Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 21.14: Because at First, They Don't Succeed

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-14-because-at-first-they-dont-succeed

Key Points: Try-fail cycle! Failure is interesting. Failure is humanizing. Yes-but, no-and. Yes-but, movement towards the goal, but with a consequence. No-and, movement away from the goal, with a consequence. Four-way box, known-unknown, safe-unsafe. Yes is all about momentum. Try-fail cycles and barriers. Try-fail cycles scale to the story. How many try-fail cycles? Season to taste! Rule of three, but if you want harder, add some, easier, cut some. 

[Season 21, Episode 14]

[Howard] For more than a decade, we've hosted Writing Excuses at sea, an annual workshop and retreat in a cruise ship. You're invited to our final cruise in 2026. It's a chance to learn, connect, and grow, all while sailing along the stunning Alaskan and Canadian coast. Join us, the hosts of Writing Excuses, and spend dedicated time leveling up your writing craft. Attend classes, join small group breakout sessions, learn from instructors one on one at office hours, and meet with all the writers from around the world. During the week-long retreat, we'll also dock at 3 Alaskan ports, Juneau, Sitka, and Skagway, as well as Victoria, British Columbia. Use this time to write on the ship or choose excursions that allow you to get up close and personal with glaciers, go whale watching, and learn more about the rich history of the region and more. Next year will be our grand finale after over 10 years of successful retreats at sea. Whether you're a long time alumni or a newcomer, we would love to see you on board. Early bird pricing is currently available, and we also offer scholarships. You can learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats.

[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 21, Episode 14]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Because at first, they don't succeed.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Mary Robinette] And we are talking about the middle again. This time, we're going to talk about a different tool for working through the middle. It's something called a try-fail cycle. You know the old saying, try, try again. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. That thing. That is literally what we're talking about. A character tries something, and then they fail, and then they try it again, and they fail. And eventually, they succeed, and you move on to the next problem. So your characters have goals, and in the middle, they spend a lot of time trying to achieve that goal, and then failing. So let's talk about what a try-fail cycle does for us, kind of why we use them, and then some of the tricks.

[DongWon] I mean, I think fundamentally, failure is interesting.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? I think failure is one of the most interesting things...

[Mary Robinette] I'm so evil...[garbled]

[Chuckles]

[Erin] [garbled]

[DongWon] I mean, like... I mean that in a really broad way. Like, even in my personal life, as unpleasant as it is to fail, the most important lessons I've ever learned, or the most growth I've ever experienced, have all come from failure. Right? And so your characters also need to fail for us as the reader to understand them and to root for them. Right? Competence porn can be really exciting and fun, but also, at some point, that needs to run into friction. Competence is useful for showing on screen to establish how bad failure is when it arrives, but in general, seeing how characters confront and overcome adversity is where we get to get into the meat of who they are and what matters to them, and why I care about this story in the first place.

[Erin] Also, if you want to write a really long book, and they succeed really early...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] It's not going to... It's going to be... I mean, I guess you're going to have like a series of increasing... Like the opposite of a series of unfortunate events, like...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] A series of successes. But eventually, like, don't you run out? I almost feel like that... It's like that old chessboard puzzle where if you put one grain of rice on the first square and...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Then two... Eventually, you reach the moon if you double it each day. Like, you can only succeed at so much...

[DongWon] Right.

[Erin] Before you like... Won life.

[DongWon] I mean, I've read that manuscript. Right? I've seen that book. And it comes from this place of you want your heroes to be successful and continue to over... Just continue to achieve. Right? And it's exciting as this, like, power fantasy thing. But it makes a really flat reading experience, because it just feels like you're playing calvinball all the time.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] And I don't know what the rules of this world are because they just get more powerful and defeat people over and over again, and it's like, okay, where are we going?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Well, I think at the heart of it, we like to root for someone. It's something that is... It gives you an opportunity to invest, it gives you a source of tension, like, you want them to succeed. And some of my favorite theater experiences have been when the show has been going along, and then something goes wrong, and the actors, like, they have to recover from that, and watching that is so cathartically satisfying. And I think this is the same thing with writing, that you want them to fail in ways that they can recover from, if you are planning to write towards a happy ending, I should say.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Having them achieve their goals.

