writerjenn

My current WIP is getting to a dark and juicy place.  Things are exploding (not literally, but emotionally).  The challenge is to balance the darkness with humor and/or hope, to have just enough tension but not too much.   There has to be conflict, or there's no story, and generally that means trouble for the main character.  In this WIP, it means trouble for several characters.  But suffering shouldn't go unrelieved for too long.

This is a first draft, so I'm just letting the angst pour out wherever it chooses.  I can dial it back during revision.  On the other hand, I sometimes find characters that have been too repressed in a first draft, and the task there is to open them up.  Whichever way the revision has to go, it's always working toward some magical balance that I wish I could express in a mathematical formula, but will have to settle for some non-quantitative thoughts instead:

Good reasons to cut back on tension in a scene:
To give the reader a breather, room to digest what's just happened.
To keep things from getting melodramatic, over the top.

Bad reasons to cut back on tension:
Fear or embarrassment that what we're writing cuts too close to the bone.

Good reasons to ramp up the tension:
To move the plot forward.
To let us into a character's mind, let us share their emotions.

Bad reasons to ramp up the tension:
To create an artificial distraction from the fact that the current scene is kind of boring.
To reach a goal of having a shocking scene every X number of pages.

 I once went to a Balinese shadow play (it's like a cross between a puppet show and a silhouette display and a story-telling, but set to music, if you can figure that out).  In the introductory lecture, the speaker said that these plays were not about a "good" character vanquishing an "evil" character.  Rather, in this tradition, a story begins when good and evil get out of balance, and a successful ending is when balance is restored.

I can think of at least 2 ways to view good and evil in story-telling.  There's the stark, good-vs.-evil method, where one character (or group) represents "good," and the good guys fight the bad guys.  Usually the good guys win, but occasionally a bad guy will reform, or will survive in exile to imply that the whole fight will eventually have to occur all over again, possibly in a sequel.

I tend not to prefer this model myself, since I don't actually believe that good is embodied totally in some people and evil in others.  I think we all have both in ourselves.  But this can make for a very exciting and absorbing kind of story, and people can root for one side with a clear conscience.  

Questions to consider if you tell this kind of story:
Why are my bad guys so bad?  Were they good once, but were hurt somehow?  Can they become good again, or are they past hope?  What are their redeeming qualities?  What do the bad guys want?
Do my good guys have any flaws--if so, what?
Are my good guys more sympathetic than my bad guys?  If not, what can I do to change this?
Will any of my good guys turn out to be secretly bad, or vice versa?  Will anyone switch sides--if so, how and why?
Who's going to win?  Will it be a "final" ending?  Can good ever "finally" vanquish evil?

The other kind of story is when every character has the potential to do good as well as evil.  In fact, the dividing line between the two may not even be sharp.  For example, a character's martyrdom may really rise from a desire for attention.  A seemingly harmful act may prove to have a secret greater good behind it.  

Questions to consider if you tell this kind of story:
Am I being too ambiguous or wishy-washy?  What are the thematic statements I'm making?
Is my melding of good and evil impulses within each character natural, or does it ever come off as too stark, unbelievable?  Are characters flipping back and forth without apparent motivations?
Are there places where readers can sympathize with the characters?  Do I want to engender reader sympathy--if so, with whom?
Do I have any characters who are one-dimensional where I'm going for the 3D effect?

Which school of the good/evil dynamic do you prefer?  Do you think your treatment of characters reflects your beliefs about real people?  And if you tend to write one style, have you ever tried to write the other?