Avoiding Deus Ex Machina - How to Create a Satisfying Payoff
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- Опубліковано 25 лип 2024
- Learning how to properly setup and payoff plot devices will help you prevent writing yourself into a deus ex machina. Chekhov's gun is an old rule of thumb, but we can take it a little farther!
#writingcommunity #authortube #deusexmachina #setuppayoff
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-Video Chapters-
00:00 - Introduction
01:21 - Why Use Setup and Payoff?
02:41 - Case Study: Die Hard
03:22 - Inverted Chekhov's Gun & Mistborn
05:46 - Worldbuilding
07:12 - Bracketing
I hit thumb up so fast when he did the editor's note to explain his mistake. I was weirded out when I heard him say Deus Ex Machina wrong and wondered if it was me, so I really appreciated that he corrected himself and set the matter straight. Props to him for that.
Note to self: Google pronunciations before filming, not after 😅
@@AroundTheCampfire Oh, I don't know. Seeing someone admit they are wrong tends to make people pay attention faster than when nothing goes wrong.
Also, how were you to know you were wrong. You said that this was something you have been doing for a decade.
Finally, let's get real, the actual pronunciation of that word sounds weird as all get out.
Your presentation skills are much better here. Change is hard, but you're making it look easy.
Thanks! I'm getting used to talking into a camera haha
Hunters In TheSnow by Tobias Wolff---wonderful set-ups and pay offs.
I really appreciate this video. I couldn't understand why my plot seemed to have holes in it, now I get it. This was a great help.
Glad to help. Happy Writing!
Great video. I really like the part where you reverse Chekhov's gun to make it relevant to novels.
In regards to foreshadowing, I am a huge fan of the Wheel of Time series. Its over a dozen books long and some of the details that are relevant on the last book are set up in the first few chapters. In addition, the books can follow over a dozen characters in over half a dozen locations at the same time. The author had to master the reminding step so that the audience could follow all these different plot points. He used direct dialogue, subtle world building details, as well as characters thoughts and emotions to get that information across.
To those reading the series as it came out it was literally over a decade for some of the payoffs to take place.
Sure, the series is not for everyone. The amount of details that are put into the book will quickly overwhelm a lot of readers more comfortable with fast-flowing young adult styles of writing. Robert Jordan really liked to focus on the small details and could take a page to describe a location. But in my opinion, a lot of those details have payoffs and act like vital foreshadowing.
Mild Spoiler:
Hell, at one point he intentionally used lengthy descriptions just so that the reader wouldn't be paying attention to line about the man sneaking into the room. The man in question had magick that made people not notice him (as opposed to not see him.) So in world characters eyes would sort of slide right over him. The author managed to get the same response form (most) readers through manipulating his prose. So when the dagger struck readers were surprised but couldnt feel like it was a Dues Ex Machina because they literally read/saw the enemy enter the room and just didnt think anything of it.
Wheel of Time has been on my TBR for a while now. It's so daunting because of the size, but I need to dive in soon!
I'm so glad I get notifs for these videos in the actual program. They're so helpful.
This is great. The 'if it shows up in act one it has to show up in act 3' quote always bugged me and now I know why. :)
Right? I think it's unreasonable for most storytelling. Someone in another comment mentioned how the rule originally comes from an economic need in theatre to not waste money on useless props which makes total sense. It just isn't quite exactly what we need for modern storytelling!
@@AroundTheCampfire 👌👍
I noticed! I noticed your setup and payoff with that Rubik's cube. Nice one.
Finally got some recognition 🙏🙏🙏
Along the same line as the Die Hard scene, there's another setup in the scene right before he confronts Hans on the rooftop, where he spots a mail cart with the packing tape on it.
Setup. Payoff.
Studio Trigger: Hm..... LET'S MAKE A CHARACTER CALLED DEUS EX MACHINA. *PROBLEM SOLVED :D*
Having Mistborn on the thumbnail felt right 💙
Honestly, there are so many good examples of this concept in Mistborn and Sanderson's work in general!
