The essay covers, among other things, the reason that Whedon had to, er, do what he did before the final battle in Serenity: the need to create the belief that maybe things won't work out this time. Maybe it'll be different this time. Eek.
Two points that caught my attention:
Complex storytelling increases the variety of ways that the audience can be satisfied, combines audience desires in new or untraceable ways, and (often) ends the story with still-suspended desires held in tension against those that've been satisfied.And:
So what makes an enjoyable story? That's the thing: tons of stuff. We dig allusion, momentum, rhetorical cleverness, sonority, relatability, simplicity, comfort, thrills, critical insight. The best stories, I think, combine a number of these pleasures and play them off one another.Well. Let's see if I can make some tiny fraction of this happen in my
