On Writing: Reveals ~ Avoiding Diminishing Returns.
A Case Study on First Law Trilogy and the Bloody-Nine (Spoilers).
Every part of my body lit up, face red, hands trembling, jaw frozen open.
This was my— and likely your — experience watching the Red Wedding, discovering Snape was secretly helping Dumbledore the whole time, or finding out Amon in Legend of Korra was secretly a bender. And many, many more.
But what makes a reveal so powerful? And how does a writer avoid diminishing returns?
Recently, I have been journeying through my first adventure with Joe Abercrombie and his First Law trilogy. Off the bat, I must say, it is a stellar book with great moments, writing, etc. But — and this is no critique of the author, or the book — it has left me with questions. Questions about writing choices.
I have two (debatably three) favorite things in First Law Trilogy. The first: the character of Ferro (and the relationship with her and Yulwei). The other, which I find far more intriguing as a topic for analysis: The Bloody-Nine transformation.
I would love to be privy to Abercrombie’s thought process related to the creation and character development of Logen Ninefingers. What questions he asked himself. What choices he wrestled over. I hope someday someone gets to ask those questions.
My first perception of Logen, in the opening chapter, was not a very good one. Logen seemed dull, boring, and frankly — and maybe this says more about societal expectations than the character himself — dumb. I almost put the book down — in fact it was merely Abercrombie’s reputation that pushed me forward. Needless to say, it was worth persevering.
Abercrombie very much downplays Logen as a character, as a fighter, as a fantasy hero. This was a very risky move, as it does risk the bait not luring the reader’s bite. In fact, it’s hard to argue that he doesn’t try to downplay the fantasy genre as a whole. To demystify and undercut some of the larger-than-life aspects that many fantasy readers love. Again, brave choice.
Throughout the story, Logen gets slightly more interesting, often not through actions or internal dialogue, but through the reactions and dialogue of other characters. The way characters fear him throughout The Blade Itself is in direct contrast to the humble, unassuming character whose POV we have. It plants the question inside us: Why is he so regarded by Bayaz (the powerful wizard who also shows a mysterious interest in him)? Why is he viewed as so fearsome when the first scene in the book showed him frankly getting his arse kicked?
And all of this is why every part of my body lit up, face red, hands trembling, jaw frozen open when the Bloody-Nine reveal hit. One of the all-time great reveals, in my opinion.
Given the slow, patient build-up and subtle hints — he never really foreshadows it in an overt way, just enough to where it doesn’t surprise you and it makes narrative sense — it provides a punch that curdles the blood when you finally understand why the character matters so much, and reading him as the Bloody-Nine, butchering his enemies like a demon in the night was — in the exact, disturbing way Joe would want — so satisfying.
As a writer looking to nail of a reveal, look no further than this scene.
But what makes it so good? What makes a reveal so good? What can we as writers learn and take from it? Two things stand out for me — and this is true of most reveals, I think.
1.) Foreshadowing is subtle and done naturally through creative, in-world exposition.
What does this mean? Simply that the writer does not state “oh by the way, when Logen gets really in danger or upset, he turns into this crazy demon who is nigh-on unstoppable.” Or, better but not by much, the author does not have a character awkwardly say “hey, remember that one time when you turned into the Bloody-Nine and defeated ten fierce fighters at once?”
Instead, the author uses both Logen’s inner voice and frequent internal regret and guilt, as well as subtle comments from others about him, such as Jezal describing him as a frightening brute.
2.) The reveal is tied directly to character exposition and emotional impact.
We learn so much about the person Logen is through the Bloody-Nine reveal. It is not just the vivid action-packed experience we’re treated to that lights the reader up. It is what all that means in contrast to the character we thought we knew. It is powerful because it reveals that Logen is the kind of person who hides from himself, a person divided by his heart and his instinct. The fact that we know deep down Logen is a lover and a kind man makes watching him be forced into a demon-like state that much more shocking, and heart-wrenching. We know the guilt he will feel long before he does. And that anticipation and emotional conflict is powerful to read.
