Why I Love Fiction – Revisited

 

A year and a half ago, I wrote a discussion about why I love fiction. Naive and excited at the novelty of having a blog, I put everything under the vague umbrella of philosophy. Since then, I have learned a lot, and discovered that though most of it might overlap with philosophy in some way or another, there is quite a bit of variety and nuance that deserve their own time in the spotlight. In this discussion, I present five major reasons I love fiction.

The first reason I love fiction is because it sparks an interest in learning. You can never learn too much. Fiction can bring you topics you never knew existed, and make things interesting that you never thought you would care about.

It can make you want to learn science, especially if the story takes place in space. Science fiction, particularly Stargate, played a huge role in setting me on a course for a Ph.D. in astrophysics. Of course, fiction can also inspire you to learn about other kinds of science, like economics, political science, anthropology, paleontology, astrobiology, and many more.

I now know that this has nothing to do with science, but it got me interested

in physics.

As I chose to focus on last time, fiction can make you want to learn philosophy. Fiction forces you to think in ways you have never thought before, seeing real or hypothetical problems people face, the different ways they go about solving those problems, and the consequences of their decisions. Star Trek is the most well-known philosophy-driven series, predicting what society will be like in the future, how it will have solved the problems we now have approaching a global society, and what new problems we will face hundreds of years from now.

Two years ago, the video game Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher sparked my interest in philosophy, and I’ve been reading up on historical philosophers, listening to philosophical discussions, and watching video lectures ever since.

Fiction can make you want to learn about culture. If we are kept apart form outside influences in a community of people who think and act like we do, we will tend to think of our way of life as the best, if not the only way to happiness. It is in our nature. But fantasy and sci-fi almost always take place in a culture different from our own, encouraging us to wonder how life might have been different, better, or worse if our worldview were based on different values and assumptions. For example, in a few nations in The Way of Kings by my favorite author Brandon Sanderson, it is considered immodest for a woman to show her left hand. This might get us to think about what clothing modesty means, instead of taking what we grew up with for granted.

I am black on the right side. He is white on the right side.
It is obvious to the most simpleminded that he is of an inferior breed

Fiction can also make you want to learn history. The relationship between fiction and history is different than between fiction and culture, science, or philosophy. In some sense, history is a giant collection of stories, with character arcs, serial arcs, and meta-arcs. Look at Marvel or DC comics, The Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars; it is no coincidence that the longer and deeper a fictional world becomes, the more it starts to feel like history. For someone who, from lack of exposure, does not know that they would love history, a franchise like one of these could serve as a gateway.

The second major reason I love fiction is because it fosters empathy. Readers learn to empathize with many different kinds of people by seeing stories through their eyes. In Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, we follow a boy whose conscience tells him to do things counter to what he’s been brought up to believe is right. In I Am Not a Serial Killer by Dan Wells, we follow John Cleaver, a teenage sociopath who struggles to do what is right despite having no internal moral compass at all. We can even build our sense of empathy just by reading a story with a viewpoint character from another country, demographic, or of the opposite gender.

Through an empathic connection, readers can learn life lessons along with the characters. Science has shown that, for readers who are absorbed in their books, their brain patterns activate as if they were in the same situations that the characters go through. If characters make mistakes and grow because of them, then the readers can grow with them and avoid making the same mistakes in real life.

The third reason I love fiction is because it provides an escape from the struggles of life when you need it. Though, escapism has a bad reputation, and not entirely undeserved, it can be a good thing in moderation. It is a bit like drinking. If someone spends so much time in fantasy worlds that their life starts to suffer, it is a problem. But in the right amounts at the right times, it can relax a person and make them happier and more productive. Sometimes if you are caught up in the stress of work or a particularly gloomy election season, you might just need to see Superman beat up bad guys, or Goku jaunt across the world on a magical cloud.

Goku in Dragon Ball

Fourth, fiction is a subcategory of art, and art is the ultimate expression of a free society. The more democratized a nation, the more people have the time to write, compose, draw, perform, and direct. The more secular a country, the more diverse and colorful the ideas that come to the table. The more educated a people, the more they will have the time and resources to enjoy and appreciate artists’ work.

The final reason I love fiction encompasses and transcends all the others. When I read a truly good book, watch a masterwork of a movie, or play a video game masterpiece, I get drawn into it with my whole being. I become one with the characters, the scenery, the music, in a zen-level immersion.

