What "L O S T" Taught Me About Writing...

I've written numerous articles about "L O S T" defending her against naysayers, explaining her finale to people who for whatever reason still believe it was purgatory all along...(Ugh!). But today I won't be defending her lady's honor, instead today I'll be sharing with you all what "L O S T" has taught me as a writer. It'd be a lie to say that the writing of "L O S T" is the contention of many as some believe they were making it up as they go, changing things at the last minute, etc. But despite all that these are some genuine things that writers should consider. Check it out.

"L O S T" taught me about perspective. Perspective is a topic that is hardly brought up in terms of literature and when it is it's usually about narrators vs. unreliable narrators but never the central focus of a story. "L O S T" for all its complexities that people love and hate it for is a PAINFULLY simple story as I've stated before in this article here, but I'm not here to talk entirely about "L O S T" but about how a story is told. What you focus on as a writer is just as important as who you focus on. "L O S T" taught me that telling a story includes perspective and perspective means one may not have all the information one needs to completely understand the story.

I'll give you a less complicated example; "Training Day". The plot twist in "Training Day" is that Alanzo Harris needed to acquire money in order to pay off Russian gangsters for a murder he committed and he has 24 hours to acquire this money. This is established long before the film even starts and this is information that only Alanzo and a few others are aware of and the audience isn't made privy until much later and the reason why is because Jake Hoyt is the perspective by which we're experiencing the story. So from Jake's perspective, Alazno merely seems like a dirty cop until we're made aware of the full story. Imagine all the ideas running through Jake's head trying to figure out why all of this happening not realizing that Alazno was merely trying to save his own life at the expense of Jake. Now imagine if we experienced the story through Alanzo?

Changing the perspective of anything changes understanding. Hiding information from the audience is key to building a good mystery because if the audience had all the information there would be no mystery but the audience knows just as much as the detective then we the audience are along for the ride. Your average story is told from an omniscient or semi omniscient perspective, where we see heroes and villains doing their thing and we know (for the most part) what both sides are planning. I say "for the most part" because in the words of Truman Burbank "You can't put a camera inside my head", as to say we never know what either side is thinking. 

There reason why I said, "L O S T" taught me this is because "L O S T" managed to do this on a macro scale and thus tell 2 different versions of the same story (something I have never seen done before). "L O S T" essentially made the actual story the B Story and made the characters stories the A Story. When Jacob was finally introduced and answered the questions of the survivors we understood the story from his perspective, but he was not our focus, the characters were, and because the characters were unaware of what was happening for so long they became the story. I guess I must recap what "L O S T" is about and then explain myself;

"L O S T" is about a mystical figure named Jacob who is the sworn protector of a power source on a mystical island. Eventually, Jacob made a mistake and put the island and his job in jeopardy when he unleashed a Smoke Monster, who wished to destroy the island and the power source. In order to ensure this power source will be protected, Jacob draws certain individuals to the island as candidates for his job."

That's "L O S T" in a nutshell, sound complicated?  Not really? But that's Jacob's perspective and that's not how "L O S T" was presented to us. Instead, we were introduced to The Island through the survivors so "L O S T" became this;

"L O S T" is about a group of plane crash survivors who land on an island. As time goes on the survivors discover that this island is no ordinary island, and not only might they not be alone but they may have been brought there for a reason."

Totally changes the perspective. "L O S T" taught me how to switch perspectives and how to understand focus, when to express the thoughts and feelings of characters and when to allow their actions to do the expressing for me when to show when to tell, when to explain and when not to, and all of these are tools of perspective. No, "L O S T" is not the first story to do this and I'm sure there are better examples but this is what "L O S T" taught me about writing. Hope you all enjoyed that. Catch ya next time!