A friend and I made a video a while back where we discussed Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. In addition to a great deal of criticism, which it deserves, we talked a bit about transmitting emotion through storytelling, brought on by the very different effects on the audience of two events in the movies. We contrasted the closeness and individual relatability of the reaction of Alan Grant to seeing his first dinosaur with the diffuse, amorphous reaction of a large crowd in the first Jurassic World movie.
This was something that I thought was worth a little more careful thought and demonstration. I'm not going to categorically deny that a good writer can make a large, diffuse reaction of a fictional crowd as emotionally satisfying for a reader as the reaction of a single character, but I am going to say it's much harder to do so.
This seems obvious, but also seems to be frequently missed in various media today. Whether this is due to a decrease in skill or to an ignorance of the effect is beside the point, but the bare fact stands on its own.
With that said, I think a demonstration is in order. I will use a simple scene as a backdrop: a baseball game. I will look at a few different perspectives and try to make my case.
Perspective One: The Player
John Lopez Junior stood in the circle on-deck. He had watched with a scowl as Manny, the previous batter, had hit a high fly ball to the right field that fell far short of the wall and was easily caught. That put them at two outs in the top of the eighth, with no one on base and four points behind. It didn't look good, and it didn't look like it would matter how hard John Junior hit whatever was thrown at him.
Except to John Junior. If he managed to hit it out of the park, it would be his 500th home run in a career that was still far from over. And it wasn't just the number. Somewhere out in the stands, his grandfather, now a man of 78, was there. Despite his poor health, he had flown all the way up from Tucson to see this game, and hopefully to see John Jr.'s 500th. John Junior knew that if Pop didn't see his 500th home run, it was possible he wouldn't make it to see his 600th.
It was his turn. He stepped from the on-deck circle into the batter's box. It would probably be his last chance at bat this game. His previous two had been a nice grounder that unfortunately only got him to first base, and a pop fly right on the foul line that had been caught by the third baseman. It wasn't like in some feel-good movie, where the pitcher might show him some slack for the sake of his sick grandpa. The man on the mound, Jeremy Wilks, had been a member of the same college team as John, and their rivalry had not ended in a friendly pat on the back.
Even so, John stood in position in the batter's box, looking out over the field and watching for Jeremy to get into position. The sun was in a bad place, glinting right past the bill of John's helmet into his eyes, but there was nothing he could do about that. After what seemed like forever, Jeremy got into position and John did the same. The first pitch came in fast but forked downward at the last second, and John managed to hit it but it went out way past the foul line.
Strike one.
The second ball seemed to come in a bit slower, and John held off on swinging at it. It came in low and on the outside--too far outside.
Ball one.
The third pitch came in streaking fast and John simply missed on his swing. The ball seemed to sizzle in the catcher's mitt as the referee called out.
Strike two.
It was now or never. John stood in position and watched Jeremy closely. Then, as Jeremy got into position, a cloud passed in front of the sun. Now John had an advantage. He narrowed his eyes and watched as Jeremy wound up and let it fly. He could see it clearly--it was a straight, fast pitch, high and inside, but clearly within the strike zone. John let his left foot relax slightly, then threw all of his weight behind the swing.
The crack of the bat on the baseball was like a flash of lightning. As John watched the ball fly upward and outward, well away from the foul line, the sun came back out. He lost sight of it, and was suddenly terrified. He watched the center fielder running back toward the wall, running, running, then a jump!
But the ball was too far out. John just caught a glimpse of it as it fell into the stands, shaded from the direct sunlight by the stadium walls. Five hundred, just when he needed it.
Perspective Two: The Crowd
The crowd went wild.
...Okay, okay! Maybe that's too simplified! Let me try to do a little better.
Perspective Two-A: The Crowd, Again
The great John Lopez stepped up to the plate. The murmur of the crowd after the previous fly ball had been caught gave way to a hush filled with anticipation. It might be a big day for John Lopez, but it didn't look like his team had much to celebrate about either way. It was the top of the eighth, with two out and nobody on base.
But John didn't seem too fazed. He stood at the plate in his usual stance, waiting for the pitch. It wasn't long before the first one came. He swung and just nicked it, popping it out past the foul line.
Strike one. For a second, the murmur came back. This didn't look good, and the home crowd was making it known.
The second ball went too far outside. John didn't swing.
Ball one.
The pitcher let fly with the third pitch and this time John missed it completely. The crowd let out a collective gasp, and you could see a bunch of people wince as the ball hit the catcher's mitt.
The fourth pitch made its way toward the plate and John's whole body twisted as he swung.
