If you’ve ever done…well, just about anything in life really, you’ve probably been cautioned against taking “the easy way out”. The easy way out is billed in different ways. Sometimes as a poisonous seductress that will lead to your ultimate downfall even if it gets you what you want faster. Sometimes as a crass leech that will suck the meaning out of anything you might accomplish as a result of it. However you view it, the easy way out is almost never seen as a good thing.
Character after character in stories throughout history has found themselves victims of the easy way out. Whether an unfortunate wish maker falls victim to the mischievous whims of a Djinn, a struggling businessman introduces a new technology to speed production only to discover it ruins the quality of his once coveted merchandise, or the meaning a character’s long sought after goal is tarnished by cutting corners, the easy way out has been making heroes’ lives miserable for as long as there have been stories.
And many a villain has become such because in their hubris they decided to take the easy way out and were corrupted by it in some way. They discovered the power that could come taking that path and used it to rise to dominance. Yet our hero always ends up discovering the evil easy way outer’s mistake and using it against them in some way.
For readers this creates an interesting paradox when so much of modern life focuses on making things easier and faster. Everything from cooking to gardening to home repair is designed now to take less time and effort. Strange, isn’t it, that we chastise characters for making things easier on themselves in fiction yet do so ourselves as a matter of course. Especially when focusing on the easy way out can sometimes be the better course of action. If taking the easy way out in something like cooking or cleaning frees up time for you to focus on your side business or spend more time with your kids, what’s wrong with it?
Perhaps what humanity, and the characters of our stories, have been forgetting is the notion that the easy way out must be applied smartly. Use it wrong and it will corrupt you. Use it right, and you’ll make yourself even better.
Discuss a time when you took the easy way out. Did you regret it? Or did it end up helping you?
