Saturday, March 24, 2012

We're continuing to enjoy THE GOOD WIFE. I continue to marvel at the opaque quality of Alicia Florrick. Most TV shows go to great lengths to show us the inner life of the main character. She has someone she tells her inner feelings to, whether it's a best friend, a lover, a dog, or the audience via voice over. Not Alicia Florrick. She keeps it mostly bottled up. We can guess at her feelings, but we can't know which way she'll jump or even how she feels about people. How does she feel about Will now? About Peter? About Kalinda? We can only watch from the outside.

Come to think of it, Kalinda's another character who never lets the audience in. And, to some extent, Will.

Obviously, that works, or people wouldn't be watching the show. I would imagine that the audience enjoys trying to figure these people out. After all, in real life we rarely know for sure what the other people in our life are thinking.

It's a risky way to write, of course. And you'll get a lot of flak from readers who feel that your writing is murky. They'll complain that they need to know more. They don't actually need to know more, of course. They just want to know more. And you don't necessarily have to give it to them -- sometimes the sizzle is better than the steak.

Labels: craft

10:18 AM

1 Comments:

Interesting thought, Alex , but I've always thought that Alicia, Will, Kalinda, et al reveal themselves only when they are confronted.

Alicia grudgingly gives in to her brother and reveals things when he prods.

Will reveals things to Dianne, but yes - he often makes her work to put two and two together.

Kalinda reveals things when someone brings something up that they have uncovered about her.

It's an interesting way to write, because every conversation someone has to work to peel the onion while not revealing too much of themselves in the process. There's an inherent tension in that approach...

By  Cunningham, at 2:27 PM  

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