F16 Moments - Writing Exciting Scene-to-Scene Movies

Things of Value Come in Threes

1. Years ago, I was in a meeting with Will Smith and a few others breaking a story, yet to be made. We were at somewhat of an impasse about a scene when Will gets up and in his animated way pitches the scene something like this:

Naw! That's not how it needs to go down. Imagine instead that the doors to a big warehouse slowly open, and we hear a might roar of a jet engine, and smoke pours out of the doors, and out of the smoke rolls this monstrous F16 Jet fighter, and it comes down this alley, it's wings almost scrapping the brick walls either side, and it turns onto this boulevard,  and then it sits there at the end of this wide road, revving it's engines. It's vibrating something awesome, wanting to take off, and suddenly it gets the okay, and it begins it's roll. And the camera pulls back, and his F16 jet is on Broadway of all places. And it roars down Broadway, fire flying out it's ass, and suddenly the pilot pops the afterburner and that baby jacks up on it's hinny, and catapults into the sky and disappears. Now, that would be cool!

I spoke up.

Ah, Will. A jet couldn't take off down Broadway because of all the lights, and wires crossing the road. You would be a helicopter, a big one of course, but a jet could never do it.

Will looked at me.

No, Stan,  you don't get it. A helicopter is boring. A jet is cool and exciting and L O U D! Forget the wires, it would be a very cool scene to see that jet screaming along in front of those theaters, flashing lights on the marquees, and buildings, and then zoom up into the sky.

It took a minute, but then I realized he was right. I shut up.

2. Yesterday an acquaintance wrote me:

Have you ever read about how Walt Disney used to work with his story crew? They started with a pre-existing story and Walt asked them to come up with entertaining moments. Then they strung them together.

3. Another successful producer was David O. Selznick (GONE WITH THE WIND). Shortly after he released GWTW, he bought the rights to Scarlet Lily, a book by Edward Murphy that I wrote about yesterday on this blog. I'm reading the book with the intent of discovering what Selznick saw in it. I'm halfway through and just read this morning the Moment of Grace scene that totally changes the story's direction for our harlot protagonist, Mary of Magdala. But what has captured my attention is how each chapter is a single scene with a dramatic profile—they are moments, each worthy of remembrance. It goes back to what Will and Disney were saying: Put the story together with a tight sequence of memorable scenes and moments.

But What About Structure?

But a sequence of memorable scenes alone don't a story make, but Will Smith, Disney and Selznick are probably on to something.

The acquaintance that wrote me about Disney also said that there was a tendency of the Disney storywriters (when Walt was out of the room) to string moments together without a clear story or plot. Movie Moment

I'm meeting this week with a screenwriter on a couple of his scripts, and we're going to do this...well, I'm going to suggest he do this....D. are you reading this?

1. Take the Story Diamond and divide the story into 8 short movies or sequences. See my blog post on The Sequence Approach.

2. Conceive of each sequence has building to an exciting movie moment that coincides with the 8 Pinch Points or Turning Points that climaxes each sequence. Make each moment exciting, full of tension, and conflict. If you can't think of such a sequence that ends in such a memorable moment, for the sake of your audience CHANGE YOUR STORY!

3. Ensure that the first 7 pinch points or turning points end with the protagonist's failure to achieve the goal he or she had pursued in that sequence, but opens a door for an escalating challenge in the next sequence. If the movie is redemptive, the 8th "point" is the charm and success is achieved. If the movie is tragic, the 8th "point" is the protagonist's final defeat. (Remember that even in a redemptive movie there is likely an antagonist that has a tragic arc, so you can write a story that has your protagonist succeed and your antagonist defeated (ala DIE HARD).

4. In every other aspect follow the Moral Premise.

In summary:
 Every sequence ends with an "F16 popping the afterburners down Broadway." 

An Example of Great Ironic and Metaphoric Writing

EDWARD F. MURPHY

I have been reading Edward F. Murphy books of late. First, there was an out of print novel from 1947, "Pére Antoine: The 1770-1822 story of the most hated priest in New Orleans who became the best-loved bishop of all Louisiana." I picked this out of the shadows because I was developing a screenplay that begins in New Orleans just before the famous 1778 fire. The irony in Murphy's writing captivated me.

I next found what I thought was another novel of his, "Yankee Priest" which turned out to be his fascinating autobiography. Murphy was a poor missionary Catholic priest to New Orleans in the 1940s. He went there as one of the first professors at Xavier University. Ironically, Murphy, had very close connections to the famous Broadway actor, composer and producer Eddie Dowling, and through Eddie's friendship, had considerable affect on Broadway at the time.

