One Day – The Importance of Opposites

It’s not hard to see why opposites are littered all over many different types of stories. What makes us different, in some cases, can be just as important as the similarities we find in one another. Think of Romeo and Juliet – a story built around the idea of opposites, of the forbidden. The fact that the story ends up being about the bonds we can forge despite these clashes of culture, despite our upbringing and the prejudices we’re told to uphold and live by, is one of the reasons it works so well.

In some respects, the same can be said for One Day, a Netflix adaptation of the 2009 novel by David Nicholls. (No, I’m not saying it’s as good as Shakespeare – whilst I did the series, that would be a step too far!)

Now, you may be wondering why I’m making such a comparison, but it’s important to note that, as with many love stories, there are similarities to Shakespeare’s tragedy. Romeo and Juliet is one of the quintessential love stories of its time, and frankly, any time, because its very message pertains to the fact that love can break down barriers that are so often placed around us in society. This universal message can be found emanating from many stories today, including One Day.

The beauty of One Day partly lies within its conceit – one that, on paper, can seem gimmicky at first but, with the story’s considered, careful execution, is anything but. One Day follows Emma Morley (Ambika Mod) and Dexter Mayhew (Leo Woodall) – showing their lives on the same day across many years. It is partly about the progression of time and how our lives can change, take turns we don’t necessarily want or ask for and, as such, it’s partly a tale about struggling to find a way in life.

Back to the theme of opposites. These two characters couldn’t be further apart, in many aspects of their life. Emma is from a working-class family in Leeds, has to take shitty, demolishing jobs to survive and dreams of being a writer; she’s a creative at heart. Dexter, however, is from money – raised in London and someone who has never had to even consider getting a job to make ends meet.

They bump into each other for the first time on July 15^th 1988; during their graduation party at the University of Edinburgh as they both see a nebulous, uncertain future laying ahead of them. You can instantly tell how different they are from their demeanours, as so much of their characterisation is clearly built on this.

Emma is shy, a bit awkward, clinging onto friends; found at the edge of the party as it begins to wind down. Dexter, however, clearly possesses confidence, a man who, as Emma states, gets noticed around campus for his dashing looks and sexual conquests. Whilst this may seem vulgar, this is important – again, it builds this contrast between them. In almost every possible way, they are different.

There’s a cynical edge to this; one that I’m instantly going to rebuff, but it’s worth mentioning. As a writer, you want to hook as many audiences as possible into noticing and reading your story. So, how would you do that? Simple – by creating characters who are opposites in order for there to be a greater chance of a reader or viewer seeing themselves in a character. Ultimately, many readers and viewers want to see themselves portrayed in front of them; to identify with a character, to see a piece of art they can recognise to tell them something about themselves.

So, the cynical argument could be: Well, they’re only different to draw in as many people as possible. After all, if you don’t see yourself in Emma, there’s every chance you could see yourself in Dexter. Theoretically, yes, that is possible, but, frankly, that’s just the nature of writing. Why? Because you WANT opposites! Opposites form the very basis of comedy, drama, hell, any writing, really!

Opposites help with character dynamics, plotting, can help build tension and make your characters seem more real. Now, this isn’t to say that characters can’t have things in common – my argument is both are important. But, in there lies the beauty of One Day (and many stories before it).

The journey of characters with opposite views is to show that people can overlook said differences. It ultimately doesn’t matter that Dexter is wealthy and Emma isn’t; it doesn’t matter that Emma is creative and Dexter doesn’t have a creative bone in his body – from a character-building perspective, it’s important to create opposites to build a diverse cast full of interesting characters, but the real message is that what could divide us doesn’t need to be what divides us.

And, of course, yes, you could do down a completely different route with this – you could create a bleak character drama where Emma and Dexter couldn’t get past their differences and they never saw each other again but in that is kind of my point: even if you wrote it that way, it only reinforces how important opposites can truly be.

Good Twist / Bad Twist

To a writer, there’s nothing quite like delivering a twist – leading up to a huge moment in your narrative that either answers mysteries posed previously or created a turning point that changes the entire narrative landscape. It’s important, however, to be careful with these moments as they can easily make or break the entire experience for your reader or viewer. Today, I’ll be examining at a twist I’ve experienced, as a viewer, that left me cold and, in doing so, explain my golden rule for writing a good twist.

Sam Esmail’s Mr Robot first aired on USA Network back in 2015. It’s a very well-made show and I was compelled to watch most of the first season very quickly, finding the characters engaging and the dark, gritty world surrounding the protagonist Elliot Alderson endlessly intriguing. There seemed to be so many possibilities regarding where the show could go. It, however, unfortunately led to a twist that completely put me off watching anymore of it. What could it possibly be? It has to do with Elliot’s perception of the world.

In the pilot episode, it is clearly established that Elliot has mental health issues. He doesn’t like being around people, he finds any form of social interaction troubling and he’s known as being a recluse. All of this is expertly portrayed by Rami Malek. It’s a performance truly worthy of the Emmy that he received. You feel sorry for Elliot as you watch him attempt to cope with the world around him. In the first episode, Elliot meets his father, Edward Alderson (aka Mr Robot) who recruits him to become part of a vigilante hacker group. The unsavoury twist comes in Episode 9 when it’s revealed that Edward Alderson is actually dead and the Edward that Elliot is seeing is simply one of Elliot’s personalities.

