STORY FORCES

 

It's time to revisit the most basic concepts behind successful stories—the forces that make stories work. There are more sophisticated ways of diagraming the above, just search Google images for "story through-lines."  If you follow this blog you've see the following more complex renditions of "The 13/20 Roller Coaster Beats," or posts on how to intertwine subplots so they support the same plot.  The BASICS never change as I've tried to diagram above:

• NOBLE (or villainous) VALUES always drive the
• Protagonist's or Hero's decisions and action, that are always obstructed by an
• Antagonistic or Villainous force, in an effort by the Protagonist or Hero to always achieve a
• NOBLE (or villainous) GOAL

NOT diagramed above are subtleties critical to a cathartic story structure:

• Noble Values always reflect NEEDS required for human survival.
• Ignoble Values always reflect WANTS that lead to human destruction.
• At first the protagonist is often motivated by a WANT but... 
• Close to the story's midpoint (The Moral Premise's "Moment of Grace") the protagonist comes to realize the difference between their WANT and their NEED.  
• The protagonist may be a heroic or a tragic character (but always opposite the antagonist).
• The antagonist may be a heroic or a tragic character (but always opposite the protagonist).

The above diagram relates the never changing forces of a successful story. The above diagram is the most simple illustration of the through-line, the plot, the backbone, the theme, or the moral premise. But there can be sub through-lines related to various subplots, and all tied together with supportive themes, and Nicomachean Moral Premises. (I've blog extensively about all this before.) A story becomes interesting when the through-lines, plots, and theme are imbued with irony, motifs, red-herrings, and secrets.

For example, there can be, in one story the:

• physical through-line of the main plot
• emotional through-line of the central protagonist
• symbolic through-line of various 3-beat motifs
• thematic (moral premise) through-line of the protagonist
• secret through-line of information held back from the audience

But in the end there ALWAYS must be:

VALUES that motivate the PROTAGONIST to battle the ANTAGONIST in order to achieve an GOAL.

In a redemptive story the value and goal are noble and focus on a NEED.

In a tragic story the value and goal are scandalous and focus on a WANT. 

The are almost 400 posts in this free blog that discuss these issues. My book, The Moral Premise sets forth the foundation for all successful stories. My free Storycraft Training series dives deep into these topics. And I'm sometimes available for story/screenplay consulting on specific projects. 

The Chosen - A Few Notes on Structure

As many of you know I'm a Catholic Christian, although I was born and raised Evangelical-Protestant. Consequently, I've been exposed the the worse of Christian "faith" films over my life (my father had a bit part in a Ken Anderson film decades ago), and I personally know a few of today's current faith-based filmmakers.  Generally, I cannot stand to watch such "faith" films. They are sanitized and generally lacking in organic verisimilitude. I've walked out on more than a few, and often squirmed low into my seat. I put "faith" in quotes because the producers of most such films do not exercise any faith at all in their audience with their on-the-nose didactic dialogue and plots. 

There are exceptions. Long ago I loved Zeffirelli's TV series Jesus of Nazareth (1977) with Robert Powell, Anne Bancroft, Ernest Borgnine and James Farentino, Olivia Hussey, and Christopher Plummer.  (I should watch it again to see if I still like it.) And then there's the classic horror tale directed by Mel Gibson: The Passion of the Christ with Caviezel, Maia Morgenstern, Monica Bellucci, and other great performers. And lately there's something much different that is very good 80% of the time, and that's Dallas Jenkins's The Chosen with Jonathan Roumie, Shahar Isaac, Para Patel, Elizabeth Tabish, and the fabulous Erick Avari. 

Last night we had guests over for dinner and after we retired to sit in front of the big video display and voice of the theater speakers, we opened up a BluRay disc of The Chosen (Pam bought a case for Christmas gifts) we watched Episode 1  - I Have Called You By Name.  During the episode I kept thinking back to some recent "faith" scripts I've read as part of my script consulting practice and why The Chosen works most of the time. 

The Chosen has garnered a strong following for a number of valid structural and storytelling theory reasons. Let me recount a few. (I'll avoid the things that make me squirm.)

• ALL of the main characters have serious character flaws. Such flaws allow us to identify with the characters because (subliminally) we know we are flawed. We can see ourselves bending rules, becoming legalistic, being paranoid, and having really bad things happen to us or those we know, and then responding selfishly. 

• Each of the characters in The Chosen has a physical goal they are trying (by hook or crook) to achieve. 

Nicodemus wants to return to anonymity.

Nicodemus's wife wants him to continue because it gives her social status.

Simon wants to pay his taxes without losing his boat and home.

Andrew wants to help Simon stay out of trouble by cheating at betting brawls.

Simon’s wife wants peace and romance, and for Simon to wash because he smells. 

Lilith/Mary Magdalene wants to end her life because of her shame.