[Erin] I do wonder if like... Is the human brain, like, they... Do we want some amount of failure in life? So I think about if I was telling you about somebody... Maybe this is only true in, like, my gremlin heart. But if, like, I was telling you about somebody and I was like, they are great. They're rich, they're famous, they've like done all the great things, and I'm like, and their marriage... I feel like everybody would be like, oh, is something wrong? But, it's also great!

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And you'd be like, really? Like, they're...

[DongWon] I think...

[Erin] There's nothing they're not doing perfectly, there's nothing that's bothering them? You know what I mean? I think this... Interestingly, in an era of social media, it's interesting to see... I wonder if this will change. Because, I think we are actually being taught more to only see people at their most successful. And, like, I'm curious about the ways it may change the try-fail cycle in fiction.

[DongWon] Well, I mean, I think in part this is, like, where people's resentment of nepo babies comes from. Right? I mean, I think there's a lot of, like, valuable stuff in there about privilege as well, but I think the degree of the frustration is, like, the sense of like, oh, you've always had it easy, you've never had to overcome adversity. Right? And I think the backlash to creators who are presented as flawless, very successful, over and over again, when some little crack in the armor happens, people descend on them so vociferously, I think because of this exact impulse. Right? I think there's a thing of the artificiality of presenting success at all times, that when that cracks, people really just go all in right away. So, I do think even though we're in this era of still needing to present success online in a certain way as an influencer, as a celebrity, that there's still that human instinct of wanting to take someone down a peg.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And I think it... It is... It's that, and it's also the... Like the shelter dog with three legs.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Like, oh my goodness, poor thing. Or the way we will help a wild animal, like, oh, no, this pig got stuck in this barbed wire fence, we've got to rescue this pig. Mmm... I love bacon. Like...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] It's like Charlotte's Web.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It's a... One of the things about a failure is that it humanizes someone.

[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] And... Even if they aren't human to begin with. So, I think that it's important to give your characters failure. I know that... I've heard people say, oh, but I don't want to. I love my character so much, I don't want to be mean to them. I'm like, sometimes you do actually have to do that. So, I want to talk about some methods that we can use to do this. Some of which we've... I've talked about on previous podcasts, which is this idea of yes-but, no-and. So, this is the idea that inherently when your character goes to try something, the reader has the question, is it going to work? And yes means movement towards whatever their goal is, no means movement away from it. Yes-but is movement towards the goal, but with a consequence. And when you've got no-and, it's movement away from the goal, and then with a consequence. So, in the first like 2/3, 3/4 of the book, you are mostly doing yes-but, no-and. And then anytime you need to switch to the character's solving the problem, then you start to give them bonus actions. So you move from yes-but to yes-and. And I want to give... I realize this is all fairly vague. So let me give you a slightly more concrete example. I'm going to use a milieu story. So, milieu stories focus on thresholds, the character has to cross a threshold when they enter the story, they cross another one when they exit. But basically about navigating. So if we imagine that I've got a character who's trying to reach New York for an audition.

[DongWon] Ruby Keeler.

[Mary Robinette] Hmm?

[DongWon] Ruby Keeler.

[Mary Robinette] Ruby Keeler.

[DongWon] [garbled]

[Mary Robinette] Yeah, all the way. So then I look at, well, what's stopping them? Is it a lack of funding, is it the mechanical failure of transportation, cultural stigma against New York, not sure how to apply for a spot? Whatever it is. I look at what this is. So let's say that they have to get to the airport, they have to get to their airplane. That's the first thing. The first threshold they have to cross. So they have to go through security. Can they go through security? No, and they realize they left their passport at home. So, now can they go back and get their passport? Yes, but now they are running late and they may not make their plane. So, can they get through security? Yes, but now they are even later. And are they able to get to the plane? And then when they get to the plane... It's like, yes, they can run down the thing, but the door's shut. Are they able to get on the plane? No. So there's a solid no closure there. Yeah. So that's a yes-but to get to the plane. Then the next thing I have to figure out is what happens after that. Because after they have a success or a failure, they change their tactic and then try something different. So, that is where I look at this list, lack of funding, mechanical failure of transportation, all of those things, and I look for the one that is kind of still keeping me in the milieu thread for this part of it. All of the other things that were happening were all still, like, about the environment. Where you run into story bloat is when the consequence is from something else. It's like, are they able to go to New York? No, the plane is closed and they have a cultural stigma against New York. It's like, okay, well, now I have to open this, like, character thing that may not have been in there. But, having said that... I know I'm talking a lot. You can...