So, you’re probably now wondering how they managed to pull this off. Well, this is the awkward part because, while it certainly makes sense given Elliot’s personality disorder, it doesn’t really make sense as part of the viewer journey. It isn’t that it’s not a clever twist (I was certainly surprised!) The issue is that, up to that point, the viewer has clearly been seeing both characters in scenes, with everyone else around them not acting a bit strange at what is occurring. You see, in reality (the reality the viewer doesn’t see until this twist is revealed), whenever Elliot is speaking to Edward, he is fact just stood there speaking in a different voice to another version of himself. Again, inherently nothing wrong with that in theory until you put that into practice:

Why was no-one who was a witness to this shocked?

Why weren’t there other clues building up to this?

Why does it feel like I’ve been deliberately misled?

Let’s start with answering question one. Frankly, I can’t! The show implies that people around Elliot already know of this issue which could go some way to explaining why no-one seems particularly bothered. The explanation is that, because Elliot has had treatment for his issues, he has forgotten previous symptoms like this but the people around him, of course, still remember. It’s always felt like a huge stretch to me. How could you not react? Every single person just seems to accept what is happening to Elliot in front of them with no-one giving any sign that his behaviour is strange or that the entire thing makes them uncomfortable. I just don’t buy it.

Now, regarding question 2, in fairness, as I haven’t watched it back, there probably are clues which indicate that this is happening. However, my lack of a definitive answer for this leads me onto question 3. I know friends that attest that this is an excellent television show and that it only gets better, but the reason this twist was my cut-off point is simply because I felt like, as a viewer, I had been deliberately misled. The fact that I didn’t anticipate the twist before it happened is not the issue. I actually like being surprised by the stories I read and watch. My favourite television shows are The Shield and The Wire, partly for their ability to shock their audience’s with expertly crafted twists. No, my issue with this goes deeper into the fact that Mr Robot does a similar trick to Fight Club, only cheating a little in its execution.

You see, in Fight Club, Tyler Durden being an extension of the nameless narrator makes sense. Why? Because he’s the only person that ever talks to Tyler Durden. So, when the big twist occurs, while shocking, it actually makes sense because you realise you have been seeing the entire story through the eyes of the nameless narrator and his perception. Esmail tries to do that but he’s trying to have his cake and eat it too due to the fact that other characters interact with both of them to make every scene look normal. Also, not every scene is from Elliot’s perspective so it makes even less sense! I could understand why Esmail thinks that he is simply making a subversive narrative but, for me, it goes too far into the direction of simply misleading your audience.

Regardless of how that twist was exposed, it’s also important to consider the ramifications of it going forward which I also struggled with. If the show can pull a twist off like that, where it simply states that, because we’re seeing some of the narrative through Elliot’s eyes, anything can be real or not, it begs the question: why should I believe anything I’m seeing? This is the fundamental problem with the twist and it was definitely a make-or-break aspect for me the more I thought about it.

Okay, television show, you did your twist. Excellent. Now tell me why I should care? I’ve talked about this previously; with a twist like this, the audience could completely lose faith in the storytelling because there is now no way to decipher between what is real and what isn’t. What’s the point investing further into a story when, for all you know, the writer could just do the same thing again further down the line? It killed my enthusiasm for the show because I no longer trusted anything that was being shown to me. Due to that, I no longer cared.

The reason that breadcrumbs are normally laid out for the viewer is because the twist needs to seem plausible and to not feel like a narrative stretch that completely unhinges what came before. If your twist feels too unlikely (which can arise from the fact that you haven’t put the required groundwork in to “sell” it to the audience), then they can feel rightfully cheated. My golden rule when writing twists is quite simple: It doesn’t matter if the audience guess the twist before it happens so long as it makes sense and goes to an interesting place anyway. Think about it: even if I guess correctly that the butler did the crime, if it leads to an intriguing situation or event happening, why should I care that I guessed it in the first place? There have been many occasions when I’ve actually wanted something to be true, having guessed the twist, and have been pleased when it actually happened. With any good twist, it is about build-up, execution and showing the ramifications of it. So long as your twist makes sense and you follow through with it, still finding interesting places to go afterwards, then it matters a lot less if the audience have already guessed what’s going to happen. That’s my issue with the twist described above: while I admire the conviction of Esmail for doing it, it made me apathetic towards the narrative and the show essentially lost itself a viewer. While you, understandably, may feel differently, just beware when you write a twist of this nature: you may be losing as many audience members as you potentially gain and, in that, you need to ask yourself if it’s really the route you need to take.

The Problems with Voiceover

When writing a protagonist, there are many storytelling techniques to make the audience feel like they know the character; to make them well-rounded. It could be by giving them a detailed backstory, by showing different sides of their personality or by seeing how they respond in a desperate situation. These all can be used effectively and frequently are. In novels, they can create intimacy between the character and the reader by having the protagonist occasionally refer or talk to the audience. This can also be done in great television shows, like Fleabag. However, sometimes, with movies and television shows, they want the protagonist to really get in the audience’s face – to make the entire narrative about the experiences of one character, or have one character completely control the structure of the piece. They do this through voiceover and I’m going to illustrate the pitfalls of using such a technique.

I got the idea for writing this piece by watching the latest DC film, Birds of Prey. I’m a fan of superhero films when they’re done right, and this one is a spin-off to the frankly awful Suicide Squad focusing primarily on the character of Harley Quinn. In there lies the first problem: the film isn’t simply from Quinn’s perspective; the film is Harley Quinn. She constantly narrates every single event that takes place on screen, as if either the audience need to have everything explained to them or because Quinn’s humour is too “charming” to not have her interrupt the action every ten seconds to deliver another zinger. The problems with this are two-fold. Firstly, if you don’t like Harley as a character it makes it very difficult to get past because she throws herself onto the entire weight and structure of the narrative. It isn’t heavy-handed so much as overbearing. The film doesn’t seem to be selling a plot and characters so much as selling a personality. Secondly, the constant interruptions and interludes by Quinn destroy the entire flow of the film. Any time the film appears to be building momentum, Quinn chimes in with another needless observation. If used sparingly, voiceover can be effective but there are times when it merely feels like it’s covering up the thinness of the plot and the bare-bones nature of the characters around her.

