Green Room - Week 11 - Day 10

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

"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".

***

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

Comments

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

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.

[lrig-rorrim.livejournal.com]

I personally think that your voice is so strong, and your sense of humor so all-pervasive, that even when you write something edging onto Srs Bzns, there are laughs there, and if not laughs then smiles. That's part of how you get your point across, after all. So even when you've got something that's a little closer to the heart and a little less class clown than usual, nobody feels like they're taking a trip to dullsville or that they got tricked.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Thank you for saying this so I didn't have to try to put words together to do it. :)

Need caffeine!!!!

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

GET CAFFEINE POWDER OFF EBAY. It is awweeesooome. And WAY cheaper than standard caffeine sources like coffee and No-Doze.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

THIS. Regardless of if what you write is silly or more serious, you have a knack for always being entertaining.

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

♥ TTYYYYY

I will try to take this thread into consideration next time I'm considering quasi-personal post, because challenging myself out of my comfort zone is something I want\need to do, but boring everyone to death with a "my issues, let me show you them" post is decidedly NOT on my Idol bucket list.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I think almost everybody feels this way when they post something personal. It's not quite so much WHAT you are talking about, as HOW you are talking about it. At least that's my opinion. *Hugs*

[porn-this-way.livejournal.com]

Phew! Thank you for saying that, seriously. Judging our own work with anything resembling objectivity is tricksy business for just about anyone I think, so throw in the bait-and-switch possibility, and it's just like I DON'T EVEN KNOW. I think I'm so used to hearing my own voice in my head and used to my own dumb jokes that I'm not sure what (if any) amusement factor will be present unless I'm intentionally setting out to spoof\mock\rant about [insert topic here].