[DongWon] No. Please.

[Mary Robinette] But, having said that, if I only stay in a single mode, if I only stay with. like, one of the MICE threads, it can be pretty boring and pretty predictable.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, one of the things you can do is introduce one of the other plot conflicts that are going on. Because now your character has two opportunities to fail with everything that they try to do. Which introduces uncertainty, it gives two things for the reader to root for. So if I say, no, my character couldn't get on the plane, and instead of saying no, they couldn't get on the plane... No, they couldn't get on the plane and they're going to have to rent a car and lose money. Okay. That's still... We're still dealing with the character... The threshold. But if I said... Excuse me, the milieu. But if I said no, they couldn't get on the plane and they have to borrow a car from their parents and their parents don't believe in them as an actor...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Now you've opened up this character thing, so what you're doing at this point is you're sacrificing one goal for the sake of another. And that can introduce a lot of interesting tension and things like that. We're going to take a pause for a break. And we're going to come back, and I'm going to let the other two talk.

[laughter]

[Howard] Locus magazine is one of the finest and most respected resources for readers, writers, editors, illustrators, and assorted aficionados of speculative fiction. Locus tells the stories of, and about, storytellers through author interviews, book reviews, curated reading lists, industry news, and more. The annual Locus Awards recognize and celebrate excellence across science fiction, fantasy, and horror, showcasing new and diverse voices in the speculative genres. Right now, Locus is holding their annual fundraising drive. I'm proud to support Locus, and I'd love for you to join me. Visit locusmag.com/igg26 to explore the awards available to this year's supporters. If you're looking for a long enough lever to move the world of speculative fiction, look no further. Locus is that lever. It's the rising tide that lifts all ships. It's the shining city on the hill. Visit locusmag.com/igg26 to help Locus keep the lights on and the future bright. locus mag.com/igg26.

[Mary Robinette] So... Welcome back from break. Erin! Would you like to say something?

[Chuckles]

[Erin] I do want to say something, and I don't know if it makes any sense. Which just makes it even more exciting.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] But I was thinking about a four... So I love a box, just like in general, I love, like, a four box, like, in thinking about writing. And I was thinking about horror and the way that place is used...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And the way that I did it was how known is this place, and how safe is this place? And you can move people in horror from, like, this is a known place that is safe to this is a known place that is unsafe. Somebody broke into your house. Then you, like, run out and you're like, oh, I went to an unknown place that appears to be safe. Wait, now that's unsafe. And so you end up playing with... And so, I was... I had never thought about it like that before, that in some ways, that's a way to take yes-but, no-and...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And see, like, how can you use it on multiple...

[laughter]

[Erin] You're showing me a box.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Like, how can you make it work...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] On these different levels at the same time, because I think that that is a really fun way to think about it, and, like, to extend this, like, way of thinking about it. Because I've also heard... My dad always talks about it, like, writing stories with yes-but. He's an English teacher. And so, like, that's a way to do it. But I love this idea of adding a box.

[DongWon] Let's... Okay.

[Mary Robinette] Just a small... The yes is all about momentum. So you can control the amount of momentum a story...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Feels like it has by whether you're giving them yes's or no's before that consequence.

