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.

I love Stephen King as well.  I used to read some of his stuff out of whack until someone strongly recommended that I check his work out in chronological order so as not to spoil other things that he has written - like, for instance, I had read Needful Things before The Dark Half and Cujo, which really ruined the experience of the latter two.

I haven't had a problem with anything of his from the 90's (not yet) - which is when I hear he started to take a dump - except for Gerald's Game.  That one was terrible, and I hate to say it.  This was about the time my friend made that strong recommendation - I stopped half way through Gerald's Game (and was glad to) and started from the very beginning with Carrie.  

And from 1974 on, I have loved everything the man did, except for Tommyknockers (Dark Tower II didn't do it for me, either, but it still wasn't bad).  There was just something about that one that was 'off.'  Like he was sitting at the typewriter and daydreaming about getting hammered instead of paying attention to what he was writing.  There were occasional moments of brilliance, I thought, and the ending started to pick up, but overall, it was a rather hugely disappointing effort by King.

Anyway, speaking of unrealistic stories...technically, most of King's stories are unrealistic.  Killer clowns who hang out in the sewers and kill children.  Men who can read the future.  Etc etc.  None of this shit ever happens in life - but I get the sense that you were really talking about realistic decisions made by characters.  I can't really check out your entire first post because I haven't read Mr.  Mercedes yet.  I'm not even close to it.

On a side note, someone needs to make another Langoliers movie and do it right this time.  I just got done reading that and it has everything I love - goals, stakes, urgency, mystery, great characters, edge of your seat entertainment...

I have a love/hate relationship with King.

He's brilliant, and has written so many great stories, but some of the endings are so terrible that they have made me angry. Makes it worse that his books are long.

IT is probably the scariest thing ever put to paper, but by God..I wanetd to kill him the way it turned out.

Still, anyone who wrote The Stand is alright by me.

Quoted from Scar Tissue Films I have a love/hate relationship with King. He's brilliant, and has written so many great stories, but some of the endings are so terrible that they have made me angry. Makes it worse that his books are long. IT is probably the scariest thing ever put to paper, but by God..I wanetd to kill him the way it turned out..

I wouldn't say the endings are terrible, but they could be better.

I will disagree on IT - I thought it was perfect from front to back.  Scariest thing I ever read.  Makes my hair stand up on end every time.

Quoted from dead by dawn I will disagree on IT - I thought it was perfect from front to back.

Isn't It the one where the middle school kids defeat the It monster then randomly all have sex with the girl?
Yeah...
SK,  at his classic finest.  

In fairness to King, it may well be that the weakness in some of his endings is an intrinsic, and unfortunate, part of the nature of horror as a genre, rather than due to any deficiencies as a writer.

He has no difficulty finishing non-supernatural stories.

There is a fundamental problem with horror. It is always frightening when you don't know what is causing everything. The Fear of the Unknown.

At some point you have to go from that abstract to the specific of what it actually is...and it's always anti-climatic...and an attempt to avoid the anti-climax is most likely lead to absurdity.

Good topic.

I'm not going to comment on novels per se - even though they're obviously source material for much of what we see on the screen - but instead focus on film.

QT is a great example. I don't even think it's his writing that ultimately makes his work work. Yes, his dialogue and plotting is great, but what sets him apart is his direction. He reminds me of Kubrick in the sense that he has total control over all the elements of the films. Everything fits. Everything has been lovingly crafted, meticulously planned and fused together with a vision that has been fully bought into by the creative team. We should also never discount the amount of changes that get made during development / pre prod for a variety of reasons (creative, practical or financial) that shift the story from its original form.

If a story is bad, sometimes there's no resuscitating it, but a great director will add 10, 20, 30, 40, 50% and enrich a great script to make it something wonderful, or bring an OK script into the excellent territory.

I think that's why we see many of the best working today operating as writer / director. Tarantino is on record as disliking Jackie Brown - the only one he didn't write from scratch, precisely because he struggled to create a singular vision for it. I actually really like the film, but his perfectionist tendencies are what make him so special.

The contemporary anomaly that I can think of right now to that writer / director idea is David Fincher. Finch is able to synthesise others' work and still craft something that results in an indelibly David Fincher film. But he's also supposed to be a control freak, so you know, if you have a vision, perhaps the best thing is to fight for it and not compromise to the point of diluting or indeed taking realism too far and losing a suspension of disbelief.

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?

A lot depends on how you set up the world and how well you maintain the level of unrealism. If it's consistent, no one will mind.

The Harry Potter movies were all unbelievable but they were enjoyable because a world was created full of wizards and magical beasties.  Anything goes (or went) in these stories because the levels of realism were maintained.  If, at the end, Harry made an uzi appear and shot Voldemort to death, the story would've been ruined.  Producing the gun would've changed the level of believability, going from fantasy to hardcore realism.

Last Sunday on The Walking Dead we learned what was behind the z-virus and how that socially-retarded doctor is going to fix things.  The levels of realism has stayed balanced.  If the nerd-doctor said that he knew of a witch in Salem who could cast a spell and save the day, there would be rioting in the streets.

Can you make a movie that is too unrealistic?  Sure.  But that doesn't mean it would fail.


Phil