The crack was louder than the audience. The ball flew up and was streaking slightly to the right of center field. The murmur of the crowd swelled as it came up in a glorious arc, as the center fielder sprinted at the wall, but it was not to be. The ball fell into the hands of some lucky fan and everyone cheered.
Someone started a Wave at one end of the field and it made its way around the stadium three times before it petered out.
Five hundred home runs was a nice notch for John Lopez, and they all knew he was far from finished.
As you can see, by diffusing the emotion throughout the crowd, we lose the ability to focus on a single person's reaction. We can't (well, maybe we could, but it's harder!) track both at the same time. One might get around this by changing perspective in a flashback or something like that, but the observer of the narrator is naturally seeing things from a further out, less detailed perspective. And motivation of a crowd is mostly out of the picture. I made a little note that this was a home game and that the stands were mostly filled by John's fans, but it's better to focus on individuals with well-known motivations than nebulous feelings of large crowds.
This isn't to say that the perspective of the stands is necessarily less compelling. We can focus in on one particular observer and still have a fairly strong effect.
Perspective Three: The Watcher
It was too sunny, and too late in the day. It was clear that the position of the sun was interfering with the batters. I had just watched as a grimly slow pop fly into right field had been caught, meaning two outs in the top of the eighth, with not a soul on base. Not to mention that they were four points behind. It wasn't looking good, to say the least.
Which isn't to say there was no hope. The next man up at bat was John Lopez Junior, a veteran player and a hard hitter. With no one on base, it wouldn't be possible for Lopez to win the game, but he could push morale up and get the team back onto a positive footing.
The sound of conversations around me went quiet as Lopez stepped into the batter's box and got into his usual stance. He looked confident, or at least his stance did. I watched the tip of his bat sway rhythmically as he waited for the first pitch.
The pitcher got into position. I had never before seen this guy, Jeremy Wilks, in action, but he was a force to be reckoned with. Throughout the game, he had thrown a variety of different pitches, from lightning-fast straights to wild forks, with a bit of a head game going on as he chose between balls and strikes, but never actually walking anyone. More than his team's defense, Wilks's pitching had kept the ball on the field and, more often than not, in the hands of an infielder, keeping the opposition's advances limited. In Lopez's last two at-bats, he had managed just barely to get onto first base once. This would probably be his last chance this game.
Wilks let fly with the first pitch. Lopez made contact, but the ball was a clear foul, but fortunately not high enough for an infielder to run and catch it. The elderly man sitting next to me was squinting at the field and asked me what had happened. I told him it was a foul ball, and he nodded.
The second pitch went wide, and I couldn't tell if Wilks was tired or playing another mind game. The crowd was nearly silent as the referee's call echoed over the park.
The third pitch came out fast and Lopez swung and missed. “Strike two,” echoed over the loudspeaker.
Then, a shadow fell over the field and it seemed like it was time to lose hope. The fourth pitch flew like a bullet toward home plate, and I watched as Lopez wound up and swung with his whole body behind it. The sound of the hit echoed across the stadium, and I watched as the ball went up and out toward center field. It went up, up, up, further than I thought it could, and by the time it came down, it was clearly too far out for the center fielder to catch it.
It was a home run.
Everyone cheered like crazy, myself included. If there was a moment that might turn this game around this late, this was it. Some goofball over by the left field foul line started doing The Wave, and it caught on, going around the stadium again and again. However, as I stood up and sat back down, I noticed the old man sitting next to me was just sitting there.
“What do you think?” I turned and asked him, grinning.
He just looked out at the field, and I saw him silently mouth the words, “Five hundred.” Then I looked back down at the field, at Lopez as he circled the bases, and suddenly I saw the resemblance.
Instead of leaping up for the wave, a single tear flowed down the cheek of that one old man.
Well, that wasn't so bad, was it? From that perspective, we really have two characters, the narrator and Lopez Senior, so there might be a little diffusion going on, but we can really zoom in on how the individuals view things. And did you notice that the shadow going over the field was very different from how Lopez saw it? That's another cool thing you can do with individual viewpoints--they can differ in how they interpret things. Again, much harder to do with a crowd, I suppose partly because it would mean there would need to be another big crowd to contrast with.
In any case, I hope this has demonstrated how strong emotional effects can be diffused by spreading them out over too many people. It's almost always better to focus down on one person's or a few people's reactions to an event, rather than simply note that everyone screamed happily. Of course, this seems like an obvious thing, but if triple-A Hollywood movies are screwing it up, maybe it isn't. Thanks for reading!
If you'd like to check out a story that has a fun twist on the first-person perspective, check out Jade Cargo!
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