Predictable. It's a term levelled at modern fiction media with a scoff and an eye roll. "That's so predictable." And it's an insult. Predictability is the kiss of death for a TV show, or a book series. Everything has to be shocking. Everything has to be totally unexpected. Jaw-dropping, gut-wrenching; audiences want to be yanked around by the scruffs of their necks, without a clue where the story they're reading or watching is headed.
At least, they say so. Have proper buildup to a moment on a show, and all the critic blogs will call it a boring episode the next morning.
But then why is everyone so keen to get their hands on leaks? Why do they troll the internet for spoilers? Why do they flip to the end of the book to find out what happens before they set out on the journey?
Because predictability, despite the quips of professional reviewers, is actually not a bad thing. In fact, it's a comfort.
Because what I realized, several years ago, was that if the creative focus is placed on shock value - on delivering plot twists the audience never saw coming - media becomes too stressful to care about. As an audience member, I can see the puppet strings of the writers and directors; no longer am I watching characters who feel like real people, making their own decisions and suffering the logical consequences. Instead, what's playing out is a series of unrelated, spontaneous, totally unlikely events, and the characters are mere marionets, victims to the whims of the people writing them.
And here's the thing: I don't want to see the strings. I want cause and effect. I want characters who feel real. I want their journeys to be logical. And most of all, I don't like when a show or a book makes me feel stupid. When it got my hopes up only for the sheer delight of dashing them against the rocks...and laughing about it.
So far, the first two episodes of this season of Game of Thrones are getting a lot of things very right (Arya and Gendry! Jaime knighting Brienne! Theon!). But the reason I stopped watching in season three was not simply because they deviated from the books (and I think the foundations for things like Arya/Gendry and Theon's redemption arc were laid down in the books), but because they did so in a way that stripped out most of the books' excellent foreshadowing, symbolism, pacing, and altered the characters to a great degree. For instance, Sansa is still very much a virgin in the books; Theon saved instead her friend Jeyne Poole from Ramsay, a risk and sacrifice that wasn't about saving the Lady of Winterfell, but about being brave enough to do the right thing. By the time Arya and her crew run into the Brotherhood in book three, Thoros is no longer the drunk philanderer he was in King's Landing, but a skinny, rag-dressed true believer, reformed by the miracle of Beric's multiple resurrections. In the show, while I still loved him for what he was, Thoros became a conglomerate of multiple book Brotherhood characters...and mercenary besides.
(I LOVE the Brotherhood in the books, and they got done so dirty in the show. Still mad about it. Also, where tf was Lady Stoneheart??)
I think the show might end up in a really good place, and truer to the books than I expected - I accepted early on that we wouldn't get SanSan in the show; I'm looking at George not to let me down in the next two books - but I'm still annoyed that the showrunners decided to take the shock value, Edgy™ Approach, which leaned on surprise, action, and sex rather than true character development. It resulted in some really inconsistent storytelling.
Shock value is the reason I stopped watching SOA, too. And why I don't really watch any scripted adult dramas billed as "edgy." Give me angst, and heartache, and pain, and drama, and sex...but do it in a way that feels natural and organic. That approach is, I fear, seen as too predictable, and so shock value usually wins out.
As a storyteller myself, though, I've had some doubt. I've questioned: Is my work too predictable? For instance, there's never much of a question in my books as to who will get together romantically. It's almost always plain to see. And I like to write happy endings. I've been terribly unsubtle about Nikita and Sasha in Sons of Rome. I've wondered if anyone will enjoy a book in which we flash back to Fulk and Anna's meeting, given they know they're already together and very much still in love after all this time.
I've doubted.
But I've also been a viewer and a reader who has, over the years, been immensely frustrated by the lack of emotional payoff in the media I consume. When directors make you ship things, and then never do anything about it. When characters are killed just to make you upset. When freak coincidences throw a big wrench in the works and prevent the characters from getting the justice they want and deserve.
And so in that sense, I'm glad to be predictable. I'm glad that my books can, despite all the darkness, ultimately be a safe place for readers. A place where they can enjoy the drama, but then be rewarded by a sweet ending. I'm glad I can get readers to ship Nik and Sasha, and then reward them with that in book four. (oops, spoiling my own stuff).
In my very humble opinion, the journey is no less rewarding just because you predicted where it would lead. The thing I've learned about twists is, they're best received when they serve to reward the audience, or to surprise them in a good way. I get asked fairly often if I feel like I'm obligated to write happy endings - I do feel that way. But the obligation is to the characters. I serve them first, and that in turn serves the readers.
Dragon Slayer is going to be dark. But in my books, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel.
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