How To Recognize (And Avoid) The "Why Didn't They Just" Clause in Your Writing

"At last, we have you Mr. Bond," said the menacing figure in black.

"Perhaps you do, but-"

A gunshot echoed through the room, and the top of Bond's head evaporated in a spurt of gore. Blood ran from a hole between his eyes, and his dying body fouled his tuxedo pants. The henchman dropped the twitching meat that had formerly been one of MI-6's finest agents, and their leader holstered his compact nine millimeter. They walked away as if nothing had happened, the agent's death already less than a memory.

Said no book ever.

Despite the fact that no book will ever have a scene like this (unless George R. R. Martin starts writing spy thrillers), we've all wondered why this scenario has never happened. The hero is placed in a weak position before a ruthless villain or an unstoppable situation, and instead of letting the story follow the logical flow, the author chose to use a hackneyed trope, a bizarre coincidence, or what can only be described as meta knowledge (something the author or the reader knows, but which the character cannot possibly know) to make the story go a different way.

This is referred to as the "Why Didn't They Just" Clause, because when you finish reading the scene the first thing you're going to ask is, "Why didn't they just," followed by the obvious course of action.

Why Does This Happen?

More often than not the "Why Didn't They Just" Clause crops up when an author wants to achieve tension, but does so in a way that introduces obvious logical problems. For example, the reason none of James Bond's villains put a gun to his head and blow his brains out is because, if that happened, there would be no more story to tell. Your lead is dead, the bad guys won, finito. So to ratchet up the tension villains put James in supposedly inescapable death traps, and then walk away with the understanding that the job is as good as done.

And now they can steal his sweet, sweet car.

There's cognitive dissonance there, though. On the one hand the author has told us this villain is ruthless, intelligent, and efficient in order to give our hero something dangerous to oppose. That's why the inescapable death trap trope makes no sense; a canny, successful villain wouldn't believe James was dead until he saw the body. So, to avoid the logic problem you simply need to create another, easier-to-swallow scenario where James can't just be executed. For example, the villain might need to know certain pieces of information that only the secret agent can provide (as we see in Daniel Craig's Casino Royale). Bond may be a valuable bargaining chip, which could be used to procure freedom for other enemy agents. There are all sorts of ways to keep the lead alive, and give him a chance to escape, without violating the "Why Didn't They Just" Clause.

I'll give you another example; one from a book series that is less trope-prone than 007's world.

It is still British, though.

The Harry Potter series is about a secret world of magic existing in the modern day. Harry goes to school, and gets embroiled in adventures which culminate in him fighting Grand Dragon Hitler the undying lich-lord of evil. We are repeatedly shown in the later books that the forces of evil and tyranny are smashing the agents of justice, and soon it will come down to a single fight, mano a mano, between Harry and Lord Voldemort.

There's a big hitch, though, and it's one that we're made deliberately aware of in prologue. In a passage which has nothing to do with Harry, and which he can't possibly know about, we see the Minister of Magic speaking with England's Prime Minister. The scene is essentially a summation of how an army of giants, werewolves, witches, and dark wizards are coming out of hiding in the British Isles, and they're fighting a war of conquest that's breaching the traditionally held secret boundary. They're winning, and he makes no bones about how many good guys are dead or dying. The M.o.M. then turns around and buggers off.

Now, the point of this scene is to increase tension, and to show the reader what's really at stake. The non-magical characters, who are arguably far more numerous than the magical ones, are left in the dark, sitting around and waiting for their fates. The first words that went through my head after hearing that was, why didn't the prime minister activate the S.A.S., put MI-6 on the job, and go to war to defend his country?

I see a wand. Permission to engage, sir?

The reason that didn't happen is that this book series is not about a bunch of hard cases in black kit going toe-to-toe with giants, werewolves, and a magical hate group for the fate of their nation (more's the pity). The books are about Harry, and he has to be the hero for the book's formula to work. The problem is that by using the tool of "inform the mortal leader how bad things are getting," Rowling left a great, big logic gap in the center of her story. If you cut that prologue out it doesn't change the book in any significant way, and it eliminates the cognitive dissonance that will drag across the reader's mind like nails on a chalkboard.

Common Clause Violations

It's easy to lose your head when your story starts to run away with you. With that said, there are some scenarios that can snap suspension of disbelief if you aren't careful.

