There is a narrative principal called “Chekov’s Gun”. It’s easy to find a lot of high-falutin definitions but the principal is basically this:
If someone produces a gun in Act One then someone better got shot in Act Three.
That’s saved you three weeks of a creative writing course.
Another way to think about this is everything you include in a narrative piece has to be there for a reason. Obviously that’s not a hard and fast rule because some creatives are just bad at their job (I’m looking at you post-2012 Steven Seagal) but on the whole it’s a good rule to remember. And if you’re not sure assume it’s there for a reason, even if you don’t understand it.
Many moons ago a short story of mine changed from past tense to future tense in the middle of a sentence just as the characters were leaving the housing estate they’d spent their entire life on. Someone pointed this out and said I’d made a mistake.
No, I didn’t… I obviously understood tenses as I’d used two of them. We were in past tense while on the estate and the moment they left the estate we were in present tense. It’s not exactly a cryptic fucking crossword is it?
But there is a flip side to all this. Us creatives sometimes leave things out as well.
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There is None Who Does Good was a play script I wrote to explore radicalisation. It was loosely based on what happened during the Jonestown Massacre in 1978 where Jim Jones convinced nearly a thousand of his followers to commit suicide. The play is a three hander featuring the cult leader and two followers. We learn all about the cult leader. We learn all about one of the followers and gain some sympathy for their plight. Yet the other follower, who was independently successful before joining the cult, who seems to have a degree of stability and dare I say it, “intelligence” we learn very little about.
I had a few people asking, “Why didn’t you explain why they fell into the cult?”
Is it because I’m a bad writer? No, at least not in this respect. Did I not know? Oh believe me, I knew. I knew everything. I had a full 15 page backstory written for this character on exactly what happened and how they fell into the cult based on real life testimony. In fact, two drafts of the script included this character’s story. Then it was removed.
So why leave it out?
When things are missing it’s because the question it leaves is important. Rather than ask “Why didn’t you {the writer} explain why they fell into the cult?” let’s trust the writer did it for a reason and let’s turn that question around. Let’s make that question:
Why did this person fall into the cult?
Now you, as an audience member, have something to think about. Something to break down. Something to research. Something which I think makes the work infinitely more interesting and long lasting than if I’d just told you. Another plus side is the actor who gets to portray that role has the chance to put their own mark on it. When There is None who Does Good was performed a wonderful actor called Dawn Butler (I miss your face Dawn) played the role and developed her own back story which enabled her to put her own stamp on it. It let the director drag some of that out. It let the set designers put things in place which alluded to it. This is a system I much prefer to just “telling you”.
But there is a flip side to that flip side which somehow doesn’t put us back where we started.
Some people don’t want to think about it. They want to zone out or just be entertained for a few hours. And there is nothing wrong with that. I think we sometimes get a bit pissy about folks who just want to chill out and enjoy something. The truth is, “There is None Who Does Good” probably isn’t for them. And that’s fine. Not everyone has to like it or even engage with it.
And consider this. Let’s say some called Pave Ditt came up to me and said, “I think you should tell the audience why this person joined the cult.” And I did… suddenly this isn’t a Dave Pitt script, it’s a Pave Ditt script. If you want a Pave Ditt script then ask Pave Ditt to write it. He can write better Pave Ditt scripts than I can. But if you want a Dave Pitt script then trust me, I can write a way better Dave Pitt script than Pave Ditt can.
I raise all this because the spectre of Social Media gives everyone an opinion shaped like a Rambo knife and the chance to plunge that blade into the skull of any creative who dares share their work. So let’s calm down with all the stabby nonsense and consider, just for a second, that some creatives know what they’re doing and are including and removing things for a reason. Even if we don’t agree with it, even if it leaves us twitching to find out, there’s a reason. Let’s respect that.
Unless it’s post-2012 Steven Seagal. He’s just shit.