Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's U.K. Banquet - Subtext for Desert

I love subtext in dialogue. I discuss it at length in Lesson 12 of my on-line Storycraft Training series. But in today's news we have a prime example that is worth honoring. 

Earlier today DailyMail.com posted a news story about Iranian president Ebrahim Raisis's helicopter crashing, and the speculation that he might have died. (As I write this there's no confirmation, but that is besides the point.)

The story tells us that it was Raisis who ordered the massive drone and rocket barrage on Israel last month, which did little damage, but was likened to kicking a sleeping tiger.  

Evidently there is some animosity in the UK toward Iran...my point is not to delve into that, but into the subtext that exploded in the comments section, which over a period of a few hours went from 112 to 4,600. 

The comments, about Raisis's probably demise go like this. The subtext is some of the best I've ever read, and could, no...SHOULD be the dialogue in a GodFather IV script. 

From Surrey, UK (Thumbs UP: 871 - Thumbs DOWN: 57)

Thought I'd already had an amazing weekend walking in the sunshine - amazing countryside, nice pub lunch with golden pint of cider. But this just put the cherry on the cake.

From an Island off the coast, UK (Thumbs UP 3,400  Thumbs DOWN 257)

Fresh Scottish salmon on the BBQ resting on a cedar board for supper, with new spuds dripping in butter with peas. A beer is already in hand with chilled Australian Red Wing with the fish. Yep, it's a good evening.

Response to above: Coventry, UK (UP 717 - DOWN 43)

I just had Scottish salmon with a crisp Caesar salad and cherry tomatoes...so I agree a good evening. 

From London, UK (UP 2,000 DOWN 115)

When I though the sunshine Sunday couldn't get any better, marvelous!

Kettering, UK (UP 429, DOWN 15)

I actually just had roast beef and lemon cheesecake  

UK Response to the above (UP 315, DOWN 15)

Oh, I love lemon cheesecake! A lovely day for it, too.

And so it went. Great subtext is worth memorializing.

stan 

Characterization and The Moral Premise

As with everything in a story or script, the arc described in the moral premise needs to be present especially in each character's characterization. Not every element of characterization needs to arc, but arc'ing a few would strengthen the story. My online Storycraft Training Series (click on the link to access the training) teaches you how to do this in many ways. As an extension to that valuable training, here is a description of characterization and how it adds to the elegancy of the moral premise method of storytelling.

You can categorize characterization in the following ways:

Appearance. This refers to wardrobe, mannerisms, and hygiene. Do your characters look like, act, and dress like who they really are? Is this correlation obvious, obscured, and ironic? Do they dress down because of their humility or are they hiding something? Do they dress up out of arrogance or to compensate for a sense of inferiority? Do they refuse to care for their health because they hate who they are? How does their appearance change or not during the course of the story? A good writer will plan this arc, and it's clarity (or it's obscurity), to subliminally reinforce the moral premise of the story.

Action: This refers to their decisions to choose one course of action vs. another normally associated with the turning points of a plot (or subplot). What does the character do? What don't they do? What do they consider doing...or not doing? Is there an indication that they would like to do something but they turn from it, or that they don't want to do something but they do it anyway? While this is easy to describe in a novel with internal monologue, it's a bit more of an art in a screenplay where you only have physical actions to describe in the action paragraph or in the nonverbal of dialogue.  (Yes, you can explain it in dialogue, but don't.) A good writer will plan this arc (as they plot the action), to explicitly reinforce the moral premise of the story.

Appearances in a movie are an important
part of characterization. Above, Chris Hemsworth
prepares for his role in HEART OF THE SEA.

Dialogue: How does the character speak in use of grammar, confidence, dialect? How do these elements contrast and compare to other characters? Can we distinguish who is talking if there are no character tags above each dialogue line? While you may think these characteristics may stay constant throughout a story, the best stories find a way to arc this element. In real life, once, during a flight from Michigan to California, I sat next to man who felt obliged to communicate a particular persona to me through a distinct pattern of speech. As we talked during the four hour trip his speech slowly changed to that of normal midwesterner. As we said our goodbyes in the LAX terminal, he had morphed into an entirely different character than the one I sat next to leaving DTW. I thought, if this can happen that quickly in real life, then such a change in a 120 minute motion picture is not unrealistic. And, if those speech patterns are logically connected to the moral premise' weakness and strength, you have a reinforced arc that will connect emotionally with audiences. A good writer will imbue this into their characterizations. 

