Noncomplementary Behavior: Adding Complexity to Your Story by Connie Berry

 

Life in the time of the plague means lots of little losses. One of the things I really miss is writers' conferences and the opportunities they create to reconnect with old friends and make new ones in the writing community. 

My favorite conferences have always been Malice Domestic, Sleuthfest, Killer Nashville, and Crime Bake. Last year I added Bouchercon in Dallas and Left Coast Crime in San Diego.  Left Coast turned out to be a one-day affair as I'd no sooner checked into my room than the whole thing was shut down. That was the first inkling I had of the seriousness of Covid.

What I love about writers' conferences is more than the feeling of coming home, meeting with people who do what I do. I also come away from almost every conference with at least one practical nugget I can use in my writing. 

At Crime Bake 2017—I was in the middle of a massive revision at the time—I heard Hank Phillippi Ryan respond to a question about her own revision process. "I delete everything," she said, raising her index finger for emphasis, "that isn't the book." Brilliant. That sentence is still one of my guiding principles. Every scene, paragraph, and word must serve the plot in some way or it doesn't belong.

Last year at Bouchercon my big take-away was the concept of "noncomplementarity," mentioned by one of the participants in a panel discussion called "Keep Those Pages Turning." The story came originally from NPR (Invisibilia, July 21,  2016). Here's what I remember:

One warm summer night, a group of friends was having a backyard picnic when a man burst in, wielding a gun and shouting, "Give me your money or I'll start shooting." Naturally everyone froze, and the worst part was no one actually had any money at the time. The night was sure to end in disaster until one of the women spoke up: "You look like you're having a bad day. Would you like to join us? Sit down. Have a glass of wine."

Like flipping a switch, the look on the man's face changed. He put his gun in his pocket, sat down, and accepted a glass of wine. "This is good wine," he said, and then, "I think I've come to the wrong place." Later he asked, "Can I get a hug?" Several people hugged him. Then he apologized and walked out, carrying the glass of wine, which they found, placed carefully on the sidewalk.

Complementary behavior means people tend to mirror each other. If someone treats you warmly, you are warm back. If they display hostility, you respond with hostility. Noncomplementary behavior means reacting in an unexpected way—breaking the pattern. Conflict is inevitable, but how we respond is powerful. Flipping the switch.

Flying home from Dallas last year, I realized that in my second Kate Hamilton mystery, A Legacy of Murder, one of the characters—Lady Barbara Finchley-fforde—responds to a crisis with non-complementary behavior. Her unexpected behavior is the game-changer that leads to the resolution of the crisis. I just didn't have a name for it. Now I do.

Have you experienced—or demonstrated—noncomplementarity? What was the result?

How might you use the concept in your WIP?