The Cart Ahead of the Horse

We can all agree that it is much easier to pull a cart than to push it. In the case of writing it may be a mark of true mastery. What compels an audience to remain interested in a story where the murderer is revealed in the opening scene? What could be so important that someone would continue a story where a vital answer is already known? Some people won't even watch a movie if they know the ending. Yet, a story written properly with the cart ahead of the horse can be a master piece? ~ Fair warning this blog will have in depth info about the X-Files episode that is used for study.

Let me take a moment to step aside and explain why I do most of my blogs with a parallel comparison to the X-Files, 109 award nominations in nine years. It can't be a bad field of interest. With that said let's take a look into placing the cart ahead of the horse with season three, episode twenty four, season finale, "Talitha Cumi." The reference is from the Bible, Mark 5:41 "Little girl, I say unto you, arise."

In the opening scene we see a man that is mad at the world, sitting in a fast food restaurant, and spouting off his anger to those around him. He stands and the camera spins with him to reveal a gun, "Nobody move..." Another man walks up to him and says that no one is going to get hurt today. An employee calls the cops, the cops show up (Quite quickly) AND shots ring out with several people in the building being hit, including the gunman. The older gentleman that had said that no one was going to get hurt today places his hand on the wound of the gunman and the blood dissipates as he is healed.

It sounds more like a closing scene, than an opening. With that said let's take a look at what is happening, the mechanics of the story thus far in just the opening scene. Second, how do you expand on the story at this point, keeping in mind the drama that has just unfolded is not enough to maintain audience for the remaining hour (45 minutes) or a novel? Third, what loose ends need to be answered and which ones just fade away. (More Smoke and Mirrors) You need to decide what the audience will deem as important.

So, first off, we have a shooter, the healer, about twenty eye witnesses (Three or four of which were hit by the gun shots), an emergency crew showing up to a shooting with no wounded, and the police that shot the gunman that is no longer wounded. Roughly twenty five loose ends. We now have, the drama/news worthy info for gossips, in the first five minutes. We also get what every crime scene has, one character that always asks the same question (NOTE, even though we just watched it, or read what happened) the age ol' question, "What happened here? This compounds the drama and is very important because now we have the testimonials of those involved and allows the audience to connect with the characters seeing them as individuals. If this was skipped we would loose the opportunity to have this connection. We have the heightened drama from the gunman that thought he was going to die, the testimonials of the people that had been wounded, we have the emergency crew that showed up for blood to find none, AND we have a police officer that had the healer vanish into thin air before his very eyes. So to close this and point made; we have the info for a gossip, we have the gunman that is no longer wounded, and a healer that vanished. Leading the viewer to wonder what happened to the healer and not focus on the gunman in custody. The gunman and the shooting is the...

... McGuffin (aka: MacGuffin or maguffin) is a term for a PlotEnablingDevice, i.e., a device or plot element in a movie/story that is deliberately placed to catch the viewer's attention and/or drive the logic of the plot, but which actually serves no further purpose - it won't pop up again later, it won't explain the ending, it ...

1. 

   McGuffin

   c2.com/cgi/wiki?McGuffin

Second, the drama has to continue to unfold. In this episode Mulder's mom has an unscheduled meeting with Cigarette Man at her summer cottage, Mrs. Mulder is put in the hospital with a stroke, Mulder finds a switchblade ice pick weapon of unknown use, Mulder gets in a fist fight in a dark parking garage, Mulder runs from a fight with a thug that can not be killed with mere bullets, Mulder fails to get the healer to heal his mom... The drama has to compound. There are no one trick pony's in writing. Keep the drama building, between the characters, new found things, questions that lead to more questions than answers... More drama for the gossip to talk about.

Third, how to lead the audiences interest. In the opening scene we have a lot going on with the shooter, the healer, and witnesses. To lead our audience's interest we have the shooter giving his accounts only to what happened to him in the restaurant and not on the events that made him do it. We have no retrospective of the events leading up to the shooting. The shooter talks only about the healer that saved his life and how he must be a man of God. This reiterating of the healer and what he did, over and over by all the witnesses, make the audience focus on him and not any of the other loose ends that have been made. The audience never asks what happened to the little girl at school the next day, because none of the characters ever allude to anything but the healer. Another thing that keeps our focus, the audience doesn't see the healer when he vanishes. we are only given an account by the police officer. This allows us to connect with his confusion. The incident continues to be referred to by Mulder, cementing the focus and shadowing the shooter.

Hope this helps in your writing. Sleep with one eye open and have a "HORRIFIC" day. B)