People watch tragedies on purpose. People watch stories about hope on purpose. Pulling the rug on the narrative promise of your story and switching tracks isn’t clever or interesting, it’s just lying about the genre.
If Midsummer Night’s Dream ended with everyone brutally dying, I’d feel kind of betrayed. If Macbeth ended with everyone getting happily married, I’d also feel kind of betrayed.
Yes! You have to earn your ending. They’re not supposed to be twists. They have to be built to throughout the story
You need to have the payoff match the kind of investment you set your audience up with.
And just to be clear: having that payoff match your investment doesn’t mean you can’t do a narrative twist. It just shouldn’t be a genre twist.
Bruce Willis turning out to have been a ghost all along does not change the tone of the movie. It just added a bunch of really interesting layers and depth to what you already saw.
Hector turning out to be Miguel’s ancestor doesn’t change the family genre of the film, it enhances it.
Planet of the Apes turning out to be a futuristic Earth where humanity had destroyed itself deepens the existential sci-fi dread but it doesn’t turn it on its head.
These are narrative twists, sometimes surprises, but they are not genre upsets. They are storytelling tools. Done well, they can be spectacular and add a lot to your story.
But genre-shifting out of the blue and for no other reason than “haha, gotcha!” shock value is not clever or intelligent. In most cases, it’s just sort of mean.
Setting expectations with your audience then laughing at them when they trust you doesn’t make you a good storyteller. It makes you a bit of a jerk.
i great example of a bad genre twist is i see you (2019) where at first it starts out as a potential supernatural mystery and then it ends with just a really really dumb mundane regular murder mystery
ok but does the character really need to be a straight white man? is that relevant to the plot or are we just catering to the audience? it’s forced representation like this that detracts from the storylines that really matter
I just don’t understand though, how can a character be straight, white, cis, male, able-bodied AND Neurotypical at the same time??? Why do they need so many labels??? Seems fake to me
why are there so many straight white male characters that are friends? Just seems unrealistic that theyd all know each other.
am i the only one that, like, has familiarized the word “aperture” exclusively with the portal franchise. literally first thought that comes to mind whenever i see the term utilized in any outside source of media except the games is just
