Once upon a time Whedon made a comment about how you always have to give the audience an explanation.
Just a little something. You don’t have to go into great detail. It doesn’t have to be elaborate. It’s just that you can’t leave your audience with empty space where a “because” should be. “How did they run away so fast?” “Why didn’t he just use the gun?” “How come that guy didn’t see what happened ?”
Something. In Whedon-world, he creates universes where usually implausible explanations can be tossed out casually, and will be seen as perfectly sensible. E.g. They ran away so fast because they were with X, who can mess with time; he didn’t use the gun because his breed of demon is allergic to metal; the guy didn’t see what happened because he was mystically charmed by Y who did it to spite Z (and Whedon will circle back to that about 5 episodes from now).
You gotta give’em something. Because if you don’t, the audience is going to get stuck in that empty space, that void of explanation, and they’re not going to come with you the rest of the way, to where you want to go with the story.
I’m turning into a fervent believer in the need for an explanation. Not just in consumable entertainment like movies or TV shows, but in life. The need for a spot of narrative to get you out of “but-it-just-doesn’t-make-sense”ville.
Allow me to demonstrate with an example.
Let’s say, hypothetically, that you have neighbours. Troublesome neighbours. They’re not like, tormenting the dog or spray-painting your car troublesome. But they are noisy. Constant, scratching on your brain, knuckling into your eye socket noisy.
As the live studio audience of your life, you wonder, “why?” You need a character explanation. It’s too thin to just write them off as “just jerks”. You gotta thicken it out.
Here’s what I’ve come up with:
They’re having an extended slumber party.
Their parents are out of town for a while (13 months) and they’re so excited that they’ve invited all their friends (thugs) over for refreshing beverages (beer) and to listen to music (gangsta rap).
They don’t want their guests to get bored (wreck their stuff) so they have an exciting list of activities (lifting weights; pimp limping; hacking up lung butter) to keep them entertained. Sometimes things get low-key (toke time) but then afterwards it picks up again (raucous toke-induced laughter).
They get to know one another (“you like bitches?”) and show off their special skills (loitering in communal areas). They like to let each other see their new outfits (underpants) and the different ways they can wear them (topless). They stay up late (2AM on a Tuesday) not because they want to wake up the parents (us), but because they’re so excited their friends are over.
See? Now it’s all better, because now it makes sense. It fits into a bigger picture. There is both a rhyme (“bros before hos”) and a reason (“…so I was like, I could just be at home on EI”). God bless you narrative.
*eyetwitch*
Just died laughing…twice.