Write Like You're Running Out Of Time Part 4: Immediacy vs Investment

Part 4: Immediacy vs Investment

In our past three lessons we have covered various aspects of narrative capital, making analogies to actual currency and how authors write good stories by making convincing exchanges. In short, making plot development feel earned by purchasing them.

With many macro-scale concepts covered, we will now delve a little deeper into the micro-scale aspects of narrative capital that keep readers hooked. Our example today will be episode 13 from the first season of Star Wars: The Bad Batch, and since not everyone may be a fan of Star Wars, this time I will include a brief synopsis. 

But first, let’s discuss the balance between immediacy and investment. The “immediacy” of narrative capital refers to the immediate effects of adding that value to your story. For example, if a side character helps the protagonist in some journey and provides witty banter during their adventure, you are adding narrative capital that has an immediate payout for the audience. The pleasant social interaction, which tunes into our own basic need for socialization, gives the audience an immediate reason to care.

But wait, I hear you say, this sounds a lot like investment. Because it often usually is. When an audience receives an immediate positive payout, they are more likely to be invested in the narrative capital you have built. But while most, if not all, immediacy can lead to investment, investing in a plot point does not always provide an immediate payout. 

If so, when does investment lead to immediacy? Leading into our primary example, let’s begin with a smaller instance from The Bad Batch. The character Fennec Shand made her first televised appearance in the Mandalorian, but reappeared in the Bad Batch to demonstrate her early bounty hunting years. Her first appearance in the Bad Batch sets up her role later in the series as a competing bounty hunter who ends up being paid to help the main characters. As such, we can say that her first appearance invested the plot and the audience in her eventual reappearance.

However, given that the Bad Batch was made for Star Wars fans, with the assumption they had seen the Mandalorian, this form of investment also provided an immediate payout because there was precedence for the character and her time with the Bad Batch filled out parts of her backstory. Even if she had been just a one-time cameo, thus removing investment, there would still have been an immediate result. 

And that leads us to episode 13, “Infested.” In this episode the titular Bad Batch have to help their bounty hunting contractor collect shipments that have been lost in an infested cavern. This episode comes at the latter half of the 16 episode season, and earns a disproportionately low amount of narrative capital for its placement in the season. No new significant relationships are established, nor are there major transactions using existing narrative capital, such as breaking down character relationships or pushing the plot forward towards its climax. The characters begin the episode as bounty hunters working for the information broker Cid, and end the episode as more or less the same.

The premise of the episode is, in fact, a recurring motif throughout the season, as many episodes usually begin with the team just returning from another job, or on their way towards one. To use our “payout” analogy, the balance of investment and immediacy is like gambling. 

A player gets particularly excited about gambling on a game of poker when they occasionally win. Over the course of a night, bets can vary and the player might slowly net a small positive if they’re good and lucky. This invests the player in the game in the hopes of winning it big when the bets become larger. Those small immediate payouts thus are what keep the player interested more than just the initial hope of a big win.

Now, imagine this player if all they receive are small payouts. A slow night of poker where everyone makes small bets might not be boring, but the player probably wouldn’t list it as one of the more exciting nights. Episode 13 to the audience is like a poker player receiving small payouts when they’re expecting bets with higher stakes. Appearances of elements from the Star Wars universe like the Pike crime syndicate offer small immediate effects, but nothing else. 

The question now is, would this episode be better in a larger context if there was another episode in season 2 that involves the Bad Batch crossing the Pikes again? As writers we can get lost in the weeds of foreshadowing and setting up future plot points. If, in theory, episode 13 has a lot of investment that the audience is just unaware of, would that increased investment make up for the lack of immediacy?

No, not really. There’s the possibility of rewatch value, yes, but in its original structure, as presented in an episodic and seasonal format, investment without immediacy for an entire episode is a very inefficient way to set up a single plot point. Moreover, it would not increase the rewatch value by much. Since the episode does not change the narrative capital significantly, the audience doesn’t need a lot of details, they simply need to remember the status quo.