Avoiding the Dreaded Deux ex Machina in Horror Writing: Part 1
How to avoid a prior deux ex machina (i.e., the plothole or weak pretext)
I recently read the book Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher which is basically a “isolated town under siege” (in this case by water-zombies) type of novel in the style of Salem’s Lot or Ghost Story. The writing is lovely, but the characters are mostly unappealing and hard to care about. But moreso I felt myself a bit disappointed by the lack of logic in the story’s set up and a somewhat rushed ending. This got me thinking about the issue of deux ex machina in horror novels, which can be quite common.
Deux ex machina (God from the machine) usually refers to a situation in which the author suddenly introduces a new plot element to resolve the protagonist’s struggle which trivializes said trouble. This can be in the form of a previously unmentioned technical or magical solution, some accident of fate, or the “cavalry rides to the rescue” trope. The novel’s central crisis is resolved without requiring any wit, ingenuity, strength, or insight on the part of the protagonist. I’m going to talk about this second, more traditional use of deus ex machina, why it may happen, and how authors may avoid it in the second instalment of this essay series.
But it also occurred to me that horror authors may also introduce a story using a kind of deus ex machina. In essence, a supernatural problem comes into being simply because the author wills it so, without any internally logicalical reason. The author wants to see how his protagonists handle a zombie outbreak, so voila!...on Tuesday there are zombies. Where the zombies came from, how they’re reanimated, why Tuesday, etc., all remain unexplored. I’ll call this a priori deux ex machina and it’s probably a more nuanced issue than the more traditional post-hoc deux ex machina. After all, most horror novels start with authors imagining up some weird problem and we can hardly expect these to conform to the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. And there may be good reasons why some of the horror is left unexplained…the characters themselves may have no knowledge why something is occurring, or lack of knowing adds to the tension. Perhaps the explanation for the horror is meant to be drawn out over multiple books or movies. On the other hand, simply refusing to have any logic at all can be frustrating for readers.
Consider the case of Dead Water: The basic premise is that a curse hidden in a stone cairn is unwittingly released by a treasure hunter and this curse turns the residents of an isolated town into “drowned” water zombies. That’s fine as far as things go. But I found two problems of internal logic with this. First, is the origin of the curse itself. It stars with a Varangian, a Norse bodyguard for a Byzantine ambassador to some desert tribes (presumably Bedouin). Negotiations don’t go well, and the tribe members observe the rules of hospitality by letting the ambassador and his Varangian guard leave, only to ambush them several nights later. They let the Varangian live, carving the water-curse thing into part of his flesh which he then brings to an isolated island in Scotland (to be unintentionally discovered a thousand or so years later for our novel).
Ok, so fair enough the author has provided some explanation for why the curse exists, and that’s better than not bothering. But at the same time, the actions of the desert tribe make no real sense. My understanding of hospitality rules wasn’t that there was a limited radius, after which an ambush was fine. There’s no particular advantage to the tribe in the ambush…negotiations didn’t go well, but in a way that was on their terms. The ambassador and Varangian didn’t insult them. And why lay the curse? Presumably casting such a powerful curse, rather than just killing the Varangian, must have expended some kind of energy or exacted some kind of price. But the curse is kind of random and does nothing to hurt their Byzantine opponents (the Varangian simply walks off with it to Scotland1). It’s the ancient equivalent of a balloon bomb: you neither know where it’s going to go or who it’s going to hurt. Why would someone invest energy in that?
The second issue is it’s never really clear how the curse transmits from person to person. Well, there definitely are several mechanisms…one hound eats some flesh off the dead treasure hunter and becomes a very bad dog indeed. The zombies also try to spray water into the mouths of the living, changing them into zombies 28 Days Later style. But most of the victims seem to just kind of become zombies because they are miserable and sad. Most of the town apparently wakes up in the middle of the night and walks into the sea to drown themselves but, conveniently, the main characters are immune to this effect.
These kind of internal inconsistencies or vagueness can leave readers, like me, a bit distracted. So how to avoid this?
Avoiding A Priori Deux Ex Machina
To be fair, many books or movies succeed even with considerable internal flaws. Audiences may forgive some of this if the book or film is otherwise good. And there can be nuances around what to reveal and when.
A priori deux ex machina probably has some overlap with the notion of high concept. High concept is typically defined as an easily summarized story, usually with a novel hook. The classic movie Them! could be summed up as: Giant radioactive ants attack small rural town. Them! has a pretty basic but internally consistent explanation for the ants: they were irradiated by a nuclear bomb test. Them! is a well regarded classic, that spawned a bunch of less well-received clones that lazily rehashed the same basic explanation for spiders, mantises, even grasshoppers (I kid you not).
