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At some point between now and the end of Battlestar Galactica's season, I may have to discuss my problems with this season and Ron Moore's attempt to wag the fandom's dog specifically - at least that's my take on what's going on (if you watch, you know what I'm talking about and if you don't, you don't care anyway). For now, a few general thoughts.
[Note: I briefly discuss Zodiac below. I don't consider historical facts spoilers but if you do, beware.]
There are certain dangers when writers don't play fair with their audience whether you're writing fic, novels, comics or television (movies are a slightly different beast). Principally, you risk losing their trust and their attention as a result. The consequences are magnified with the amount of time and money invested in the production - bad fic doesn't get read but bad TV can loose millions and end careers (hence, essential conservatism of publishers and network execs). Generally speaking, creators only need to follow one simple principle of "fair play" when dealing with your audience: if your heroine is going to shoot the bad guy in the third act, you introduce the gun that her daddy keeps in his bedside table in the first act. The innumerable variations on this idea aren't important. What is important is that you are always conscientious as a creator to give your audience all the information they need to reach the same point in the story as your characters - how well or poorly you do this is a question of talent and skill - just look at Shakespeare. But if you try to be coy with your audience, you not only risk losing their attention (either because they're confused or they're pissed off or some combination of both) you risk losing the thread of your own narrative.
For example, the story about a girl who shoots the bad guy who's menacing her is a different story from the one about a girl who is rescued when the dashing detective steps across the threshold and shoots the bad guy who's been menacing her is a different story from the one about girl who is about to shoot the bad guy menacing her when the dashing detective steps across the threshold and pulls the trigger is a different story from the one about the girl who believes she's shot the bad guy who was menacing her only to discover that her gun was loaded with blanks and it was Colonel Plumb with the parlour with a candlestick. The corollary to the principle that you always show the gun in the first act is that once you've shown the gun, you must use it - if you lead your audience to expect a certain result (our heroine shoots the bad guy) you take a risk if you choose not to meet those expectations.
However, that can still be a valid and interesting choice but you as writer need to be aware that your audience (let alone your characters - a post for another time) will react very differently to the ending where your heroine saves herself as opposed to the ending where she is saved. In dramatic narratives, the narrative is meant to create a specific emotional response from the audience be it triumph or tragedy, which is why expectation matters. If you build up your audience to believe that the heroine will pull the trigger and, in that final moment, a shot rings out behind her and we pull back to see the dashing detective emerge from the shadows, a smoking gun in his hand, you've created an expectation that has not been met. Even if the bad guy is still dead on the floor and the heroine and the dashing detective still drive off into the sunset, there is still that unmet expectation to be addressed.
Some writers use unmet expectations to create a specific mood but most, in my experience, don't seem to understand the difference between manipulating an audience's mood and a bait and switch. David Fincher's Zodiac is an excellent example of the former, a police procedural that ends with the same frustrating ambiguity as the real-life investigations into the Zodiac killings. It is a disturbing and unsettling movie, in large measure precisely because it fails to meet our expectation that, at the end of last reel, we'd see the forces of goodness triumphant and order restored. Sunday's episode of Battlestar Galactica is, despite some of the best performances of the season, the one of the latter, I think - the narrative equivalent of taking away the football after your audience has committed to punting.
Even if it all does turn out to be a ploy to foil Internet spoiler hounds on Ron Moore's part, he's sacrificed a big chunk of his audience's faith in his storytelling - your team may, in the end, wind up with a touchdown but your kicker will still remember what it felt like to thud against the deck and will be just that little bit more tentative on the next play.
Trust between people is hard enough to repair when you can talk face to face. Trust between storytellers and audiences is far flimsier and, in my experience, once lost, gone for good. Caveat scriptor.
[Note: I briefly discuss Zodiac below. I don't consider historical facts spoilers but if you do, beware.]
There are certain dangers when writers don't play fair with their audience whether you're writing fic, novels, comics or television (movies are a slightly different beast). Principally, you risk losing their trust and their attention as a result. The consequences are magnified with the amount of time and money invested in the production - bad fic doesn't get read but bad TV can loose millions and end careers (hence, essential conservatism of publishers and network execs). Generally speaking, creators only need to follow one simple principle of "fair play" when dealing with your audience: if your heroine is going to shoot the bad guy in the third act, you introduce the gun that her daddy keeps in his bedside table in the first act. The innumerable variations on this idea aren't important. What is important is that you are always conscientious as a creator to give your audience all the information they need to reach the same point in the story as your characters - how well or poorly you do this is a question of talent and skill - just look at Shakespeare. But if you try to be coy with your audience, you not only risk losing their attention (either because they're confused or they're pissed off or some combination of both) you risk losing the thread of your own narrative.
For example, the story about a girl who shoots the bad guy who's menacing her is a different story from the one about a girl who is rescued when the dashing detective steps across the threshold and shoots the bad guy who's been menacing her is a different story from the one about girl who is about to shoot the bad guy menacing her when the dashing detective steps across the threshold and pulls the trigger is a different story from the one about the girl who believes she's shot the bad guy who was menacing her only to discover that her gun was loaded with blanks and it was Colonel Plumb with the parlour with a candlestick. The corollary to the principle that you always show the gun in the first act is that once you've shown the gun, you must use it - if you lead your audience to expect a certain result (our heroine shoots the bad guy) you take a risk if you choose not to meet those expectations.
However, that can still be a valid and interesting choice but you as writer need to be aware that your audience (let alone your characters - a post for another time) will react very differently to the ending where your heroine saves herself as opposed to the ending where she is saved. In dramatic narratives, the narrative is meant to create a specific emotional response from the audience be it triumph or tragedy, which is why expectation matters. If you build up your audience to believe that the heroine will pull the trigger and, in that final moment, a shot rings out behind her and we pull back to see the dashing detective emerge from the shadows, a smoking gun in his hand, you've created an expectation that has not been met. Even if the bad guy is still dead on the floor and the heroine and the dashing detective still drive off into the sunset, there is still that unmet expectation to be addressed.
Some writers use unmet expectations to create a specific mood but most, in my experience, don't seem to understand the difference between manipulating an audience's mood and a bait and switch. David Fincher's Zodiac is an excellent example of the former, a police procedural that ends with the same frustrating ambiguity as the real-life investigations into the Zodiac killings. It is a disturbing and unsettling movie, in large measure precisely because it fails to meet our expectation that, at the end of last reel, we'd see the forces of goodness triumphant and order restored. Sunday's episode of Battlestar Galactica is, despite some of the best performances of the season, the one of the latter, I think - the narrative equivalent of taking away the football after your audience has committed to punting.
Even if it all does turn out to be a ploy to foil Internet spoiler hounds on Ron Moore's part, he's sacrificed a big chunk of his audience's faith in his storytelling - your team may, in the end, wind up with a touchdown but your kicker will still remember what it felt like to thud against the deck and will be just that little bit more tentative on the next play.
Trust between people is hard enough to repair when you can talk face to face. Trust between storytellers and audiences is far flimsier and, in my experience, once lost, gone for good. Caveat scriptor.