Kids, your ol’ Uncle Gideon U. Eklund is happy to state that it’s that arbitrarily-chosen time again! I’ve got a new subject to ramble about, and I’ve chosen you as my sounding board. I invite you to stand up from wherever you’re reading this, and announce to the people around you, “YES! I’M THE CHOSEN ONE! I AM THE CHOSEN ONE!!” Then, never explain to them what you’re talking about.
…Go ahead. I’ll wait.
Now that you’ve gotten that ridiculous shit out of your system, sit back and enjoy as I descend from my golden pedestal once again, to discuss narrative with you, and one of the many traps I see franchises fall into: Over-explaining things.
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” says a mysterious voice, from someone reading this right now. “Why do you say it’s bad to over-explain things?” Who is this mysterious figure asking these questions? You may never know. Does it drive you crazy? It shouldn’t, and I’m going to tell you why. To address this properly, let’s take a step back and look at this through our touching thumbs and raised fingers, as a framing device.
While I certainly don’t play it up, (and they’re few and far between at the time of this writing,) I have a small circle of friends and fans, and they are a beloved part of my test reader group. Some in particular are in their early twenties, and me being in my early *$&%ies, it means they are part of a younger generation. This is part of the reason I enjoy it so much when they read my manuscripts, because I get a fresh take from their feedback, instead of the older, early *$&%ies perspective of many of my other test readers.
I bring this up because their generation has only ever known the world in which they live: an information age where everything has a research-able answer, and those answers are right at their fingertips. On top of that, they are also accustomed to the very common narrative of “The Prequel,” which was not a very common storytelling tool as recently as roughly 20 years ago.
Author’s Note: Ugh. Prequels. They’re usually fucking awful, and not just the ones from ‘Star Wars.’ Keep in mind that ‘Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom’ was actually a prequel, too. Lots of people don’t realize that, and I think it strongly reinforces my opinion of them as narrative ball sweat, with rare exception.
Let’s talk about something people love, and don’t even seem to realize they love: Unanswered questions.
“No, I hate those. I want closure,” says the mysterious voice who asked questions earlier in this blog, but whose identity remains a secret.
“Do you?” I would ask that voice, if I knew where it was coming from. Because let’s be honest here: there is one thing that I’ve seen fans eat up like a fat kid with an all-frosting birthday cake: The Unknown. Fans LOVE The Unknown, because they love to make fan theories around it, and goddamn, do you guys love your fan theories.
When Boba Fett hit the big screen, his claim to fame was that he caught Han Solo. That was it, and it made him a mysterious bad-ass. The man had three lines of dialogue across two films, and simply because of The Unknown, he was suddenly the galaxy’s biggest bad-ass; an unstoppable Mandalorian bounty hunter who’d seen more in his life than a hundred war vets. Where did he come from? What were his people like? Was he a human? An alien in a cool suit? What was his deal? Hell, I remember in one of the novels, they had to explain how he drank without taking his helmet off, (the answer was a drop-down straw built into the helmet, and no I’m not making that up,) because nobody knew who or what he was under that helmet, but fans still wanted stories about him.
Author’s Note: This has since been written into the Star Wars lore, as shown in “The Mandalorian” series, which is an amazing show. They say a Mandalorian never removes their helmet, but there’s been a ton of Mandalorian characters who have removed their helmets before that show was made. So, I’m not sure what the deal is on that one way or another.
…This lasted from 1980 to 2002, when he got explained, suddenly became a clone-kid with clone-daddy issues in Attack of the Clones, and was promptly ruined for many of the die-hard, old-school Boba Fett fans. Since fans had spent 22 years getting more and more mouth-foamy over the growing mystery surrounding their favorite inexplicable bad-ass, they were understandably upset that there was nothing mind-blowing about their special little boy. I would even dare to say that most Star Wars fans have gone from, “IS THAT BOBA FETT?! HOLY SHIT! IT’S BOBA FETT!!” whenever they see his helmeted visage to a more common reaction of, “Oh, yeah—Boba Fett. Cool, I guess.” Then they sigh, look into the middle distance, and go, “Man, Attack of the Clones sucked so hard.“
On a personal note, when I was a kid enjoying Star Wars, (because I’m now in my mid-*$&%ies, and it wasn’t A New Hope yet,) at no point did I think to myself, “Boy, I really wish they’d give me a full walk-through of this scary, awesome Darth Vader guy, so I can see him as a kid, growing up and turning into an asshole. That’s another three movies right there.”
