Plot Fatigue: How to Rewrite Your Weekly Episodes

We all have our favorite TV shows, the ones we have watched since the beginning. The ones with the characters we love, the story-lines we can relate to. Yet, somehow in the middle of the season there is that one episode, where our favorite character says or does something out of the ordinary. The plot seems weak, it doesn't fit the 'universe' or 'tone' that the show usually represents. The characters act differently. The plot seems to have gaps and the dialogue doesn't flow as easily as it does in other episodes. This is plot fatigue. The episode or episodes where the writers are just out of ideas. Sometimes they recycle plots, others they don't flesh them out entirely, but we notice as audience members, as fans.

Not every episode is action-packed and full of witty banter. Writers get tired and run out of creative juices every now and again. Everyone does. They rehash old story-lines, bring back long forgotten adversaries, to spice up a fatigued momentum. Sometimes though, reruns are right up my alley. I like to re-watch episodes from the past- they are comforting. They remind me of origins and life lessons. How my favorite antagonists and protagonists developed and evolved, season after season.

Binge watching television makes plot fatigue much more obvious, you can see the fatigue more clearly. You feel the characters struggle for something new and interesting to talk about. This fatigue, more obvious to the watcher, has to be felt by the actors as well. This slowing of the pace, lack of enthusiasm is not just prevalent in our entertainment, it is not just common in television shows, but in life itself. We generally, however are not binge watching our personal 'live' episodes, our docu-series, our reality TV. We tend to watch the reruns. Just as in the fictional world of our favorite television shows, our routines get stale. Our daily episodes get entangled with drama, when we want them to be sitcoms and vice-versa.

Lessons in the classroom, much like a script or teleplay, get lost in translation, predictable and musty. Often pulled from a file cabinet or off a flash drive. How often do we rewrite them, we may update but sometimes they need a massive overhaul. I pulled a few out of a file cabinet last week, to get prepared for the upcoming unit. They even smelled musty. I knew right then and there, that they were not the final script, they were the rough draft. In years past these lessons had been successful, at least I remember them that way. Once I started really analyzing them, reading between the lines, I knew they might have been fun for some classes, but not for all. They had purpose, but maybe not the meaning that is so important to keep students engaged. They were my comfortable reruns but they were outdated.

Personal episodes are not our day's events. There are many episodes in a day. For educators, each class has its own tone, its own characters, its own plot line. The setting may stay consistent, but every time the bell rings, the story changes. The soft open is my greeting students at the door, some enter exhausted from PE, others frustrated after a math test. Some enter excited and eager, ready for the action, while others want a slow, calm, quiet flow, an even keeled documentary. As an educator it is impossible to meet every students mood. It is much easier, however, to gear the class in a way that lures them all in. Start with a Super Bowl style advertisement to get them hooked. By stirring the plot, changing things up, starting with some sketch comedy, or a fun demo, even the most distracted students won't want to change the channel.

I know lately, not just with social media and writing, but in my classroom I have entered a stage of plot fatigue. Same programs, similar dialogue, frequent advertisements. I feel distracted and I am looking for a way to edit my episodes, make them more intriguing, add some red herrings, plot twists. As the saying goes, I am trying to encourage the sentiment 'the plot thickens'. I have moved some things around, redressed the set. Brought in some new writers. Added some new characters. I have set a new tone. Nothing goes on, nothing gets broadcast without an edit, without a rework, update, renovation. The soft open needs to be more than me standing at the door, it needs to include more action, more suspense, more commitment. When my story lags, the episode lags. 

When my audience, the characters in each class periods plot gets fatigued, the lesson gets fatigued and no amount of plot twists will prevent them from changing the channel. My plot fatigue has been lingering for a few months, lagging my reception. Scrambling my picture. But, instead of altering all my 'shows' I focused on just some. This resulted in a line-up still predicable and stale. So, I have been spending a few weeks, reshuffling the sequence, moving the order around, so that my weekly programming is more in sync with my outlook. My channels are getting aligned. I moved my chat, reworked my evening schedule for work, shuffled some Quiz Bowl times and practices so that there is a new cadence. The fog of reruns if lifting.

In my classroom I have tossed out the zestless and combined, tweaked, re-purposed parts of lessons and combined them in to something new. I was relying on tried and true when I should be looking for exciting and new. Not just the same old thing on the telly, but options, I can now channel surf. My lessons are more purposeful and less predictable. They are meaningful but not recognizable. My favorite television and classroom episodes are those that I do not figure out the plot in the beginning of the program. I do not know the former friend, we have not been introduced to yet, as being the bad guy. That the characters will argue throughout the climax  and then find solace in each other at the end of the hour. Sometimes an ending needs to be unpredictable. We need to see our favorite characters, break tradition and do something we don't agree with. We need to see ourselves in them, good or bad. But we need to know that next week they will return to us, a little better for their struggle. 

We need to see them evolve and change as we do. Lessons need the same attention. Every audience is different, every classroom is unique and every plot enters a stage of fatigue. But if we recognize our limitations and plan accordingly, revamp and re-imagine with a new lens- then our plot fatigue will be minimal and our episodes will be packed full of excitement and familiarity too. I accept my plot fatigue. I know that in my classroom we have been struggling, I have been short tempered and distracted. I have not been the best I can be, I fell into a rut. But recognizing and accepting my fatigue has opened me up to new possibilities. I do not have to toss out all of my stale lessons, they just need re-imagining. They just need me to see them through the audiences eyes not the writers room perspective.

Plot fatigue is contagious. Channel upon channel, networks, enters a cycle of reruns and familiar, boring plot lines. I refuse to get complacent and bored with my episodes. I look forward to dusting off old scripts and teleplays and yes, updating the set a little. The more things stay the same, the more comfortable we are. But, a little on-location shooting enables us to see learning from a new perspective. See our classroom not as a stationary set, but a flexible, safe, vibrant spot where the audience participates in the plot, they change the outcome with their action and interaction and this makes for great television and awesome learning.