Stranger Things—you’ve probably heard of it. That Netflix show that swept the internet as rapidly as the Frozen craze. Sometimes I’m leery about overhyped shows. But this one? This one earned its hype. Why? Because the writing is just so absurdly GOOD.

If you were here for my post a couple of weeks ago about Disney TV series, you’ve probably gathered I’m pretty disgruntled with TV these days. Writing has just gone so downhill lately, and it frustrates me to no end. But sometimes, sometimes, a gem rises from the garbage and it restores my hope in TV writers. And, let my tell you, Stranger Things is one shiny gem.

I recently rewatched the first two seasons and watched the third for the first time (I know, I know, it took me ages to get to it). I had a very specific reason for rewatching it (besides, you know, desperately wanting to because I love this show so much): I wanted to set out and learn. After the first time I watched this show a few years back, I was stunned by the expert writing skills. Ever since, I’ve been wanting to rewatch it with pen and paper on hand and pay attention. Why did this show give me feels like no other? How is the writing so tight? What makes me love these characters with every fiber of my being and beyond??? I NEEDED TO LEARN.

So, at last, I have done it. This go ‘round, I watched with intention, jotting things down as they struck me. And since I now have a random pile of writing notes, I thought it’d be fun to share my findings!

Except…I have so many notes. So many, in fact, that I’ve had to split this post into two posts. Yeah, there’s a lot to learn from this show. JUST SO MUCH. So let’s get to it!

DISCLAIMER: Sadly, this is not a show I’d recommend to everyone. First of all, it’s basically horror. (I actually don’t like horror at all, but I love this show which tells you how good it is, but I digress!) It’s got some ICKY parts. Plenty of gore and monsters and just…slimy…gross…stuff. Secondly, there’s the obligatory people sleeping together just ‘cause. *rolls eyes* Thirdly, and the big one, the language is atrocious and just gets worse with each season. *siiiigh* Seriously, these characters, even the little kids, curse. so. much. It drives me CRAZY. If not for the language, it wouldn’t be so bad (well, for those with strong stomachs anyway). But yeah, the language is pretty heavy. SO. I’m not exactly endorsing this show… But, man, is the writing good.

Also there will be SPOILERS. For all three seasons. So if you plan on watching it or aren’t caught up yet, you may want to skip this post. Otherwise, read on, my dear elflings, and let’s dissect the inner workings of a good story!

WRITING TIDBITS FROM
STRANGER THINGS PT. 1

You can show your character’s character instantly

The first season of this show is about a young boy, Will Byers, disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Will vanishes within the first 10 minutes of the first episode and then the entire season follows his friends and family as they go to EXTREME lengths to find him.

Okay, cool. A mystery. A missing boy. That’s always fun. BUT HERE’S THE THING. The show isn’t just about solving a mystery, it’s about the emotional impact on the characters. It’s about how Will being gone affects them. And it should effect US. But if we didn’t know Will…why would we care? Why would we believe all these characters would work this hard for some random missing kid?

At the beginning, he and his friends are playing a game of Dungeons and Dragons and are about to faceoff with the dreaded demogorgon. Will, the wizard of the group, takes the heat and rolls the dice, needing a high number to be able to defeat it with his “fireball”, but at that moment Mike, the game master, is called away and doesn’t see that Will rolled a low number. The other two boys, Lucas and Dustin, want to hide it from Mike, but Will, in a touching moment, tells him the truth. He couldn’t save the party.

In all of 10 seconds, we learned that Will is softhearted, truthful, and willing to (metaphorically) die for his friends. Through this, we instantly grow an attachment. That’s literally all it took. Now, for the rest of the season, we’re cheering on all the other characters to please please please save this precious child.

We want them to find Will SO BADLY. And why is that? Because, right at the start, the show revealed to us what a precious person he is.

Another example is Sheriff Hopper. The first scene we see him in is him sprawled out asleep on his couch inside his rundown trailer. The TV is on, beer bottles are everywhere, and the house is in disarray. It doesn’t take much to gather this guy is depressed and doesn’t seem to care two cents about his wellbeing. From that, we can’t help but wonder what on earth happened to this sheriff of a seemingly quiet, pleasant little town. He sure ain’t no Andy Griffith.

It really does not take much at all to show who your characters are and, even better, to make your readers/viewers grow instantly attached to and/or curious about them. Thinking about your characters’ first impressions can be vital to hooking your reader.

Desperate and scared people sometimes say mean things

Joyce Byers, Will’s mother, does not exactly, erm, handle the fact that her youngest boy is missing very calmly. (Not that any of us can blame her.) When all sorts of crazy things begin to happen to her, she sort of loses it, letting her fear and desperation drive her.