This leads to another issue with voiceover: if you’re relying on one character to control the narrative and selling the story purely on them and them alone, do you notice a problem? The problem is that, unless your piece is about a single character stuck in a box, every other character is going to be underdeveloped. Even if I was a fan of Quinn, it was still frustrating to see how poorly developed and fleshed out the characters around her were. This is a narrative problem is so far that it leads to character arcs that either don’t feel earnt or feel inconsequential – resolved by voiceover just before the credits roll, making the audience completely unengaged with their plight. They are given a reason to be around Quinn and that’s it. Many of the characters may as well be cannon fodder as the audience is given no compelling reason to care about them beyond the fact that they are relevant to Quinn’s journey. That is the role of a side character in a few scenes of a film, not the role of a main character, but in there lies the issue. Compared to the protagonist doing the voiceover, every other main character feels like an afterthought.

Voiceover can also lead to a controlling of narrative structure. For example, in Birds of Prey, Quinn constantly takes us back and forth; getting to certain parts of the story before realising that she needs to “introduce” another character to explain why the scene we’ve just seen is relevant. If overused, it proves tiresome, like a kid skipping back and forth on a vinyl player. Even if it’s used sparingly, it still needs to justify its own existence as a narrative tool. Okay, you can change the structure, but it must be used to build to something or at least make the sequence of events more compelling by creating a flow within the structure. This doesn’t do any of those things. It appears that it’s used purely to showcase Quinn’s zany and erratic nature. The problem? We already know she’s zany and erratic from the very first scene of the film. It needs to make the narrative stronger to justify its own existence and, if it doesn’t, it needs to be left in the first draft.

Voiceover is hard to get right. As such, many writers steer clear of the technique completely. I can think of shows like Scrubs that actually use the technique well, but that’s for a completely reason. Scrubs is a fast-paced comedy program in which a lot of the humour comes from J.D’s perspective and imagination. The cutaways into J.D’s imagination justify the approach because we, the audience, need to know what’s going on in his mind for the jokes to land. Without the voiceover, we would have no idea why these scenes are actually in the episode. It is a hook that illustrates to the audience why it’s present; justifying its existence through the practical implication of it. Birds of Prey doesn’t do this. Quinn’s voiceover often feels forced, as an exaggerated attempt to simply have the character hog the limelight unnecessarily. It lessens the impact of other characters, underutilising and under-developing them, and leaves the narrative around her feeling anaemic, in desperate need of developing.

 

How (not) to make teenage characters relevant

Teenage characters are difficult to write, like any character. The reason they seem harder to write than your average adult character is because, in many cases, these characters are set in an adult-orientated world and narrative. What this means is that they are normally not the full focus of attention. In most examples, the narrative in question is not My So-Called Life: teenagers are not the focus and anything that is not the focus can detract from the pacing and relevance of the piece. I’ve been watching a couple of television shows lately that do a lot of things right, but the contrast with how they deal with their teenage characters is particularly startling. Before I begin, I want to make abundantly clear that I think BOTH shows are very well-written. The illustration of the difference in the approach and execution of teenage characters is more to simply show how difficult they can be to write and to highlight common pitfalls that you want to avoid.

Homeland is an excellent show. I’ve talked about this previously on here – the dynamic between Nicholas Brody and Carrie Mathieson is, as far as I’m concerned, very well-handled and poignant. In depicting Brody’s family, however, the narrative, at points, struggles to remain relevant to what the overarching plot. Jessica (Brody’s wife) always feel relevant because she is given the spotlight with Brody at many different points and the show doesn’t shy away from depicting the difficulties of their marriage after Brody has been captured. Where the struggle lies is in attempting to characterise their daughter: Dana Brody. A lot of people (myself included) have said the same thing about Dana’s character:

“She’s annoying!”

What do the audience mean when they say this? Dana, right from the very beginning of the show, is a character that acts out – whether its smoking weed or disobeying Jessica. Instantly, this can make the audience dislike her which you could, of course, argue is the point. There’s nothing in any writing that specifically states that you have to like a character. There are countless television shows where you’re bound to find a particular character irritating because they either leach the spotlight or just showcase certain personality traits that you despise. That is normal. What, however, is particularly frustrating about Dana’s character is her lack of relevance to the overall plot which means that most scenes involving her or her narrative just feel completely inconsequential to the show. Even if the audience didn’t find her annoying, the writers are fighting an uphill battle here. This is a show that deals with terrorist threats on American soil: it is a very dramatic and high-stakes show. To contrast this with the issues of a teenage girl suffering with family problems, while potentially very interesting, simply drags the narrative down because it is NOT relevant enough. The only times, for me, where Dana felt relevant or significant to the plot involved her interactions with her father. This isn’t surprising, of course. In trying to provide Dana with more screen time, it not only makes the show lose its footing, it also slows the pace and detracts from most episodes. Her problems, while no less necessarily significant, just feel like small potatoes when compared to the rest of the plot and in that lies the problem. It is fine for them to be small potatoes, but then, why should the audience need to sit through five to ten minutes of barely relevant plot every episode? It doesn’t do the audience or the character any favours.

