Today I broke down and bought the 2019 version of Aladdin on DVD. I've wanted it for a long time and finally decided to go for it.
However, by the time I got home, something strange had happened. The DVD case and several skeins of yarn were all in the same plastic bag. None of the items were that heavy. Yet somehow the corner of the case had ripped a major hole in the bag:
What the weird? Those corners aren't even that sharp! Nonetheless, the bag is pretty much ruined for any future use.
This incident reminded me of some advice from one of my professional heroes, the late Blake Snyder (author of Save the Cat! and other books on screenwriting). One of his key philosophies is that we need to see the protagonist's transformation throughout a story. In this article on his website, Snyder explains a crucial element of that transformation:
"Most stories involve a blind spot or flaw the hero is not aware of. . . . That's the 'shard of glass,' that sharp-edged incident, bad behavior, tough truth[,] or wrong done and absorbed that the hero swallowed a long time ago. Skin has grown up around its hard corners, but it's in there—deep—and it must be pulled out and looked at and dealt with [so] the hero can get to that vital butterfly stage [of their development]."
Snyder indicates that the shard of glass is key to the All Is Lost moment, or the story's lowest emotional point. Personally, I think this is the point in the story when the shard of glass pokes through and the emotional wound bleeds afresh, perhaps for the first time in years. Though external events are at their worst during this part of the story, they're not the true source of the protagonist's pain. Those events have simply exacerbated a (perhaps seemingly small) wound that's already there and forced it to the surface.
The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, for all its flaws, provides a good example of the shard of glass poking through. (Warning: Here be spoilers.) In Eragon, the protagonist's mother leaves him in his uncle's care as an infant. As Eragon grows up, his ignorance of his father's identity both saddens him and subjects him to others' scorn. Compared to Eragon's external problems--the oncoming scarcity of winter, the loss of his uncle and home, and so on--this issue gets fairly little coverage in the novel. But if Eragon is like most boys and young men, he's probably hurting deeply from the absence of the person who's typically a boy's first hero. This is likely even truer after Garrow's death deprives Eragon of his existing father figure.
This shard of glass takes center stage in Eldest. Not only does Murtagh defeat Eragon in battle, but he reveals that he and Eragon are brothers, sons of the evil Morzan. This news devastates Eragon far more than his defeat or his physical wounds. The thought has probably crossed his mind that his father might be a bad person, but the truth is far worse than he ever imagined. And even though Eragon finally knows who his father is, they still have no chance of ever having a loving relationship, so that hole in Eragon's life can never be filled. This is reinforced by another shard-of-glass appearance in Brisingr: the moment when Eragon discovers Murtagh's error but realizes that Brom's death has nonetheless permanently deprived Eragon of the chance for a father-son relationship.
When the shard of glass pokes through, it's a make-or-break moment for the protagonist. Will they try to force the shard back inside and do even more damage? Let the long-suppressed pain destroy them? Or will they have the courage to finally pull out the shard and treat the wounds they've lived with for so long?
Write on,
Candice
P.S. What's your protagonist's shard of glass? Hop onto the Facebook group and join the discussion!
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