The Art of a Prequel

As time progresses and the entertainment industry slowly runs out of ideas, the notion of prequels has begun losing consumer appeal. What was once a creative alternative to sequels, spin-offs and...well...brand new stories with unique characters is becoming a surefire last resort for those wishing to cash in on established success. While prequels have much to offer when done well, more often than not they are carelessly put together and the end result is lackluster. This is partially due to heavy reliance on fan knowledge and support, and largely due to writing backwards being less forgiving than writing forwards. To write a good prequel, one must be talented in all the ways he or she would write any engaging story. However, they must do so with even more limitations, awareness, and demand for surprise.

Time is the writer's primary confines. Care must be taken to maintain accuracy and continuity with previous lore (future events) without threatening to alter thresholds in the timeline. The timelines themselves can pose a problem if significant historical events that were previously alluded to are neglected, or if such events are created for the sake of current plot and are then, chronologically, wiped from future lore via character ignorance.

Another issue of time is settling on the start of it. Going backward from a point, the writer only has so large a window to create a compelling tale (assuming the character is human) before an overlap or parallel occurs. The focus, then, is locating the exact moment in a character's life wherein she becomes interesting. From here it is a matter of creating a series of events to aid in a reverse-arc. The original character is dissected, mangled, and ran through the gamut (figuratively, and at times, literally!) to make sure it undergoes enough change to be considered dynamic and interesting...yet winds up in exactly the same state her future self. In essence, we have to uncreate a character backward.

New characters must also be introduced with caution and their influence monitored. Importance must be such that their existence is crucial to current story progression, but not so much that their absence in future events would go unnoticed or unmentioned by the main character. There are obvious solutions for characters who fail to make appearances later on, solutions which many readers and viewers see coming a mile away. This is an inevitable technical flaw. Concerns should lie in two places specifically: allowing new characters to have an impact in the current story, and making their impact resound in future events. This could be adopted vernacular or mannerisms, skill sets, scars, trinkets and items, or memories. For these reasons, it is a good idea to have every character's history in mind—where they've been, who they've known, what they've done—despite in what order said character appears in the chronology.

Perhaps the biggest technical flaw of all is regard (or lack thereof) for the main character's safety. The audience already knows our character survives to take place in future events. Why, therefore, should they be concerned at all for her health and well-being? For all intents and purposes, the character is immune from death and her success, in one form or another, is guaranteed. This is where strong character building and storytelling come into play, and also where many prequels fall short.

Rather than manifesting a literal theme park and throwing beloved characters on a series of rides to thrill the audience, the writer cannot be lazy and forsake one of the most important rules: Make the reader CARE. To do this, sometimes the character has to be reinvented from the ground up. Her path to the state of mind in future exploits must consist of more than petty action sequences and memorable (or not-so-memorable) dialogue. It must consist of very real emotional struggles, impossible decisions, forged friendships and severed bonds. The audience must be forced to forget that our character survives her obstacles...and one of the best ways to do this is by reminding them of that character's humanity through loss, suffering, and physical pain.

So long as we can relate to and feel something for a character, the mere fact that they survive becomes a moot point before long. By that time, it will become clear that the character does not arrive at her future incarnation physically or emotionally unscathed.

On "Dumbing it Down"

I don't do it so often anymore, but occasionally I will look back at my old short stories, poems, and the first draft of A&E and marvel at how far my writing has come over the last decade. With age, experience and reading I have managed to improve upon many things that have strengthened me as a writer while coming into my own personal style. Learning new words, new techniques, experimentation. All of these are a part of development. And thanks to a few courses in creative writing, I learned how to trim down my prose when I became too wordy. I've finally reached a point where I am confident in my abilities as a writer, yet I still struggle with one aspect of feedback that I receive constantly: the issue of dumbing it down.

Like most commentary, my initial reaction is to take it with a grain of salt. When someone says that something doesn't make sense, I have to balance the possibility of my not having explained it thoroughly against an individual's capacity to solve, interpret or deduce. Additionally, personal opinions and tastes play a large role in a reader's feedback. As a result, suggestions are not always objective, neutral critiques. What flags a comment in my mind is having heard the same complaint or suggestion several times before. This says to me, "Hey Sean, maybe you're doing something wrong!" To which I reply, "Perhaps I should take a closer look." And so I do. This has also made me a stronger writer.

But I seem to have hit a wall where I am unable or unwilling to compromise.

After a bit of research I have learned that most publications, be them magazines, newspapers or novels, are written between a fifth- and eighth-grade level because it maximizes readability by the widest margin of people. Obviously, the easier something is to read, the more people in theory can and will read it. (Movies focus on the PG-13 rating for this same reason.) It makes sense, of course. But I also have to consider the publications that do not subscribe to this philosophy. I have to consider the literary geniuses throughout history who didn't care about "maximizing sales" but instead focused on being original and creating a masterpiece. Even if it meant only a precious few would understand or appreciate it. Even if it meant that they would be long dead before their genius became fully realized.