During quite a few scenes, when she’s determined to get Hopper to help her, she says some pretty hurtful things to him. Under normal circumstances, she would never dreg up the past and poke him where it hurts. But being as how she hasn’t slept in, like, days, is scared out of her mind, and beyond desperate, of course she’s not thinking about being polite.

Will’s friends, also, end up in some pretty major arguments as their own desperation to find Will peaks.

All of us get a little snappish when we’re exhausted, and we have to remember our characters are going to be the same. When they’re tired, scared, hungry, desperate, etc., they are going to be the worst version of themselves. And BONUS: this adds great conflict. Make your characters fight. Make them accidentally say hurtful things. Use that dialogue to raise the tension. The more you can up that tension, the better your story will be.

Make a character who has nothing witness everything they SHOULD have had in life

Will’s older brother, Jonathan, is an outcast. Quiet, self-conscious, from a broken home, and poor, he’s basically shunned at school. He doesn’t have a friend to speak of. His mother and little brother are the only two people he has in life.

So, one day, when he spots some popular kids partying by the pool of a rich kid’s house, you can’t help but ache for him. Here he is seeing what his life should be—friends, fun, being included and liked. It really tugs at the heartstrings.

Another scene is with Eleven. Eleven or “El” is a little girl who has spent her whole life as a lab rat. She’s never even been in the outside world, and most certainly hasn’t had what one would call friends and family. Instead, her whole life has been spent inside stale rooms with wires hooked to her brain and cruel people treating her as nothing but an experiment. They never even gave her a proper name, for goodness’ sake.

She does eventually escape, though, and hides away at Mike’s house and there she explores Mike’s older sister’s room. Nancy’s room is everything a girl’s room should be—pink and floral and nice clothes and photographs plastered all over the walls of Nancy laughing with friends. Happy. Normal. Everything El has never had but should have. And oh my poor broken heart, it makes you FEEL THINGS. Sad things!

BONUS: This scene also makes us hate the people who did this to El even more. And, since they’re more or less the antagonists, that’s a very good thing.

I suspect a buuuunch of us write characters who were denied happy, normal lives. (Obligatory orphaned fantasy protagonists anyone???) A fantastic way to really tug at the heartstrings is force your character to witness the very thing they should have had or the thing they want most but can’t have.

People who have nothing to live for are more willing to take risks. But so are people who are desperate to keep everything they live for.

Remember Hopper? The sheriff who doesn’t seem to care about his wellbeing at all? Yeah. The man isn’t scared of risking his life. He’s depressed, he’s lonely, he has no one he particularly cares about (or at least that’s what he’s convinced himself). But he’s dedicated to his job and, because he’s lost people in the past, he doesn’t want to see others suffer the same fate. So when he comes across a secret facility that may have something to do with Will’s death, he recklessly storms in there and throws himself in innumerable dangers because why not? If he dies he dies. But if he lives, at least he’s helping the hunt for Will.

On the other side of the coin, Joyce is experiencing supernatural activity in her household. Like…there seems to be a monster in her walls and the lights are flickering, and it’s all pointing to Will’s disappearance. So she literally destroys her house to try to find her son. She doesn’t care about material things anymore, or that she might be going crazy, or that she hasn’t slept in days. She’s willing to risk destroying her home if it means getting what she holds most precious back.

People usually don’t take big risks for no reason. Some people live recklessly because they don’t care all that much about themselves for some reason or another. Others risk everything to keep what they hold most dear. Remember, when your characters are off facing the Big Bad and throwing themselves into countless dangers, they have to have a reason. They need a drive to be willing to put their lives at risk.

Flashbacks can actually be good! Just don’t do them too early.

I’ve never really understood the hate on flashbacks. If I’ve fallen in love with a character, I want to know alllllll about them. Flashbacks are so often my FAVORITE parts of stories. I think they can be wonderful tools to up the emotion. BUT the key to that is not putting them in too early.

We were told early on that Hopper lost his little girl to cancer but we didn’t even get flashbacks of his life with her until the very last episode of season 1. At that point we loved Hopper. We ached for him. We understood why he suffered depression. BUT THEN they tossed us scenes of his happy days with his little girl and then the terrible moment he lost her and BRB SOBBING FOREVER. It just ramped up the emotion x100000. Now, if they had shown these scenes super early on, it wouldn’t have meant as much. It was brilliant waiting for us to be fully attached to Hopper before tossing us that PAIN.

Did we have to have those scenes? No. Like I said, we more or less already knew what had happened. But those quick flashbacks made us feel for Hopper even more, which is a very, very good thing. If you can add to the emotional impact of the story, DO IT. By any means DO IIIIIT. We fiction lovers are sickos and love us some good emotional trauma.