When the first tones of the Star Wars theme song sounded through the theater I sat in at my first viewing of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was so overcome that tears came to my eyes. Through that movie, I had such an enraptured experience that when I went home I was so bursting with passion that I wrote an awful discussion about it, which ended up being little more than a fanboy’s gushing. From the outside, fanboys and fangirls may look like blabbering idiots, but the reality is that we have a deep—even spiritual, if I may use that word—fire of passion inside of us, and it overflows. We want to tell the world, to share what we have with everyone, so they can join us in our glorious sense of purpose and meaning.

This is the reason I write. This is what motivates me to keep going, keep practicing, keep outlining and drafting. I want to be able to demonstrate this majesty we feel, and bring it to life in others. This is why I want to write fiction instead of philosophy or science books. This is why I love fiction.

The Intuitive Reader

I am in a unique position, training professionally to be a scientist, and privately to be a novelist. As a science student, I’ve been trained to think analytically, and I almost exclusively interact with others who think the same way. This is great for understanding how the world works, but not so much for communicating with people. I’ve discovered that most people think heuristically, cutting corners with the details to save time and avoid indecision. I notice this, for example, when I go visit my family and the community around them. But I especially notice it in the comments sections of YouTube videos.

A few months ago, I found a YouTube video titled “How Logical Are You? (Psychology of Reasoning).” The narrator presents four cards, A, K, 2, and 7, as well as a rule: “If a card has a vowel on one side, it must have an even number on the other.” The narrator then gives the challenge, “Which card(s) must be turned over to determine whether or not the rule has been followed?” Give it a try yourself. The answer is hidden below.

You flip the A and the 7. A is a vowel, so it must have an even number on the back. A lot of people think you have to flip 2, but the rule does not prevent consonant-vowel pairs. If you find the 7 has a vowel on the other side, though, the rule is broken. In logical terms, the rule is a condition: “if A, then 2.” This is not the same thing as its converse, “if 2, then A,” nor its inverse, “if not A, then not 2.” A condition is, however, identical to its contrapositive. “If A, then 2” is logically equivalent to “if not 2, then not A.” So to test if the rule is followed, you have to check cards A and “not 2” a.k.a 7.

In the comments, people were saying things like, “I got the answer wrong because the instructions weren’t clear.” Nonsense! The rule is simple, and clear as crystal in its detail. Not wanting to have to face his own illogical thinking, the commenter tried to shift the blame to the rules of the game.

I also found a video of Neil deGrasse Tyson giving a speech about ordinary phrases that people say, but that are wrong. For the statement, “days get longer in the summer and shorter in the winter,” Neil explained enthusiastically how if the shortest day of the year is the first day of winter, then the days can only get longer, and if the longest day of the year is the first day of summer, the subsequent days can only get shorter.

In the comments, though, people said things like, “that one about the seasons and the days isn’t wrong.” Below that, someone would say, “yes it is. If you read the sentence for what it says, it’s claiming that in the summer, every day is longer than the one before it.” And below that, the first person would reply, “that’s just semantics. When someone says ‘days get longer in the summer and shorter in the winter,’ it’s implied to mean the days are longer in the summer than in the winter, like everyone knows.”

This person is appealing to common sense to override the sloppiness in wording. What they don’t realize is that there is no such thing as common knowledge. Everyone learned about the length of the days in summer and winter from somewhere, and some people learn it for the first time from people who word it wrong. These people then go about their lives with an inaccurate picture of the world in their heads, and then repeat the false knowledge to their children, family, and friends. One or two words can make a huge difference.

It may seem like I’m saying people are stupid. Not at all. The central aim of a writer is to evoke feelings and direct the thoughts of the readers. To do this well, the writer needs to understand how the readers think. For most people, intuition will get them through their day just fine, so they don’t have much practice thinking in terms of logic and details. As an analytical thinker, I have to keep in mind that most of the people who read my stories will be intuitive thinkers, and I should write so that both types of people will understand and enjoy it.

Maybe you’re not a scientist. Maybe you already think like an average person. In that case, writing for intuitive thinkers will come naturally to you, and you might instead have to work at understanding analytical thinkers. Novel writing is an exercise in empathy, and no matter where you’re coming from, it’s always a good idea to try to understand someone who thinks in a different way from you.