I will now give an example of a teenage character I think has been characterised very well and does not suffer from the same problems: Paige Jennings from The Americans. In season 2, there is a plot that involves her becoming involved in a church group which she begins to feel some form of affinity towards. However, as oppose to Dana’s plotline, the focus of this largely remains within the household which instantly makes it more relevant. Across the entire season, we have literally ONE scene of Paige at this group. Why? Because the characters in the group itself are not relevant to the plot. The family dynamic, however, is. The strength of the storyline is in managing to show that Paige is changing, beginning to form her own ideas of the world around her, without taking time away from the narrative. The plot becomes relevant when she admits to her parents, Elizabeth & Philip Jennings, that she enjoys the group. In that lies conflict. Without giving anything away, Elizabeth despises the idea of her being part of this group, feeling like she will become indoctrinated by religion. Almost every single scene about this storyline involves Paige and the two main characters, her parents. In that lies the beauty of it: it is relevant because the show illustrates to us the conflict inherent within it and does not take up too much screen time. It does a lot with a little which is all the audience needs. We sympathise and appreciate Paige more partly because she is fulfilling her role in the narrative very well: she isn’t detracting from the main plot; only adding to it in the way all good subplots should.

Both television shows are very dramatic and, if they were shows like My So-Called Life, Paige’s storyline would be considered under-developed because, in that instance, the teenage characters would be the focal point. That is not the case here and it takes intelligent writing to be able to flesh out these characters with the little screen time that should be allocated to them. While not necessarily poorly written, Dana is simply given far too much screen time and simply detracts because of it – her storylines are made relevant but only after episodes of seemingly feeling disconnected from the rest of the narrative. This makes the audience become exasperated by her and leads to her being seen with a more critical eye than is potentially justified. Paige’s treatment, however, is a perfect balance: it shows her acting defiantly in front of her parents while creating more tension in the dynamic between all three of them which means that even if you don’t like Paige’s character, you cannot say that her storyline is not relevant to the overarching plot of the show. In that lies a golden rule:

You can never make any audience like any specific character but remembering what your show or story is about and making sure that every exchange feels relevant can stop pacing issues and make sure that the audience remains engaged throughout.

How Tragicomedy Works

The “tragicomedy” is an important genre that has re-emerged over the last decade, combining two specific elements: comedy and tragedy. It is significant to note that it isn’t purely tragedy as defined by playwrights, such as Shakespeare. While Shakespeare’s plays definitely had scenes that were comedic in nature, I’d argue that the tragicomedy actually leans more into the comedic than Shakespeare’s tragedies. They also tend to have a more grounded approach: think less witches and prophecies, more alcohol, drug-taking and inappropriate behaviour. I’m going to analyse two shows that I feel truly encapsulate the genre’s strengths and why I feel they both belong in the modern age of ground-breaking television.

Firstly, we begin with Fleabag. Phoebe Waller-Bridge, as far as I’m concerned, is a writing genius and a lot of what makes the show work is how well the narrative follows the protagonist’s consciousness. We see things through her eyes; the vulnerability that is inherently engrained within the scenes, due to the brutal honesty of her perception and what she tells us, makes her likable, even as she does things we wouldn’t necessarily agree with. This “warts and all” approach is how it weaves both humour and tragedy into its tale. Without spoiling anything, there are many instances where the matter-of-fact nature of how information is delivered creates reflections of pain from the protagonist and the characters around her. It manages to deliver humour and tragedy in not just the same scene but, sometimes, the same sentence. Waller-Bridge’s deft touch and excellent acting sell the character. It could, of course, simply be a comedy, but it would lack its heart – the overarching themes of grief, guilt and regret; the pursuit of wanting to be a better person. That theme leads us nicely onto the second show.

Bojack Horseman was one of the original Netflix shows that helped put it on the map and, given that the final set of episodes are coming out tomorrow, I thought it was an appropriate time to discuss why the show works so well. Similar to Fleabag, there are elements of the protagonist that are irredeemable. In this, both shows find strength from within – the natural arcs of both characters aren’t about making them fall in line with the moral guidelines of the audience, but simply to learn to live with what they’ve done. Bojack is an alcoholic narcissist who is constantly struggling with who he is and who is supposed to be. The comedy comes from his one-liners, his arrogance and his selfishness. The tragic aspects come from the same place in that he realises that these things are unhelpful, unbecoming aspects of his character to the people around him, but he is unclear how to change even though he seemingly wants to.

The theme of change in both shows is what makes the tragic and comedic aspects work so well. The humour simply comes from the debauched, degrading acts they do and things the characters say. It provides an important element of escapism for the audience, in the same way that Hugh Laurie’s character in House does. It revels in the inappropriate, in the ‘I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that’ shock value that, along with smart writing, can create some hilarious scenes. These flaws, the aspects that audience laugh at, are also the character’s biggest weaknesses and the ones they struggle with. They are classic defence mechanisms; childish, immature acts designed to fulfil themselves so they don’t have to think of the guilt lurking underneath. The tragedy comes from how difficult it is to change – again, something identifiable, something the audience can grasp and relate to. Season 2 of Fleabag is particularly relevant here; the entire arc of the season is the protagonist actually attempting something that seemed completely alien to her before: seeking some form of redemption in the arms of a particularly dashing priest. The disfunction within the protagonists of both shows is what initially hooks us in, but it’s the depth shown through the dramatic elements that really make us relate to the very human need of wanting to better yourself.

