Thoughts on Fiction

I always have at least one student who attempts to convey an idea way more ambitious and complex than what he/she is equipped to communicate.
It is like attempting to write War and Peace before mastering basic grammar and spelling.

The problem always amounts to someone expecting their viewer to make unwarranted assumptions about what they are seeing. As your example from the Matrix illustrates, viewers cannot help but find unintended meanings in works of fiction. A good director must have enough command over the medium to set boundaries on the viewer's impressions. I don't endorse the idea of artworks that can mean anything to anyone. That is no different from incoherence.

To answer your question, it comes down to a matter of good technique. Craftsmanship matters. If an artist intends to draw a character in peril, but instead draws him looking relaxed, then that is muddled due to a deficit of skill (or carefulness).

Here's a challenge I handed out to my class earlier this year:
A guy in your story loves another character (male or female). Tell me how you would get the audience to know this without dialogue (let alone his saying "I love you").

I had given up on Westworld at episode 6 of the first season. There's been a lot of talk about season two, but I couldn't make it past 15 minutes.
The series posits mysteries which the viewer then forms theories about, trying to solve the question of what is happening under all the layers of clues, misdirection and conspiracy. What is happening?
It is both tedious and meaningless to spur discussion over which fictional plot is the correct one. Any one you choose is equally arbitrary, fictional and disposable.
Viewers are just arguing over which potential plotline the writers ended up choosing. Do the writers think this is interesting?
If the experience of watching the show was pleasant, then maybe the mysteries are an added reward for the audience's attention.
But the act of watching, to me, is an extremely miserable one. It's clear that the viewer's experience is secondary to its function as a delivery mechanism for plot information.

People often say that what matters the most in any movie is the story. That the story is first and foremost the reason they watch film and T.V.
Even filmmakers often will say that "story is everything". Viewers think they care about story above all else, but in fact this is not the case.
What viewers want from a movie is an experience of the senses, a stirring of the emotions and mind.
Story is the effective means of delivering that experience, but story is not the goal or purpose for making and viewing films.

How can I be so certain? Two recent practices I've encountered make it very clear.

1. These days, it's possible to acquire copies of movies and T.V. shows and watch them whenever and wherever one desires.
I have, on a few occasions for T.V. shows, gotten impatient and ran the player at 1.5 times or twice normal speed with the captions on. It can tell me whether or not I want to continue watching. But I quickly feel that if the show isn't worth watching at normal speed, then it isn't worth watching at all. If all I cared about was the story, then this should not matter. If I can get the content of the story more quickly and painlessly, then what is the harm? But if the story holds my interest at a fast speed, then I will slow it back down to get the experience of sensory engagement. That takes precedence over merely learning what the story is. Here is where quality of directing is crucial.

Viewers exist who do watch shows sped up, and they are the ones who care about the story at the exclusion of everything else. But they are a minority.

2. You can find blogs for just about every series where someone recaps in writing the events of an episode that they've watched. Who reads this stuff? Surely not someone who regularly watches the show, since the recap is just repeating what they would have seen. And if someone is interested enough in the recap to read it, then why do that instead of just watching it? There exist people who read such summaries, and again, they are the ones who care about the story and not the viewing experience. And again, they are a minority. Most fans of a series actually watch them.

A very common fiction writer's pitfall:

How to construct made up problems that will need to be solved by your characters.
I am noticing more and more that it is this point that causes me to lose interest in a fictional story.

Especially in science fiction or fantasy, the author will invent some made up obstacle or challenge that the hero must overcome.
It's crucial that the author use good judgment when choosing that problem to be solved.

In physical terms, the problem can take any form at all, no matter how fantastical, as long as it reflects some actual source of conflict faced by actual humans.
Unfortunately, the author often chooses a problem that is just fantastical and arbitrary, and therefore comes across as just some useless rule that was made up for the sake of breaking it.

Peter, thanks for your comments in this thread. I've been studying creative writing recently, reading and writing short stories intensely for the past year or so, and participating in a number of classes and workshops. This discussion has been some great food for thought. I may post more specific responses as I'm able.

