That deeply personal and tragic connection

That deeply personal and tragic connection

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May. 27th, 2018 at 10:20 AM

For me, in modern adventure/thriller storytelling, no trope feels trite, predictable, and frequently downright silly more often than the revelation that the protagonist has a deeply personal and preferably tragic connection to the story problem.

In the remake of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN (which I watched last night and that got me thinking about this), it turns out that Sam Chisholm is helping the beleaguered townspeople because Bartholomew Bogue's men previously raped his mom and killed his sisters.

In SPECTRE, it turns out that Ernst Stavro Blofeld has engineered all the world-shaking threats James Bond has faced through four movies because he's really Bond's resentful foster brother.

Do these revelations really strengthen the stories, or do they just seem contrived? I think the latter. I also think you can have a satisfying story where the protagonist does what he does simply because his sympathies have been engaged, he wants to get paid, or it's his job. Take, for example, the original MAGNIFICENT SEVEN or a whole lot of other 007 stories.

Now, with all that said, aspiring writers, there are clearly many agents, editors, and producers who believe the protagonist's deeply personal connection is exactly what a story needs to sing, so, hey, apply what I've said here with extreme caution. But, readers, I pledge to you that if I ever write a serious story about an Allied soldier fighting in World War II, he won't be on the battlefield because Hitler stole his bicycle when he was a kid.

January 2019