The Perfect 10
So, instalment 6:
Surprise!
It's a pretty obvious thing to say, but cliche and predictability kills story. That doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't be seeding anticipation and expectation of what might happen - and for them to make coherent sense. But if what happens feels consistently and thoroughly obvious, expected and anticipated, then there's little to keep the audience hooked.
What do I mean by surprise? Well, I don't really mean axe-wielding maniacs jumping out from the shadows - though if you are writing horror, then this is the kind of thing the genre and audience will expect you to do (albeit without it being totally predictable exactly when/where it's going to happen). What I do mean is for you the writer to do something surprising with your idea, story, characters, scenes - and for your characters to surprise the audience, and to surprise themselves.
There's probably a finite number of story archetypes , although opinion will differ about exactly how many and what we might call them. Things like tragedy, comedy, history, love story, rite-of-passage, epic/journey, which form the fundament of what stories tend to ultimately, essentially be. From there, the big question is - what do you do with an archetype? What is your particular setting/context? What is your fresh take on it? What is your unique perspective? What is your original touch that will set this apart, even though the archetype stills sits at the heart of it?
A favourite example of mine is the film O Brother Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers. On one level, it is a relatively straight forward version of Homer's Odyssey, which is itself an archetypal epic journey - it has an Odysseus figure, it has Penelope and her suitor, it has the physical journey, the sirens, the cyclops and so on. On another level, it places them within the specific context of the American deep south in the early 20th century, with Blue Grass music and an expanse of land to traverse rather than an ocean of sea (though there is a deluge of water at the end). On another, crazier level, it turns Odysseus into the Three Stooges, and makes them comic prison escapees rather than victorious warrior heroes. And all because the Coen brothers thought the story was "funny". No-one but them could possibly have read, understood and reimagined the archetype in this way. It drips with their idiosyncracies and unique take on the world.
So. Have you seen your basic idea before? What's different and surprising about your version? What will you do to make the archetype your own? Surprising an audience (and reader) is crucial at this fundamental level.
Your characters must surprise the audience. By this, I don't mean suddenly change (do something wholly out of character), or throw in something crucial about themselves that we didn't know (reveal a big secret half way through), or have something crucial thrown at them from nowhere (aliens suddenly kidnap them half way through what has previously been a naturalistic rite-of passage tale). These kinds of things are when the story fails - when you are coming up with a shock for the sake of it, rather than generating a surprise out of the richness of the world and conflicts you have created. Some of the best surprises are when the character surprises themselves - by facing a demon or achieving a goal or resisting a temptation or sticking to their guns when they never really truly believed they could do so. Surprise should make sense in your story - not work against it.
Surprise is also about staying ahead of the audience. Audiences are very sophisticated in their understanding of genre, formats and structure. So there's an art to staying ahead of the game. At the heart of this is anticipating what they might expect, and rather than turning that entirely on its head, to tweak it so that perhaps just one element or detail is unexpected. All the better if that detail is something connected to or driven by the character, that develops our relationship with the character, rather than just a play on the plot/structure.
To take a very famous scene towards the end of Chinatown, where Evelyn's deep dark secret is revealed: at this point, Jake has had enough of Evelyn's duplicity, he's ready to hand her over to the police, he's made his mind up, he just wants to know the truth. But when the truth comes it is a shock to him. The surprise in this scene isn't just the 'reveal', but it is Jake's reaction - to instantly, instinctively help Evelyn and her daughter escape, even though it can hardly do him any good (and, tragically, it doesn't). He does it simply because it is the right thing to do. For a man who has preferred to take the easy route, to do simple PI jobs rather than police Chinatown, to do things because they are the right thing for him, this impulse is a huge step forward and a true, character revealing surprise. For Jake in the scene, this is a moment where he truly surprises himself. For us watching, it is not what we expected going into the scene. That's why it's a great surprise, in a great story.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~23~RS~)
Comments
Sign in or register to comment.
I'm really enjoying this series. Everything is so true although it can be difficult to put into practice.
Complain about this comment
I do agree, of course, but I’ve found that it is slightly more complicated than this. Let us take the BBC series Bonekickers for example. (I was going to use the ITV Fantasy Drama Daemons, but it just has far too many problems with its writing) In Bonekickers they tried to illicit surprise by giving us various plot twists. The one that springs to mind is when under some Roman baths they get trapped by a cave in. The writers used the claustrophobic scene (or what should of been) to reveal some secrets about the two characters who were trapped. We find out that one is overly precise, the other overly romantic. Later, the overly precise character is to deliver a speech to an important person, which has been ridiculously dull prior to the cave in. We are meant to be surprised when suddenly instead of his precise spiel, he goes for a romantic notion. Unfortunately it just did not work. It would have been more emotionally stimulating if aliens had come and abducted him. The problem, as i see it, is that the very idea of this 'character defining' or 'character changing' scene near the end, even when carefully set up during previous scenes, has itself become a bit of a cliché. So unless you are really careful how you do it, and unless you can actually provide the surprise itself in a novel way (not just a novel surprise) then the viewer/reader/listener will in some ways expect it and be left unsatisfied by the end.
