Savvy and experienced consumer of literature I’m sure you are, no doubt you’re more than somewhat familiar with the classic piece For Want Of A Nail:
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.
Sometimes we don’t realize how important something is that at first glance might seem completely insignificant.
The same concept could apply to screenwriting and the details of your story. A reader could see something and wonder “I don’t get it. Why is this in here?”
If you do the work and plan accordingly, the answer/reason will soon be obvious. That little detail is there for a reason, probably an important one, and without it, the rest of the story won’t work.
This is important on several levels.
It shows you put a lot of thought into putting the story together.
It shows you understand the concept of effective setups and payoffs.
It shows you respect the intelligence of your reader/audience and don’t feel the need to deliberately draw our attention to this sort of thing.
It always bothers me when a story sets something up and doesn’t pay it off, or has something later on in the story that comes out of nowhere.
Some writers go into it with a solid idea of how everything is set up and know how it’s going to play out, some come up with the bare bones of a foundation and fill in the blanks, and there are even those who sit down with a blank page, start writing, and see how it goes.
I tend to waver between the first two.
Sometimes you might even go back over what you’ve already written and discover an opportune moment to put in a small detail that can further enhance something later on in the story. It’s as if your subconscious was working in conjunction with your creativity and giving you an unexpected helping hand.
Are parts of your story set up that they start with a “nail” and escalate from there? Or does something happen later that could use a stronger setup?
You’d be surprised at seeing the ripple effect one little change can have on the rest of your script. Hopefully for the better.
