Story Violations (Chock-full of Spoilers)

The maker named this headboard design the "Storyteller." Been sleeping on it for decades.
Perhaps it has affected my thinking.

A guy in my writers' group urges me to kill someone, anyone...

I haven't done it yet. Whatever story I'm writing needs to require the murder. I'll explain.

We watched most of Downton Abbey last year, compelled by enthusiastic friends loaning us the DVDs. I felt shellshocked when Matthew Crawley died on the DVD, notwithstanding that I had watched that episode years before, on TV, and knew perfectly well what was coming. I had never seen the next episode, though, so I hung on, hoping for a reprieve from his pointless car crash. Maybe he was only gravely injured? Perhaps he had an undisclosed twin? No. No reprieve came, and I came to distrust the scriptwriters. Neither the story nor Cosmic Justice required Matthew's death, or, later, Sybil's, or the Crawley baby's, or Edith's fiance's. The writers seemed to have tossed the deaths in for effect, or for convenience, (or for contractual demands), but not for meaning. None of them contributed to an over-arching Story. Good stories are meaningful, but these deaths were meaningless.

I'm aware that two of them were contractually necessary - the actors playing Matthew and Sybil wanted out - but that doesn't mean their screen deaths had to be as insignificant as the reason for writing them into the script. (Like the soap opera violinist character in the movie Tootsie, the need for whose death was explained, drily, by Jessica Lange's character: "He asked for a raise.") Indeed, in a soap opera, every Friday ends in an emotional cliff-hanger so faithful viewers will tune in on Monday. Market forces can trump good storytelling.

Bad stories have bad rhythm; a graph of their progress zig-zags pointlessly. The graph of a good plot shows an arc or maybe a full-circle, with a thought at the end of the arc like the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Problems are resolved, just-deserts served out, the viewer is satisfied. A bad story's characters die pointlessly; the plot's loose ends twist in the wind; non-playing characters abound, and fortuitous events drop out of the story-sky, in deus ex machina manner, rescuing the writers, if not the tale. The Downton Abbey deaths, IMO, violate good story-telling, providing none of the things good endings provide: redemption, retribution, revenge, or even just release of tension.

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We acquired the DVDs for Call the Midwife the year after our tour of Downton Abbey, and for a while I brought my mending or a Sudoku puzzle to the couch, ready to jump ship on any episode that threatened to serve up a cherished character's unnecessary demise. This was Downton Abbey shellshock. And although plenty of good characters died, the deaths in Midwife, unlike Downton Abbey, had dignity and meaning, or a story-advancing effect on other characters. But, in the aftermath of Abbey, I clutched my mending, hesitant to relax and go with the flow of the midwives' tales, waiting for feckless scriptwriters to drop a bomb.

This isn't just me wanting a blankie and a cozy feeling - whether sad or cheerful, the ending needs to mean something. I may prefer my endings happy, but I've read Anna Karenina, and although I'm not sure I could have given her a push, I concur that Tolstoy had to put her under the train. The story required it, and her death's profundity resonates decades later. I'm arguing, not for only happy endings, but for meaningful ones.

My parents watched World War II television shows that aired in the 1960s, shows that resonated with their lived experience. We seek out stories that resonate with our heartstrings like a tuning fork with the true note, be they comedy or tragedy, (or horror, mystery, romance, war or Western.) We are drawn to what helps us sort out real life, maybe the way we tend to marry a person like the parent with whom we have issues. The story, like the marriage, might help us understand, and move forward.

It's the job of every author, raconteur, scriptwriter, or family storyteller, to tie up loose ends, to tease out meaning and stuff it into the story. Story-telling is humanity's God-given tool for making sense of life, and we are the only species that has it. A story can see us through a perilous passage, can even see a nation through. Think of Miracle on Ice, the film credited, in 1980, for lifting America out of national doldrums. Think of Uncle Tom's Cabin, the book which (indirectly) ended slavery. The Bible is the ultimate Story, one that transforms human history. When God sent a Savior to Earth, He spent a great deal of His three and a half year ministry on the planet... telling stories. Good ones.

I haven't killed anybody yet, but I've clarified what it will take for me to do the deed. Thanks for listening,and for reading these irregular and eccentric thoughts. To be alerted to their every occurrence, click here.