Deus ex machina defined

Deus ex machina defined is from the draft of “Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium: Best Practices, Words, Concepts, and Warnings to Help You Write and Market Compelling, Useful, and Entertaining Prose”

(c) 2024 by Bill Peschel

deus ex machina: A plot event that spoons the protagonist out of trouble through coincidence or contrivance. From the Latin phrase “god from the machine” to describe a crane used to lower a character playing a god in ancient Greek plays to rescue a character from trouble.

This definition can also be applied to coincidences. If you’ve written a character into a corner with no way out, it’s easy to use a coincidence to save them. This is a bad idea for several reasons:

1. You’ve deprived the reader of a treat. A hero in trouble is exciting. A hero who uses his wits to get out of trouble is doubly so. A hero who is rescued at the last minute has the effect on the reader of a balloon deflating (with juicy fart noises added).

2. You’ve deprived your hero of a character-defining moment that displays their tools, talents, wit, and style.

So when plotting your story, remember this rule: “Use coincidences to get characters into trouble, not out of trouble.”

Remember the scene in “Pulp Fiction” when Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis) stops at the intersection and sees Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames) step in front of him? Butch had just thrown the fight that Marcellus bet heavily on, and that’s the last person Butch wanted to see. It’s an electric moment.

That’s how you use coincidence to get a character into trouble.

“Peschel’s Indie Author Compendium” will be published by Peschel Press. No release date has been set.