Novice Writing Mistakes: #1

· Writing

I'll write a series of these, all mistakes I'm guilty of making at some point in my writing.

The Allure of the Unconscious MC

Your MC faints somewhere in the first 3 chapters.

To get an idea of how old this trope is, Dante faints before crossing the river Acheron, the underworld's river of pain, on his way to Hell. Check out Cantos 3 & 5.

Now, for Dante, it’s a deliberate allegory - eventually he stops feeling pity for all the poor souls in Hell, and stops fainting. His message: Buck up. Have no pity for these sinners.

That was in 1300 (!!). Apropos, even revolutionary, for the time period.

700 years later, it’s cliche.

Unless it’s a literary device, meaning it serves an indispensable purpose or actively propels the plot in your story, your MC needs to stay conscious.

We’ve all written this scene. I started this WIP with my MC making a 150-foot dive off a cliff. No way, I thought, having bungee jumped off a bridge in Costa Rica and from a crane poised over a drainage ditch in Florida, would my 13-year-old MC stay conscious. That was in the first draft, many years ago.

No one’s immune to the allure of the unconscious MC. But it marks your story as one written by a rank amateur.

So, fellow writers, keep your MCs conscious. His or her narrative life is too short.