A while ago, I explained the benefits of writing the query letter before the novel. If the query’s broken, no way will the novel hold up. On Wednesday, I realized that you can use this method not only to fix a bad premise, but to improve it.

Query Shark tells us exactly what we need in a query:

“Answer three simple questions: who’s the protagonist; what choice does she face; what are the consequences of the choice.”

Usually this choice is obvious. It’s the call to adventure. If the protagonist refuses, there wouldn’t be a book.

But sometimes this choice is a false one. There is no earthly reason why someone would agree to go adventuring. They only do so because you, the author, need them to in order to write the book.

Once you recognize this, it’s easy to fix. You can raise the stakes or make sure there’s no reason for your protagonist to stay behind.

Or, you can take the opportunity to improve your plot.

As I was writing a query to see if a novel idea I had would work, I noticed that I had one of those false choices. The protagonist was meek, there was no way she’d suddenly overcome that for plot reasons. So I used that to my advantage.

I thought, what would happen if her choice was no? If she tried to get out of it? The result is a deliciously better plot than I would have had originally.

So before you get too far along in your novel, ask yourself if you’ve given your protagonist a false choice. You might find a good way to improve your story along the way.

Time travel is one of my pet peeves. Not when it’s used, but when it’s used incorrectly.

That’s right. You can do time travel wrong.

I like to think of the dilemma as different schools:

• The “Back to the Future” school’s time travel is where the main character goes back in time and his very presence, let alone his actions, change the future for better or worse. Example: Marty’s parents go from lame and wimpy to cool and confident.
• The “Animorphs” (a.k.a. the “Harry Potter”) school’s time travel is where the main character who went back in time had already gone back in time. Their presence doesn’t change the future, it makes the future what it is. Example: the Animorphs caused the destruction of the dinosaurs.

Guess which one I think is right? (Hint: it’s the one that has Harry Potter.)

But what gives me the right to act superior and call one of these theories wrong? How about the fact that the first one plain doesn’t make sense. Let’s see what happens when we apply the first school to the Animorphs’ situation.

Okay, so they go back in time to the Cretaceous period. Obviously, their actions change the course events should have taken, since they weren’t there the first time around. One of those actions involves changing a comet’s trajectory so that it hits Earth. That means the first time around the comet would have kept going past Earth, and the dinosaurs weren’t killed to make way for the Human Age…

So somehow, humans who aren’t supposed to exist managed to go back in time to change events so humans could exist.

I’m sorry, but wtf.

It makes way more sense to think that yes, the Animorphs were there the first time around.

Ironically, you can do the whole “went back in time and changed the future” thing and not annoy me by being epically awesome. Case in point: the new Star Trek movie. Of course, they got bonus points because that was their solution for not being restricted to canon.

“This is named after the random musical number sung by a big-lipped alligator towards the end of the film All Dogs Go To Heaven. A scene that comes right the [bleeped] outta nowhere, has little to no bearing whatsoever on the plot, is way over the top in terms of ridiculousness even in the context of the movie, and after it happens, no one ever speaks of it again.”
— Nostalgia Chick, explaining the term after using it to describe the singing iguana scene from Fern Gully

If you’re a TVTropes sleuth, you may have run across the Big Lipped Alligator Moment trope, as defined above.

I believe the phrase you are looking for is “wtf.”

And in case you think these sorts of scenes are limited to animated movies, think again. Any story can have them, including classic literature.

The Fellowship of the Ring has the most random scene with Tom Bombadil. I have never understood why Tolkien put him in. He serves no purpose, not for the plot, not even for humor. He just pops up out of nowhere, does his little song and dance, and disappears, never to be heard from again (thank goodness).

Thankfully, Peter Jackson was wise enough to leave the dude out of the movie.

Please. I’m begging you. Take a page out of Jackson’s book. Do not put any Big Lipped Alligator Moments in your stories. If it doesn’t advance the plot or character development, cut it. I don’t care if you think it’s the most brilliant thing you’ve ever written.

Snip snip.

We’ve all seen this situation before:

“Hero: Oh no! I love you, Darling, but my heroics have put you in *gasp* certain danger! I must break up with you to keep you safe!
Darling: Oh Hero! I understand! Don’t worry, I will never love another!”

Please. Like the villain cares that you aren’t officially a couple. He’ll still totally use your Darling against you.

Here are two of my favorite examples:

Harry Potter – Harry breaks up with Ginny at the end of Half-Blood Prince to protect her but Voldemort has no way of knowing that! Heck, he probably doesn’t even know Harry’s dating her in the first place. If he cared, I guess he could find out from Snape. But no one’s delivering a message to Voldie to let him know “btw, Ginny’s no longer suitable bait since, you know, they broke up.”

Lois & Clark – Clark breaks up with Lois in the 3rd season to protect her from future villainous antics but she’s Lois Lane a.k.a. Superman’s girl a.k.a. the go-to-person when you’re looking for Superman’s help! That’s why she was targeted in the first place. The kidnappings are not going to stop just because they privately broke up.

Come on. If you’re going to have this kind of scene – and I highly advise you don’t – at least have it make sense.

Or, you could choose to subvert the cliche like Sorcery 101 did here. That always makes a good twist.