You guys prefer unanswered questions. Fans love to discuss their theories and scrutinize a narrative for clues. You’re like the Scooby Gang and obsessed stalkers rolled into one glorious thing, and sometimes I adore you for it. But, much like a Scooby-Doo episode, once the mask is ripped off, it stops being a fun mystery, and we learn that the Spooky Space Kook is just Henry Bascomb, the farmer’s neighbor, trying to get land for cheap.
(Yeah… the answer was way less insteresting than a terrifying ghost in a space suit with a creepy laugh, wasn’t it?)
Personally, while I understand the entertainment value of fan theories, I frequently find them to be exasperating all around. They’re almost always wrong, and based on some tiny “leak” they noticed in a movie trailer or something. Then, the movie comes out, the fan theory is proven wrong, and everyone starts talking online about how it shouldn’t have been wrong in any way, and the movie screwed up, and blah, blah, blah. Cue internet whining.
Remember this, kids: Your fan theory is almost always going to be wrong, and if it isn’t, then someone somewhere isn’t doing their job.
As a writer, my fan base I mentioned at the beginning of this post tend to text me when test-reading my work, (which I love, for the record,) to ask me questions, throw out theories on where the plot is going, etc.
Their theories are almost always wrong. Sometimes, if they’re right, I’ll change my work (if possible,) just to make them wrong, because clearly my plot is too predictable. In fact, one very brief interaction I had with one of my test readers was a simple question:
“Is [correct guess of a plot element] going to happen?” they asked.
“Not anymore,” I replied.
This wasn’t out of spite, but it was because they’d shown me that the plot was predictable. I genuinely appreciated that question, for that very reason. (It’s exactly why I have test readers in the first place.) But, I also frequently get a lot of questions about things that don’t need answers. I’ve been asked how characters requisition equipment, for example, in a story where that information was in no way relevant to the plot, and deliberately hand-waived earlier on in the story.
While we may definitely try to, writers don’t know every answer about their created universes before the question is posed. I couldn’t tell you what fabric one of my main character’s favorite thongs is made out of, because I don’t really have a scene where she puts that thong on, so I don’t need to think about it. But if you ask me, I’ll say “red cotton,” because it seems like that’s the correct answer, and I’m the one making the story up, so there’s no way to prove me wrong.
There’s a popular trope out there called “The Noodle Incident,” which I frequently employ when possible, because I love it. It’s named for a Calvin and Hobbes strip, where Hobbes asks, “What about the Noodle Incident?” and Calvin says, “NO ONE CAN PROVE I DID THAT!” and that’s all the explanation you get. But, sometimes fans can’t let a Noodle Incident go; they don’t realize that the unknown is what makes it good. There is no explanation for a Noodle Incident that will ever live up to the expectation or wild guessing that will happen around one.
A Marvel Cinematic Universe Example: In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Nick Fury told Captain America that he lost his eye the last time he trusted someone. After that declaration, fans everywhere theorized how Nick Fury lost his eye, and to which super villain, trying to pry clues from the rest of the MCU’s filmography. From my perspective, I didn’t care how he lost his eye, the Noodle Incident in Winter Soldier didn’t need further explaining; it did exactly what it needed to do, expanded the mystery of Nick Fury, made a point while doing it, and that was it.
Fast-forward to 2019, and the folks who found out how it happened in Captain Marvel were sorely disappointed, as I laughed and choked on popcorn at people’s communal sighs of disbelief around me. It filled me with glee to hear the rush of air caused by their crushed expectations.
