CLOVERFIELD: Is There Danger in Helping Those We Care Most About?

Last night we screened CLOVERFIELD (2008) ($50MM Budget. $80MM Domestic Gross, which is surprisingly low after a noteworthy $46MM Opening Weekend. The reason is because of the ironic ending discussed in this post.)

Director: Matt Reeves
Writer: Drew Goddard

Protagonist: ROB HAWKINS (Michael Stahl-David)
Romance: BETH MCINTYRE (Odette Yustman)
Co-Protags: LILY FORD (Jessica Lucas)
MARLENA DIAMOND (Lizzy Caplan)
JASON HAWDINS (Mike Vogel)
HUDSON 'HUD' PLATT (T.J. Miller)
ANTAGONIST: The Monster (a metaphor for Rob's disbelief in the love between Beth and him.)

OVERVIEW

CLOVERFIELD is a frenetic, sci-fi thriller of a group of young adults who's going-away party for their friend, Rob, before he leaves for a job in Japan, is interrupted by a Godzilla type monster. The monster, of course, is a metaphor for the psychological trauma that ROB experiences by his decision to leave NY and the one he loves, BETH, to go to the home of Godzilla, Japan. It's a decision of monstrous proportions that is destined to destroy his life, and Beth's and also the lives of his close friends who love both of them. He's running from the one he loves, and she's losing the one she loves.

Although the movie is short (74 minutes -- the supposed length of a camcorder tape), it closely, but not perfectly, follows the 13 step pattern discussed in The Moral Premise, and other texts. The timings, however, of the page counts are compacted because of the shortened story time.  I will outline the turning points below.

THE DESCENT: Should We Follow the Over Confident?

Writer/Director: Neil Marshall (2005)

In talking with a consulting client and friend on the West Coast about horror films, we asked ourselves why the innocent die in some popular horror films.  I decided to take a look at DESCENT—Neil Marshall's 2005 story about "Six Chicks with Picks" (axes, that is). It was made in the UK for about $5.5MM and did $26MM in the US and $57MM worldwide.

The movie is about 94 minutes if you exclude the opening and closing credits. This would mean a Moment of Grace (the mid point) is at 47.7 minutes, and the two act breaks at about 24 min and 71 minutes, if ideally structured.


TURNING POINTS / BREAKS 

As I discuss below the Act 1/2 breaks occurs about 36 minutes, the group Moment of Grace (MOG) does occur exactly at 47  minutes, and the Act 2/3 break plus the MOG for the protagonist, occurs at about 75 minutes. (Below, when mentioning the structure of the turning points, that is the timing of events in the story, I refer both to minutes or pages as if they were equivalent. In reality they are not, but page counts is all a writer has to work with -- if he formats the pages correctly, and few writers do -- and minutes are all an editor has to work with.)

The story goes like this: After a white-water rafting trip for three women, a car accident kills the husband and daughter of one of the women, Sarah. A year later, to help Sarah get control of her life again and get over her nightmares and fears, her friends, two from the white water rafting trip, take her on a caving expedition in Kentucky. But the journey goes terribly wrong when they're pursued by a strange breed of predator. The question for the horror critic becomes: Why do these women all die in the cave, since they seem to be innocent of any sin?

I watched the original unrated uncut version (DVD) of THE DESCENT this afternoon and evening, and then a couple of the featurettes. [It takes me a long time to watch these things because I'm stopping every two minutes to take notes and timings. You do not want to go to the movies with me, I'm always yelling at the projectionist to stop the film for a few. Audiences hate me. I once got kicked out of a theater for using the light of my iPhone to take notes.]

SIN AND METAPHORS

In the opening scene three women (Sarah, Beth and Juno) are white water rafting.

Inspiration and a Story's Moment of Grace

Photo by Blakophoto

I am often aware that good stories come from sudden inspiration — like noticing that a morning dew drop, which scatters light into a brilliant rainbow of sparkling colors, is hanging from a weed. 

