How Not to Write: After (Part Two)

They continue to be two boring white kids on a dock.

Hello, Darkness, my old friend…

Welcome back for part two of How Not to Write: After Edition. In the first post, I spoke about the problems of trying to convert fanfiction conventions into books and movies, and the problems with After’s narrative action to begin with. To this point, I’ve spoken strictly about basic narrative elements that the movie fails to achieve. Today, we’re gonna cover issues of character and theme. Gods help us.

• Don't pass red flags off as romantic rather than alarming. 

This movie is thematically confused. It doesn’t know whether it is a coming of age story, the first act of a Lifetime original, or half a horror movie before Hardin evolves enough to join Joe of Netflix’s You. It’s supposed to be a romance, but misses most of the important beats in building the relationship between the two main characters.

Substituting red flags for romance doesn’t cut it in 2019. (#sorrynotsorry) You can’t just vaguely hand wave over creepy behavior like this and then claim it’s “just fiction” so it “doesn’t matter.” It’s bad fiction. You need to have a point to a story and something behind your relationships. Hardin needs to either dial back the entitled, possessive, sociopathic dickery… OR RAMP. IT. UP.

A lot of people have spoken about how Hardin as a character is basically an assemblage of red flags glued together with toxic masculinity and spray painted with acting so bad that we question whether the British actor is faking his accent. He negs Tessa the moment he meets her, has rage problems (beating the shit out of someone who isn’t even taking to him and trashing the house), isolating her, and using her as his personal therapist. And that’s before dealing with the raw fact that he pulls a She’s All That to try to get her to fall in love with him and keeps the game going so long his friends even seem to be surprised he’s still doing it.

It doesn’t help that the guy playing Hardin, whether by choice or directing, has less emotional range than Bella Swan. He has two emotions throughout the two movie: Soggy cardboard and sulking ten-year-old. Thus, unless they replace the actor, you’re dealing with a situation in which you have to write around his utter unlikeability. I wanted to wring his neck in the first scene, I swear, and I have discovered that I am not the only one. Get out of her room. Leave her alone. Get a job.

As I mentioned in the first part, the screenwriters also cut out an entire subplot/tension, and therefore, to replace that tension, we need to change a lot of elements. We have plenty of room to actually develop character and theme, but that means the scenes need to escalate via cause and effect. Here are some options:

Lovers of the book might choose to make Hardin more of a challenge for Tessa intellectually. This would require actually writing both of the characters as smart. Rather than creating tension from Hardin when he’s a dick to her, keep the tension going back and forth as they actually engage the other one, proving each other wrong, making each other think harder. The Legally Blonde musical does this with Emmett and Elle, and it’s absolutely adorable when they go back and forth at different times in the story with “Why do you always have to be right?” (Because they are both smart and stubborn and push each other to be more.) However, this writing choice would elevate the movie to be more of what the author wanted by connecting more to the literary references that are integral to their relationship and character. With this choice, Hardin cannot be raising all of these red flags and beating the shit out of people for no reason. As is, Hardin comes off more Mr. Wickham and much less Mr. Darcy.

(Then at the end, he’s quoting Wuthering Heights, for some reason. Like, my dude, that book does not have a happy ending. There are other books. You’re nerds. Read some.)

But that’s a direction to take if you wanted to make the story actually more romantic. If it were my choice, I would probably just embrace how terrible he is. Keep the red flags we have and push it further to more current and relatable examples. Instead of the bloody sheets of the original story, have him record them having sex to win his bet. (Welcome to the Gen Z world. They don’t just text.) Have secondary characters confront the problematic way he treats her for added tension. Instead of having the bet revealed after so many boring things have wasted our lives for 2/3rds of the movie, reveal it halfway in, having built up Tessa’s relationships with Landon and Steph. Tessa has loads more chemistry with both of these characters. Tessa describes her life as changed after him. Show us how that is after she’s been with someone so emotionally abusive and unstable.

You could still have Tessa pressured to get back with the dick in the second movie. Just use the toxic elements appropriately, or don’t use them at all. There’s no point in normalizing gross behavior as romantic, and while I wouldn’t deny a fanfic writer the right to write EDGY whumpfic, when you spend about 14 million making a movie, you’re obligated to tighten up the script and make a decision on how to portray this toxic mess of a relationship. This first movie isn’t even a romance. It’s just a mess.

• Don't try to use basic interests as a character's entire personality. 

As a more minor gripe, a lot of YA books that get picked up by moviemakers don’t put in enough effort to make realistic characters. But since they don’t seem to get this: Reading in itself doesn’t pass for a personality.

Please put down the torches.

Look, here’s the difference. People who love to read have specific things they like. They don’t ONLY like the books that their teachers made them read in English class. They have favorite GENRES. If Jane Austen is their favorite author, they probably have read more than just Pride and Prejudice. Moreover, they have other interests, opinions, motivations, and conflicts. They DO THINGS. (I mean, sometimes we do.) Anyway, the issue is that the movie writers make no effort to flesh out the characters. The only reason Tessa is so likable is the actress’s effort. I don’t even know how this movie cost so much to make when they couldn’t be bothered to have give her a coherent wardrobe. She shifts from cult dresses to a orchestra concert dress, to Bohemian girl. Even Glee enhanced characterization via their wardrobe selections. Figure her out, style her, and use all the dialogue, and visual imagery to strengthen our sense of who she is.

Hardin is even worse. Apparently, he kind of reads (but clearly hasn’t gotten all the way through Pride and Prejudice), but otherwise, he has NO INTERESTS outside of Tessa. His spiritual predecessor Christian Grey played the piano and enjoyed whips. Give the lump of hairgel a hobby.

Character development. Not just for everyone else.

• Don't isolate your main couple from outside interaction.

Finally, and this will help with the former two issues: These types of stories—since they are essentially fanfics that have Pokevolved—tend to fixate almost entirely on the main couple. This works in fanfiction because your readers come to the story looking to read about how these characters they already know get together under these circumstances. It does not work as well in books and movies based off of them because you need secondary characters to forward the plot and support your characters as they grow. Male and female lead acting like the last two people on Earth doesn’t cut it.

It’s so much easier to move your lead through their journey if they have support, if they engage with the other characters. Cause and effect. Characters drive the narrative. The movie started this with Tessa and her interactions with her mother, and Tessa’s relationship with Steph is touching and entertaining. Landon’s role could have been expanded, as could Steph’s as Tessa gets used to the new world of college. However, these characters disappear entirely for large swaths of the film because After’s creators aren’t telling a coherent story. They aren’t even trying.

Supporting characters can move the action, diffuse situations, make your characters look better or worse. Whatever you want. But if you don’t have them, the world feels empty and false. Again, what works in fanfic doesn’t always work in original fiction. Sorry.

Look, I don’t know how much money this movie series will make in the long run, or if the writers will handle the second and (ugh) third better than they did the first. But they really fucked the dog on this. They made their money back, but I really think they could have done better than to become the latest of this fanfic-to-book-to-deadly-boring-movie trend.