The real problem comes from moments when you go out of your way to resolve unanswered questions which don’t need answers. This falls dangerously into “prequel” territory. Which, brings me to my next thing. Without further ado, I give you:
GIDEON’S BIG LIST OF WHY PREQUELS ARE BAD:
- They all-too-frequently feel the need to include little forced ‘nods’ or foreshadowing to the sequel you’ve already seen, and most of the time, it doesn’t make sense.
I don’t understand this need to foreshadow something their audience has already seen; there’s no payoff. The payoff has already happened! They are setting up a payoff that is not going to happen in a chronologically satisfactory way. This weird “retroactive foreshadowing” doesn’t serve a purpose, and half the time, it’s not even interesting.
A hypothetical example: If there’s a movie where a guy gets a railroad spike run through his head, and they make a prequel about it, you can bet that some mention of railroad spikes will come up. “Hey guy; do you like railroad spikes?” one character will ask. “Oh no,” Guy Who Gets The Spike says, “I don’t care for them at all,” to which someone will mutter behind his back, “What a jerk. THAT guy needs someone to drive a fucking railroad spike through his head. But what are the odds of THAT happening someday?”
A real-world narrative example: In the Gotham series, young Bruce Wayne is collecting rocks in a red wagon. Alfred basically asks, “What are you going to do with those rocks, kid?” and Bruce Wayne says—I shit you not, dear readers—”I’m gonna build a home for my wagon, a secret place, that only I know about.”
Author’s Note: No non-autistic rich kid is that obsessed with a red wagon. I don’t buy it, “Gotham.” Cut the bullshit.
He’s, of course, ham-fistedly referring to the Batcave; the famous secret lair where he keeps the Batmobile. This is a wildly unnecessary thing to have in the story. It is stupid, it is clumsy, it doesn’t move the plot. It’s just there to raise its eyebrows to the audience and say, “Huh? Huuuuuuh? Get it? THE BATCAVE, maybe? FORESHADOWING, MOTHERFUCKERS! ENJOY OUR FORESHADOWING THAT BATMAN WILL MAKE THE BATCAVE!!” …Which we already knew he’d be doing, because we know he’s going to become Batman, and is famous for having the Batcave. While I’m no doctor, I can confidently confirm that current, unborn babies know the story of Batman by now. So, who is that foreshadowing nod for, exactly?
2. As previously mentioned, they fill in questions you don’t need answers to.
If a Keds-wearing character has a cool ring, and/or face tattoo, a character could mention, “Hey, Awesome McCoolguy, where did you get that awesome ring and/or face tattoo?” Awesome McCoolguy would answer, “Oh, the ring was a gift from an old girlfriend before she got killed by vampires. I wear it to remind myself that I must always slay the vampires. The tattoo is so I’ll always remember her when I look in the mirror.”
That is the backstory. That’s all you need. You don’t need the details of their relationship, or how the vampires killed her, it is a neat, condensed way to make that point, give a character motivation, and the story can move forward. Maybe throw in a flashback to her death, if it’s important to the story.
But, I assure you, if they make a prequel to this story, you will find out exactly where and how he got that awesome ring and/or face tattoo, where he shops for his signature Keds, (and the passing suggestion that made him decide, ‘yes, Keds is a look for me,’) with a dollop of that must-have obligatory scene where two characters who meet in the original story pass each other on the street in the prequel, and one of them thinks, “Wow—what a ring and face tattoo that Keds guy has. I’m probably never going to meet him again.” Then a shrug and a wink to the camera.
This affects villains, too. They frequently try to retroactively cram in some sort of sympathetic backstory for a villain; something like, “Oh, Lex Luthor had a strict father,” or, “The creepy stalker was ignored by society for his entire childhood,” because they feel the villain needs more fleshing out.