Then, I came across Murphy's best selling novel, "Scarlet Lily," a fictional novel of Mary of Magdala, conceived as the harlot who became a follower of Christ.

Most Bible scholars do not believe Mary was the adulterous woman Jesus forgive, nor was she another harlot, but rather just a rich woman from Magdala whom Jesus cast out seven demons. That she was a harlot was a legend started perhaps in the Middle Ages and evident in some gnostic writings, but not supported by the canonical Scriptures or church tradition. Nonetheless, Murphy makes a good story out of it.

"Scarlet Lily" won a famous novel writing contest sponsored by The Bruce Publishing Company. Before "Scarlet Lily" was released as a novel, famed Hollywood producer David O. Selznick picked up the movie rights as his next big production after Gone with the Wind and attached Ingrid Bergman to play Magdala.  Alas, the movie was never made for a variety of political reasons, one of which that with the end of WWII, biblical epics were suddenly out of vogue. [Yes, I'm wondering, was a screenplay written? I've been looking.]

IRONY and METAPHOR

I've just started reading the "Scarlet Lily" and, as expected, I've been rewarded with great prose, and Murphy's talent for IRONY and METAPHOR.

I've written and lectured before about the importance of irony and metaphors in writing (novels and screenplays), and indeed the first of ten lessons of my on-line Moral Premise workshop is all about the importance of irony. (http://Storycrafttraining.blogspot.com). So, below is a great example from Scarlet Lily.

While Murphy finds it hard to write a paragraph, in anything he writes, without layering on irony, metaphor or similes, this paragraph is the most dense I've read...among many, many writers. So, it is worthy of posting for study and analysis. This is how you should write every line of a screenplay, every scene - - and of course this is what The Moral Premise does—it pits virtue and vice, good consequence against bad, in a single sentence. Just as you've always read that ever scene must have conflict, so every action description should likewise be written, and every doublet of dialogue drip.

SETTING

Setting: Mary of Magdala is a young, beautiful woman, who out of the tyranny of King Herold's murderous temperament, found herself in the ugly situation of being a highly prized harlot wandering the Jewish temple in Jerusalem. It's about 12 A.D. A week or so before this moment in the novel, she has inadvertently witnessed Jesus in the temple at age 12, dialoging with Jewish teachers (Luke 2:39-52). In that scene young Jesus defines for the much older teachers the virtue that hides between fear of God and love of God—reverence of God. Magdala doesn't know who the young boy is, but she's impressed—there's a glow about him.  But her pimp shows up, putting a possessive arm around her and dragging her away from the discussion, and calls on her to employ her charms to entertain a visiting Babylonia prince. After spending days in the prince's employ, the prince beckons her to leave Jerusalem and travel with him to his kingdom. She ponders the offer, telling her servant: "There is nothing in Jerusalem for me. And, for a moment, I had though there might be everything—." (even there, notice the "nothing" and "everything" in the one sentence. That's Murphy's talent.

Here is the longer pondering...every sentence on a pedestal of irony and metaphor.

THE PASSAGE

That Jehovah was great, and that his visitations were as awful as himself, Mary thought she could plainly see. But that he was lovable, notwithstanding that he had permitted a child to be born in Bethlehem over a decade ago, whose coming meant the murder of many little ones, did not appear at all clear. Every gift of his, however fine in one phase, was fearful in another. Life itself, his greatest [gift], was shadowed by death. Youth and beauty were so brief that they amounted to little more than a withering and a decay. Light sombered into darkness. Stars fell. The earth yielded thistles and thorns as well as wheat and roses. The heart, so suited to hold joy, regularly brimmed with sorrow. The jubilee of today was the sackcloth and ashes of tomorrow. What did it profit to have a warm stream of health in one's veins when the chill of certain dissolution blew steadily over it? What was spring's awakening in comparison with winter's terrible sleep? As for the towers of reason, they enthroned the rulership of fools, for kings and high priests had alike committed Israel to suffering and shame. And the bosom of Abraham — hope of the faithful! — had it not been barbaric, even as Herod's own, with a willingness to slay the innocent Isaac? Love, as an inspiration to good, was better than fear, as a prevention of evil; but how could love grow and bloom in a winter-world? Reverence was ideal; but how could it be the soul-expression of a people whose lambs were led to the slaughter and whose God, to whom sacrifices were continually made, had left the land be stripped of dignity and left it to languish under the Roman heel?  [Murphy, Edward (1947). The Scarlet Lily. Milwaukee: Bruce, p. 62.]