There’s nothing wrong with high-concept, as long as there’s an internally logical explanation for the concept. Giant ants that spring up in town because of a nuclear bomb test is scary and relevant. Giant ants that spring up in town because…well, who cares why…is less compelling.
We can see the difference in modern zombie franchises. From the 1950s through the 2000s, zombies were mostly presented as caused by voodoo magic, making deals with evil spirits, etc. The Serpent and the Rainbow is perhaps the apogee of this genre, with one of the most internally logical (and even plausible) explanations for voodoo zombies. Around the same time George Romero was experimenting with no-explanation zombie splatter films that would go on to influence the modern genre2. 28 Days Later is the classic example of the modern “infected” zombie genre…one with clear internal logic. We know where the virus came from, what it does, and how people become infected. By contrast The Walking Dead never explains the virus, nor is it even clear how it manages to reanimate corpses up to and including decapitated heads. Both franchises have been hugely successful, of course, but for me the unexplained Walking Dead virus was always a nagging distraction and I prefer 28 Days Later.
A lot of this becomes an issue of suspension of disbelief. With horror, we’re already asking audiences to believe in the impossible…there’s an advantage in giving them something at least internally plausible to the fictional universe.
Nuance Is Possible
None of this means you have to throw your cards all on the table up front (28 Days Later does, but that’s not always required). Sometimes learning the explanation for the crisis is as much fun as the crisis itself. The 1990s series X-Files was built on exactly this premise, but more on X-Files in a bit. However, audiences tend to like a trail of breadcrumbs that at least promises some kind of internally logical explanation down the line.
Consider the case of Alien. The original movie only vaguely hints at the origin of the facehuggers and xenomorph. In fact, most of the Ripley Alien series does little to reveal those mysteries, focusing instead on the Weyland-Yutani Corporation’s various efforts to bring a xenomorph to Earth to exploit as a commercial weapon. So, we get a lot of explanations of that side of the conflict, but little on the alien itself. In fact, it’s decades before Prometheus explains, more or less, the alien origin. Prometheus is actually one of my favorite movies of the Alien series though, to be fair, it has its own problems of internal consistency. In particular, the movie reveals that a superior race both created humans but then decided to use the aliens (unsuccessfully) to wipe out humanity, but their facehugger-producing base got overwhelmed before being able to unleash them. Why then did these superior beings leave clues on Earth as to the location of the base they were planning to use to wipe out humanity3? These mistakes of internal logic can leave audiences scratching their heads.
Plot Holes: Don’t Keep Changing the Story
One thing to try to avoid is the infamous plot hole. By nature, a plot hole is a threat to the internal consistency of a story and reveals the author’s hand.
One of the more famous plot holes comes from War of the Worlds. Basically…an advanced race of aliens overwhelms the Earth but somehow forgets, for all their advanced knowledge, to get vaccinated against common Earth diseases? Ok, that one’s also a bit of post hoc deus ex machina (everything turns out all right because of a sweep of the author’s hand). It’s often forgiven because of the irony, but with a bit of thought it’s also very silly.
Sometimes a reveal is just disappointing. A Quite Place is an obviously high-concept film but with a premise that leaves people wanting. How did these blind but hearing-sensitive creatures, who don’t appear particularly technologically clever, get to Earth? In a sequel, A Quite Place: Day One, it’s revealed that the alien planet was destroyed, and the monsters have basically ridden the fragmented asteroids through space, somehow surviving the planet’s explosion and travel through zero-atmosphere space to make it to Earth. It’s about the dumbest explanation I’ve heard and feels tacked on to an otherwise excellent high-concept film series.
The other issue is trying to avoid changing the story constantly so that audiences get confused. The X-Files was one of my favorite shows during the 1990s and the gradual reveal of “what the hell is going on” was much of the fun. But the show eventually devolved into a series of sillier and often mutually-contradicting explanations and backtracks that just got confusing4.
There really are two ways of going about this…one can either sketch out the entire scheme in advance or, if one is inclined to let things flow organically, back-reading one’s own books can help avoid continuity mistakes.
I honestly see advantages to both approaches. I kind of like the organic approach. My own Grimoire Manor novel series is premised on the idea of the main character shunting back and forth in time between modern day Rhode Island and 19th Century Prague, hunting ghosts and fighting ghouls, all the montsers originating from the same mysterious family. Part of the fun is the protagonist, Nevine Turner, trying to discover why she’s time traveling, what provokes it, and how she might control it. To make sure to avoid continuity mistakes, I’ve back-read my own book several times, to make sure I remember everything5.
