SABRIYA Writing Journal 8 - The Real Drama is Mostly Invisible ... VALUES and Inner Monologues

I have finished plotting out Sabriya as an action thriller novel, if such a thing exists. (see pix below of Keynote plot outline.) The story is set in fictional countries and towns of Southeast Asia. I was scared off from making it in a historical setting since I know so little about Southeast Asia's history. But I wanted to write better. I'm still pleased with my writing in my previous three fictional outings (Wizard Clip Haunting, Wizard Clip Haunting JR-YA, and Tiger's Hope). However, I wanted to venture into a more classic genre with Sabriya, even though the genre is an action thriller, not unlike the movie TAKEN and its sequels, which was the inspiration for the original Sabriya movie treatment from which this novel originates. 

Plot Beat Board for Sabriya Novel. Writing has begun.
Planned: 37 chapters, 72K words

The VALUES and the mental DECISIONS we hold in our hearts are the instigators of our ACTIONS and the resulting Natural Law CONSEQUENCES.  Some of you may be familiar with the workshop slide that follows. It's a milestone to understanding how character values and actions transform. 

As I usually do before starting a major project, I research the subjects where my knowledge is lax. In the case of Sabriya, I want to become a better novelist, so I've been reading and studying the writing techniques of well-known authors in genres I admire. The last three I've read are pictured below.

At right, is Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd."

The ... UNLESS ... surrounded by ellipses in the title of this post refers to WORDS on a printed page. Words are visible, but in a classic novel such as those above, the words refer to what's invisible—the inner monologue of the moral dilemma facing a character.

All successful stories, if I can make an invisible assertion, is that stories (even movies) are really about what is happening inside a character's heart and mind. An oft-repeated adage in our industry is SHOW, DON'T TELL. But what is shown in a movie, e.g., the action on the screen is only a metaphor for what the story is REALLY about—the internal transformation of the characters.

What I've come to realize anew is that novels, as opposed to movies, have a superpower—they spend most of their time dealing with what the story is really about by staying (mostly) inside the character's head, dealing with and negotiating values and decisions—the inner monologue predominates in classic novels.  I write "classic" novels, because popular novels read more like movies and spend most of the words describing action. My novel, Wizard Clip Haunting, does that because it was modeled after the style of Len Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, which I pored over at least twice before writing Wizard. 

I am not capable of mimicking Thomas Hardy in Madding Crowd. But I can't help but idolize passages like the following:

FRTMC (2015) Carey Mulligan (Bathsheba Everdene)
and Michael Sheen (William Boldwood)
Multiple movie efforts. We've seen the 1967 and 2015 
versions (our favorite).

Boldwood was thus either hot or cold. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him: a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. The shallows in the characters of ordinary men were sterile strands in his, but his depths were so profound as to be practically bottomless. (Some of these delicious words were omitted in the 1912 edition as noted in the footnotes of the Penguin Classic edition shown above.) [Chapter XVII, p.105]

The above paragraph is a (physical) plot-worthy necessity as it foreshadows Boldwood's actions that bring the novel to a bold and surprising climax (not herein spoiled). The paragraph also foreshadows Bathsheba's internal reaction that unfolds in a subsequent paragraph. Together, the two make the climactic ending sensible and complete.

Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Boldwood's moods her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon her heart ineradicable. Moreover had she known her present power for good and evil over this man she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tranquility, her understanding had not yet told her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely: for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his emotional capabilities from old flood-marks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. (Chapter XVII, p.106]

Yes, novels can do much more than movies when it comes to revealing the truth of a story, and not overemphasizing the metaphors.

Sabriya, an action thriller, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your tolerance for internal dialogue), will be more pulp fiction than classic novel.  I must be careful for what I pray for, but nonetheless, Lord, help me to write more like Hardy. 

 

ACTIONABLE INNER VALUES with MICHAEL JANN

MICHAEL JANN - Emmy Nominated TONIGHT SHOW writer

Making the invisible visible.

That's the job of the filmmaker, and even the novelist, although, I think, the novelist has the more difficult time of it.

Show, don't tell.