Will Smith Mentors His Brother-in-Law, Caleeb Pinkett

I guess I'm posting the YouTube video below, because there is a half-second mention in it of me and The Moral Premise.

But there are two important lessons this video conveys that have nothing to do with The Moral Premise.

1. Breaking into the film-industry is not easy, even if you're Will Smith's brother-in-law. Notice the metaphors Caleeb describes. They're apropos.

2. Getting your story made into a movie in Hollywood is hard work, and very unlikely, even if you're Will Smith or his brother-in-law.

Now and then I'll have someone approach me who has heard that I worked with Will on a number of projects, and these folk ask (and sometimes beg) me to pitch their idea to Will. (Sorry, folks it doesn't work like that.)  What these dear souls don't realize is that even Will Smith can't get his projects made. And if Will Smith can't, why would anyone else that knows someone, who knows someone, who once road in a Taxi that Will rode in years earlier, be able to get it made? You might read that sentence again.

That's why I keep suggesting to such dear souls: "Make the movie yourself."

The story and script that Caleeb and Will mention in this video, conceived and written by Caleeb, "The Redemption of Cain," is more than familiar to me and some of my story students who were privileged enough to have Caleeb pitch the developed story to them during a visit to the set of AFTER EARTH. But, as good as Caleeb's story is, and even through Will is attached to star in it, they've yet to get it made. That is the reality of Hollywood. And anyone wanting to get into the film industry needs to understand how hard it is. Caleeb in this video explains quite well just how hard it is. It's a good lessons to all those who are NOT Will Smith's brother-in-law. Can I see hands?

Blessings to all.

Stan

Verisimilitude Interview with author WEAM NAMOU

Weam and Stan at Franklin Park in Sterling Heights, MI, August 18, 2018.

Please enjoy this long form interview with Iraqi-American author WEAM NAMOU (WE'am NA'mu) and how finding a chance copy of Gone With the Wind in Amman, Jordan translated into Arabic, perhaps changed the trajectory of her professional life.

Weam Namou is an Eric Hoffer award-winning author of 12 books, a speaker, journalist, and filmmaker. She serves as the vice president of Detroit Working Writers (DWW), a 118-year-old professional writing association, and as an Ambassador for the Authors Guild of America, the nation’s oldest and largest professional organization for writers. Yours truly was the first featured guest on the Weam Namau Show a weekly cable television program from Troy, Michigan. She’s also the founder of The Path of Consciousness, a spiritual and writing conference and retreat. Here is a link to her website, documentary and writing retreat. 

Click here for the INTERVIEW on Soundcloud (just over one hour)

The Philosophical Basis of How Stories Connect with Audiences

"It sort of makes you stop and think, doesn't it?"

Rule No. 1: Audiences connect best with characters when you tell a story that the audience believes is universal, logical, and organic. 

• Universal means the story centers on a universal values that the audience believes are universally true...that means what is right vs. what is wrong.  In 90 minutes you can't change the audience's moral values more than a smidgen, so you better start and end where the audience generally is. You can nudge people, but you can't convert them. If you want to convert people produce a documentary and present the most biased interviews and visuals you can find. But don't figure you can figure which way the conversion will flop. A pro-Trump doc may just turn people against him, as Dinesh D'Souza has probably discovered, and a anti-Trump doc may create more Republican voters...as Michael Moore has discovered. 

• Logical means the story's cause and effect elements are logically consistent with Natural Law. Now, there are two kinds of natural laws. There is physical kind, e.g. gravity, momentum, inertia, etc.; and there are psychological kind, e.g. guilt, generosity, lust, envy, etc.   You violate one and there will be natural consequences to answer to. 

• Organic means the filmmaker's ability to surreptitiously foreshadow events... while still being universal and logical.  

Rule No. 2: Every one of the universal, logical and organic elements consistently conforms to a single Moral Premise Statement:

[some moral vice] leads to [some physical detriment], but

[some moral virtue] leads to [some physical betterment].

To expand: The vice and the virtue in the statement need to be universal values that most everyone in a general audience will understand at some level, e.g. greed vs. generosity, selfishness vs selflessness, arrogance vs. humility, etc.

The detriments and betterments are logically the natural consequences of the vice or virtue. Greed leads to isolation, generosity leads to friendship. In the political arena, arrogance (both Trump and the Acosta) leads to distrust, but humility (Jordan Peterson) leads to respect. 

This is one of my Big Problems — s.w.

