This Confession Has Meant Nothing

Forgive me. I'm still not feeling very funny. Maybe I'll have some better stuff closer to New Years.

I just watched American Psycho again and it got me thinking. Not about the directly correlated stuff like vapid materialism and lust and rejection of core humanity either. Instead, I ended wondering about how to convey a story like this without the blood.

Well, of course it's possible, but I guess I should ask; Is it possible to convey an interesting story like this without the blood?

Everyone knows the phrase, "Who, What, Where, When, and Why". It's the foundation of storytelling. Different types of stories focus on different components. Your more popular fiction is pretty centered on the What. What happened, the story, the plot. The more literary stuff coasts between the Who and the Why. These are the stories that bore the hell out of people because, generally speaking, no one cares that Rosebud was a damn sled. The Where and When are really more details. They can definitely be important details, but they aren't the core of the story.

So, continuing to reframe my question; If you've got your Who and Why, your Patrick Bateman as the sociopathic golem driven by everything that was wrong with 80's America. That's a great Who and Why, but no one's going to read about his fastidious morning beauty ritual alone, at least no one who doesn't bring a MacBook to Starbucks. That's where the What comes in. An engaging, and maybe a little outrageous, What can sell stories, so why not bolt some titillating story onto your beatifully crafted Who and Why?

Bottom line, I think it is possible to create a more prosaic What and still sell your Why and Who, but it's pretty damned hard. Lost in Translation is a good example of this. Great Why and Who, kind of a boring What though really. Still, the Why and Who were so well crafted and the slow What was both well made and 100% supportive of the theme, that it still achieved some popularity.

I'm pretty sure it made less money than Titanic though.