I already have most of an outline for NaNoWriMo; if it comes down to it, I know what I’ll be writing. My main problem is Sintel, the movie that made me cry for the first time in eighteen months, showed me what a plot twist can do, and, in ten minutes, made me care more for its characters and outcome than I have about most things in a while.
The Sintel Effect
I hate Sintel the way I hate . . . well, I’m going to coin another of my handy phrases. During my Let’s Read of Heir to the Empire, I coined ‘Dan Brown Moment’, in which an aspiring writer discovers material (such as Dan Brown’s writing ‘style’) that is so bad, and yet near-universally accepted and loved, that the writer takes it as encouragement.
This, however, is something to which I will henceforth refer as the Sintel Effect: When an aspiring writer discovers material (other than Sintel, Inception comes to mind) that is so good that said writer wants to give up.
I’d like to say that since seeing Inception back in August or so, I’ve dissected what I liked about it and applied its narrative philosophy to my own writing. However, I didn’t put much thought into it, and will have to re-watch it before I can try.
However, I just saw Sintel three days ago. The wound is scabbed over but still fresh in my memory; I think I might be able to tackle this.
Let’s Examine Sintel
WARNING: This dissection will contain spoilers for Sintel. If you have not seen it yet, go watch Sintel on YouTube for free, as the creators want you to. It’s 15 minutes long and 100% worth your time. You will thank me.
Seriously, though, if you continue to read this article without having seen Sintel, and you spoil the ending for yourself, you will regret it forever.
Saw it?
Good, I was getting tired of typing in bold.
On the Writing Excuses podcast, they often talk about two important, reader-related topics:
- Setting up audience expectations
- Making promises to the audience
Let’s take these one at a time, since they’re relevant to this topic. First, expectations.
In Sintel, there are a lot of tropes at play. A girl adopts an adorable, injured baby dragon and nurses it back to health, said baby dragon is kidnapped, girl sets off on a quest to rescue her new friend, girl survives dangers because, hey, she’s the main character (being a young girl doesn’t matter then), girl gets into epic battle with evil dragon, girl saves her friend and we get a happy ending.
The funny thing about tropes is that they’re like expectation shortcuts. You see the one dude at King Arthur’s table with a deformed face and straggly hair, and he’s voiced by Gary Oldman, and you know he’s the bad guy. The movie tells you a lot without having to tell you anything. Done wrong, it’s cheap and silly; done right, and it causes your own brain to set you up for a momentous prank.
See, a lot of the tropes are played straight. The girl adopts the adorable baby dragon and it takes to her immediately; it’d be croaking ‘mama!’ if it really wanted to lay it on thick. Instead, the movie stays subtle, only showing you the bare basics of what you need to see and what its timeframe can support. Only one shot stands out in my mind, and it’s the shot on the poster: Sintel reaching for the baby dragon, both of them afraid of each other, but both in need of friendship and help. That’s beautiful right there, and it sets up the audience’s expectation for the film:
Sintel and Scales will be lifelong friends.
However, once the baby dragon is happy and flying, it is kidnapped by a huge, evil-looking dragon. My first thought was that it’s the dragon’s mother, but the baby looks so scared and helpless and being taken away from her that Sintel assumes this is kidnapping and rushes off to rescue him.
Sintel is going to rescue Scales in the end.
We see her on her quest as she travels through bamboo forests and across deserts of sand and snow. The first scene of the film features her fighting off an attacker on a mountaintop, a feat we easily attribute to Sintel being 1) the main character, and 2) a scrappy teenaged orphan.
Sintel is a resourceful, slightly overpowered teenager AND Sintel is the classic Quest character who pushes through all obstacles through sheer weight of the narrative.
At last, she reaches the lair of the evil dragon and sees it rending flesh from a carcass. Off in the shadows, she sees a baby dragon resting.
The huge dragon she meets is the same one who kidnapped Scales AND The baby dragon is Scales.
