Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes that bad day stretches into a bad week, or a bad month, if you're really struggling. Usually, that's not fun for any parties involved. However, if you're an external observer, and the action is taking place in a book or movie, disaster can be the whole reason you're paying any attention. If disaster is inevitable, it's because of a concept called Finagle's Law.
The Hindenburg Disaster
Finagle's Law vs. Murphy's Law
Finagle's Law, in its most general form, is the idea that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and usually in the most disastrous way imaginable.
The general populace might think this concept is actually Murphy's Law, but Murphy's Law is a little more nuanced. While Finagle's Law goes immediately to the point of disaster, the idea behind Murphy's Law is that if there is more than one way to do something, and one of those ways results in catastrophe, then someone will figure out how to cause that catastrophe. Things should be designed in order to make it so that it is impossible to cause catastrophe.
In other words, if you're using a vacuum cleaner and pull the cord in such a way that the prong snaps off the plug and sticks in the wall, which then catches fire, that is Murphy's Law in action. The vacuum cleaner was designed in a way that the prong could snap off the plug, and so that is exactly what happened.
Examples of Finagle's Law
Finagle's Law is a broader statement: that failure and disaster are pretty much inevitable, even if things seem to be going well at the outset. Even things that seemingly can't go wrong will go wrong with Finagle's Law at the plot's helm, which can lead to the seemingly ideal results causing a greater disaster. This happens in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, when the doctor's experiment is successful, but he is so disgusted by the results that he rejects his creation, which then leads to the creature turning towards evil.
In addition to ratcheting up the drama of a story and cranking the stakes to insane levels, Finagle's Law is a prominent component of works of comedy, both on the light and dark side. Fargo uses Finagle's Law to the fullest extent of its capabilities, and the best parts of most works of laugh-out-loud comedy involve things falling to pieces at a spectacular pace.
Finagle's Law, if not a guiding principle of fiction writing, is an excellent concept to practice with. Increasingly raising the stakes by piling disaster on disaster can be sadistically fun for writers, and exploring just how bad a situation can get can exercise your creativity and storytelling.
Have you ever used Finagle's Law in your writing?
PRACTICE
Write about a holiday weekend trip that follows Finagle's Law. The disaster can be comedic or dramatic, whichever you prefer. Post your practice in the comments, and check out the work of other writers.
My husband and I were desperate for a weekend off together. Deciding that the American Cult of Overwork wasn’t going to hand it to us, we planned. Trevor and I risked employer disfavor and carved out the last weeken in July for ourselves. We chose a campsite in Malibu, only an hour from our home in L.A. It was going to be a beautiful weekend.
Finally the day came. The truck was loaded. We were ready to go. Trevor had the truck started, and I ran back in the house to fetch Murphy, our scruffy terrier-mix. While I
was in the house, Trevor got out of the cab to double check our gear was securely fastened in the back. He didn’t notice the door shutting behind him. The truck’s security automatically locks doors if the engine is running. Now we were locked out of our truck.
We went back into the house to embark on a search for the spare key. A half-hour of frustration went by before remembering we forgot to get the key from Trevor’s dad after he borrowed the truck. We called AAA for a locksmith.
An hour later, and after stopping for gas and ice, we were on our way.
Half way down, I realized I had forgotten Murphy’s leash. We had to go back home or stop at Petco and buy a new one. After studying my iPhone, we decided Petco was closer.
We got off the 10 in West L.A. where it turned out the L.A. Marathon had blocked off city streets. It took an hour of detours to get to Petco, only to find that Petco was jammed with people for their Big Birthday Sale/Adoption Day. To say it was a zoo is an understatement. Trevor and I ended up arguing over which leash to pick and someone’s Boston terrier picked a fight with Murphy.
Three hours later, we were back on the 10 only to discover we were smack-dab in the middle of rush hour. The highway was a parking lot. All I could think about was the ice-cold beer, sitting in the cooler, waiting for me.
Another hour went by, and we were finally pulling into the campgrounds. There, we discovered someone else was fully set up in our campsite. An awkward exchange led to the discovery that they had set up in the wrong camp. Looking back we shoulda taken their reserved site and let them stay where they were, but hindsight is 20-20. Instead, we helped them tear down and reload their truck.
Once they were off and our gear unloaded, I giggled at the adventure of the day and how it was finally over. Darkness was falling but we were here. At last, blessed relaxation. It was then, while we were opening our tent, that the unforecasted weekend rains, so rare in L.A., began to pelt my face.
Ha! I like the ending – just when you think all the trouble is over, it starts to rain. A perfect example of Finagle’s Law, and humorous as well.
Thank you, Grey! 🙂
Don’t you just LOVE the monsoon season? Nice ending.
