Writing Lessons From… Stranger Things
Something specific for your stories that makes my heart happy
We’ve moved house! (Huzzah!) And I’m now on ‘leave’ to sort our new house out and make it a home.
While I’m away starting my family’s next chapter, I’ve been delving into your favourite TV shows and films, as you put on the dinky four-question survey I sent out a while ago, and writing about the lessons I love about your suggestion.
If you’d like to get involved next time I’m going away on holiday or don’t have the time to consume stories, just tap the button below and answer the four quick questions!
I did watch Stranger Things when it first came out, back when it was all anyone could talk about. It turns out – I learned from going back to find it on Netflix for this post – we gave up on it after the first episode of the second season.
There must have been something about season two that didn’t grab us, but I remember the first season well.
The hook on this TV show! So I rewatched the first episode of season one to figure out what got us all hooked and how us creative writers can try to replicate that…
Warning! You are now entering the Upside Down, where the spoilers dwell
(Stranger Things is available on Netflix.)
Stranger Things started in 2016, which can’t be right. I was sure it was in 2020, but then most of time started in 2020, didn’t it.
Anyway, Stranger Things is set in Indiana during the 1980s. One night something appears to break out of a facility. Meanwhile, our group of plucky young DnD playing friends lose one of their mates when he’s stolen away by something scary and strange. And then a young girl with strange abilities appears.
The show has become a huge phenomenon and launched the career of Millie Bobby Brown, as well as bringing David Harbour into our lives.
Those opening scenes
We’ve talked about opening episodes recently…
And all the same lessons from Monk apply here. In the first episode of Stranger Things, the scene is set, we’re introduced to the characters and questions are asked. Big questions.
Unlike Monk, we don’t get any of the answers yet, because that’s the point of the show.
Stranger Things isn’t about solving a mystery every episode while building our characters’ arcs, it’s about solving one mystery across the season while building our characters’ arcs, which means answering the questions can take more time.
So I won’t go on too much about the first episode as a whole, because you can guess what I would say.
Those first two opening scenes, though, are really something. Those are the bits that jump out at me, and they’re important. The first two scenes are the concepts that hook you, they reach out and grab you, they’re the reasons I kept watching.
The first scene depicts a man running away from something, down a long corridor to a lift, while the lights flash annoyingly. It’s a classic horror scene and we’re expecting something terrifying to appear in the flashing lights at the end of the corridor as the man furiously smashes the button to the lift doors.
Of course there’s a twist, because while classics are classics for a reason, it’s good to keep your viewer or reader guessing, especially with something as tense as a horror scene.
The monster comes from above. Was it in the lift all along?
The second scene features our plucky heroes. Four boys playing DnD and, with hindsight, the scene is incredibly clever.
Remember last week and the week before, when I go on and on about how to end your story? You end by going back to the beginning.
This whole scene explains the rest of the season in the simplest of terms.
The end of the season is reflected in this opening scene. Eventually, we will come full circle, and it’s beautiful.
Mike, Will, Lucas and Dustin are playing DnD, with Mike as their DM, when they come up against their biggest foe, the Demogorgon.
Will has to decide what to do and rolls the dice to discover his fate.
The choice he makes is to save his friends.
He rolls the dice, loses them, and comes clean to Mike before he leaves to cycle home.
‘The Demogorgon got me,’ he says.
Then he cycles home, is hunted and attacked, and vanishes.
Later in the episode, Mike, Lucas and Dustin sneak out of their homes to go searching for him. Will gave his life in the game to save his friends, so they are willing to the same in real life.
And of course, Will was right. The Demogorgon, as they call the monster, did get him, and took him back to its dimension, the Upside Down.
The biggest question of the opening episode is answered in that incredibly important scene, as we’re introduced to the characters, their strong friendship and the way their wonderful minds work.
The only way to notice this at all, of course, is when you’ve already watched the whole season and you go back to rewatch it, as I did.
Still, there’s a beauty and poetry to this type of storytelling that makes my heart so happy.
Perhaps the constructive lesson here is not to worry so much about writing the beginning of your story. Just get on with the writing.
Once you have your ending, go back and reconsider your beginning to see if you can make it all come full circle.
I was going to talk about how to write a story that becomes a phenomenon but no one knows the answer to that!
If you do happen to know the answer, please let us all know in the comments.
Otherwise, I hope you’ll stick around and subscribe.