Tournament Arcs?

[ThisAdamGuy]

How do you guys feel about tournament arcs? Stories where the heroes have to fight their way through a structured, ongoing tournament have always been a guilty pleasure for me. I don't know why, since they usually bring the plot to a dead stop for who knows how many chapters/episodes and they tend to be pretty predictable. I've never put one into one of my own books because I don't know how I'd keep the readers invested throughout what's pretty much just a string of one fight after another. But whenever one comes up in whatever I'm reading or watching, I always get excited to see one of my favorite tropes play out for the hundred-thousandth time.

What about you?

 

[Zagaroth]

As long as it reasonably fits inside the narrative. It's usually best when participating and doing reasonably well is enough to accomplish any primary/critical goals. Then it can be unknown just how far they will really get into the tournament, beyond doing well enough that the story wouldn't come to a stop.

 

[Valeforge]

I lover arcs, as it can show a clear power balance. if the characters only ever fight external forces, you can never accurately gauge "Character X is stronger than Character Y". But a tournament arc can show "Character Y is stronger, but X is smarter" when faced against each other.

But as much as I love them, I *DESPISE* when they're cut short for the purpose of "We can't make these characters fight, because we want both to win". That's a coward move. I get it, I do. You don't want to alienate one side of the audience or the other, BUT you should commit. Maybe include a REASON they can't fight. The tournament wasn't meant to end with the two of them fighting, it was just a means to meet/kill/etc another character. But if you start the tournament arc for the sole purpose of "Let's throw a tournament!" Then commit.

 

[Akaichi]

Been planning a tournament arc for a while. Still have no idea how it will go. The Problem with it, is repeatability, I think each battle need to be fresh. And I think a sub plot would make it even better. maybe more than one.

 

[Tempokai]

Tournament arcs suck by themselves. Only through the proper framing, context, and emotional stakes tournament arcs can work. If the reader doesn't care about power measuring contest, it will fall flat. The reason that the shonen tournament arcs work is that you want to see that the MC or whatever will show off the power of theirs that they didn't show off at full power and showing off new powers that other participants have. Tournament arcs work when they both show off the action AND the worldbuilding stuff, one without other is lore dump or mindless action drivel. When there's not enough justification, enticement, emotional weight behind the tournament arc, it will fail.

 

[Cookiez_N_Potionz]

I used something similar in my story

 

[SamuelSpirits]

I absolutely love them! My current work "Executive Powers" is in fact just one single tournament between fictionalized versions of US Presidents with super powers.

 

[Zagaroth]

Been planning a tournament arc for a while. Still have no idea how it will go. The Problem with it, is repeatability, I think each battle need to be fresh. And I think a sub plot would make it even better. maybe more than one.

Consider just not writing out every fight. Skim and summarize over some of the earlier fights, especially if the rules of the tournament allow the people setting it up to deliberately put stronger (by their judgement) competitors farther in the bracket from each other, and everything else randomized, so you expect the first few fights to be the easiest.

Even without that being explicitly in world, narratively we expect the more exciting fights to be later.

It's what I did for my short arc, with only the final fight taking up an entire chapter all by itself.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

They're tricky BECAUSE they can bring the story to a screeching halt, as you say.
I don't think I've developed any ideas where a tournament would make sense, or I'd have tried it (closest I have are the one-on-one battles for some of the Warriors in Between Worlds - though I could kind of see the kids taking part in something in book two if I ever get that far) - the biggest challenge is finding a way to keep the meta story in play during the tournament arc (first ran into them as a "thing" in some of the audionovels my wife listens to - one of the most interesting was My Vampire System where the tournament arc winds up introducing some major NPCs and revealing details about the MC he did not really want out in the open yet; it also gets away with some pseudo-tournaments doubling as training arcs at several points; another one that I don't know the title to used the tournament arc to allow a character who otherwise didn't qualify for the school the story was set in to actually be there, so that one tied it in nicely, but I did hear her listening to another one where the tournament arc was just an awful sidetrack with no real function except to show off how strong the MC was).

Well, then again you can also have a story be ABOUT the tournament arcs (like the movie A Knight's Tale - fun movie, but 90% historically inaccurate even with some real-life characters name-dropped frequently).

 

[BreadIsACuisine]

Tournament Arcs? Haven't any novel including them till now, i guess I got left out of something.

But I did watch HxH so planning is important and don't be afraid make hard decisions I guess. Tournament arcs basically dick measuring contest between various characterz in the form public execution.

 

[Zagaroth]

They're tricky BECAUSE they can bring the story to a screeching halt, as you say.
I don't think I've developed any ideas where a tournament would make sense, or I'd have tried it (closest I have are the one-on-one battles for some of the Warriors in Between Worlds - though I could kind of see the kids taking part in something in book two if I ever get that far) - the biggest challenge is finding a way to keep the meta story in play during the tournament arc (first ran into them as a "thing" in some of the audionovels my wife listens to - one of the most interesting was My Vampire System where the tournament arc winds up introducing some major NPCs and revealing details about the MC he did not really want out in the open yet; it also gets away with some pseudo-tournaments doubling as training arcs at several points; another one that I don't know the title to used the tournament arc to allow a character who otherwise didn't qualify for the school the story was set in to actually be there, so that one tied it in nicely, but I did hear her listening to another one where the tournament arc was just an awful sidetrack with no real function except to show off how strong the MC was).

Well, then again you can also have a story be ABOUT the tournament arcs (like the movie A Knight's Tale - fun movie, but 90% historically inaccurate even with some real-life characters name-dropped frequently).

I didn't exactly have a normal tournament arc. :) The MCs were the hosts.

Though that was part of the inspiration for me introducing a new character with a (temporarily) mysterious background/origin with his own reasons to be entering the tournament. Which I revealed slowly.

And once his arc was done, we shifted back to the MCs and continued. The whole thing also delved a little bit more into the MMCs long and complicated past.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Tournament Arcs? Haven't any novel including them till now, i guess I got left out of something.

But I did watch HxH so planning is important and don't be afraid make hard decisions I guess. Tournament arcs basically dick measuring contest between various characterz in the form public execution.

Some of the Arthurian tales include what would be considered "tournament arcs" - in some, the romance between Gwynnefyr and Launcelot begins because she tried to get the other knights to murder this French upstart - and not only does he defeat every single one, he almost kills one, and prays to God for the ability to heal the man he almost killed - and successfully heals him; seeing him do all of this makes her look at him more closely and realize her hatred was an effort to resist her attraction to him, not an actual dislike ... and the seeds of Camelot's doom are thus sown.

 

[Joeing]

Love it! However the continuous battle, one after another could be a bit tired. It needs to be doing in conjunction with the narrative. Think of many tournaments will have certain glimpse of the backstory. So we understand the players better?