Bad Ideas Make for Good Stories

Have you ever noticed how people in horror movies make the dumbest decisions? They always go into the creepy room in the creepy building and they always pay for it. They always split up into small groups and then they make it easier to get captured. Why the heck don't they ever learn something and not go searching for a monster.

Well, consider what would happen if they were smart. A group of teenagers, after some serious thinking, decides to camp out in a creepy, abandoned house. After an hour or so, weird stuff starts happening. The lights flicker and burn out all at once. They turn on some flashlights, all of which flicker and die in unison. Everybody agrees that this is messed up and they make their way out. They go to their respective homes, go to sleep, and talk about how weird it was in school the next day. After that, nothing bad happens again.

This is the worst movie idea ever (not counting The Happening, which is undefeatable). Nothing happens. There is no conflict, no resolution, the characters aren't interesting and we don't care what happens to them.

Sometimes, if you really want a story to move along, you have to make your characters do stupid things. It can be very difficult if you are a rational person. Why would anybody do something so idiotic? Well, there's two things you have to understand. One is that you can suspend a certain amount of disbelief in order to tell a captivating story. The other is that some people are genuinely stupid. Sometimes the smart idea just doesn't occur to you, or at least not until it's too late. Talk with your friends about regrets. If they have any, it proves my point.

However, don't think that your characters have to be stupid to be interesting. You can make a perfectly good story where people do the best that they can, but still do interesting things. Consider my original terrible movie idea.

After the teenagers go back to their houses, they are so spooked that some of them can't sleep. A couple of them do, but they have terrible nightmares. They actually had the same nightmares. The next day at school, they find out that one of their friends is missing. He never made it home last night. The next night they have the same weird dreams, as well as the feeling that they're being watched. The kids have to find out what is going on, so they search the house during the daylight where they won't need electricity. They find out that there is a curse on the house and that the only way to cure it is to perform a ritual in the house at the stroke of midnight. They come back at night to do the ritual, but that is when all of the strongest forces are out and about, so they must use all of their resolve to make it work.

In this case, the characters were not stupid. They were forced to do these things. They couldn't avoid or ignore what was going on because there was no way to run. They could do what they needed to do during the day because it required them being there at night. This method, creating situations that require danger or fear, is a great way to work around making your characters stupid and blindly walking into danger or being paralyzed by fear.