narrative expectations

[truepenny]

So heres_luck has been watching Gilmore Girls, and I have been watching as well, in a sort of desultory in-and-out fashion. I like the show fine--it's entertaining and clever--but it doesn't trip any of my triggers.

Anyway, last night I wandered through the living room just as one character said to another, "Let me get my sweater," and turned toward the closet. And I thought, Oh no! No, don't open the closet!

But she did. And got her sweater. And they went out.

This moment encapsulates both (a.) why Gilmore Girls is never going to get much more than mild interest from me and (b.) a useful thought about narrative expectations, which I'm going to inflict on share with y'all.

Narrative expectations are the things that a reader/viewer expects to have happen in a particular story. In a romance, you expect the two main characters to fall in love. In a mystery, you expect a crime to be solved. In the kind of TV shows I like, you expect the innocent action of opening a closet to have terrible consequences, like a demon, or a corpse.

My narrative expectations are formed from immersion in science fiction, fantasy, horror, and mystery. They are completely inappropriate to a show like Gilmore Girls, which while it has a very gentle element of fantasy (or, at least, that's my opinion of the town of Stars Hollow), never departs from what we might call Newtonian realism. The characters may be fanciful; the world never is. And because it is a very gentle show, people don't murder other people and shove them in dorm-room closets. It's just not the sort of thing that happens.

Assuming competence on both sides, incompatible narrative expectations are the most likely reason for an audience and story to part ways. An audience that is disappointed in its expectations is unlikely to keep reading or watching.* On the other hand, if a story can confound its audience's expectations--transcend them or defy them or trample them gleefully into the mud--the audience is likely to be enthralled. (A very small example, from the teaser for "Welcome to the Hellmouth" (Buffy the Vampire Slayer 1.1): our narrative expectation is that the two teenage kids who've broken into the high school to make out are going to get chomped by something nasty. This expectation is reinforced by the girl's nervousness, and then utterly upended when she herself turns out to be the something nasty.) Narrative expectations are based on narrative conventions--on things that customarily happen in a certain type of story--and therefore we are very comfortable with stories that fulfill our expectations. But we are delighted by stories that one-up them, stories that surprise us.

Like most things in story-telling, it's a high-wire act.

---
*I should add that blame does not necessarily accrue to the story. It may be that the audience has brought the wrong set of expectations to the table, like my knee-jerk reaction to opening closets. My warped narrative sensibilities are not Gilmore Girls' fault.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I do this kind of thing, too. It's even worse in books for me.

I did it even worse when I tried to write mainstream novels. I still believe I have a straight-up historical novel and a no-freaky-bits mystery novel in me. But until I sit down to write them, I can't swear they won't warp. I thought I had a straight-up contemporary YA in me, and then there was an ex-best friend making freakazoid comments on the phone, and ooh, that was interesting, so I followed it, and then it turned out they were about something magic.

Sigh.

[valancy.livejournal.com]

Yep.
I, too, thought it was cute, but never remember to watch it, or the channel, etc. Very unlike, say, Tuesday at 7, which is burned into my brain. (Randomly, if I ever make a date with someone on Tuesday at 7, I will never, ever forget.)

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

When I first discovered the Highlander series and Forever Knight, I had no idea what they were. I thought I was watching some ordinary silly drama thing and then Whoa, swords! and Whoa, fangs! That pretty much ruined me for normal non-spec television forever.

[jmeadows.livejournal.com]

You mean there is non-specfic TV out there? *grins*

Even my one real life friend who'd never read fantasy before started looking for specfic elements in everything after she read a draft of one of my stories, then King's Dark Tower series. Now she's hooked on the genre. *grins*

[mmarques.livejournal.com]

Even if you're not expecting a horror in the closet, what's the point in getting a sweater if it doesn't set up conflict? Otherwise you've wasted 15 seconds of time. Things I might expect are:
* horror in the closet
* the expected sweater is missing
* the delay to get the sweater causes a problem
* wearing the sweater later has significance

They might not all be interesting conflicts to me, but without conflict, getting the sweater does nothing for me but stop the action.

[larryhammer]

Or adding atmosphere: this is the sort of story where people get sweaters from the closet. Which doesn't add conflict, but it adds story.

---L.

[davidlevine]

Or adding atmosphere: this is the sort of story where people get sweaters from the closet. Which doesn't add conflict, but it adds story.

But not much.

I agree that getting the sweater has to have some kind of narrative significance, but it doesn't have to be a conflict. For example:

* it tells us that the weather's getting colder (setting)
* it tells us that the sweater-wearer is cautious and detail-oriented (character)
* it sets up a later incident in which the sweater's presence on the wearer, or absence from the closet, is significant (plot)

However, that being said, I would guess that in this particular Gilmore Girls episode it performed no function other than filling fifteen seconds of screen time.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, it wasn't fifteen seconds. It was more like two.

And I think if I had to give it a purpose, it would be like Larry said--grounding. Gilmore Girls does pay a lot of attention to the weather and the season; it's the sort of show where the characters DO remember to grab a sweater before they head out the door.

But honestly, as far as the show was concerned, this was no big deal. It was just a transition.

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

It was probably an occasion for banter. GG is all about the banter.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Expectations become a concern when you try to write something cross-genre. Some of my readers also read romance, and there are times when their genre-based expectations of what will happen in my books are not met. Some don't mind, but a few do.

[necessaryspace.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who does this. Usually, if I'm watching a non-sci-fi/fantasy and nothing happens after the closet gets opened, I go, "Huh. That was boring." ;)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Narrative expectations are based on narrative conventions--on things that customarily happen in a certain type of story--and therefore we are very comfortable with stories that fulfill our expectations. But we are delighted by stories that one-up them, stories that surprise us.

Like most things in story-telling, it's a high-wire act.

I'd apologise for the long quotation, except that this really seems worth quoting; it's the key to all good advice about writing, which is "It's like this - except when it isn't."