There are a million good reasons to lean into clarity. It has and can help a screenplay, of course. Therefore it can be a go-to note for readers at all levels. "I was confused by ___. This needs clarity." "I don't know why X does Y."
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We can all be inured to it, on both sides of the table. So it is INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT to push against it; to fight for moments when clarity is the enemy.
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Particularly in horror, particularly when you're delving into new, rare, or invented mythology, clarity can kill. "What are the RULES?" "WHY does he/she/it do this?" All valid questions, yet the answer can be infuriating for Clarity Addicts.
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It can be hard to defend the difference between exploiting a lack of clarity to elevate anxiety and fear versus just serving confusion. And everyone's internal systems for this are different. But there is SO MUCH fear in NOT knowing.
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That fear, given specific unanswered questions, in particular the brain-weevil WHY question, is what can make a typical scary story far more unsettling. But fighting to protect unanswered questions is nearly impossible as a writer.
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You can be dismissed as "not thinking through" what the antagonist wants. You can be considered lazy. Because if a reader needs clarity on everything, ironically, no explanation will help.
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Keep in mind that most of the time, the clarity note is right! It IS needed in a lot of places. But you can't build a visceral, deeply unsettling cinematic experience with it as your primary tool.
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Film narratives are not crossword puzzles that offer themselves completed by the end credits. Now and then you get a tesseract, or an impressionist painting, or a dance and everyone on your row will react differently.
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Greg Widen knew this and worked it into a line the archangel Gabriel says to a terrified mortal fearing his intentions: "...the only thing you can count on in your existence is never understanding why."
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I hope we'll have the good grace to know when clarity spoils a story. I don't know if that's a terribly naive hope but this weekend in particular I'm hoping for it. /end
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