'A Reason For Everything'

I used to hang out in an ARG hub back in the day, and used to also have long conversations with my writing group whenever we bounced ideas off each other, and one thing that always struck me that - while difficult - always made for a solid narrative, and it was this: when you put something in the forefront of a story, you have to have a reason for it.

The reason I mentioned the ARG hub was because there's always a conversation regarding people who wanted to start their ARGs, and the people who have been playing ARGs all their lives. The aspiring creators always asked for advice as to what makes a good ARG, and the players' answers was always the same. They didn't want too many complex codes. They didn't want flashy videos or well-made photos. Those weren't the primary concern; they would be embellishments, sure, but what the players wanted was this: a good, solid story, and a logical explanation for everything that appears in the story's narrative, within, of course, the rules of the story's narrative. The reason for this was that it made the story appear very, very solid, and also made suspending disbelief way easier.

Now, 'logical explanation' does not mean 'makes sense in real life' all the time. It just has to make sense within the story's narrative. 

For example, obviously time travel doesn't exist (possibly yet) in our reality. However, in a fictional story, it can. If it's in the forefront of the story, however, then, it has to make sense why. Why time travel? Does it have something to do with a character's mission, is the character a trained time traveller who has to alter events in the past in order to secure a future (The Time Commission in The Umbrella Academy)? Is it because the character wants to change the future, or the present, because it is awful or they want something else to happen (Homestuck Retcon Timeline, Kimi no Nawa, Avengers: Endgame)? Was it actually just an accident, where they messed up with the time travel and ended up somewhere they weren't supposed to be? 

Or, if the time travel is merely a device in the story and not necessarily the thing that starts all of it, but is still relevant to it, then how does the time travel happen? Do the characters obtain a time machine? Do the characters build one? Do they get cursed for messing with forces beyond what they know? If time travel is going to be a player in the story, then there has to be a reason for it.

ARG-wise, the players always said that, if you're going to put codes in your ARG, then have a reason for it. Don't just put codes for the sake of codes, because then it's just like a math test and it shatters people's suspension of their disbelief. Have a character encode a message because it is dangerous to spread news around and they need to pass on messages that, in case of interception, will not immediately be decoded. In fact, most ciphers were created during the war for this very purpose, to get messages to troops that won't immediately be understood in case of interception. 

When I first read that bit of advice, a lightbulb kind of went off my head, because then I could see the possibilities. If a character's actions made sense then it makes the lore and the plot instantly a lot more engaging, and a lot easier to theorize over too, because then the audience can trust that these things are not just throwaway objects made to embellish the material, it actually contributes to it. Why is the character writing in code? They want to pass on a message that won't immediately be understood when intercepted. Why is that? Is someone after them? Is it dangerous? What sort of situation are they in? It instantly gives the audience a sense of what's going on without actually giving away most of what's happening.

Of course, the code thing is advice that works for ARGs, but not so often in other material, unless that material also involves the on-screen characters trying to solve things, and the audience gets to solve it along with them. Which does work for murder mysteries, because the appeal of a murder mystery is you get to see the evidence and the situation laid out in front of you and get to solve it alongside the characters as things continue. By the end, you will see if you were right, or not, and get your theories proven or disproven.

In other material, the rest of the advice still works - does what is being constantly hinted at or has a prevalent presence in the story have a reason for its existence? Does something that happens in the story make sense within the narrative or is it just there for the shock value? Of course, this doesn't work all the time, but it is a good baseline for whenever introducing something in a story. 

For example, the reason why most 'twists' in stories don't work is often because they are only made for the sake of being twists. However, if the reason for the twists is not  only because of that but because a character's arc is to stop looking only at one side of things, or to tear down the biases they have always harbored despite how many times they have been told to stop that, and the hints are dropped throughout the story and the only reason the 'twist' is shocking is because we have been following a biased, unreliable narrator the whole time, then it works. Because when the audience looks back, or the more eagle-eyed ones take a step back and look at the whole picture, it fits and makes sense and doesn't come out of left field at all. 

Twists made for the sake of being twists are often not all that well-written because people often forget that characters' actions show who and what they really are. Thus, if a good guy who is shown to have been genuinely good through the story with zero glimpses into the possibility that they may not be who and what they say they are, it just seems to yank the audience out of their immersion and go 'wait, what? no.'

Stupid character decisions can also be checked this way. Why did the character make this decision? Is it intrinsic to their personality and reflects what they believe and how they grew up? What are the consequences? Do they have consequences? Oftentimes, if a stupid decision has no consequences and is merely there for the sake of being there, especially when the decision should affect the plot or the character greatly, the character often ends up as coming off as flat or as a Mary Sue / Gary Stu. Or, the plot drags. 

