Idea and Execution

No, not an actual 'someone ends up dead' execution. The execution of an idea within a certain form of media. If you've ever heard the sentence, 'The idea was there, the execution was just terrible', it's that sort of execution. 

The execution, or the fulfillment of a certain idea is something we all do in nearly all of our projects, it's important in art, in music, in theater and film, and is also especially important in writing. A lot of people tend to notice sloppy execution even in sentence writing, which is what happens when a sentence is constructed in a way that the action, or feeling, that the author is trying to convey, doesn't come across well. 

But, in regards to that, there are several things that have to be considered, among which are: once the reader has finished the book, does that one, seemingly out of place sentence and its purpose actually finally connect to the reader at the last minute, like a punch being pulled back long enough that it's actually surprising when it hits? Is it on purpose? Because then, that's just planned writing and it's a good device to use when wanting to surprise a reader. 

Is it, however, just plain confusing and can be worded better to suit the purpose that the author wanted it to have? Then it needs to be reworked.

In light of recent movie releases (cough:  E N D G A M E, Captain Marvel - I'm a Marvel fan but I also have Opinions on their output because it is incredibly expensive to see a movie, where I'm from), I got into a conversation with my sibling that involved the topic of the execution of an idea, and I thought to write down a lot of the points that were talked about in said conversation, because I think in order to write a solid story, the execution of an idea is a very important thing to nail right.

Ideas will remain ideas unless executed. Without execution, there can be no output, and no impact. 

PART ONE: What is execution?

Execution, in this context, is the way that one carries to fruition a concept or an idea. It's also, in another context, the termination  of a certain subject. Funnily enough, both meanings can be applied to certain media if one's unfolding of an idea is stellar, lukewarm or terrible.

In the context of stories, execution would be the method as to how the creator presented the idea and/or purpose of the story. The medium used to convey the story is part of this execution, more so than one might initially think.

Take, for example, the game Undertale. 

One of the biggest selling points of Undertale was the fact that you were able to choose a Mercy option, rather than the Fight option, which most games often have. While choosing a more benevolent action is not new in the realm of video games, it is also not common, especially not when the game initially presents itself to be a game where confrontation is involved, and the common stance when it come to these confrontations is either you strike or get struck. 

The novelty of the Mercy option and the existence of the Pacifist route would also not be the same had the medium of Undertale not been a game, as if it were a movie, the story would simply have been told linearly. If it was a book, it faces the same problem. 

It also helped that it was never explained in the beginning that choosing either mercy or fight would drastically alter the ending and it was simply something the players would have to learn along the way. 

The chosen method to present a story drastically affects how the story can be executed. With the podcast Welcome To Night Vale, we are reliant on Cecil Palmer's voice, delivery and opinions. His opinion of Steve Carlsberg was key to how the fandom perceived Steve, because all we had to go on were Cecil's words. And then, it turned out that Steve Carlsberg was a sweetheart and he and Cecil simply had issues they had to work through because Cecil refused to talk about the issue in the first place, but Steve was constantly reaching out to him. The podcast format also greatly makes the whole story intriguing, as we're never sure how Cecil gets his reports sometimes (like with The Story of Them, The Story of You, and most recently the episode where he's still broadcasting despite the fact that the city hasn't had power in weeks). 

Execution greatly relies on the story's format, and this is where everything gets tricky, and where you can either have a greatly-executed idea, or a poorly-executed idea.

Another aspect of execution is what you show, what you tell, and what you don't give the audience.

The draw of mysteries is that the audience is left to wonder exactly what the hell is going on, and because of natural curiousity, they are invested in trying to figure things out. This is why shows like Gravity Falls and Twin Peaks are so successful, why time and time again, we get detective shows, why ARGs pop up every now and then and, with proper execution and viral marketing, sweep the internet. 

Mysteries are a perfect case study for what you show the audience, what you tell the audience, and what you don't give the audience. 

Horror and thriller stories draw audiences in because of suspense and the sense that no one knows exactly how the characters' fates will turn out. The adrenaline rush is also there, but a good thriller relies not on jumpscares, but on suspense. Jumpscares should be treated as embellishments - accented with something else that makes up the whole of a piece; sparsely, but brilliantly used. Thrillers are a perfect case study for how to work with what you do give the audience. 

