Any paradox can be paradoctored (?)

[briarwood]

Peter Jackson’s King Kong came out in 2005. I remember something he said in the promos about his film vs the original. There’s a scene where the characters fall into a chasm and find it full of giant insects and worms. Yuck. But he said that in the original, important bits of that sequence were cut, so you never found out how they climbed out of there. The characters who fell just showed up later, with no explanation and no idea what happened to the ones who didn’t make it. In creating his version, Peter Jackson deliberately decided to have the whole cast fall, so he had no choice but to explain and include how they got out of the chasm.

Off the top of my head, I can’t remember how they got out 😉 But then, it’s a long time since I’ve watched it.

Anyhow, to my actual point. I’m writing a story and I don’t know how to get my characters out of the chasm.

The chasm is important. It’s a dark story and I need to go into the dark. It’s not that there are no options for getting out. I have several. But none of them work for me. It feels too easy.

My instinct says to go with one of the easy choices but have it go badly wrong. The problem is, if I do that, then I have to go to an even darker place and I don’t think there’s a way back from that. In the past, I wouldn’t blink: if I had a plot that had to end in death or worse, I would go there. But that’s not where I want to go with this story. I need an ending that’s, if not happy at least positive.

So…I need a way out of the chasm that’s not one of the options I currently have on my table.

😔 🤔