1. Calling The Cops: When something bad happens to you, you call the cops and report it. Your wife was murdered? Your house burned down? Someone made a threat against you? The boys in blue are your first port of call. Unless your lead is someone who has compelling reasons not to go to the police (they didn't catch the killer before, lead is a criminal and has to handle it himself, situation came with a "don't call the cops" sticky note that's being followed), that's the logical first step.

2. Being Arrested: The other end of the spectrum is characters whose epilogue should include communal showers and pumping iron in an orange jumpsuit. A one-man vengeance-fueled crusade is pulpy fun at its best, but if you don't explain how your lead got away at the end then there will be a lot of readers scratching their heads and Googling just how many laws he broke by the end of the book. This is doubly important for characters who aren't secret agents or career criminals who have no experience evading the law or covering up crimes.

3. Relationships: No one is good at relationships, contrary to what the gurus might tell you. However, how many times have you watched a series of truly improbable coincidences unfold and just wondered why he didn't call her up and ask for an explanation, or why she didn't come over to his apartment, sit him down, and tell him what was happening and how she feels? If readers start wondering that, the next thing they'll wonder is why they're reading this book.

4. Deus ex Machina: If you've established that a particular plot device (or just a regular old device) exists, and that it can solve certain problems, there is no reason for those problems to go unsolved as long as the device works. For example, if you're being stalked by a crazed killer, and you have a cell phone, 911 is your best friend (see #1). In older books where cordless phones were the hot new thing this choice isn't an option, but if your story is set in a world with security cameras, streaming video, and phones smarter than their users, you have to take that into account.

There are other situations where this clause comes into effect, of course. The key is to look at every decision your characters make, and every twist your plot takes, and ask yourself why. For example, if your by-the-book police inspector has a hunch, and it's one he could very easily confirm through a little bit of investigative legwork, why would he start kicking in doors and pulling his gun without confirming the facts?

The reason is because it's exciting, but that excitement comes at the cost of the suspension of disbelief.

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Do Book Series Really Sell More Books Than Stand-Alone Novels?

I'd like to start this week's post off by reminding everyone that May is national short story month. If you want to get into the spirit of the holi-month, then take a look at New Avalon: Love and Loss in The City of Steam!

You get two stories free, but be careful, this book has teeth!

Now that I've done my duty and informed you of that tasty little tidbit, let's move onto this week's topic, shall we?

Do Novel Series Sell Better Than Stand-Alones?

With the jaw-dropping success of books like A Song of Ice and Fire or Harry Potter, to say nothing of The Hunger Games or The Wheel of Time, lots of authors with money on their minds are eyeing the series as a way to get their hands on fat stacks of greenbacks. All they need to do is pull a J.K. Rowling and, bam, they're sipping champagne on Good Life Beach.

Dibs on the blue one!

This logic isn't wrong... the problem is, of course, that the chances of your book series being the next Harry Potter is about the same as you picking a particular grain of sand out of the above picture. While we know that in the thinky-thinky parts of our brains, we often don't really come to terms with it until we've launched out boats and watched them sunk in the Amazon sea.

Is It Really A Better Idea To Write A Series?

Here's how the logic goes for authors who want to write a series as a way to sell more books. You tell a story that will take somewhere between three and twelve books, and by hooking readers with one book you'll make sure they keep coming back every time you put out a new one. You won't just sell a few extra copies of your previous books; you'll sell every previous book because people want to get caught up on your series as a whole.

That sound pretty straightforward, doesn't it? Before you start jotting notes on book four's plot arc, though, you need to ask yourself:

- Does your story require a series?

- Do you have the staying power to write a series?

- What if your first book flops?

These are some serious questions you need to answer before you start working on that 10-book monster between your ears. Nothing is worse than writing a series that leads off strong, but where character arcs meander, the thread of the plot gets lost, and your cast has to re-hash things that have already been solved in past installments. Coming in at second and third place in the awful-shit trifecta is an author that doesn't have the muscle to keep a series going, or who pins an entire career on a series that brains itself on the concrete fresh out of the gate.

We know what the best-case scenario for a series is; you sell a million copies, tell your manager to suck it, and get a contract guaranteeing you a six-figure advance for the next three books in your series. But what about the worst-case scenario? What do you do when you pour everything into the knock-out punch that is your first book, only to get a sea of form rejection letters? Do you work on book two of the series hoping the first one will eventually get picked up, thereby putting all of your chips on black? Or do you move on to a different project and then try to get your series published later?