The draw of romance, aside from the fact that it is something a portion of humanity is invested in, is the chemistry between the parties involved in the situation. Proper execution is key to building this chemistry, showing this chemistry, and using this chemistry to draw the audience in that they will not rest until they see the romance finally be in full bloom.

Poorly-executed stories of mystery give us something that only ends up being confusing, seemingly over the top but ultimately nonsensical, and the sense that someone tried to hard, got the spirit, but didn't quite get there (aka BBC Sherlock Season 4). 

Poorly-executed stories of thrillers and horrors just end up being too in-your-face with the booming music, the loud noises, and the things that pop up every two minutes or so, thus making the audience used to it after a while (I can and will say every iteration of the FNAF franchise, after the first game; Sister Location was only saved because of the story, the stellar voice acting, the fun the game actually brought, and the new gameplay - every game after the first save SL was exactly the same with only a few tweaks and one gets used to the scares after a few runs).

Poorly-executed romance ends up with what can seem like shoehorned pairings or a slew of questions as to why these characters are even together when their interactions indicated nothing that pointed to this (North and Markus from DBH, Bruce and Natasha in Age of Ultron, Shiro from Voltron being hurriedly married off to someone the audience didn't even know the name of until they checked the audio transcript).

Execution includes how ideas are presented or how they are gotten to (like, for example, if you wanted a hero to get a really hard-to-obtain macguffin, you would give them obstacles rather than have them breeze through everything, because the macguffin is, of course, supposed to be hard to obtain). Which is easier said than done, but when done right, can do a massive difference in storytelling and be key to good characterization, continuity, and impact.

PART TWO: How important is it?

MASSIVELY. And I mean, massively important so that the story feels solid and if not stellar, decent.

Once, I read the book Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas, which follows the story of a certain kingdom's supposedly youngest, but most terrifying assassin, Celaena Sardothien. She was young (eighteen, if I remember correctly), had a high kill count, and was good at her job. Which is all well and good, and in fact, assassins are often one of the most interesting characters portrayed in media. 

The only problem was that, the readers were told that Sardothien was all of these things, but unfortunately not shown them, and frankly only succeeded to show her as a bit of a run of the mill criminal. 

It is worth noting, however, that Sardothien, in the book, was masquerading as a thief and not an assassin, so she had to downplay her abilities. Which was also good, because that's conflict - notorious, well-known assassin, having to act like a bumbling fool, thus sacrificing their pride on the altar of having to play a role. However, there was one scene that kind of fumbled with the characterization of Sardothien being a good assassin.

Sardothien, among with other criminals, was part of a tournament to become the king's champion. The tournament had a lot of trials, which included, among others, the ability to rank poison from deadliest to safest; after the contestants ranked the liquid poisons, they were to drink what they had ranked the 'safest' to see if they did in fact get it right. 

Sardothien, unfortunately, does not display her skills here although this would have been a good time for her to because, well, if she wants to win the tournament, she's going to have to not die, and no one would bat an eye if she got the order right, because so would a handful of other people. It would have been fine. Downplaying her skills with weapons is a whole other story from drinking poison on purpose so as to 'not turn any heads' because if she died, there would be no tournament to win. 

Instead, she is portrayed to be bad at poisons, which again, is a fine flaw in a character but a generally unbelievable one when the character is supposed to be the best assassin in the land. Assassins, while being masters at combat, are also widely known to be stealthy and use a number of methods in order to get rid of their targets, poison included. 

Thus, along with the fact that Sardothien is not allowed to show her real strengths, and isn't even really given the proper conflict that comes along with that (emphasis on hurt pride and the humiliation of having to look like an idiot when she could have been able to kill a man with her pinky finger or something), this just makes her look ordinary and incompetent.

Adjusting the situation to have Sardothien breathe a sigh of relief because finally, a subject she can pass with flying colors and not look like a moron, and then acing the test would have shown that if only she was allowed to, she could have easily risen through the ranks. But she's not supposed to, because it would jeopardize the whole thing. Bonus internal conflict, maybe embellished with her taking out her frustrations by massacring a dart board with knives. The image would be that she is competent, the mission simply can't have her being competent and it's getting on her nerves.

