When it comes to creative skills, writing is probably where I am most comfortable. It is definitely the area where I am less inhibited by over-thinking and I tend to let it flow easier than other creative skills like drawing or graphic design. That being said, the story I am currently writing has a lot of moving parts and I am feeling the pressure. I want to start off on the right foot with the reader. A good story should compel from the beginning and maintain a sense of flow.
So, I’m trying to have a lot of awareness for how my story is flowing, but I’m also trying to stick to one major rule: do I like it? I’m one of those people who believes that if a show/movie/comic (regardless of how visually appealing it may be) has a wishy-washy story: it’s a flop. If it can’t suspend my disbelief, goodbye.
Harsh, maybe.
Admittedly, I am an ASSHOLE when it comes to critiquing a story. I take it seriously, no apologies. I can be really biting. I can be really mean. When I like something, I REALLY like it, but sometimes I’m not too much fun to watch a new tv series with. If a narrative is written too quickly, there’s a good chance that I will pick up on something canned and make an audible remark.
This is because I am keeping myself sharp. I keep my eyes peeled for things I want to exclude from my own work. When I watch shows, play games, read books/comics; I’m scanning. My brain is trying to stat attuned to the acknowledgment of good/clever vs. bad/lazy writing. I feel like the story I’m writing for this comic is an opportunity to show what I’ve learned. My one rule above still takes priority; do I like it? I think if I find my own writing to be clever, believable, funny, and/or innovative, then I will probably be proud of it.
There is a “sub rule” to my one rule, though. In many ways, I feel it is equally as important.
Does it make sense?
“Make sense” is pretty open-ended.
Like, what kind of “sense” are we talking about?
How about:
Narrative sense (ex. An irredeemable character that is supposed to be considered redeemed after performing a certain action or coming to some realization.)
Conceptual sense (ex. In a story with a serious, thriller-type tone, the main character successfully flies over shark-infested waters by piloting a fully working airplane they made from wood, jute, and a salvaged boat turbine.)
Timeliness of events (ex. Long after the main character has been called to action and begun their journey, a loved one back home is killed off for no reason.)
General continuity (ex. In a medieval movie with swords and dragons, a corrupted policing force arrests the Prince and slaps a pair of modern handcuffs on his wrists.)
“Fluff” (ex. The author, awe-struck by the architecture of Petra, Jordan, sends the main character of their story to a Petra-inspired desert city. Perhaps this was a joy to write, but the self-serving irrelevancy simply delays the plot.)
There’s lots of ways that things can fail to make “sense”. It’s complicated. I’m scanning for things that “don’t make sense” because identifying them is an opportunity to learn.
Here are three big things that I look out for:
1 — The story has a complex setting and the writer fails to explain what the world is like before the inciting incident happens.
There’s a few ways to mess this up. I think a good reference to apply hypotheticals here would be something like Ghost in the Shell, which is a sci-fi anime. The most important thing about Ghost in the Shell’s setting is that it is the future and people can have their body parts (most importantly their brains) replaced with cybernetic upgrades. In my opinion, the series does a good job of making that clear enough in the first 10 minutes to keep the viewer informed.
But, hypothetically, if you watched up until episode 3 and the series threw a whole bunch of important-sounding complicated concepts at you EXCEPT FOR the cybernetic parts aspect, you would be like “Wait, what? Is that why Kusanagi is so strong, smart and fast?” That would be the equivalent of watching a version of Harry Potter where he gets all the way to Hogwarts before Dumbledore is like “Welcome to our school, oh by the way: magic exists.” It wouldn’t make any goddamn sense.
If the world you’re creating is intended to be mysterious and/or whimsical, you’re going to either need to get clever about how things are introduced or clearly establish the “whimsy” aspect. Perhaps your world is about magic, science, religion, social politics, and time-travel all in one. Those elements can elegantly blend together as need be if you’re creative in how you introduce them, but it may prove to be a balancing act. If ever your reader says “wait, are we travelling back in time for some reason now?” then you may have failed to set the situation up believably. You might need to be prepared to show or explain what happened later on.
In my last blog post, I talked about a character archetype I want to avoid which I called the “Exposition Dispenser”. The situation I just mentioned above can be patched over by having an all-knowing character explain what happened in the event of a confusing twist (think Willy Wonka blabbering away during the chocolate factory tour). It can work, but man, it’s definitely not my favorite plot device…
Alternatively, you don’t want to just dump a bunch of “important” exposition onto the viewer too quickly. The viewer needs to know just as much as is necessary to begin the plot and the rest can come in time. That’s where example number 2 comes in: laziness vs. pacing.
2 — The writer crams a lot of sloppy exposition into the introductory scene (lazy setup tactics, part one).
My usual litmus test for good writing when starting a new book/show/whatever is the way that the story delivers the need-to-know information. There are quick, easy, and shitty ways to do this, and there are more elegant ways.
One example of a quick/easy/shitty way to deliver exposition is what I refer to as “Concept Buckshot”. In short: I get a little bit irritated when the story’s setting is delivered to me point-blank. Usually this is observed as a high-speed blast of brief and disjointed dialogue strings between characters about information that they are already all aware of and therefore don’t need to be discussing. It makes me feel like the writer doesn’t believe their audience is clever enough to notice things that are not explicitly spoken, or something like that.
Truthfully, it’s not a terrible mentality to default to. I agree that our attention spans are MINISCULE these days. That being said, there is still a sense of finesse that I believe needs to be utilized when getting the viewer on the same page as the characters in the story. The alternative is something that feels “pulpy”.
