Tragedy, one of the oldest forms of drama, is also one of the hardest form to write. Tragedy hits us the hardest, both in the writing and the reading, because it comes from our failures, our losses, and our guilt. Real life tragedies are hard enough to deal with without adding the burden of tragedy fiction. But the ancient Greeks had a fundamental understanding that tragedy could be good for the soul, giving catharsis for the audience when no other avenues of purging was available. Shakespeare too understood that for every tragic moment in life there needed to be laughter. There is a reason behind the bumbling undertaker and his crew in Hamlet. Tragedy cannot be hit after hit of bad news. It needs to have light, laughter, and love in it before the final destruction. Otherwise, how will the audience understand how badly the story ends?
The key to writing tragedy is to not confuse it with horror. Horror is about fear (and blood & guts in today’s modern markets). Tragedy is about loss. It doesn’t require blood & guts to be hard-hitting, and tragedy done properly can get your reading audience screaming, crying, and feeling much better about their own lives when they’re done reading it.
Yes, I’ve done tragedy before on Writing Prompt Wednesdays. I’ll probably do it again at some future point (I both like and write tragedy myself). Last time, we focused on the catharsis part of tragedy (What Makes You Cry). Today, we’re focusing on the inevitable downslide of a character’s personality. James MacDonald teaches his Viable Paradise classes that “tragedy is what happens when a character puts his wants before his needs.” So, this is where we start… Prompted by my comic habit and the movie MegaMind.
Da Prompt: Your protagonist wants to be a hero. Maybe there’s a war looming on the horizon. Maybe there’s a conflict with the local crime syndicate. Maybe the world is filled with superheroes and the protagonist feels left out. What the protagonist really needs is to accept herself / himself as (s)he is because that person could do wonderful things with the talents (s)he has. But “wants” will always trump “needs” for this character and (s)he will do whatever it takes to get what (s)he wants. What lines will this character cross? What precious beliefs, loved ones, things will this character sacrifice to get what (s)he wants? What is the true cost of heroism?
Address these questions in your story. Wordcount is whatever you need it to be. Point of View can be first person or third person. Don’t do omniscient POV.
NOTES: Tragedy as defined by Dictionary.com (halfway down the page)
1. (esp in classical and Renaissance drama) a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal
2. (in later drama, such as that of Ibsen) a play in which the protagonist is overcome by a combination of social and psychological circumstances
3. any dramatic or literary composition dealing with serious or sombre themes and ending with disaster
4. (in medieval literature) a literary work in which a great person falls from prosperity to disaster, often through no fault of his own
5. the branch of drama dealing with such themes
6. the unfortunate aspect of something
7. a shocking or sad event; disaster [C14: from Old French tragédie , from Latin tragoedia , from Greek tragōidia , from tragos goat + ōidē song; perhaps a reference to the goat-satyrs of Peloponnesian plays]
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Writers are frequently asked the question “Where do you get your ideas?” The question is a hard one to answer because we all find our inspiration in different places. Some people need to be given prompts, little snippets of ideas to spark their imaginations.
With that in mind, I am posting Writing Prompt Wednesdays. The goal is to inspire writers with exercises meant to train their skills and fire up the creative juices. There are rules. Most prompts will have associated word counts or style instructions. These are not meant to restrict the writer, but give the writer a chance to explore different ways of writing.
If you are an author in search of that one juicy idea, I hope these posts help. If you have ideas for writing prompts, please let me know.
Da Rules:
1) Anything goes so long as you stick to the spirit of the prompt.
2) I ask that if you do publish something based on one of my prompts, that you post the good news (and the link) in the comments of the prompt that inspired your success. You want other people to help you celebrate, right?
