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It's Time To Put The Spoon Down

Screenwriters, studio executives, show runners and even novelists, agents and publishers, to a certain extent, have, in recent years come under the mistaken belief that their audience is stupid. That has become blatantly apparent in the way a lot of written and visual media is being delivered to the audience.

Things like nuance, subtlety and delayed satisfaction have become akin to forbidden territory, because there is a belief that the audience isn't smart enough to understand it. And because of that, this trend of spoon-feeding information to the audience has become the norm. It's almost as if these people view their audiences in the same way they would a 5-year-old child. They imagine their audience asking non-stop questions about every single aspect that they're seeing, in real-time.

Star Wars example, based only on the opening crawl:

"How long ago is 'a long, long time ago', and how far away is 'far, far away'?"

"What's a civil war?"

"A hidden base? Hidden where?"

"What makes the Galactic Empire evil?"

"Why's it called the Death Star?"

"What's Leia the princess of? Does she have a castle?"

"How did she get the stolen plans? Was she one of the rebel spies?"

"Who are her people? Are they the ones who used to rule the galaxy before the Empire?"


If you've ever been around a child machine-gunning questions like that at you and wanted to just say, "Just sit down and wait, you'll find out." (or you've found yourself thinking something along the lines of "For the love of GOD! Just shut up and watch the damn movie!"), then you're probably one of those people who has grown sick and tired of media producers feeling the need to spoon-feed everything to you.


When we grow up, we realize that instant gratification is not something we should expect all the time. There's a reason why, during a speech or presentation, you often hear the phrase, "Please hold all questions until the presentation is over." It prevents people from feeling dumb when they interrupt to ask a question only for the answer to come in the original presentation soon afterward. When it comes to entertainment, whether it be a movie, a TV show or a novel, more often than not, the answers to those questions eventually come, in one way or another. All of the questions are not going to be answered in the first episode, first act or first few chapters. If anything, those are where the new questions are likely going to be created in the highest concentration. The answers to those questions come with time. And that comes with patience.


Are there impatient and needy audience members out there? Of course. There always are. But they certainly don't represent the vast majority of viewers and readers out there who understand that getting to the answers takes time, and part of the fun is trying to figure out the answers along the way, and eventually seeing whether or not your suspicions were right. That is especially true when it comes to a variety of genres in novels. It would be a waste of 300+ pages of a mystery novel if the first few pages of the first chapter spoiled everything. And it would be equally as bad if everything was so dumbed down that the answers became blatantly obvious before the story really even starts.


The audience is smarter than these people give them credit for. It's time to recognize that and put the spoon away. Your audience will thank you.

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