‘Character is Fate‘ says Thomas Hardy. In his books, the protagonist’s fate is sealed by a fatal flaw.
This makes for a deliciously painful story as we can see what he can’t. We anticipate his downfall. We will him not to repeat his mistakes but he inevitably does.
Such a story is compelling. We have to know if the weakness will lead to the devasting and seemingly inevitable conclusion.
Christopher Brooker’s final universal plot is the Tragedy. It’s deeply engaging and so useful in business for exploring and explaining where an initiative went wrong and what we can learn.
We had an ambition but it was probably born of a weakness – greed, or pride for example. Things initially went well but soon we had to start compromising what was valuable.
As things went from bad to worse we had a chance to get out but our pride/greed caused us to double-down on our destructive behaviour to achieve our goal.
The end scene is our self-destruction, sacrificing all for our dream, and inevitably being left with nothing.
