If anyone plans on reading Stephen King's Mr. Mercedes, don't read on. There will be spoilers!

I LOVE Stephen King. I read all his books and pretty much love all of them. I might be his number one fan even. I recently finished Mr. Mercedes and I thoroughly enjoyed the ride. Once I finished however, I had to admit to myself that I had some issues with it. The issue was not the story itself but rather the character choices/actions and their believability.

Let's say I wrote a script where the protag is a retired detective. There was one case, The Mercedes Killer, that he and his partner never solved and it bugs him. One day he gets a letter from TMK. TMK taunts him and so the retired detective goes off to find out who he is. The protag has lunch with his former partner who's still a detective and he probes the partner a little about TMK. BUT, he never mentions that TMK has contacted him. The ret-det continues to have email contact with TMK. It becomes more and more clear that this is absolutely without any doubt the real Mercedes Killer who killed 8 people and maimed many years ago. Knowing this, the ret-det STILL don't go to the police! He decides to take this guy down on his own. Even after TMK blows up our protag's love interest and kills her too AND he finds out that TMK is planning another mass murder event, he STILL doesn't call the proper authorities. When the time comes for the big mass murder event, TMK is planning to set off a bomb at a concert where 4000 screaming pre-teen girls watch a boy band perform, our protag is still going to take TMK down by himself. Finally at the event, our ret-det has a heart attack and cannot stop TMK by himself. What does he do? Call the cops? Security? NO....he sends in a 17 year old boy with his own loaded gun into the auditorium. This guy has never shot a gun before!!! With the boy, he also sends in a woman who's extremely mentally unstable to handle this situation with TMK!!!

Now, I feel pretty certain, that if I wrote a script like that with the same plotline and characters' same decisions/actions, I would get totally hammered over the unrealistic behavior of this former cop. I honestly don't get how S. King could get away with this. Didn't the editors ever question this? His wife? His son?

Like I said, this was a HUGE issue for me with this book.

So, question is, what can we get away with as far as unrealistic goes in our scripts and what can we not?

If you're Stephen King you can get away with pretty much anything.

Quoted from DustinBowcot If you're Stephen King you can get away with pretty much anything.

I agree and that same thing is said over and over about QT. However, if you continue to write completely unbelievable stuff like what I mentioned with Mr. Mercedes, I think eventually. You're going to lose your audience.

Like I said though, I enjoyed the ride, but ultimately, it was not satisfactory due to this unrealistic character behavior of the protag.

Mr. Mercedes was a total first draft of a novel only allowed to be released because it was Stephen King.  It had such promise too.  It officially lost me when it took the very contrived turn of his "girlfriend" putting on his hat and taking his car.  I was literally yelling at the book.

People do stupid things. Lol. There's no question on how far a person can go in stupidity.  You at least enjoyed the ride.

I'm a big Stephen King fan. But Most of Stephen kings book ideas are Wtf. For example, IT. Yet we still read them. What does that say about us? Lol.

Enjoying the ride is what it's all about for me as far as Stephen King goes. I recall when I read Under The Dome. Like Dressel, I wanted to scream at the book when I found out it was alien children screwing around with them! Totally unbelievable. I felt a book like that needed a more plausible explanation. But you know what? I loved the characters and the story so much I did not want to see it end. Ever. Kinda have to take the good with the bad, I guess.

Steve

For me, it depends on tone.

When someone writes something very serious, but then it's unbelievable it's a far bigger problem than if the story is light-hearted and silly.

Madcap comedies for instance can have any number of unrealistic behaviours or events. See Anchorman 2...which delves into time-travelling, has characters in it like the Minotaur, but it makes no difference.

When something tries to be very serious and is full of stupidity, it really grates IMO. The Dark Knight was particularly bad for this IMO. It took itself so seriously, yet was filled with ridiculous moments which you can live with more easily if the movie is consciously trying to be more fun.

For me, it depends on tone.

When someone writes something very serious, but then it's unbelievable it's a far bigger problem than if the story is light-hearted and silly.

Madcap comedies for instance can have any number of unrealistic behaviours or events. See Anchorman 2...which delves into time-travelling, has characters in it like the Minotaur, but it makes no difference.

When something tries to be very serious and is full of stupidity, it really grates IMO. The Dark Knight was particularly bad for this IMO. It took itself so seriously, yet was filled with ridiculous moments which you can live with more easily if the movie is consciously trying to be more fun.