A hypothetical example of “Concept Buckshot”:
Scene 1 — Splash image: A sunny, semi-futuristic cityscape. The words “San Francisco, Year 2048” appear on the screen. Cut to a boy and a girl walking towards the steps of their school. The boy slides up his sleeve to to reveal a glowing light under the skin of his wrist.
Boy: “Hey, I just got a message from Gary about science class being cancelled today.”
Girl: “Oh, did you get that message from your BodyBuddy bio-installation?”
The boy holds up his wrist to show her the glowing light from his wrist.
Boy: “Yup. I don’t even own a phone anymore.”
Girl: “But isn’t it basically the same thing as a phone, but information and messages are sent and received directly through your thoughts?”
Boy: “Yeah, pretty cool, right? And, don’t forget, it’s the only way you can access the BioNet.”
Girl: “Oh yeah, the BioNet! That’s like the internet but inside your mind!”
Boy: “You got. I can be out here and in the BioNet at the same time.”
Girl: “You’re lucky that you’re Mom is a high-ranking city official and you can get a BodyBuddy.”
Boy: “Oh yeah, that’s right, you live in Sector 5, so you’re parents don’t have the social reverence to get tech like this.”
Girl: “Nope. I only have this stupid regular phone that only has access to the stupid regular internet…”
>>Okay, so the cityscape that the viewer can see in the splash image is “semi-futuristic”. That’s up for the set designers to communicate. REGARDLESS, the words “San Francisco, Year 2048” give the viewer a clear message: the story takes place beyond our present time. Cool! Great! The setting information there is just fine.
The problem lies in the pacing of the pre-inciting-incident setup; the revelation of the new technology and the general background of the two characters. The two characters basically had a teatime conversation about a few really big topics, but the writers excluded nuanced information that would have probably been present in a realistic conversation. The two characters quickly bullet-point the story devices, one after another, and then just move on. NOBODY TALKS LIKE THAT!
Imagine having coffee with a friend and saying “Man, I love coffee.” And they respond “I Love coffee too because the caffeine goes into my body and makes me feel so good.” And you reply “Interesting! And to think we only have to ingest it using our mouths!” “Glad I have a mouth attached to the bottom of my head!” “Cheers to that!”
Show, don’t tell is what I learned in screenwriting classes, but often the “show” method takes a little bit of patience. For example (using the boy and girl story): instead of the boy just mentioning that he can “access something called the BioNet” and the girl then correctly explaining what she perceives to be the general functionality of it, the girl could instead have asked if the boy was able to access what she knows to be a thing called the BioNet. The boy could have been like “Pfft! Duh!” and leave it at that for now.
Since the plot of this story is VERY LIKELY to include this “BioNet” as a narrative vehicle, we can rest assured knowing that the viewer will probably SEE the boy actually interacting with that narrative vehicle really really really soon. The “BioNet” concept is impactfully shown to the viewer when it’s ready to be shown, not explained off-the-cuff. This is also an example where I would argue against the rule of threes axiom, where something important to the plot “needs” to be explicitly expressed a minimum of three times before the audience understands it. I’d argue to show what needs to be shown, explain bits here and there, let the viewer know you had a plan for it, let them fill in the blanks.
I know, easier said than done, right?
I’m so full of shit.
“Concept Buckshot” is something I see a lot, to be honest. Sometimes it’s a little more subtle than my above example (sometimes it’s not). The situation here is that the writers are often good writers, but time is money, deadlines are deadlines (where applicable), and you’ve just got to get that story on the paper and into production. It is obviously very tempting to cut corners. Which brings us to number 3…
3 — Hey, it’s a screenplay, so let’s just do a voice-over introduction (lazy setup tactics, part two).
Scene 1 — Splash scenes of various locations in a sunny, semi-futuristic city.
Voice: “San Francisco. The year is 2048. Technology has evolved to allow for people to explore the “BioNet”; a domain of digital information, communication and entertainment which takes place within the user’s mind. But, not everyone is fortunate enough to have access to the BioNet, only those with high social rank can acquire the necessary technological implant: the BodyBuddy.”
Cut to a boy and a girl walking towards the steps of their school. The boy slides up his sleeve to to reveal a glowing light under the skin on his wrist.
>>Don’t do this! Please! I believe in you!!
(Wow this really is a lecture...)
I get it. Like I said above; time is money. You’re writing a screenplay and you need to introduce some fresh story elements really fast because your audience is bored as fuck and you’re all eager to get on with the exciting stuff. But, voice-overs are lazy. It’s not an opinion. Axiomatically: they are lazy. I’m not even saying that it’s the wrong route to take. You may be able to pull off a really great voice-over. Here’s my actual opinion: if you believe that the story you’re writing deserves a sense of elegance, be patient. Show the audience what your story is about. You can make it compelling.
Exceptions to using a voice-over (but… still don’t do it):
A) If your screenplay’s sequence of events are never viewed through the narrative perspective of any character (totally omniscient), then go for it. Do a voice-over. But, then your plot will be forced to unfold almost like a documentary, which may present different problems down the road.
B) Is it a sequel? Go for it. It’s still kind of a dull way to begin, but if you’ve already established your world in a previous tale, go ahead and fill us in on what’s happened since then. You earned it.
I am certainly still an amateur (who talks out of his butt a lot). I know that in my own story, I’ll be challenged to explain what is unfolding with my characters, as many of them will have intimate knowledge of the world around them. This knowledge is not shared by the viewer, so I can’t just have stuff happen without context, even if it “technically makes sense” behind the curtain. The viewer needs to know that what is happening is happening for a reason, even if they don’t yet know how things work. That can come in time.
But for me, the most important part at the end of the day is if I like it.
So far, I think I do.
When I get this thing out there, I hope you’ll like it too.
❤ Casey