Years ago, I read an article by sci-fi author John Scalzi that mentioned one of his strategies for writing a great novel. It was a short comment, but it’s stuck with me over a decade later:

Whenever he’s finished with a section of the story he’s telling, he goes back through and he asks “Why?” and “How?” something works the way it does. Whether it’s a character’s decision to go to a meeting, the way a spaceship’s engine works, or why two neighbors don’t like each other, he asks those questions.

And when he comes up with an answer, he asks those questions again.

Like a toddler that just learned that those two words even exist.

He does this at least two layers deep, and if the answers are satisfactory he keeps them in the story (well, I’m sure there are exceptions).

An Example of How This Works

Story point: The enderman stepped through his front door and hit his head on the...

A few weeks ago I was talking with a friend about your typical controversial topics like vaccines and the government. He’s that type of friend that I can enjoy sparring with on tough topics: Even though I think he’s a fool sometimes (and he rightly believes I am as well), at least we have a mutual respect during our conversations. I genuinely have love for the guy.

After some time during that chat, though, I realized that he wasn’t being entirely honest. There’s a lot of context that I’ll skip over, but put simply he believed that the government was evil because it was mandating COVID vaccines that Pfizer, Moderna, and other companies could make money off of. On the other hand, my friend believed that Rand Paul should be applauded for finding a way to use his position in the government to make money off of COVID remdesivir treatments.

When this dissonance was brought to his attention...

Whenever I watch a film, I’m always trying to figure out what the intended tone of the Director is and judge it based on that alone.

Whether or not the characters are likeable or there are plot holes or anything like that is secondary to me. If a film has a tone that doesn’t take itself seriously, then plot holes don’t matter. If it’s clearly just a brainless action movie, then thoughtless characters don’t bother me. But if it was directed with the intention of making me bear some heavy emotional weight, then it had better earn that emotional weight by making every action of the characters believable.

Archive, written and directed by Gavin Rothery, clearly wants us to feel heavy emotional weight. For the most part it accomplishes that. The slower pace of the scenes allow us to sit in the thoughts of the characters, even those who only “think” programmatically. The scenery is...