Inspiration and Motivation

It happens all the time to me; I’ll be inspired in the moment to start a big project, think about nothing else for a few days, get all the tools and materials together, and then spend maybe one hour on it before abandoning it forever. If I could show you my computer stash, you would see volumes of ideas for books, video games, TV shows, comic books, YouTube channels, and more. But of course I can’t write all of them. The seeds of ideas keep coming to me, and I plant them in digital soil so that out of the garden something might flourish and grow high above the weeds.

I’ve started plenty of projects, but most of the time before I can make any significant progress on one, I tire of it and start another. As a result, it took me ten years to get a full first draft of Raiders of the Forsaken Archives, and fourteen years to finish an outline of Moebius. Even in my twenties, I have to take into consideration that life is far too short for my work to creep along at this rate. If I want to achieve my dream of building myself a library of literary legacy, I need to focus on getting something done. If you don’t follow through with your goals, it’s no better than if you never had those ideas in the first place.

Right now, I’ve settled on three writing projects to see through: this blog, my Bionicle fan fiction, and Moebius. I have favorites among my other ideas, and I hope to write some of them eventually, but for now I’m committed to these. I have also made a list of priorities to focus my free time on, including things other than writing. Nonetheless, the first thing on the list is Raiders, so that I can keep the edge sharp, and build up my skills to a level where I can write for a publisher.

Recently, I’ve been at a motivational low. It’s been a few weeks since I last posted, not because I’ve been too busy, but because I couldn’t make myself follow through. I started a few discussions, but didn’t get past the word vomit phase. I’d sit with the document open, the ideas would refusing to coalesce into meaningful paragraphs. This lack of impetus happens to me often. It’s why my post rate dwindled to one per month last fall. It’s why it has taken me so long to get my current books to where they are.

However, it’s encouraging to look at my draft of Raiders and realize that I wrote the entire second half of the first draft within the past two years. With this in mind, I can go back and see how my drive to write has improved over time. Way back in my first post, I mentioned that one of my reasons for starting this blog was to push myself to write more. Well, it’s worked; ever since then, I’ve been building momentum. I can look back over the past year and have confidence that if I keep at it, I can get to where I want to be.

I owe thanks to YouTuber Satchell Drakes for making this video, which motivated me to write this discussion and put it out, even knowing it wouldn’t turn out to be my best. Sometimes you just have to do something to keep the flow going, even if the best you can do at the moment is below your usual standards.

What Makes Us Human?

Moral thought has come a long way in the course of history, and has now settled mainly on humanitarianism, the idea that all humans are equal, priceless, and deserve a helping hand. But moral philosophy is far from finished. For example, if we find intelligent alien civilizations, we will have to extend our humanitarian values to include them as well. Possibilities like this raise the question, what makes humanity special?

On the surface, we might think it obvious. There are many things we can do that no other living thing on earth can. The philosopher Aristotle said that man is the rational animal. We can reason. We can write poetry. We can paint pictures. Perhaps it is a combination of all these things. In the sci-fi novel Out of the Silent Planet, by C. S. Lewis, there are three intelligent species, developing side-by-side with each other. Because of this, they came up with a word to call themselves, to differentiate them from the animals: hnau.

But while there may be obvious differences in our everyday life, there is no guarantee that there will always be. In fact, there was a time in the past when it was not. Around 50,000 years ago, the line was blurry when Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis shared the planet. Before that, there were other species of proto-humans, who used tools and had advanced social structures. And before that, there were only creatures of the level that we now consider to be animals. The transitions between these stages were astronomically slow, taking much longer than our entire recorded history. In light of this, we must face the fact that humanitarianism is unstable.

There was a time when a few proto-humans began to speak, and eventually language spread over all people and became the norm. Similarly, throughout the past several thousand years, we see a few humans learning not from tradition but from logic and observation. And now, such thought is spreading around the world. It is theoretically possible for those of us who think more sophisticatedly to separate from the others and evolve into a new, more intelligent human species. Would they, then, have the right to subjugate the others? Absolutely not! But why? If not because we are the same species, then what?

And with species not being the boundary, do we have obligations regarding the treatment of animals, as philosopher Peter Singer claims? If so, how far down the animal ladder should we go? We obviously cannot worry about accidentally stepping on insects, and we kill bacteria every time we sneeze. Almost everything we eat was alive at some time. If we thought it wrong to harm any life at all, the least evil thing we could do would be to kill ourselves!

