Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Tuesday Tropes: The Mind Screw


Ever had your mind blown while reading a good book or watching a tense show? Like golfers and their hole-in- ones, these are the moments we entertainment lot live for. There are moments, however, when the unexpected strikes and confuses the heck out of us, in a good way.

The Mind Screw - A story element, so symbolic or absurd, that it makes no immediate sense (or any sense - ever), resulting in theories that have no right or wrong answer.


Alice In Wonderland (above) ... need I say more?

Yeah. I should. "Clean cup, move down!"

The Mind Screw is an extremely difficult trope to pull off, but it can be done. In fact, some literary works are a complete mind screw. My favorite? Douglas Adam's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Pick up the book at any point and you will have no problem following along, as it doesn't make sense anyway. But is sure is hilarious.

"So long, and thanks for all the fish!"

Sometimes it's not a matter of confusion, but a question left unanswered. Such was the case at the end of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Zuko asks, "Where's my mother?" to his incarcerated father - and then, cut to the next scene. No mother. We don't get to see her, leaving fans wanting to know what happened. This, my friends, is fan-fiction fuel.


Most Mind Screw moments find their place in flashbacks and dream sequences (something I've read time and again to avoid or use with caution), since flashbacks aren't always clear and dreams have a knack for the abstract. Speaking of dreams, such is the plot of Inception. The characters literally Mind Screw the heir of a company during a sequence of dreams to influence a conscious decision out of him.

That totem still messes with me to this day!

And if you've ever read Lord of the Flies, you're a brave soul. It's a good book, but a downright scary book, and to think I had to read it and The Catcher in the Rye as required school reading, both of which are prime examples of The Mind Screw. I'm still not sure if this was a good or bad thing, but it lead me to watching David Lynch films for a while ...


Give or take ...

Ever applied The Mind Screw in your writing? Did you find it easy or difficult? Should I get a haircut?

I'm David, and never go in against a Sicilian ...



24 comments:

  1. I've tried to apply a 'mind screw' but in the end I'm the one getting confused haha. They're extremely hard for me to work out! By the way, I loved Inception. Totally confusing, but it was awesome :)

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  2. Pfft, there was nothing at all confusing about Inception. Actually I Tweeted yesterday that I had just watched a DS9 episode from 1999 that had the exact same premise as Dr. Bashir and Chief O'Brien went inside a Federation agent's head to pry a secret out of it. So I guess that was a mind screw too.

    Anyway, stuff like Alice in Wonderland or the Hitchhiker's Guide may not make sense to the literal world but they make sense in their own worlds.

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  3. This one is so hard to pull off but amazingly effective if done correctly. I think you have to be a little wacky to do it well :)

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  4. 'Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.'

    No one can mind screw like Lewis Carol.

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  5. David Lynch! OMG he gives me a headache. I had to watch Mulholland Drive three times before I really thought I had a grasp on the movie.

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  6. Inception is a masterpiece, although I have to give it to the Princess Bride.

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  7. 'the mind screw' is the key element in every short story I've ever written... even going back to grade 11 English where a story I turned in at the beginning of the year got me sent to the counsellor's office ;)

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  8. OOH! I love this trope! Inception is STILL killing me! Darn them and that blasted top!

    And I will always love Princess Bride! A total fave of mine!

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  9. Hmm, not sure I could pull one off. But I do love when they're done well--as in all the examples you mentioned!
    "Anybody want a peanut?"

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  10. Lord of the Flies scared the crap out of me in high school. My freshman English teacher even pulled a Lord of the Flies on us by not showing up for class the day we were supposed to discuss it & leaving us group assignments on the board, groups assigned via drawing from a hat. I think he was a bit disappointed that when he turned up near the end, we were ready to present even if some of us were just about ready to throw the class clowns off the island.

    This was around the same time I read Animal Farm, which I've always found a total mind screw.

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  11. We also read Lord of the Flies and Animal Farm during the underclassman days of high school. I thought Animal Farm was a bit more of a mind screw...Lord of the Flies wasn't surprising at all =P

    Mind screws are what give me life in fiction. There's nothing like a great mind screw to make you go "AW YEAH THIS". I don't know if I've used them though. Maybe just little ones.

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  12. I love that sense of bewilderment that mind screws leave behind. They really make a story stick if they're done right.

    Great post!

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  13. I do not believe I could pull it off and as of right now, am too afraid to try. Inception was a fabulous movie, but that stinkin' top at the end still drives me crazy to this day!

    Great post, as always, David! I always come away from your posts smiling.

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  14. Yes, this takes serious talent to pull off. But I agree with others, when done well, it's awesome.

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  15. Nope, haven't done the mind screw but they are so fun in movies. And yes, Lord of the Flies is totally scary.

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  16. I don't know if I've ever used it, seeing that I don't understand it. I couldn't figure out Inception no matter how many times my daughter tried to explain it.

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  17. I don't know that I could create one. More than that, I like to guess when they are coming.

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  18. Oh, this is a tough one. If you do it right, it's great and you leave your readers in stupefied wonder, trying to catch up. If you misjudge it, though, readers are either confused or irritated...

    I've read/seen some good ones, but never attempted one myself.

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  19. This is actually one trope that I have never really connected with. I've even read (okay, tried to read parts of) some of your examples and realized they just weren't for me. So I know that it's not the kind of writing I'd be decent at. But it might be fun to give a try one of these days just for kicks.

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  20. Haven't used the mind screw... but my writing has definitely screwed with my mind... Does that count?

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  21. Yes. Love this post. Inception is one. Total mind screw. Lord of the flies is my fav too. :)

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  22. I love some absurdity when it's done well. But I have to confess, I've seen Alice in Wonderland in several movie forms and never liked it. It's like all improvisation and notmelody. Maybe I should break down and read the book.

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  23. Lord of the Flies was definitely a book I would classify as horrifying, sort of like Shirley Jackson's The Lottery.

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  24. The mind screw is such a difficult device to get right, but when it works it's amazing. Inception got it back on in my opinion.

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