While Scales escapes, Sintel battles the dragon.
Scales is running away because it knows Sintel can fight and protect it AND The evil dragon wants to keep Scales to itself.
And then, by an identifying scar and the pleading look on the huge dragon’s face (harkening back to the earlier, powerful scene), Sintel realizes that the dragon is Scales, grown-up now and with a baby dragon of its own.
The huge dragon she meets is the same one who kidnapped Scales AND The baby dragon is Scales. Scales is running away because it knows Sintel can fight and protect it AND The evil dragon wants to keep Scales to itself.
In a gathering pool of Scales’ blood, Sintel sees her reflection and realizes that she has aged decades while questing. Her prowess wasn’t built on luck or pluck, but on experience and skill.
Sintel is a resourceful, slightly overpowered teenager AND Sintel is the classic Quest character who pushes through all obstacles through sheer weight of the narrative.
As she realizes this, the dragon dies.
Sintel is going to rescue Scales in the end. Sintel and Scales will be lifelong friends.
In about thirty seconds, almost every expectation in the audience’s mind is not only demolished, but cruelly so. Which brings me to the second thing the Writing Excuses crew like: Making promises to the audience.
While wailing after watching this movie, I stuttered out to my roommate, “I t-th-thought it w-was going to b-be like H-How to Train your D-DRAAAAAGON!” Stop laughing. We’re being serious here.
Part of this particular promise was very meta. ‘Child adopts dragon’ stories such as How to Train Your Dragon establish a great trope: If an adult of a reptilian species is vicious and cruel, go find a baby or an injured one (in Sintel, both are the case) and your love and care will turn them to you and make them your loyal best friend. Happy endings for everybody!
The entire first ten minutes of the movie scream, “THE GIRL GOES ON A QUEST AND RESCUES HER FRIEND AND THEY ALL LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER.” Every jaded troper alive is sitting back and admiring the animation, too sure in their (my) assessment of the plot to notice the subtle clues or question the things that don’t fit.
When Sintel gets to the dragon’s cave, warning bells go off in my head because ‘Scales’ is sleeping and safe. Hasn’t it been kidnapped? Shouldn’t it be cowering in a corner? Ah, well, I attribute this nervousness to the tension of the scene, as Sintel creeps stealthily past the enormous adult dragon.
How to Write a Twist
Which brings me to the point: How do you subvert expectations without giving yourself away?
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, as an example, NO I WILL NEVER ACTUALLY WRITE THIS, I wanted to take Twilight and, using the assumptions now drilled into the perfectly empty heads of teenaged girls everywhere, screw with some heads. What are the expectations set by the book and now ingrained in the fans’ minds?
- Edward is a powerful, bad-ass vampire.
- Edward and Bella fall in love and become devoted to each other in the end.
- When the evil vampires show up, all the vampires are going to get into a fight.
Let’s work with those three for now. Then, let’s assume the story plays out normally for the first three-quarters of the book. Then, we need to subvert all three. Here are the first subversions that come to mind:
- Since Edward devolving into a weak, simpering idiot wouldn’t be so much fun (I speak for myself; I don’t like horribly weak characters), I would have him negated by some kind of normal vampire weakness, like, oh I don’t know, garlic.
- It is revealed that Edward never actually loved Bella, and was ‘playing with his food’ before eventually feeding on her and killing her. (I would add that he wants to rape her, but I’m trying to cut all the raping from my writing, at least for a while. Call it a rape diet.) Maybe this is why he gets hit with his weakness: Because Bella is defending herself.
- Just then, an even more evil vampire appears and wants to kill them both — Bella for food, Edward to lessen competition, or for fun. Bella uses her wits (in this new book, she has wits) to kill the vampire. Edward recovers, sees that she inadvertently saved his life, and grudgingly agrees to leave Forks and not harm her.
If you want to continue the series after that, FOCUS ON THE ****ING WEREWOLVES.
