Activity

@tabitha

Hi Tabitha! Great question!

I can only tell you what I’ve seen myself, and what I’ve found satisfying or the reverse. Please note that it’s only my opinion, not a rule by any means.

I think you shouldn’t use miracles to completely solve the conflict, even though that is entirely possible. But if you want to use a miracle, for theme reasons, you still can, if you make the miracle smallish.

Don’t entirely fix the problem, just fix a small portion of the problem to give the characters hope and the opportunity to solve it themselves. That way, you can use the miracle for theme reasons without it feeling fake and Deus Ex Machina.

Or you can write it so it gives the characters a chance, but it’s still difficult and they still have to overcome their flaws.

To give an example:

If your MC is in the middle of a big battle, he got separated from everyone else and he’s wounded so he can’t make it to his friends. He’s entirely hopeless and the enemy will kill him if he stays there much longer. A Deus Ex Machina would be if the enemies were blinded by heavenly light and ran off en masse after he prayed. Of course, things like this have happened in the bible, but it’s a bit unsatisfying for plot reasons.

Another possibility of a miracle is that one of the wounded men near him scrambles up and offers him just enough help that he can make it to safety. It’ll be hard for him since he’s wounded and they still have to get there. If you want to make it very clear that it’s a miracle, you can have him turn around to thank the other soldier and he’s disappeared. That’s perfectly possible, but not entirely necessary.

(Note, I just made this up on the spur of the moment, you could doubtless think of better examples.)

Miracles can strengthen some themes, but don’t use them to obliterate conflict. Personally, I will forgive a Deus Ex Machina-esque-thing as long as it ties into the theme and doesn’t entirely fix all their issues in one page.

I hope this was somewhat helpful!