Unreasonable Expectations? (Part 2 of 2)
In yesterday's post we discussed whether or not it's a reasonable expectation that protagonists should always be pushing the plot forward or otherwise taking decisive action in order to justify their place at the center of the book
( Read more... )
Or at least get a nicely awkward, even funny, scene in.
Like the Doctor Who episode "School Reunion." About half the audience knew perfectly well who "Miss Smith" was, and thus were in on the joke when the Doctor is showering her with compliments but can't blow his cover in front of the villains. Even those who didn't know her knew what was going on by the time she spotted the TARDIS. Like you said, it was all about the reactions, and the look on her face when she realized who the scrawny physics teacher really was. That revelation wasn't the point of the story, but it provided another step in her emotional journey through the episode.
When I was studying music composition, we learned all the rules - and there are many, many rules. Our teacher told us that once we could compose while keeping all the rules, we could begin breaking them. Because we would know what would happen when we did.
For instance, parallel fifths. It's something that can show up in harmonization, and it has a very distinctive, even jarring sound. Your ear is drawn to them immediately. If you don't know that, you should avoid writing them lest you distract your listeners in the middle of a piece. If you do know it, you can take full advantage of their effect.
Tropes Are Not Bad, after all. :-)
Reply
It's not whether we know what the twist is, it's whether a) we weren't supposed to know and the author totally failed in the subtlety/foreshadowing department, or b) we're supposed to know, just for the dramatic tension.
Succinctly put.
Reply
Leave a comment