Aw, Ya Ruined It! (Part Two)

by Linda Yezak
(Nacogdoches, Texas)

I recently wrote about two books I had read. Both were wonderful throughout most of the pages, but both were destroyed at the end. The first one, a mystery, had a painful information dump sandwiched between two great scenes, which I addressed in the last post.

The second novel was a romantic comedy. I giggled all the way through as the author plopped the main character from the frying pan into the fire and back again. Troubles were heaped on this poor woman's head until I couldn't wait to see how she'd get out of them.

I'm glad I waited. The turning point was a let-down.

Deus ex machina is the term used for the kind of solution the author employed. It's a Latin phrase literally meaning "god from a machine." In literature, it describes a plot weakness, a contrived event set to occur at the most opportune time. In other words, it's a cop-out on the part of the author.

The novelist put the main character through several chapters of mounting pains and tragedies, only to solve the entire mess in one sentence: The character had "an epiphany." From there, everything was hunky-dory, and the grand finale was supposed to leave the reader with the warm fuzzies.

It just left me disappointed.

If you're going to steep your main character in sorrow and pain, be fair to the reader and show how the hurdles are handled. If you're not sure how to get the MC out of the frying pan and safe from the fire, maybe you should get out of the kitchen for awhile until you figure it out.