Happy Go Lucky – Should we avoid it?

Quick answer is “NO!”. You are the Creator God of your story, so create the world you want, the way you want it, and don’t listen to anyone – including me.

That’s all!

Have fun!

Yorgos KC

…

“What the fuck?!? Is that all???”

Okay, okay! I’ll make this a decent-sized post.

In case you don’t know this, I like this kind of stories, as well as super op characters and extremely strong plot armours. What I don’t like is when the author, after a while, tries to give excuses and to rationalise why the character is that lucky, or strong, or whatever. The “it’s not that I just wanted to make them this way, it’s because of this important and utterly logical reason.”

They think that by doing this, they make the story more interesting and with more depth. My personal opinion is that this almost never works. In fact, in most cases, that’s reason enough for me to abandon an until then interesting story, because it suddenly becomes boring. So please, don’t do that.

There are many authors and very many sites out there that claim drama is a necessity in a story. It makes the story more interesting and everything. That’s bullshit.

If you are writing drama, then, by all means, drama is your best friend. Make it the protagonist that it deserves to be. But if drama is not your genre, then treat it carefully. Drama is not a panacea that makes everything better. It can actually backfire.

Real personal example. I read the “Lord of the Rings” books long before they became a movie. When, while reading the first book, Gandalf died, I stopped reading. I scanned the rest of the book trying to find his name. I didn’t. I then scanned the second book trying to find him. And I found him. That’s why I continued reading the book. Had I not found him, had he really died, I would have stopped right there.

Surprise! Readers like me exist.

“But I want to write this dramatic scene!”

Reminder: I said, you are the Creator God of your story and you can and should write it the way you want. This post has absolutely no intention to stop you from writing the drama you want where you want it. I do that, too, after all. What I want to make clear is that you don’t need to force drama in every story, and you don’t need to avoid the super lucky characters and stories.

Okay? Good! Now that we made this clear, let’s continue.

Aristotle wrote a book praising drama, which survives, and one that praised comedy. The latter didn’t survive – or it was forced to disappear, because it doesn’t support the deification of suffering promoted by Jehovah’s religions.

Umberto Eco either believes that this is the reason we don’t have this book, or he simply used this theory for his story. In “The Name of the Rose” the book that everyone who reads it dies is exactly Aristotle’s “Comedy”.

In any case, the important thing is that just because some great minds – not only Aristotle – praised drama it doesn’t mean that great minds praised only drama. So, don’t believe those wise-sounding (or posing) people saying, “If it doesn’t have drama, it’s not worth reading”. That’s their opinion and taste. Not a fact.

The other argument against the happy go lucky kind of stories is that they aren’t realistic. 🤨

Right!

Because vampires, werewolves, zombies and so many other things are taken out of real life experience. Please! Stories don’t need to be realistic. They only need to talk to our minds and souls. And guess what? Imagination is a “language” we understand.

Some years ago, I went to a friend’s home to watch a film he loved. It’s called “Calendar Girls”. I didn’t know that film and he didn’t say anything about it, so I had no idea what I was going to watch. Moreover, during the opening titles we were chatting, and, hence, I missed a piece of information that I only found out during the closing titles. And that’s when I’m going to mention it.

Worry not. I’m not going to give any spoilers about the film – it’s very worth watching – but I don’t consider this bit of information to be a spoiler, as you normally read it before the film starts.

So, the story starts from a dramatic event – one of the main characters loses her husband to cancer – but that drama is forgotten before you even notice it, and the film becomes a very happy go lucky story.

So, this woman had noticed that the couch in the relatives’ waiting room was very uncomfortable and she decides to donate a couch to the hospital to ease – even if just a little – the suffering of people in a similar situation as her. So, she convinces her friends – all of them women of advanced age – to make a nude calendar – with themselves as the models – and sell it to gather money to buy that couch.

And we see how these women overcome their embarrassment to make this happen, with lots of humour and not any soul-racking scenes and events. On top of that they have a huge plot armour and everything goes well for them. At first, it’s just many good coincidences. The “they are so fucking lucky!” kind of feeling. But as the film goes on, things become utterly unrealistic. Very pleasant, I must say, but utterly unrealistic, nonetheless.

I love this kind of development, but even I thought, “That’s awesome, but it could never have happened in the real world.”

Don’t misunderstand my notion. That’s not criticism against the film, but against the real world, instead.

The ending was very pleasant and fulfilling.

And then, the closing titles came and I found out what I should have known from the start. That this unbelievable story, with events and coincidences that could never have happened in the real world, is actually a real story, and everything has happened.

You see, Life – rarely, I admit – gets too drunk and too high on drugs and forgets to be the bitch she usually is, and instead she acts like a loving, generous person.

So don’t bet your head that something “too good to be true” can’t be true. But more importantly, once again, if that’s what you want to write, do write it!

You see, some people, actually – and I’m one of those – love reading stories where everything is nice and beautiful and pleasant, because that’s what helps us find harmony and inspiration, and motivation and optimism.

So, even if you think that “this is too good to ever happen”, it still is a good story.

That’s all! (For real this time.)

Have fun, and do write whatever you want, the way you want!

Yorgos KC