Hello, writers. Tonight I'm going to talk about something that I've seen all too many times in movies and TV shows, and it always rankles. It happens in books, too, although mostly only in sequels. It's the old friend, mentor, or ally who suddenly shows up and the writers try to create instant backstory for someone we've only just met. I call it “the new old character.” The established characters have to pretend to have known them since long ago, and they are often used to create that instant backstory through the use of a few ham-fisted lines of dialogue that allude to their history with him or her.
“Well, Prendergast, fancy meeting you here. I haven’t seen you since that undercover sting where we took down the Delgado Cartel together.”
“Well, well, Agent Mayfair. I hope this isn’t a bad omen. If things go sideways, this could turn into the Maltese affair all over again.”
“Hitarashi! My old sensei. James, let me introduce you. I’m sure you’ve wondered where I learned my very particular set of skills. This man taught me everything I know.”
I was thinking about this because I started watching Iron Fist. It’s part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and although it has its good points, I’ve already noticed some problems. One of the biggest ones is that several of the characters are sidekicks, and as we know, there are no sidekicks. Unfortunately, at one point two of the characters go off with the main character to fight The Hand, a shadowy underground crime syndicate, and while the main character is destined to oppose them and has trained to do so, it’s less clear why the others risk their lives going with him. Oh, they give reasons within the show, but they aren’t convincing and it feels contrived. It feels as if they’re going because they’re supposed to go, because they’re his sidekicks.
Another problem is that the writers try to create suspense where there is no suspense. The main character is challenged by the bad guys, and he has to decide if he’ll go through with it, and then the show dilly-dallies over whether he’s going to win. Hey, folks! The show is called “Iron Fist.” We know he’s going to fight them, and we know he’s going to win the fight. Just get on with it. The lesson here is, whenever the outcome of a scene or sequence is not in question, get on with it and cut to the chase. Never try to create suspense where nothing is in doubt.
But the thing that relates to the topic of this diary is that halfway through the season they introduce a character we’ve never seen before who is an old friend of the woman who runs the martial arts dojo on the show. We’ve never met him, but she is given the task of convincing the audience that she knows him well and that he is a skilled martial artist. His first scene is walking in on her training, and he half-jokingly criticizes her form.
Now, in a long-running TV show or in the sequel to a book or movie you might find you want to introduce characters that weren’t in the first book and yet you want them to have some history with your existing characters. It can be tricky to do this without having it sound contrived. The only advice I can give is, do it gradually. Don’t have them show up and immediately be useful to the main character or critical to the plot. Bring them in, establish their connection, and only later show us what they’re there for. Unfortunately, most readers are still going to notice that book two introduces the main character’s cousin, the Egyptologist, and then in chapter 17 the main character needs an inscription in hieroglyphs translated and all-too-conveniently their cousin is there to help.
The reason this doesn’t happen in a first novel is that if you realize in chapter 17 that you need a character you hadn’t anticipated, you can just edit them in or add them in a rewrite and have them around from the start.
The alternative is Planting and Payoff. If only you had known you would need an Egyptologist in book two, you could have introduced them in book one and had them be a completely useless adjunct, and then it would be far more plausible when your main character used them in book two. This is why I think it’s probably a good idea to have a number of loose threads in your stories, so that you have bits you can pull out when you need them. Still, in all but the most carefully constructed and planned-out-in-advance series, you’re going to find that you need to introduce “new old characters” that you didn’t suspect you’d need but who nevertheless have a history with your established characters, often dating back to before the start of your story.
Tonight's challenge:
Write a brief scene in which a character is introduced (“planted”) whose true function in the story won’t be realized (“paid off”) until much later OR write an especially ham-handed introduction of a character who is supposed to be an old friend of the existing characters’ but clearly has just entered from stage right, out of the blue.
Use your own characters and situations or employ one of these:
- Belinda arrives at the manor of Lord Postelthwaite-Praxleigh (pronounced “Puppy”) only to find that her old paramour (whom we’ve never met), the cousin of Duke Buckwinchestercester (pronounced “Buster”) has unexpectedly returned from India.
- Detective Scotty Blaine discovers that the prime suspect in his latest case is none other than Capt. Stalwart, who taught Scotty everything he knows back when he was only a Sgt.
- A callow youth and her stout companion have discovered a scroll that may reveal the location of the lost Jewel of Togwogmagog, but it is written in ancient Dwelvish Runes. Fortunately, her stout companion’s great-great-aunt is fluent in Dwelvish...
Next week’s diary will be kindly supplied by bonetti followed the week after by the triumphant return of SensibleShoes!
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