Jul. 21st, 2008

coraa: (bookses)
If you're a writer (or a producer or director or a musician, and maybe also if you're a visual artist of some stripe, though I'm less knowledgeable about the tropes there) and you're a one-trick pony, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Writing the same thing with variations isn't a problem if your audience likes the one thing you do, if you enjoy your niche, and if you make it fresh enough to not bore people. Some of my favorite writers I like because they do more or less the same thing but in different ways, and I think I'd be disappointed if they got too different.

However.

If your one trick involves a plot twist, you need to realize that by the, oh, third time, or fourth at the outside, everyone is going to know the twist is there and be looking for it. The story damn well better work even if the twist is not a surprise. And if seeing the twist in advance prevents them from connecting with the material (because they see the joke coming, because they're detaching so they won't be hurt too much when you bring down the hammer on their foot, because they're too distracted looking for the twist to connect with your events and characters, because they're not seeing your characters as characters but as types), you might have a problem.

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