I was in college the first time I saw the unintentionally hilarious film, Showgirls. There’s a scene toward the end of the movie where Elizabeth Berkley is shown in a musical montage preparing to avenge a friend who has been raped. She is shown dressing herself in a sexy, dominatrix-y outfit, polishing her long, sharp nails, and finally, painting her nipples with some sort of gooey substance. When she arrives at the rapist’s suite, the guy—ahem—heads straight for the substance.
“I know,” I blurted out to my roommates. “She’s poisoned her nipples.”
The room erupted into peals of laughter that eclipsed every other ridiculous circumstance in the movie. Everyone else, it seems, already knew that Berkley’s plans extended no farther than distracting the guy so she could kick his ass with her stiletto-heeled boots.
Later, my roommates, as a unit, told me that this statement perfectly encapsulated my peculiar way of looking at the world. “The simplest explanation is never the answer for you. Occam’s Razor has no place in your universe,” one told me. “Instead, it’s The Poisoned Nipple Theory.”
As I’ve developed as a writer, I’ve realized that TPNT has served me well in creating plots and storylines. After all, the easy explanation in fiction is the cliché, the been-there-done-that plotline that inspires editors to roll their eyes and makes readers yawn and keep browsing the shelves.
The secret to adding the elusive “freshness” to any set piece of genre fiction is to take it one step farther than the inevitable. You can’t do it the way the others have. The bad guy will see through it, and so will the audience. So instead, you poison your nipples, and then, when the bad guy is doubled over in pain, hacking up bloody chunks of his disintegrating esophagus, you kick his ass in a way that no one has ever seen before. Now there’s good fiction. Author Holly Lisle says, “I’m willing to take a second look at clichés and figure out how to turn them into something new, which is a great way to lull readers into a false sense of security.”
There are definitely dangers to this approach. Not everyone will agree that the character can’t just beat the crap out of the villain without the benefit of toxic mammaries. (In the textbook Showgirls case, they’re probably right. Poisoned nipples are rather inconvenient.) They might even tell you to drop all this poison nonsense and just take the road most traveled: a gun. A stiletto heel. A nice, comfortable, old-fashioned ass-whooping. Booooooring.
As Mark Twain says, “The difference between fact and fiction is that fiction has to be believable.” But believable doesn’t necessarily mean obvious. Like every other part of a book, the poisoned nipple scenes have to be well-motivated. They can’t be outlandish for the sake of being outlandish.
Utilized correctly, TPNT can be a boon to a writer who wants to honor the traditional plotline while still providing a fresh twist to the reader. Readers crave the comfort of familiar surroundings: the Texas ranch, the leather-clad spygirl, the swinging single city chick, the notorious ton rake, but they also want a reason to buy a new book rather than thumbing through the dog-eared copies of their old favorites. When plotting, the savvy author doesn’t adhere to the simple solution or the easy way out. She makes it complicated enough that the reader not only has no idea what’s coming, but she also isn’t sure that the heroine will pull it off. But in the end, she satisfies the reader’s expectations. The bad guy still gets his ass kicked.
I know some writers who abide by the rule of six, a Native American thinking process that stipulates opening the mind up to the possibility of six different paths. Others make lists of twenty things that can happen and throw out the first dozen, because it’s only later that they get really creative. (And possibly really ridiculous; every time I’ve tried this exercise I always throw in “and then the aliens land,” even if brainstorming a historical. Hey, it worked in Monty Python’s Life of Brian!) But these exercises teach the mind not to immediately fix upon the first plot development or solution that springs to mind. After all, if it’s so easy for the writer to think up, it might be just as easy for the reader to do the same. The happiest readers are ones that are both surprised and satisfied. They’re the ones that ask, “Where do you get your ideas?”
I like to smile and say, “Showgirls.”
No related posts.
Outstanding essay, Diana!
*stands and applauds*
Don’t be surprised if TPNT spreads around the ‘net like ragweed and becomes our latest buzzword. I love it.
Priceless. Thank you.
WooHoo! Great article. And, I tend to agree with Ann, Tnpt just might take on a life of it’s own.:grin:
Oy! typos
Not enough coffee. TPNT… TPNT…
Love, love, love this…so clear and to the point (no pun intended.) Who knew a theory could be born from such a horrendously bad (and funny!) movie?
Good job, D!
