A question regarding Deus ex Machina

[Jo Zebedee]

I think it's important to foreshadow or the reader does feel cheated. (I did laugh the other day reading that Philip Pullman was the only author who'd used a deus to give a terrible ending...) it's how far you can go. For instance, this crit:

http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/541540-30-posts-i-said.html

Only one reader caught the foreshadowing (well done, Twitchy-Whiskered Lagomorph). But it is there and it grows over three of these little vignettes.

Perhaps it's too subtle (feedback suggests it still is) - if that's the case I'll make it stronger. Because readers like to be smart and say ah-ha! I knew it. And a deus only makes people feel cheated of that chance.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Personally as a reader I like the god of plot devices - provided it doesn't come completely out of left field to save the MC right at the end without my knowing a thing about it. But there are all sorts of ways you can foreshadow this sort of ending without actually telling the reader much at all.

The easiest way is to go the mystery route - they're searching for this weapon, but no one really knows what it does, and every so often they come across dead civilizations where they think the weapon was used, but can't make heads nor tails of what it did exactly or how it worked.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[tinkerdan]

If you are trying to write Simon Pure or Hard Science Fiction I would avoid the Deus ex Machina like the plague.

It is one thing that sometimes is harder to avoid than you would expect in that many times its a matter of unexplained things (usually from trying to keep some part of the plot super secret from the reader.) This creates two problems one is the unreliable character who led the reader by the nose right into the DeM; and then the misdirection that hid everything so well that it seems like it came right out of nowhere even though the author has a clear idea where it came from.

You really need to drop enough hints even though a small percentage of the people will figure where you are going; and that can be done in such a way that you throw all sorts of smelly red herrings all around it to throw the reader off.

 

[MatterSack]

So as long as readers get some foreshadowing that there might be something in the works (not even direct exposition, just general proof of concept), then all is well?

In my case the plot device is intentionally secret. However, whilst it solves the main conflict, it does so in the form of a massive bittersweet event that creates a problem much more sinister than the one it solved.