If you were skillful enough with the setup of the romance, its subversion (in a scene in which Edward tries to feed on Bella) would come at the reader as a betrayal. Bella’s subsequent badassery and cunning (after a book full of hints that she’s capable on her own and being held back by the amorous Edward) would buy cheers.
What does the formula come down to?
- Find the expectations to plant in your readers’ heads
- Plan a climactic scene as it would play out if your readers’ expectations were right
- During the story, drop clues sparingly, making the reader think they’re coming to these conclusions on their own and that they ‘get’ your story
- Very occasionally, and with the lightest brush, hint that things aren’t as they seem, but only at times when the clue can either be lost in the shuffle or attributed to something else (this is so that readers can’t complain that your twist comes out of nowhere)
- Write the climactic scene with no more veiling of the truth (opposite/subversion of the expectations)
- Never gloat; only show glances of the truth, just enough so the reader understands just how hard they’ve been mentally assraped
- Get out quickly afterward, end the story while the reader is still stunned and demanding answers
How do you know if you’ve failed? When your reader gets to the end of the story, you never want them to get to the twist and blurt, “What? That’s stupid.” You want them to reel back, smack themselves in the forehead, and cry out, “How did I not see that coming?” I’m most proud of the twist that caused my roommate to stop reading, slowly turn toward me, stare at me for a solid minute, and then begin shouting, “F@#$ YOU. F@#$ YOU.”
I’m going to try out this formula with my NaNoWriMo project. I hope that saying so hasn’t already spoiled it for you. I also hope that you find this formula handy in the future.
About Fiona Canteberry
A novelist from northwest Arkansas, Fiona's range of topics include writing, tropes, and self-improvement. She goes by 'FekketCantenel' online.
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jeez, that is one great post. You’ve just helped me polish my story. Thanks!!! Btw, “How to train your dragon” made me cry too, and so did Wall-E.
Thanks! How’d you find the article, anyway?
That was an absolutely amazing review and article. It really inspired me to writing some more.
My reaction to Sintel was the exact same, and you capture that feeling perfectly with your description.
Also, if you wonder how people find your article, It does have quite a high rank on google searches. I guess people who watch Sintel and go searching for answers because of the ending (of the movie) eventually end up here…
And you provide the answer to the most important questions of them all – how could we be so surprised over a plot twist in a 15 minute short and why does it provoke a reaction as emotional as this?
I think you just had to write this article to cope with your own surprise over Sintel’s plot… otherwise it would be impossile to feel in control over this kind of entertainment.
I has a google? :D Awesome, that explains that.
Yeah, I definitely wrote this to cope, though I don’t think I knew as much until you pointed it out. In which case, good call.
You sound cool. Hope to see you in the IRC channel (at the top of the sidebar).
Thanks :). Well you sound cool too.
Instead of writing a review, I learned to play the theme song (I Move On) on the piano. That song is simply amazing, and like this I’ve kind of conquered the movie in my own way ;)
Maybe I should upload a cover to youtube at some point?
I might join the channel later; I don’t have the time right now.
In the meantime, you should consider downloading the full soundtrack for free on the Sintel website.
Youtube the hell out of that. Meantime, I’ll check out the soundtrack, but I’m not sure if I want to download it. Between a few Evanescence tracks and that one really sad Eve 6 song, I think I have enough depressing music on my phone.
Try and listen to it as you would, if you’d never heard of it before – it’s still a great song, after all, and the message of ‘moving on’ isn’t nearly as depressing if you forget the context (Sintel)…
Okay, I know Sintel is hard to forget because it packs more meaning into a 15 minute animated short, than probably exists in just about any full length cinema-grade animations (How to train your dragon, for instance (which by the way, I haven’t watched, so I might be wrong on this one)). But try it anyway. I’ll go look for a working camera… wait. I still need a piano that works.
I might upload a cover eventually… but not right now :)