On Ambiguity

Ambiguity in writing can be a good thing (sort of. Or can it?). Explaining (or worse, over-explaining) every little detail of your story can lead to a lot of the information feeling forced, and your audience feeling like they're being spoon-fed unnecessary details. Leaving some room for interpretation and open-ended questions can help the audience feel more engaged, as it lets them do some of the work of interpreting a story for themselves.

But is it always a good thing? Is there a point at which some stories just become too damn ambiguous? Is it sometimes better to just put every detail of your story out there on the table?

First of all, it's important to distinguish Ambiguity from Mystery. A lot of stories leave certain questions deliberately unanswered; a good example of this is Lost. The true nature of the island is not apparent to the audience or the main characters; but this isn't what we mean when we say Ambiguity, this is simply a Mystery. The questions raised in the show will (presumably) be answered by the end (whether or not they're answered satisfactorily will, I imagine, be in the eye of the beholder). This might be disrupted by the practicalities of TV production; the show might be cancelled, for example. But the distinction to be made here is in the writers' intent, not the practical result of the show.

In saying that a story has a lot of ambiguity, as opposed to deliberate mystery, I'm referring more to something like Donnie Darko. A lot in that film is left unexplained, in a way that is clearly intentional on the part of writer-director Richard Kelly. I would argue that this is a case of too much ambiguity; while I like the movie, too much of it feels unfocused and "weird for weird's sake". Kelly also admits in his director's commentary that he himself doesn't have all the answers for what's going on, which doesn't do anything to strengthen the story in my mind.

The trouble with ambiguity is that there is no Right Amount. It's completely subjective. A movie with unanswered questions is just as likely to leave an audience member tearing their hair out with frustration as it is to be praised by another audience member for its sophistication and restraint (the above-mentioned Donnie Darko is a perfect example of just such a divisive story).

More often than not the type of ambiguity we're talking about boils down to the omission of information. When this is useful, and exactly what/how much information to omit, is something of a grey area.

A good recent example is the character of The Joker in The Dark Knight (written by David Goyer, Jonathan Nolan and Chris Nolan). It was a conscious decision on the part of the writers to not give him an origin. He just shows up and wreaks havoc. In an interview with Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Jonathan Nolan described the character as a "force of nature". There is no "why"; he wasn't abused or abandoned as a child. He just is. The Joker's lack of an origin, in contrast with Batman's very well-explored origin, actually works to support the themes and ideas of the film; Order vs Chaos, the inevitable and cyclical nature of violence, a city's descent into madness, etc.

Two examples of TV shows I've watched recently illustrate just how fine a line it can be. The episode of Skins to which I refer in this post displayed a level of ambiguity that felt, to me, like lazy writing. It was never explained how certain characters knew things, or when one character moved in with another, that sort of thing.

An episode of Deadwood that I re-watched recently had two characters in quite heated conflict. It was never properly explained what the backstory between them was; we were just expected to infer that something one character had done infuriated the other character. In this example, however, I felt that leaving out the details actually strengthened the story the writers were trying to tell. The audience felt disoriented, like they were being thrown into the middle of a conflict between two people without knowing the ins and outs. Which is exactly how the show's hero, Sheriff Bullock, felt as he entered the scene. The audience therefore immediately identifies with the main character. Mission accomplished.

There is no hard and fast rule. All that writers who are trying to learn how this sort of stuff works (like myself) can do is step outside of themselves and read their script as an unbiased audience member would. Which questions or omitted details strengthen the story? And which ones are just frustrating and distracting? Hopefully we'll know them when we see them.