The Value of Watching Bad Movies

blogger: Cynthia Ruchti

Hunkered down before it was mandated–due to a virus without a fancy, recognizable name–I’ve been watching a lot of free movies online. Some of them were poorly written, directed, or acted, but I kept watching. On purpose. Not just because it took a lot of energy to click on that little X in the upper righthand corner, but because knowing what makes a bad movie bad can also help inform what makes a good movie good.

The same principles often apply to what makes a good book worth reading or why a writer would push through to keep reading a bad book for educational purposes.

What’s the value of watching bad movies? What can we learn?

Hook ’em early

Granted, in the past, when we didn’t have an almost infinite number of distraction and entertainment opportunities available to us, authors could afford to let their stories languidly wander into the interesting part. Writing instructors used to advise that an author capture the reader’s attention within the first three chapters. Today’s reader will not wait that long.

We risk the reader setting the book aside as not worth their time if the author doesn’t hook the reader in the first scene or on the first page. Even better? With the first sentence.

Does the book have to start with an explosion or a meteor hurtling toward planet earth? A judge’s gavel? Prairie fire? The final beep of the heart monitor?

No. It can even begin with setting if the setting is evocative, a portend of things to come, with a word picture or other image that hints at the conflict or relationship tension or emotional draw of the story.

“Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?” He kissed her on the cheek, as usual. A nano-second of affection.

Ella surveyed the leftover cake, drooping balloons, and abandoned party hats. Without turning to her husband, she said, “Your last chance to be a hero for your son.”

So that’s what an eviction notice looks like. Tanya assumed it would be fluorescent orange or otherwise gaudy and harsh. She hadn’t expected a plain white piece of paper with the city’s letterhead and blank spaces filled in for her mandatory departure date. A form letter. As impersonal as had been her termination notice. But what did a whistleblower expect? Flowers and a parade?

Can you see the hints of what’s to come in both of the above examples?

Imagine a reader with somewhere in the neighborhood of 150,000,000 book options. (That might be an underestimate, considering there were 130,000,000 unique books published in the world as of 2018.) That’s why it’s important to hook your reader early.

Keep ’em turning pages

What’s the value of watching bad movies? I was reminded of what makes dull viewing, or dull reading. Have you noticed any of these in your movie viewing or reading?

• Scenes that are basically a repeat or rehash of the previous scene(s)
• Dialogue that flatlines, no highs and lows
• A crisis that doesn’t get worse or show hope of improving. Same crisis. Yup, pretty much in the same place in this next chapter, too.
• A misunderstanding on which the entire plot hinges. If only the hero didn’t let the heroine walk off-stage knowing she misunderstood what he said!
• Awkward transitions. Where are we now? Is this 1890 or 2010? How could that previous chapter’s crisis press pause while the characters chat about next summer’s vacation plans? Isn’t their child still missing? Would detectives really take a time out to talk about their growing love for one another while ready to breach the criminal’s hideout in the mountains?
• (fiction or nonfiction) Redundancy that simply repeats but adds no additional insight, angle, or hope. (We got it the first time you said it.)

Viewers and readers have options. They’re not obligated to keep watching the movie, or reading your article, blog post, or book if it falls apart or fizzles. Keep ’em turning pages.

What’s the value of watching bad movies? To remind ourselves of the pinch points in a story’s believability.

Keep it real

When a book or movie makes a reader do an eye-roll because of a believability faux pas, it can move the reader or viewer to abandon the entire project. Because they’re too picky for words? (Get it?) Not necessarily. It’s more likely because both nonfiction and fiction depend heavily on believability.

Even in fantasy or futuristic tales, believability factors into good storytelling. If humans no longer greet each other with handshakes, why not? If they survive on Mars for years with no food supply, how is that possible?

I watched a movie where an older woman walked eighty miles to get to her granddaughter’s wedding. One factor almost made me stop watching, if I weren’t in research mode. The entire trip, the character walked on the wrong side of the highway. She didn’t face oncoming traffic, which is the safest way to walk on the shoulder of a highway. She walked in the direction of the traffic, so she could not see any vehicle that came up behind her.

Small detail not worth mentioning? Didn’t make a difference? Ah, but it did. It lessened my enjoyment of the story. I could believe that she might not have known on which side she was supposed to walk. It was not believable that no one, not even law enforcement, would have informed her.

What’s the value of watching bad movies? To keep us from writing bad movies or books.

Keep learning

Have you noticed storytelling elements (other than violence, bad language, or gratuitous elements) that make you want to reach for the remote or lay aside the book? Think of examples (without naming the author, book, or movie) that might help writers reading this blog enhance their own writing.

What can we do to make our books unputdownable?