: Re: How to handle a character's failure? I've been writing fan fiction for 7+ years, in an attempt to weed out the beginner mistakes and know what works. In one of my fan fictions, the main character

@Sent2472441

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Remember that, from Mike's perspective his mother is still alive.

And the story should be told from Mike's perspective -- even if the narrative is third person.

So your story leading up to the rescue attempt cannot dwell on anything that might be construed as evidence to believe the mother is dead. Because the story is an account of Mike's mental history and his mind will simply not allow him to entertain that fact.

So come up with some reasons someone might believe this -- small and bad reasons of course* -- but reasons someone could focus on to the exclusion of all else. There will always be reasons for and against. Mike will focus on one and ignore the others.

Maybe there was a similar event where a group of survivors holed up for months or years in an abandoned hospital. Devote some time to Mike poring over the specifics of the hospital: Exactly what let them survive so long. What does the hospital have in common with the other building?

Make sure to include loads of oblique references to groups not surviving for so long. But the narrative cannot dwell on them, because Mike dismisses them immediately.

Maybe the hospital story is just a rumour. Maybe Mike never delves deep enough to discover how unbelievable the story really is. Maybe the others are too busy running for their lives to point that out.

All in all, whatever Mike's decision is, it should seem like the only reasonable choice to a reader who is not reading too closely. Mike feels the same way about his decision himself.

*A way to do this is to imagine the problem of zombies is replaced by a smaller problem (mosquitos?), coming up with reasons in that context, then stretching them to apply to the real context.

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