One post earlier, I discussed how the ubiquity of an opening hook can seen as an artifact of the literary agent’s workflow. Then and now, I’ll agree that a hook can also be a great storytelling device. It can serve as evidence of the writer’s bona fides that the story will take you somewhere remarkable if you continue reading.
The hook isn’t limited to traditional publishing. The Martian is a triumph of web/indie/self-publishing. It opens with, “I’m pretty much screwed. That’s my considered opinion. Screwed. Six days into what should be the great month of my life, and it’s turned into a nightmare.” The Wikipedia entry notes that Weir first shopped the story to literary agents, so the hook could be an artifact. He was unable to land an agent. To get his story to its first readers, he serialized it on the web, where the hook took on new importance. Sure, the story was “free”. So was the reader. Free (and likely) to click away if the story didn’t immediately engage.
Hooks are cool. Except when they’re not. I’m about to do something bad. I’m about to say harsh things about the work of another. Worse yet, I’ll say these harsh things without having given that work a fair chance. It’s just wrong, so fell free to read this as an indictment of me as much as it is critical of the Amazon Original series Tin Star. And there will be spoiler-ish content. So many bad things. Here we go…
Not in our stars…
Tin Star was promising in the way that data-driven programming has a special power to be. I’ve enjoyed Tim Roth’s work since I mistook him for American in Reservoir Dogs. The Canadian Rockies setting was made for 4K UHD HDR viewing. I started watching it shortly after writing my artifacts post. The phrase “gratuitous in medias res” was fresh off my fingertips. You can guess what’s coming.
The story opens on an old sign outside an abandon-looking gas station on a mountain highway. At the bottom of the sign is an addition that offers 24-hour pay-at-the pump. Jim Worth (Roth) and his family drive past. Inside the car, everyone is tense. The low-fuel light comes on. Worth curses and turns back for the gas station, circling a road-killed coyote. At the station, he tells his family to stay in the car. He checks his rearview mirror. He exits the car and we see a pistol on his hip. He opens is wallet to pay at the pump and we see a police badge. As the gas pours in, he spots a fresh tire track leading out of a puddle nearby. He finishes refueling and gets back in the driver’s seat. His son needs to use the restroom. Angela Worth (Genevieve O’Reilly) gets out to help the boy. During this distraction, a masked gunman steps out in front of the car. A shot rings out, the windshield shatters, and blood sprays onto the face of the Worth’s teenage daughter in the back seat. Cut to titles. Whoa. Way to set the meat hook. After the titles, Worth wakes up in bed and offers prayer for one more day of sobriety. Was it a dream? Superimposed in the lower right corner are the words, “one year earlier”. Maybe not.
Again, I might have been primed to be annoyed, but my reaction was: “BITE ME!”
It was cheap. It was the showrunner deciding things needed to start with a literal bang. It screamed that the writer(s) didn’t have faith in the material that followed. It oozed an adolescent need to shock.
But in ourselves…
This anger of mine may not come from a consistent or principled place. I enjoyed the heck out of Fight Club. The book and the movie open with the narrator at gunpoint, high in a skyscraper that’s set to explode. They do a “maybe I better explain this” and we’re back in time to when things are a lot less violent. It’s a wild, crazy, abrupt shift that worked for me in a way that Tin Star’s didn’t.
This anger of mine may be related to my frustrations with HTML TABLEs and transparent GIFs. Back in the ‘90s, I was a soldier in the Browser Wars. (We won.) While I worked on the browser, it became difficult to just read a web page. I stopped seeing the content and fixated on how it was built and whether it was rendering properly. Before CSS matured, designers used and abused HTML TABLEs to gain control of web page layout. Blank space of a desired size was created by placing a transparent GIF image in a table cell and stretching its width and height as desired. This was one of many hacks that corrupted HTML. Knowing such things were there allowed you to see them. Once seen, they could not be unseen.
It follows that even here in the shallow end of learning storytelling, what I have been made aware of changes how I experience a story. These changes can add layers of appreciation. They can also raise distracting awareness of structure, technique, trope, and artifact. If I’d started this journey earlier, I’d now be that much further along. If I knew then what I’m beginning to know now, I’d have seen the seams and heard the engine noise of many of my favorite tales. And I’m left with a noodle-baking question: If it opened next week, would I still enjoy Fight Club?