Rule No. 3: Avoid parochial content and jargon...unless your audience is parochial and expects you to use jargon. For instance, Christian faith films often lapse into trite visuals, scenes, and jargon, the meaning of which is obscured to the non-believer. Someone asked Jordan Peterson once, "Are you a believer?" Peterson's logical response was, "I believe a lot of things." 

Rule No. 4: Tell the Truth.

Seems simple, but here's what it means.

When you set up a conflict between a flawed character and a universal vice and universal virtue, remember these three things:

1. Things Don't Happen by Accident. Either nature delivers, or your character is motivated by some value. 
2. The Universe is run by the Eternal Purposes of God. Generally, that means Natural Law is benevolent toward humans, unless humans ignore what is benevolently given them.
3. Novel and unexpected events (e.g. a miracle) occur to accomplish the universe's larger purpose. In such an event, it may appear that Natural Law is violated, but to the clever writer the event is always natural. 

How to Change the World at Bedtime - The Art of Storytelling - Didactic vs Narrative

There are many ways of trying to convince someone that something is true. There is the "BOP!" method, frequently employed by our parents and school teachers.

"I'll tell you what you're suppose to believe, and if you don't repeat it faithfully I'll bop you on the head with this here book."

Such is the method currently being used in segments of our political sub-culture. Either you toe the party line or I'll kick you off my Facebook page, out of my store, or the safe zone at the local university. So much for the pursuit of truth through dialogue and tolerance.

Many of us grew up in such fascist environments. But I don't think those who think much, think much of the effectiveness of such methods. In a pedagogical sense we might describe the BOP method with terms like rote, punishment, telling, didactic, or tyrannic. But most of us more likely appreciate learning through personal experience, discovery, experiment, showing, and simulation. Oh, yes, I should add the verbal pedagogies like dialogue, debate, and argument (as long as the arguments are the logical, not the yelling kind).

To those in the communication professions these two styles of communication can be identified simply as "TELLING" or "SHOWING."  Or, I could use more esoteric terms "DIDACTIC" and "NARRATIVE."  Experience is the best teacher, of course, but TELLING a little boy not to touch the hot stove is safer than actually letting him touch it. And yet, telling him may only elicit the question, "Why?" And that's where SHOWING or perhaps a simulation through a story is better.

Jeremy, you're too young to remember, but one time your Auntie Francine touched the stove when it was turned on, and her hand went up in flames. She screamed and hollered, and cried so hard. We took her hand and put it on ice, but that was so cold she cried even harder. Then the doctor came and took her hand completely off her arm and kept it a bandage for 2 months way up there on the shelf, and she couldn't reach it, or use it, even to pick her nose. How would you like that? Wouldn't it be sad if you couldn't pick your nose?"

Stories are like simulations if you can get your audience to emotionally identify with your protagonist and internally make decisions for the protagonist as the story goes along. There are many techniques for getting your audience to identify with the characters in a story...but we have not the space in this blog. See the on-line training. Yet, when you do it right, your audience will make the transition to believe that THEY are IN the story, and that THEY can HELP the protagonist toward the goal.

Oh, Daisy, don't open that door, there's a monster on the other side and he might eat you and it would really be ugly and I don't want to see that.

But of course, Daisy, being immortalized on the celluloid, can't hear you, so she walks through the door and is eaten by the monster. Blood everywhere. Quit memorable. Next time she'll listen. Oh, right, there won't be a next time. But the "Daisys" in the audience who are living through the simulation WILL remember...which is the point.

[Where does preaching fall into the above lists? Well, it depends on whether the preaching primarily involves didactic or narrative techniques. A good rule of thumb based on research of best selling books is 75% narrative and 25% didactic. Hook the heart, imagination and memory with the story, and then sum up the message with a short didactic explanation. Now, I've heard preachers who will a tell a story that has nothing to do with their message...which only hinders and create cognitive dissonance. The assumption is that that story embodies the applicable moral premise. ]

What Happens When We Tell Stories

I so much want to tell a story here, but your time is valuable. So let me NOT practice what I'm trying to preach and just share with you (e.g. tell you) what happens when you rightly use a story to communicate a particular truth, assuming you're using the Audience Identification Techniques described below.

