There is a very timeworn piece of advice in writing. “Kill your darlings.” Basically, no matter how neat and cool a passage or scene may be, or the writer thinks it may be, if it doesn’t advance the story, delineate or develop a character, or otherwise serve a useful purpose, then it needs to go. The story rules, and the audience is the final arbiter.
In the course of doing the edited rewrite for Portal Authority Contract #3, “The von Neumann Contract”, my editor called my attention to a tendency I have. I don’t – didn’t – kill off the likeable character, but rather the unlikable jerk. I’m going to be rather general about this because I don’t want to be handing out spoilers.
This was a problem for several reasons. First, of course, it makes the story rather predictable. If the situation is such that one of the characters is for the hammer, and the jerk always dies, well, there’s a lot less suspense there. It also reduces the impact on the other characters. If the person no one likes buys the farm, there’s a feeling of, “no loss”, or at least not much.
In the course of the rewrite, in which the jerk who originally died didn’t, and another and character who deserved it a lot less did, I got an education in just how useful to the story a jerk can be. There are plenty of areas where they can cause problems. Problems are good. Stories without problems are boring.
First off, a jerk is a leadership challenge. This was something I learned about during my military service. Motivating them to give of their best is difficult. To do so requires the leader to step back from his personal dislike of the jerk and find the most productive approach. It’s one of the numerous less-than-fun aspects of leadership. Strangulation does not improve productivity, even though it’s tempting sometimes. Growing into leadership is a very important aspect of character growth, and it needs challenges for the character to overcome.
Jerks have the tendency to not play well with others, which reduces the cohesion of the group or team and thus its ability to function, and survive if the stakes are that high. This creates problems for everyone in the group. They have to quash their urge to throttle him, just for a starter.
There has actually be research done in this area by management gurus, and as it turns out the old adage of “One bad apple spoils the barrel.” has been validated scientifically. The obvious solution of telling the jerk to clean out his desk and hit the bricks is not always available. In a starship thousands of light-years from Earth, it definitely isn’t a player. If, in addition, the jerk has an indispensable skill set, it compounds the problem even further.
Someone screwing up an important job for an ignoble reason is very plausible, and I played that card a couple of times. It was a believable cause for some problems I needed for story purposes, instead of just having them be accidents that just happened, which was how they were caused prior to the resurrection of the jerk.
If the jerk is having a strip torn off him for doing something he shouldn’t or not doing something he should, this can be a way of dropping some information or back story in without resorting to “As you know, Bob.” At least, it’s a more entertaining version of it. In science fiction, this is more of a problem than in most genres because the degree of world building is a lot higher, and all this has to be conveyed to the reader without boring info-dumps.
So, this has been a step on the road of refining my craft. Jerks are frequently useful, and killing them off is frequently counter-productive.
That’s not to say I’m going to swear off killing off jerks altogether. Sometimes the jerk will get what he deserves. I don’t want to be predictable. Of course, there are non-lethal comeuppances which are still pretty satisfying.
For anyone who would like to know more, “The von Neumann Contract” is available on Amazon, in ebook and paperback. See if you can identify the jerk.
Be First to Comment