Why the tragicomedy is particularly relevant to the modern setting can be shown in the tone of both shows. In Bojack, one of the main targets of its satire is the frivolous, fickle world of social media. In a world where anyone can find out anything about a celebrity, many of the show’s side characters only care about the public perception of Bojack. The show peels back the media image to show that there are many other layers beneath the character that the fickle world would be horrified by. Similar to Fleabag – in a society where everything can be exposed, the writers of both shows seem to be asking: why wouldn’t we show you everything? These shows couldn’t have existed even twenty years ago because the idea of the self has never been so potentially detached from the world around it. Bojack wants to be seen as a success, as the star of a highly successful sitcom, but, underneath it all, he is still miserable. Self-reflection for the characters is the only way for them to grow and, in having a society that only wants the juiciest gossip, the present and now, Bojack’s journey shows that it is harder to hide and process the sense of unfulfillment. If they are to change at all, it will be a gradual one because it is a constantly ongoing battle.

Both of the shows highlighted above are largely comedic endeavours, but one of the things that make them special is the way they delve into the protagonist’s psychology. The pain, the craving to heal, to redeem oneself, are powerful motivators and it is arguably only through adding tragic elements that these themes would be able to be explored at all. The genre feels more relevant now because of the brutal honesty of what the characters show us and what the programs are willing to depict. These aspects accentuate the difficulty of living in modern society – all exposure, no privacy. Whether it is Fleabag’s breaking of the fourth wall, or how we see Bojack’s drug trips, in giving us greater access and intimacy to the characters, it sells both the comedy and tragedy to a greater extent. Just look at another excellent show that falls into the same category: Barry, about a hitman that also wants to be a stage actor. Again, it is all about the internal process of wanting to be a better person, of trying to face the truly horrific things you’ve done. For tragicomedy to work, it needs to be unflinching – whether you want to laugh or cry at the scenes being depicted, in showing them to you, the comedy and drama highlight the two essential aspects of the human experience: the pain we suffer and the hope, the need, to feel that we can change and progress from what it’s done to us.

The Golden Rule

“You shouldn’t care what people think.”

This is what you’re always told as a writer, or a creative of any kind, really, and it is the hardest rule to follow because you are never going to be able to accomplish it. There is always going to be someone whose opinion you care about; whether it’s a partner, a group of friends or some family members. You pour so much time and effort into the work that it’s only natural to care. You don’t want people to hate it, so it doesn’t make sense to only be indifferent. Caring about what others think shows that it means something to you. I actually think it’s strange if you didn’t care at all.

So, I’m proposing a change to this ‘golden rule’ – one that’s achievable for every person but also one that realistically takes into account other people’s views in the right way. The rule I write to is this:

You should only care about what the target audience will think of what you create. And, even then, try not to care too much.

I’m going to use a film I’ve seen as an example of this amended rule and, through it, explain the rule’s worth. I saw Jojo Rabbit recently and thought it was a great film. For those of you who don’t know the plot, I’ll summarise it for you in a spoiler-free way. I’ll only explain to you what’s been shown in the trailers. A ten-year old boy called Jojo is living in Germany in the later stages of World War II. He lives with his mother, Rosie, and is involved in the Hitler Youth. Jojo has an imaginary friend (his own interpretation of Hitler, seen through his young, easily-influenced eyes.) He is avidly devoted to Hitler’s cause but his resolve is tested when it’s revealed that Rosie is hiding a Jewish girl in their home.

Now, instantly, looking at the premise, you and I both know that people will be offended by this. Hitler is portrayed by the director, Taika Waititi, who is, quite frankly, brilliant. By having Hitler be an imaginary friend, it lets Waititi make Hitler incredibly childish which lets the character become ironic because the audience know of the atrocities Hitler carried out. The humour works on several levels; one being that the film uses the audience’s knowledge to its favour. It’s a wink and a smile that some will definitely find offensive and, you know what? That is absolutely fine. There seems to be a problem nowadays where every single person has a “hot take” on everything – some people seem to think that being offended is literally the worst thing that can ever happen, other people think that offended people are self-entitled. The truth is that people are allowed to be offended but that the creator actually really doesn’t need to care at all. Why do I say that?

BECAUSE THE PEOPLE THAT ARE OFFENDED ARE CLEARLY NOT THE FILM’S INTENDED AUDIENCE.

Regardless of the film’s intentions, it is inherently allowed to exist. People who are offended by its mere premise will miss the true point of the film. Without giving anything away, Jojo Rabbit is a film that highlights the disgusting and revolting nature of such hatred and really shows that we can only survive if we continue to see the humanity in one another.

Now, some people will understand the message but not appreciate or like the humour in the film. Again, while I thought it was hilarious, not everyone will agree because humour is subjective and, I’d argue, incredibly hard to get right. One thing Waititi does very well is that he doesn’t appease in his use of humour: he has themes and rhythms to it that work throughout the entire film. The humour comes from the absurdity of Jojo’s interpretation of Hitler or from the absurdity of Nazi beliefs in general. You could argue that Waititi keeps ringing the same bell, but I’d counterargue by saying that it’s very focused in what it’s trying to do. The weakest part of comedy writing is when you try to appease every member of the audience, as if your goal is to simply make everyone laugh at least once. The goal is to be funny. You will not achieve that goal with everyone and that’s fine. If you’re winning some over with your humour but not others, the ones who aren’t laughing are not your target audience.

