Built-in Failure at the Circus
Writing lessons from a visit to the circus.
When Failure Is a Feature, Not a Bug
If success looks easy, it feels empty.
Every night at the circus, the same deliberate failure happens. When the acrobats reach their final act, the most difficult one, they always fail twice before they finally succeed.
Why go through all this trouble? Because unless we see the acrobats struggle, we’ll never understand how challenging the feat is. Without those “almosts,” their achievement would seem effortless—and far less exciting.
Their failures are as meticulously planned, practised and performed as the eventual success. Each failure demands precisely the same level of precision as the eventual success. And each failure is subtly different, highlighting a new challenge within the trick.
Before you can have “Ahhh!”, you need two rounds of “Oooh!”
And not just at the Circus
The same principle applies to your story’s characters – even if you’re not writing a classic Hero’s Journey. We need to see characters tumble before they fly.
By showing them fail in inventive, meaningful ways, you reveal the true scope of the obstacles they face – and invite your audience to invest emotionally in their struggle.
Without those stumbles, their victory feels unearned.
What is ‘Success’?
Success doesn’t have to be a cure for cancer.
For some characters, just walking to the shop and back is a monumental achievement. What matters is that the goal is vital to your character, and that the audience understands how hard it is for them to reach it.
You don’t need high-concept stakes to engage your audience. Just stakes that your character finds vital.
No matter the challenge’s scale, we need to see your character try. And fail. And try again, a different way. And fail again. And then, finally, succeed.
Because now we understand just how much that success means, and how hard-won it was.