If you can nail one thing, nail that. Nail the emotional impact and character exposition.
Other examples I encourage you to explore and analyze: The Red Wedding (what it reveals about who Tywin Lannister is). Snape (what it reveals about who he is as a person). Amon (what it reveals about who he was and the emotional impact of what he went through).
Share with me your own examples!
But beware…
The question I framed at the beginning and in the title, is this: How do writers avoid diminishing returns on their reveals? Let’s explore!
The second iteration of the Bloody-Nine transformation, in book 2, I felt had amazing results as well. It wasn’t as “what-the-####” as the original reveal, but it was still satisfying. Why?
Well, for one — like all reveals, power-ups, etc — it has to stem back to a previously set connection, expectation or context of importance. For example: Chapter 1, Book 1 is all about the Shanka (weird, creepy orc-like creatures who haunted and partly eradicated Logen’s people). Did I care about the Shanka then? No. Did I care by the time I knew and cared about Logen, and how they impacted his life? Yes. When Logen and Ferro are trapped under the river in Aulcus, and the sexual and emotional tension is at its highest— not to mention the tension of survival — the arrival of the Shanka, and the connection to all of Logen’s past trauma and loss, ratchets the tension up to a world-class level in terms of storytelling. Therefore, when he brings in the Bloody-Nine transformation, it absolutely works. I got almost the same “let’s goooooooo” feeling as I did the first time. Did I know and expect it this time? Yes. Did it take away from the moment? Maybe the smallest amount, but overall I’d say no. Abercrombie had earned that Bloody-Nine moment by bringing in all the narrative strings and tensions into a climactic moment that deserved a Bloody-Nine worthy scene.
But…
That leads me to Book 3, and the third iteration of the Bloody-Nine reveal/transformation. This one, I have to admit, really disappointed me. In fact, so much of Book 3 disappointed me (but those are topics for another day). And I want to explore why. The question I started with, and which came up immediately after reading the Bloody-Nine massacre outside Crummuck’s castle, was: how does a writer avoid diminishing returns on a key reveal?
It goes without saying that once you reveal something, you must therefore include it in all future story planning, and logical conclusions within the story.
Once you introduce the Eagles in Lord of the Rings and the Avatar State in Avatar the Last Airbender, you can’t forget it happened. I find the Avatar State is great case study on this topic. It is revealed super early on in the show what the Avatar State is and why it gets triggered — not dissimilarly to the Bloody-Nine, in fact. But somehow, the Avatar State continually achieves the correct storytelling and emotional impact each time it happens (or most times). Why?
It goes back to the point I made originally about good reveals. The reveal is tied directly to character exposition and emotional impact.
Just because the first reveal showed us who or what the character is, doesn’t mean it can’t be deepened. The Bloody-Nine reveal in Book 2 did that. The Avatar State constantly does this.
The first Avatar State reveal shows it is a survival mechanism — key to understanding context and plot. This reveal shows us how Aang survived in the iceberg — it is a reveal focused on that aspect of the Avatar State. The second reveal — highly underrated, in my opinion — when he sees Monk Gyatso, his mentor and best friend, was murdered shows us a different facet of this. It shows the connection it has with emotion. Watching Aang get triggered into the Avatar State as a result of deeply personal trauma and loss is immensely powerful. Further examples: in Roku’s temple it shows us that the Avatar State connects with past lives, and deepens the viewers understanding of the importance of spiritual connection and reincarnation; in the final episode of Season and first episode of season 2, the writers explore all kinds of new themes such as “what are the risks/consequences of such vast power?” and adds a new dimension to the Avatar State — the Avatar can be permanently ended, if killed in it; and my favorite one — Crossroads of Destiny — where the writers explore the idea of controlling it, mastering it, and tie this in with the show’s already deep connection with spirituality.
To summarize, we can see that every instance and moment of the Avatar State (and I believe any repeated reveal) either:
a.) adds a new, different, or deeper element to the reveal.
b.) connects it or deepens its connection to key thematic or emotional points in the story.
c.) adds further complexity, tension or resolution to the plot.
