Writing Wrongs – A Recap of Once Upon a Time’s “Best Laid Plans”

Fiction writers wield a great power over the characters in the stories they create. These characters’ happiness, their futures, their entire ability to continue existing, rests at their writers’ fingertips. Consequently, the relationship between an author and his or her characters is one built on trust.

The best writers learn to listen to their characters . . . allowing these fictional, but very real-seeming, individuals to dictate their own stories in ways that feel most true to them. And when an author fails to heed the true intentions of one of its characters, that character won’t be shy about letting the author know exactly how she feels about the decisions made on her behalf.

Show me the fiction writer who claims never to have been slapped around a few times by one of her characters, and I’ll show you a liar . . .

Once Upon a Time has always spent a lot of hot air debating the nature of good and evil. The characters who make the “right” choices are considered “good” and are rewarded. The characters who make the “wrong” choices are considered evil and are pooped upon . . .

But what happens when a character wants to make the right choice and her author takes that choice away from her in order to tell a “better” story?

This week, Once was all about the battles characters engage in daily with their unseen authors. It featured good characters being bad, and bad characters trying to be good . . . also unicorns . . .

. . . dragon eggs, and some guy named Walt . . .

Let’s review, shall we?

You can check out the rest of this recap HERE!