Quoted from Grandma Bear I agree and that same thing is said over and over about QT. However, if you continue to write completely unbelievable stuff like what I mentioned with Mr. Mercedes, I think eventually. You're going to lose your audience. Like I said though, I enjoyed the ride, but ultimately, it was not satisfactory due to this unrealistic character behavior of the protag.

I stopped reading King years ago, in fact the last King book I read was around 15 years ago... but what I liked about King more than anything else was his voice. The Stand is a complete load of drivel yet I stuck with it and enjoyed reading every page.

A good writer will take you through the story without you noticing the tiny flaws along the way.

But you're right, he shouldn't be doing it. He needs better people around him, telling him what does and doesn't work.

Quoted from Grandma Bear So, question is, what can we get away with as far as unrealistic goes in our scripts and what can we not?

Entirely depends upon who the audience is + probable MPAA rating.

Just watched 'Divergent' with my 14yo daughter, she thought it was decent, had zero appreciation for the nuts and bolts economy of an isolationist post apocalyptic society.
But to her the over all story was good enough.

Couple months ago I watched 'Ender's Game.' Completely stupid for an adult, fine for its target audience.

For myself I've recently watched 'Wolf of Walstreet' which I found plausible with known filmmaking fiction fabrications (See the wikipedia page for 'Argo'), 'Under the Skin' which I found creepy but plausible, 'Only Lovers Left Alive' which I found well acted and believable but tragically boring, 'Lone Survivor' which horrified me on an implausible and fantastically stupid level, 'Captain Phillips' on the otherhand was wonderful but full of bull, and 'SX Tape' which was just pure stupid.

Depends upon the audience and what they expect.

Of course you can always get away with racking a pistol's slide for dramatic effect - even though there's probably a perfectly good round in the breach.

I was thinking more about character decisions and actions not really the stories themselves. Otherwise Alien wouldn't be one of my all time favorite movies.  

In this book Mr. Mercedes, the main character was just making decisions that were too hard to swallow. IMO, the protag put thousands of people at risk and his love interest died because of him. It was one bad unbelievable decision after another.

I love King, but this one tested me.

The decisions a character makes is very well more important than the sensibility of the scenario and/or environment.

The trick is to not necessarily have the character make the same decisions you or I would make as sensible people, but rather the plausible decisions THAT character would make within the realm of their construct (which you, of course, as their creator, have fabricated.)

But you don't want your audience yelling "BOLLOCKSANDBULLSHIT!" at the screen.

The last decent horror movie I saw was the remake of 'The Evil Dead.'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Dead_(2013_film)
There was a reason these idiots were out there alone.
There was a reason they were trapped in the house.
There was a reason why the brother made the decisions he made.
There was a reason the friends were there to help.

The last decent production skills horror movie I saw was 'Insidious 2.'
Dumb and boring.

Watch Argo.
Watch Captain Phillips.
Watch Evil Dead 2013.
Watch Warm Bodies
Watch Jack the Giant Slayer
Watch Austenland.
Watch Gravity.
Watch The Heat.


Want stupid story telling full of stupid character decisions?
Watch Oldboy
Watch Mama
Watch Officer Down
Watch The Call
Watch Pain & Gain
Watch After Earth  (Need to bond with some teen family members? Watch this together and point out all the raging stupidity in it.)

Gotta love doing homework.

I have heard that once SK got sober and stopped getting hardcore fucked up that a lot of his work has suffered because of it.  I'd have to agree that his first "sober novel", Tommyknockers, wasn't that great, but I did like The Dark Half and Needful Things.  Four Past Midnight is also good (so far).

But yeah, I heard a lot of people have given up on King a long time ago.  I don't think I have gotten to that part of his career yet, but I assume I am rapidly approaching it.

The two approaches I likely default to are:
A) A sensible character in an extreme situation.
B) A unique character in an extreme situation.

I try to avoid making characters do or say things to fit into or justify a story I want to go the way I want to go.

Mainly I do a lot of reverse engineering: figure out an effed up situation then figure out both HOW the character(s) got there - and - HOW the character(s) is/are going to get out.
Deux ex machina is to be avoided like the plague.
And I write for a "some college" education level, expecting the audience to bring something to the table themselves.

Quoted from dead by dawn But yeah, I heard a lot of people have given up on King a long time ago.  I don't think I have gotten to that part of his career yet, but I assume I am rapidly approaching it.

I love some of his recent work! 11/22/63 was a page turner for me. I would actually go home early from work so I could read. Dr. Sleep was good too. Joyland and Mr. Mercedes were still good reads. Like I said, I enjoyed the ride, but if I read another one where the protag makes some eally really bad decisions that ruins the overall story. I'm going to get cranky.