Recently, I have stumbled upon a problem. After releasing an issue, I think that I failed to earn the trust of my readers. My analysis is that they did not have enough faith in me to make the "right choices" about my story. Let me explain:
One of my protagonist closest friend is a traitor secretly working for the bad guy. He plans to kill the hero, and the reader is not aware of that. I have made sure that he looks like a genuine sidekick, though there is plenty of evidence that suggests he will do something.
Before a battle, he ultimately poisons the hero with a unique type of toxin designed to induce bloodlust and insanity amongst men. I introduced a Chekhov's gun just before to showcase the moment Traitor poisons the hero, but nothing is explicit, a.k.a. the reader does not know that the hero has been poisoned. Then, during the battle, the hero goes on a rampage and kills people from both sides due to the effect of the poison. An action which causes him to lose most of his support and makes him question everything he has been fighting for.
Following this event, he will find a way to win without fighting because he fears to lose his mind a second time. It's only later that we learn the hero rampage was caused by the poison, and that it was all Traitor's fault.
The scene during which the protagonist goes insane was all but successful. Instead of asking themselves "what happened", "why did the hero do that", the readers came with critics like "the hero would never do that", "it makes no sense" or "the story lost its potential". Moreover, if I try to bring the poison and explains it all now, it will sound forced and as if I was trying to "make up" for my mistake (even though it was definitely planned!).
I am confused about this reaction, and I don't know how to handle it. I don't think the plot is the cause. The hero had to go through this trial, and the traitor had to provoke it. Yet, I have been wondering what went wrong. The explanation I came with is that I did not build enough trust. Which begs the question:
What should have I done to have the readers trust me and my story?
Answer
What you should have done, and should do in rewrite, is make it clear to the reader a traitor exists, perhaps make it clear a poison that does exactly that exists, etc. You can do that early in your book, in a story or fable.
The readers already believe the MC would never do this thing. So you need to hang a lantern on this behavior during the battle. Say the poison is called "rage oil", somebody in the battle can scream "Bob's been roofied on rage oil! He killed Stanley! Stay clear!"
So the reader gets it; yes, Bob would never, but Bob's on rage oil, so yeah. Then their focus is indeed on "Who roofied Bob?" You can still leave that part a mystery.
It messes a little with the rest of your plot; now there are people looking for a traitor they can't find. Bob doesn't suspect the real traitor. The real traitor may manage to frame somebody else, or one of the dead. Perhaps, out of caution, he even did that before the battle, getting the poison into Bob's food or drink that got served by someone else. The servant girl that mysteriously ended up with her throat cut once the battle was done. (Traitor killed her).
But it can still be true that Bob is motivated to solve the problem without battle.
In general you have to provide enough clues that the reader has SOME reason for a character to do something they would never do. Go back and plant the seeds earlier in your story, hang a lantern on the MC's behavior during the battle, and leave them with a question that makes sense (who is the traitor), not a contradiction of what they already knew.
This in turn primes the reader for your later reveal; you can't just surprise them out of nowhere with a best friend that was a traitor all along; that feels like a deus ex machina. Now they KNOW there was a traitor, and you can make the dead servant girl seems too darn convenient so the reader knows the traitor is probably still out there. Then they aren't surprised BY the traitor being revealed, only by who it is. But it doesn't look like a deus ex machina, they are forewarned that some trusted person is the traitor, and the best friend was in a position to execute all the sabotages.
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