Balance

Remember in Star Wars, how Anakin is supposed to be the one to bring balance to the Force? (by the way, why did the Jedi think balance meant there would only be good? That doesn't make sense to me.)

Well, that's what we're talking about today.

Sort of.

Balance

Writing requires balance, just like the Force did. But unlike the Jedi of the Force, we're not trying to just have good. We're trying to have a solid balance between good and evil, so that things aren't swayed in one single direction.

Why?

Because we don't want our readers to be able to predict us.

With that in mind, three areas where we all need balance in our writing:

1. Between good and evil

Like I said, it's important that there be a tension between good and evil -- and that requires balance. But that doesn't mean the scales can't be slightly skewed. If you're writing primarily from the POV of your protagonist, and you want your protagonist to win in the end, then you likely want the scales to be weighed heavily in favor of your antagonist.

But if you want your antagonist to seem more human, you'll want to go closer to even-steven. 

And if you're writing from the POV of your antagonist and you want him to succeed, tip the scales in favor of the protagonist.

It's like a game of teeter-totter, and we get to play with the reader's mind while we get everything figured out for ourselves.

2. Between men and women

J.R.R. Tolkien is one of my favorite authors. He's amazing. But The Hobbit has one utterly fatal flaw: the story's main characters are all men.

All of them. All fifteen of them.

That's a problem.

Especially these days, people want to read female characters. We didn't hear from them for so long that it's time their voices be heard.

But don't just write women.

For myself, I make a rule that for every two average male characters, I create one very personable and fun female character. Why? Because female characters stand out more, especially when they're well written.

3. Between dialogue and exposition

This one is the one most people will disagree with me on, but you need to have a good 50/50 balance between dialogue and exposition. For some stories, you can get away with having more exposition or more dialogue, but the best stories are approximately 50/50.

So if you want to write a solid story that people want to read, do it half and half.

Keep it balanced.

But don't be afraid to tip the scales.

[love]

{RD}