Why Stories Die: Power Without Limits, Love Without Tension

This is a post I’m writing to clarify my thoughts, just like I did with the post about the mindset of Sioul and the one about Tamzyn.

I was listening to a series of podcasts about videogames, and also about novels. I realized there are common problems we all face. I’ve suffered them too as a reader of long book series.

A story can be ruined in two fundamental ways:

• Power overload: for example, Anne Rice’s vampires, who become more and more powerful until practically nothing can kill them. Or her werewolf novel, which ends up with the same issue. With Conan this never happens, for instance.
• The protagonists’ relationship becomes routine, boring, and without mystery. This happens in all romantic novels. That’s why “and they lived happily ever after” is the ending.

Because you know that the wizard, vampire, or god becomes so powerful that nothing can threaten them, so the story no longer has any challenge.

The story ends up turning into Dragon Ball, with characters shooting beams from their hands and flying around.

And you know that the couple who once were “two against the world” becomes something routine, normalized, and dull. “They lived happily ever after” is a euphemism for the solemn hassle their life is going to become. Or for the cage they will lock each other into, killing everything beautiful they once had.

SO WE HAVE TO AVOID IT! LET’S SAVE THE STORY!

There are two problems. We’re going to avoid power overload in several ways:

• Sioul may manage to master some time spells, but all of them will be complicated and require severe risks and sacrifices.
• Magic will have limitations. For example, you cannot resurrect a human in a perfect or easy way, or it’s simply impossible. Dryads only if they have just died.
• Breaking the normal limits of magic is extremely costly, mentally and physically.
• You cannot cast spells without lowering your guard. That’s already in the story: Sioul always needs a warrior to accompany him.
• He needs his hands free and must be able to pronounce words.

A mage can increase his power, but he will always be relatively unprotected against threats because he must concentrate intensely on his spell.

AND WHAT ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP?

The relationship issue is the most complicated. Sioul and Tamzyn’s relationship is alive because:

• She is eternal and he is mortal. The fear of losing him keeps Tamzyn interested in making the most of every moment. It connects with fear of abandonment or death.
• She is, in Sioul’s mind, something ideal he doesn’t fully deserve. That makes him cling to her as something extraordinary. It connects with the purest form of infatuation.
• Tamzyn is free, untamed, and belongs to another world. Sioul is a wanderer, a strange man interested in arcane things. Both traits foster mutual mystery.

My initial idea is that they build a life together: they confess their love, they have a house, they marry, they even have daughters.

Aubeline would tell us, with her sharp and wild voice:

—And you’re going to mess it all up like that? I’m already yawning… Do you think you can lock my little sprout in a hut and brush her hair at night? And that blond wizard… he’s such a rogue!

"The scent of  your skin, like flowers and wood"

My story wants to show a true love that grows and progresses, but at the same time I don’t want to turn it into something conventional.

These are the dangers for a couple:

• Desire is fulfilled: they get bored of each other because they’ve already achieved it.
• Having a house: the house fills them with obligations, and they stop traveling.
• They marry: they force themselves to stay together instead of choosing it continuously.
• Stability: it kills the pulse. They stop being heroes of their own life.
• Children: the focus shifts from the couple to another being.

These are not milestones. They are dangers. They are milestones if you do it your way, not the way people want. They become a success when they hit the world as a hammer.

The solution I’ve found, without giving spoilers, is to base it on their relationship and their character.

They are not normal, and their relationship won’t be either. But it's going to be romantic and never lose the depth they share. I already know how, but I’m not giving you spoilers!

I’ll shut up and let Aubeline tell you:

—This leaf-crusher Louis… what a flower-wrecker! No, he’s not going to be able to put Tamzyn in a house. You’ll see what happens… And the wedding… if it happens, it’ll be the way I want it. You can imagine…