Reversals and Ticking Clocks: or how to be Neo...

​It’s the end of the first Matrix film and Neo has reached a new level of being.  Instead of seeing the manufactured ‘reality’ around him, he can see the endless lines of computer code which create that reality.  He has evolved to read the structure which underpins his reality.

We’re not Neo, nor are we living in a computer simulation (no matter what the conspiracy theorists would have us believe).  But, as writers, we must start to see the ‘code’ which underlies every successful story so that we can make use of it to improve our own writing.

By code, I do not mean computer code but the structural elements which make stories work.  For stories are not just a random series of events.  Stories have shape and purpose and meaning so that they create a convincing and ultimately satisfying alternative reality for the reader.  Without this, the reader drifts, grows bored and, inevitably, stops reading.  A writer’s worst nightmare!

To enthral and engage, a story requires elements which will reach out and grab the reader so that s/he does not want to stop reading.  Any storyteller needs an armoury of such devices and must be ready to employ them at intervals throughout the story.  But, if they are too obvious, the magic is broken.  The reader sneers and turns away.  No, like Neo’s computer code, these elements must be integrated into the story so seamlessly that an inattentive reader may not even notice they are there.  But you, the writer, must learn to recognise when and how and why these elements are employed.

What are these magical elements?  These hooks which will bind the reader to your story?  Every genre has its own particular favourites.  Unrequited love in a romance.  Who murdered X? in a crime novel.  The race against time in a thriller.  All setting up an anxiety in the reader’s mind and the desire to know how things turn out.

There are other elements, less genre specific.  A favourite across many genres is: The Reversal.  The reader is led to suppose that one thing is true and then the opposite is revealed as the truth.  Agatha Christie uses this one all the time.  Possible spoiler alert: In the interests of not spoiling things too much, I will not be specific about which books she uses these devices in but, if you don’t want to know, please hop on to the next paragraph!  Agatha writes of the sequence of murders which actually conceal one, specific murder; of the murder not done by one but many killers; of the sidekick to the detective who is actually the murderer.

But reversals are just as useful in other genres.  Jane Austen, in Pride and Prejudice, sets up a brilliant one when she makes her two protagonists dislike each other before revealing that, in fact, they are a perfect match.  This works particularly well because she is not simply fooling the reader.  She makes her characters believe that they dislike one another.  They, too, are fooled into believing one thing and then have to switch mindset when they discover that the opposite is true.  Even better, several characters (Lizzie’s own father among them) are resistant to believing the new truth.  How true to life that is.  How clever the reader is made to feel because they now have a superior insight into the truth!  If you have ever flicked back through the pages of a book to reread passages in the light of a later discovery, chances are you’ve been hooked by a clever reversal.

A ‘ticking clock’ is another element of story telling which can transcend genres.  I have already mentioned its use in a thriller but any story can be energised with a simple time critical element.  Cinderella’s midnight chimes is a classic example.  The time limit in the film High Noon is another.  Back to Pride and Prejudice and we find a ticking clock in the race to find Lydia and Wickham after their unfortunate elopement - will the couple be found before the scandal breaks?  Can they be made to marry and so save her good name?

The classic ‘ticking clock’ is the countdown we see on screen as the bomb is discovered.  In reality, bomb makers do not feel a need to add a literal ticking clock but, in film, it is now a requirement.  James Bond films depend upon it for their box office takings.  Mission Impossible even incorporated a ‘ticking clock’ into its credits with the lit fuse searing its way across the screen.  And who can forget ‘This tape will self-destruct in 10 seconds’?

American episodic TV is particularly good at demonstrating these kind of story elements which hook a viewer.  They have to be good at it because in the USA ratings are all.  My favourite reversal is in the first ever episode of Scrubs, the medical sitcom, where the nervous new medical students discover that the ‘nice’ doctor is absolutely not interested in teaching them anything.  It’s the grumpy, angry doctor who is doing his best to make them understand what they have to do and be and become if they’re going to make it as doctors.  The one they’re all terrified off turns out to be the one who cares that they succeed.

 So, the next time you think you’ll give up on writing and try a little recreational TV - look out for the ways in which the episode lures you in and keeps you watching.  And, once you’ve spotted the ‘code’, have a think about how you could use it to add that magic element of ‘must keep reading’ to your writing.  And, like Neo, you will start to manipulate your fictional reality to suit your own purposes.

​Good luck and happy writing!
 

---