Have you ever been watching a movie, TV show, or even reading a book, and you were enjoying the story for a good part of the show, even most of it, and then something happens that makes you say, "No, no, that's not right!"
I mean, the story takes a twist, but instead of being a great twist, indicative of great writing, it makes you change your mind from liking or even loving the story to actually disliking or even hating the story. And that, to me, is indicative of BAD writing. Real bad writing.
Look at it this way. A writer has you hooked. You love the story. Then the writer, thinking he or she is a genius or something, takes the story in a completely different direction, and you just totally disagree with that direction because, well, for one thing it's not what you wanted to see happen. For another, it's not what you would have written. And bottom line, it's not what SHOULD have happened in that story.
This has happened to me more times than I can count. It's happened to me recently, too, with two of my favorite TV shows that are being aired right now. I won't mention them by name, but one of them seemed to fall in line with what seems to be "chic" with Hollywood these days, and that's all I'll say about that other than the fact that it just didn't work for this show or this type of story.
And the other one had the main character behave in a completely different way than we have come to know that character to behave and then on top of that, in this story anyway, the character is betrayed by a fellow character who would never have betrayed him or her.
You don't change a character's character, so to speak, and you don't force the current trend of what's "chic" onto a story that has no business having that particular trend in this particular storyline. It's just fake. Both things are fake. And for me both ruined those respective stories.
Btw, there's something else that can ruin a story for me. And that's giving it a bad ending. You can have a great story, a great build up, a great climax even, and then all of a sudden the end totally sucks. I don't want to watch a movie or read a book and then feel like crap when it's over. I'd rather feel good, and be glad I took the time to read or watch a story. If it's a bad ending, or a sad ending that didn't have to be a sad ending, then I feel ripped off.
One example of a great story that ended sadly that didn't have to end sadly was the movie Gladiator. Russell Crowe did not have to die in the end. I mean what was that all about? Why did they write it like that? He should have killed the emperor like he did, and then fade away into obscurity like Stephen Boyd did in The Fall of the Roman Empire. But they killed Russell Crowe for no reason. That was a lousy ending, imo.
Oh well. That's why I'm writing my own stories now. If you are a reader or a potential reader of any of my books, I can promise you this: you won't feel like crap at the ending of any of my stories. They will be uplifting and positive. That's what a story should be. imo.
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