The Laws of Good Writing

mycroftlookssodone:

alexxphoenix42:

There are so many things that bothered me about The
Final Problem as a wrap up for series four of Sherlock, but what niggles at my
brain and won’t let go is the foundations of writing that Moffat and Gatiss
broke when creating this episode.

When you set out to write a story be it a novel, a
movie or a tv series, you have a collection of promises that you must make with
your audience for them to trust you enough to follow along. First you must ask a
question at the beginning of your story that you promise to answer. Next you
must establish the ground rules that comprise the reality in your story and
stick with them. Lastly, you must agree whatever genre you begin with is the
genre you finish with.

When Moffat and Gatiss started Sherlock, the
question I found threading through the narrative was “Will John and Sherlock
end up in a romantic relationship together?” This may have been a misreading on
my part of what the central theme of the series was. Moftiss seems to be
stating on the surface that their question was “Will Sherlock move from being a
great man to being a good one?” It’s something that Lestrade wonders about in A
Study in Pink, and then gives a nice bookend reply to in The Final Problem. I
will content that this was a terrible question to make the central conundrum of
the series as we see that Sherlock is obviously a very kind soul from the get
go. He spends all his time doing good deeds for others to their absolute
delight, and rarely takes any recompense or credit.  Perhaps a more nuanced question is “Will
Sherlock, an isolated genius, learn to make meaningful emotional connections in
his life?” I would say that this question was answered, yes he has friends, and
seems to care about and engage with them at the end of the last series, so yes,
I think perhaps that question was answered. Still, I and many others feel that
it was disingenuous of Moftiss to employ so many standard tv tropes of pining
and true love thwarted to define the relationship between Sherlock and John and
then pretend it all never happened at the end of things.

To address the second promise that a writer will establish
ground rules to define their bit of world building, and stick to them, the
whole of series four seems to play hopscotch and dodge ball with any concept of
a baseline reality. This show has established that it will do dream sequences
that scramble “what is real.” We’ve seen repeatedly that people can tell
stories that appear as real moment in the show, or spend time in the mind
palace unspooling complicated adventures that seem like good faith reality
until some cue or cut follows to expose the fantasy. In S4, all manner of crazy
things happen without an explanation. In TST, Sherlock is standing in a family’s
living room with a group of people around him. For a blink, he stands alone in
the room, until another blink brings them all back. In TLD, Sherlock spends a
night rambling around London with a Lady in Red, someone who is sometimes there
and sometimes not, and not picked up on any of the cameras watching him. All of
this remains peanuts until we hit The Final Problem, and a new character is
introduced who can do magic. Eurus can reprogram people to do her will by
speaking to them. Suddenly the rules of logic in the world of Sherlock, a place
that seemed to mirror our own reality, has taken a huge turn into the Twilight
Zone.

This of course brings me to the last promise a
writer makes, the promise to finish their tale in the genre they started with.
This is basic writing instruction. If you craft a lovely coming of age romance,
you don’t suddenly veer off into telling a gritty war tale as a wrap up. If you
begin a tv drama as an action spy thriller, you don’t suddenly turn it into a cooking
show. Similarly, if you begin BBC Sherlock as a romantic action adventure show,
you don’t suddenly morph into a horror movie as if this were par for the course.

I can’t fathom what the writers and producers of
Sherlock were thinking when they decided that a Marvel Universe horror movie
ending was just the thing to wrap up the fourth series of their popular detective
show. As a follower of the series, I feel rightfully betrayed when all of these
basic promises were chucked out the window along with Sherlock and John in a
cheesy explosion that “destroys” 221b, leaves our characters and most of the
furniture without a scratch, and sends us off to Shutter Island. I’m
disappointed, and I think the disregard for what makes good writing explains much
of the disconnect between what the writers thought was clever fun and what I
found simply horrifying.

THIS.