Now, the hardest part of this is to work out what your target audience actually is, as this changes from piece to piece. Personally, I tend to write things that I think work mainly for the 18 – 45 age category. My protagonists tend to be strong female characters which luckily is a LOT more widely accepted than it used to be because of how the bigoted view of female characters has slowly diminished. My work is quite modern in terms of language. That, and with the varied subject matter, has let me slowly identify my main demographic. As said before, however, this will change from during every piece. For example, my first novel (which I plan on self-publishing soon) focuses on music which means that people who aren’t particularly invested in music or its functions will probably find it incredibly boring. Your target audience may be different to mine and it can be painful trying to work out what it is. The encouragement I give myself is simply this: If I’m interested in it, there simply has to be other people that will be as well. This isn’t to say that you can’t always improve, that you shouldn’t take advice or that you shouldn’t amend things, but simply be weary of who you take advice from. Don’t blindly follow if it isn’t in-keeping with the vision of what you are trying to make.

Let’s go back to Jojo Rabbit for a second. Can you even imagine the feedback Waititi would’ve received if the script had been given to people who weren’t invested in the idea?! There are people who are convinced that the film shouldn’t have even been made! It’s narrow-minded to think that because, whether you agree or disagree with any story, the story still has a right to exist. Half the battle when writing is convincing yourself that your voice deserves to be heard. Take Jojo Rabbit for what it is, whether you like it or don’t: an excellent example of how caring the right amount got a film made that some would say has no right to exist at all.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why it’s important to never care too much.

How to Write an Effective Pilot

*This article contains mild spoilers for The X-Files and Homeland*

Pilot episodes are very important in setting groundwork for the future potential of a television show. A show can sometimes recover from a weak pilot but, more often than not, if a pilot doesn’t at least show the strengths of the premise, it gets cancelled by the end of its first season. The pilot episode is the writer essentially pitching the idea to not just the studio but an entire audience in the hope the dynamics of the show will grab their attention. Here are the important aspects to creating a great pilot. I would argue that these features legitimately need to be in the script in the hope that the audience will watch the next episode. As examples to illustrate my points, I will use the pilot episodes of The X-Files and Homeland – two shows that I think really lay the foundation for what was to come and highlighted their unique selling points with strong first episodes.

1) ESTABLISHING THE WORLD: This first aspect was particularly important for The X-Files to get right because so much of what it did lay within the paranormal. It needed to create a world that thrived on the unknown and the need for answers. In the very first scene within the Bureau, it clearly shows the FBI’s stance on Mulder’s X-Files investigations – they believe him to be “spooky”, with Scully’s main aim to report to them in the hope they would be able to discredit his findings. The show, of course, thrives on the fact that Mulder is actually correct about the paranormal activity approximately 99% of the time. However, after the initial introduction to draw the audience in, the fact that the following scenes set up the world as it functions within the Bureau is significant and cannot be underestimated. It helps ground the world of the paranormal, showing that the characters in question have stakes in the outcome of Scully’s findings. There is office politics layering the investigations throughout the show that only become more apparent and significant as it progresses. Without Scully’s initial aim, there would be less tension between the two central characters which is an important aspect we will discuss later.

With Homeland, the first thing we see is Carrie on a mission, attempting to save a life of a potential informant. It not only begins the show with a tense, taut dialogue scene, designed to draw the audience in, but it clearly highlights that the world we are entering is one involving life and death. The stakes are always high in Carrie’s line of work. With this in mind, it becomes abundantly clear within the first scene that any form of conflict or screw up could result in the ending of a life. Carrie is a flawed, righteous, frustrated individual, working within a system that arguably doesn’t want her to succeed. It’s an excellent performance by Claire Danes and, in selling the character, it effectively builds a world that wants Carrie to fail. It not only shows the risk involved but makes the audience root for her, which only makes any more potential mistakes all the more damning and conflicting for the audience and the character itself. It establishes a world that is unforgiving and ruthless which only makes Carrie’s desperation all the more acceptable and relatable to the audience.

2) CHARACTER DYNAMICS: A show lives and dies on the dynamics of its central characters and it’s here that The X-Files truly excels. Carter rightfully decided to keep it simple. In many procedures nowadays, there’s a whole host of characters that seem to fade into the background. The X-Files kept it short and sweet and, while there are periphery characters (like Skinner and the Cigarette-Smoking Man) that become more prevalent later on, the pilot is adamant on the show’s two most important assets: Mulder and Scully. Mulder is the believer, Scully is the sceptic. Many shows since have attempted to create a dynamic as rich and multi-layered as theirs but few have been able to master it. Why? Simple: even in the pilot, there’s an underlying sense of respect that permeates the actions of both characters. They may not agree on many of each other’s opinions, but they respect one another. Oh, and the sexual tension between them is out-of-this-world (pun very much intended.) The potential for the characters and all the various ways they could grow is established in the first episode and only deepened when other characters are introduced later. It was an old school but effective method: focusing on the two most important characters and then branching out once the solid foundation had been established. For all the issues the show experienced in its later seasons, it frankly wouldn’t have become one of the shows of the ’90s without this core dynamic.

I would personally argue that Carrie and Saul are the heart and head of Homeland – Saul, the head, a logical thinker, one that is pragmatic and attempts to not be swayed by emotion, Carrie, the heart, one that thinks on her feet and lets her personal investment cloud her judgement. The first episode puts much investment into this relationship and it pays dividends not just in this episode, but in future seasons. It becomes clear quickly that Saul does actually have a soft spot for Carrie, which is what makes the sexual advance made by Carrie in desperation later on in the episode all the more devastating and heart-breaking. For the next few episodes, Saul is so disgraced by her behaviour that he struggles being in the same room as her. As Carrie drowns her sorrows in a bar, she admits that she betrayed her “best friend.” Within this dynamic, Homeland highlights that it isn’t like other television shows – there is sex within the show but, in the one scene where Carrie hints at potentially using sex as a way to get what she wants, it is rightfully treated as a transgression, a betrayal. It establishes a dynamic that is unique in that it is often not portrayed with such subtlety and genuine regret: Saul is a father figure to Carrie and the show highlights that it won’t simply wave away Carrie’s actions. It’s a show that makes sure you understand the consequences of her actions, whether you agree with them or not.

