When and how much to explain
Published by Deanna Hoak May 13th, 2008 in blogI was reminded of the movie I Am Legend today, which I’d seen a while back and mostly enjoyed despite what I considered a pretty big plot issue. (Does anyone know if they have the equivalent of copyeditors for movies? They really should.)
It seemed to me that if rats can get the disease (and they can–the protagonist is doing experiments on diseased rats), it would be impossible for there to still be human survivors. :-/ And that brings up an interesting point for viewers and readers: I don’t think most people want to have to come up with excuses for a serious story in order to take charge of suspending their own disbelief. (I’m not talking about having to explain something that’s clearly fantasy–I mean issues like this for which there is perhaps a logical explanation, but the viewers never see it.) So yes, we can assume that even though dogs in I Am Legend can get the disease, maybe it has to be somehow induced in rats. Or maybe there’s some other reason they haven’t taken over. Whatever it is, though, I have to come up with it myself in the course of the movie in order to suspend my own disbelief. I actually would have enjoyed the movie more with a nod toward whatever it was, though maybe that’s just me.
As a reader or viewer, what kind of issues do you want explained? As a writer, how much do you feel it’s fair to leave up to the reader to figure out? Some explanations will always exist only in the writer’s mind, but which should those be?
7 Responses to “When and how much to explain”
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I'm a freelance copyeditor specializing in fantasy and science fiction. SF/F novels I have copyedited have been finalists for (and have sometimes won) the Hugo, Nebula, Arthur C. Clarke, Golden Spur, John W. Campbell Memorial, Quill, Locus, Philip K. Dick, British Science Fiction, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy awards. In 2007 I was short-listed for a World Fantasy Award for my copyediting.
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As a rat owner, there’s plenty of diseases that can go back and forth between us, and plenty that can’t. I haven’t seen I am Legend yet, though.
But along the same lines, I always wondered if the zombie plague (from anything with bite-transferable zombie-ism) could be carried by mosquitoes. If so, we’re all doomed.
Within the movie, the protagonist is doing experiments on infected rats that he keeps in cages. From that point on, I wondered why rats hadn’t taken over. :-/
>> “(Does anyone know if they have the equivalent of copyeditors for movies? They really should.)”
Dear God! It’s true, it’s so very, very true…
Those kinds of movies have to simply ignore issues like that. For example, how could the lions and deer have survived? Those things were so powerful they could break through steel vault-like security doors, break bulletproof glass wih their foreheads, run long distances at what looked to be about 30mph, jump dozens of feet into the air, rip the walls of buildings and track human scent for miles (as long as a squirt of antiseptic is not used) yet the deer and lions live peacefully without any problems.
I also had lots of problems with how the woman survived, she mentioned being on a boat with others until someone turned, yet she doesn’t use the antiseptic, and seems to know where he lives.. perhaps she looked at his drivers license when she rescued him.
28 days later was another example, a bit better but still completely unrealistic. Birds regularly fly across the English Channel, anything that wiped out England would spread quickly unless 100,000 troops all stood on the edge of Europe shooting every bird. Probably ferocious rabid rats could swim across as well.
Although I haven’t seen either of the movies that have been discussed, “I am Legend” or “28 Days Later,” I think I know what you’re talking about. In the movie “Signs,” for example, the aliens die if they come into contact with water. Obviously Earth would not be in their travel plans because it contains some 70 % water, and humans are about 95% water. Besides, how would the aliens be alive in the first place, considering they’re not made of some substance that has no liquid in it. That movie just irritates me to no end.
But, to answer your question, I think the author can leave a lot to the reader’s imagination, as long as there aren’t any huge plot errors (like those mentioned above). There’s this poem called “My Papa’s Waltz,” that could be talking about either a playful experience between father and child or an abusive scene between the two. The poet (I can’t remember his name right now) leaves it up to the reader to decide. Every class I’ve been in that has read that poem has a different view on it, some classes give you evidence of horsing around, and then other classes make you believe the father is beating the kid. I don’t know which it is, but I like not knowing. There are some things that are better left to the imagination, and there are also some things that should be explained. I think it depends on the story/poem/movie.
Mark: I think they did explain briefly how the woman found his house, and I was able to write off her survival as a religious miracle by the way the movie was framed at the end, though I really didn’t like having to do so. The survival of so many animals did seem implausible, though.
Holly: Yeah, I don’t personally like big plot holes. I can still enjoy the movie or book in the moment even when they’re there, but it generally spoils the long-term enjoyment for me. (I looked up that poem, by the way, since I wasn’t familiar with it. I definitely go for the horsing around reading but with a deliberate attempt on the part of the author to use words traditionally associated with abuse. Thanks for mentioning the poem–I enjoyed it.)
I also hate big plot holes. A few years ago, there was a television series called Seven Days. I watched it for at least one season, maybe two (we didn’t have cable so choice was limited).
The protagonist could, by riding in a time-traveling sphere. go back in time–exactly seven days into the past. The sphere was sent into the past by members of a scientific team who would then, out of the blue, get a call from the chrononaut seven days before his departure (am I making sense?). Then they’d all work together to stop whatever crisis had caused them to power up the time travel sphere in the first place.
Now I don’t think I caught the first couple of episodes of this show, so perhaps my plot hole was actually covered during that time, but here it is: how is it that every single time they sent the sphere into the past didn’t seem–to them–like the very first time they’d done so?