Story Threats and Promises

I watched a movie the other day that I love, High Strung, about a ballerina and a violinist and a street dance crew and it was fun and awesome and actually satisfying. I want to buy it.

Oddly enough, I noticed that the story felt a little slight, even though it had all the right elements of a full movie and it kept all its promises (thus satisfying), but it almost felt too easy for the characters. Almost.

Finally today, it clicked in my head. The story kept its promises and followed up on its threats, but it didn't follow through on any of its threats. None of the things I feared the most were realized. And I hadn't really put my finger on it before, but a story's threats and promises are two different things.

On the one hand, this is comfort viewing and I'm glad it didn't, but on the other hand, it helped gel a lot of things on what makes some stories satisfying and unsatisfying for me and that I have a tendency to get bogged down in threats when I'm writing. (I have a friend who's even worse at that, realizing almost every single threat and never getting to the end of the story/promises.)

Just something I thought about because of a nice little movie.