How NOT To Write An Epic Story (Couresy of Thor Ragnarok)

Hello everyone! Yes I know it must be weird me posting again within the same month! You'll just have to find some way to deal with this paradox. 

Anyways before I get into the post I want to warn everyone that if you haven't seen Thor Ragnarok this post will contain spoilers from the movie.

And if you have seen the movie (and liked it) I just want to say that I'm coming at it from a writing perspective, not a movie goer perspective. So this isn't a movie review or my thoughts on the movie.

For those of you who haven't seen the movie please turn away, check out an older post, or check back next week. Don't worry I'll give you some time to leave...

Are the gone Garry?... Okay! Lets kick things up a notch just like back in New York!

Now as we all start our writing adventures we usually don't know the "does" and "don'ts" of things. We have yet to learn the fundamentals to build off of. So we look how the ones that came before us did things and take our cues from them. We often don't know yet which cues are the good ones and which are the bad. So today I'll be talking about 4 things that you should never do when writing a novel (And yes Thor Ragnarok will be the example of what not to do). So lets get into the 4 things! 

1) Never switch the tone of your novel!


Now I'm pretty sure it's a given not to do this, but you'd be surprised at the novels I've read where the author decided to switch the tone of the series either in the middle of the series or in the last book. That is never a good idea because it makes your reader feel like they are reading something completely new. They'll be left wondering what happened to the story from the pervious books. Take the Frist two Thor Movies for instance. 

They build a world where they merged Norse legend with high tech science. And they did it in a way that made it work! The tones of the movies where slightly darker then the other marvel movies but that was okay because it matched the setting they build and the world the placed Thor in . But then in the third movie the tone is drastically changed, it went from being this cool Norse/tech movie to this Star Wars/Star Trek/Guardians of the Galaxy rip off that honestly left you wondering what had happened to Thor.

 Not only did they change the general tone of the more serious plots in to a light hearted space adventure, what they changed next also happens to be my next point.

2) Never Switch the personality of your character!

Now before you all jump on me about Character Arcs and how the Character needs to grow through the novel (which are all good things) I'm talking about totally forgetting the characters pervious personality and giving them a totally different personality. Take Thor for instance. They developed Thor, in the pervious movies, as a more serious guy. 

Yes He could smile and could laugh, but he had a serious personality, he didn't crack jokes (unless he did so unknowingly). He was a strong warrior after all. But then in the last instalment they changed his personally from this warrior to this joking idiot.

Now taking your character and putting them in different places is totally fine, having them grow as a character is fine. But when you change the personality you originally gave your character at the start of a series it's like you gave your readers a totally new character who happens to share the same name as the pervious one did. That means the person your reader has been growing with, and been watching grow, is gone. The person that connected them to your story is now gone and they no longer have a reason to keep reading.

3) Never have death be meaningless! 

Death should never be meaningless when you write a story. The reason is because death isn't a laughable thing, it is the end of a life and nothing can change that. Now in the previous Thor movies they handled death well. They showed that Thor, who started the movie out wanting to kill all the Frost Giants, learned life isn't just something to take willy nilly. The movies do a good job of showing that death means something, like when the Odin son's lose their mom, and Odin loses his wife. That death has an impact not only on the characters but also on us who are watching it. But in Ragnarok death is treated as nothing. We see Thor lose his father, we see Thor's best friends (the warriors three, who have proven themselves as warriors who could handle themselves, but that's a side note as a reviewer) die without any fight, tons of Asgardian warriors fell, innocent people killed, we even see Asgard itself destroyed. But yet none of these deaths mean anything to us or even to the main characters. Because they are all treated like a joke. We can't truly connect to the characters and their own pain because they are not even in pain. Which leads us to my last point.

4) Comedy has a place, don't over use it! 

Yes it's true. Comedy does have a place in a novel. But don't ever overuse comedy, because it will then become that overused joke that everyone (including your readers) will find annoying. The biggest problem with Thor Ragnarok is that it has a very serious story idea, after all it is about the fall of Asgard, but yet the movie itself doesn't take it's own premise seriously. So if the movie can't take itself seriously then how can we? And it's the same when it comes to writing, if your characters can't take their own premise with the needed level of seriousness that is called for by the premise, niehter will your readers. I would say the use of comedy should be determined by the author, but never overused.

Well there you have it, the 4 things an author should never do when writing an epic story. I'm sure all of you already knew this facts, but I felt like posting something about it (plus taking a stab at Thor Ragnarok is a plus) So yeah. 

If you have anything to add to this list I would love to hear it! Or maybe you have a different opinion, I would love to hear that as well! But keep the comments clean. Anyways I look forward to hearing what you have to say! 

Until next time, Stay True to the King!