When you tell a story correctly your audience will:

• Work mentally to fill in the narrative gaps, and figure out what is going on and why. (Narrative communication is inductive. It provides information but the audience has to figure out the premise that holds it all together. That "figuring it out" requires mental engagement.)
• Follow the narrative hook created by the story and try to answer the "story question." Listening to narrative communication is thus very active and engaging.
• Identify with the flawed character, because they (the audience) are flawed.
• Be intrigued about how the protagonist will successfully achieve his/her goal.
• Be held in suspense as the protagonist overcomes obstacles.
• Root for the protagonist at turning points to make the right decision and progress.
• Be sad when the protagonist makes the wrong decision and falls back.
• See themselves in the protagonist's journey.
• Learn with the protagonist what to do and what not to do to have a good life themselves.
• Subliminally recognize the moral truth, even though the outward story may be fictional.
• Ride the emotional roller coaster of the story's ups and downs. This creates adrenalin rushes that burn memories into the brain. 
• Remember the story and its subliminal message because it's visual and a simulation of a life experience. 

Now granted, I'm short-handing a lot of theory and practice here, but perhaps this blog will encourage you to learn how to tell better stories and change the world. ...Now, onward and upward!

What Happens With Didactic Communication

Let me contrast Didactics with Narratives. Unfortunately this will be a lot of propositional pronouncements...the very thing I'm preaching against:

• Didactic communication tugs on the brain. Narrative stories, properly told, tug on the heart.
• Didactic communication involves precisely defined propositional statements, logic, and syllogisms -- (think theology). Narrative communication involves suspense, intrigue, irony, conflict, and metaphors (think bedtime stories).
• Didactics use abstract formulas that pertain to all time, all places and all persons. They are thus impersonal and objective. Narratives pertain to one time, one place, one person and are thus personal and subjective. 
• Didactics make intellectual connections but generally produce no adrenaline rush to burn-in memories. Narratives make emotional connections by producing adrenaline rushes that do burn-in memories.
• Didactics are void of emotional cantharis and are easily forgotten. Narratives, properly told, lead to emotional catharsis and are easily remembered.
• Didactics frequently require rhetorical embellishment (volume, gestures, and pacing)  to keep an audience awake. Narratives can benefit from rhetorical techniques but don't require it. The audience's imagination supplies the embellishment to keep tuned. 
• Didactics require deductive thinking where the conclusion is pronounced up front by the presenter and assumed to be true. Narratives require inductive thinking where the conclusion is derived by the audience through assimilation of the character's experiences. Thus, the conclusion is owned by the audience, not the presenter, and is thus remembered longer.
• Didactics offer theoretical and general descriptions of life leading to the embrace of ideologies that may not  have practical meaning to the audience. Narratives offer visceral and specific portrays of life leading to personal verisimilitude. 
• Didactics treat "cause and effect" intellectually and philosophically. Narrative treat "cause and effect" emotionally and practically.
• Didactics explains truth. Narrative imbues truth.
• Didactics tell audiences what to think, so they leave believing, "It's the presenter's idea, I'm skeptical." Narrative leads audiences to discover for themselves, so they leave believing, "It's my idea. Ah-ha!"

Audience Identification Techniques - How to Tell a Story That Connects with Your Audience

There are numerous ways to get your audience to emotionally identify with your characters and thus learn through your character's successes and failures how to make their lives better, which is the subliminal reason people loves stories...they're like safe simulations of life that teach what is good, true, and beautiful.  But there are "catches" to telling successful stories. Here are some of them. They apply to short and long form stories. If you learn more about these and use them, you'll connect with your audience and they'll learn what you're trying to teach them through the experiences of your characters.

• Imbue in your story a true and consistently applied moral premise. This means that the underlying moral truth of your story must not conflict with Natural Law, although the outward physical story may be a fairytale.  This is the definition of a myth—a story vehicle, which may be true or fictional, but nonetheless communicates a universal moral truth. Much of my book, "The Moral Premise," the on-line "Storycraft Training," and this blog is about this.
• Start with a strong, ironic physical hook.  e.g. your protagonist's goal is out of his or her league and sounds impossible to achieve.
• Articulate an engaging log line. There is a good blog post on this.
• Be sure the conflict of inner values is universal to your audience and not parochial. (That is, don't beg your message and assume something is true your audience may think is false.)
• Your hero or protagonist must be flawed but wanting to be better.
• Your hero must pursue a physical and visible goal that may metaphor a deep moral goal.
• Your hero must be passionate and active, not passive or slothful.
• Structure your story's emotional ups and downs so that there is a regular emotional roller coaster with ever increasing risks. Using the technique in the Moral Premise book, the Storycraft Training, and this blog you can learn that every other scene or sentence must be an ironic, nearly impossible journey for your hero.

Well, there is more!!!  ...and if you're familiar with all of this stuff, you will have recognized this last list as some of the "Secrets of Successful Story Structure" from my free bookmark.

How to Emotionally Connect a Protagonist to Your Audience.

