unforum

[Bulb]

Constructive criticism for Trosephim

[The Totem]

Honestly, if they do put in some sub-mysteries, they shouldn't build them up to GIGANTIC, OMG SUPER IMPORTANT, proportions *coughthearkcough*

[SpaceBass]

You know, this is good advice in general for creators. Try to remember that while you may have a solid handle on your story and it seems obvious to you what is important and what isn't, the audience doesn't have the same perspective. Red herrings are guaranteed to happen whether or not you include them intentionally, and mostly they're just a source of irritation for your audience unless you're willing to adapt your story on the fly to emphasize the things your audience thinks are important or interesting.

[Viden]

These are some of the things I posted in the Entry #87 thread, not including my thoughts on the ending, this is what I think about the Marble Hornets series in general.

"I wouldn't say it should of ended sooner, but it definitely had pacing issues that's for sure. As I know many people who are the same as you, started following it but soon got bored and fell out of following the series way back ago. I don't blame them one bit. They didn't focus on what's important and spent too much time focusing on what wasn't. When things are dragged out way too much it's easy to lose interest and excitement."

"Things that were built up had little to no pay off and the things that we thought had resolution ended up being relevant still." And also might I add during the majority of the series things that weren't even questioned were given an unnecessary answer

I have to say that they had a lot of cool concepts, likeable characters, and interesting content. They just didn't implement it in the right way. I wouldn't say they lack creativity or talent, I would say they lack direction. And that is what I believe to be the biggest flaw in the Marble Hornets series.

[lonsumtravlr]

[Marble Hornets]

Don't overestimate fanboy reactions to be the general consensus of anything, regardless of how vocal or how numerous they may be.

Don't ignore a large userbase of yours (such as unfiction) just because you're pissy about something someone said in the past

Don't promote a trailer for your upcoming movie only to convention-goers. Nothing says widespread promotion like only showing the people that are going to be watching it anyway, right?

[Cyan507]

[gennerx]

[Spritey]

I appreciate the realism and ambiguity of the MH ending, but I wish the amount of poetic justice or revelation was at least a LITTLE higher than 0%. It's supposed to be a "real" story, meaning plot points can technically be dropped, storytelling rules don't necessarily have to be followed, etc - the thing is that realism is underwhelming. This is a series that has taken us to another world, and it ended in a parking lot.

I think their twist was a little weak too, as they never really made me care about Jessica. I assumed she was dead and thought nothing of it, so seeing her alive was less "HOLY SHIT" and more "hey, it's that chick"

Like others have said, I would recommend making sure every mystery winds up being significant in some way. Even though randomness is "real", wrapping everything up nicely is more satisfying, and it doesn't really make it feel any less "real" either.

[lonsumtravlr]

[lonsumtravlr]

[lonsumtravlr]

[Lithp]

Building off of what Marble Hornets said, if it's at all possible, you should try to get some kind of objective, representative poll. YouTube likes aren't objective, people have to be REALLY dedicated in their hate to fill up that dislike bar. Sales aren't objective, you're only getting an indication of how many people liked it enough to buy things from it. Maybe not even that, maybe they just feel some kind of ethical obligation. What fans tell you to your face isn't objective.

Now, there were several ways that this could have been taken advantage of. That Hypable site they got interviews with seems to have a lot of members, there are fan sites all over the place, they're on Twitter, the internet gives a plethora of ways to collect huge amounts of data to analyze, especially when you're THAT well known. The more accurate of a picture that you can get of how many people WATCHED, LIKED, & DISLIKED, the better, especially if you can compare between MAJOR MILESTONES like the ending.

[SilentMedusa]

Reading all this, I'm reminded of a piece of writing advice I saw once: fiction has to make sense because real life doesn't.

What that means is, since this is a world and situation you've created, you have to make it all make sense. It has to have internal rules and logic, and your story has to abide by those. In real life there are things that you just never get any explanation for, but in a work of fiction you've created, there's no such excuse. Even if you don't inform your audience of these things, you (the creator) have to know them, and act accordingly.

I'll give an example regarding police involvement. In Dark Harvest, EMH, and Tribe Twelve, the protagonists actually did seek police help -at first. They gave that up because it went badly for all of them: in DH the police department has been infiltrated by members of a cult that worships Slender Man as a god, in EMH all their videos were believed to be hoaxes and they were eventually warned not to call again or they'd be charged with filing false reports, and in TT they could never find anything and Noah eventually gave up because he realized cops probably wouldn't be able to do anything anyway.

Contrast those to MH, where nobody even considers calling the cops. Even Jessica in #52; right after they escape Alex she asks Jay what they should do. And just goes along with his 'plan'. Even when they meet up at the hotel, she doesn't say anything. Since she wasn't aware of what was really going on, why would she not have thought of calling the cops on the man that had just attempted to murder two people? Especially with clear video evidence? The series mentioned above might have had weak reasons for the lack of police involvement, but at least they gave reasons at all.

I think part of the problem is that it was a Slender vlog. On this site at least, the majority of people that post on the subject will loudly say that you shouldn't explain anything about Slendy. At all. Any explanation takes away the fear and ruins everything. Maybe some folks take it too far, and think any explanation of anything ruins it all, so we get big holes like the one I mentioned above.

[Zarggg]

I think the key is less that it should "make sense," but that it has logical consistency. It's a thin distinction, but the latter simply means that things work the same way each time, whether or not it coincides with how we would expect it to work.

That's what gives "wilfull suspension of disbelief" its credence: Even though we know that A causes C in real life, if it is repeatedly demonstrated that A actually causes B in the series, we can accept that.

To use your police example, the fact that no one ever considered calling the police means that the writers failed to demonstrate logical consistency as to why no one considered calling the police; we as the viewers were never shown why that would be a bad idea, so we are left to apply conventional logic, i.e., what "makes sense" to us in reality.