Smoke and Mirrors

It's the age old mechanics of any magician's trick, smoke and mirrors. Yet everything our eyes see tells us that what just happened was magic, unexplainable. We want to believe that something just happened that goes beyond the more likely, because our eyes saw it, it must have happened. The woman was sawed in half and put back together, the elephant appeared out of thin air, and yes that is my card. The audience is glued to the magician's every word and movement.

This goes beyond parlor tricks. The same hold true in good writing. You give an easy explanation that the audience can except without giving time to think of what actually is happening. Show them what is in the right hand before they think about what is in both hands. To do this have a character that is trustworthy, a professional in their field, to direct the reader and what they should watch for. In The X-Files season three episode twenty two, you have the opening scene of the two biologist arguing over the disappearance of the frog population. They are both trustworthy characters, but one saying that there isn't a problem. I want to focus on that point, that, "There isn't a problem." in the opinion of a professional. Yet his colleague presses the point, that, "There is something strange going on." Once it is made crystal clear to the viewer/reader that something needs to be done, AND the skeptic saying their is nothing going on, you now have drama, I.E., something to gossip about. Two highly regarded professionals in their field saying the exact opposite. The reader will gravitate toward the idea that something is wrong, it's in our nature. The more you tell the reader there is nothing wrong, the more they will focus on their own fears of what can happen, "How bad can it be?" "What's out there?" After you have spent enough time setting this thought in the viewer/reader's mind, in come Scully and Mulder. At this point you are addressing the same questions, "How bad can it be?" "What is out there?" and "There is nothing out there." There is no problem unless you make it a problem." "Why are we going here Mulder?" "There is no reason for this Mulder." The more Scully says there is no reason for us being here, the more the reader/viewer convinces themselves that there is something out there. It always took a while for Mulder to let Scully stew for a while before letting her in on his thoughts, giving her time to be angry, skeptical, negative... Be sure and let your reader stew over what the problem could be. I would like to stress the point of how every X-Files had the same mechanics, and how important it is. So far we have the issue with the frogs, we'll call this Drama A yes and no. We don't have any answers to either, so we will go as far to call it Drama A1 and Drama A2. We also have Scully and Mulder making it Drama A2 vs Drama B1 since Scully always sides with there is nothing going on and Mulder always has something in mind that doesn't coincide with anyone. You then have the fourth mirror distorting the truth with the hoax, you have this local tourist trap merchant that promotes a fake explanation to what Mulder has going on, Drama B2. This hoax is shown immediately after Mulder states his opinion and the viewer has time to get on board, because everyone knows to side with Mulder in these matters. So what we have so far is D-A1, D-A2, D-A2, D-B1, and D-B2 ~ Follow? Now, the rest of the story is eye candy. You have five loose ends, with two that agreeing that there is nothing. leaving you the writer to focus on where you are going to take your characters. Now that the mechanics of the story is laid out in what I call an outline format, it all seems a little easier to build off of, to me anyway. Hopefully you can take from this and make something of it in your writing.