My concern: How is an author's style defined, and at what point does an oversimplification of prose infringe upon this? I worry because I have worked hard to get my writing where it is. I work hard to write elegantly and intelligently without seeming pretentious or verbose. Yet still, most of my work goes over people's heads. And I know it's not my stories because the incident isn't limited to fiction. My articles, blogs and essays have all had the same effect. I want more than anything to be read and understood and appreciated by the masses, but is establishing myself as an author worth putting on hold the heart and soul of my writing? Are the words I choose and the order in which I use them not the very things that set me apart from another writer? By changing these words to smaller ones or using fewer of them solely for the purpose of increasing their readability, am I...really strengthening my writing, or am I just conforming to the modern paradigm that entertainment should be easily--nigh mindlessly absorbed?

Don't get me wrong. I value ease just as much as the next person. But I also value having the option of various levels or types or degrees of difficulty in whatever I'm doing. (Video games get this right. There is a reason why developers often include hard or outright ridiculous modes to play through.) People--gamers, at least--enjoy challenge. Ergo, being as my target audience largely consists of gamers anyway, I have to believe that people want this same choice when it comes to literature. I mean, do people really want to read 300 pages of sentences consisting of five one- or two-syllable words ALL the time? "John ran to the kitchen. He picked up the phone." /headdesk

Again, nothing wrong with the format, or even the level of writing. What has begun to irk me, however, is the intolerance shown toward writing above the average level of readability. At one point it was acceptable to have varying degrees of difficulty when it came to literature. Now, everyone seems to want easy, easy, easy. On the off-chance that someone tells me why they cannot read my writing through to the end, they usually say something like, "It's too hard," or "I don't want to have to think." Well, why not? Has thinking become so difficult that we can no longer bear the thought of it? What happened to challenging ourselves? What happened to broadening our vocabulary and strengthening our grasp of the English language? Tabloids happened. Reality TV happened. The desire to absorb rather than interpret happened. And the editors, publishers and producers let it happen. We demanded, and they supplied.

And it is possible, too, that the artists, the musicians, the writers are to blame as well. It is possible that when faced with the ultimatum of "dumb it down so we can sell it, or get out" that we commonly take the former option in favor of getting published, finding fame, reaping riches, and so on. The latter option is an exercise in faith, but it is also a stance of principle. To walk away from a surefire deal to preserve one's creative doctrines shows a confidence beyond the money-centric ideology that seems to have afflicted most forms of personal expression. We sacrifice ourselves all too often because we equate the deal, the job, the gig, the contract, the check, to success. We allow those things to validate us despite having diluted who we are and what we create. The proverbial endgame, therefore, has become more a matter of winning favoritism and less one of having something unique or inspiring to offer.

Do we cheapen our methods of self expression by selling them? Of course not. There's nothing wrong with putting a pricetag on one's work. But I do believe that whatever message we are trying to convey as artists is weakened by manipulating and distorting and fine-tuning it to fit inside the perfectly average box so that everyone can perceive it the exact same way. Requisites for interpretive skills, for drawing conclusions, for questioning what we take in, have been relegated into virtual non-existence because everything is constantly spelled out for us! There is little room to inquire, "What about those things?" before someone replies, "There are no other things, save for what we have presented. Nothing exists outside of the box we have drawn for you."

We are supposed to accept this. And I believe most are so conditioned to soaking up like a sponge whatever is poured into their entertainment bowls that they've forgotten how to demand more and instead settle for shallow things...not out of preference, but out of a lack of any other choice! So I'm here to give it to them. And if it takes winning over readers, agents, editors and publishers one by one, then sobeit. The world has plenty of mindless garbage to absorb. But whatever the case, I have absolutely no intention of selling out.

Do I speak from experience? Have I refused a year's salary or more because I'm too stubborn to write "can't" instead of "cannot"? No. My decree, as it were, is one of intent...and it states that my creative integrity will not buckle beneath the pressure of corporate demand and monetary incentive! It will not cater to indifference, to a lack of curiosity or initiative, to those wishing to keep one eye on the prose and the other on the television. My work is not meant to be read on autopilot; as such, I cannot expect everyone to enjoy it. Even those with an affinity for harder and heavier reading won't enjoy it. And that's okay. I still subscribe to the notion that literature is more than a frivolous means of entertaining. It is also an artform. Art...is subject to interpretation, and that's precisely what we could be doing more often. Interpreting...

Instead of absorbing.