One of my favorite examples of Chekov's gun is from the Harry Potter series. The first time Harry goes into the Room of Requirement (I think it was the first time) or at least the store room version of it, he sees the crown and disregards it as it seems to be a toy or a part from a costume, not anything important. It is just mentioned and quickly overlooked but it comes back with a vengeance... it is the Crown of Ravenclaw and a Hoarcrux, vitally important and Harry saw it several books before he even heard of a Hoarcrux or that Ravenclaw had once had a crown. This setup - payoff was so well done that I stopped reading just to admire its beauty. Sure, the journal and the locket and even the ring are all similar, not to mention nagini, but this one setup was so well done because all of those other objects were significant for other reasons but the crown was just a piece of background fluff that was secretly so much more. Placing it there in plain sight' so to speak was one of the few actual Brilliant moves that Tom Riddle ever made. Most of the Dark Lord's choices were pretty blunt and often even predictably foolish but not that one. I alsmost suspected that Rowling had Voldemort become a product of his own image as he got older... it too may have been intentional. In his youth, he was more clever and planned better but as he became 'The Dark Lord' he evolved into more of a sinister blunt instrument of Evil and his planning was little more than slightly clever ruses and delegating to his minions. The crown wasn't just masterfully hidden in plain sight, but the way he acquired it, seducing the grey lady into bringing it to him... even though we didn't get to watch it happen on page, it was still beautifully and cleverly done. Much more impressing than, say, giving the cup to Bellatrix or constructing a Terror / zombie Dungeon in a cave... clearly since it was plundered by Regulus Black...
Nothing beats a setup that was planned that far ahead. It feels like someone actually used magic to make it happen 😂
correcting minor mistakes is one of my favorite things to do and you ruined it
I couldn't just let that mistake go unaddressed. I still can't believe I pronounced it like that 😅
Great video!
Glad you enjoyed it!
To the people reading this: have a good day/night and stay safe during these hard times 🙏
Thanks, friend. You stay safe and well also.
Я не говорю по английский, но по голосу, качеству - энергии автора/видео - уверен, он понимает, о чем говорит. )
A set up and pay off that I love from a story. Is the concept from the anime (and manga) of a certain scientific railgun. Spoilers
Where if people have similar/same brain wave patterns then you could create a network between those brains. That was something that you learned during the first arc of the series, but that did come up again during first half and the end of season 2, even during episode 10 of the season 3 it did come up again. Which is something that I loved when they bring things up again in a series because then it’s more rewarding remembering it☺️
Dus ex Machina Sounds cute
Duffus ex Machina sounds even better
You're funny, I like you. Liked and subscribed.
To be faaaair, my high school English teacher pronounced it “Dooce ex machina” also, so I pronounced it that way for years and years. You don’t always re-check pronunciations you think are correct because of where or who you heard them from.
Mantap
My favorite set up/payoff is a series of throwaway lines in Lightbringer. I’ll call it spoilers just to be safe.
.
.
.
The first time Teia and Kip are manning the mirrors, Teia says that a boy fell down one of the lightwells and broke his back, then lived for six months.
Later, during Teia’s training with Murder Sharp, he mentions that he botched using paryl to tweak nerves and deadened a boy’s spine. He said he had to fix it to look like the boy fell down a well. The boy lived for six months until someone forgot to give him water and he slipped away.
Finally, at the end of Blood Mirror when the Old Man of the Desert has Teia meet him at the top of a tower with a broken mirror, he says “the lightwells are handy to dispose of a corpse if necessary. We can’t disappear a Blackguard and slipping down these is easy enough that it could be accidental.”
that's jojo reference! did not expect that
I also was pronouncing Deus wrong. I then cringed at all the times I used it pretentiously at parties.
I mean how are you supposed to get "Day-oos" from Deus? If you ask me, I was saying it right in the first place.