[DongWon] And I think what's really interesting is thinking about momentum. You kind of hinted at this early before the break, too. But things that you can do in act one will feel very delaying in act 3. Right? So the try-fail cycle you set up of her, like, forgetting her passport and all of that... If that was in act 3 B, I would be like, what are you doing? Why isn't she in New York yet? Right? Or also, sort of with your grid of, like, known and safe, like, making progress through that grid, there also has to be an accumulation of knowledge as we're beginning to understand the space and the danger more. If they stay in the same place of unknown unknown... You know what I mean? Not that that was the grid that you created, but... They don't know what the monster is and they don't know the space. I think as time goes on, that horror movie's going to feel very flat and random. Part of it is starting to figure out what the monster is and starting to get more control over the space. Right? Like, then if you look at, like, an Alien movie, it's always about understanding the creature better, and then moving through the space. And really what you're doing is the audience begins to understand the space better as the character understands the monster better.

[Erin] Yeah. And I think what... Just not to derail this entire episode into horror, like, one of my favorite things to do is to take somebody into a space they believe is known.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] So, this is the... You seek sanctuary in the church, or you make it to the school, or somewhere that you're like, I completely understand this space and I know the monster now. I've made it to known and this is great. Known and safe, and then it's like, actually, something is wrong. The place isn't what you thought it was, the preacher...

[DongWon] The priest is the one who summoned the monster.

[Erin] Exactly. The preacher is a [garbled] He's got red eyes. Oh, no. Like, you know enough to realize he's actually...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] The villain. And I think that's where it's really fun, because you can play around with the way you're answering those questions.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Well, and the other thing is... Like, with the oh, no, it's [garbled] the priest...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] One of the things, I know I did it, and I see other people doing it, is not understanding the difference between a try-fail cycle and a barrier.

[DongWon] Yes. I've been thinking about this because you were talking about this the other day, and...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, what I see, and this is, again, going back to the soggy middle, one of the things that I see happen particularly to short story writers who are like, oh, and suddenly it's a novella, is they put too many barriers in.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, the difference is a barrier is something that is between you and the goal. Like, maybe a literal door. Sometimes it's a priest. The try-fail cycles are the things you do to try to get through that barrier. So, if I've got a door, the smartest thing I can do is try the knob. Does it work? No, and I don't know where my keys are. Can I find my keys? Yes, but one of them breaks off in the lock. Am I able to... Like, do I grab a crowbar and just pry the door open? Yes. I'm through the door, and then I can do a... Yes, I'm through the door. Am I able to get to the barrier and so... Am I able to get to my goal? And now I can do a big try-fail cycle...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Which is, am I able to get to my goal? No, and there are bees.

[DongWon] Well, you can also play with an evolving understanding of what the barrier is.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] You can start... I mean, I think about this as a GM a lot, where the players will be like, oh, the barrier is the door, and I'm like, no, the barrier is you don't know what's in that room.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] And you get into that room to find out. And so, if you can't get through the door, you need to find another way in. And sometimes I see players get stuck there, and I as GM realize, oh, I need to signal better what the actual barrier is.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Because everything I've done is see, this door is the barrier. So all they're thinking about is the door, instead of communicating to them, no, your actual goal is that there are papers in that room that will lead you to the next step of this quest...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Which is to figure out who murdered the queen. I don't know...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] [garbled] stuff up. Like, yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I think it really is focusing on the barrier over the goal.

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] You're reminding me of shaggy dog stories. Like...

[Mary Robinette] Oh, yeah.

[Erin] People tell in camp. Where the entire... Google this if you've never experienced it. But, like, it's literally like a joke in which...

[DongWon] [garbled]

[Erin] It's like a series of locked doors, and each time you open the door, the next one's locked and you have to run back and get the key and... That's the one that we used to tell in camp. Why you didn't get all the keys at once, it doesn't make any sense because each time... It's like another door. And the entire point of that is to frustrate the person who is being told the joke...

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Erin] And make them angry and then laugh at them. Which is mean. But, like, that's... You don't want your reader to have that feeling where it's like you're just introducing door after door after door, and not only does it feel like it's too many barriers, but it also feels like the character's not getting any smarter. They're not bringing more keys, they didn't go buy a lock pick. Like, after the 10th locked door in a row, they're not like, wow, this feels odd, like, what should I be doing differently?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Like, if the try-fail cycle is exactly the same and the barriers are exactly the same, it feels like the character doesn't grow.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] You could have the same barrier and a new type of try-fail, you could have a try-fail and a new type of barrier, but I think that both the same kind of feels very stagnant.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And something I just want to point out is that you can apply this to character growth also.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And that is one of the things that the character can be like, oh, I should maybe try to change. I'm going to try something. And then like, I'm going to try standing under your window with a boombox.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Does that work? No, I look like a creeper.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And now you've called the police. Like...