Overlooked Truths

It's true that by writing a series of books you will have a bigger product on the market for your readers to check out. But the question you need to ask is whether or not a trilogy of books, or a five book series, will sell better than three or five stand-alone novels. Maybe it will, and maybe it won't. What if those novels are set in a shared world, so they get the benefits of cameos and tie-ins without sharing a plot? What if they're in different genres, which results in you drawing fans from different spectra?

What if you gave away a free gun to every 500th reader?

The point is there is no guaranteed way to sell more books, except to write more books and to write them well. The number of books you sell is dictated by your fan base, and how famous you are. That's why you could write a fantastic story of love and triumph, a riveting tale of heroism under fire, and you will still be out-sold by Jenny McCarthy.

Can you sell a huge number of books with a series? Sure you can! But it pays to look at the potential your series has to fail, as well as the potential it has to rise. If you're already established, you have an agent, or you have a company that is more than happy to take your series as you finish it, then that's probably a good investment. If you don't... well, you might be in for a very rude awakening.

My recommendation? Try a stand-alone first. If you really want to be adventurous then write a book that can stand on its own, or which can become the first in a series. That way if it does well you can keep going, and if it bombs you can move onto the next project without tying your next half dozen projects to a book that some publishers (and readers) may consider a boat anchor.

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Why Are Technology And Magic So Often Mutually Exclusive?

Normally I'd ramble for a bit and tell people about my latest book releases, maybe plug a tee shirt, or offer a back link to something you might find helpful. This week though I'm talking about something that's very near and dear to my heart, so I'm skipping all the usual fluff. In short I would like to ask my readers a question, and it's a question I want them to take very seriously.

Why are magic and technology so often seen as mutually exclusive in mainstream fantasy and sci-fi?

Except in very rare circumstances.

There are countless examples of this sliding scale in fiction. In stories like A Flight of Dragons the whole premise of the book is that science and technology is actively eradicating most kinds of magic. In the popular series The Dresden Files just being near magic makes technology act up (which requires our lead to avoid things like computers, cinemas, and at times actual electric lights). Even in the classic series Harry Potter there's just something about the presence of magic that renders technology non-functional more often than not.

Why do we do that?

Clarke's Third Law

Even if you have no idea who Arthur C. Clarke is, you've heard his third law. In a nut shell it states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. This is an oft-quoted rule when it comes to fiction, but according to Esther Ingels-Arkell over at i09 the law doesn't really work the way we think it does.

Accroding to Arkell's argument this law only holds water if the feat being accomplished is something we believe we can't do ourselves with the right time and training. While we might not be able to build a TV or a laptop, much less a car that runs off of solar power or methane gas, most people who know these things exist believe that they could be replicated by anyone. The reason that we freak out about magicians who seem to be able to levitate, people whose brain waves can bend spoons, and those who can be buried for a week before rising unharmed is that we know, deep down, these are not things that anyone can do. These things are well and truly magical.

Is Magic V. Technology Really About Ignorance?

Let's go back to A Flight of Dragons for a moment. The central crux of the story is that mankind is embracing technology and logic, and it is this philosophical decision to give science a big ole' bear hug that is robbing the world's great wizards (well, all but the evil one) of their powers. This is in a very real sense a metaphor for how we as readers and writers often think about magic. Magic is a product of a simpler time, whereas science is a product of enlightenment. Science can be explained, and magic can't be. Even in our fiction magic is something that just can't exist in a world where we've split the atom, have flying cars, or combat capable laser cannons. And if it does exist then technology just closes its eyes and refuses to admit that magic is there.

I see your fireball, and raise.

Well, most of the time anyway.

Breaking The Mold

There are a lot of niches where the sliding scale has been trod underfoot. The roleplaying game Shadowrun and the books set in its world combines the elements of high fantasy with the gritty neo-noir of cyberpunk for a strange, exciting love child. D20 Modern allows mages to store spellbooks on their palm pilots, and in Pathfinder gunslingers might adventure alongside sorcerers to deliver a one-two punch (even in this game though the resistance to guns existing alongside magic is prone to some hardcore resistance).

In the spirit of this co-existence I'll make a suggestion that goes even further; what would magic enhanced by technology look like? Say that ancient covens always had 13 witches because that was the timber the chant required to hit the proper level; what could one witch with a mixer and recording software accomplish? If psychotropic mushrooms altered your brain chemistry and perception so you could see spirits and ghosts, what could modern pharmaceuticals allow you to do? Using enchanted steel to make a sword is one thing, but what about bringing magic and science together to make a rail gun straight from the heavens?

What kind of marriage would you give science and magic if you wanted them to play nice?

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