By Kris Kennedy
The thing that can’t be undone. Ringing the bell that can’t be unrung. It means you’re committed. In for the long haul. The act, however unconsidered it was at the start, is now binding.
I believe this is one of the things we seek in our stories. Oh, it’s among other things, of course. But one of the reasons great fiction moves us is because we see characters doing things that we ourselves often back away from: being irrevocable. Doing the thing that can’t be undone.
For good or ill, that’s one of the most exciting parts of reading—and writing—fiction.
It’s part of the reason why the characters in novels don’t do the mundane tasks of their lives on stage. Things like cleaning the house don’t matter, in terms of Story. (Did you hear that? Just tell your family cleaning the toilet doesn’t have a fundamental turning point within, so you’re giving it up.) Most of the mundane tasks of daily life are revocable. Nothing ‘turns’ on them. You could take them back, and no one would know or care. Nothing is fundamentally different as a result. They’re forgettable.
They never make a difference.
(In fact, cleaning is the the antithesis of irrevocable. At least in my house.)
You can walk away from a clean OR a dirty toilet. That is…unless you found a diamond ring resting there, after you’d pushed back the hair from your sweaty forehead with a forearm and knelt to scrub your 20th toilet of the week. And then you saw it. Sparkling. A diamond ring. Diamond rings don’t grow in toilet bowls, so that means someone lost it. Or tossed it. And you found it. And your rent is a month overdue.
NOW you have a story. Now you have a protagonist. Someone with a choice to make.
Make the right ones and you have a hero. Or a heroine.
In all our ‘keeper’ books, one of the things we generally find is characters actively getting themselves deeper and deeper into worse and worse trouble, particularly with the hero/heroine, and there’s simply no backing out. Nothing they do can be reversed.
Sometimes this is hard for us as authors. We like our heroes and heroines. We know their histories, their full potential and their pathetic pitfalls. We love them. Or at least really like them.
In any event, we want them to have a happy life. We don’t want them to be thrown to the wolves. To feel despair. To have Dark Nights of the Soul. To say ‘no’ when it’d be safer to say ‘okay, fine.’ To walk the plank. To face the witch in her very own castle, surrounded by guards, with nothing but a scarecrow to protect them.
But we’ll do it.
For you, the reader.
Because in the end, we’re storytellers. We know heroes and heroines have to walk through the fire. Happy, easy things happening to nice, good people, all of which can be taken back at the first sign of discomfort, is not drama.
Drama means conflict. And that means being committed. Doing, at least once, something that cannot be undone, ever.
Check out the books on your ‘keeper’ shelves. I’ll bet you can find at places the characters made irrevocable, un-take-back-able choices. Decisions that, even if done in the spur of the moment—especially if done in the spur of the moment—pushed them closer to the dark edge of What They Known, then straight off the cliff, into peril and danger and their own worst fears. Right in the other person’s arms.
Come share a moment of irrevocable choice in a book you’re reading or have read. A classic or an unknown. And to the writers out there, how about from a story you’re writing? Why does that moment feel powerful to you, as the reader? What is irrevocably different after that choice, and why do you think it makes the story better?
Or, if you could re-write a scene from a story you’ve read, to include an irrevocable choice, what would it be? Something they can’t take back, and will change everything to come after.
I’m giving away a copy of my latest release, THE IRISH WARRIOR, to someone who gives a great example of irrevocability in romance fiction!!
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Great post! There’s a scene in a book I’m revising when a secondary character has to decide he can kill someone or not. I think what he does will surprise the reader, but it will also feel right.
Hi Kris, and welcome to the blog. I got a late start today – my dog’s leash broken on our run. But now I’m here!
I’m about to dive into edits for my next release, so I’m sure I’ll discover a moment of irrecovability there, but right now my mind is worn out from harnessing my beagle like a little horse so we could complete our run!
Hey Edie!
Super good to see you here, and I’m very glad the post was useful in your current revisions! That makes me feel very useful today, and depending on how my own revisions go today, I may need it. LOL
Thanks for coming by, and saying Hi!
Cindy~
Thanks SO MUCH for having me by today! I have to say, I’ve been reading your Peru posts on and off, and really enjoying them. In part, they’ve reaffirmed for me the power of details in world-building.
Sorry to hear about the broken dog’s leash! I assume the rest of the walk was trying to wrangle however many pounds of furry wiggles down the road back home again. 🙂
One of my favorite books growing up was a romance adventure story in which the heroine has to choose sides in a revolution in ancient Egypt. She tries to play both sides for a while and put off making that irrevocable decision, but when she finally does, it’s so compelling, I couldn’t read it enough times.