Even when the character trait in question is not their competency on killing people, execution is still key on creating compelling characters. A character who is shown to be going through a lot of hardship, and yet still emotionally fine with no hint of anything else can make them seem like they are apathetic to the hardships (which is, in fact, a common complaint within the Homestuck fandom - in the retcon timeline, Retcon Roxy died, but the remaining kids were readily accepting of Game Over Roxy without even a hint of grief for their Roxy, or wariness in case they weren't the same person even if they had the same face and name; many readers thought this made the kids seem, quote, 'like sociopaths'.). A character who is said to be kind but is never shown to be acting on that inherent kindness can make the audience forget that 'kind' was a trait associated with them in the first place.

Execution is the balance between showing and telling. Being unable to get a good grip of that leads, then, to poor characterization.

Good execution is also key to creating suspense, and suspense is created when there is rising conflict, rising action, and rising stakes. These things have to be created with proper execution. Rising conflict cannot be created when the conflict is only presented at the very last minute, when the climax is happening. It's called rising conflict because it gradually grew over the course of the story (which is what sadly happened with the Fantastic Beasts sequel, because they squandered the second act on exposition). 

A good execution of rising conflict is in A Series of Unfortunate Events, every time Olaf catches up with the children and they try to tell their current guardian, but they either don't believe them, or Olaf works to circumvent the measures the guardian has taken and outside forces go against both the Baudelaires and their guardians. The conflict starts to rise because we know that Olaf is a bad man and we've seen exactly why, because we were shown it. We know he is awful for the children, but he's here and the children are not being believed even when they tell the other adults about it, thus creating conflict, and the longer it goes on and the more Olaf gets away with things, the more the conflict rises.

Rising action cannot be created when we are not seeing the characters do anything in direct opposition to the conflict (like getting ready, gathering troops, or rising from a previous defeat to be stronger than ever).  

A good example of rising action is in The Lord of the Rings, where Sam and Frodo are making their way to Mordor all on their own. They're not seasoned soldiers or great wizards, they're just two Hobbits tasked with destroying the ring, and on top of all the fatigue and threat on their lives they have to endure, they also encounter Gollum, who is already shady to begin with.

Rising stakes cannot be created when we are not shown what is at stake and what happens if the characters fail. 

A good example of rising stakes is in The Hunger Games trilogy, where the threat slowly becomes, from Katniss being sent into the arena, to her family being threatened, to Peeta being kidnapped, to the resistance being destroyed. Threat to threat to threat, with no downgrade the levels of severity.

When a story that is supposed to put the audience on the edge of their seats fails to do so, more often than not, it is because the presentation of the rising action, rising conflict and rising stakes are done poorly. If it is heaped on by non-compelling characters, then the audience has no reason to care. How many times have you read a fic where the trope has been done a thousand times, but you still feel invested to read it anyway, because you love the characters?

Lack of proper execution can also lessen the emotional impact the story or the characters have with the audience. Like I've said, people often read or consume something no matter how many times the trope has been done over and over because they love the characters, and well-executed characters are relatable, compelling, and well-rounded characters.

Characters with no personality are characters who, more often than not, are supposed to have a personality on paper, but not on works. For example, a writer can list down all the character traits a certain character has all they want, but unless it is shown and witness by the reader, the character will remain flat and one-dimensional. Think about it this way: if someone was asked, in class, to describe themself, you won't remember how they described themself as (unless it's out of spite), but you will remember their actions and how they interact with you.  Characters are the same way, and thus their personalities shine through in their actions and not their words.

In addition to lack of a personality being shown, lack of interactions with other characters, or poorly-written interactions often contribute to a lack of emotional impact. 

In Voltron, the team is presented and said to be 'a team'. However, watching Voltron firsthand doesn't actually make it seem like they are a team given how often they humiliate Lance, make fun of Keith's feelings or not see that what he's doing is important too, or actually hang out outside of work, or get hung up about certain dynamic shifts (like Hunk and Lance suddenly not talking as often when they used to be best friends, and in fact Hunk starts making fun of Lance with Pidge; or Shiro and Keith suddenly just not talking to each other with no indication that they're just doing that because they're comfortable enough to just spend time around each other and not use words. In fact, they barely had any time together in the last seasons). 

