No, I haven’t started down a path towards writing science or advanced calculous text books. I cannot foresee any future where that is even a remote possibility. Mainly, this topic came to mind because a new season of a show that I and many others have been enjoying returned this week, and before I actually watched the premiere of it, I thought I’d write a post about how it followed a formula, why that worked, but also the dangers of continuing to follow a formula in writing fiction.
The “formula” of the series I have been watching is more or less set up as one would play a video game, with each episode of the season serving as a different level within the game; the first reward for the inciting incident being a new outfit, as well as each episode containing its own “boss” which the protagonist needed to defeat. Even at the end of the seasons, much like in various video games, the same protagonist is rewarded with some item, weapon or otherwise, that would have made a fair number of previous tasks easier in comparison. The writers of this show, at least for the past seasons, have stuck to this formula, and so far it has worked itself out, though not solely due to following the equation the writers made for themselves. The quality of that writing was also held up, and so the series held up, but the writers do need to be cahereful.
Excessive use of using these formulas can take away from the impact of an artistic creation. Some of the Dan Brown books are evidence of that. The first series to employ that formula is very effective. The second, it is less shocking to the reader. Eventually, it just becomes too easy for the consumer of that media to guess how whatever installment they hold in there hands, and be somewhat disappointed to find that they were right from the start. At some point, writing in formulas becomes boring if we are not given new substance to focus on.
Then again, sometimes these formulas are necessary as a building block of an outline, if nothing else. Some foundations are good, but they need structure to them. If the premise of a series is building a criminal empire, focus less on expanding the lore of the world and more on taking inspiration from works such as The Godfather. That is not to say the entire backstory of the characters being used need to be rewritten to match Vito or Michael Corleone, rather just draw inspiration from how each character rose to power and adapt it to fit your story. Let me be clear, I am not advocating for plagiarism of any kind, rather writers can draw upon other great artists, using the same technique, but adding their own spin on it. There is a quote attributed to Stanley Kubrick stating that every story has already been told, and that it is our job to improve upon it. That is precisely what I am advocating to be done.