Here’s something I want writers to remember: A nuanced villain with solid motivations is all well and good, but we don’t always need to know why they’re a bad guy. Sometimes a bad guy is just a dick, because they’re bad people. Those kinds of bad guys are just as valid, character-wise, as the guy with the Rosebud sled.
Nobody really knew the Joker’s motivations or backstory; in fact, his lack of backstory made him more interesting. He was just there, being crazy, for no good reason, and it was always entertaining as hell. Before we knew Vader was Luke’s father, he was just “Scary Evil Space Guy,” and fans loved him. Then people found out why he was “Scary Evil Space Guy,” and they went, “Wait, no. Can we go back to before we learned he was Jake Lloyd?”
Author’s Note: Jake Lloyd was the most believable-looking Muppet in “The Phantom Menace.”
3. They frequently cram in as many characters from the future iteration of the story, whether it makes sense or not.
I have not watched much of the Gotham series, and that is a deliberate choice on my part. (Seriously. That wagon thing was fucking stupid.) I watched half of Smallville before I gave up, and have yet to touch a single episode of Krypton. However, these shows fall into the same trappings: Throwing things at the fans that they will immediately recognize and eat up, whether it makes sense or not.
Smallville is a particularly egregious example—throughout the series, Clark Kent runs into his future villains way earlier than he ever would in the original comics, and even defeats many of them. The odds of the hero meeting all of their future foes as younger versions is slim; yet somehow, all of Clark Kent’s foes from his future life in Metropolis gravitate to him, while he’s still hiding his identity in Smallville, Kansas.
Author’s Note: This is similar to every time travel movie where the time-traveler just happens to meet someone historically significant. The odds are just not good for that sort of thing to happen every time. (Except for “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” where it’s done on purpose. That movie is magical.)
The only explanation for this character-cramming bullshit is usually something like, “We’re doing a ‘not-quite-Superman’ show, and we need to use Superman’s well-known villains to make the fans happy.” This can also lead to the problem that some of these characters may need to be fundamentally changed to fit into a narrative point where they don’t belong. (Doomsday doing a Hulk transformation from wimpy guy to Killing Machine is a prime example, because hiding Doomsday anywhere in Kansas or Metropolis would be impossible, which was why his initial rampage in the “Death of Superman” story was such an immediate problem.)
4. Prequels never quite “plug-in” to their existing sequel right.
I don’t really have a litany of hard examples for this sort of thing, but many times, a prequel will just feel like it’s not quite leaving off where the existing “sequel” is going to match up. It was made years (sometimes decades) later, so a lot of these prequels just don’t seem to end right. Rogue One is an example I can think of where it feels like the movie is ending right where the first Star Wars film comes in… but does it? If the blockade runner is being pursued at the end of Rogue One, and then they’re caught in the beginning of A New Hope, why does Leia even bother with any of her political blustering against Darth Vader?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m a member of the Imperial Senate on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan,” she says, sternly, to invading Darth Vader. As if to say, “Plans? Death Star whatnow? No idea. We were off to this other place to do this other thing. No idea what you’re talking about, and you’re in big trouble for stopping us over this ‘stolen plans’ nonsense.”
…Except, no; according to Rogue One, you were being hunted down from the very end of that film now, by Darth Vader himself, who literally watched you escape with the plans. Don’t get me wrong; that ending where Vader goes on the attack is my very favorite thing about that whole film—but its existence means that the end of Rogue One and the beginning of A New Hope no longer match up.
(It also never explains how, chronologically, Carrie Fisher went from the beautiful young CGI poster girl of the Uncanny Valley to a beautiful young real-life human being …But some questions will never get answered, I suppose, no matter how mysterious.)
That’s basically it, kids. So, the next time you’re slobbering for a prequel to explain a bunch of unanswered questions about your favorite story, character, or what have you; ask yourself if you really want the answer, or if you’re more content theorizing about it, without ever really knowing. Some stuff is better left in the dark.
Who’s your noodle-incident clone-daddy? No wait, please don’t answer that. It may end up being the mysterious voice from the beginning.