Matthew wants power, isolation and riches.

Quintus wants to collect taxes for the fish caught on the Sabbath. 

• None of the characters have stated spiritual goals (this is good). Good characters have inner psychological or spiritual goals, but they should be portrayed non-verbally, not put into dialogue. Spiritual goals are akin to the moral values of the moral premise. But they are not physical goals, which is how we identify initially with characters. Our brains subliminally take the physical images and interpret them as metaphors for what's going on psychologically and spiritually. While The Chosen is a Christian story, we never see any of the characters praying, or reading the Bible (there wasn't one), or preaching…except Nicodemus, who, when he preaches, is NOT preaching the Gospel but pontificating like a typical flawed, legalistic Pharisee. 

• Another aspect of at least the first episode, is that the scene structure is much like a Seinfeld episode. The producers have managed perhaps six subplots interwoven, each seemingly unrelated to the others, but with each scene ending in disaster or disappointment, which serves not only for a dramatic roller-coaster, but drives the narrative forward like the 7th chord of the musical composition that demands resolution. 

• The subplots all deal with everyday issues that the 21st century audience can identify with: money, romance, competition, power and politics. The script is only secondarily concerned with spiritual issues, and only in a Pharisaical way are spiritual themes mentioned explicitly.  For the main characters, nothing is easy. At stake are fist fights, fraud, insanity, political power, abuse, etc.

• And the best structural aspect of The Chosen is this: The stories are NOT ABOUT JESUS. That is JESUS IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST. If anything he's the antagonist. Finally, someone got this right. The series is about the flawed CHOSEN. Remember that.

This is all viscerally accentuated by great art direction, props, costumes, sets, direction, casting, and cinematography, which are not script issues but are interpretation of the script and the way the script acknowledges the verisimilitude organically in the story. 

The story we see on the screen is best when it becomes a physical-secular metaphor for the deeper spiritual issues which are handled only in a subliminal way. 

How Subplots Enrich Your Story

Here's fresh insight that will refine your subplots and reinforce your story's main physical and psychological spines.

But first let's set the stage.

In other places I explain how a story's subplot can be devised and used to reinforce the Moral Premise of the story. In short, those explanations have focused on these traits:

1. Each subplot follows a particular character in their pursuit of a specific goal.

2. Each subplot has fewer dramatic beats than the story's physical spine.

3. The psychological arc of every character in every subplot lies someone along the arc between the opposing values anchored by the Moral Premise Statement.

For example, let's say we have a story titled HOT WATER. Our story's main plot (or physical spine) centers on a protagonist—an elderly but persistent widow—who battles a secretive landlord who refuses to provide more than 65/F of heat to the hot water heating system during the winter months.  The widow's goal of the main plot is to sue the landlord to reveal how much profit he's making by keeping the temperature at 65/F, and thus force him raise the temperature.

But the landlord's position is that his financial records are private, and he further argues the tenant agreement specifically states that the maximum temperature that he needs to provide tenants is 65/F, not a degree more.

Let's say the Moral Premise Statement for our story is:

HOW IS THE MORAL PREMISE EVIDENT IN EVERY SCENE?

Recently I received a gracious letter from Sina H. Pour with a question attached. (Sina gave me permission to use his full name.) He's a film worker based in Stockholm, Sweden and an aspiring screenwriter.  Since I had recently completed a screenplay that violated one of my own rules, which was also at the root of Sina's question, I thought I should write a blog to myself in answer. 

Here 's the question with one of the gratifying things he said about The Moral Premise. Thanks, Sina for your kinds words; they keep me going. 

SINA'S QUESTION

The moral premise should be evident in every scene, but what does this mean in practice? How is the moral premise made evident in EVERY scene? Is it only the vice for the first half of the film and the virtue for the second or the entire premise for every scene throughout the movie?

I truly hope you are able to answer this cry for help, but most of all I hope you see this as an honest testament of the power of your book and how it has affected writers across the globe. Your work is of great importance to us and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

MY RESPONSE

Dear Sina:

The variations on what I explain below are infinite, and may not be as obvious to the audience as I will try to make the example below. Movies work because they force the audience to work. How does the audience work? They work to fill in the narrative gaps purposely left by the screenwriter, director, and editor to create intrigue, suspense, identification, that is the dramatic force that keeps the story ever moving forward. That story "work ethic" is involved in what I'm about to explain, but at a subtle level. A layer purposely made subtle of the filmmakers.

CONFLICT OF VALUES

As you know EVERY act, EVERY sequence, EVERY scene, and EVERY exchange of dialogue, (or cut in an action sequence) is the result of CONFLICT. To keep it simple, if two people are in a scene, they are each trying to get the other to do something. Those "somethings" are opposite in some way. The conflict is the consequence of the two characters embodying or subscribing to opposite moral values, e.g. greed vs. generosity. Each is trying to get the other to change. To some degree, along the journey, this happens in different ways, in different strengths, and with different sub-plots in every scene.

