{"id":3571,"date":"2010-08-10T02:00:02","date_gmt":"2010-08-10T09:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/?p=3571"},"modified":"2010-08-08T12:46:39","modified_gmt":"2010-08-08T19:46:39","slug":"irrecovability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/irrecovability\/","title":{"rendered":"Irrecovability"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kris Kennedy<\/em>\"\"<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The thing that can\u2019t be undone. Ringing the bell that can\u2019t be unrung. It means you\u2019re committed. In for the long haul. The act, however unconsidered it was at the start, is now binding.<\/p>\n

I believe this is one of the things we seek in our stories. Oh, it\u2019s 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\u2019t be undone.<\/p>\n

For good or ill, that\u2019s one of the most exciting parts of reading\u2014and writing\u2014fiction.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of the reason why the characters in novels don\u2019t do the mundane tasks of their lives on stage. Things like cleaning the house don\u2019t matter, in terms of Story. (Did you hear that? Just tell your family cleaning the toilet doesn\u2019t have a fundamental turning point within, so you\u2019re giving it up.) Most of the mundane tasks of daily life are revocable. Nothing \u2018turns\u2019 on them. You could take them back, and no one would know or care. Nothing is fundamentally different as a result. They\u2019re forgettable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>They never make a difference.<\/p>\n

(In fact, cleaning is the the antithesis of irrevocable. At least in my house.)<\/p>\n

You can walk away from a clean OR a dirty toilet. That is…unless you found a diamond ring resting there, after you\u2019d 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\u2019t grow in toilet bowls, so that means someone lost it. Or tossed it. And you found it. And your rent is a month overdue.<\/p>\n

NOW you have a story. Now you have a protagonist. Someone with a choice to make.<\/p>\n

Make the right ones and you have a hero. Or a heroine.<\/p>\n

In all our \u2018keeper\u2019 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\u2019s simply no backing out. Nothing they do can be reversed.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

In any event, we want them to have a happy life. We don\u2019t want them to be thrown to the wolves. To feel despair. To have Dark Nights of the Soul. To say \u2018no\u2019 when it\u2019d be safer to say \u2018okay, fine.\u2019 To walk the plank. To face the witch in her very own castle, surrounded by guards, with nothing but a scarecrow to protect them.<\/p>\n

But we\u2019ll do it.<\/p>\n

For you, the reader.<\/p>\n

Because in the end, we\u2019re 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.<\/p>\n

Drama means conflict. And that means being committed. Doing, at least once, something that cannot be undone, ever.<\/p>\n

Check out the books on your \u2018keeper\u2019 shelves. I\u2019ll 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\u2014especially if done in the spur of the moment\u2014pushed 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\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n

Come share a moment of irrevocable choice in a book you\u2019re reading or have read. A classic or an unknown. And to the writers out there, how about from a story you\u2019re 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?<\/p>\n

Or, if you could re-write a scene from a story you\u2019ve read, to include an irrevocable choice, what would it be? Something they can\u2019t take back, and will change everything to come after.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m giving away a copy of my latest release, THE IRISH WARRIOR<\/strong>, to someone who gives a great example of irrevocability in romance fiction!!<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Please leave a comment\u00a0to enter to win THE IRISH WARRIOR<\/strong>. If you\u2019re reading this blog through a feed at Facebook, Goodreads or another social network, please note you need to leave your comment at www.museinterrupted.com<\/a> to enter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kris Kennedy The thing that can\u2019t be undone. Ringing the bell that can\u2019t be unrung. It means you\u2019re 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\u2019s among other things,… Continue reading Irrecovability<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,39,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-authors","category-give-aways","category-guest-bloggers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3571"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3576,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3571\/revisions\/3576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cindyprocter-king.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}