Hello everyone
The Prussian Generalfeldmarschall Graf Helmuth von Moltke was regarded as one of the preeminent military minds of his era. He developed the axiom:
no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy
The boxer Mike Tyson expressed much the same sentiment in somewhat more practical terms:
everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face
As readers, it’s that punch in the face that makes us turn the page, but not because we enjoy the violence.
The story engine
At the root of (virtually) every story is a character, the protagonist. The protagonist wants something, but they will encounter setbacks. They will be punched in the face, sometimes literally, but usually metaphorically.
As readers, we don’t want setbacks for characters we love; we don’t want anything to get in their way. But in fiction, these setbacks are crucial.
The plan crumbles
Both Tyson and von Moltke expected conflict. Indeed, their respective jobs were centered on the embodiment of conflict, and they planned for that conflict.
And so it is in fiction.
Every protagonist has a plan of some nature to overcome the obstacles that lie in their path. This may not be a well thought through plan, but every character will act with the expectation of achieving a certain goal. And a character will often anticipate and prepare for a certain reaction.
However, even when they know that such a blow is inevitable, no one knows how, or when they are going to be punched in the face.
But the collision with reality and the crumbling of the plan is largely a second order issue for the reader. What matters—what interests us as readers and keeps us engaged—is how a character reacts once their plan has crumbled.
What the failed plan tells us
When a plan fails, we learn about the protagonist’s character.
in failure, the protagonist reveals their character
We learn about their grit and determination—will they keep going despite the impossible odds and the cost to themselves, and what are they prepared to sacrifice for their goal? We see their intuition and their resourcefulness—we stand with them as they develop their next plan and take their next shot…which might lead to another punch in the face, but still they press forward.
And by watching the reaction to the blows and the destruction of their plans, we learn more about the character than we would had there not been the adversity. While Tyson and von Moltke might hope their plans succeed, for the reader, it is always better for the plan to fail.
And what about authors?
And of course, for every author, for every novel, the plan they have rattling around in their brain when they first begin a novel never survives the battle of getting it out of the author’s brain and onto the page.
I’m currently in that battle myself and that’s what I’ll be doing for the next while.
Until December.
All the best
Simon