Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign was famous for the campaign staff’s irreverent slogan, “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” I’m getting very close to posting the writer’s corollary above my desk: “It’s the Relationships, Stupid.”

This was brought home to me in what might sound like an odd way: my son recently introduced me to Riddick, the Vin Diesel character originated in the movie Pitch Black and reprised in The Chronicles of Riddick.

Pitch Black is a classic monster movie. It uses the typical plot skeleton of a diverse group of characters brought together by a disaster who have to learn to work together as they get picked off, one by one. Sounds cliché, but it was very well done. The characters, each with their own skills and quirks, were quickly building relationships–caring about each other, or fighting with each other, but definitely working on those human connections. The biggest driving force of the internal plot was the dual question of whether the outcast/criminal Riddick would be accepted by the group, and whether he would in turn accept a responsibility for helping the group. I enjoyed this movie a lot.

The Chronicles of Riddick was more problematical. This movie looks great. Think of an anime performed with live action characters–that’s what it looked and sounded like to me. Clearly a lot more money was spent on this movie than on Pitch Black. But about two-thirds of the way through I started wondering why I wasn’t emotionally involved in the story, and for me the quick answer was that the relationships were transient or entirely missing. In this movie Riddick is most often entirely on his own. Other characters come and go—way too many characters, honestly—without any real work done on the push and pull of relationships that matter. Yes, in the last third or so of the movie Riddick reconnects with a character from Pitch Black, but it felt like too little, too late, with too much hostility anyway.

I really like Vin Diesel on-screen and I think both movies are worth watching, but for me, Pitch Black is the better of the two.

In recent years I’ve dealt with some problems in my own writing, and what I’ve learned from it is that it’s not only a matter of having meaningful relationships between your characters, but also having tension and questions in those relationships. Will they get together? Will they have a falling out? Will a third party upset the balance? Will jealousy cause things to blow apart?

A story needs more than great adventure. It needs risk-filled human relationships to ignite the reader’s emotions.

Posted on: Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Categories: Writing.