We also need to face the fact that, even when it comes to human intelligence, there is plenty of room for improvement. There could easily be races out there that are as far beyond us as we are beyond the smartest animals. Popular science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson has a hypothetical scenario, based on the fact that we can teach chimpanzees a few rudimentary words in sign language, and to do tasks at about the level of a four-year-old human. Suppose we meet an alien race advanced enough to find and visit us. We want to show off our achievement as a species, so we bring our smartest, Stephen Hawking, before them. The aliens say, “he can do astrophysical calculations in his head? That’s cute, just like our little Timmy.”

An ant has no quarrel with a boot.

How is the value of a life defined so that we don't have to feel bad stepping on insects, but it would be wrong for god-like aliens to tread on us? Though species can’t be the only condition, it must be important, or else it would be possible that not all humans would count. One additional condition might be that a creature deserves humanitarian treatment if one or more of its species has the capability of contemplating its own death. This would mean it has sufficient rationality to understand how it is being treated, and become indignant if a more intelligent race comes along and wants to use it as a beast of burden, raise it for food, or exterminate it.

And no conversation about the essence of humanity would be complete without mentioning artificial intelligence. Would an intelligent being created by scientists, such as Star Trek’s Data or holographic doctor, warrant ethical treatment? It would seem to me that it shouldn’t matter how someone comes into existence if they have the capabilities to make decisions and have conscious experiences, but how would we know if such a being is actually alive, or if it is just well-programmed to mimic life?

The question of why humans are special is deeply important to every part of our existence. I don’t know the answer. Perhaps as science continues to probe the mystery of consciousness, it will unearth more clues to solving this puzzle. It is a topic I find fascinating, and you can bet I will explore it in the novels I write.

Science Fiction Can Make You Dumber

Kill the Moon is hands down the worst new series

Doctor Who episode in terms of science.

Last year I wrote a post called “Science Fiction can Make You Smarter,” where I discussed how, as a side-effect of its speculative nature, science fiction can introduce concepts and ideas, making it easier to understand scientific topics. But fiction usually only implements, rather than explains, the concepts, ignoring their scientific context. For story purposes this is fine, because lengthy explanations can interrupt the flow and cause readers to lose interest. But, as in all cases when knowledge is presented without sufficient explanation, it allows ideas to get mixed up. When one story gets something wrong, another follows, and then another, and soon the misconceptions have spread though the culture like weeds. Once a false idea has taken root in a reader’s mind, it can be difficult to learn about the actual phenomenon, because they must first let go of the understanding they already have. With that in mind, here are my top four science myths ignorantly perpetuated by science fiction culture.

4: Alternate dimensions.
Sometimes when writers take the characters out of their world and into another, they call the new place another dimension. But a dimension is not a place, it is a pair of directions. You may have to leave our 3D space by moving through another dimension to get to the new 3D space, just like you have to move through the three dimensions we are all familiar with to get to the house next door. Instead, the new place should be called an alternate reality, another universe, or if you want to go string theory, a parallel 3-brane.

You're not in another dimension, Daniel, you've shifted through one.

3: Energy is a substance.
Somewhere along the line there came a notion of something called “pure energy,” represented in the movies as an amorphous substance that floats in midair and glows. Alas, the scientific community can be just as guilty of perpetuating this myth as science fiction. Energy is not a thing in itself, but a quality that things can have and give to each other. There are many kind of energy—motion, heat, light, mass, stored, and even vacuum—but none is any more or less “pure” than any other.

2: Parallel realities branch off whenever we make choices.
Parallel realities are used in science fiction to bring up “what if” scenarios. They are worlds just like ours, but with some things different. The characters can meet themselves and see what would have happened if things had turned out differently. But the way it is usually explained is that a new reality is made every time someone makes a decision, which is simply wrong.

Reality-splitting is actually a hypothetical interpretation of quantum wave function collapse.When quantum mechanics was being developed in the 1920s, experiments showed that a subatomic particle can be in multiple places at once, until it is measured. When something interacts with it, the wave “collapses” and the particle is found to be in one place. But why that place and not somewhere else, if it had the same probability to end up in multiple places? The many-worlds hypothesis tried to solve this question by saying that the interaction with the electron caused the universe to split. In one universe the electron was in one place, while in the other universe the electron was in the other. Few scientists subscribe to the many-worlds view these days, but if science fiction wants to use it to explain parallel realities, then they should understand that the splitting happens because of particle interactions, not because of human choices.