That's the mantra of all storytelling, although, again I think, the novelist has it more difficult.

Make it visceral, not abstract.

That's the job of all communication. Although our essences are spiritual, we identify ourselves primarily in physical terms.

Psychological Values leads to Physical Actions.

That's the concept that The Moral Premise concept builds upon. But, what matters to film audiences and novel readers is what transpires in the physical realm. Our psychological world may house and care for our moral motivations, but something does not become part of our neighbor's universe (and the larger realm of humankind) until we push it into physical space.

These are the storytelling dilemmas all of us storytellers are faced with. And, perhaps I've made this a bit more difficult to resolve by sticking to my strictly speaking "inner to outer" litany. I mean by that, this: Most of the time when I speak or write bout The Moral Premise it is in this form:

Inner Value leads to Outer Action.

But to the screenwriter and the even the novelist, that inner value has no practical identity until it is made visible through some action. I know this, but I don't always practice it. In helping writers with log lines and moral premise statements I may get there, but my mind isn't purposely doing so, i.e. making physically explicit the inner motivations. 

This was brought to my attention recently in dialogue with MICHAEL JANN, Emmy nominated writer who wrote for THE TONIGHT SHOW with both Jay Leno and Jimmy Fallon. He's been working on a few screenplays in his post TONIGHT SHOW reality when he wrote me this about current screenplay (this used with his permission):

I’m so happy right now!  After reading your chapter 10 again (more carefully, this time), I got less rigid with my prose, and more “writer-y”, and fine-tuned my Moral Premise to: 

“Hiding behind masks and shields leads to isolation, loneliness and misery. But, giving yourself to others in an authentic way leads to community, intimacy and love”. 

It was so cool to express my virtue and vice in external terms (moral, i.e., affecting others). rather than internal terms (abstract, i.e., affecting only the hero).

Now the woman he falls in love with must confront this same moral premise.  She might boast that she doesn’t hide behind a “mask", but she bludgeons people with her “honesty”, which is still hiding  (albeit in a different way -- behind a shield, rather than a mask.)  Now they both have to confront the moral premise:  "Hiding is bad, authenticity is good."

To some, this may be subtle. But the distinction is worth emphasizing because it empowers the writer (and the director and actors) to communicate effectively with audiences. I wrote Michael back:

You make a good point that I’m not sure I’ve ever emphasized, although I’ve come up with MPS like this. But I need to make this more explicit. The human process is still internal value drives external behavior, but for screenwriters I won't argue with your insight.  While the novelist would speak in more internal terms, the screenwriter can’t … except perhaps on a 3x5 card taped to the frame of his computer. “Hiding behind” is more physical than “lack of self confidence” or “selfishness.” And, “giving yourself” is more physical than “self confidence” or “generosity”.  “Hiding…” and “Giving…” are “action” terms, which is a key concept for actors.

At this point I referenced ACTIONS: The Actors' Thesaurus by Marina Caldarone & Maggie Lloyd-Williams, (also available as a SmartPhone APP, it appears.) In my own directing efforts I've found this book invaluable when working with actors at table reads, centering their performance on actionable interpretation of lines and scenes. ACTIONS also contains an excellent introduction explaining Stanislavski's acting method and the necessity of "finding an action for a particular moment or line of text." I think I should write about this book and how it can help screenwriters connect better with actors and audiences.

In a followup email to the above, Michael pointed out the practical benefit of thinking more visible, physical, and actionable:

That finesse point was the biggest thing I learned from both you and then from John Truby.  He talks about how the hero's flaw must be a moral, i.e. negatively affecting other people. The example he gives is if a guy is alone in his bedroom doing heroin, we don't really care and it's not much of a story. But if his kid is waiting at the school bus stop while he's in his room doing heroin -- now you've got a story. I recall him initially apologizing for the word "moral", in anticipation of the "I don't want to moralize" backlash. But that's why I thought I would share this development today with you, as you have always been a fearless proponent of that idea. Seeing it come to life for me made me today made me really happy and I immediately thought of you -- the Moral Premise-Meister! 

Thanks, Michael, for the kind words, but even more so for the great insights.