Spoiler alert! I want to say a few words about destroying credibility. Recently Ive seen two top end shows do this and I am just appalled at how the writers have trashed their own shows for plot convenience. The first is a British show...very well done in the first episode... called The Escape Artist. David Tennant plays a barrister who gets his clients off, even when they are murderers. But when he refuses to shake hands with his acquitted client, the psychopath seeks revenge. All well and good, and a shock ending to Ep 1 that was compelling enough to make you want to see Ep 2. But in Ep 2....with the nutter charged with murdering Tennants wife....Tennant unable to be involved in the case because he is the witness against the killer....and his 10 year old son too traumatised at witnessing the killing of his mother to say what he saw, this supposedly caring father takes his son BACK to the cottage, the scene where the boy saw his mother butchered, ostensibly to pack up the mothers things. Of course, being there triggers the sons memory and he discloses that he hid in another place to where they found him, AFTER scratching the killer...and of course DNA is discovered! This is BAD plotting, and the worst kind of writers device which destroys character and storyline. The father would NEVER take his son to the place where his mother was recently murdered in front of him. NEVER......even if he was not a lawyer. What makes it worse is that with a bit of thought the writer could have contrived to have them DRIVEN there by some devious means, most probably by the killer. I am not the worlds greatest writer....but I am a bloody good storyteller and I know how to plot. If story doesnt come from truth it simply doesnt fly. I say this over and over again...THE CHARACTERS DONT KNOW THEYRE IN A DRAMA...THEY DONT KNOW THERE IS A WRITER OR AN AUDIENCE. THEY ARE SIMPLY LIVING THEIR LIVES AND ARE NOT GOING TO DO ANYTHING JUST FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE. YOU ARE NOT THERE! The second example is in Rake...an Aussie show I have loved for most of three seasons. After building up a series of characters we have invested in, halfway through the final series events happen which might be mildly amusing in terms of black comedy, but which totally trash the 2 1/2 seasons that have gone before. When Cleaver invades the wedding of his former wife to a perfectly decent, if stodgy and pompous, man...all the things Cleaver isnt... the bride-groom turns out to be a Sports drug dealer who then takes his bride hostage at gun point and shoots our hero in the arse. Just awful, and unbelievable...I actually cried after the episode. There are many elements to screen writing. Great characters and sizzling dialogue will cover a lot of ills - but poor plotting and writers devices will also undo all the dazzle. Its not that hard to ask yourself, as a writer, where is the truth in this? and spend extra time looking for it. Here endeth the rant! :)
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 22:22:45 +0000
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