Looking back, I think engaging with you, and with Aeon Flux, since I was 16 or so ended up laying the groundwork for how I approach storytelling (and art in general) -- thank you for that.

Today it hit me and I totally get the reference to Pale Fire in Blade Runner 2049.
Wow.

Peter,

Do you mean the use of the poem from the book in K's baseline test, or do you mean something deeper structurally, like the novelistic portion of the novel as a simulacra or the like..?

Interestingly, I've hear Gosling had a hand in writing the baseline test. Regardless, the original full text is fun to read:

https://www.reddit.com/r/bladerunner/comments/76hea1/full_text_for_the_baseline_test/

*heard, rather

Is the baseline test taken from the poem in Pale Fire? I don't recognize any part that matches.

I was thinking of the end of the film, of K lying in the snow, chasing an illusion, grateful for his brief taste of life, the pale fire of a child who dies.

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky.
And from the inside, too, I'd duplicate
Myself, my lamp, an apple on a plate:
Uncurtaining the night, I'd let dark glass
Hang all the furniture above the grass,
And how delightful when a fall of snow
Covered my glimpse of lawn and reached up so
As to make chair and bed exactly stand
Upon that snow, out in that crystal land!

I'm struggling to find the reference too, but in my research I found that apparently in Pale Fire, referring to a vision he has during a near-death experience, John Shade sees "dreadfully distinct / Against the dark, a tall white fountain."

Those may be the only actual lines used in reference, but apparently they do exist in the book.

... But yes, that's a good observation! I hadn't thought of that.

I like that the miraculous child is the creator of dreams, and lives in a kind of impenetrable void from which such dreams are crafted.

K's lifetime is that of a child. Like Roy Batty, he learns to revel in the brief moments he's given, choosing to defy the purpose for which he was made.

The wooden horse is everything. For me, that's the whole movie.

To tie this back to the topic-
what makes Blade Runner 2049 a valuable work is the canny use of an android character to embody life's impermanence.
K's journey and final attainment are moving in a way that's surprising and uniquely shaped by the viewing experience.

There are many things about the fictional story that are unresolved and illogical, but they don't matter.
The narrative has done its job, and it profits no one to dwell on it beyond that point.

Yes, there’s a necessary level to good narrative that allows the participation of the viewer in determining meaning, even beyond interpretation.

I have a lot of thoughts about what the horse signifies in a larger cultural sense, and it’s the role of a chosen symbolism to provide a certain open-endedness if a work is to prove itself of any real value in th obscure traffic of time.

I came across this today and it has been bothering me. Apparently it has been sweeping awards and earning raves.

http://escapepod.org/2012/05/17/ep345-the-paper-menagerie/

It's a succinct example of everything wrong with current audiences. I mostly blame the public for swallowing this nonsense, though I detect a fair willingness to pander on the writer's part.
As an Asian American, I will say I find this kind of thing supremely facile and tedious. Sorry.

https://io9.gizmodo.com/5958919/read-ken-lius-amazing-story-that-swept-the-hugo-nebula-and-world-fantasy-awards

I suppose if I were to write a story about my Bollenhut-wearing German immigant mom whose cuckoo clock golems I snidely rejected, I wouldn't win quite as many awards.

http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Shelden-on-Third-Man-LEAD1.jpg

I think I must have read this before instead of finishing the Three Body Problem, which the author translated, but I didn't remember much of it. It strikes me as being more in the mode of a fable rather than SF/Fantasy. What were you expecting from it?

It's all here. Literal-minded, didactic, with a hefty dose of narcissistic fixation with identity.
Whatever emotional charge to be gotten is simply delivered in the most expository language possible. Nothing to infer, therefore no emotion to arise from within.
There is not even the effort to write the mother's letter in words that are believable as her voice. Everyone knows what a mother's letter reads like, and it is not this.

Would you say the author's error was in delineating too much or too little?

I'm sorry I gave this more time and exposure than it warrants. I don't care about this story, but it's the general shift of the audience's mindset that is troubling.