Such observations are buoyed by transcendence. They are "moments of grace" that inspire our sometimes pitiful lives to embrace hope of a better tomorrow.

Just as writers rely on inspiration or a vision of transcendent purpose, so the characters we write about also must come across their "moments of grace."

This morning, while preparing for my Story Symposium class (a monthly meeting of teens), I was reading Pope Benedict XVI's "Address to Artists" (21 November 2009) and John Paul II's "Letter to Artists" (April 4, 1999, Easter Sunday).  Yes, the Story Symposium is a group of Catholic home schoolers. How'd you guess?)

Benedict's address is filled with inspirational language, like:

Your art consists in grasping treasures from the heavenly realm of the spirit and clothing them in words, colours, forms — making them accessible. (3)(Benedict VXI Address to Artists)

But here is the passage that got me off my chair. It speaks of us as human beings looking for the solution to our lives, and to the problems that befall the characters in our stories, and how there are "moments of grace" for both. This paragraph does not just apply to the artist, but to any person (or fictional character) as they face a problem, a moral dilemma, and look for an idea or inspiration to carry them onward and upward. It may be something or a moment that is beyond current comprehension. But, just as the artist sees that dew drop hanging from a weed, so we can look for those moments of grace when we are introduced to the transcendence that makes being human, almost divine. (emphasis mine)

Dear artists, you well know that there are many impulses which, either from within or from without, can inspire your talent. Every genuine inspiration, however, contains some tremor of that “breath” with which the Creator Spirit suffused the work of creation from the very beginning. Overseeing the mysterious laws governing the universe, the divine breath of the Creator Spirit reaches out to human genius and stirs its creative power. He touches it with a kind of inner illumination which brings together the sense of the good and the beautiful, and he awakens energies of mind and heart which enable it to conceive an idea and give it form in a work of art. It is right then to speak, even if only analogically, of “moments of grace”, because the human being is able to experience in some way the Absolute who is utterly beyond. (#15)  (JPII Letter to Artists at Vatican.va)

I wish I had the quote in my book. Well, now it's on my blog.

Vanquish Fear, Bestow Hope.

Stan

Living Dead Girl: Is there a Resurrection?

We are proud to host this exclusive online debut of the newly restored HD version of Jon Springer's 35mm classic silent zombie short "Living Dead Girl."  Click HERE to play the movie.

This film is discussed on pages 114-115 of "The Moral Premise." It illustrates several things that writers need to learn. First, "Living Dead Girl" takes a well-worn genre and bends it in one new direction that connects with "zombie" audiences. Second, it illustrates how a story can be true at its core while also being violent and bloody. Third, it humorously metaphors how some in modern society can turned into zombies when it comes to spending time and money.

MORAL PREMISE

In the book I share this MPPS, since the film comes from a Catholic:

Not eating the body of Christ leads to death; but

Eating the body of Christ leads to life.

But there's another way to express the same thing from a human perspective:

Consuming what is only human leads to the walking dead; but

Consuming what is divine leads to waking up the dead. 

Like the film, this latter MPPS touches on the problems associated with conspicuous consumption (the opening scene was filmed outside the famous MALL OF AMERICA) and that change in human behavior is possible, not inevitable (e.g. a resurrection from the dead).

REVIEWER'S COMMENTS

Mitch Davis (Fantasia Film Festival)

It's been called everything from 'Christian trash art' to 'hilarious silent movie spoof', and Jon Springer's strange little zombie film is a bit of both. It's also a ride through the history of film language, incorporating 20's iris-in's, 60's docu style, 70's splatter and beyond, from Carl dreyer to George Romero, complete with a Zappa tune and an appearance by Mark Borchardt, all shot in 35mm at 18 f/p/s. Lots of grisly fun and a VERY impressive achievement.

Minneapolis City Pages

Christian trash art that has been vacuum-cleaned of messianic pomposity.

Ain't it Cool News

A hilarious silent-movie spoof...Romero-style gorefest.

Click HERE to play the movie.

Please share the link.