3) TENSION: I need to start with Homeland with this one because I’ve barely mentioned the most tense aspect of the entire show: Brody. Regarding whether Brody is a terrorist or not, the show wisely sidesteps the issue for most of the first hour, only potentially confirming Carrie’s suspicions within the final few minutes. Instead, most of the hour deals with Brody’s psychological and physical damage suffered from his eight years of being brutally tortured. It humanises a character who Carrie is adamant is a terrorist. The show asks a fascinating question upon doing this: ‘Even if Carrie is right, shouldn’t we still pity this man?’ In flashbacks, we see the level of torture he has had to withstand, and Homeland doesn’t attempt to shy away from asking difficult questions. The tension is caused through two strong, independent characters: Brody and Carrie, and only develops further as the first season progresses. For the premise of the show, the audience are already pretty adamant that Brody must’ve turned, otherwise, there simply wouldn’t be a story to tell. However, the tension is caused because the show unflinchingly shows that there are no easy answers; that, while it certainly doesn’t condone any terrorist action that Brody may commit, it also shows that Brody had unspeakable, emotionally devastating things happen to him which has resulted in him becoming a broken man. Again, as I’ve previously stressed, the tone in the pilot is designed to grip the audience and, in that, Homeland‘s pilot is a resounding success.

As for tension in The X-Files, it’s all caused from the different outlook of both characters. In having Mulder a firm believer and Scully a sceptic, it creates a constant divide that naturally creates tension within each case. The important aspect to bear in mind is that Scully is the audience’s eyes and ears here, particularly in the first episode. Scully is introduced before Mulder and we essentially seem to see most of the episode through her eyes, not Mulder’s. This is significant in that, even if Mulder is ultimately right, the show’s deftest touch is in the audience still having respect for Scully. This is because Scully, obviously, should actually be right most of the time and often states things in disbelief that much of the audience would also verbalise. We sympathise and understand Scully’s perspective because the show takes the necessary precaution to make sure we appreciate the rationale she brings to often bizarre and terrifying cases. The tension then comes from Scully trying to ground Mulder while Mulder is attempting to get Scully to believe him. The tension is derived from how often they can be at odds with one another while still clearly caring about one another’s wellbeing.

These three aspects are simply examples of elements you need to make a great pilot; essentially all being ways to build effective characterisation. Obviously, things like pacing, dialogue and a gripping plot are also important but I would simply argue that establishing the world, creating effective character dynamics and building tension to hint at where the show could go beyond the pilot are just as effective because they help draw the audience in.

And, yes, I am back and will be posting quite a lot of new content over the next few months, if not longer. Thanks for reading!

When Melodrama Works

The melodramatic essentially means that a piece of writing is sensational – it has elements of over exaggeration to hook the audience and arguably deals less with character than with plot.

Usually if someone were to describe something as ‘melodramatic’, it would be an insult. This is where the bad side of melodrama takes precedence – when used as an insult, it is more to do with when the action of a character seems out of place in relation to what has been written before. The act in question then sticks out like a sore thumb; the insult comes from the fact that there has been little to no building up to the said action, the melodrama in this instance comes from the unexpected nature of it which, if done poorly, can completely undo character development and the building of plot in favour of unnecessary shock value.

Here is the interesting thing, though: Melodrama is not always bad. The term melodrama is so intertwined with it being used as an insult that some people forget that melodrama can work superbly well so long as it is written with conviction. Look no further than novels like Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, or television shows like Luther and Hannibal to see that the difference between these pieces and bad melodrama comes from the melodrama fitting the fiction like a glove. In Luther, for example, the melodrama works because it is not just the serial killers that are grotesquely over the top – it is everything: the detective, the crimes, the plot twists. The same goes for the excellent Hannibal; once again, the killings are extremely exaggerated but in having characters react to these acts with disgust, or delivering character development which adds an element of the theatrical and melodrama, the horrific acts do not detach the audience, but entices them, because every aspect of the drama becomes part of the fantastical. There is no act which sticks out like a sore thumb because every aspect of good writing still remains within the pieces of work: interesting character development, edge of your seat plots, and gripping dialogue. All this means is that these elements are filtered through the lens of melodrama, as opposed to trying to force characters to do unrealistic things in a world where the act simply does not fit within it.

To show you what I mean, let’s do a bit of a mash-up: let’s take another popular American television show like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and mix it with Hannibal. Very quickly, you realise that it couldn’t work because CSI is a crime procedural dealing with crimes that are more based in the world we live in. If the crimes that took place in Hannibal were to happen within the world of CSI, it would seem strangely out of place because the world of CSI was not built to sell that level of grotesqueness or theatricality with any kind of conviction. The story telling, character development, everything really, would come to a halt to deal with the strange tonal shift. This example shows what good melodrama is: similar to Shakespeare’s tragedies, if you base the world you create on the theatrical, on the dark and gritty, then you can sell melodrama. The insult of something being melodramatic is only used when the writer fails to ground their work within a world they need to create in order to sell it with conviction to the audience.

The Writer to Audience Relationship

The main reason people write is to affect an audience in some way: ultimately, the intent of most writing is for it to be seen by an audience because it is about instilling some kind of emotion within them – whether laughter, repulsion, tension or confusion. It is the need to express that drives writing and this is validated by the presence of an audience, or viewership. This article will try to piece together the tricky relationship between the writer and the audience with respect to the passing of information and whether the audience ever truly has a right to feel “betrayed” by the writer.