Campfire Technology That is the thing language isn’t supposed to sound logically. At least according to my old English teacher🤔
Someone needs to show Stephen King this video. I'm reading The Outsider and one of the villains randomly gets bitten and killed by a snake while he's shooting at the main characters.
I was kind of pissed after all the build up.
I literally couldn't parse your Mistborn example. Like, how is this a case of buildup and payoff? What's the buildup?
I reckon I needed more summary for it to come across if you haven't read Mistborn before. I was trying to avoid being too spoiler-y. The ear ring is fairly minor in the first book and when she loses it to defeat the Lord Ruler, it's not apparent that losing the earring is what let her do it. That's the setup. Throughout the rest of the series, the earring comes up a few times in minor ways, we get a clearer backstory of how she got it, and Vin is shown to mysteriously have a power that no one else has. Those are the reminders to keep the concept of the earring and Vin's strange powers alive in your head. Then finally, all of those seemingly disconnected details coalesce into a huge revelation in the third book.
Mistborn has 3 magic systems and each book focuses on a different one. The earring is part of the third magic system, so when we don't understand that system, the various pieces of the earring's history and Vin's powers don't make sense, but then when we learn how that system works, everything clicks. In this case, the setup is a bit more complex than what I said in the video since it's less just about the earring and more about multiple setups leading to one payoff. I just thought that might be a little too dense for one example. Hope that helps though!
I mean, a Deuce ex Machina could be funny too in the right context.
Considering what I know the word "deuce" to mean, it's a good atheistic substitution.
Yes, it was totally on purpose and completely planned 😅
This video is rather ironic, as 2 days ago, I finally found the name of one of my characters: Deus Ex :P
I have a problem, my main characters in love of a girl possesed by a evil god, at the end they kill her to take her powers and the god before vanish give her last breath of life... a literally deus ex machina, I think that would be frustrating for the reader if she dies :(
maybe the main character thru some way trades his life for her? maybe that would go along with his character since he loves her
I think it really depends on what your main character's arc looks like and how they change through the story. I think it's fine to have a divine power save the day as long as your audience understands that it's a possibility, and the characters have a satisfying arc beyond the life saving event.
Joshua also had a good idea. I don't think the hero necessarily needs to trade his life for hers, but since you're dealing with Gods, maybe there is some way for him to get her back. It could even set up a sequel!
Dunno if it's been mentioned, but the ending of the Monogatari series is a huge payoff. Throughout the series, a certain character kept saying a phrase, and sometimes I'd think "oh, lulz, that sounds kinda like she's saying she's doing x." Only for the end to turn out that she does x, at which point she repeats it again and it's like "OMG I SAW IT AND DIDN'T REALIZE IT!" D:
Deus Ex Machina literally means 'the god out of the machine'. Even Goethe took that way out with his version of Faust: at the end of the second part, Faust should go to hell, the contract has finally come to an end, but God sends someone to pick him up and take him to heaven, cheating on Mephistopheles.
I believe Goethe wrote it that way to change it from the original.
@@novamorris8009 I believe he wrote it that way, because he didn't want Faust to be punished for his deal with the devil, since 'man striving for knowledge' (which is Faust's thing in the play) is what he, as a Freemason, identified with.
Depends on your demographic. Writing like this will make the book predictable. Some people want to feel smart, others want something unpredictable. Obviously it would have to be within context... I doubt fantasy readers want a time portal to open up in the final battle and 200foot killer robots shoot the whole place to shit. Personally I'd like that. But I don't like fantasy. I'm not in that demographic.
They might appreciate the clumsy wizard apprentice messing up a spell in the final fight opening a portal to the underworld and horrific demons kill nearly everyone and start destroying the world just in time for the sequel... if it's a dark story... and the story mentioned he was a wizard. Could work if that was their first mistake actually. We all know that super human who's great at their job, but their fuckups are MAJOR. You're free to steal that one. I find fantasy boring.
Dooces ex machina are bad!