 This is an updated post from 2010.

Our full house at EXTRAORDINARY's premiere

A  recent workshop attendee who works with teen filmmakers asked this question:

What are the major events in a story that a protagonist must face and overcome to make sure the audience emotionally connects with the character?

That question tells me the filmmakers believe it's the external (or visible) story EVENTS or ACTIONS that connect the audience to the character. But that's only half the truth.

The action a character takes is valued by the audience only because of said character's motivation to take said action. If the protagonist kills another character, the event will be judged differently by the audience depending on whether the killing is pre-meditated murder or self-defense. That is, what's important to the audience is WHY the character took said action. And that is all about who the character is internally. It's the character's internal values that mostly dictate the emotional connection of the audience.

The way the audience discovers those values is the work of the plot and how the character responds to the beats of the plot. More about the plot beats below, but first let's look at how the audience will come to recognize the character's internal values. This is how it works in real life, too.

This diagram from a workshop I give will help. On the left side of the circle, items 2, 3 and 4 happen internally to a character. In a motion picture the audience does not see these unless the character shares his thinking with another character. In a novel, internal monologue often supplies these points.  But everything on the right side of the circle, items 1, 5, and 6 are in the visible, physical realm which the audience sees.

So, let's begin with No. 1. Here our character observes a situation in the external world.

2. Almost immediately the character compares what he observes to his own value system.

3. Let's assume that there is an internal value conflict between what he observes and his own value system. That leads to:

4. The character deciding upon a course of action to remediate the situation, and try to change the external situation to be more in line with his own internal values.

5. The character's thoughts morph into the physical realm and he takes some action.

6. As a direct consequence of the action some natural consequence occurs that is totally outside the character's control. Nature has the upper hand now, and some physical conflict may occur.  This physical conflict is a metaphor of the internal conflict from step 3.

And the cycle repeats itself, as the character...

1. Observes the new situation created by his intervening action, and

2. Evaluates....

If the Natural Consequence is evaluated as good in the character's mind, then his original internal value is reinforced. If the Natural Consequence is evaluated as bad, then the character may revisit and revise their original internal value....and transform.

TURNING  POINTS AND BEATS

Now this sort of logic appears most dramatically at a story's TURNING POINT or at Major Beats of a story. I discuss these beats in various places in this blog. But here's a starting point: 13 Major Beats.

So, this goes back to the original question.

What are the major events in a story that a protagonist must face and overcome to make sure the audience emotionally connects with the character?

The answer in an external sense are the dramatic story beats reflected in the 13 Major Beats link above. But the key to those beats emotionally connecting with audiences all depends on whether or not the internal value arc of the character's transformation coincides with or diverges from the audience's values.

And that is where the Moral Premise comes in. The decisions and actions that the character makes, if you're going to have a successful story, must all coincide with the moral and physical arc described by the moral premise statement, which we are assuming is true and in compliance with Natural Law.

Meet Kate DiCamillo

I'm coaching a Chinese lady going to school in Germany and traveling throughout Asia for her job with the UN working on a human trafficking task force. She wants to be a writer, and has the talent for it. She told me about this speech by Kate DiCamillo (the children's book writer). Her speech begins at the 20 minute mark, after the 20 minutes of introductions. (Whew!) It's a short speech, about her Moment of Grace as a writer. She wrote "Because of Winn-Dixie" that was made into a movie. I think it was her first book, written two pages at a time, early mornings, before going to work in a cold book warehouse.

On her author's website is this very short essay about writing too, that is wonderfully inspiriting. Read it: https://www.katedicamillo.com/onwrit.html

Enjoy.  

TRAILER: A GOOD MAN IN HARD TO FIND

A producer called me a few years ago to ask for script consulting help on a series of films based on Flannery O'Connor's stories. He claimed to be part of an organization that had the rights to all her work and they were gearing up for production. I do not recall much of the conversation, but there was a certain naivete involved and nothing ever came of the effort..,.at least with me.

In the meantime I've been told that Benedict Fitzgerald (who did the screenplay for Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST) has a family baby-sitting connection with Flannery, and it is Fitzgerald that has long held the rights...never to let them go.  And for "A GOOD MAN..." he's constructed a full length screenplay...not just the short story Flannery wrote. Fitzgerald is also the credited writer on Fannery's WISE BLOOD (1979) which John ("Jhon") Huston directed.

The movie production rights for O'Connor's stories had moved around a bit...if memory serves. I got the sense that no one knew how to make the movies and sell them. To call her stories Southern Gothic Horror is perhaps a bit simplistic.