To clear away the bad taste, I will give a push for something worth your time.
I rewatched Patrice Leconte's 1989 film Monsieur Hire a few days ago.
As good as I remembered, and I found a new clip I will be using in class next semester.

I remember watching Ex Machina and thinking Leconte's film did it better. Confirmed.

Do you feel like this is a shift mainly in un-discerning audiences, or do you think it's global?

"Do you feel like this is a shift mainly in un-discerning audiences, or do you think it's global?"

Both. Global audiences are becoming un-discerning. It is the increasing pace at which media is consumed. There is so much scripted content available and it is becoming blunter, less nuanced, more simplistic.
It's literal-mindedness, which I realize now to be a symptom of cultural infantilization.
It is not the stories, but the artless manner in which they are being told. Everything is shaped by an underlying fear- a very unhealthy fear that the audience might not understand, and therefore must have everything spelled out for them.
For people working in TV (as I am currently), there is often the view that "sure, it would be better if we could get by with less explaining, but if we do explain, what's the harm?"
For me, the harm is real, and it is insidious. It is nothing less than a theft of what should be the rights of the audience.

"Often, films challenge morals: what is right, what is wrong, and what happens when you pick a side. There are times, however, when nothing is resolved yet the question lingers throughout the film. This is the baffling case of The Cold Lands, an inferior case study on doing the right thing."

https://screenanarchy.com/2014/03/review-the-cold-lands.html

Really enjoyed The Cold Lands, BTW.

It gets more butts in seats if everyone can understand and share in the same understanding, especially when you're selling to a global market. It's a huge problem.

OTOH, I saw The Missing Pieces (the add-on film/collection of deleted scenes from Fire Walk With Me) recently. A lot of it is extraneous material that I'm fine with snipping out, but everything in the room above the convenience store is amazing and really helps to contextualize the rest of the film. It's still a great movie, but I wonder if it would've been better received if those scenes hadn't been edited so brutally. It's a rare case of too much information being left out.

I am dealing daily with the push and pull between the demands of commercial programming and my hope to promote an optimal viewer experience.
I can observe from the process and the public response, a vindication of clarity (obviousness) over true viewer engagement.

At Cartoon Network, showrunners are discouraged from building their shows on long arcs that require the viewer to track relationships and plot details in favor of self-contained episodes.
The reasoning, of course, is that one limits viewership as casual viewers will not be able to jump in on a series midway without being lost - and bored. Accessibility.

This perceived dichotomy / dilemma is due to the mistaken belief in story as the primary focus of viewer interest. I have tried to watch a portion of Steven Universe recently and could not get enough of a grip. If you don't know the plot so far, it is unwatchable, as so much of the information is given through exposition rather than through contextual means. The truth is that you can manage to devise a manner of engaging the viewer, the details of plot become unimportant, or better yet, appreciable through contextual clues. It is the manner of engagement, not the particulars of plot that are always the true reason why viewers seek the viewing experience. There exist shows that can be enjoyed without any prior knowledge, and that is all the proof you need.

Producers always get this relationship between the viewing experience and the story backwards. They think the story is the attraction and that the pleasure of viewing is the bonus. It's the other way around.

<i>Steven Universe</i> is extremely lore-heavy and 160 episodes in at this point, in its defense. The first season or two were very easy to watch without context. As the audience was built they got more confident with the serialization; same thing applied to <i>Adventure Time</i>. My guess is that CN gave them more rope after acquiring ratings success?

I understand that it is lore-heavy, but to allow that to excuse the show being unwatchable to novice viewers is to admit that the show lacks interest apart from its story (lore).
That is exactly what I am complaining about.
In the case of Adventure Time, I find later episodes engaging in spite of my not knowing the context. Still too much expository talk, but watchable.

Ha, you should see the how rabid online fanbases for SU treat it. I love the standalone episodes just as well, but the diehards clamor for more "main storyline" episodes like you wouldn't believe.

That is what I have noticed, and it's what prompted me to post. I'm currently at Cartoon Network, and have gotten to know Rebecca a little. Lovely person, dedicated and very talented. And I have seen the fan obsession up close.

