: Re: Is there such a thing as too inconvenient? I find myself often being irritated at elements in situations that help characters succeed, elements which are also highly unlikely or even illogical.

@Annie587

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I read an article by a writer once in which he said that he spent a great deal of his time putting doors in alleys. And he explained that what he meant was, if he has a scene where the hero is being chased by the villain and the hero runs into an alley and there's a convenient door that the hero can jump through and lock behind him, the reader is going to be disappointed at this easy and convenient escape. But if early in the story the hero is in this alley and sees the door, and then 3 chapters later he ducks into this alley and escapes, it's fair and satisfying to the reader.

In general, for a story to be plausible and interesting, anything that helps or hurts the hero must be:

(a) Adequately foreshadowed. It can't just come out of nowhere and save or defeat the hero. There had to be some clue earlier in the story that this was coming. Having a dragon suddenly swoop in and save the hero is fine if 5 chapters earlier the hero met this dragon and befriended it. But if there's been no mention of this dragon before, he just comes out of nowhere, yeah, that's a problem. As someone else on here said, you can have things "come out of nowhere" early in the story. You have to introduce new elements some time. But even at that I'd avoid having something come out of nowhere to save the hero. They should come out of nowhere for a casual encounter with the hoer.

(b) Consistent with the setting and genre of the story. If you tell me that the knight in your fantasy novel finds a magic belt that will transport him anywhere in the world in the world in an instant, I'll probably accept it. If you tell me that the detective in a grittily realistic crime story finds a magic belt that will transport him anywhere in the world in an instant ... I'm going to have a problem with this. Yeah, sometimes introducing a sudden genre twist can be interesting, like if what seemed like a realistic crime story suddenly turns into a vampire story or some such. But it's risky. You have to do it well.

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