Last week a couple of writers posted that they were trying a new process that I’ll call “writing the fun stuff.” That meant trying to infuse each day’s writing only with the cool stuff. At the same time, I read a review of a well-known literary author’s latest book, about which the reviewer said, “Well written, but boring.” And not an hour later, I saw another review accusing a popular writer of urban fantasy of pandering to publishers—writing for the money.
So here are these writers, two talking about what they try to put in their books, and two whose books are talked about. I will lay a bet of any sum you care to name that neither of the latter two writers sat down to the desk saying, “Well, time to write a boring book.”
Sometimes I think that defining dramatic tension is about as easy as sculpting water. But still, thinking about it and discussing it with others I think is worthwhile if for no other reason than stirring an exchange of ideas.
One of the reasons most of us read is the fun of trying on different mental states and exploring different places, or by outguessing the characters. The expectation of resolution. I don’t mean just the plot resolution—the case is solved, wedding bells for hero and heroine, the ring gets tossed into the volcano—but emotional resolution, sometimes philosophical resolution, intellectual resolution, answers to the questions raised, even if the answers turn out to be more questions. It’s that sense of completeness, heightened by the snap of the real.
I think the question gets vexing when trying to quantify which resolution is important, and why. A book can be criticized by one reader for being full of boring monster fights when the next reader is loaning the book to his best friend, and standing over his shoulder to watch the friend read those pulse-pounding monster fights.
Moby Dick is considered boring by some readers for its many side trips into the details of the whaling industry, but that’s the best part of the book for other readers. Jane Austen’s work is constrained and frivolous for some, deeply ironic in its sharp observations about human beings and emotionally satisfying for others.
Some of that might be attributed to taste, and some to experience. When a new reader encounters that slight young thief with the emerald eyes and discovers that underneath the dirt and the scruffy clothes ‘he’ is really the lost princess, the story becomes delightful. For an older reader who has traveled alongside many lost princesses who dressed as street urchins before recovering their thrones, that discovery causes a sigh, because the old reader knows where that story is going. But a second old reader lauds the familiar storyline, and settles down happily, trusting that the tale will go as expected. So the first and third readers love the book, but for the second? Bor-ring.
I think it is safe to say that no author decides to include a boring part in a book. There is dramatic tension in all aspects for the writer who sees the shape of the story from inside. Beginning as well as experienced writers strive constantly for new ways of getting the reader to feel that tension. Some say “better prose” or “Show! Don’t tell!”; others say “snappier pacing” and a third set will say “I want twists, I want to be surprised.”
Dramatic tension may or may not be fun stuff, ‘something happening.’
About three quarters through the first season of the Vampire Diaries, a TV show I’d begun enjoying for the witty turns and the twists on the whole vampire thing, I began rapidly to lose interest. It seemed that the screenwriters had decided that there had to be an emotional fight with the bad brother every episode, whereas the good brother would feel betrayed, and the girl would swing between the three. No one ever learned anything from all these angst-fests, which began to feel repetitive, all noise signifying not much of anything.
Obviously millions of viewers disagreed. That angst can be exactly what people tune in for. It’s their ‘fun stuff.’
It seems to me, anyway, that what we expect from all this high-energy action and emotion can differ. Some love it for its own sake. Others want it to add up to some kind of insight, or skill.
In recent years, I’ve found myself more and more unable to enjoy any kind of ‘dramatic’ series that doesn’t have an episodic structure (where each episode is basically capable of standing alone as a story). Part of the reason, I think, lies in the fact that so many of them don’t really know when they are going to end (i.e., whether they’ll have two more seasons, or just the current one, or whatever), and thus tend to employ the ‘wipeout’ technique, where every episode basically starts from the same place, regardless of the fact that the story and the characters are all obviously aware of past events and should have changed accordingly. I find it easier to accept that kind of behaviour in, say, fictional detectives, particularly if their private life is left on the sides, and the focus is always on the new case of the week. But if I’m supposed to like the characters who don’t really change at all despite all the stuff that happens to them, that just doesn’t work for me. (Not to mention that I like stories that have a completed dramatic structure, which is another thing that lacks from contemporary TV, IMHO.) I’m not sure if it’s the same kind of thing you’re talking about, but it feels pretty close.
It’s exactly what I’m talking about. And this sense in a book–that after all kinds of sturm and drang the characters emotionally go back to zero as if nothing happened–makes it difficult to stick with the story for me.
I totally agree. I also find myself getting very weary with serialized television, because I’ve been suckered by way too many shows which had no idea where they were going, no idea how to wrap up the loose plot threads or which just kept retreading old ground and heaping ever more ridiculous events upon one another in order to squeeze out just one more season. And all too often the end either just fizzled out or totally negated everything that came before.
