Of Pratchett’s Goal

It comes from the Discworld novels written by Terry Pratchett. Though I find the novels very creative, there seems to be a common path in the development of the story. The first part of the story seems to be a little slow as it introduces the elements and works on them with the purpose of creating a desired situation ahead.

It’s the construction of the story towards one specific point, and then keeping it until the ending resolution, or moving on to other situations. The whole charm is in settling for unlikely situations, and seeing them become worth believing. For instance, Pratchett arranges every detail to show a dragon becoming king of the city, or to see what would happen if Egyptian gods started being real.

It doesn’t ruin the stories for me in the slightest. In fact, part of the experience for me is to recognize the goal Pratchett had in mind. It seems to be not only incredibly practical when creating the story, but it doesn’t seem to affect the experience. It is something about knowing how to add other spices to keep the story going, and the whole construction comes disguised, and I think that makes it more surprising and rewarding.

It must be done carefully not to let the experience be pointless only until it reaches the desired situation. One movie where I’ve noticed this logic being slightly misused was Goodbye Lenin. Although the premise is very interesting, I’ve had the feeling the situation was the only point of the movie. Seeing the kids coming up with different solutions to hide the fall of Berlin’s Wall was very interesting, though a little overstretched.