According to the usually late and incorrect IMDB, Michael Rooker is somewhere in production on this story. (Perhaps someone out there that actually knows can update us.)

In the meantime, a filmmaker friend of mine, Jon Springer, (cricketfilms.com) who produced LIVING DEAD GIRL (www.moralpremise.com/LDG) which I discussed in The Moral Premise, has had a long time obsession with visualizing the characters in A GOOD MAN...  So, last fall Jon made a trailer for A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. He does not have the rights. He just wanted to be the first to visualize the characters. I think he did an excellent job. I wrote Michael Rooker's agent, hoping to get Rooker to look at what's below. Are you a Flannery fan? What do you think of Jon's trailer.

A Good Man is Hard to Find - Movie Trailer from Cricket Films on Vimeo.

Miracles Don't Just Happen, and Neither Do Story Hooks.

Story hooks are very much like miracles. But unlike miracles, your audience won't take the hook on faith. You have to explain it.

I have been working on a non-fiction book that has a couple of chapters that deal with the intersection of miracles and natural law. It occurred to me that miracles are very much like story hooks.

What's a Miracle?

A miracle can be defined as any unique physical phenomenon that defies natural explanation and which appears to have some benefit to a person or group of persons. That definition is an attempt to separate incidents of fate, or natural catastrophes that harm humanity (e.g. tsunami, tornadoes, or ...falling branches—like the one that totaled my wife's car yesterday in our driveway) from a similarly fascinating natural event that saves a person's life or prevents catastrophe. While a tornado may level a house we would not call it a miracle. But the baby that is carried by that same tornado to a field 2 miles away and set down without serious injury—

The view out my office. NOT a miracle, unless it can be fixed.

—that's a miracle!

And of those two events (the house leveling tornado or the tornado as baby transporter) which is the story hook?  The baby for sure.

My examination of miracles for this book I'm the editor of (in which I find myself at times rewriting the material), has revealed that there are many ways miracles can be naturally explained, although such explanations are nearly as miraculous and as fanciful as the event itself. The explanations involve unseen hierarchy of the nature's laws, the hierarchy of species, coincident of event timing, and the intersection of spacial and time dimensions beyond those which we normally perceive (3 of space and the point-dimension of time).

Miracles (and perhaps story hooks, too) seem to have two common components:

1. There is an instigation or incident from an outside trigger, and
2. After the outside trigger natural physical laws take over. 

In other words, the idea that a miracle violates or breaks natural laws is probably a false concept. It appears that the unusual event is the trigger, after which Natural Law dominates. (Ah! Now, I'm sure some of you would argue with that. Well, hold on, there's more but I can only type one finger at a time.)

Do Miracles and Hooks Break with Nature?

Now, as I just stated, people of religious faith will challenge me on ideological grounds that miracles do not violate or break a natural law. They will claim that unless there are miracles that defy nature they aren't miracles, and if there are no such nature-defying events then religious faith is dead...and since we can't have that, miracles must defy, violate, or break with nature.  (So much for the circular reasoning of ideology. I prefer evidence, else one could believe in anything....really.)

I'm not going to try to defend religious faith here (although I have it, and I do believe in miracles), but let's examine some ideas and see the story potential in each. My point is that miracles are a good way to conceptualize story hooks...and likewise your hooks should be/could be/must be miraculous...with an explanation of a sort. 

Are These Miracles? Could they be Hooks?

A dandelion growing in the middle of the desert? We'd call that a miracle, but it's an event that can be explained. The miracle here is that a dandelion seed got into the desert mud. After that inciting incident, natural law took over...when the conditions were right we have a blooming dandelion.

We call the development of a human being in a mother's womb and its delivery, The Miracle of Birth, although biologists claim that it can all be explained...at least at some level. Frankly, science can explain very little about how it happens nor can they create a baby from scratch. That makes it a miracle....an everyday miracle, hey get that thumb out of your mouth, you want buck teeth? Why look at that thumb and those teeth...wanna explain either of those?

Aunt Millie being healed of some strange lung disease is one thing...we're not really sure if there was a misdiagnosis, or if some "miracle" drug actually worked, if if an angel visited her in the middle of the night. 

But how do we explain Splash, Jesus walking on water or healing the eyes of the blind, or Moses leading the Children of Israel through the Red Seat on dry land? The skeptic's easy explanation of the Bible miracles is that they're as real as Splash—they didn't actually happen. The person of faith, on the other-hand, is much like the avid story connoisseur...they believe, for there's something of value in the story and the belief. And a good hook or miracle can reveal truth in the story myth that follows.  (Where "myth" is the story vehicle, regardless of it's truth. J.R.R. Tolkien once told C.S. Lewis that the Jesus myth was a true myth worthy of belief. The Chronicles of Narnia were the result.) [Did you ever wonder why those British authors only used initials for their given names?]