The other option would be if such an inconceivable number of universes exist that, by sheer probability, duplicates form. Though how you would ever be able to find these to travel to them is anyone’s guess.

1: Quantum physics is the science of how perception influences reality.
This may be the most widely spread and abused scientific myth of them all. It is commonly said that the aforementioned quantum collapse is caused by "measurement", an unfortunate choice of wording that can imply that a human is needed to observe it. The science fiction community pounced on this, making the logic leap that quantum physics means that perception influences reality, and the myth has been growing further out of proportion ever since.

“Quantum” roughly means “smallest bit,” and quantum physics models matter at the fundamental level as indivisible waves. Particles can only have discrete values, or quanta, of their properties, such as spin and angular momentum. This leads to many interesting and counterintuitive phenomena, but it has nothing to do with perception.

Sorry, Doctor, but quantum physics has nothing to do with it.

They're just shy, like a deer in the headlights.

Differentiating between science fact and myth is a skill that needs to be built up. To do this, you could take college-level science classes with math and labs, read scientific journals (not to be confused with news articles), or watch YouTube channels run by experts, like Fermilab, Scishow, PBS Space Time, or Deep Astronomy. A working knowledge of statistics helps too. Look out for when scientists use words like “could,” and “might,” which mean you should take that bit of information with a grain of salt. And when you hear about something new, even if it’s from me, remember to look it up and verify that it is indeed true.

Blank Worlds

As an aspiring writer, I have naturally read a lot of stories. Many of these were published works, but I have also had the chance to read plenty of amateur stories, some from friends, some from the internet, and some that I wrote myself. Among these, I noticed that description was often forgone to get to the action quickly. As a teenager, I wrote my stories as I would watch a movie, focused on what the characters were doing, leaving everything else ignored in my peripheral vision. When I read similar works of others, though, I learned the truth: this style of writing presents an amorphous, blank world.

Consider the following opening to a story:

        I woke up in a strange, unfamiliar place. Looking around, I saw a man approaching me.
        “Are you all right?” He asked.
        I nodded.
        “I’m Graham Horner,” the man said, holding out his hand, “Nice to meet you.”
        “I . . .” my mind was blanking. “Christian Horst.”
        Graham smiled. “We don’t see many strangers around here. Come inside. There’s a phone, if you want to call someone.”
        “No cell?” I asked, following him.
        “We don’t get reception out here in the middle of nowhere,” he replied.
        He led me into a building, and gave me a drink.

This interaction is unpleasant to read, and provides no incentive to continue. It was merely light gray text on a dark background, so you may have imagined it taking place at night, or in an underground complex, or perhaps even in a sort of cloudy limbo dimension. No matter which, unless you have a particularly active imagination, it was a blank canvas waiting for a picture that was never painted.

Stories are almost always presented as black words on a white background,

 so worlds without sufficient description usually look like

 a white expanse with black outlines.

Now consider another version of the same introduction, but with description added.

        I awoke to feel the prickling of stiff grass beneath my back. Warm sunlight pressed against my face, and my vision was a gray-tinged red under my closed eyelids. The air smelled of mown grass on a summer afternoon. I opened my eyes and my hands instinctively snapped over them, triggered by the sudden intensity of the sun burning into my head. I sat up, making sure I was pointed toward the ground instead of the sky before trying again.
        This time, when I opened my eyes, I found myself on a wide lawn hemmed by tall trees in the distance. I thought there might be a gravel road near them, though it was hard to tell from this angle. All this I saw through the bluish filter your eyes get when you stare at the bright red insides of your eyelids for too long.
        A shadow appeared next to me and spoke in a man’s voice. “Are you all right?” I turned to see a slim man in a faded blue button-down shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. His leathery tan skin showed a few faint wrinkles around his eyes, and he sported a brown mustache with wisps of gray in it.
        I shook my head. “Where am I?” I said.
        “Oak Valley Community,” the man replied, holding out a hand to me. I took it, and he hauled me to my feet with a strong grip. He was almost as tall as I. “My name’s Horner. Graham Horner.”
        “Christian Horst,” I said. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Horner.”
        The man waved his hand, gesturing me to follow him. “Why don’t we go inside. There’s a phone, if you want to call someone.”
        “No cell?” The grass crunched softly under my shoes as we walked across the meadow.
        “We don’t get reception out here in the middle of nowhere, Iowa,” Mr. Horner said, “but we have phones in our homes and the Common Building.”
        Between us and the treeline stood a wood-sided single-story building with a steep roof. The Common Building, I assumed. It reminded me of a small school, or maybe a church. For all I knew, the community used it as both. In front of it ran a dirt road. I guess I was right about that after all. We climbed a set of concrete stairs to a screen door, on the other side of which was a wooden door for when it was cold out.
        I passed into the large room with small windows and a floor covered in beige tiling. The walls were lined with wooden benches and a few stacks of chairs. To my right, a counter was cut into the wall, behind which was a kitchen.
        As I looked around, clouds suddenly covered my eyes in a haze of lightheadedness. Mr. Horner must have noticed, because by the time my vision had cleared, he was holding a cup of water toward me, which I accepted with thanks. It felt refreshingly cool on my lips, and tasted slightly of minerals. It must have come from a well.

