Surprises
This week, I'm going to write about surprises in storylines. I love a good surprise. I want to think, "I didn't expect that", or "Wow, that was cool", or "Why didn't I think of that?" The bigger the surprise is and the more shocking it is, the more I enjoy it. I think it takes a brilliant writer to craft a surprising plot twist that is believable and works. A shocking revelation has to fit in if it's going to succeed. I've seen a few scenes that were shocking that didn't live up to my expectations and fell flat. However, I'm not going to discuss that. I'm going to discuss plot twists and surprises that I enjoyed!
But, to start the week off, I'm going to look at the season 3 opening episode of Lost - A Tale of Two Cities I believe the episode was called. It starts out, as you will see from the clip below, in a village with a woman named Juliet as she prepares for a book club meeting - we watch her get dressed, pull burning cookies out (and burn her hand), and then she with a group of people meet and discuss "Carrie" by Stephen King. Everything is ordinary until, Juliet's house starts shaking. They all run out into the street of a little town. Here, we see the leader of the infamous Others, Ben Linus (our villain), and Juliet look up at the sky as a plane crashes. Ben gives orders to a couple people to go investigate and see if there is any survivors, but all the while not getting involved and pretending to be a survivor. After he does, Ben sees the book Juliet chose (which he hates)and asks if he's out of the book club. With the next beat, the viewer gets a better shot of the town and then the camera pulls back so that we get to see that this city is in the middle of the forest on an island.
What makes the work so brilliantly is because we see that the Others are not just some cold-hearted monsters, as they were depicted in season 2 - they stole men, women, and children, did tests on a pregnant woman, and even killed a few souls. Never in a million years did I expect that they lived in homes, wore decent clothes, and had jobs on the island. When we first saw the Others, they were barefoot and in rags. They carried crude tools and were covered in dirt. In the 2nd season they were a far cry from the people we meet in the 3rd season. So not only are the viewers shocked to find out there is a city in the middle of the island, but the supposedly barbaric Others live in nice homes and hold book club meetings and live a normal life.
Until next time!
Post script:
Hey, sorry for dropping off the face of the planet for the last week. Have had a crazy busy schedule. I was attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in 31 days. I succeeded with 20 minutes to spare. The last 3 days of July were spent marathon writing - I typed over 20,000 words in those 3 days. But, here I am. I'm back and ready for more blogging! Let me apologize for my writing - I'm still in NaNoWriMo novel-ing mode and I'm just getting used to using contractions as well as only one 'and' or 'or' in an sentence that involves a list instead of many. If I slip, it's because of that.
But, to start the week off, I'm going to look at the season 3 opening episode of Lost - A Tale of Two Cities I believe the episode was called. It starts out, as you will see from the clip below, in a village with a woman named Juliet as she prepares for a book club meeting - we watch her get dressed, pull burning cookies out (and burn her hand), and then she with a group of people meet and discuss "Carrie" by Stephen King. Everything is ordinary until, Juliet's house starts shaking. They all run out into the street of a little town. Here, we see the leader of the infamous Others, Ben Linus (our villain), and Juliet look up at the sky as a plane crashes. Ben gives orders to a couple people to go investigate and see if there is any survivors, but all the while not getting involved and pretending to be a survivor. After he does, Ben sees the book Juliet chose (which he hates)and asks if he's out of the book club. With the next beat, the viewer gets a better shot of the town and then the camera pulls back so that we get to see that this city is in the middle of the forest on an island.
What makes the work so brilliantly is because we see that the Others are not just some cold-hearted monsters, as they were depicted in season 2 - they stole men, women, and children, did tests on a pregnant woman, and even killed a few souls. Never in a million years did I expect that they lived in homes, wore decent clothes, and had jobs on the island. When we first saw the Others, they were barefoot and in rags. They carried crude tools and were covered in dirt. In the 2nd season they were a far cry from the people we meet in the 3rd season. So not only are the viewers shocked to find out there is a city in the middle of the island, but the supposedly barbaric Others live in nice homes and hold book club meetings and live a normal life.
Until next time!
Post script:
Hey, sorry for dropping off the face of the planet for the last week. Have had a crazy busy schedule. I was attempting to write a 50,000 word novel in 31 days. I succeeded with 20 minutes to spare. The last 3 days of July were spent marathon writing - I typed over 20,000 words in those 3 days. But, here I am. I'm back and ready for more blogging! Let me apologize for my writing - I'm still in NaNoWriMo novel-ing mode and I'm just getting used to using contractions as well as only one 'and' or 'or' in an sentence that involves a list instead of many. If I slip, it's because of that.
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