Daryl Hannah in a mermaid suit, Morgan Freeman walking on water, or Jesus spitting on a man's eyes are all good hooks, aren't they? How can they be possible? We wonder, we're intrigued, we allow mystery and suspense to pile in...and we become engaged in the story...because of the miracle. We're hooked.  Most people of faith don't want an explanation of miracles (from the ancient past or present day.) But story mavens need something, and I think people of faith need something too, otherwise belief in anything, true or not, would be probable. 

In stories then, when we're presented with the hook, we want to know something about it, like where did it come from, or how does it work? It can't be the writer's convenience and just appear. We can't expect readers or audiences to buy into the ideology just because we said it is so. Even if we can't explain it perfectly, audiences expect us to give it some basis in logic, even if the logic is faulty.  

For example, in WHAT WOMEN WANT, Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) has a bathroom accident with a hair dryer and a bathtub, that "allows" him to hear the thoughts of women he's near. At first this is just what playboy Nick would want. But then it turns into a curse. Nonetheless, the hook, or miracle is explained...at least enough so we can suspend disbelief. And of course it makes no sense, whatsoever. If anything like what happened to Nick happened to a real person, they'd be electrocuted dead. End of movie. 

So, it occurred to me, that some of the philosophical, logical, and scientific understandings of where real miracles come from would help us as storytellers come up with believable hooks. 

5 Rules for Miracles and Story Hooks

1. Miracles and hooks are at first unexplained phenomenal events, seeming impossibilities in the physical realm. But in reality, miracles and hooks do not actually violate Natural Law. C.S. Lewis writes in his book Miracles:

If God creates a miraculous spermatozoon in the body of a virgin, it does not proceed to break any laws. The laws at once take over. Nature is ready. Pregnancy follows, according to all the normal laws, and in months later a child is born.

2. Miracles and hooks are not the same as events of fate or catastrophes which occur due to natural law of occurrences, but without moral purpose. Miracles and hooks are specific to a person or group of people with a moral purpose. That is, a miracle or a hook involves some intelligent, benevolent "person," or "force" that triggers the event.

"Everything in a successful story relates to the character arc described by the moral premise statement, including the hook, which describes the peculiar and person problem of our protagonist....Peter." (personal interview with Stan Williams) ...hey, I needed a quote...can't I quote myself even if I just made it up?

3. After the event is triggered, Natural Law takes over and all other things in the person's life or story transpire without additional miracles or hooks. Natural law is never violated, although the natural laws involved may be unknown.

Scientific discoveries reveal natural laws heretofore unknown which caused events that previously could only be described as unexplained phenomenal, or something God does in secret.  But even if we have some explanation for how the event occurred,  the phenomena's moral purpose defines it as a miracle.

4. The "person" or "force" behind the miracle or hook may be a representative of a higher order species that intervenes in the life of the lower species. 

A miracle to a nutritive plant could be triggered by a brute sentient animal. A miracle to a brut sentient animal maybe triggered by a rational person.  A miracle or hook to a rational person would be triggered by a supernatural entity. In each case, the higher species reaches down into the environment of the lower species to trigger an event. For both agents, in both species, no natural law is broken, although the lower species may not understand the natural law which the higher species invokes. 

For example, a young girl folds her laundry and puts 12 pairs of socks in her drawer. The next morning there are only 9, her three favorite pair of red socks are missing. She wonders if she counted wrong. But then a few days later a miracle occurs and the three missing pairs show up again, in the drawer, perfectly in place. She takes one pair out to put it on, and low and behold she discovers a second miracle, the holes in the heels of the socks have been mended. How did this happen? Well, you guessed it, a higher order species paid her a visit...her mother.

5.  "Persons," and "forces" can trigger miracles by operating in extra dimensions of time and space beyond the 3 dimensions of space and 1 point of time humanity normally experiences. Science fiction is always playing with time and other dimensions. If we're to consider some of the theories surrounding Quantum String Theory we have as  many as 10 dimensions to play with, and all we need is a 4th for Jesus to walk through walls, or for Bruce Nolan (Jim Carey) to hear the prayers that God hears and to walk on water.

Conclusion

So, the next time you're trying to think up a hook, think instead of a miracle. That impossibility that through your craft you make reasonable.