[ SECRET POST #6465 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #6465 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 21 secrets from Secret Submission Post #924.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

03. https://i.imgur.com/7kqJhh5.png

[(Anonymous)]

"This is Us" had the opposite problem: The POV characters had information that the writers tried to be cute in continually concealing from the audience. It was like Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football. I ended up giving up because it pissed me off so much.

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, both of these things sound obnoxious.

[feotakahari]

As a writer, I tend to think reveals are overrated. They have their uses, but a lot of my writing is like the incident report in this comic: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/2553:_Incident_Report The fun is in seeing how the dominoes fall.

[(Anonymous)]

Spoiler culture sucks. It's ruining entertainment.

[(Anonymous)]

Nah, I don't think you can blame entertainment sucking on 'spoiler culture.'

If the only thing that makes a story good is not knowing what happens the first time you see it, that's a gimmick-based narrative.

[(Anonymous)]

Gimmick-based narratives can be well written and entertaining though. Good writing can make just about anything entertaining.

Spoiler culture is where studios/writers actually do think that the only thing that makes a story good is not knowing what happens, and the quality of the writing doesn't matter at all. That's how you get actors who can't even interact with their co-stars because they might learn things and let them slip to the public and "spoil" them, so you get shit acting from good actors. That's how you get writers changing the ending to a tv series because the audience guessed the ending. It leads to shit writing all around, but they don't care because a good story is one that isn't "spoiled."

You see it in fanfiction, too. I've seen so many authors refuse to use a tag because the tag "spoils" the fic.

All of these things have led to shit entertainment, where everything is played for shock value but none of it has any narrative structure. It doesn't help that we're in a literacy crisis where a good portion of the audience wouldn't recognize a narrative structure if it bit them on the ass.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

What you mean by "spoiler culture" is the opposite of what I expect it to mean - based on fans berating other fans who give away plot points about stories, and claiming that has anything to do with paid creatives producing mediocre work.

It's strange to me that anyone would have a job producing stories with such a severe lack of understanding about what makes a story meaningful or enjoyable to others. We had a thread here about two days ago where people were talking about books they re-read every year. Do western studios/writers just ... not understand that also exists for movies and thoughtfully scripted TV, do you think? Or just think it won't matter?

[(Anonymous)]

based on fans berating other fans who give away plot points about stories, and claiming that has anything to do with paid creatives producing mediocre work.

We've always had people who didn't want spoilers and this obviously is only anecdotal, but I never saw people being berated until the MCU came on the scene with their stupid spoiler policy and made it a Big Deal. I feel like the audience reaction is a second prong of studios acting like spoilers are important. There's so much content being produced now that people rarely actually sit with a show and think through it and realize that the now-obligatory twist was stupid. When they do, it tends to kill the cultural impact of the show.

Do western studios/writers just ... not understand that also exists for movies and thoughtfully scripted TV, do you think? Or just think it won't matter?

They care about the almighty dollar, which runs quarter to quarter. They no longer care about art or storytelling; so long as they can get butts into seats/new subscriptions by putting twists and sensationalism on the screen. It's why Netflix has been cancelling all their own shows: the cost of contractual pay for the actual artists once they hit the fourth season would be more than an increase in profit they would get from new subscriptions (not the net profit, the rate of profit). Makes more financial sense for the shareholders to cancel the show, even if it's popular or even award winning.

It's one of the reasons for the writers strike, to try and force some room for actual art and good storytelling. So many artists have been asking people to pirate their shows because their work is being removed from streaming services to never be seen again.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

Your whole comment was very illuminating. I'm really glad I circled back to this thread in the hopes of a reply. Also, I might go looking for artists who are having their stuff removed from streaming services and want people to pirate because they are proud of it. And - curse the media companies for doing that to them!

Note to secret maker

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe it's me problem, but this font with the stroke + pattern background really hurts my eyes and brain.
Not doing it to be rude, but for a future notice :(

Re: Note to secret maker

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm, yes. It's not one of my better efforts, for which I apologize.

Cheers,

a secret maker

Re: Note to secret maker

[(Anonymous)]

Cheers! ❤️

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, they think the only point of a reveal is to shock!!! the audience. This can be good, but it can also be good to know what's going on while the characters don't and have creeping dread! Or for the audience to have theories, some of which will be correct.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, and part of the problem is also that when every! Story! Ever! has decided that the goal is to shock the audience ... it gets really hard for any particular story to manage to even do that.

But yeah - really not a fan of the narratives that think they can substitute being confusing or surprising for telling an interesting story. And sometimes it comes across as just as cheap as trying to "create suspense" by shaking the camera.

[(Anonymous)]

Season 1 of Rings of Power really suffered with this. They tried to conceal who the baddie was from Galadriel and the audience, even when it was becoming increasingly obvious. Season 2 has been better, because they are not conceal the baddie from the audience, only Celeb-bimbo. Seeing the manipulations, and the sense of growing horror as Celeb-bimbo realises he's been hoodwinked has been much more effective than drawing everything out for a season just for one single "big" WOW shot.

[(Anonymous)]

SO, SO, SO TRUE.

Glaring at Sherlock and Pretty Little Liars in particular.