The Secret

[oselle]

After last night's riveting season finale of The Walking Dead, I found myself wondering what is the secret to creating great entertainment in the sci-fi/fantasy/horror genre. I think it comes down to two things --

1) Taking the subject matter seriously.

2) Respecting the audience.

Which frankly, are interrelated. If you take your subject matter seriously, you'll respect the audience because you know they take it seriously too. In contrast, if you think your story is kind of silly, then you'll no doubt think your audience is silly for liking it so much. And because it's a vicious cycle, once you start thinking your audience is silly, you'll take your story even less seriously because its biggest fans are losers who probably have nothing better to do than watch your silly show. See how that works?

Comments

[twirlycurls.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. Don't write as if your audience a bunch of drooling morons whose brains switch off the second they catch sight of your pretty lead actors.

This is my single biggest complaint about SPN and has been since they started doing meta episodes: they clearly both resent their audience and think we're idiots.

On the bright side, I am VERY pleased by The Walking Dead.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

The meta thing might have been funny...one time. Now it's just fucking stupid and embarrassing. Do these writers think their job is to entertain themselves? At the expense of their own fan base? Again I have to ask...what the fuck is wrong with them?

And all this meta -- they act like they're the only show that's ever been on television that's had this kind of following. Are they that ignorant or are they just that fucking full of themselves?

[twirlycurls.livejournal.com]

I didn't even find the first especially funny because it struck me as neither good-natured nor affectionate but pretty damn hostile, and I say this as someone who had never so much as read a piece of fic at the time I watched it. It retrospect that's probably where I should have stopped watching; once the writers make it clear that they resent and look down their noses at the audience, it's time to bail.

I just can't seem to stop watching, even after last week's clear demonstration of how badly things have gone off the rails. I must be more masochistic than I realized.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I'd say the first time they did the meta thing was when the Winchesters found out about Chuck and his Supernatural novels. It was kind of funny then because they didn't grind it into the ground and the idea of a pulp fiction writer actually being a prophet was pretty clever. Then they fucked it all to hell with The Real Ghostbusters, which was a nasty, offensive pile of shit, and they even destroyed the modest cleverness of Chuck by making him...God or whatever he was supposed to be in "Swan Song."

[twirlycurls.livejournal.com]

Kripke's self-insert, whining to us that writing is haaaaaard. I've never been so embarrassed for a writer in my life. I cringe just thinking about "Swan Song."

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Oh right, and whining about how "people will bitch" no matter what he does. Ass.