[One thing I've noticed that often gets me is incongruity]
Yes! That, I think, is a really good point – especially because incongruity is more conceptually interesting than congruity. It's like those tests that people did with object permanence, how if you show someone – a child old enough to have the concept ingrained, an animal smart enough to – an object, then obscure it, then remove the obscuring object, sooner or later they'll stop paying attention. But if you remove the object while it's hidden, suddenly the interest skyrockets.
...there was a piece of advice Chuck Palahniuk brought up, at one point, which contrasted two conversations something like this:
John: What kind of curtains to you want? I think the green ones would coordinate with the wallpaper nicely.
Mary: Maybe, but I think the cream curtains would offset the colors well.
Compared to:
John: What kind of curtains to you want? I think the green ones would coordinate with the wallpaper nicely.
Mary: I want a divorce.
The point he was making had to do specifically with dialogue; that you can ramp up interest and tension by not having the topic tennisball back and forth predictably but rather by interrupting it and sending it off in another direction by not answering each line explicitly. But I think it hits on that broader pattern, too: unexpected things generate more interest.
•ponders•
[The heroine meets a playboy type with a flashy car, and while he's showing off his flashy car, he knocks over a fruit stand and spills all the fruit ... and then stops and helps the old lady pick it up again. And I thought, awwww! I like this guy! -- and then the next chapter it turned out he's the murder victim and the "hero" is actually some jerkass who is a dick to the heroine, and I metaphorically threw the book across the room and swore never to read anything else by that author. XD]
XD Awww. I feel your frustration. I feel it a lot.
...I am not really in Teen Wolf fandom, but from what I've seen of the series, and from what I've seen of the fandom, I feel like the most wildly popular character isn't the main character, but his best friend Stiles. Which makes a lot of sense to me. Because Stiles has this fantastically odd relationship with pretty much everyone, and he and his father are adorable and a little breaky and brilliant, and he's so mush less trope than Romantic Angst Plot Scott.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2014-03-13 07:05 am (UTC)Yes! That, I think, is a really good point – especially because incongruity is more conceptually interesting than congruity. It's like those tests that people did with object permanence, how if you show someone – a child old enough to have the concept ingrained, an animal smart enough to – an object, then obscure it, then remove the obscuring object, sooner or later they'll stop paying attention. But if you remove the object while it's hidden, suddenly the interest skyrockets.
...there was a piece of advice Chuck Palahniuk brought up, at one point, which contrasted two conversations something like this:
Compared to:
The point he was making had to do specifically with dialogue; that you can ramp up interest and tension by not having the topic tennisball back and forth predictably but rather by interrupting it and sending it off in another direction by not answering each line explicitly. But I think it hits on that broader pattern, too: unexpected things generate more interest.
•ponders•
[The heroine meets a playboy type with a flashy car, and while he's showing off his flashy car, he knocks over a fruit stand and spills all the fruit ... and then stops and helps the old lady pick it up again. And I thought, awwww! I like this guy! -- and then the next chapter it turned out he's the murder victim and the "hero" is actually some jerkass who is a dick to the heroine, and I metaphorically threw the book across the room and swore never to read anything else by that author. XD]
XD Awww. I feel your frustration. I feel it a lot.
...I am not really in Teen Wolf fandom, but from what I've seen of the series, and from what I've seen of the fandom, I feel like the most wildly popular character isn't the main character, but his best friend Stiles. Which makes a lot of sense to me. Because Stiles has this fantastically odd relationship with pretty much everyone, and he and his father are adorable and a little breaky and brilliant, and he's so mush less trope than Romantic Angst Plot Scott.