Way above, I remembered there was this comment from Sam G.
"But deriving meaning is a many faceted thing, dependant on the irreducible and uniquely shaped inner workings of one mind and body to the next. Do we understand each other well enough to make sprawling judgements about who is and isn't meaningfully engaged?"

Artists have to set their own standards for what they are or are not willing to do in order to achieve their desired results. I have to maintain that certain lines ought to be observed. When I view the works of other artists, there occur moments when I recoil if they have pushed too far. Didacticism, cynicism, narcissism, sentimentalism are hazards of the trade and must be spurned. For me, as I keep saying, exposition is the enemy of meaningful engagement. It robs the audience of their own powers and pleasures of discovery.

Again, I've taken to using this thread as an ongoing journal of observations on creative practice. I try to be honest and maybe sometimes it will come off as harsh. At least this isn't Twitter.

I love reading this thread, fwiw.

yeah this is a v good thread. i had an identical experience to PC w stephenson's the diamond age-- abandoned it in a weird kind of despair.

I remember liking Leconte's "Ridicule". I'll have to watch Monsieur Hire sometime.

Lately I've been into Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Syndromes and a Century is one of my favorite viewing experiences and I couldn't even tell you why. It's just... hypnotizing!

If there are readers regularly viewing the entries here, I may start posting more detailed posts, or start a new thread on lessons from my directing course. I could go into a lot more detail including posting the clips I use in class. The clip from Mr. Hire is too good not to share.

yes please, it's a great thread

I always ask my students if they can name instances when they were watching something, movie or TV show, when they got turned off because some message was being pushed too hard or they rolled their eyes because of cheap attempts to tearjerk. Everyone has their own tolerance level, and I often hear from a peer or student of a scene that they found deeply moving which I found intolerably maudlin.

I'll go first: every time in a movie when the main character dies, we get a phony eulogizing moment of silence, then- miracle! - they come back to life. Disney, Pixar, superhero movies, JJ Abrams: just knock it off.

Dreamworks' Rise of the Guardians- When the last boy who believes in Santa Claus sees Jack Frost in his bedroom.
Contact- Jodie Foster walking on the beach with her dead father. (the whole movie, actually)
Iron Giant - Hogarth says "I love you" to Vin Diesel. Obligatory, since IG is a remake of ET, and there is the line "ET, I love you." If memory serves, haven't seen it in forever.
The opening flashback in UP. Yes, your wife died after a long and happy marriage. People die when they get old. So?

Looper. I stopped watching when Bruce Willis' Chinese wife is introduced and we get that she's beautiful, charming and innocent. Of course, she's going to die in the next couple of minutes. It happened sooner than I anticipated.

If there are readers regularly viewing the entries here

We're out here

"I love you" always does the trick. I hear those words and I check out.

If a director can't or won't bother to get me to understand viscerally and intuitively that A loves B without having to tell me, then what the hell is he doing? And if I got that already, then by stating it, you've just ruined my carefully realized emotion. You've explained the joke. You've robbed my chance for feeling.

When the first talking episode of AF aired, many viewers were disappointed who had liked the silent shorts. When Aeon says "I'm here on a mission to assassinate Trevor Goodchild." , they felt it was ruined. Why are you explaining? It was meant as fake exposition- everything they say should not be trusted. But looking back, I can see it was trying to be too clever for our own good. For that first episode, it backfired.

No more gripes, complaints about crappy TV writing.

Here's a real writer worth your time.
http://ameliagray.com/

Fantastic stuff.
Will say more later.

Peter, I admit I don't really vibe with most of your opinions, but I'm still curious to hear them.

As always, thanks for writing here, Peter.

I'll be sure to check out Amelia Gray. I'm starting an MFA program in fiction writing this fall, and am reading everything I can get my hands on (there's not enough time in the world).

Within seconds of the opening shots of 'It' I tapped into a deep emotional engagement with the theme of child abduction. By the time Pennywise was revealed I went into a fit of almost hysterical crying. I viscerally felt that the clown was himself an abducted child. Made so very strange by the abuse and isolation. I don't think that the filmmakers intended this, but for me the actor playing Pennywise had a transcendent quality that triggered this connection for me.