Deus ex Machina

The first issue with Deus ex Machina is how to pronounce the thing. People pronounce Deus either "day-oos" or "Doos" and pronounce Machina either "mah-kee-na" or "mah-shee-na".

But that first issue is hardly an issue at all. Next on our list is what a Deus ex Machina is. According to the dictionary, a Deus ex Machina is:

"An unexpected, artificial, or improbable character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot."

or...

"A person or event that provides a sudden and unexpected solution to a difficulty."

The phrase translates into "god from the machine" in Greek, and refers to how most Greek plays would end with a god (played by a person lowered by stage machinery) resolving the conflict.

Here is an example of a Deus ex Machina.

The five heroes are backed up against a cliff wall as the Dark Lord and his elite bodyguards press closer. The heroes have no weapons apart from a single bow and two swords, and are outnumbered 4 to 1. All seems lost.

Suddenly, a dragon swoops down and kills and/or drives away the enemies! Yay!

It's good for the heroes and certainly easy to write, but the problem with this and with other Deus ex Machinae is that they make the reader feel cheated. The reader will have been hoping for an ingenious maneuver on the part of the heroes to kill or drive off the enemies, something that will make them say "Whoa...". The problem is that something like that would probably be hard to think up and write.

But that still doesn't give you an excuse to use the dragon! It will only turn readers off and make them think "Ugh, that was boring and it sucked.”

Now, we've covered how to pronounce the phrase, what it is, and why it's bad. Last but not least, we'll cover how to avoid them.

The strange thing is, there is a way to make that above situation not a Deus ex Machina. While the super cool ingenious maneuver would still be better, consider this.

What if the heroes had had to go on a quest to find some treasure for that dragon or kill one of its enemies, and in doing so, had won the dragon over to their side? Then the dragon said that he "owed them one" and would help them if they ever needed it. That would be acceptable, but your heroes would still need some way to summon the dragon, and there's the whole problem of flying time. It would be pretty hilarious if the dragon got there only to find all five heroes dead. This has a precedent. In The Subtle Knife, (SPOILER WARNING, HIGHLIGHT TO VIEW) [Lee Scoresby uses Serafina Pekkala's flower when he is attacked by the Muscovites, but dies of his wounds before she arrives.] (END SPOILER)

Also, there is nothing wrong with a character going to the rescue of another, as long as they're an established character, and there is a reasonable explanation for how the rescuer knew of the other’s plight. Don't cheat by having the guy your character met once in a tavern suddenly rescue him for no reason.

Deus ex Machinae don't just apply in a bad situation to get the protagonist out. Let’s say your heroine can shapeshift and is locked in a standard prison cell. Unless she's being kept unconscious, is being given a drug that prevents her from using magic, or there are guards outside who can tell if she's trying to escape via shapeshifting and will put her back in or kill her right then, there is no excuse for her not to shapeshift into a fly and make her way out, possibly killing a few guards on the way. No, I don't care how totally romantic and cool it would be to have the hero save her five days later.

In short, dues ex machinae, unlike clichés, are to be avoided like the plague. They are a distinct mark of an amateur writer.