[DongWon] I just want to point out, also, that try-fail cycles can be scaled to the type of story that you're telling.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[DongWon] Right? Like, if you're writing a quiet story about working in a coffee shop, then your try-fail cycle is making the perfect latte. Right? Or figuring out how to carry the milk you need without dropping it from the back room to the front. You know what I mean? Like, there are all these little things that you can do that scale to the size of the challenge that your characters are facing, but it still needs to feel connected to that character's growth. Right? If their central question is are they able to balance the 18 things that they need to be doing in their life, then put challenges in front of them that have them fail at multitasking, and then figure out as they go, they're trying out different strategies.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] When this gets boring is when you're asking your reader to go along with the exact same thing over and over again. It's like a video game [fetch Quest] Right? It's like you went from point A to point B, you deliver it, and then like, okay, now bring this back to point A. And you're like, God damn it, I'm quitting this game right now, because I don't want to walk all the way across this map again for no reason. Right? Versus giving them a different kind of challenge to do that lets you see different parts of the map or explore the space in a different way or interact with things in a different way.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I want to, briefly before we depart this episode, talk about how many try-fales cycles you should have. Because it's a question I get asked all the time. And the answer is that it is...

[DongWon] Enough.

[Mary Robinette] Season to taste. But you should understand the effect of the try-fail cycle...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Because the answer is... It does depend on the kind of story you're telling. So we have previously talked about the rule of three, that people expect there to be basically three try-fail cycles. You're going to... Three times is funny, third time's a charm, that kind of thing. So they're expecting this one, two, got it kind of beat. Or one, two... Anyway. The thing that you can do is you can manipulate that. So if you want something to feel really, really hard, then you give them four or five try-fail's. And if you want it to feel easier, then you give them one or two. You can also look, when you're manipulating the speed with which they accomplish something, at whether you are giving them successes with a negative consequence or predominantly failures. So if you are... Like, predominantly no's. If you are experiencing something where it just feels very slow, there's a chance that what's happening, even though there's a lot going on, there's a chance that what's happening is you're only giving the character no, and then this happens, and no, and then that happens, and no, and then that happens. It feels like they are never making progress towards a goal. On the other hand, if they are making progress towards the goal, but it feels very easy even though things are going bad for them, you may be giving them a lot of yes, yes, yes. So you do have to sort of balance those two, and there's not an exact metric on which ones you use at any given moment. It's just an awareness that yes is generally related to momentum, no is generally related to backward movement. And that can kind of give you some metrics with which to control how you're handling stuff in the middle.

[Mary Robinette] All right. So. We have some homework for you. So for your homework, what we are going to do is think about some barriers. I'm going to ask you to look at the active MICE quotient elements in your story, and I'm going to give you a little refresher. So, milieu stories begin when a character enters a place, they end when they exit it, but all of the problems are about trying to leave. So in a milieu, you just keep them from leaving. Inquiry. Somebody has a question. You keep them from getting the answer. Story is over when the character gets the answer. Character stories, they want to become a new person. You stop them. Give them more angst. And event, they want to establish a new status quo. You stop them from doing that. So those are the goals. You're keeping your eye on that major goal, but you need some barriers between them and the goal. So, what you're going to do is you're going to look at your MICE quotient, make a list of barriers that go with each, and then, from that list, you're going to select a smaller subset that plays well together. So, if you try to do every barrier that occurs to you, it will be too many. This is a way to have this feed from one thread to the other so your story isn't predictable and you're doing lots of new things. Don't worry, in the liner notes, if you visit writingexcuses.com, you will see a chart that shows you, with a reminder of what their goals and what your job is to do to your character as the author, what try-fail cycles to present them with. So...

[DongWon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go  try again.