So, let me tell you something, nothing, as a reader, is more frustrating than not knowing everything. I get it a lot as a movie goer as well. I wanna know everything, I wanna see everything, and dammit, I don’t want a cliffhanger.
But then there is the writer side of me, who doesn’t explain everything, won’t explain everything, and thinks that part of the story IS that there are blanks left to be filled in or left open.
And in the middle there is a great, big gap.
I just watched a movie which had a mysterious masked killer and not once do you get the answer as to why he does what he does and who he is. And it is a big aggravating because you wanna know. You want all the cards so you have a better feel for what exactly you just saw. From an early age we are told everything in our stories, the who, why, what, and how. It’s a way to teach us, and it’s very effective. As we age we already have those habits so when we are given stories – in history, daily life, or through the arts – that have no clear resolution we reject them. Dammit, we want the ending. We want to know why. We want to know how. And we have our reason to know these things, if just because we want to know them. I mean, curiousity is the greatest gift and worst curse of the human animal. It pushes us to the stars but also drags us into the gutter. But why on earth would you not want the answers?
Sometimes though, the answers are not there. Oh, sure, if the creator thought a lot about things they could come up with something but you have to reach. It’s weird to say this, I know, but the thing is that in the course of, for me, writing, some questions don’t present answers. They don’t present them because you don’t need them. If the story flows without telling why this happens or how it happens then why bloat the work with information just to do it? I have a story in the new book that specifically leaves out the details regarding something and I meant to do that. Sure, I can make something up that fits but, well, it’s more fun to have people guessing. The guessing involves the reader more and lets them take part in the story telling. And it leaves that little bit open to interpretation.
The imagination is perhas the least used part of our mind these days. So much is handed to us, explained to us, and just obvious that we forget what it is to imagine what other possibilities are out there. And it’s sad because so much of our childhood revolves around our imagination, so much of our growth and maturing and intelligence stems from it, yet it withers on the vine when we reach adulthood. How sad.
Sure, I want to know everything, I am human and therefore greedy for knowledge but sometimes, sometimes the beauty of a thing lay in the fact that we cannot fully understand it, and for that, I am pretty thankful.
c
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 