A bullet might be the fastest way to develop character (or end it). Similarly, dropping a bomb on a city is the most surefire way to change the landscape of a fictional world. But not all development or resolution can be solved with finger snap swiftness. Genre fiction often involves introducing conflict, raising the stakes, and challenging the protagonist to overcome the conflict and succeed. We can do this with plot twists or character choices.
But another way to raise the stakes and develop character (or world-build) is to introduce the slow creep of decay into the mix. A hero that is getting healthier does not increase conflict – a hero that is losing their grip on what makes them human does. A world that is getting safer does not increase conflict – a crumbling world does. Today we’re going to look at ways to introduce decay as a way to add some conflict to a story.
Decay of the Body
Obviously films like The Fly (1986) and any assortment of Cronenbergian body horror could not exist without the core concept of rot and decay. In those cases, decay isn’t so much an additional factor to up the stakes or develop conflict because those stories could not exist without decay. And while I love a good bit of body horror, today I’m more interested in talking about decay as an additional component for storytelling as compared to the center focus of the story.
Annihilation (2018) tells the story of brave researchers voyaging into Area X, a land marked by mysterious (alien?) influence. The few who make it back return changed in mind and body. Cancer wrecks their systems. A scientist wonders why the land seeks to destroy. The Natalie Portman biologist remarks that it is not destroying, rather it is ‘making something new.’ Throughout the film, and the book on which it was based, we are treated to an assortment of unanswerable questions and bizarre visions. But the fact that Area X is slowly killing and remaking all that enter it is a major part of the story. It also lends Annihilation a ticking clock scenario, upping the stakes.
Zombies are an obvious example of how we can watch decay wrack the body and change it into something different. It’s not the best of the bunch, but Australia’s recent film Cargo (2017) is a good example of how to use decay of the body to increase tension. In a world dominated by zombie pandemic, a father who has recently been bitten knows he only has a few days to walk across the Outback and deliver his baby to safety. If he doesn’t make it in time, he will turn and potentially devour his own child. It’s a story about a father’s love. There is no real hope for his survival, only for the survival of his kid. And bit by bit, we can see the virus in his system is messing him up, making the hero more of a threat.
An unlikely example for this piece might be Doc Holiday as portrayed by Val Kilmer in Tombstone (1993). Depicted in every scene as drunk or sick, it allows Kilmer to really chew the scenery. The fun accent and witty dialogue matter a great deal in making the character memorable, but his steady physical decline throughout the film as TB eats him apart on the inside makes Tombstone’s Holiday one of the more memorable protagonists in all of the Western genre. Dude even shows up Kurt Russell (complete with a magnificent moustache) which is not an easy thing to do.
Crank (2006) has Jason Statham’s heart dying as a ticking clock plot device. Contagion (2011) is about understanding a global pandemic where those studying the virus are among those slowly falling victim to it. Cabin Fever (2002) shows the body decaying at a rapid pace because of a flesh eating virus. All of these and more are examples of slow death being introduced as a way of raising stakes or impacting character. Some of them are directly related to the plot (Cabin Fever) others are more secondary (Tombstone) but all improve the story that’s being told. Think of a way that you could introduce the slow, deadly encroach of doom to a character’s life to up the stakes.
Decay of the Mind
Losing one’s mind – or their moral code – is a popular way to add conflict. Like the decay of the body, decay of the mind can be the primary or secondary focus for a story.
Sure, The Shining (1980) has ghosts, but the real threat comes from Jack Torrance’s unraveling sanity. Alcoholism and a past of domestic violence suggest a rage barely kept in check beneath the surface for Jack. When hauntings, extreme isolation, and coming face to face with his own failures as a writer enter the mix, Jack loses his grip and starts hunting his family all over the hotel. But it’s gradual. Bit by bit, his mind crumbles and his goodness surrenders to madness.
Walter White was a desperate but basically good man that cut too many corners and made friends with too many demons, and in doing so made himself a monster. Breaking Bad’s Walter White has cancer (decay of the body), which informs his decision making and results in a loss of self/moral code. It’s not an overnight thing, it’s something that takes multiple seasons to see. And even in the later years you can still occasionally get a glimpse of the man he once was before he made peace with the evil inside him. By the end, he’s changed too much, and we cannot wish him well. I don’t know that Walter ever qualified as a hero, but by the end he is definitely a villain.
Memento (2000) and so damn many movies explore amnesia as a dramatic device. A character’s mental health, which can be slowly declining, is another way of using the brain as an enemy for the hero character. ‘Decay of the mind’ results in many an ‘unreliable narrator’, which provides the author a chance to have fun with structure and even lying to their audience. One must be careful to research the condition they are hoping to dramatize – you don’t want to come across with the wrong depiction of a mental condition or you will risk demonizing it. Understand the mind so you may find a way to fuck with it to your story’s benefit. Take a crowbar to ethics and morals, watch it crumble and reveal a bloodthirsty monster beneath the human mask. Plant a bad idea in a character’s head, watch it turn into madness. Do your worst.
Decay of the World
This might be my favorite way for a story to use the encroachment of destruction to add conflict and dread. You’ll often read in a film review about how ‘the city of New York is a character itself’ and that’s kind of bullshit but also kind of what you’re striving for. Adding character to your backdrop provides so much world building and makes your job as a writer so much easier. King Lear plays a lot better in a castle that’s been set on fire as compared to just being recited in the local park with a lead actor that is trying to remember his lines as a stray dog sniffs his crotch.
Escape from New York (1981) reduced Manhattan to rubble at the start of the movie and warring street gangs only made things worse as the film went on. Say what you will about Inception (2010) – and I have – the way that it attacks the very land its characters populate is a fascinating concept. “The dream is collapsing!” That the land tumbles, crumbles, and falls as they race toward a conclusion might be the best thing about the movie. Famine and rot affecting the water or a food source is another way of adding external conflict to a story, as seen in sci-fi like Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and more real-world situations like the WWII drama Fires on the Plain (1959).
War and sci-fi, settings which most frequently offer you the chance to bring the world crumbling down, are the best opportunities to use the ‘decay of the world’ as a manner of upping the stakes for your drama. It can either directly relate to the crisis at hand or simply play out in the background to add character.
***
On a long enough timeline, everything ages, crumbles, fades, and perishes. But we don’t always have the time to show the story from such an ultimate, all-encompassing point of view. We can make it fast with a bullet or a bomb, or we can introduce a little decay, watch as something beautiful steadily makes an ugly exit. Make it background, make it center focus, make it curable or make it damning, it’s your call. But introducing a little corrosion, literally or figuratively, can add additional layers to a story.