I also gave up on The Vampire Diaries at around the same time as Sherwood (I think I lasted a bit longer), because the never changing melodrama got tired. And while I’ve been surprised at how much I enjoyed Game of Thrones (since the books never did anything for me), I still found myself getting a bit weary of all the wandering about in Westeros towards the end of season 2 and wondered how on Earth they were going to keep up interest in the show for the equivalent of five further very thick books. Never mind that anybody who knows anything about the Wars of the Roses or has read Shakespeare already knows where it’s all heading (and Martin even foreshadows some things quite heavily).
The Brits are somewhat better about telling serialized stories with a defined end (probably because their seasons are shorter), but even there you have shows lasting beyond their natural lifespan and the unpleasant tendency to go for the “And then they all died” Blake’s Seven type ending.
Episodic shows have their own frustrations, at least when the characters never change, but at least you’ll have the pay-off of a complete story per episode. Though I guess I prefer shows with episodic plots and ongoing character development, though those are rare.
Me, too.
Blake’s 7, so very, very seventies/early eighties. I never could rewatch it, I was so disgusted, though I’d enjoyed some episodes quite a bit.
But it’s left its mark in British culture to the point that a lot of British series, whether book or TV or comic, go for a Blake’s Seven type ending. There are several recent British TV shows where I’ve never watched the final episode (I usually plan to seek out spoilers and then forget until I no longer care) and one book series by a British author I enjoyed a whole lot where I never read the final book.
BTW, it’s really fascinating when you see Gareth Thomas, the actor who played Blake, in British film or TV episode these days. Quite often other actors, often men in their 30s and 40s who were children and teens when Blake’s Seven aired, will completely lose it around Gareth Thomas, e.g. normally placid police officers suddenly get shouty. It’s almost as if they’re taking out their frustration with that ending on the man who played the part.
Wow! That’s amazing.
I think writing fanfiction is often a lot like only writing the fun stuff. It’s so heavily focused on the emotional arc that ev ery scene can be funny or romantic or heartwrenching. But it’s someone else’s idea of the fun stuff. And after a while it can be wearing. What if you want the fun of a monster fight? Or a proper intellectual resolution? What if you don’t want there to be only two endings – they get together and everyone is happy or they don’t get together and everyone is miserable? And ending 2 is still considered betraying the reader’s trust. Just the fun stuff is a trap, but make yourself think of every part as the fun stuff is a solid self-motivation technique. And the truth is, you still won’t have a book that everyone things is fun. Your idea of the fun stuff and readers’ fun stuff are not isomorphic. Nothing you can do.
Yep. My feeling exactly.
after a while it can be wearing
Yes!
It’s like how, when you buy a CD, there are maybe three songs that you really like, a few more that you don’t like quite so much, and a couple that you always skip over. The temptation, if you’re going to make a mix-CD of all-favorites, is to put only those first three songs on. But when you’re listening to the original CD, you often find that you gradually lose interest in those first three favorites, and that some of the other songs really grow on you. I’ve even had it happen that songs I didn’t like, I ended up liking.
And I think it’s a good analogy for stories, because you can have moments in books that are your absolute favorites, or characters, or plot developments, but if you have nothing but those, then they really wear thin.
But fanfiction often covers exactly those moments that are often cut from manuscripts, screenplays, etc…, if they were ever included in the first place, namely the sex scenes, domestic dishwashing scenes, pillow talk scenes, characters just hanging out moments, that are frequently considered irrelevant to the ongoing plot. But for many readers, those scenes are the fun moments, while the monster fight is just another tedious monster fight.
Exactly! Those fun moment are not the same for everybody!
I think there are certain plot elements that have the gravitational pull of black holes. My younger daughter thinks the love triangle is one of those. You have interesting characters, with interesting relationships, and then you notice that two characters are taking up more of the protagonist’s time, in fact, they seem to be maybe vying for the protag… and suddenly all other plot elements fade to sketches, as we tread this familiar path.
Yes–this is also the problem of the longtime reader, where certain types of situation seem to appear frequently, and then go exactly the same way each time.
In No Plot? No Problem!, the author recommends making two lists. One is of things you enjoy in fiction, and the other is of things you don’t enjoy.
Then you ensure you write from the first list, not the second, even though the second list will try to seek, as if posing as Good For You food that doesn’t taste good.
But the pieces have to fit together. Even if your list is ice cream, ice cream, sorbet and then ice cream, that’s not a meal. You have to have other elements, and they had better all work together as a harmonious unit.
I like your example of the urchin who’s a princess in disguise and the reactions of the three different readers — but the interesting thing to me is how those three readers can in fact be one and the same person, just at different places in the journey of life. The young person who first discovered her with eager excitement, turning pages in impatience to find out how she’ll get through one jam after another soon turns into the jaded reader who’s read it a dozen times before and finds this iteration rather boring and tired. And then the jaded reader comes to a difficult patch in their life when they want comfort reading with no nasty surprises and finds that the story cues that there will be a happy ending and none of the plot obstacles will be too nasty or harrowing (no life-changing injuries, etc) tells them this is a story they can sink into and enjoy instead of dreading every plot turn.
That’s a very good point.