In Captain Marvel, Vers is said to have spent the last six years of her life on Kree and trained with them, and even had a team of people she worked with. However, we are never shown what their relationship is like, and even Vers' relationship with her mentor (Jude Law's character who I forgot the name of) isn't very explored. This, of course, then lessens the impact of the character beginning to doubt herself and her friendships and alliances, because we weren't shown this a lot in the first act of the movie. It, funnily enough, falls in line when Vers, when she remembers herself as Carol, switches sides almost effortlessly as if the last six years of her life weren't spent around these people. 

Take Wirt and Beatrice in Over The Garden Wall, however. Wirt is shown to dislike his brother from the very first episode of the series, and in fact, he's admonished by The Woodsman that as he is the older sibling, it is his responsibility to look after his younger brother, which he does the bare minimum of over the next few episodes, later blowing up as he starts to lose hope in their situation, until he realizes exactly how much of a douchebag move that is (which is after his brother deciding to sacrifice himself to The Beast in exchange for Wirt going home, which The Beast of course had no intention of fulfilling). 

Wirt's dislike for his brother is shown, and it's very obvious, from the beginning of the series, so when he realizes and backtracks and tries to make amends, we see and feel the shift in his personality, which makes for impact.

Beatrice, in Over The Garden Wall, initially befriends the boys to manipulate them, which initially seems like she's just an irritable bird who tolerates them. This attitude of tolerance, however, shifts and is noticeable, because we have been shown what we were introduced to as Beatrice's personality. Beatrice suddenly starts feeling down and then, later, even does a heel face turn on her decision to bring the boys to Adelaide. Which, of course, doesn't end well because the boys follow her and figure out what she was doing all along. However, the point here is that, from Beatrice's first appearance in the series, it becomes apparent that something changes, and then after that change, Beatrice readily helps Wirt find his brother and has become a true friend to the brothers instead of someone leading them around to fix a mistake she made.

The most loved characters are often characters who have had the most development, and this development can only be adamant if it is shown and implied properly in the material. Steve Harrington of Stranger Things is beloved by audiences because he started as a bully who later softened up and turned out to be quite great with kids, which is a drastic shift from his initial presentation in the series. Klaus Hargreeves of The Umbrella Academy makes audiences proud because he went from the drunk druggie that episode one presented him as to someone who fought to be sober and is trying hard to unlock his full potential in episode ten. Without the audience being shown where they came from what they did to get to where they are now, however, all this wouldn't be as impactful.

In regards to mystery, the best mysteries are often when the audience can play along with the characters and pick apart the story to try to see the big picture, but this only works if there is something to theorize off of and something to put together. Audiences feel the rush of satisfaction when a theory is proven right because they managed to put together seemingly isolated things presented in the story that ended up being important and interconnected. 

Anybody who's seen Sherlock Is Garbage And Here's Why knows about the fucking boomerang, and that is a very good point regarding the importance of execution. Because the whole mindscape thing happens in the mindscape, there was therefore no way that case could be solved by an outside perspective because they shouldn't be in the mindscape. The Final Problem is a series of horrible executions one after the other, because of the actual physical hints that Redbeard was a dog rather than a person. If the clues of Redbeard being a 'dog' were purely in Sherlock's mind because he misremembered from trauma, it would make a bit of sense. However, the fact that there is a physical dog bowl makes it seem like yes, Redbeard was a dog. If he was a human and they're going to die on the hill that there was a dog bowl, that just implies Sherlock made him eat from the dog bowl.

What is presented for the audience to see, whether it is shown or told can drastically affect what it implies and how it's understood as and how it's received. Poor execution leads to in-canon plot holes that have to be explained by the creators outside of the story, which I think is actually terrible storytelling, because while it's important to have the audience draw conclusions from the story, it is also important that the story in itself presents everything it needs to present rather than rely on post-script explanation that casual fans often don't bother to access.

