Get a Clue

 

On New Year’s Eve, Roland and I watched a movie loosely based on the board game “Clue.” I won’t go into the reasons why we chose it, but it was a bad choice.

Filler is one of my pet peeves. That’s when a writer (usually of a book, but in this case of a movie) throws in extra material to lengthen a book (or a movie) even though it doesn’t add to the story. That’s often the sign of a lazy writer, although sometimes it is simply the sign of an amateur.

The movie “Clue” drove me crazy because the principal character kept running around and reenacting parts of the crimes (multiple murders) to show us how they could have been done. There were simpler, less annoying, ways to show it, but they wouldn’t have been as long. As it was, I was so annoyed that if it had been a book I would have put it down. The author got away with it only because it was a movie and I knew the agony wouldn’t last much longer.

That doesn’t mean that a writer can’t attempt to make a story longer. In fact, sometimes it needs filling out just as an emaciated person needs to put on weight. But the additional material must be a seamless part of the story, flowing with and enhancing it. That takes work and creativity, which are the lazy writer’s enemies. For me, it’s a challenge that give me an adrenaline rush.

Next week I’ll talk about info dumps.