Arc: This refers primarily to the main turning points of the main plot and multiple subplots. How does the character moral decision making change throughout the story and how does that change relate to whether they are a good guy or a bad guy? The assumption is that a good guy will always get better and a bad guy will get his comeuppance. This reflects audience expectations of characterization in a broad overall sense. But irony plays an important role in keeping an audience's attention. Can you make a character more interesting my plotting their action in a way that "stings" the audience? Does your protagonist fake her own death, but not let the audience in on the trick? Do they appear to tell the truth, but are in fact lying? Do they take actions that seem malevolent, but turn out to be merciful? Keep your audience guessing by thus enriching your character's characterization. But never, EVER, be irrational about the character's arc. Natural Law is your friend, because the turning points of a story, while perhaps manipulated by the character's values, will always arc back to nature in the end. To do otherwise will cheat and irritate your audience. 

Internal motivation/values: This refers to what drives all the action of every story. It's what the character's believe above all else will bring them happiness. While this element is mostly hidden in a screenplay, it's important that the writer have this firmly in their mind so the subtleties of writing and the choice of words and the length of sentences and dialogue and everything else subtly reflect who the character is and what he/she hope to be. Characterization originates from the character's most intimately held values....those articulated in the moral premise statement. Those values control everything they are, think and do. For characterization to ring true to your audience/reader, you must never violate the natural law connection between a value, and when acted upon the physical consequence. The consequence may be delayed, thus encouraging a vice/weakness the character has, but ultimately their internal motivation will reward them—good or bad. It is in this manner that the physical consequences (what we "see" in the story) become metaphors for the character's true self. Characterization is how we see that trueness, oftentimes before the consequence hits. A good writer will have this figured out ahead of time, or (if you're a pantser) do it by instinct. 

Introduction: In a screenplay, the introduction of a significant character is that one sentence allowed the screenwriter to tell us who the character really is...or at least at that moment who the screenwriter wants the reader to think the character is. The introduction is explicit, omniscient characterization. The writer is allowed to describe the internal motivations and values of the character hopefully by connecting it to some physical and visible element. Example: "A debonair young man whose mind was always in the gutter."  "A mindless beauty who was totally innocent of her affect on the opposite sex." "A woman whose intentions were always good but who's affect was always unwelcome." "Jacob was the syndicate boss who ordered the death of hundreds but secretly he wanted to be a weekend preacher and save souls  especially his own." Novelists have much more leeway to use a whole scene, of every chapter, to flesh out such characterization. The good writer will carefully manipulate this description to set up the character's values, arc, and appearance to entrap the reader's emotions as the story unfolds. 

Hopefully evident in those last examples (and should be evident in all the other characterization elements) is the concept of irony. "It was the best of days it was the worst of days, they were the best of people but they were entirely flawed." I think more than anything else the natural, organic incorporation of such irony in characterization is what makes people and characters interesting to an audience.

Simplifying the Moral Premise

This post from George Chatzigeorgiou, a moral premise fan from Greece whose material I have posted before.

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While watching films and noticing how the moral premise works in them, I've found that in many good films, although there is a moral premise, it doesn't have the fully realized structure that is presented in the book, mainly plot arcs and moments of grace for main characters besides the protag. For example, the kind of films some call "character study" do not have full arcs for secondary characters ("Taxi Driver" for instance).

Thus, I've compiled a set of general rules which I think can be applied in just about any film with a good moral premise. I find these rules very freeing, cause they help me apply a moral premise without feeling confined by a highly rigid, "idealized" structure that serves well as a general guide and as a general template, but I don't think it's necessarily meant to be fully realized. So let me know what you think, will you? (In my general rules I've also included Blake Snyder's advice that the movie's theme should somehow be stated through dialogue during the set up.) I also think that these rules serve as a simplified summary of what the moral premise's all about.

Summary of the rules of a good moral premise:

1) Have a moral premise as the movie's thematic core structured as: [Virtue] leads to [success], but [vice] leads to [defeat].

2) Make the theme crystal clear by including a distinctive theme statement (preferably in the set up), by infusing the movie with "moments of grace" (beats which awaken in the minds and hearts of the audience what the movie is really about), and by exhibiting both sides of the moral premise, as well as each side's consequences.

3) Keep the moral premise consistent throughout the movie and don't betray it. This, in short, means that any character choosing to practice the virtue side should ultimately experience success, while any character choosing to practice the vice side should ultimately experience defeat.

George