therealljidol | Green Room - Week 11

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Green Room - Week 11 - Day 10

"It's a twist!"

Whenever I watch M. Night Shyamalan movies these days, I hear that line from Robot Chicken, that seemed to mark the line between the time when public opinion turned on him so well.

The twist on "The Happening" of course was that people showed up expecting a good movie and got that instead. ;)

I haven't seen any of his more recent work, but last night we ended up watching Signs, which I hadn't seen in years.
stop
I remember when it came out, and people were talking about "the alien movie" and how disappointed they were, much like they were with "the monster movie" The Village.

It always struck me as "interesting" how many people would accept the movie's premise on face value, and not realize that it was going to be about something else entirely. (Spoiler: Signs is about faith)

They would set themselves up for disappointment, when all they wanted was a mindless summer blockbuster, and "the twist" would take them by surprise. Again, and again - until most of that group just ended souring on the writer/director all together and stopped going to see his stuff.

He ended up getting himself cast in the role of the guy with "the twist ending".

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What have your work been cast in? What well do you find yourself going back to, that people "expect" from it? How can you shake them up? Do you even want to?

The poll will be up until tomorrow - so remember to get out there and show some love and support! http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/682110.html

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First? I'm in the entertaining and cute and amusing sort of box. I like it here! I like my writing to have an unexpected element but as long as I keep growing as a writer and keep entertaining my readers, that's what matters to me.

Edited 2013-08-11 14:38 (UTC)

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I think that, if you were to look at my long-form stuff, it's "sustained and escalating suspense, dressed in genre du jour, discussing social issues obliquely, but sorely lacking vampires."

I'd like to think that folks here haven't categorized or pigeonholed me yet ... but maybe I'm sustaining a pattern after 11 weeks. (Lord knows I've been trying to avoid a pattern, but it's hard to escape your own narrative voice.) So, you tell me -- how would you describe what you've seen so far?

I love M. Night Shyamalan.
His movies don't insalt ones intellect.
If you don't want to think go to an action movie or a romantic comidy.
Personally I do not know what people expect.
I just come up with characters those them into a situation and see what they end up doing.
I am oftain surprised with the outcome.

Hrmmm.

I just reviewed what I've written this season and I'm pleased to see that I have poetry, short fiction, and short non-fiction in fairly equal proportion. What people probably expect from me more than they expect from others is some kind of religious/faith or mommy theme, since those two things constitute over half of what I've written this season. My goal each week is two-fold: 1) not to repeat any major aspect of what I've done in the last piece, 2) to tell a story I've never told or convey an idea in a way I've never approached. That's kept my writing fresh for me (and for others, I hope).

Class clown from day fucking one. I'm about 95% completely happy with that. The Bart Simpson role is simply the one I naturally and instinctively fill, and for the most part, it's a blast, I have a great time doing it, and I don't want to change it at all. I definitely think it's important to try new things and new angles, which is why I make an effort to mix up my approaches and my targets - I don't want, for example, to post back-to-back meta poems, back to back political rants, and then a bunch of posts with an extremely similar use\style of graphics, all targeting similar things. Letting readers know what to generally expect out of you is one thing and (IMHO anyway) can help build a reader base, but becoming predictable is just not okay. It's like buying a music album - If the band is a rock band, and the album is full of a good variety of rock songs, then chances are you got what you wanted. But if the album is full of a bunch of songs that all sound alike and then a few pieces of crappy filler, even if it's still all rock, chances are you'll be significantly less pleased.

As for the twist ending thing and possibly cheesing off readers who expect X and get Y...that's the other edge of the sword when you start consistently doing a certain type of post. The up side is you build a rep for being the [insert genre here] writer, and if people tend to like the way you do [insert genre here], then you've found a consistent market for your stuff (I say market for lack of a better word - in this particular market, the currency is poll votes, because that's what you need to earn (or beg for :p) in order to stay alive.) The down side is that if you stray from doing what people have started coming to you for, you risk making your readers feel like they've been betrayed or baited-and-switched. I had a post at one point that, while it had comedic elements, was more serious minded and emotionally raw than what I normally post, and I almost didn't post it. Part of it was just that I hate opening up, was worried the post sucked, and all the usual anxieties and misgivings a lot of us have when we stray from our comfort zones, but another huge fear was that, even if the post didn't suck in its own right, I'd still disappoint and thus annoy readers who showed up expecting X and got Y. Even if Y is a perfectly valid type of post in Idol that tends to do reasonably well in the polls, a person who consistently posts X suddenly popping off with Y could go any number of ways - including KABOOM in the writer's face. The post did just fine in the polls, and I breathed a huge sigh of relief, but when I've had people blatantly tell me they save my posts for last or read mine first because they want to start or finish their reading with something they know will be light\goofy\silly, it sort of sets up that whole double-edge thing. On the one hand, I'm super thrilled and excited that someone thinks I'm consistent and enjoyable enough as a writer for them to make a comment like that (and the super thrilled and excited is about 95% of my reaction, NGL.) On the other hand though, I do worry about what a reader might feel like if they think they're going to a comedy showcase and they get blindsided with Srs Bzns instead.

