@lone_cat
"lone_cat;c-17661321" wrote:
Sort of going off of this topic, I was watching something the other day that was talking about TV show writers who will cut future content from a story just because viewers predicted what would happen. I don't really agree with this. I wouldn't cut something just because one of my readers predicted a future outcome. Sometimes I think it is more satisfying for the reader to predict something and be right than to be completely blindsided all the time. And if you've already done the work of foreshadowing then it's sort of a waste of content to change what happens. But I'm a big fan of foreshadowing, and this doesn't always work in every story. I sort of went on a rant there but feel free to agree or disagree with what I said.
I absolutely agree with you! I don't see any good reason to do that, it would just wreck the story. What would be the point of foreshadowing and leaving hints if you were to do a U-turn? I think media these days are generally obsessed with the shock value, and place a higher importance on that than, you know, a meaningful plot and character development. But if you change things up just for the sake of changing it, you'll not end up with a cohesive story. Plus, for people like us who just write for enjoyment rather than anything else, it would mean not even writing the story you're wanting to write.
And I definitely agree that it is often more satisfying to unravel stuff from clues rather than be shocked just for the shock-value and left scratching your head about how on earth the story got there. It's nice for the pieces of the puzzle to fit in one by one, and go "ah yeah, i can see how it fits". Don't get me wrong, I like a good twist as much as the next person, but it needs to make sense.
(Westworld is such a good example of this. The first season was brilliant, it had twists and turns but it was all pre-planned and when you got to the end, you got an aha moment, with some satisfaction of maybe working some of it out, and some of it being a surprise. The second season was a hot mess that felt like them trying to make a caricature of their own format. And I think that was one of the shows where they made changes in S2 just because people predicted it on reddit, which is just stupid. Tangent over.)
Also, if you write a story and none of your readers can get anything in their speculation right at all, you might want to have a think about whether you're even conveying the message :D