Building tension in any body of work is not the easiest of tasks but just lately there is a tendency to use certain techniques that this writer finds infuriating.

Like most people I love a good story, well written that builds tension to the right moment when the payoff not only acts as a release but the reader finds satisfying. To be able to do that is no mean feat and takes remarkable skill. Writers of tv series nowadays are met with a task of spreading a story out over an episode arc that can span anywhere from six to thirteen episodes, although most are now choosing the eight to ten episode limit. To spread a story out over that length, keeping all the various threads in place a certain amount of padding, to use a better word, has to take place. Padding out a story is where I find the things that irk me the most.

One of these is the over use of the phrase, ‘it’s complicated’ when faced with a situation when the character is asked to explain something, anything from a relationship to an incident that happened in the past that has caused some concern in the present. Instead of explaining, someone says, ‘it’s complicated’ leaving the explanation for some later date. That later date hardly ever comes though. It just maddens me to the point where I find myself shouting at the screen. Another method used is simply refusing to explain a detail, when a character asks why something happened the character being asked either refuses or deflects saying they don’t have time or some other tactic. This I also find infuriating. The final method used, and this isn’t anything to do with padding out a story but more with building character and that is writing a character, usually someone young, they write them as being unable to follow the simplest of instructions. I’ve lost track of how many times a character in command orders another subordinate character to stay there, as the first character moves off the subordinate either follows on right behind or goes off on their own. This doesn’t build tension, it simply slows down the pacing because in my opinion, and there will be others who will argue against this, the story is then going off on a tangent to deal with the insubordination or some other topic. I as a viewer by this time have lost interest and am thinking that if the character cannot follow instructions and is arguing the decisions made by others then they deserve everything they get. You want the reader or viewer to sympathise with your characters, to feel for what they are going through, to want them to survive, even if you know they won’t, you want people to care. I find that when I read something like this, or am watching a tv show that is written like this I soon lose interest.

I hope that the episodic format of writing shows will return so that the series long story arc is no longer a thing. I find stretching a story over eight to ten, hour long episodes is far too long. Most movies have a running time of two, to two and a half hours long. A eight episode series is almost three times that length. I know that some stories benefit from the longer story arc but they are few and far between. A return to the single story episode run of a series is probably never going to happen but I hold out hope that a compromise can be found, perhaps have three or four stories that are told over an eight to ten episode run might be something that they could use, I don’t know.

Like most things I hope the series producers learn from this and do something to prevent people from switching off and I expect time will tell if that happens.