Predictability

[Butterfly]

Not so much a question, but more a few thoughts on the predictability of plot-lines and story-lines.

I recently read an article in a printed mag, (hence no link), that had a comment that left me thinking about the predictability of ideas.

I am find that a lot of story-lines (particularly in films) are kind of predictable, one event leads to another that I tend to guess before it happens. In this instance very little comes as a surprise to me. I suppose it is something that comes from being immersed with possible plots and stories, and of being an aspiring writer. it seems that plotting is something that goes on in my mind regardless of whether or not I want to think of it. One event leads to another, and maybe I notice it more than those who are not writers.

Saying that there are films that have surprised me, such as The Village, The Others, Signs.

The theory is...

Your first idea, is usually the most obvious. It is the route most people would likely take, and thus is very predictable. It's the idea that leads me to guess the twists, and conclusion of a film before the tale is fully unravelled.

The second or alternative idea, is the next safest route. If plot A doesn't happen, then this will happen instead, the second most likely scenario and conclusion. (In a basic nutshell, if A us success, then B is failure).

So, if I work a little bit harder and come up with a third or even a fourth idea it is more likely to be an unexpected twist, and thus much less predictable.

There are two outcomes to every side of a story, decisions that would lead the heroes and villains down one path or another. I am setting myself with the challenge of finding the third idea, route, option, conclusion, etc, to whatever these decisions may be. All in the quest to avoid predictability.

So, any more ways or suggestions for avoiding predictability?

 

[MFreako]

I don't think predictability is necessarily bad. Executed correctly, even the most predictable of tales can be fun and engaging.

That being said, I am a sucker for gasp-inducing stories and plot twists. How do we pull it off? Simple: We make our characters human. As human beings, we make mistakes, and we pay for them. The same need to be true for our characters. We make our readers feel like their favorite characters are infallible. They are the MC after all, right? Then we blow this illusion right up in their faces.

Hope I helped.

 

[Alex97]

A lot, perhaps even the vast majority of stories have a predictable ending - "the hero wins the day." As long as the journey towards that ending remains engaging and isn't predictable I don't mind so much.

I think it's far more important for a book to avoid predictability than in other genres. In film or television, the visual execution and acting is enough to detract from a predictable plot if done well enough.

 

[Spider]

Maybe you should start a thread where you summarize an excerpt from your WIP, and everyone has to predict what happens next. That way you can avoid predictability and write about something other than what people are saying.

 

[skip.knox]

Much of unpredictability doesn't lie in the plot itself. You can look up "N number of plots in fiction" and get lists, complete with the English teacher or Famous Author who first compiled the list. Plus lists for specific genres in fiction. It's all been done.

IMO, unpredictability lies in the narrative. The author sets me up. Like a magician, he gets me looking over here while the trick is happening over there. There are a jillion (one unit larger than a kabillion) examples of this, but one of my favorites is the poisoning scene in the Princess Bride. You'd be expecting this so I'll won't take that one. But Golding is smarter than just that. He distracts us with secondary surprises, as with "You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders - the most famous of which is 'never get involved in a land war in Asia'". We certainly did not expect a reference to modern politics in the middle of this scene. Therefore, we're distracted by that while he's setting us up for the death of the Sicilian. Without that secondary distraction, the sudden death would have been merely the expected outcome.

I have no practical advice here, merely the observation that the surprises are embedded in the delivery, in the narration of scenes and sometimes in the arrangement of scenes.

-= Skip =-

 

[The Dark One]

I raised exactly this issue in another thread and also made the point that I am very hard to surprise - as I expect most people here are. When you spend so much time constructing plots yourself, you rapidly pick up on the set-ups used by other writers.

My soon to be published book features some major twists which no beta reader or reviewer has yet picked. I suspect the reason for this may be that when I was writing the book, I always had two different endings in mind and didn't decide which one to use until I got there - when I chose a third ending. The ending I went with was far better than either of the first two but entirely made sense within the rules of the book as gradually revealed. The point is, by using this (accidental) technique, I minimised the set-up points or managed to obscure them with ambiguities. Then, when I went back through in the editing process, I amused myself with some knowing smirks in the apparently incidental prose which a reader could really only appreciate on a second read.

I will certainly try this technique again.

 

[Addison]

I'm better at picking out predictable moments in horror and thriller movies. Yea I'll be scared or grossed out but I'll see guy meet girls and whisper, "And cue love interest", or she'll poke her head into a closet, empty and as she steps back I'll think, "and she's dead in three-two-one, yuck!" With stories it's harder, or at least subconscious. It's hidden in the layers, the prose and all that good stuff that makes us keep reading.

I think the only way things are predictable is if prior to the event there's poor foreshadowing, as in obvious give away.

 

[Weaver]

First, keep in mind that just because you always guess the plot of a story before it happens does not mean that everyone -- or even most people -- will.

The thing about humans and other sapients is that we don't like to be taken too much by surprise. A little bit of the unexpected is good, at least in the stories with which we entertain ourselves, but something that comes out of nowhere with no hints at all that it's about to happen... That isn't good. It is quite likely that your reader will chalk a total surprise up to Really Bad Plotting instead of to subtlety and cleverness on the part of the author. (Another thing about humans and other sapients is that we don't like to be made to feel stupid, so we blame someone else.)

That said, excessively predictable plots are definitely the result of, well, bad plotting. The foreshadowing is laid on too thickly, the whole story is one cliche after another with no variations, or the story is so bloomin' simple that there's no room for a unique take on the tropes of the genre. (Unlike cliches, tropes are to some extent necessary. Tropes are what define a story's genre.) I think that any novel that is written with sufficient complexity will hold some surprises for the reader.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

There is also the cultural issue that many readers/audience members find predictability to be comforting. Like the Romance genre, for example. Their guidelines call for an extreme degree of predictability. It is also why readers tend to by long series and favorite authors - because they have certain expectations they want met.

Being said, there are few things I hate more than to be able to predict each and every move in a plot 15 minutes before it happens. I think that's just plain laziness on the writer's part. But, that's just me. Some people hate surprises.

 

[Butterfly]

A lot of good suggestions coming through with lots of new insights and opinions on the subject.

Thanks all.

 

[Ireth]

It is also why readers tend to by long series and favorite authors - because they have certain expectations they want met.

Yup. Thinking of the Redwall series here -- every book draws on four different plotlines, and some characters within his standard races act pretty much the same (like the hares, wot wot), but there's still enough variation and unique characters to keep things fresh after twenty-some books.