9.3 KiB
[D][RT][RST][BST] Getting the audience to feel rational, intelligent or otherwise controlling the narrative for fun and profit.
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Author: u/Nighzmarquls *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3udf0n/drtrstbst_getting_the_audience_to_feel_rational/
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Score: 14
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Created: 2015-11-26T18:05:50
Post:
So a bit of a preamble. I generally approach my writing much like game and interface design.
I strive to make experiences for the user/reader that are intuitive or put another way that at least happen in a way that seems perfectly natural.
If I want to get my audience to identify with horrific torturers and monsters ( this is not actually very hard at all I have found ) I build out the shape of what that perspective is, shape the narrative around till everything that the reader experiences reinforces the perspective and voila.
So this got me thinking about stories involving rationalists and highly intelligent characters.
What makes the reader feel rational? What lets them feel intelligent? What reinforces the narrative of a story that they are a rational mind doing things for rational reasons and oh ho ho look at how good they are doing it?
My thought is to up the irrationality or apparent irrationality of the rest of the cast/world.
But I'm curious about other thoughts
Comments:
u/alexanderwales [+14] Time flies like an arrow (4 hours later)
If you want to make the reader feel dumb, leave them in a position of ignorance while the smart character does their plotting. When the plot comes to fruition, the reader gets everything explained to them after the fact.
If you want to make the reader feel smart, explain all the plotting and thinking as it's done. That puts the reader in a position of empathy with the intelligent, which makes them feel intelligent in turn (so long as they can follow the thinking).
u/Uncaffeinated [+8] (5 hours later)
The problem is that usually kills tension. UnspokenPlanGaruentee is a thing for a reason.
u/gbear605 [+8] history’s greatest story (11 hours later)
I am very disappointed in writers who use UnspokenPlanGuarantee. It feels like they're just copping out of having to write the actual plan, which is the really interesting part, and so they just show the outcome, which is boring, but that might just be me - I tend to enjoy the planning much more than the doing, both in real life and in fiction.
u/Uncaffeinated [+5] (12 hours later)
They can show the plan, only after the fact.
I think the best argument in favor of UPG I've seen is Radiance. Alicorn decided to avert it, and the ending really sucks as a result.
UPG is omnipresent for a reason. Even Mistborn, which is highly praised here, uses it.
u/Chosen_Pun [+6] The Chosen Ones (a day later)
If your goal is merely to make the reader feel smart, use dramatic irony and foreshadowing to let the reader predict plot twists before the characters. It's part of what makes Shakespeare so compelling to so many, even when (though, perhaps, largely because) the characters are idiots.
As this applies to Rational fiction and UPG, just use the other side of the UnspokenPlanGuarantee: Explain the plan as it's being made, and then have it not work due to something the characters did not know about, so the plan must be adapted. That way, you can get at least two plans' worth of exposition from the original and adapted plans.
Alternately, have only part of the plan be unspoken. Delegate a specific objective to some side characters, and make their contribution during execution interesting and exciting, even functionally surprising through a shift in tone when they arrive, but not completely unexpected from what the reader knows about those characters. (In HPMoR, for example, look at most things Neville pulls off)
This can also act as the complication above; failure and betrayal are often interesting and exciting.
u/Nighzmarquls [+3] (23 hours later)
In film I rather like the way that the best heist movies get around this.
You hear the 'planning' while the camera shows you the plan being executed. The two happen simultaneously.
It takes a bit of skill to work it even in film though. Anyone have a good example of this happening in written or at least less dynamic form?
u/Uncaffeinated [+5] (a day later)
What I've always wanted to see is a scene where they explain the plan in voice over while on screen it goes completely awry.
But yeah, you can avoid UPG if the explanation and execution happen simultaneously. The big thing you want to avoid is explaining the plan and then just repeating the same thing as its enacted, because that's boring. You can explain the plan and then have it succeed completely offscreen (good option if it's not the focus of the plot).
u/OrzBrain [+3] Fingers to dance, hands to catch, arms to pull (3 days later)
What I've always wanted to see is a scene where they explain the plan in voice over while on screen it goes completely awry.
Oh my god! I never realized how much I wanted this! I always think that the plans in those movies are too complex to work perfectly. The irony would be just delicious.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (a day later)
that would be good comedy. It's hard to do the 'explain the plan' and 'show it executed' simultaneously in written form... I could probably do it with illustrated form...
u/None [+8] (5 hours later)
[deleted]
u/rationalidurr [+5] If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight! (15 hours later)
"why didn't they just do x? It would solve everything and be very easy", that right there is a perfect example that you are not reading about a rational character. Rational characters do the things they do because those are things that makes sense for them to do, not because of plot reasons or because you the author want those things to happen.
This, all of this, so much of THIS. And to add on to that, its okay if they try and fail an obvious plan or discuss that obvious plan and point out in world problems as to why that specific plan would not work, but so long as the obvious methods are tried.
u/Norseman2 [+6] (4 hours later)
For me at least, I feel like a character is rational and highly intelligent when the character is intelligent enough to make me feel stupid. A perfect example of this was Hermione's strategy in HPMOR where she defeated Draco and Harry by having her team feign an easy defeat, thereby leaving Draco and Harry's teams to fight it out and severely weaken themselves before Hermione's team came back in full force to defeat both of them. It was a brilliant move, and I feel stupid because I didn't think of that possibility when her forces seemed to be defeated easily. It's not often that a writer makes me feel stupid, but it's incredibly enjoyable when it happens.
Eliezer Yudkowsky wrote a segment on how to build brilliant characters which he described as level 2 intelligent. (Level 1 intelligence is at least as smart as an ordinary person in the same situation, while level 3 characters use thought processes explained well enough that readers could follow them and achieve similar results.) He also has a collection of articles on writing intelligent characters.
My recommendation would be to go through Yudkowsky's guide on the subject and come back if you still have questions. I would specifically recommend not trying to increase the irrationality of the rest of the cast/world. Try to make all of your characters at least level 1 intelligent, and then try to make your protagonist at least level 2 intelligent, or preferably level 3 intelligent so that your readers can follow the thought processes and draw your protagonist's conclusions with brilliance of their own.
u/eaglejarl [+4] (9 hours later)
It could be interesting to write a story where it is justified that the rest of the world is irrational. Think One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and On The Beach.
u/Nighzmarquls [+2] (23 hours later)
I've read his articles on intelligent characters, I useally aim for level 1 most of the time, but level 2 occasionally come up. I rarely do level 3 because I've never seen that kind of character sustainably being 'explained' by the reader that clearly for longer then a few scenes without turning into an authorial soap box.
And yes I am saying HPMOR falls into that. It is a nice story but it gets pretty transparent eliezer is lecturing on topics via harry on more then one ocassion. it's eliezer's 'voice' .
u/iamthelowercase [+2] (2 days later)
Honestly, I remember thinking of the "pretend to be asleep" plan, being miffed that Harry didn't apply it, and then completely blindsided when Hermione's army used it. I expected it from Harry, but not from Hermione and co.
Which I think was the point, but I don't feel that what I read as the intended message there was brought home as well as it could have been.