In a typical story, a protagonist should be doing stuff, right? They take action, drive the story. That’s why we follow them, after all. Well, Ash hasn’t been all that, not exactly. Sure, she made choices, had opinions, motivations. But she didn’t really do much to get there. Things just sort of happened to her.

In a game of Fiasco, however, that’s fine, I think. It’s not unreasonable to play out a scene for your character, which is framed in such a way that they’re reacting to some other player character also in the scene. Fiasco scenes are short, snappy, and often played by people not trying to write a book or screenplay. Ash having scenes with Bill and Jay, which would be played by other people, and having them try to influence her in some way is fine. In Fiasco. So long as she has a goal, a motivation, and we can determine whether she got what she wanted or whether the scene ends good or bad for her in some way. That’s all Fiasco cares about.

If I want to turn this thing into a novella, however, I will need to find some balance. Mostly through extensive edits, I assume. But, just maybe, it’ll all work out, given the card I got for Ash’s final scene:

#01 Cause And Effect

How can the next few events result from your hero’s actions?

A Rube Goldberg machine with several contraptions trying to light up a bulb above the head of a person writing in a notebook.

Maybe there is a way to allow Ash more agency through the entire story, not just the scene. She was chosen for this job by her aunt, after all. Is there a way for me, I guess effectively, retcon her agency? The big reveal, the big twist? I don’t know, let’s see.

Everything happens for a reason. Usually, that reason should be your hero. Look for ways they can take the reins of the story.

There’s nothing wrong with a “passive” hero as long as their passivity alters the course of the story. (By doing nothing, something changes.)

Consider reversing the cause and effect. What if your hero robs a bank because they’re a fugitive? What if your doctor causes rather than cures the epidemic?

In a way, Ash not taking charge (at all) is a good enough reason for why things are messed up as they are right now. Her inaction, her doubt, led to both Bill and Jay making things worse. Maybe she now comes to grips with that, and starts taking things into her own hands, albeit it really, really late in their journey.

Try This

Talk through your story, replacing every “and then” with “because.” What would need to change?

Is there a chance that she was manipulating them the whole time? She played Jay, got him to give up control. She played Billy when things got dangerous. Is she also playing the Boss? Did everything happen because she wanted it to (with a fair amount of improvisation, of course)?

Imagine your story being told in reverse, Memento-style. How could your setups become payoffs?

I can only go as far as the story has unfolded, as I don’t know where any of them will end up. But let me try to play this out:

Billy is doing anything in his power to keep her safe from the Boss, Jay, and this life. Previously, she “saved” Bill by giving Jay the detonator and getting him to run away with her when given the chance. Before that, she called 911 and argued with Jay some more. The scene before that, she somehow got Jay to give up control over the remote.And the first time we meet her, she is in a cell making a deal with her aunt, while just wanting to find a way out.

Did she use her aunt to get a job that will allow her to get out? What kind of dangerous game is she playing here, really?

The biggest effects come from irrevocable choices. List three decisions your hero couldn’t take back.

1. Agreeing to her aunt’s deal. Otherwise, she’d be in jail for a good while. And given her aunt’s connections with the sheriff, who knows how well that would have gone for her, given her aunt’s paranoid nature.
2. Choosing Billy’s life over keeping the remote. Otherwise, Bill would be dead, or Jay, or both.
3. Calling 911. I think there is a chance that she hoped this will lead back to her aunt somehow. That call was her first, true break from her aunt’s influence (or at least, she hoped it was).

Final Thoughts

There is a lot to consider here, and much time narrative space to squeeze it all in. Her and Billy are running or hiding from Jay, who has a gun. The train will reach the station eventually. There’s a bomb that might or might not be armed.

I wrote in the outline for this act that Ash will confront her aunt in this scene. I doubt that’s practical right now. But maybe there is a way to go about it in a roundabout way. She’s not confronting her directly, but her schemes and plans, and Ash means to deal a decisive blow to it—or at least get the dominoes falling.

Billy is her ticket out, and he’s willing to throw it all away for her. She just needs to play her cards right, now that she (perhaps) stacked the deck in her favor. Maybe she’s more like her aunt than she cares to admit.