I interpret Chandler's advice to mean, "Introduce an element of danger; put your characters at risk." But maybe that is just because I find it the most useful interpretation. I agree that random new elements out of nowhere don't work (except perhaps in experimental writing where randomness is regularly introduced and is part of the whole point).
I think there was an episode of "The Office" that made fun of the random-gun idea ... one of the characters was taking an improv acting class, and all he could ever think of to do in a scene was to have a guy pull out a gun, and so none of the other actors wanted to do scenes with him!
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Date: 2016-06-26 04:20 pm (UTC)I think there was an episode of "The Office" that made fun of the random-gun idea ... one of the characters was taking an improv acting class, and all he could ever think of to do in a scene was to have a guy pull out a gun, and so none of the other actors wanted to do scenes with him!