Yes! Especially when enjoying the great outdoors. Thanks… 😀
“Okay, so far, so good! We’re in the air, on time, no connecting flights to worry about, and according to Tripadvisor, our hotel is supposed to be a decadent temple of luxury sanctified to the twin gods of convenience and laziness. There’s no way this vacation can go wrong.”
Mary looked askance at her husband but refrained from commenting. This wasn’t the first time Jeff had succumbed to rampant optimism. Unlike her husband, she retained a vivid recollection of their last seventeen getaways and their cataclysmic conclusions. Even so, she tried her best to relax with the airline magazine as the plane climbed to cruising altitude. Hours went by, and she hadn’t even realized she’d begun to feel a glimmer of hope until her son crushed it.
“Hey, look! It’s a fighter jet!”
The Captain’s rough voice sounded shaky over the intercom: “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, we’re having some communications trouble with air traffic control. Please don’t be alarmed by the military plane flying next to us, it’s only there as a precaution. They’re going to be guiding us in during the landing, make sure everything goes smoothly. Please enjoy the rest of your flight.” The man probably thought he’d turned off the intercom before he continued: “The one off the side isn’t the one they should be worried about anyway. Call your wife, Barry. In three minutes this plane’s going to be a fireball slamming into an empty field at terminal velocity. I told you not to make that prank call.”
Screams erupted throughout the cabin. Mary ground her teeth and glared at her husband, who could only shrug and give her an “it’s not my fault!” look.
Thankfully their son was much too preoccupied with the view to notice the shrieking passengers behind him. “Hey look! It’s a shark!”
Knowing she would regret it, Mary leaned over and peered out the window. She was about to tell her son that he’d been mistaken when a massive grey shape slammed into the F-35 flying next to the passenger jet. A snapshot of an impossibly huge shark sinking its teeth into the fighter’s fuselage burned itself into her mind before both plummeted out of sight. In the distance, more oversized sharks swirled through the air as part of a raging column of dust and debris.
Mary had had enough. She turned on her husband, pointing out the window. “Do you see that, Jeff?! As if crashing wasn’t bad enough, now there’s a Megalonado out there! I told you we should’ve flown United!”
I did not believe that could get any worse. Good job!
Thanks for your comment!
I like! I thoroughly enjoyed the B-grade Sharknado movies! Thank you so much for this!!
So far as family reunions go, this one had been a lot of fun. It could have been far worse, this was the half of the in-paw family that I had not met yet. The part I had gotten to know, well, let’s just say that our relationship hasn’t been any better since they moved to the West coast and we moved to the East coast.
At any rate, meeting the other half of the wife’s family, at least the prospect of it, had been extremely stressful, up to the point of actually meeting them. Leaving the event had been a sad thing. We tried to counter the sad with fun things along the trip home. Take three, maybe four days to drive from Wisconsin to Maryland and enjoy some sights along the way. That was the plan, at least. Nowhere in the plan was it written that anyone would get sick.
“Mom,” came our younger son’s little voice, “I don’t feel good.” When a 10 year old boy who had, up until that statement, been happily sucking down cherry slurpy type drink in a van says something like that you have to realize that there is one viable option. If you are driving, you must immediately cut across however many lanes of traffic there are between you and the widest shoulder, come to a screeching halt, undo your seat belt, climb to the middle row seat, to the child in the middle, unbuckle him, get him out of the van and onto the side of the shoulder nearest the grassy area. All in about a second. Other drivers be damned, they will recover; you, however, are sitting on a time bomb that is about to blow up.
24 ounces of cherry slurp went in, some 15 gallons of red stained, stinking, sticky, cheesy-clumped, unidentifiable, semi-plasticized; polymer-esque, partial liquid, watery, gelatinous, mucous streaked substance is about to erupt from that darling boy. Heaven have mercy on ya if you didn’t hear him, because that plaintive little plea was your one and only warning.
That one second gone, it has ticked away, be you driving or in one of the other passengers in that vehicle there is something unidentifiable that brings your eyes to that one face. At that one moment, the instant that it happens. Oh boy, does it happen, when it does, it goes in slow motion at first and then picks up speed.
Whoever is driving, Mom or Dad, is inevitably going to say something like, “What is that smell?” or “Oh, God, are you alright?” as if that sweet innocent, 10 year old child who is puking all over the seat, and sibling sitting in front of him, is going to stop puking to say something poignant like, “I am quite fine, Mother, just warming up for our stop at the Vomitorium.”
Before the adult passenger can blink, and the other children in the van can inhale to scream a second time, the can is at its required place on the shoulder and half of everything in it is on the roadside … getting washed by hand and water bottle … that was the start of would would became a five day ordeal in which all but one would have to stomach this virus.