Enjoyed your post – glad I stopped by!
Great topic, Kris! One of the things I love about writing is the fact that I can edit. When my story is not going the way I want it to, I can just hit the delete key and rewrite. Sure wish real life had a delete key!
But just as we can’t delete all the struggle and pain out of our characters’ lives or they’d be extremely boring people, I wonder if the fact that we can’t do it in real life is not such a bad thing, after all. I look back at the mistakes I’ve made in my life and realize how much I’ve learned from them.
It’s true that many things are irrevocable and irreversible, but as human beings we do have the capacity to learn from them. It’s just like writing, every time I hit that delete key and have to rewrite a whole chapter, I’m learning and honing my craft. So yes, it is these irrevocables that change our course, but if we’re smart we can see that it’s a change for the better.
And thank you so much for making me all philosophical and introspective today, Kris! Now I can totally justify blowing off the housework. I’ve got your hunky IRISH WARRIOR on my TBR pile and I’m dying for an excuse to crack it open.
Kris, she actually did very well. It was just hard on my body, all that beagle yanking. But I have chiro and massage therapy appointments this afternoon – they can help me recover!
Thanks for commenting about the Peru posts. I hope to get back to them next week. Need to get a handle on the edits for my Dec. 11 book first.
Elizabeth~
What a great example of an irrevocable choice! I think such choices are most powerful when they’re the thing the character has been avoiding all along, like choosing sides. Do you remember the title of that story?
I’m glad you stopped by too! 🙂
Susan~
Hey there, girl! It’s my pleasure to foment deeply introspective thoughts on a Tuesday morning, particularly if they also give you permission to blow off cleaning. 😉
I think you’re 100% right, Susan. There’s those Bad-To-Good choices–the thing seemed bad at the time, but in retrospect, it all worked out. I htink we see those a lot of in fiction. But I think even the Bad-Pretty-Much-Stay-Bad choices, the ones that cause regret, can help shape us into a better person, if we use them that way.
And in either case, we can tap into powerful drama by using those un-take-back-able choices. (Altho I admit, I prefer to have my characters make the mistakes, rather than me. LOL)
Kris,
Always great to see you. 🙂 Excellent blog and so true. In my upcoming release, His Conquest, my heroine makes an irrevocable step when she releases her brother’s enemy, the hero, from his cell when he’s to be hung in the morning. Together they flee with the hero ignorant of exactly who she is, a fact that will come to light at the absolute worst moment. As you explained, that retractable step creates drama, story questions, and keeps the reader turning pages as they wonder how in the world will this ever work out to a happily ever after?
Take care and wishing you continued success! *Hugs*
Diana~
How wonderful to see you!
Yes, that sounds pretty irrevocable, that whole freeing-your-bother’s-enemy-from-prison bit. LOL I love characters hemmed in by their own choices, forcing them into more drastic, high-impact choices. Yay for drama! 😉
Thanks so much for coming by, Diana. When does HIS CONQUEST release? (In IRISH WARRIOR, I also have the heroine freeing the hero from prison! How cool is that?)
🙂 Very cool, Kris. ^5 Thank you for asking. His Conquest, the third in the MacGruder brothers series, is released in November! My editor is amazing and pre-ordering became available this past spring. How neat is that? Take care and always wonderful to see you. I’m cheering you on from this end! ^5 *Hugs*
It’s great when you reach a point in your WIP when one of those irrevocable moments crosses your mind and then YOU make one of those decisions to throw it in there and make your H/H’s lives that much more complicated. In reading the fantastic YA book, The Hunger Games, when Katniss’s sister is chosen for the games and Katniss steps up to take her place – you just go “Oh noooo.” Don’t need to win a copy of The Irish Warrior ‘cuz I’m more than half way through it and loving it!
Carol~
Hey there!
Oh, yes, yes–I haven’t read The Hunger Games (putting it on the list), but I love those moments of “Oh noooo!” They’re the best!
I agree too, about how WE get to make the decisions on complicating our characters’ lives. It’s one of the reasons writing is so much fun: all that power to toy with other people’s lives. Mwahahaha. 🙂
And btw, *I* have just received THE SHERIFF OF SILVERHILL, so lucky me . . .
Very eloquent post, Kris. So glad I took a break to read it. I’m on the last scene of my 2nd book and my characters are facing choices at this very moment.
