Mad Max

I've been thinking about writing since I saw Mad Max: Fury Road. By which I mean I've been wondering about what writers might learn from it.

I've never been big on the idea that books are better than movies. I don't even default to the idea that a movie based on a book is worse than the book, because I think the two media are different, and do different things. And both of them are Art, and Art is Yay, and we should all want more of it.

And the thing that Fury Road had -- pretty much the only thing it had, if we're really being honest -- was the world it created. And not just that it created, but that it revealed with visuals and with vague hints that the audience somehow understood. (I recall reading somewhere that the movie was intended to be understood without dialogue at all, and that there is actually a silent cut of it. I am not sure if that's true, but I find it plausible.)

I have to admit I got a lot of the detail and nuance from the fandom, and might have missed some of it if I hadn't seen it spelled out. But that's actually what I've been thinking about, and what I want to say.

"Show, don't tell" is something every writer hears ten thousand times. And it's good advice. Very often it's more clear than we might realize it is what a character actually intends, or where in the world they are going, or what they actually mean to do. And Fury Road took this to an intense and magical extreme. It dropped you right in the middle of things and left you to figure out, along with the title character, just what the hell was going on.

But -- I may be damning myself here, but I think there are also times that doesn't work, even didn't work in that movie. I knew how the whole blood donor deal worked because I'd read fandom meta beforehand. I'm not at all sure how quickly I would have caught on otherwise. I found myself wondering, as I sat there, if I'd love it as much as I did if I hadn't gone in with a bit of a cheat-sheet read behind me. (The person who went with me enjoyed it as well, but remarked about how confusing it was. And when I started pointing out nuances -- most of which I caught on to because I'd heard about them already -- he was surprised.)

Which leads me to: I think that when you're writing, at least, as opposed to making a movie, you've got more time to show off your world, in more detail. And I think sometimes that means not only that you can allow yourself the luxury of explaining how things work. Maybe even that you're better off doing that, every now and again. Not every description of technical things in your world is going to be dry.

I think sometimes we take the -- common maxims that all writers hear, and elevate them into a weird kind of gospel. Show don't tell is the big one, and I almost feel like I don't dare pick at it, but when I was younger there were others: Don't use cliches. Use active, exciting verbs. (And the corollary to that last which seems to have fallen out of favor: Don't use "said.")

And I remember feeling like I wanted to do those things. Especially using cliches. I wanted to write whole elaborate tales that would gloriously justify whatever trope or trite little sentence I wanted to use.

And I think that's because -- there are rules, and there are reasons they exist (okay, except the stupid "said" one.) But they don't exist because it's categorically wrong to write certain things. They exist because if you're not aware of them, your writing is more lifeless.

But if you are aware of them, you can ask yourself things like, "Do I want my readers to see the scaffolding of my world? Do I want them to lose themselves exploring its intricacies, like someone playing a side-quest in a game, before I gently shepherd them back to Plot?

"Or do I want to toss them into glorious chaos, with a band of creepy-looking War Boys running after them?"