Blogocentric Formulations

Cliffhangers & Life of Pi

PROMPT: Tell us about a TV show or book series you like. What makes you keep coming back to watch or read more? Relate this to your knowledge and understanding of cliffhangers - how do you write a good "cliffy?"


Of course, I'm going to make a differentiation here... in this case between ongoing series and defined series. A defined series (some of my favorites include Harry Potter and The First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie) is appealing to me because there's a larger story arc that needs to be resolved. In that sense, I don't care so much about the cliffhanger aspect of any individual book or installment; it's more about my need to see these characters and their story through to the end. I don't necessarily need to be tempted to keep watching or reading; I need to feel some sense of resolution.

Contrast this with an ongoing series where I think a cliffhanger is more important because you need to keep the audience thinking, "I can't wait for the next installment to think how they're going to handle that situation!" I think my favorite ongoing book series would be the Harry Bosch series of crime novels by Michael Connelly, but this type of series is the kind of thing I really get into with television, where the show goes on - in most cases - as long as the ratings keep it alive. Some television series that I think have worked marvelously well on cliffhangers have been ALIAS, HEROES, SCANDAL, VERONICA MARS, and the currently-airing show that I think is handling their season-ending cliffhangers better than anybody right now... BBC's SHERLOCK. The show does a great job of resolving the problems in the current episode, and then showing something in the final couple of minutes that throws everything into question again.

To write a good cliffhanger, I think you need a masterful understanding of suspense and structure. You need a firm grasp on what's suspenseful in order to understand what will keep the audience on the edge of their seat, and you need an understanding of structure to effectively determine how to present that information. It's not just a matter of tacking on a couple minutes at the end of an episode; you have to figure out what information to give the audience, how much to provide them with, when to pull back, and how it should be timed in connection with the resolution of the other narrative threads in the current installment. This is one of the reasons I was never really a fan of LOST (especially the middle seasons); they seemed more interested in proposing questions than providing answers, and I think the audience can only handle so much teasing before they start really needing to have some stuff answered and resolved.

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PROMPT: We already did something popular you don't like... but what about an incredibly popular movie or show that you've never actually seen?

LIFE OF PI
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454876/

I decided to take a bit of a scientific approach to the prompt today. Rather than just picking one from memory, I decided to take a look at the Top 100 highest-grossing movies worldwide from Box Office Mojo   and select the movie highest on the list that I hadn't seen. I didn't count current releases (the ones highlighted in yellow) because they're still new and I think it's only fair to offer several weeks of home video viewing before you legitimately say you haven't seen something. So cutting the current releases out and looking down the list, I've seen every single movie on there until I get to #78 (MEN IN BLACK 3) and #84 (LIFE OF PI). Actually #90 (THE CROODS) is the only other one in that Top 100 I haven't seen, as it turns out. Anyway, I didn't pick MEN IN BLACK because it's not like I was meaning to see it and just haven't yet; two installments of the series were enough for me.

I picked LIFE OF PI because there's legitimately no reason why I shouldn't have seen this movie by now. It's grossed $609 million worldwide, a phenomenal amount of money. It's been nominated for tons of awards, winning four Oscars last year. Almost everyone I know who's seen it has said it's a must-see. And I even interviewed for a job last year with a company that bought the visual effects studio that made the movie. I even had a chance to watch it on a plane last fall and I passed it up! So I think it's safe to say that this was an incredibly popular movie using any possible definition of the word 'popular,' and I haven't seen it. Even my wife has seen it, and it's a rare movie indeed (outside of cable TV movies) that she's seen and I haven't.

Here's the trailer:

This might be one of those ones that I really need to get around to seeing soon, just so if anyone dredges up this blog post months from now I can legitimately say, "But I have! I have seen it now!"