Deus ex Machina - Only God Could Solve

Gosh, time flies by so fast. I don’t even have time to write every day. What I remember is I wrote a post for this blog last weekend and now I write a new post at weekend again.

I’m currently working on a writing project and last night I just created an idea for the ending. Well, it is weird because whenever I have a new idea to write a story or a novel, the first thing that is coming to my mind is how the story will be ended though the story is not even written yet.

Do you familiar with the term deus ex machina?  Well, I do because I studied about humor and tragedy in literature class when I was in college and deus ex machina was in the syllables. From what I remember, deus ex machina is one of the plot devices, usually used in tragedy for settlement. The plot is considered using deus ex machina is when an unsolved plot is unexpectedly solved by ‘God’ and I prefer to use “Only God could solve it” as the rough definition of deus ex machina . Well, ‘God’ here is not literary God but could be anyone or anything. The most famous tragedy that is using deus ex machina device in the plot is Tartuffe the play written by Moliere; in this play the King takes role as the ‘God’ who finally safe the fate of the heroes.

Most critics said that deus ex machina could be used by any writer who is currently block; writer who cannot create a plot to solve the current problem experienced by the characters in the story. Well, it is not really true because deus ex machina could be used as a dramatic way to surprise reader as well. One interesting example I quoted from Wikipedia is The War of the Worlds; well surely you know the movie but I’m not sure that you have read the novel, I haven’t read the novel as well and I just found out that the movie is actually adapted from the novel some minutes ago. The story about earth is invaded by aliens that even the most modern weapons that human ever made cannot kill the invaders; that is why the invaders are defined to be unconquerable. However, in the end some kinds of terrestrial microorganism could solve the problem succinctly; because there are no bacteria in the planet where the invaders came from so they don’t have any immunity.  The terrestrial microorganism here is taking role as the 'God' just like the role of the King in Tartuffe.

Well, I’m going to try using this plot device to end the story that I haven’t written yet, currently the idea is only hovering in my head and disturbing my sleep. I even cannot focus on my work; it is a good thing for a writer, isn’t it? But totally not for my boss and my social life. So, I've got to finish this project as soon as possible.

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