Have you ever read the book Great Expectations by Charles Dickens? If you have then you are familiar with the anticipation with which a young Pip dreams about the day when he will come into a good fortune. He abandons his training as a blacksmith and embarks on a journey to establish himself as a proper gentleman, but through the course of the story the fortune that he has set his heart on is removed from his grasp before he has the chance to enjoy it and he must pick up the pieces of his shattered expectations.
You and I are a lot like Pip. We see the cover of a book or a trailer for a film and we are intrigued by the possibilities of the story that lies inside, but sadly there are times when what started out to be so promising ends up being sorely disappointing. Why is that?
There are a lot of reasons why a book or film could fall flat: Bad casting in a movie, weak prose, information overload, but one of the main reasons we come away unsatisfied is because promises that were made at the beginning were not kept or our expectations were set to lead us to believe that the piece was something other than what it is.
Here is an example.
I remember watching trailers for Disney Pixar’s movie Brave. I was excited for a film that took place in old Scotland and the prospect of following this spunky redheaded fireball, but what I came to expect out of the movie based on the trailers wasn’t what I got; granted it is possible that I missed the point the trailers were trying to make but based on the lower popularity of this particular film — which really is pretty good — I don’t think I was the only one who was confused.
If you remember the trailers were kind of vague with talk about changing your fate, wanting freedom from responsibility and magic. My thoughts were along the lines of ‘Cool this is going to be a story about a girl who goes on an epic journey to discover herself, she’ll face dangerous obstacles, will learn a valuable lesson that will either make her want to return home or become the woman she was meant to be out in the world oh and there will be magic involved.’ I didn’t expect that the actual story would be more of a family drama focusing on a mother and daughter learning how to respect and appreciate one another and mending the bonds of friendship. Like I said great story but not one I was expecting.
This is why it is important to make sure that you establish very quickly what kind of story you are writing. If I read the first scene Marissa Meyers book Cinder I will see a young woman in a crowded Chinese market fixing her cybernetic foot. From this I know the setting, and I also know that this is going to be a futuristic story with technology that we do not currently have. The first line of Brandon Sanderson’s Alcatraz Verses the Evil Librarians paints a picture of Alcatraz being tied to an alter made of encyclopedias about to be sacrificed by a bunch of Evil Librarians which tells me from the tone and the circumstances that these books are going to be a bit absurd and funny than some of his more serious works.
So when you are writing your story be sure to check and see what promises you are making. If you say there are magical creatures swarming all over the forest and then your heroes trek through the wilderness for days without a single encounter with a monster you might want to rethink either or description of the forest or you need to throw some creatures at your little band which lets face it is a lot more fun.
Hopefully this post is what you expected it would be and more importantly hopefully it was at least a little bit helpful. If you want to learn more about keeping promises to your readers I’d suggest looking up some of the writing excuses podcasts with Brandon Sanders, Dan Wells, Howard Taylor and Mary-Robinette Kowal. They are a lot better at explaining this stuff than I am and their website is amazing!