Though it took much longer to get to the action, this version was immeasurably better than the first. Right off the bat, it opened with a variety of sensations, taking the empty canvas and painting across it in multiple layers. Each step added new colors as the scene evolved. Even if it does not look like the kind of story you would be interested in, you might be motivated to keep reading for the immersion experience alone.

There is one other way to give color to a world, and that is to provide a picture along with the text, perhaps cover art. But that does not solve the problem, only one of the symptoms. When writing books, the whole purpose is for the authors to share their imagined experiences richly and fully with their readers, and that can be done immeasurably better with a strong descriptive verbiage.

The Checklist Trap

Two parts of a story are more important than any other: the beginning and the ending. The beginning is what readers use to decide whether to commit to the whole thing, and the ending is what will stay in their minds most vividly after they finish. Both warrant a discussion of their own, but today I’ll be talking about one particular pitfall to watch out for when finishing a story up. I call it the Checklist Trap.

It shows its colors when the readers see a clear set of steps needed to resolve the plot, and each one happens at the proper moment, as if being checked off the list. If you’re into fiction, you have probably experienced a story that falls for this trap. You’re reading along, excited for the approaching climax, and then . . . everything just falls into place, and the main characters win the day. No twist, or if there was, you saw it coming a mile away. An ending like this feels stale, robotic, as if the writer grew impatient to be done and scrounged up the bare minimum so they could put it on the publishing rack.

Though the Checklist Trap is a mostly amateur problem, established writers are not immune. The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, the season 2 finale of Agents of Shield, and Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith are three examples of professional stories that end in a checklist.

Left Behind, a modern fantasy series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins based on end-times prophecies from the Bible, is an archetypal example of a story fallen for the Checklist Trap. The main characters read the Bible, predict what is going to happen, and then it happens. This is repeated for every major event in the whole series. The authors missed so many opportunities for intrigue; no one ever misinterprets the scriptures or misses any prophecies, there is no clash of religious theologies except between Protestant dispensational premillennialism and the made-up Enigma Babylon One World Faith, and the main characters are never wrong about anything. Nothing keeps you engaged, apart from guessing who is going to die, which doesn’t even matter because it is established early on that all of the faithful (main characters) are going to rise from the dead at the end. Forget the ending; the entire 13-book series is one giant checklist.

The problem comes from focusing too much on the ending while planning, and not enough on how the story leads up to it. There are a few ways around the trap, but they are changes to the middle of the story, not the ending. Here are two.

Write a plot twist or two. This one is pretty obvious; if one or more of the items on the checklist suddenly becomes impossible, the protagonists need a new plan. This is extra effective if you make it look like it is going to end in a checklist, and then shatter the readers’ assumptions at a critical moment. I have read some fantastic novels that have pulled this off well, most notably the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson.

Make the plot more about the characters than the events. Sometimes a checklist is okay, provided what is happening is less important than who is in the scene. This is what Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Spoilers) did. Nobody cared about the First Order or Starkiller base. That was a background device to pit Rey and Finn against Kylo Ren on a planet about to explode. So when Poe Dameron went in with his X-wing and blew up the thermal oscillator just like the viewers expected, it served to keep the wallpaper from tearing rather than make the ending stale. (End spoilers)

It should be noted that the Checklist Trap is different from having a formula. If you’re writing a story, the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution model won’t do you wrong. But ask yourself if your readers are simply watching you set up the dominoes and then making them fall, because though it might be mildly entertaining, it makes for a dull story. Knock one of the dominoes out mid-collapse, or put the chain in the background, and your ending will be that much more satisfying.