I write weird fiction. I try to keep it a variety of weird - fantasy, sci-fi, horror, something funny, something cross genre, maybe even a mystery - but in the end, it is what I write, and I think that's what people expect. I'm ok with that, because I'm writing what I enjoy writing, what I enjoy reading, and for the most part my pieces are well received.

My efforts at "shaking people up" come in the weird fiction itself - that's where I tackle and subvert expectations or reverse archetypes or generally do the things that, well, make it weird.

So here's a question: is there something different that you folks would like to see me do?

I'm not sure I stayed in Exhibit A long enough to be cast in any sort of role. In Season 8, though, I became one of the people known for doing lots and lots of serial fiction. I think people also knew me as one of those "creative idea" people who has an interesting brain. People seemed to think I had neat ideas, so that was cool -- I didn't mind being thought of as someone who had "quirky" writing.

I also did some deliberate self-pigeonholing when I wrote almost ALL fiction in Season 8 (except for, like, three pieces total) because I just way prefer fiction over nonfiction. I like how I relate to the audience through fiction better. The nonfiction I did in Season 8 had to be a bit of a surprise, too. I did mostly okay with it (got through the Gatekeepers on a nonfiction piece!), though one of the pieces I wrote the week I got eliminated was nonfiction.

I kind of think I'm all over the place, but really, I find that what other people get out of what I write is often not at all what I meant them to get out of it when I wrote it, so I'm not sure I can know where I fit.

Also, Signs sucked, regardless of what it was about.

On another note -

Who in here has a Kindle?
Which one do you have?
Do you like it?
Why or why not?

TYVM.

I write a lot of interpersonal/dark fiction. I like to focus on relationships -- particularly dysfunctional ones. Stories of struggle and pushing through them. I do try to mix up fiction and nonfiction, but my nonfiction right now is going to primarily focus on one particular event of my life and I'm sick to death of talking about it. Or thinking about it, lol.

I do occasionally do other things, just to shake things up a bit. It was really well received when I did humor in the past, But that genre is difficult for me, even though I did enjoy the hell out of writing it. :) I do want to shake things up, because I don't wanna be a one-note writer, either. :)

I usually have two mediums. My writing could end up being really humorous with snappy dialogue or it's pretty dark. I tend to focus on the characters and have a minimalist way of writing it. :)

And on a random note I got a kitten! OMG he is so cute! :D

Edited 2013-08-11 20:32 (UTC)

So far I've been defying expectations by not writing anything this mini-season.

When I did write entries (and when I do again in Season 9) I try to pick up the gem and look at a different facet. I think I've pleasantly surprised a few people that way, but those who have read me before I'm sure look for the twist or "punchline" now. So, the trick when the formula gets predictable (if you don't feel like shaking it up) I think is to write well enough that the reader enjoys the ride anyway.

I decided to go back to basics and write non-fiction this time around. And not the semi-fictionalized stories of my family or my line of work that I was uncomfortable being exactly clear and honest about, but the stuff that I could put my name to and point at as who and what and when. Sometimes that still took me out of my comfort zone, but I think it was worth it.

I miss fiction and semi-fiction, but I think getting back to my basics did me a lot of good this time around.

Unless The Muse....(AKA "Amuse"), dictates otherwise, I write mostly non-fic. Had you asked me that back in college and before, I would say half fic and half non, school assignments excluded. Then there is the occasional poem....based on real life. Some day I'd like to try some horror. I try to stay open to possibilities, but often go back to non-fic. AW

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