Last time, I used \u2018The Walking Dead\u2019 as an example of consistency in world building, but ended with an implication that this may be changing.\u00a0 The main reason is the way they\u2019ve skirted their \u201crule\u201d that any character can die.\u00a0 The most egregious case is the character of Glenn.\u00a0 Now he\u2019s a good character and they haven\u2019t fooled with him, except that he\u2019s now twice been presented in near death situations from which he\u2019s magically survived.<\/p>\n
In Season 5 Nicholas tried to kill Glenn while they are alone in the woods, and the last shot we see is of Glenn on the ground with zombies (apparently) diving on him.\u00a0 Since no one gets away once the zombies start pilling on, Glenn\u2019s dead \u2013 right?\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 In a later scene, where Nicholas is trying to get back to Alexandria, Glenn suddenly jumps from behind a tree to continue his fight with Nicholas.\u00a0 How\u2019d he survive?\u00a0 Beats me.<\/p>\n
In Season 6 the kind-hearted Glenn seemed to dedicate himself to reforming Nicholas, but the two of them ended up stuck on top of a dumpster surrounded by zombies.\u00a0 Nicholas blew his brains out, and as he fell toward the waiting dead his momentum took Glenn with him.\u00a0 We are then treated to a shot of Glenn\u2019s horrified face while blood spurts and intestines are ripped out. Is he dead this time?\u00a0 After what seemed like an interminable number of episodes we finally learn that he somehow managed to drag himself under the dumpster while the zombies fed on Nicholas (I guess poor Nick just tasted too good for the zombies to waste their time on Oriental cuisine).<\/p>\n
And as if that wasn\u2019t enough, Rick got stuck in a stalled RV which was rapidly being swarmed by zombies only to appear in the next episode running really fast!\u00a0 Oh, okay so I guess all those who died in the earlier seasons were just slow runners \u2013 right!<\/p>\n
So what we have here is basically lazy or downright deceptive writing.\u00a0 Take your pick.\u00a0 Either the writers came up with an idea, which unfortunately painted them into a corner, and their solution was just to \u2018skip the details\u2019 and have the character survive.\u00a0 Or it\u2019s a cheap way to drum up suspense. Either way its sloppy writing and doesn\u2019t help the show.<\/p>\n
My point is that the writers\u2019 bending the rules has cost the show intensity \u2013 the nail-biting \u2018will he\/she survive\u2019? Now we know that the main characters always will, no matter how implausible their survival may be.\u00a0 The next step is to just introduce a minor character every episode who will end up as zombie chow, just as the famous Redshirts on the original Star Trek filled out each landing party, but had a bull\u2019s eye on the back of their uniforms.\u00a0 So while bending the rules hasn\u2019t destroyed \u2018The Walking Dead\u2019 it has wounded it.<\/p>\n
But while bending the rules is a self-inflicted wound, breaking the rules can be fatal.\u00a0 Now you don\u2019t often see this problem because when you do this the result is generally a rejection slip from a publisher, or, if I stick to tv shows, a quick cancellation. One example I can give is based on a book I read over the summer.\u00a0 I won\u2019t name it because it was posted by a writer looking for feedback. I very much liked the book for the most part, and hope some changes will be made, which I think would make it quite publishable.\u00a0 The problem here was simple.\u00a0 The book is a Terry Pratchett-like fantasy – a light-hearted and fun read. Now in a setting like this, characters can be killed, but it almost has to be at a Road Runner\/Wiley Coyote cartoon level.\u00a0 A character gets blown up early in the story, and all that is found of him is his rather large nose.\u00a0 The silliness of the situation makes us ignore the fact that someone has been murdered, because it\u2019s cartoonish.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the author later presents a scene in which a building is bombed (terrorist-like) by the killer. The writer then goes on to describe screaming, badly injured victims and bloody body parts in the street!\u00a0 The real world intrudes into his make-believe one; the bubble is burst and the reader, cringing and distraught, flees!<\/p>\n
Note an important rule here<\/em>: comic relief works in a real world story because funny things happen in real life, but a comedic fantasy world has to be strictly true to itself or it fails.\u00a0 Try to add dramatic aggravation (okay, I made that term up, but couldn\u2019t think of a formal antonym to \u2018comic relief\u2019) and you break the rules!<\/p>\n So when writing, be careful with the rules of your world.\u00a0 Bending them can make plotting easy, but it also causes your world to take on the aspect of a slightly under inflated tire \u2013 squishy, squeaky and unexciting.\u00a0 But breaking those rules can fatally damage your world for the reader, making it as appealing as, well, a zombie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last time, I used \u2018The Walking Dead\u2019 as an example of consistency in world building, but ended with an implication that this may be changing.\u00a0 The main reason is the way they\u2019ve skirted their \u201crule\u201d that any character can die.\u00a0 The most egregious case is the character of Glenn.\u00a0 Now he\u2019s a good character and…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":259,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4,28,29],"tags":[7,8,42,9,6,26],"class_list":["entry","post","publish","author-photophoosk100","post-397","format-standard","category-jotting-and-stray-thoughts","category-musings","category-on-writing","category-writing-your-book","post_tag-getting-published","post_tag-novel","post_tag-rules-for-writing","post_tag-writers","post_tag-writing","post_tag-writing-a-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/259"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":398,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions\/398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomwolosz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}