"The Box," the movie with Cameron Diaz and James Marsden, came out on DVD Tuesday. One of the perks to working at a video store is that you get to watch the movies a little early, so that you can tell inquiring minds/customers your opinion of the new releases.
So there's this female I work with - for the sake of anonymity, we'll call her Napkin. So Napkin watched "The Box" before many of the other employees, and had a little rant about the movie. "They didn't explain anything!" Napkin cried.
I found this surprising, because, if you've seen the trailer, it's quite clear that "The Box" is one of those thrillers with an intricate plot that is supposed to have at least most of the plot lines tied up before the movie ends. "They didn't explain anything?" I asked.
"They didn't explain anything!" Napkin repeated. "At the end of the movie, it's completely unclear what's going on!"
So there's this female I work with - for the sake of anonymity, we'll call her Napkin. So Napkin watched "The Box" before many of the other employees, and had a little rant about the movie. "They didn't explain anything!" Napkin cried.
I found this surprising, because, if you've seen the trailer, it's quite clear that "The Box" is one of those thrillers with an intricate plot that is supposed to have at least most of the plot lines tied up before the movie ends. "They didn't explain anything?" I asked.
"They didn't explain anything!" Napkin repeated. "At the end of the movie, it's completely unclear what's going on!"
Not that I don't trust Napkin or anything, but I decided to watch the movie anyway.
I was then perplexed.
You see, dear reader, whom I choose to address in the second person though you're probably nonexistent, I thought that pretty much everything was explained, and that furthermore, much was insinuated. I felt a sense of completion at the end of the movie.
This differing of perspectives got me thinking about explanation in writing.
In the movie which I've been using as an example, I feel that the screenwriter showed us the dots, connected most of the lines, and left the filling in of the picture to the reader's intelligence. Not to say that Napkin isn't intelligent, for she is.
It seems to me, however, that Napkin wants everything explained to her. In detail. Whereas I find too much detail excruciating and boring.
As someone who writes (though not as much as she should be, lately), I'm not going to lie - I mostly write for myself. Don't get me wrong, I want other people to like my writing, too. I want to write something I know I am proud of first, though. Then I get too lazy to revise, so, you know, stuff stays the way I wrote it, and people probably think I'm crazy.
Yet I digress. As a writer, I don't want to confuse my readers. But I also don't want to spell everything out for them, and treat them like idiots.
So how much explanation is TOO MUCH explanation? And how do we know when we're giving too little explanation? I realize the obvious answer is to have someone else read your work. It seems to me, however, that opinions on this question can be too varying. For example, my dear, respected co-worker Napkin and I both like each other, but we're on opposite ends of the spectrum.
Thoughts?
