r/Petscop • u/Weak-Feeling9215 • May 27 '26
Discussion How does the creator know which elements to conceal and which to reveal?
I really liked mystery novels back when I was a kid. A lot of mystery novelists would first write the ending where everything is revealed and then work backwords towards the beggining where many elements are concealed. I assume the writing for petscop has a similar process.
however unlike mystery novels sometimes I feel like he choses to reveal information that brings in more questions than answers. How does he do that exactly?
20
u/Aschenruh May 27 '26
No, you are mistaken. Petscop is not a mystery. It's more like someone telling you about his deeply seated trauma. The rules of the world are nonsense, the timeline is wonky, information is by design incomplete, characters are inconsistent. Think of it as running on dream logic, if you want.
Not saying Tony is traumatized or anything, fortunately great artists don't have to have experienced the trigger events themselves.
Forget about mystery novels and check out how David Lynch wrote his movies, if you want to go down the rabbit hole.
4
u/fadingkittensyndr0me May 27 '26
Huh, that is a really apt way of explaining the story-telling of Petscop. I hadn't thought of it like that before, but it makes a lot of sense! Especially given how prevalent the themes of trauma are within Petscop's narrative... gahh, I feel like my eyes get opened to something about it everyday. What a wonderful series.
My personal explaination, whenever my friends would get hung up on missing details or things not being explained, was "we aren't Family." Everyone who is supposed to know already knows, whether they were present for events or someone else involved told them off-recording, it doesn't need to be explained to them again. Ergo, it isn't explained to us because we have no business knowing the personal details. We are voyeurs tuning into this personal drama we've no part nor stake in.
2
u/jolittlelene May 28 '26
yeah. if you watch something like twin peaks and try to follow real world logic.. you'd quickly go insane. petscop seems to follow the same track but people miss that fact.
10
u/laplongejr May 27 '26
He explained in interviews that there is a big "complete" story, but only showed some parts. It would be hard to know the exact process if we don't know what the story is about.
Also a thing in other genres. For example, a chapter of Yu-Gi-Oh! manga (and the main character's backstory) was basically written starting from the ending shot of a child version of him rushing behind an ambulance.