Writing

Tragedy and Inevitability Walk Hand in Hand, and No One Dares to Tear Them Apart // the elements of a good tragedy

December 1, 2021

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes a good tragedy, and I’ve come up with a couple of pointers as to how tragedies are written. For the purposes of this post, I’m defining tragedy as any story that ends with unhappy ending.

Inevitability

One of the most important elements of tragedy is inevitability. Everything that happens in the story must feel natural rather than contrived. It is a sequence of small (and/or large) things that lead to another, until eventually there is no other outcome but the tragic one.

This is also good for building tension: instead of asking what will bring about the characters’ downfall, the audience asks how the characters’ downfall will take place.

It is even better if everything that goes wrong is the protagonist’s fault (look at Greek tragedies, fatal flaws, the fall of heroes, etc.). Usually due to a fatal flaw (or hamartia), the protagonist’s failure to realize their shortcomings results in the story’s tragic ending. When they succumb to their misbelief, all the puzzle pieces settle in place, and what results is the protagonist’s downfall.

Importance

The next element is the importance of events to the protagonist.

Bad things that happen to the character are sad, but they have a greater impact if they matter especially to the main character.

Here’s a quick example. Character A’s greatest desire is to protect their family, while Character B’s greatest desire is to become powerful. Losing a career opportunity or being demoted would have a greater impact on Character B, while being unable to save their family from a disaster would be devastating to Character A. Switching these disasters around would still be sad, but how much they matter varies because of who the characters are.

Impact

Linking back to the previous point, everything that happens in the story must affect the protagonist’s negative arc. If the character is not concerned about what the events happening around them, how is the audience supposed to care?

Rather, each scene must lead the protagonist closer and closer to their misbelief until finally, everything comes crashing down.

Tragedies tend to destroy characters in different ways, and in order to have that impact, everything that happens must matter to the character.

To watch a protagonist’s downfall is to see them pick their misbelief, or their flaw, over the truth. In this way, the audience has no choice but to see them slowly descend into a shadow of who they used to be.

And that is what gives the tragedy its impact. Step by step, the audience sees exactly how things could be prevented — if only the protagonist had made the right choice.

If only a previous event had not happened.

If only it wasn’t too late to turn around.