BUT ALSO. Flashbacks don’t have to just be used for debilitating your reader emotionally. Sometimes you genuinely need them to convey important information. I see so much advice to ditch flashbacks and give backstory through dialogue. But ehhhh. I’m still of the opinion flashbacks can be awesome. After all, sometimes we want to SEE the backstory. Sure, they shouldn’t be overused, but they can be great when done strategically.

In seasons 1 and 2, the writers expertly used flashbacks to reveal El’s backstory. It really wouldn’t have meant as much if we had learned these things by her telling the others she came from a lab. No. Some things we needed to experience ourselves. So, slowly throughout the show, we get little scenes of her past life that helped us put the puzzle pieces together.

No, not every story should have flashbacks. But if used well and at just the right time, they can be fantastic storytelling tools.

Angry, nasty people usually have some underlying trauma making them that way

It’s been said many times, but I’ll repeat it: People don’t just wake up and become villains. Bullies aren’t always bullies just ‘cause. Angry, distant, mean people usually have a reason to be that way.

In season 2, we’re introduced to a new girl, Max, and her older brother Billy. They’re new in town and not particularly…nice. Max is standoffish and Billy is downright ruthless. Their roles add a lot of tension to the storyline and ‘cause some trouble for the other characters. Billy especially becomes a bit of an antagonist. Seriously, he was almost as scary as the actual monsters. The boy had problems. Whenever he was on screen, you just start cringing, fearing for everyone who’s around him. The writers could have left it at that. You know, tension, conflict, all good things. But they took it a step further. They explained Billy’s behavior, adding a whole ‘nuther level of depth to the storyline.

Billy’s lived with an abusive father his whole life. When he was young his mother left him, because his father was so cruel to her. Recently, his father married Max’s mom and they all moved to this small town in the middle of nowhere. Billy is ANGRY. With good reason. He bullies others because, at home, his father bullies him. He has no control there, so he controls others to make himself feel better.

Max is angry too because she’s been forced into a home with a terrible stepdad and even worse stepbrother.

They each have underlying trauma which explains their behavior. And it makes you sympathize with them, which is always the BEST accomplishment as a writer—finding ways to make your readers sympathize with even the nastiest of people.

When you’re writing antagonists or just simply prickly characters, give them a reason to be that way. It can add a world of depth to the story.

Unlikable people can become likable if they show they care about someone

Do you want an instant way to make the rather unlikable characters likable? Show that they care about someone. Seriously. It works almost every single time.

Steve, guys. STEVE.

Steve is Nancy’s boyfriend in season 1. And he’s a jerk. He’s the popular kid at school. The playboy. The spoiled rich kid. Seriously, is there anything likable about this boy (except for his fabulous hair?). Clearly he’s just dating Nancy because he wants something from her.

…Right?

WELL. As time goes on, we slowly see little hints to maybe a different Steve. Maybe…maybe Nancy isn’t just another trophy to him. Maybe he cares about her???

Oh, what is that. Is it a feeling? Toward Steve?!

Enter the beginning of season 2. Nancy and Steve are still dating, except Nancy is dealing with, um, let’s just say a lot of trauma. When she lashes out and says she doesn’t love Steve, the pain on his face is REAL. The boy looks near to tears. And it’s at that moment you realize: He really, truly loves her.

And suddenly, the boy I couldn’t stand becomes my favorite character. wHat???

Yep. I don’t know what it is about the jerky people showing love toward even just one person that makes us fall head-over-heels but IT DOES.

Except Steve had waaaay more character growth than that which brings me to…

Some character arcs take waaay longer than others

Though pretty much everyone has their own arc in the story, I think the two biggest ones are Steve and Billy.

Steve’s arc didn’t take that much effort. Yeah, he seems like the jerky, bratty, playboy at the beginning, but we soon see that’s not really him at his core. It’s more a show. He comes from a rich home with a strict dad and has a reputation to keep. But as we see how he really does care for Nancy, he lets his Pretty Boy façade slip. Underneath, he’s actually a bit of a dork, he does genuinely care about people, and he literally becomes a good friend to all the little kids in the show.  Like…this cool high school senior is chill with being besties with middle schoolers. YEAH. Steve is epic.

By season 2, or even the end of season 1, it didn’t take much for the fanbase to fall in love with him because it stood to reason after he literally had to fight supernatural monsters and dealt with some hard stuff with Nancy, he really would turn his life around a bit. His character arc wasn’t SUPER major because it didn’t need to be. He was already not that terrible of a person deep down.

Now enter Billy. You know, Billy? The character who literally makes us cringe whenever he’s even anywhere near our beloved characters ‘cause he’s such a nasty person there’s no telling what sick stuff he’ll do? Yeah, that Billy. The worst.

Billy was like all of Steve’s bad qualities ramped up by a million. He’s very much the playboy, so unbelievably obsessed with his good looks, is popular wherever he goes, and is a jerkface x10. But, unlike Steve, it’s not really a show. He’s genuinely just a terrible person. And we all detested him. At least I did. I H A T E D him.