Sorry for the long post.
Complain about this comment
Good post. A character must go on a journey but it must not be plain sailing, there must be surprises and revelations. If its too ploddy the audience will switch off.
Complain about this comment
People always talk about characters going on a journey.
I think it is far more useful to think of taking your viewers on a journey.
Complain about this comment
LordPreston: I don't think the character defining moment needs to come near the end - perhaps that's the problem you identify - and it can be more interesting when there is a series of them that accumulate throughout, so that change/journey is a process rather than a sudden about-turn
i_amMisterP: I agree, except to say that by doing one (character) you are able to do the other (viewers). So really, you need to do both.
Complain about this comment
Hi Paul,
It's a way of looking at the craft. Taking the character on a journey has become a bit of a jargon, dare I say it cliche, phrase that comes from the deconstruction end of things, i.e the script editor/producer rather than the creative aspect. It's part of the desire to create a format/template to create episodes in soaps that can be repeated by any writer, rather than serving the unique voice of a given writer. I can see why it is there, I can see why certain shows demand that each character must learn something by the end of an episode. There is logic behind it but it doesn't always follow that seeing a character go on a journey makes for a emotional journey for the viewer. If you make the emotional journey for the viewer - i.e you make them look at the world a little differently than the way they did before encountering your story, then that's powerful drama!
Not easy mind.
:)
Complain about this comment
PauloAshton: While that is part of my point, it was not the whole point. For the 'character defining' moment (or maybe revelation is better?) as it were could come anywhere in the text, and it could work at the end in creating a piece of emotional drama. My point was however, the way in which one delivers this "surprise" or character twist is as important as what the twist actually is. I was using a "character defining moment" at the end of an episode as an example, but it is by no means the only example of obvious ways of delivering surprise.
What I’m getting at is that any surprise, no matter how surprising in itself, must also be delivered in a surprising way. People, more then ever before, have access to radio and TV dramas and therefore have heard/seen far more of them. They now can spot when a surprise is going to happen and, while they might not know what it is, it ruins the actual impact of the surprise. An interesting way of delivering/showing the surprise is as important (in my opinion) as the surprise itself.
Complain about this comment
@) Paul A
Having said the above I was just re-working a scene by scene with a view to deconstructing whose story it was, and decided to tell the story from a slightly different perspective and gave a person who didn't have a journey in it.. well a journey and the story is a lot stronger for it! :)
But I am interested to hear people's thoughts on Genre and the journey. Some genres give a character a physical hjourney but not neccedsarily an emotional one. I am thinking of some westerns here and some Noir. The PI in a lot of novels/films is essentially unchanged and is at the same emotional state at the end of the film as he was at the beginning.
This allows him to enter those 'mean streets' Once more. But I would support Paul in that those Noir films where the character does make an emotional engagement is a lot stronger [Chinatown/Casablanca] rather than when he or she doesn't so much. [The Maltese Falcon]. But given the nature of the genre you can't have Rick in a Casablanca 2 and still make it the same kind of Noir - because he has changed. You could make many more Maltese Falcons however, because the central character hasn't gone on an emotional journey. Likewise with the spaghetti western - the early Clint [Fistful of Dollars] where he doesn't make such a journey are great and repeatable, but the later ones where he does [Outlaw Josie Whales] are in my opinion a greater achievement, [Unforgiven], but again because of the arc or the journey can;t really be repeated in quite the same way. I can't remember too much about the Two Jakes apart from a general sense of disappointent and I guess that says something about it.
Is it the level of emotional engagement with the audience and with the central characters that lifts the genre piece out of the staple and into art?
So yes you are absolutely right Paul, but it is still worth thinking from the audience's perspective - which seems like it should be a given, but sadly isn't always.
I'll shut up now and get me coat.
:)
Complain about this comment
MisterP: firstly I’d like to say that I consider The Maltese Falcon a work of art, and while I agree with you that the PI in TMF doesn't go on an emotional journey, I don’t believe that the lack of this journey makes it any less moving or any harder for the audience to become emotionally affected by the main character. While some stories require a journey (emotional or physical) for the main character to go through, I do not believe it is essential, because I don’t believe a journey is essential for tale to be moving or emotionally engaging.
It would be like claiming that all stories need a moral to them, this is clearly not true. Telling stories aren’t just about conveying a message; it can be about conveying a feeling or a situation.
Sometimes the absence of a journey (emotional or physical) can actually make a piece more poignant. The difficulty with not having an emotionally journey is making the character realistic and not two dimensional, but if this is achieved then I think a tale can be very moving.
I'm sure you both disagree with me, so I shall just have to try and write a script to try and convince you. lol.
Complain about this comment
View these comments in RSS