Tipping Point

If you have read The Tipping Point, it explores some interesting concepts. Since I try to be an independent thinker, I have been watching, recently, gossip and group think as an example of tipping point phenomena. And I have been thinking about it in the context of banal evil--but wait, isn't that an oxymoron?

Example: Two years ago, I was in the company of a large group of women. I would guess there were 35-40. Cocktails were flowing. And one woman stood up on a chair, and began mocking a woman we all knew who was not there. She said, "Doesn't that remind you of her?" And I said no. But interestingly, only one other person there--also a very independent thinker--argued with the woman on the chair. But if you had sat these 40 women down individually and asked "Do you think doing something like that is OK?" I would assume all would have said, "No. For heaven's sake, they teach that in KINDERGARTEN."

But what can seem a moment of banal evil, a moment of gossip, a moment of the "sport" of unkindness . . . when allowed to pass . . . to me adds a bit of that black mucky oil we see in the gulf into the sea of clarity. Add enough oil . . . and soon all you have is black.

In my work-in-progress, anarchy has consumed the end of the world (or what might be the end of the world). It starts with little things as society breaks down. Trash doesn't get collected. The power is intermittent. As people edge toward needing to survive, as crime rises, they feel forced by circumstance to look the other way for their own safety. And before you know it . . . a tipping point happens and suddenly the world is radically unsafe.

Maybe there IS no such thing as banal evil.

People have tipping points, too. They have moments when they "go along," but then a tipping point occurs . . . and there's a radical transformation. In novels, it's not the climax. It's the catalyst. It's the event that drives them to take on the case, to embark on the journey, to save the girl, to win the girl, to fight The Man, to get revenge, to . . . .

I think it has more URGENCY than GMC (goal-motivation-conflict), because tipping points are often about astounding moments of something going "viral." Going out of control.

For Aleks, in my novel, when anarchy literally comes to his doorstep, he sees the world as totally different, I think. The tipping point arrives with a crash--and he knows it's not going to go away. EVER.

Does your novel have a tipping point?