-related material as your standard obstacle to getting a character to where they need to be to pursue the criminal investigation. (“Honey, can you not use your phone! Jemima wants to talk to you, anytime now. She has an exam next week you realize.”)
Have you seen this episode? Maybe you have and don’t remember. It’s hardly memorable. You, I, we probably watched it because we like the company of Boss, Fast and Slow. Well, most of the time.
Shame they have such simple crimes to solve and such diverting lives that compete so strongly with the collection of evidence.
Am I missing something? Has this crime story not become social commentary on the evils of the exam system? And where did that come from? Presumably it is easy, lazy writing to create conflict by viewing said exams simplistically and unfavorably, when instructed to write-to-theme.
I think that’s it, isn’t it?
The problem is that the theme has been shoe-horned in. An abstract concept exams has been given the role of villain, causing all the unpleasantness in the story, although in a completely disconnected way—and nothing really to do with the crime.
There are cases when abstract nouns can cause physical events: The War on Terror, your favorite dictator’s Political Dogma; but these abstract nouns, surely, stand proxy for something else: the tangible balance-sheet needs of an organization, or the psychologically real ambition of an individual, or whatever.
Exams in our story hardly fall into the same category. The concept is not causal.
It is lazy writing—or the writer, director, show-runner, or producer do not know better. That’s always possible.
What can be done?
We can drop the attempt to shoehorn in exams, and pursue story development without the constraint of trying to insert exam-related material at every turn. Writer says “No!”
Sure, and writer loses job.
Or we could say, “Okay, ’tis examination season, and this crime (these crimes) somehow uniquely shed a light on the fact that it is examination season—but why?”
If, in obedience to the Producer, we decide to hang on to some of our exam-related story events (Fast’s daughter’s exams, and Slow’s son’s exams, and so on) maybe we can recover some artistic integrity by raising the story above the hole that Producer has dug for it, and us.
The assumption I am making—indeed imposing—is that all the events in this story must and will arise from a single historic cause. I.e. something in the past determines that the events of the story happen the way they do, when they do (and here I am using the strong philosophical sense of determined: things could not have turned out differently).
Which is to say, all the events of the story are linked, and inevitable, given the history of the characters involved. Let’s see how much ‘theme’ we can keep…
Let us consider a sample of key events that either cause the plot to take the turns it does, or are caused by the turns of the plot:
- Boss’s whole division in the police station is being audited,
- Fast’s daughter is taking university final exams,
- Fast’s partner is taking a driving test,
- Slow’s son is taking whatever exams a 16 year old takes,
- The school’s safe is broken into and papers are removed,
- The night watchman is killed.
Let’s ask some Why questions for each of these points, with the intention of digging back into the past, and see where that gets us:
- Why the police audit? There has been a serious, credible, complaint against one or more officers and their conduct in one or more cases. Let us say historically, since we are now digging into a causal past.
- Why is Fast’s daughter taking university exams now? Obviously she was born 20 or so years ago; maybe she is going to university because Fast did not, and Fast is keen for her to achieve more. Fast was perhaps married 25 years ago; that might prove important—let’s hold on to that thought.
- Why is Fast’s partner taking a driving test? Here, depending on the series bible (the core facts that define the series: character histories, local settings, and so on), we may have more or less leeway. Given a totally free hand we can have Fast’s partner unable to drive for some years, but now because of some [causal] change in circumstance, learning to drive becomes an option. This gives us two precursor causal events to consider: why was the partner prevented from driving in the past? Why learn to drive now?
- Why is Slow’s son taking exams now? Clearly Slow has been a parent for 16 years or so, and has a partner who may or may not also be the son’s natural parent. Why did Slow decide, 16 years ago, to start a family? Why this town? Why this school? Why these subjects (i.e. the subjects being examined in the next week in particular)?
- Why is the safe broken into and the papers removed? Ah! The crime that kicked this episode into motion! One trick that is often seen is to have two crimes appear in one incident, as follows: the night watchman is killed by X for reason A; the safe is robbed by Y for reason B but Y is merely taking advantage of the absence of the night watchman.
- Why was the night watchman killed? Answer as above, i.e. it still hangs in the balance.
With these questions in mind we might try to shape the hinterland of the crime.
I’m going to suggest (but this is arbitrary, perhaps a matter of taste, and you would likely choose differently, and better) that the police audit is our way into the story.
The police audit is happening because a credible, evidence-based, complaint has been made against the department, concerning a crime that was committed recently (in say the last five years). Let us say a witness has come forward at this time (the story present) because some bullying criminal has just died. A finger points at the incompetence of Boss, maybe also at Fast, who were pivotal in the original conviction.
(the reason for going back only five years at this point in story development, is to keep our initial investigations fairly recent, which will allow us to collect enough clues about a deeper past to give credence to that deeper past; this stage of the investigation, in story-telling terms is akin to a first try-fail cycle; you think this is the problem, but when you look into it, you find otherwise. This, however, is a working hypothesis and I may change it all later. Let’s see where it takes us…)
Let’s draw up a provisional timeline of events, so we can see what might have caused what.
| 20+ years ago | Fast bunked off university (providing motivation for Fast to push their own children to go to university) |
| 20 years ago | Fast became a parent |
| 16 years ago | Slow became a parent |
| 5 years ago | A criminal investigation was left open to doubt |
| 6 months ago | A credible complaint against the police was filed |
| Last weekend | A night watchman was killed and a safe broken into |
Question is: how might I go about connecting these events causally and plausibly to one another in a way that makes the story of this episode, in all its aspects, seem natural and inevitable?
That, I will save for Part 3.
Carter Blakelaw BSc BA lives in bustling central London, in a street with two bookshops and an embassy, any of which might provide escape to new pastures, if only for an afternoon. Carter has studied physics, philosophy and computer science and was the architect and lead programmer for the Rooms 3D Desktops virtual reality engine, and has worked in integrated circuit design. In addition to his Top 100 Writing Tips book, he has published three books on what makes us conscious and how that knowledge impinges on both the machines we build and on our art. He has been an active member of the T-Party (latterly renamed Gravity’s Angels) SF writers’ group for 15 years, and of the Cola Factory (latterly renamed Spectrum) SF writers’ group, for the last ten years. Carter’s website is: https://www.carterblakelaw.com/ for more info and up-to-date news.
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