Thank you! I think my old roommates, not to mention by boyfriend, would bust a gut if TPNT took on a life of its own.
Great Post – and funny too. I was reading it and thought the same thing you did as you described her putting gook on her nipples. What was it then? Some sort of lipstick for nipples? I would have gone for the poison theory. (Note to self – rent Shwogirls – don’t tell hubby, and see if he can guess what she’s doing to her tits, lol)
I get my ideas from the air I breathe, I guess. Usually I have too many to list in my head. I’d like to have only six. It would make it easier to focus, lol!
OMG, I LOVE this post! TPNT is a perfect, self-fulfilling reminder to stretch our imaginations way far out beyond the obvious. Thank you!
Jennifer, I think it was supposed to be some sort of edible kinky rouge. He seemed to like the way it, um, tasted.
I’m with you on the too many iideas, but in ways of handling particular scenes, or lines of dialogue, that is where the brainstorming comes in, at least for me.
Aaah…a fellow movie talker: making predictions and snarky comments is second nature to me. I’m not sure I’ve ever come up with anything as out-there as the TPNT, but I’m sure it would have made the movie!
Great advice! I’m looking forward to your book!
Alyssa
Actually, they did use the poisoned-nipple idea on an episode of “CSI”. IIRC, the woman was drugging men and stealing their wallets–but the drug was also making her woozy…
Dayle, you’re kidding! That’s *awesome* — like the poisoned lips in that one episode of Firefly. So there you go, folks: TPNT hard at work.
Yes Alyssa, I’m a movie talker. I fear I have lost movie-going companions that way. It’s why I love me some Netflix.
Came back for the pleasure of TPNT! LOL. I absolutely love it when I can be surprised. For whatever reason, it’s hard to do. I even guessed the twist in The Sixth Sense fer God’s sake! Maybe it’s just the writer in me.
But anyway, I just finished Kiss Me While I Sleep by Linda Howard and she managed to do it. I never saw the denouement coming. You can bet she’s an auto-buy for me now.
This really was an excellent post, Diana. It’s one that’ll stick with me and make me think. With any luck, my books will benefit. So, thanks again!
[...] Over at Romancing The Blog there’s a post about how a woman did in a man in Showgirls by poisoning her nipples. [...]
Well, to be fair, Cuppa, that’s not how Showgirls did it. That was just my mind’s bizarre take on one of the possibilities prior to the Schrodingerian collapse into banal reality.
See? That’s what I get for tripping over the cliché and right into the facts of the case…
Oh, man—don’t say something like that to a mystery writer. It makes me want to use it, somewhere, in some book. And the last thing I need right now is yet ANOTHER idea.
Terrific entry. Really enjoyed it…although I may have to poke out my mind’s eye to get the ‘visual’ to go away.:lol:
I’m glad you’re enjoying it, AWH!
Uh-oh, Linda.. should I expect a sudden rash of PN in my mystery reads?
Jordan, I’m sorry for the disturbing visual. Coukldn’t be helped.
I like that way of looking at things! The more unusual the better. Sometimes.
Oh, funny. I came away from this post thinking the nipples HAD been poisoned, LOL! I’ve never seen the movie.
Now I’m disapointed! I thought you were going to be right. I thought the same thing as you. I did not progress it into TPNT though. That is perfect. Great article.
Brilliant post, Diana.
(Btw, I think in that CSI episode, the pro ended up crashing her car because the drug had seeped into her system and that’s how they caught her.)
To comment only on the “rule of six” or 22 or whatever, I remember that back when there was no TV and Radio was the media drug of the day, The Lone Ranger ruled the day. Only The Ranger had already been on radio for about 100 years of so, and the writers were running out of stories.
Undaunted, what they did was that each of the dozen or so writers for the show wrote down a slip of paper 10 plots, then on 10 different slips of papers they wrote down 10 villains, and then 10 locations, and 10 separate supporting characters, etc. all the way through each and every element necessary to a full story, then they placed them in separate containers, and randomly pulled one from each bin until they had a full set.
Next they wrote a story based on the random elements they pulled, it was in this way that they were able to force themselves to develop story ideas that they would have otherwise never considered. Needless to say The Lone Ranger radio show was able to run for several more years.
painting nipples is an old erotic method, by the way… it is supposed to imitate physical excitement, which causes blood to go into the nipples, which causes reddening. LOL, just an educational quirk