setups and payoffs in backstory
Mar. 14th, 2008 11:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabeththe more I think about 2-10 the less satisfied with it I am as a piece of writing. I've already mentioned the genre questions, but now I'm getting dissatisfied with the backstory we got. And what's up with that? Don't we want to know more about our guys? And, well, yes, but...
There's a kind of backstory bit that's a payoff. We've got a question, the backstory gives us an answer.
Why is Owen such a prickly hedgehog? Because (x). Why is he acting so different in 2-05? Because -(x). It's the piece of the equation we need to make the character add up. We can play with it now, add it in or take it out and see what happens to our people. See how we can fix it, or improve it, or whatever. Character payoff! Questions answered!
But then there's backstory that's all setup. We don't have a question. We were trundling along thinking we had sufficient answers in that respect. And then whoosh, new data! And we're left with a whole lot of questions, trying to make it all fit, and often lacking the (x) that would slot it together.
Or, worse, we're left with very few questions and no particular fit, some random data that does nothing to the whole picture, or only tells us things we already knew and almost doesn't count as backstory at all.
2-10? No payoff. All setup, at best. And it didn't have to be that way! So simply could the script have given us character gold, just by leaving out a line!
Jack working the freak show? Potential *gold dust* for how he reacted to his immortality, especially right after World War I. Say he came out of the war traumatised, maybe spent some time in what passed for psychiatric care, maybe tried to keep himself going. Saw himself as a freak. Not only that, but one who was only valuable for his one trick - being The Man Who Can't Die. He didn't exhibit learned skills or the kind of body pride that goes into tumblers or strong men. He wasn't even sitting there half naked like many of the others. He was all covered up, shooting himself in the head a lot. What does that say about his attitude to it all? Like I said, *gold dust*.
But then they went and undermined it by saying he was sent there undercover. Instead of a mass of psychological detail, we know only what we knew already - Jack works the x files.
oh heck, my car is here and I've only one shoe on. gotta dash! Have to finish later.
There's a kind of backstory bit that's a payoff. We've got a question, the backstory gives us an answer.
Why is Owen such a prickly hedgehog? Because (x). Why is he acting so different in 2-05? Because -(x). It's the piece of the equation we need to make the character add up. We can play with it now, add it in or take it out and see what happens to our people. See how we can fix it, or improve it, or whatever. Character payoff! Questions answered!
But then there's backstory that's all setup. We don't have a question. We were trundling along thinking we had sufficient answers in that respect. And then whoosh, new data! And we're left with a whole lot of questions, trying to make it all fit, and often lacking the (x) that would slot it together.
Or, worse, we're left with very few questions and no particular fit, some random data that does nothing to the whole picture, or only tells us things we already knew and almost doesn't count as backstory at all.
2-10? No payoff. All setup, at best. And it didn't have to be that way! So simply could the script have given us character gold, just by leaving out a line!
Jack working the freak show? Potential *gold dust* for how he reacted to his immortality, especially right after World War I. Say he came out of the war traumatised, maybe spent some time in what passed for psychiatric care, maybe tried to keep himself going. Saw himself as a freak. Not only that, but one who was only valuable for his one trick - being The Man Who Can't Die. He didn't exhibit learned skills or the kind of body pride that goes into tumblers or strong men. He wasn't even sitting there half naked like many of the others. He was all covered up, shooting himself in the head a lot. What does that say about his attitude to it all? Like I said, *gold dust*.
But then they went and undermined it by saying he was sent there undercover. Instead of a mass of psychological detail, we know only what we knew already - Jack works the x files.
oh heck, my car is here and I've only one shoe on. gotta dash! Have to finish later.