Dandelion Break What can we learn from Adolescence (Netflix)?

[Sarit]

Unless you've been living under a rock, run don't walk to watch the incredible British limited series Adolescence on Netflix. I was spellbound and horrified by this powerful narrative that left my throat constricted. A must for any parents with adolescents (that's me...). While the acting (WFT Owen Cooper??!!) is historic, the uncut one shots for each episode laudable, but as writers, what can we learn from this? We can learn about slow burn, characterisation, POV switches, and the ambiguity of story telling that respects the viewer/reader and lets them think and decide for themselves who is to blame.

 

[Vagabond Heart]

I haven't seen this particular show, but I'm in total agreement with you that we can learn a lot from the best visual media, particularly as regards plotting.

I watch Korean dramas for that exact reason: they follow a different format, and employ unfamiliar tropes compared to the UK stuff I grew up watching. And it helps me think outside of the box I'm used to.

But as a screenwriter turned novelist, you'll understand the differences inherent in the two formats of story-telling, I'm sure.

I always describe films and TV as passive media - if someone has turned them on then you will be subjected to the story until YOU choose not to be. You have to decide to get up and walk out, or switch it off.

This means film-makers have the leeway to do slow-burn in a way that doesn't work so well for novelists.

Because reading a book is an active exercise - we have to make the reader need to turn the page, to keep reading, to not want to put it down. We don't have the luxury of using pretty pictures and engaging music to fill gaps. We have to make our words count.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I did watch the first episode but it is anything but slow. It takes place in real time but the director never lets the action lag. The precision with which the camera picks up and changes POV as it attaches to a new character makes sure of that. And of course we see the crime at the end of the first episode. Most crime stories leave more ambiguity, like in a trial when each side argues for their POV on what happened. I'm afraid I have to agree with Bev on this. While it is a brilliant bit of television, a novelist has to somehow create the same experience in print. Trying to get a stranger to see what we see in our heads is comparatively not only dancing the Bossa Nova backwards in heels, but simultaneously juggling all the fruit pulled from Carmen Miranda's hat.

 

[Sarit]

What I meant by slow burn was stuff like the last episode, which seemingly meanders to unrelated stuff but there is so much subtext and tension building up. I think there is place for slow burn in prose. It's def more of a challenge but if you build it right--tension and subtext it could be very effective. Some slow burn on TV is just terrible and feels like just a filler to drag on more episodes. In writing I think there is even more freedom with character study etc. and this type of slow burn can be more interesting in writing. I do this sometimes in my writing where I break structure to insert a character-centric episode that seems to have nothing to do with the plot until much much later. But that's just me....

 

[Vagabond Heart]

I agree, Sarit. Some slow-burn on TV is just plain boring. But even that can teach us something.
And I'm going to watch that series, as it looks stonking.

 

[MattScho]

Thanks for the tip.
It's an interesting series.
As a former reporter, I've done this story too often for it to seem anything more than linear. Every time there was a school shooting, we'd head down this road, and there are a enough mass killings in the US that we've all done a couple versions. I once had a teenage murderer's grandmother call and yell at me because i'd noted that his bedside lamp was shaded by a Donald Duck hat. She was furious that the kids back at school would tease him about that. He was facing the death penalty for taking part in killing 7 to 12 (bunch never found, but suspected).
But that last episode, I've sat with way too many parents and witnessed that, killers and victims.
I admit, my kids are now in their 30s, so I'm missing that connection. And Graham is quite good. The kid as well. In fact, a lot of good characters in this (really liked the therapist's character).
I did see it as a well done update on The River's Edge, which is probably an update on etc..., but if you haven't seen that, worth a watch.

 

[Sarit]

@MattScho wow what an interesting career you had. I mean, interesting is because I can't find a better word. So what you're saying is that reality is actually much worse...

 

[MattScho]

Fiction has to make sense. Reality has no such obligation. The fault, for me, in a series such as this is not that it isn't realistic, just that I have way too much realistic of this sort in my past.
But we really do need to take stock of everything that impresses us, break it down and see what exactly worked and how to do that

 

[Mel L]

Hi Sarit,
I binged the 4 eps over the weekend. As someone who doesn't actually like too much plot,. I was riveted by the journey the characters were on. Even if the killer was known from the first episode, the reasons why and the dynamics of the crime were so cleverly drawn out over the series that they kept the dramatic tension going and I never disengaged at all.
I did find it a little disconcerting the way they shifted character focus from one episode to another. But that whole one-shot thing did not feel at all tedious. Kudos to the director for making it work!
So what can we learn as writers? Interesting question. For me the takeaway is that if you make the reader/viewer care about what happens next and give your characters a satisfying arc, then you can get away with just about anything. And I think that applies to works of fiction across all media.
Good thread!
Mel

 

[MattScho]

A long time back, I had a friend and colleague who decided as he took over the cop beat that for the next year, no one would be murdered anonymously on his beat. He pledged to profile every victim, and make sure the focus of crime in the city wasn't all about the criminals, but remembered the victims. Sadly, for him, this was a year with more than 200 murders. Lot of profiles.
But this is one of the fundamental issues of crime reporting, and therefore (as real life is the inspiration for crime fiction) crime fiction.
And, to me, this is the nagging failure of the series. There was a choice made not to pay attention to the victim, or the victim's family. We got the anger of the one friend, but that was it. It didn't quite go there, but it nudged up against the blame the victim trope, in this case it was more "bad, mean victim."

 

[Hannah F]

I don't get Netflix (can't afford channel subscriptions) so I won't see it. (Don't think I want to actually. Too real a world.) However, one thing I can mention regarding change of POV is that it's so much easier in a visual medium. While watching the screen we are passively engaged and looking onto a scene. We are ourselves, our own persona, the proverbial fly-on-the-wall, hopping from person to person to see what the world looks like from their shoulder and reacting to other's reactions (and assuming what's in their head by their physical expressions and dialogue), but never actually being inside anyone's mind. We're not a character in the scene.
In a well-written novel, we take on the persona of the point of view character. In a POV switch, we literally have to head-hop into a different character's head. In a skilled writer's hands, this happens seamlessly and we go with it (I'm thinking Maggie O'Farrell as one example), but it can be much easier for the reader to stay inside the head of the protagonist (or antagonist if, as a writer, that's what you want), and from inside that head, that emotional centre, infer the thought process of another character by that character's dialogue, physical expressions, actions, then react emotionally and physically to what your POV character (and therefore you) infer.
Watching the visual medium can help us a lot in building an emotional thesaurus of physical expressions and reactions (yes, I know one exists but a personal one is great to have) to use when needing our POV character to interpret another's thoughts. It can also ignite in us ideas for new stories.

 

[Pamela Jo]

Those unbroken shots that as Matt points out mean a lot of dead air time as people put in codes and buy drinks, would be headhopping at a dizzying pace. In a series like this one the actors, cameramen, director, producers, ( I notice one here was Brad Pitt), all come together to create an experience for the watcher.
Pity the poor reader. They have you. Just you- trying to recreate that experience through nothing but letters on the page. Even worse it takes no skill to watch a story unfold. To get the same catharsis a reader has to have a level of skill that matches the writer.

The time it takes to finish a novel is probably 2 or 3 times what it takes to watch a series. The writer has to keep firing engines and feeding cookies to the last page. if they want to be read.