The trick of telepathy

The narrative trick of telepathy proposes to integrate unexplained transfers of information between characters into the scenario, creating a rhizomic dimension that reinforces the sense of reality through its very complexity.

Beyond rationality

In a story, we generally assume that information is conveyed rationally. The fact that this or that character is aware of this or that information is based on rationality. That is to say: someone has passed it on to him, he has read it, he has discovered it for himself, or else he is endowed with supernatural powers and has guessed it thanks to his abilities. But even in the case of the supernatural, we remain within the framework of rationality, since the supernatural can constitute the normality of the film’s universe (the diegesis) and explain the fact that this character had access to such and such information.

My suggestion is that, in order for the logic of the scenarios to go beyond strict rationality, we shouldn’t tip over into the supernatural, but rather envisage transfers of information outside of any explanation. For example, at certain moments, certain things (not necessarily the most important in the story, incidentally) will come to certain characters without any explanation or rational justification. In this way, the film will follow a partly rhizomic narrative logic, i.e., via a deep, complex, inaccessible yet very real network of interconnections.

For a powerful effect of reality

In nature, there are many phenomena for which we have no explanation, yet which are not supernatural. This awareness, which is obvious to us in the real world, of which we understand very little, connects us, in a film, with a reality that is impossible to reduce, and which fascinates us all the more because entire sections escape us. We can explore and try to explain inexplicable things, but there are so many of them that we have to live with them. And in doing so, we come into contact with a reality that is rich and complex, because it is irreducible.

Integrating it into the writing

To help implement this dimension in screenplays, I propose the idea of unexplainable, unjustified yet existing telepathy. We ourselves, as screenwriters, don’t know how this information got to this character. We don’t know, and we choose not to find out. But when we give this information to this character, we create an undocumented and unexplained telepathy.

The idea is therefore, in the scenario, to use telepathic trickery. That is, the character knows certain things, and we have no idea how he came to know them. Maybe there was a transmission of thought, whatever. If you want, you can explain it to yourself in your own way. But we assume that there is no rational explanation for it, and that we won’t try to shed any light on it in the narrative. We can’t explain it ourselves, nobody can explain it, and yet it’s part of reality.

This will have a strong impact on the story, on the character, on the plot. We mustn’t do this too often, otherwise viewers may feel too lost and lose interest in the film’s main thread. But from time to time, in small touches, it adds a powerful sense of reality to the film.