Always Keep Your Story Promises. Or Don’t

There’s something that is not often spoken of in writing circles. Depending on your writing group, you may or may have heard of it. You may find it on forums, but  won’t find it discussed very much in MFA programs. What is it?

The Promise.

 

Promises are one of the most important aspects of writing a good story.

Whether you realize or not, with any story you write, you are making several promises at the beginning of the story.

A promise made in a story is written in the beginning, sometimes with your first line of prose. Promises are the precedents you set in the story, and are indicators of tone, genre, story type, plot or character driven, theme, and a variety of other elements.

If in the first chapter you start with a car chase and a shootout, your readers will expect more of the same throughout the book.

If halfway through your book, your crime thriller set in contemporary Manhattan suddenly features ghosts or aliens with no prior warning, your readers will be thrown off guard.

If your romance ends with the protagonists not getting together and you have not telegraphed this end, you have a real problem.

Promises can be subverted, but only through extreme care and footwork. The most satisfying way to break a promise is to give the reader more than what they were expecting, or to give them what they didn’t know they really wanted. Brandon Sanderson has some great thoughts on this in his lecture series. I suggest checking out his Youtube channel.

Once Upon A Time in Hollywood promised a horrible end for Sharon Tate, because that’s what happened in real life and that’s what the events of the story seemed to be leading up to.

On the other hand, Tarentino also gave us several others promises 

• Hints that Cliff Booth may have killed his wife
• Cliff Booth beat Bruce Lee in a fight
• Rick Dalton lives down the lane from Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski
• Rick wants to meet Sharon and Roman, thinking it will help his career

Tarentino is the master of subverted expectations. He breaks promises all the time. But he breaks the right ones in the right ways.

The point is to do everything with intention. Here are some tips:

• Give the reader more than what they were expecting
• Give them something even better
• Make it visceral, make it satisfying
• Make other promises to telegraph, but don’t make it too obvious

Promises are ways we can control or subvert reader expectations. Keep them to make a good story. Break them to make a great one.