In all of the above examples, we see one of these three achieved. And going back to the Bloody-Nine, we see the second reveal as it connects to his emotional trauma, much like Aang’s loss of Gyatso, related to the Shanka.
But in the follow-up reveals in Book 3 fail to hit any of those. In Crummuck’s Castle, Logen gets hurt defending a castle he doesn’t care about and a Union he doesn’t care about, and fighting soldiers he has no ill-will to or emotional connection to. Yes, he has a feud with Bethod (one which I don’t think Abercrombie at any point really succeeds in achieving emotional buy-in from the reader — it is tame, there is very little personal interaction or non-expository history between the two), but during this fight Bethod is far away from the fighting and the Bloody-Nine transformation therefore has no tangible connection to that feud. In fact, Logen’s internal dialogue removes tension by suggesting more or less “when one has a task to do, one better get to it.” If the fight is nothing more than a “task” to our main character, why would it be anything else to the reader? Furthermore, it was entirely unnecessary to win the battle as the Union arrive shortly after. It was a build-up to a repeated reveal that was entirely unnecessary and could have been saved for a more powerful moment.
The Bloody-Nine transformation — and I will begin to close out my point with this — when he fights the Feared was so much more enjoyable, captivating, and successful. I find it an immense shame that the Crummuck’s Castle transformation simply wasn’t deleted because that would have made this one only that much sweeter. Even though I personally didn’t emotionally buy in to tension between Bethod and Logen, at least there was tension. And the fight with the Feared was a moment where the resolution of that conflict would be achieved one way or another. This reveal worked well for all three reasons I stated above: 1.) it connects to a key emotional point in the story (his feud with Bethod). 2.) it resolves the plot 3.) and my favorite aspect of it, it adds a new dimension to the Bloody-Nine. It showed, for the first time, that it was not undefeatable. It was not all-powerful. Watching Logen fail and almost die in the Bloody-Nine mode was new, interesting, captivating. And it was narratively satisfying watching the conflict resolved in a different way than normal — through a combination of West, Dogman and Dow’s creative, clever actions. Overall, this iteration of the repeated reveal satisfied.
The next and last one, during the siege of Adua, made the same mistake as the first one. He transformed during a meaningless fight (to Logen) and the results, consequences, and scenes were more or less meaningless throughout. This made the reveal very tepid, and at this point, it was weak enough writing for me that it took all the air out of the balloon in the story. In my opinion, it was one of the weakest fantasy endings I’ve ever read, and by the end I was just desperate to finish the book so I could read something else. Which, as a writer, must be the last thing you’d ever hope to hear about your work.
I will caveat this all by acknowledging that a huge thematic goal of Abercrombie’s is to make the point that war is not glorious, that fantasy fighting and all the traps that come with it are not so magical. And I get that. But I believe you can achieve that while maintaining a captivating emotional, narrative and tension between characters. I do not believe Abercrombie does this in Book 3: Last Argument of Kings, and this disappoints most keenly in the diminishing returns of the originally captivating, marquee Bloody-Nine reveal.
To finish off, what changes would I have made?
I would delete the Crummuck’s Castle transformation entirely. I would either a.) delete the entire plot section of the Northmen going to Adua (again, entirely meaningless), or most likely b.) have Logen’s — and therefore the Northmen’s — journey south be tied in entirely with his relationship and tension with Ferro. One of the tensest aspects of the entire trilogy was Logen and Ferro’s relationship, and frankly, Abercrombie let it die out with a whimper instead of capitalizing on a chance to have all of the fighting and conflict mean something. And could you imagine Logen’s final, ultimate Bloody-Nine moment come full-circle and protect Ferro one last time? Resolving and completing that narrative thread in an unforgettable, body lit up, face red, hands trembling, jaw frozen kind of way. There was a goldmine there and Abercrombie decided to pour dirt on top of it instead of mine it.
What changes would you have made? What reveals (and repeated reveals) are most memorable for you? Share below!
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