the great discovery

[marycatelli]

One great charm of reading is having the writer blindside you with something startling but completely fitting

Not an easy skill to develop.

Perhaps you start with the inspiration for the ending, and there's the little question of thinking that you should consider whether to hide significant elements so it can surprise the reader.  If you do manage to think of it, it can be really interesting trying to think yourself back into the mind of someone who doesn't know it -- it was the original inspiration after all, the first thing you knew -- to set it up as a surprise.

Or if you muddled about a bit and then happened on it, it has some advantage in surprising you, but there's no guarantee that you put in the hints and the foreshadowing and the rest of the architecture you need.  Surprise is a thing of chiaroscuro:  the time when all was dark, for the moment when a flash of light illuminates all.  You need to build the darkness first.

sigh Hard to wrestle with.

Comments

Surprise!

[metaphorsbwithu.livejournal.com]

I think the best "surprises" are those that are 1) both groundbreaking and unique and 2) involve taking the reader (or watcher) on a kind of roller coaster ride to get to the money shot.

Understanding the human mind and human emotions allow the writer to manipulate and steer his/her audience into certain patterns of thought and perception so understanding your audience is crucial - as is respecting them enough to not resort to cheap tricks.

I remember reading Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin (before the film was made and that whole genre became a cliche') and you did not really know whether Rosemary's fears were real or simply the product of a disturbed mind. Every clue and foreshadowing, most seen in the bright light of day, still presented the reader with doubt ("It can't be true") and instead of a flash in the darkness there was simply an "Oh, no! It IS true!"

The additional "surprise' climax (the film presented a slight variation) put a nice unexpected cap on the story. Too bad modern audiences can't experience that type of surprise anymore.

Re: Surprise!

[marycatelli]

Ground-breaking and unique has to the minor flaw that it quickly loses its punch as people jump on the bandwagon, so that people read it five years later and think it rather pointless.

What takes skill is surprising us with something that we have been surprised with before. (Or using those same techniques with the new ones, so they have something besides novelty going for them.)

Re: Surprise!

[metaphorsbwithu.livejournal.com]

Boy-meets-girl had been done before and continued to be done afterwards but anyone who loves literature, poetry and art and does not understand the impact and influence of "Romeo and Juliet" has a huge hole in his/her experience.

Not understanding how and why certain things worked in the past, how audiences can be moved one way or another, would seem to be a huge handicap for someone trying to figure out what will work in the present.

Which, I suppose, is why so many experts and consultants in a variety of fields can be so wrong so often.

Re: Surprise!

[marycatelli]

Once a concept has been digested by the culture, there's no need to necessarily see it in the original setting. The basic trope remains the same.

Just as we do not have to read Romeus and Juliet to get the original rather than Shakespeare's reworking.