Breaking Promises (Writing Workshop)

Today we’re talking about the promises and implied expectations we as storytellers make. For those of you not in the know, Brandon Sanderson is one of my favorite authors, specifically from a narrative craft perspective. One of the things he talks about over, and over, and over again, is making promises and then fulfilling them.

This is sort of a tricky concept that’s easily forgotten when our stories get into the meaty middle and start juking and jiving all over the place. Compounding this problem is the fact that sometimes we don’t even discover until midway through the book what sort of story we’re even telling. This means either copious amounts of revising, or breaking some promises.

Alright, before we get too deep, let’s explain what’s meant by ‘promises’.

Regardless of what sort of story you’re telling, in the first few pages, you’re making some promises. If you adopt a whimsical tone with slap-stick comedy, you’re telling your audience, this is going to be lighthearted little romp. If on the other hand, you start your book with a brutal murder mystery, then you’re making an entirely different sort of promise.

Now, beyond promising a cohesive narrative tone, you’re also establishing some genre promises. Again, if you start the book with a murder mystery, you’re making the unspoken agreement with the reader that by the end of the book, that mystery will be resolved in some sort of satisfying way (note: this does not mean everything ends happy and honky-dory, but that initial mystery will be resolved!).

If you get to the end of your story, and you haven’t delivered on that initial promise (aka: you haven’t resolved the mystery of whodunnit or why),you’re going to leave your readers with a fur-ball of frustration in their throat.

Interestingly, your audience might be unable to articulate their feelings of frustration, but it’ll gnaw at the back of their mind like Pinnochio with a termite infestation all the same.

I read a story a couple months back that did this exact thing. First chapter opened with a murder investigation, point of view character is the detective in charge. We follow this detective throughout the book, but midway through (as should be the case in your book) the crisis escalates and the murder is no longer the primary concern. Now, this is fine, your story should be like a staircase of ascending problems, but for every step you take towards the top of the building, by the end, the reader needs to return to ground floor.

Don’t leave your reader on the roof! They’ll likely starve or die of exposure up there. And then guess what, they’re gonna leave you a bad review. Guess what else? I won’t feel bad, ’cause you deserve it, you filthy promise breaker.

Okay, so playing on the staircase metaphor, let’s give an example and walk through a sample story to get an idea of how this works.

Ground Floor: Baseline. Nothing terribly exciting here.

First Step: Murder scene. Who dunnit?

Second Step: Murder investigation leads into a twisted den of liars and thieves. Things are not what they seem. MCgarners the attention of the wrong crowd. Now MC’s a target.

Third Step: More murder! Perhaps somebody close to the main character; perhaps not.

Fourth Step: More investigating, but now MC’s daughter gets kidnapped by mobsters.

Fifth Step: MC discovers a secret society of bad guys. The murders are now just a small piece of a much bigger puzzle.

Sixth Step: *by now we’re huffing and puffy. I mean, seriously, six whole steps? Whew* MC tracks down the mobsters, and rescues his daughter.

The Roof: Our MC has saved his daughter, and now he brings down the crime syndicate boss-man. Shoots him with a spit wad right in the eye, bad guy winces, stumbles back and falls down our fairly little staircase. Breaks his neck. We win! Huzzah!

Note: whimsically killing the bad guy in a story like this is breaking your initial “This is a grisly murder mystery” promise.

But don’t write: The End, and call it good. Walking away now leaves us with literary blue-balls because our MC never resolved the mystery of that initial murder. During his escapades he got sidetracked and tangled in this other mess, but we can’t leave that first story thread flapping in the wind. Tie it up nice and neat, make a bow for god’s sake.

So, now we have to reverse the steps (this is called the denouement or resolution, and it can be done pretty quick).

Sherlock Holmes does this all the time with Watson. He’ll sometimes take a moment to tie all the seemingly unrelated strands together. For instance, that initial murder could just be wrong place, wrong time. The guy went into 7-11 to get a 72 ounce slurpee, stepped outside and got shived in the spine because the assassin-for-hire made a mistake and offed the wrong guy.

Simple case of mistaken identity that led the MC to uncover a much deeper, darker society of inept assassins. But if you never directly address this, and don’t return the reader to ground level, they’ll leave your story with a sense of incompleteness.

There are other ways of breaking a promise, by the way. Earlier we mentioned setting the tone early on in the story and then maintaining consistency throughout. Sure, the story is an ever-living, growing, breathing monstrosity, but it should only change in degree, not type.

Your gritty detective noir should not morph into a coming of age rom-com by the end.

I actually made this mistake in one of my stories, though I’m not going to tell you which (you’ll just have to read them all and figure it out for yourself. Muahaha!). I started the story very whimsical with a lot of feel good banter being tossed about.

The inherent promise I made to the reader was: You’re going to have a good time, laugh, and leave this story feeling bubbly.

Problem? Uh… I killed everybody off in the final chapters. And not in a funny way, either (eg: slipping on a banana peel).

Interestingly most readers really enjoyed the story, but then expressed how the ending left them feeling gutted. Which, in point of fact, was my goal. But I gutted them by making them fall in love with the characters and then brutally slaying them.

Think of it like this: You watch seven season of Friends, and then George R.R. Martin takes over writing the last three episodes.

You’re gonna walk away with some mixed feelings. No, actually, they probably won’t be mixed, you’ll probably just feel horrible. And not the good kind of horrible.

Keep this in mind when you’re crafting your stories. Deliver on the initial promises you make. If by the end you haven’t delivered, or you’ve delivered on the wrong promise, well, go back and fix it. Trust me, you’re story will be all the better for it.

What’s your favorite example of an unfulfilled promise in storytelling? Was it a book, movie, T.V. show?

My personal favorite example is the television series: LOST. Okay, scamper down to the comments and tell me I’m wrong. I dare you!