The Perfect 10
So, instalment 6:
Surprise!
It's a pretty obvious thing to say, but cliche and predictability kills story. That doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't be seeding anticipation and expectation of what might happen - and for them to make coherent sense. But if what happens feels consistently and thoroughly obvious, expected and anticipated, then there's little to keep the audience hooked.
What do I mean by surprise? Well, I don't really mean axe-wielding maniacs jumping out from the shadows - though if you are writing horror, then this is the kind of thing the genre and audience will expect you to do (albeit without it being totally predictable exactly when/where it's going to happen). What I do mean is for you the writer to do something surprising with your idea, story, characters, scenes - and for your characters to surprise the audience, and to surprise themselves.
There's probably a finite number of story archetypes , although opinion will differ about exactly how many and what we might call them. Things like tragedy, comedy, history, love story, rite-of-passage, epic/journey, which form the fundament of what stories tend to ultimately, essentially be. From there, the big question is - what do you do with an archetype? What is your particular setting/context? What is your fresh take on it? What is your unique perspective? What is your original touch that will set this apart, even though the archetype stills sits at the heart of it?
A favourite example of mine is the film O Brother Where Art Thou? by the Coen brothers. On one level, it is a relatively straight forward version of Homer's Odyssey, which is itself an archetypal epic journey - it has an Odysseus figure, it has Penelope and her suitor, it has the physical journey, the sirens, the cyclops and so on. On another level, it places them within the specific context of the American deep south in the early 20th century, with Blue Grass music and an expanse of land to traverse rather than an ocean of sea (though there is a deluge of water at the end). On another, crazier level, it turns Odysseus into the Three Stooges, and makes them comic prison escapees rather than victorious warrior heroes. And all because the Coen brothers thought the story was "funny". No-one but them could possibly have read, understood and reimagined the archetype in this way. It drips with their idiosyncracies and unique take on the world.
So. Have you seen your basic idea before? What's different and surprising about your version? What will you do to make the archetype your own? Surprising an audience (and reader) is crucial at this fundamental level.
Your characters must surprise the audience. By this, I don't mean suddenly change (do something wholly out of character), or throw in something crucial about themselves that we didn't know (reveal a big secret half way through), or have something crucial thrown at them from nowhere (aliens suddenly kidnap them half way through what has previously been a naturalistic rite-of passage tale). These kinds of things are when the story fails - when you are coming up with a shock for the sake of it, rather than generating a surprise out of the richness of the world and conflicts you have created. Some of the best surprises are when the character surprises themselves - by facing a demon or achieving a goal or resisting a temptation or sticking to their guns when they never really truly believed they could do so. Surprise should make sense in your story - not work against it.
Surprise is also about staying ahead of the audience. Audiences are very sophisticated in their understanding of genre, formats and structure. So there's an art to staying ahead of the game. At the heart of this is anticipating what they might expect, and rather than turning that entirely on its head, to tweak it so that perhaps just one element or detail is unexpected. All the better if that detail is something connected to or driven by the character, that develops our relationship with the character, rather than just a play on the plot/structure.
To take a very famous scene towards the end of Chinatown, where Evelyn's deep dark secret is revealed: at this point, Jake has had enough of Evelyn's duplicity, he's ready to hand her over to the police, he's made his mind up, he just wants to know the truth. But when the truth comes it is a shock to him. The surprise in this scene isn't just the 'reveal', but it is Jake's reaction - to instantly, instinctively help Evelyn and her daughter escape, even though it can hardly do him any good (and, tragically, it doesn't). He does it simply because it is the right thing to do. For a man who has preferred to take the easy route, to do simple PI jobs rather than police Chinatown, to do things because they are the right thing for him, this impulse is a huge step forward and a true, character revealing surprise. For Jake in the scene, this is a moment where he truly surprises himself. For us watching, it is not what we expected going into the scene. That's why it's a great surprise, in a great story.
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