Some continuity mistakes may be inevitable, particularly in a long-running series (even Harry Potter has them!)…but keeping them minimal will help audiences forgive them.
The Advantage of Folklore
Stories that originate in folklore likely have an advantage: people already kind of think they know about vampires, werewolves and ghosts, so the need for a logical explanation may be reduced. Sure, ghosts just happen…cuz they do (actually, no they probably don’t). Nonetheless, most ghost stories do require some degree of motive for why a soul remains as a ghost. Hence all the digging up the lost bones stuff we find everywhere from The Green Knight to The Ring.
We can see a bit of this looking at three vampire outings. Although Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel keeps the title character’s origins mysterious, the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola film is much more explicit: Dracula blasphemously renounced God after the suicide of his beloved wife. This gives the story an excellent internally consistent story, and fodder to embellish the plot as well. It’s my preferred version.
Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot keeps the origin of The Master much more mysterious. We get some hints…he’s centuries old, likely from eastern Europe, etc., but there’s no clear full explanation for how he became a vampire. This is kind of the middle point…and I think with folklore, people will fill in the blanks in ways that are rewarding.
Then there’s a movie like Sinners. In this case, a vampire kind of just shows up and does vampire things because…why not? There’s really no logic to it at all. Sinners has a lot of award buzz, though I think that’s more because of the film’s first half…well-written and beautifully acted, but largely vampire-free6. The second half degenerates into a more-or-less by-the-numbers vampire siege movie and not even the best one of that genre7. It’s clumsy and silly and all the characters who’d been lovingly built up in the movie’s first half get treated like cardboard cutouts.
So, yes, you can get something of a pass when you draw from folklore, but that’s not an excuse for not thinking things through a bit and having some backstory.
Conclusions and Advice
1. If you prefer to sketch things out in advance, make a plan and stick to it. Run the backstory/explanation past someone you know will give you good feedback. Does the internal consistency make sense? Is it fun and rewarding? If you’re going to hold things back, do you know how and when you’ll reveal your breadcrumbs of clues as the story progresses?
2. If you prefer the organic approach, be aware this risks of you losing track and creating logical inconsistencies. You may end up writing yourself into a corner requiring a post-hoc deus ex machina of the type we’ll talk about in Part 2. The best way to avoid this is to go back and reread your past chapters or books as you go along. Have a trusted colleague also read what you’ve got…often they’ll spot inconsistencies or errors you’ve missed.
3. Some inconsistencies and errors may be inevitable, particularly with longer book series. Don’t sweat small errors too much…audiences will forgive those. Your goal is to avoid major plot holes that are unforgiveable.
4. You can definitely create tension by keeping “the cause” mysterious at the upfront…but consider your pacing on how to release clues to your readers. Is the reveal satisfying? Do you want to leave a little ambiguity to create the endless fan theories for which some franchises are well known?
5. Yes, people are sometimes irrational, but character backstory motivations and behaviors that seem completely random are harder to sell with readers.
6. You can try giving no explanation, Walking Dead style, but be aware your story is going to need to be even stronger in other areas. That choice may leave lingering dissatisfaction with some readers (like me!)
7. With established folklore, you’ll get something more of a pass on not delving into deeper explanations. Why are werewolves vulnerable to silver? Nobody cares…it’s just established folklore at this point. You won’t get that same level of forgiveness with a fantasy world of your own creation. Your spider-people are vulnerable to jade? You’ll need to explain that.
8. Again, the ability to get honest feedback (neither cruel or encouragement from mom) is invaluable.
Good luck with your writing. Next time, we’ll turn to the even more dangerous post-hoc deux ex machina!
Well, walks and sails, obviously.
I would be remiss in not giving a nod to the Return of the Living Dead series which postulates zombies as aware, and the reanimation due to a toxic government-produced gas, Trioxin. In this case the zombies can talk, helpfully explaining key details. It’s an intentionally goofy series, but one that’s actually more logically consistent than the George Romero movies.
It would be the equivalent of the Americans sending a postcard to Nazi Germany for Los Alamos during WWII.
My memory is that Chris Carter acknowledged he took the organic “wing it” approach which eventually circled around itself in a doom loop. It’s a good example of why authors must be extra careful when letting a story evolve organically.
And yes, I do sometimes find important tidbits I’d forgotten about!
If I’m being blunt, I suspect placing the film in the uber-racist 1930s south evokes the kind of Hollywood white-guilt that sends movies onto the awards pipeline even if they’re just ok.
Seriously. 30 Days of Night was better.