Thus every scene will embody in some way the greed vs. generosity concept of values, which forms the motivational basis for the moral premise statement...

greed leads to _____ but,

generosity leads to _________.

Greed and Generosity are like two themes... one dealing with the motivation to give and the other dealing with the motivation to take. e.g.

Greed leads to isolation and sadness, but

Generosity leads to friendships and joy.

What gives a story deep interest, while still being about the same thing, is that greed and generosity can apply to many aspects of a person's life.

WELL ROUNDED CHARACTERS

One character may be greedy with money, but the other may be greedy with time. Each of these aspects of their lives can serve to generate subplots. In this case, you have two subplots but one Conflict of Values, or one moral premise.

A character can also be greedy with possessions, or status, or appearance (e.g. "One character is driven to always look better than another.") At the same time these characters' counterparts may be more generous with money, time, possessions, status or appearance (e.g. "I don't mind looking like the slob if it makes you look better.")

Of course when a character takes a journey they take both a physical journey and a psychological journey. Making it simple: a protagonist at the beginning of a movie may be generous with her time, but greedy with possessions. We will see that contradiction or conflict in her life as she interacts with another character who has the opposite motivations, e.g. he is generous with his money, but greedy with his time. Conflict. As the story progresses the characters change for reasons that are logical based on the experiences put upon them by the writer-filmmaker. Such experiences, or scenes and sequences are logically connected by cause and effect as we find in Natural Law. And so, in every scene there is both a subtle and an explicit representation of the two values. And to say it again, there may be only those two UNIVERSAL values, but if there are five characters each pursuing goals in different aspects of their lives, we  may have a dozen different expressions of greed and generosity that show up in the various scenes of the film.

CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS

It's important that the character's outward actions are motivated by their internal values. In a movie most of what you show is a character's actions, (with some dialogue to tell the audience what's hard to show.) But just as real people take no action without being motivated by a value (i.e. "value" = "moral motivation"), so your characters must not act without being motivated by a value.

METAPHORS

Now, in really good movies the physical story will be a metaphor for the psychological journey. That is how the audience SEES what's going on INSIDE the characters. Thus, the hero may want to be elected to an important office because she is greedy for power. Wrong reason. And as a result of that vice in her life (a greedy lust for power) she can't make progress because the town's people see what she is like and they won't vote for her or help her. But when visiting the home of a friend our hero meets a little crippled girl who can't walk very easily or get around the house. She likes to sit by the window, and look down on the street but she can't always get up to the wide windowsill. But she is naturally generous with her time and she makes a pretty flower with paper for her big brother. She does it out of the generosity of her heart. And he, naturally, wants to show his appreciation to her for her love, and so he says, "Hey, sis, would you like to sit up on the sill and watch the people and cars." She smiles real big... and her brother lifts her up and puts her on the sill. Now, our hero, who is visiting the family for something he didn't really want to be there for (she's greedy with her time)... sees this beautiful act of generosity (actually two acts of generosity), and it connects. Our hero realizes that it is not her selfish greedy desire for power that accomplishes things, but the desire of the people when she chooses, for generous (not manipulative) reasons, to serve the people. And it's when she loses her greed for power, and embraces her generosity of time for others, that the people elect her to the seat of power (without her ever trying)... not to rule over them, but to serve them. So, the metaphor of the sister and brother reveals the journey our hero must take from her vice of greed) to the virtue of generosity.

There are many, many ways to make the moral premise practical.

SUBPLOTS & GOALS

The key to telling a well-rounded story about one thing is to examine the lives of each of your characters. Give them goals in various aspects of their lives and then give each of those goals an arc that is describe by the moral premise. Realize that characters can move toward the good, toward the bad, or not move at all, although your protagonist needs to change.

The more prominent the character, the more aspects of their lives your story will investigate. Your hero's life may be examined in this way with say, five different subplots, one of which will be the movie's spine. For example: personal life, professional life, family life, public life, and hobby life. While a very minor character's arc may only involve one aspect and thus one sub-plot: his financial life. Each of those aspects of the character's life needs to have a goal and a moral premise arc -- which constitutes a sub-plot.

FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE END

So, in each scene the conflict of values is evident in one or more aspect of a character's life, as they strive toward a goal and meet the challenge that the conflict of values in their lives present. And in good movies, not all characters change dramatically. Humans change slowly. So must your story characters. At the beginning of BRUCE ALMIGHTY, Bruce Nolan has a fear of commitment to Grace (they are not married), and at the end of the movie, although his actions toward Grace have improved (and he's no longer expecting a miracle), that fear of commitment is still evident: although he's introduced her as the future Mrs. Nolan, THEY ARE STILL NOT MARRIED. So from the beginning to the end the two poles of the conflict of values will be evident, but in different amounts as the journey progresses.  (See Table 12 in The Moral Premise).