Now we come to season 3 (super major spoilers for this season coming, just so you know). Billy plays a much bigger part and I start getting nervous because it seems like they’re going to actually…give him a redeeming arc??? Excuse me but NO.

Now, hear my out. I LOOOOVE redeeming arcs. You guys know this. They’re my FAVORITE. But some characters are just too nasty to even deserve one. Some characters I just want to die a horrible death and be done with them. (I’m a nice person I promise!) Billy was one of those people. When they were setting up like he was going to have an arc, I dug my heels in. Because there ain’t NO WAY I was gonna actually believe he could become a good person. It would take the mountains moving and a plague and  the actual world ending to get me to even sort of believe that. Or to even care about him.

Well.

By the end of season 3 I cried over Billy. I CRIED. OVER. BILLY. How?????

BECAUSE THESE RIDICULOUSLY SKILLED WRITERS, DANG IT.

It did take a plague and the world almost ending, BUT THEY DID IT. Because, unlike Steve, it wasn’t an easy transition. Noooo siree. Billy literally had to be possessed by a horrifying monster, be forced to lead people to their deaths, and just endure countless excruciating horrors to knock some sense in his brain. But it did it. And in the very end when he decides to sacrifice himself for Max??? TEARS.

Billy’s nastiness is believable because of the trauma of his backstory, like we talked about. And his redeeming arc is believable because of the trauma of his present circumstances. Basically? Give ALL the characters trauma. It always ends well. *smile, smile*

Aaaaanyways. All this to say, some characters aren’t just going to one day go from being bad to good. I’ve read/seen so many stories where that happens, and it just makes me roll my eyes. You can’t simply flip a switch and suddenly a villain becomes a hero or a hero turns into a villain. It’s a PROCESS. And it depends on how far on that good and evil spectrum they land on to determine how much of a process it is. Steve wasn’t really that bad of a person to begin with, so his arc came easier. Billy was a terrible person, so his arc was loooong and paaainful.

And I feel like I should have just made this topic its own blog post. Seriously, the character arcs in this show are amazing. But we’re moving on!

Gestures speak louder than words (sometimes) 

As you’ve probably gathered, this show knoooows how to tug on the heartstrings. And by that I mean yank those heartstrings out violently and leave us sobbing and bleeding all over the floor. Ahem.

One tool they use brilliantly to cause such an emotionally damaging impact is gestures. Seriously, the simplest of gestures can make our hearts SWELL.

The first one that comes to mind is near the end of season 1, after El uses her telepathy in the makeshift bathtub in the school gym and she and the young boys are waiting around while the adults are off investigating things. El is wrapped in a towel, sitting next to Mike on the bleachers, and she rests her head against his shoulder. It’s the simplest, quickest scene but just UGH. It does things to my emotions!

Another scene is showing Jonathan crying over Will’s disappearance and he, too, ends up resting his head on his mother’s shoulder. Jonathan is a teenage boy. This is not normal teenage boy behavior. But he’s so broken up about Will missing, and so close to his mom, it stands to reason such an occurrence would happen and it’s SO SWEET.

Or how about that scene in season 3 when Steve and Robin are in the bathroom of the movie theater chatting and Steve, instead of just walking around the stalls to face Robin, literally slides under the stall like the suave, cool cat he is. (Okay, out of context that scene sounds super disturbing, but I promise it wasn’t! They weren’t, like, using the bathroom. Lololol.)

Or how ‘bout at the end of season 2 when El is about to close the gate and she grabs Hopper’s hand as they ride down the elevator???

SO MANY SWEET GESTURES. EVERYWHERE.

And these are just quick moments. Seemingly nothing. But they’re everything. Really, it’s the simplicity of them that makes them so powerful. Show me two people I’m shipping holding hands, and I will scream to the rooftops my love for them. Show them in a heavy makeout session annnd I’ll probably just roll my eyes and move on with my life.

A clever use of gestures can be the easiest tool in your writing toolbox to make a BIG emotional impact on your readers.

And there we have just half of the things this show has taught me on good writing. In  couple of weeks I’ll be sharing the second half, which involves the 3 KEY INGREDIENTS to making any story go from okay to GOOD. (Lololol I’m such a tease. But it’s true!) Seriously, we’ve just scratched the surface. Part 2 will have sooo many more great tidbits. This show has just taught me SO MUCH. And I’m saving the best for last. *grins*

Stay tuned!

LET’S TALK!

Obvious question: Have you seen Stranger Things? (Feel free to scream about it with me.) What do you think of these tidbits I’ve shared? And am I the only one who genuinely loves flashbacks? I NEED TO KNOW.