One of the things that interested me and actually caught my eye in the final season of Adventure Time was how after so many seasons, the reality of violence and all the creatures Finn has killed actually catches up with him, because he accidentally kills Fern. Throughout the series, we see Finn defeat creatures left and right, and we never blink at it, because neither does he. He's a hero! He's doing good! Even when he's also technically committing murder, but hey, it's a kid's show, the thing here is just this: this doesn't affect him until he kills his friend / clone / brother. And then this actually makes his character develop - he starts to hate violence, he shies away from it, in fact, he gets nightmares from it. There's a lot to be said about the final seasons of Adventure Time, but that was just what really caught my attention because it was new, there was consequence to action.

Now, this can also be viewed this way: Finn is not affected by most of his heroing (he does develop as a character, just not in this aspect) because it is what he's grown up with. It is normal to him. Something happens, he kills Fern. It breaks him. He continues developing as a character and a part of his personality changes.

If a creator does not want a character to end up a certain way, but has a thing happen to them that should change them even a little bit and yet there's no consequence - when there logically should be - that's when that certain thing has to be inspected. Is it necessary? What other thing can happen that is also just as neat but doesn't demand a character shift? 

Does a character go through trauma, lose people they care about, and yet never acknowledge that such a thing happens but not in a way that they are silent about it because they want to repress the memory and just seem like they forgot about it because the plot has to progress, and so what happens is the event has no consequence or impact at all? The characters may come off as apathetic to everything and everyone, including their dead loved ones. (coughs: HOMESTUCK. Retcon Roxy died and all her friends just happily welcomed Game Over Roxy and made no mention of Retcon Roxy and treated Game Over Roxy like she was theirs and the fandom has been going ??? ever since, because when you think about it, they share the name and the looks but they're not technically the person everyone grew up with.)

Does a character go through something that should tear down a negative part of themselves and have them grow, and they do appear to start to grow, only for that development (or beginning of it) suddenly disappear and the character is back to square one? The character comes off as flat. (CHLOE BOURGEIOS of Miraculous Ladybug, every single time)

Does a character do something they wouldn't normally do for no explanation whatsover, or no consequence? Such as their friends pointing out they're not normally like that, or no one getting weirded out, or concerned? The character seems inconsistent, and maybe even OOC. (Kagami Tsurugi of Miraculous Ladybug)

Does a character do something when they could have done something else entirely, just so the plot could advance and a certain atmosphere could be reached, but it makes no sense when the audience inspects it logically because an aspect of the character that is important or is intrinsic to their characterization was taken away? Bad writing. (Loki and Hulk in Avengers: Infinity War - throughout the MCU, Loki is shown to be a very powerful mage, attacks Thanos with a butter knife and actually dies; Hulk is known to have spat out a bullet after Bruce shot himself, stopped Surtur's sword, and can wield the gauntlet (granted it's after IW), but goes down after a toe-to-toe with Thanos, who's the same size at him, while Steve Rogers, who should be slightly less powerful than a gamma radiation mutant, can stand his ground against Thanos later on in the movie)

And a very, very important thing that can be checked with this piece of advice is character death. 

Why does the character have to die? Is it necessary? 

See, the divide when it comes to death in fiction and death in real life is that death in real life does not always have a reason. It can come suddenly. In fiction, however, deaths are a narrative device, and therefore have to make sense. 

Each character should be treated  as the main character of their own story. Is their death the logical end to their arc? Or is it just to get them off the page because the plot no longer needs them, or is it for shock? 

Shock deaths are often looked down upon, and for good reason - they're not narratively satisfying. Plot-convenient deaths can easily be resolved by a character having to maybe take a break, go live somewhere else, or be recovering from injuries and so they have to be sidelined a bit. Logical-end deaths are often the end to an arc that the character has been going towards, or, it makes sense in the stakes of the story. For example, if undergoing a certain thing means the character dies then it would make sense that they did die, that's what the condition of the certain event was. 

Character deaths are difficult to handle, though, so there's a lot of other factors in play, but it does help to ask what the purpose of the death is. Would the character's arc fare better if they were alive to work on their development? Probably best to keep them alive. Is the character's death just to motivate another character, is it just fridging? Probably don't do that. Is the character's death an arc they have to complete, in order to achieve an end, and it has been said from the start that it is the price to attain a goal, and you're not copping out of it? Probably fine (like in One Shot; the price was always named, it was just the choice that had to be made). 

Embellishments are good in a story, yes, but the important parts have to have somewhere to go, and have to have a reason for happening in order to keep as little loose ends as possible. Solid stories make for good stories. Too many loose ends make things seem just all over the place.