MY PROBLEM

What was my own rule that I had violated? I had five minor characters that did not have arcs or subplots of their own. They were just there like absent-minded decoration, popping in or out of the story as was convenient.  What was worse, I had been through this particular project over the past 3 years about a dozen times making two major revisions and many other tweaks and polishes.  Finally, finally, something clicked. I think it was a indirect comment from a reader. Suddenly making the next pass jumped to the top of my priority list. Finished it yesterday. Now each of the minor characters have clear beats that correspond to the moral premise and reinforce what the movie is really about. And yes, it stretched the script 4 pages. But the extra length is well worth it. When we do this the story gets better, always. See my post about Tamera Alexander's recent book and the note from her editor. Same thing.

When an Actor Asks: "WHAT DO I WANT?"

I'm working on an analysis of Billie Letts' book WHERE THE HEART IS for my Early Bird Workshop at the annual American Christian Fiction Writers Conference September 22 in St. Louis. Because I use movie clips in my presentations, I will illustrate my analysis of Letts' book with clips from Matt Williams' movie, the screenplay of which was written by the two guys in the picture, Lowell Ganz (left) and Babaloo Mandell (right).  Ganz and Mandell are two of the most sought after writers in Hollywood, with a long list of credits and awards to their names.

In an Ari Esiner article with the writing duo:

Ganz says his earliest writing lesson came from actor Jack Klugman on The Odd Couple TV show. When presented with Ganz's script, Klugman walked up to the writer and promptly shouted in his face, "What do I want?" And there endeth the lesson on the foremost rule of writing for the young television scribe: always have your characters want something. 

In the last month I've reviewed the work of numerous writers (both professional, and students) and this Ganz observation must be one of the most often violated principles of story writing. Characters always need an outward motivation, a physical goal — they must always want something. They don't necessarily NEED what they want, and what they want might be impossible to achieve because of an inner flaw (a psychological vice).... but they must want it. 

AND, the audience or reader must know they want it.

While screening KNIGHT AND DAY, starring Tom Cruise (Roy Miller) and Cameron Diaz (June Havens), I was astonished at how quickly writer Patrick O'Neill and director James Mangold tell the audience what the main characters want... on a number of levels. The movie is one long chase scene, so to keep the plot and the chase interesting, giving depth to the characters, both Roy and June have multiple goals related to different aspects of their lives.

• Roy's professional goal is to keep the Zephyr battery and its eccentric inventory away from the bad guys.
• Roy's personal goal is to take a vacation by driving to Cape Horn.
• Roy's romantic goal is to keep June from harm.
• Roy's family goal is to be reunited with his parents who think he is dead.
• June's professional goal is to restore her dad's GTO (she owns a garage back in Boston).
• June's personal goal is to give the GTO to her sister to keep it in the family.
• June's romantic goal is to land Roy.
• June's family goal is to get to her sister's wedding.

Thus, depending on the scene, the audience always has several things to root for. 

THE REASON WE ROOT FOR CHARACTERS

Now, why do we root for characters? Why do we want them to get what they want?

Because we like them. 

In narrative theoretical terms, we identify with them. Michael Hauge says there are five ways you, as the writer, can foster likeability in a character:

1. Make the character sympathetic, the victim of undeserved misfortune.
2. Put the character in jeopardy. We ID with people we worry about.  Many stories start with an orphan.
3. Make character likable, kind, goodhearted. They need to be relatable, not likable.
4. Make characters funny. We like to be with people who make us feel good about ourselves or have the courage to say things we don't.
5. Make characters powerful, or very good at what they do.

So, do we like Roy Miller and June Havens? Sure. June is undeserved in her misfortune of being tangled up with Roy, and is therefore in great and repeated jeopardy. She's also an orphaned traveler being kicked off her flight. She is goodhearted and kind. She's funny and encouraging. And she's very good at what she does, which we discover as she explains to the TSA agent the tailpipes and carburator in her carry on baggage. It also doesn't hurt that June comes packaged in Cameron Diaz's body,  quirky smile, and damsel in distress persona.

Likewise, Roy seems to have been thrown undeserved misfortune when he is overpowered by both the Federal government and the bad guy cartel. We worry about him, because he's a spy without backup, and later a boy without his mom and dad -- a orphan. He's goodhearted in that he repeatedly protects, selflessly hapless June. His nonchalant way of dispatching bad guys is sarcastic and funny. And he's very good at what he does. Oh, yes, he has a million dollar smile and he's a hunk with sex appeal.

All together these are personas we'd like to hang around with. We wish we had them for friends. So, we root for them and hope they get everything they want. And by the end of the movie it seems they do. Cape Horn sequel anyone? Mom and dad and flying down.