Frustration from the audience’s part is understandable if the writer is being deliberately vague with form or structure. This notion can mean anything from characters becoming too abstract to plot details being withheld to deus-ex-machinas being introduced to create an unfulfilling ending. “Vague” is admittedly not necessarily a negative term, as arguably in some cases the writer’s intention is to be vague – to withhold answers to create an emotionally cathartic ending. This is all well and good, but if this is to be the case than the writer needs to give something back to the audience to balance the lack of concrete answers. This can be anything: from a growing sense of unease, to adding more depth to characters to creating plot developments that will keep the audience guessing. From the writer’s perspective: if you are not answering your mysteries than you need to be creating more. In this lies the dilemma for the writer: how does a writer not frustrate the audience by keeping their cards close to their chest? To answer this, I will use the example of The Sixth Sense to highlight a good twist that does not leave the audience feeling betrayed.

M. Night Shymalan’s first movie was The Sixth Sense and is renowned by many as being his best picture. It is easy to see why: the setup is well done, the characters are fleshed out, and there is an inherent mystery within the plot, exasperated by the supernatural element of ghosts. The plot revolves around Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis), a child psychologist, who begins seeing Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osmont), who claims he can see dead people. Shymalan uses horror to good effect in two ways – one, the presence of the supernatural makes the audience uneasy, making them more susceptible to being drawn into the narrative and, two, by making the psychic a small boy, it instantly makes the audience emphasise with the character because of his innocence being taken away by something he cannot control. This is only window dressing, however, for what is the main twist in the film: that Crowe is dead; the only person able to see him after his death at the beginning of the movie being Cole. This twist works beautifully because it plays on the audience’s assumptions: the audience assume that Malcolm Crowe is still alive because he is in the film, forgetting that throughout we are constantly seeing ghosts from the perspective of Cole, meaning it is not a leap to wonder whether Crowe himself is a ghost. It is all about the transfer of information: taking our assumptions, anticipating what the audience would be thinking and finding ways to work around it to create a twist. All of the best twists work this way. The reason the audience didn’t feel betrayed? Simply because the information was in front of you all the time: with Crowe, every human interaction he is involved in, besides with Cole, is passive, almost as if he was not there. The twist is also effective because it does not insult the audience’s intelligence and the narrative does not hinge on it completely: even if the twist was discovered by an audience member before the end of the film, it still has enough elements for it to work on a narrative and storytelling level. Shymalan here uses the writer-audience relationship to perfect effect by making the main mystery (the fate of Malcolm Crowe) not even something most audience members would comprehend.

This is how good suspense works: Shymalan shows excellent anticipation of the audience’s thought process and it is in this awareness that frustration on the audience’s part should be able to be avoided. Even if the main mystery is not answering until the end of your piece, by giving the audience others things to work with like B-stories, character beats, set pieces or interesting plot developments, it should keep them intrigued until the final reveal.

The Problems with an Ensemble

Let’s say you’re writing the pilot of a television show. You’ve got a great idea for a plot but are not sure where to go with the characters – you have some ideas, but how many characters should you realistically have? That depends on several things and, at risk of overcomplicating the matter; I thought I’d go over the main pitfalls:

i) WHO ARE YOUR MAIN CAST?

Writing a script, you can have as many side characters as you want – that’s the beauty of them. Side characters are really designed to further plot, which is why in any television show, the audience’s favourite side characters tend to be the ones that have an element of personality to them, because a lot of them don’t bother to have that. If need be, you can keep writing side characters, but the important question is who are your main cast? I’d argue you need at least two (the Mulder-Scully mould) and you can go up to as many as seven or eight. You need to nail these down in your head before you start writing as these characters need to be your main focus with regard to characterisation.

ii) WHAT KIND OF SHOW ARE YOU WRITING?

Regardless of genre, you tend to have two types of shows, or a third one, which is the combination of the two types. You have plot-driven shows and you have character-driven shows. In all honesty, ensemble shows need to be both, but this depends on the amount of characters you have. The more characters you have, the harder it is for it to be character driven. This is due to the simple fact that more characters mean more work to have them characterised. I’ll give two examples to show the difference: The X-Files and The Wire. The X-Files is known for being character-driven because there are only two main characters, so plot and character can always work simultaneously. The Wire, however, is different: because there are so many characters, it is more plot-driven because it simply has too many characters to prioritise characterisation. The Wire is undoubtedly a fantastic show and the only time it stumbled was when it would rely on side characters to create more depth to storylines. This occasionally made the show weaker from a narrative perspective because the narrative was relying on characters the audience barely knew and expected them to care about. This is the problem with an ensemble cast – if it is too large, there can be little depth to side characters because there’s simply not enough time for every character to function with the same level of depth. Basically, if you want to make a character-based show, it is a better idea to have fewer characters in order to let them breathe within the narrative.

iii) WHAT MAKES YOUR MAIN CAST TICK?

This is why the definition of what your main cast is is so important: because when you can define what they are, you can begin showing why the audience should be invested in the main cast. This can be literally anything: job pressure, money trouble, relationship issues, a murder-mystery, if it’s a comedy, a particularly bad hangover. This examination needs to begin in the first episode because the sooner the audience are invested in the main cast, the sooner they will become invested in the show. A show lives and dies on the function of the main cast and so if you can both make plot function at a fast enough rate and keep the main cast interesting in varied ways, you should have the backbone of a decent television pilot.

An ensemble is important to make your show stand out and if you can answer these three main questions, you’ll have a better idea as to the direction of your script and where you want the narrative to go.