PART THREE: How does one do execution?

When the only option isn't to get an axe and lob off something, execution is dependent on the medium the story is told through and what tone and genre the story is aiming for. When your medium is a podcast, you cannot rely on visual cues. You'd have to describe them, somehow, in a way that makes sense. When your medium is a book, you have to make sure that your writing is engaging instead of writing what just seems like a lifeless script indicating who is doing what with awkward pacing due to the fact that there are no pauses if the author doesn't make an effort to make it feel like the scene has paused for a moment.

It is important to remember, however, that whatever the medium is, play to its strengths. In Welcome To Night Vale, the podcast is told through a radio show, which makes sense because the story is told through audio. In Hannibal, the show is told through stunning cinematography that freely uses metaphors and showcases Will Graham's declining mental health, as well as his ability to step into the mind of the killer. A good number of Vocaloid songs tell their stories through a mixture of their music, their lyrics and their videos. 

Welcome to Night Vale uses music and Cecil's voice, words and delivery to tell their story, and it works, because Cecil's delivery is brilliant, and the script is written in a way that presents the weirdness of Night Vale, mixed with actual foreshadowing that, in the context of Night Vale just being Like That, is easily discarded as typical NV weirdness until a later episode points out that no, that was foreshadowing. It also helps that because Cecil is the narrator, then everything is mostly told through the lens of Cecil, thus distorting things because his perspective isn't shared by other people. WTNV uses Cecil's perspective and the fact that the audience only has this perspective to be immersed in the story as its greatest strength and it's one of the best things about Night Vale, because it leaves the audience curious and wondering.

Hannibal uses its visuals to show us that not only does Will profile the killers he catches, he actually becomes them in his head, and later we are slowly noticing that some of the things that are being presented on screen may not actually be happening in real life for the characters, because Will has encephalitis in the first season. Later, we are also tricked into thinking Abigail Hobbs is alive because of Will's trauma and denial that she is dead, and thus we see the show from his perspective, as we mostly always have.

Every form of medium has its strengths, and good execution is to play and cater to that. The more strengths a medium has and can be used, like in cinema where you can use dialogue, visuals and music, the more places you can be creative and bring more life to the presentation of the idea. 

Execution doesn't only stop in the medium, however, it is also in pacing and characterization, so it is important to know how long something must take and how much should be shown or told. 

In a story, there is psychological time, meaning how long a period of time is perceived as, or how long it feels (like when someone says it feels like it's been hours when it's only been minutes) and chronological time. This is often hard to nail, but with practice and a lot of listening from beta audiences, it is achievable. Sometimes, when a character is stuck somewhere or doing something they hate, time seems to stretch forever. When they are doing something they enjoy, everything seems to be going fast. If the situation cannot realistically be resolved in a few hours, then chronologically, it should take as long a it needs to take, and coupled with how fast-paced the character is and how they have to go through during this time period, then this can either be told in exposition or be given focus to really give the impact that it's been a long, long time.

Characterization depends on how much you show your audience and how much you don't. Some characters can be hiding parts of themselves from the other characters, but in order for the audience to know this, they have to be able to see even a sign of it. If a character is known to be this and that, then show it. If the audience is meant to theorize and slowly see that the character is not who they seem they are, leave hints.

PART FOUR: Conclusion 

In conclusion, execution is one of the rest of the things creators have to learn when they are bringing their ideas to life. We learn it as much as we learn how to get the rhythm of a sentence right, how to design a character, how to create a satisfying arc that doesn't become a cop out. It's not easy and a lot of times, one has to go by feel, but it can be achievable, even if it's with knowing your characters a little more and doing how research how long a thing takes and what the character's opinion on that specific thing is. 

Execution, however, remains and will always remain as one of the most important things in creating any solid story, the practice that will take to get there is most definitely worth it. Breaking down stories to see how they fit together helps. Watching a movie and asking yourself why a scene felt fast / slow / just right helps. Getting beta audiences to review the whole thing before it goes out helps.

I've still got a long way to go when it comes to getting a hand on execution, but at least getting decent at it already helps, and learning about your own characters and how they act, along with the environment and the situation they're in, is often something creators should do but often forget.