I happen to be terrible at remembering specific scenes and titles of books. I have to search and my CPs would kill me if I did that. There are many many stories that I’d love to talk about, and that’s why it’s so easy to agree with everything you’ve discussed today. Great books always have that choice.
So my backup book to mention is my own. In Hill Country Holdup, the heroine is faced with distracting the hero with the information that he’s the father of her son, or keeping her secret and letting the hero do his job. She risks everything with either choice.
This one secret changed the entire dynamic of the book. I wrote it ONE way in 2003 letting others influence my initial instinct and it didn’t sell. I rewrote it, following my original idea in 2009 and it did sell.
Thanks again for the break.
~~Angi
Oooh, Kris, I love this! I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say it this way before.
I don’t think all irrevocability has to be a choice–I’m really enjoying The Demon in Me, and the life of the heroine (and only POV character) changes completely when the demon enters her. She didn’t make a choice, but it’s just as irrevocable, so it still fits.
I do think, however, that when it IS a choice, you get the very best of conflict and drama. Something that I will remember forevermore! 🙂 Thank you!
Ooops – It’s Mara, Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Jarvis McGraw, a wonderful young adult romance from the 1950s. Was already long out of print when I was a kid. After reading it a ridiculous amount of times from the library, my mom took pity on me and hunted down a copy from a used bookstore. Of course I still have it. 🙂
Great topic – enjoyed reading the comments too.
Elizabeth
I’m late chiming in here, but my debut book, Awaken the Highland Warrior is built on a very irrevocable choice. The hero is a secret warrior sent by Michael the Archangel to destroy a demon who’s trying to destroy the world and only my hero’s talisman can stop it. Several warriors are sent with him, but my hero sends them away to safety, since they don’t have the protection against this demon that he has. He doesn’t count on finding not one, but four powerful demons, one that is trying to destroy the world. He can’t fight them alone so he’s captured and thrown into a time vault which can’t be opened for 150 years. He wakes 150 years later believing he’s responsible for destroying humanity, until he meets the heroine. But he still has to stop the demon and make peace with the fact that he lost his family and everything he loved and endangered the entire human race because of a choice.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you to Kris for a wonderful blogging day yesterday!
The winner of THE IRISH WARRIOR is…drum roll…Natalie J. Damschroder. Natalie, please look for an email from me in your in-box.
I have two guest bloggers this month. The next is historical romance author Jeanmarie Hamilton, August 24th. Please join me again then.
Hi ladies!
Sorry for not getting back again until today.
Elizabeth~ Thanks for the title of that book! I think I may go on a little YA binge, as someone just mentioned THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND the other day, and I’ve never read that either. Thinking of YAs, tho, is making me nostalgic for all the ones I loved as a kid & teenager.
Angi~
Ohh, very glad to hear your characters are in terrible trouble, backed into a corner, forced to make unwanted choices! LOL
And you make an important point: while we all have ‘craft’ to learn and develop–which we do by listening to others and by practice–there’s some places where we just have to follow our own instincts. Congrats on the sale!!!
Natalie!
Hello there! Very glad to see you, and now, to hear you’ve won the book. I hope you love it! 🙂
You’re so right, that unreversible things are sometimes thrust upon the characters, conditions of life to which they must respond, and those are as irrevocable as choices made. Good point. I think this is often what comes at the START of a book, isn’t it? The Call, so to speak.
And then, when the irrevocability starts coming from character choices–even mistakes–it gets even more fun (umm, fun for us, the reader. For the characters, of course, it gets much, much worse.) LOL
Anita~
No such thing as chiming in late: you chime when you get here. 🙂
I love those kind of un-take-back-able choices that you described, the protagonist mistakes. Errors in judgment, or execution, etc, usually due to some character flaw or shortcoming. So now, they must work to overcome this fatal flaw, etc, so they can make amends, repair the damage done somehow. And of course,t he fact that this need to repair things haunts and drives them makes them fundamentally heroic in substance.
Best of luck with your story, which sounds emotionally packed!
Oh, very good point, the irrevocable choices can continue, they don’t have to be one big choice driving the plot!
And YAY for winning! I already thanked you privately, but must do so publicly, too! Thank you!
(And sorry for posting this so late, I only blog read every few days and if there’s no subscribe to comments feature, I forget to look!)
Dear Natalie,
Are you criticizing my oack of a subscribe to comments feature? 😉
It’s on my never-ending to-do list!!