THE PLEDGE: Does Virtue Lead to Insanity?

All Star Cast... False Moral Premise... Sink Hole

Now and then I'll get feedback from readers and my shorter workshops that I should give more examples of false moral premises of otherwise good movies that do poorly at the box office to prove my point - that regardless of the cast, production quality, or director, or marketing - if you don't have a true moral premise you're doom to box offiice failure.

(But it's hard to write about things that don't exist... I mean a moral premise that either isn't there, or is so poorly formed it's hard to get a handle on it.) 

Well, I watched one tonight on DVD with Pam. It had all the promise of a great film.  THE PLEDGE stars one of my favorite actors, Jack Nicholson, and costars (in mostly cameo roles) Helen Mirren, Tom Noonan, Benicio Del Toro, Michael O'Keefe, Vanessa Redgrave, Mickey Rourke, Sam Shepard, and Patricia Clarkson. HOW COULD YOU GO WRONG, Sean Penn (director)?

Well, all you have to do is believe something that isn't true, like a false moral premise, and make a movie about it. Here's a good take what the film's really about at the psychological level. Is it true?

Child abuse and murder leads to a quick end in the fires of hell; but

Keeping your word to find justice leads to drunken insanity. 

 No, the virtues and vices are not parallel, and neither is the consequence. That's because this story was made on an idea that is without a good foundation in reality.  The movie is filled with soft falsehoods.

If we attempt to construct a moral premise that COULD have been used for this story it may be:

Child abuse and murder leads to a quick end in the fires of hell; but

Protecting children from an abuser and murdered leads to justice. 

Had Jerry and the killer been pitted against each other in a cat and mouse game, and had Jerry some how, even inadvertently, been responsible for the killer's just death or imprisoned, this latter moral premise could have saved the movie.

I don't expect you'll go see it, I surely don't recommend it, so I'll give you the short synopsis here. The longer IMBD synopsis is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0237572/synopsis

Jerry Black (Nicholson) takes on one last investigation as a retiring detective. He's probably the best detective the metro department has ever had. He's still got what it takes and he's motivated. A young girl is brutally murdered and he promises the mother, against his eternal salvation, to find the guy.  Like the victim, he discovers there have been several young blond girls with red dresses and very pretty that have been gruesomely raped and murdered, and all the crimes have taken place within a few miles of this one intersection in fishing country. He buys the gas station and C-store at that intersection to stake out the place and over time find the guy. Through a drawing Chrissey drew just before she was killed, he figures he knows the guy is tall, wears a black cap, gives out porcupine gifts and candy, and drives a black station wagon. By happenstance such a little girl (Chrissey) and her single mother come to live with Jerry in the attached home. He doesn't plan it but he takes advantage of the situation and uses the little girl as a lure to get the bad guy. When it looks like he's going to have the guy cornered, the perp, on his way to get Chrissey at a picnic table in the woods that Jerry has staked out with a SWAT team, the perp is killed in a firey blaze caused by a lumber truck that looses it's load on top of the perps car. Jerry never knows this happens (although it was on the only road to and from the spot he was staking out with Chrissey as lure). So, Jerry is left holding to his pledge, into old age, nearly dead drunk, cussing at God it seems, in front of his deserted, broken down gas station. We NEVER see the perp. We never know anything about him or his motivations. But because of Jerry's selfless integrity his life is ruined and now meaningless.

The filmmakers also demonstrate disrespected their audience's intelligence by telling a story that is morally not true (see MPS above), but he also disrespects us by introducing a mind bodging number of red herrings and coincidences.  The story:

• Paints a number of Christian characters as simpleminded with IQ's in the low double digits. 
• About the time Jerry thinks of using a little girl as a lure... behold the single lady that runs the restaurant has such a little girl, Chrissey. 
• When Chrissey's father beats up her mother, mom and Chrissey comes to live with Jerry. We're reminded that she's the right age, right hair color, and when they go shopping Jerry picks out a red dress at the store. 
• Jerry is watching the little girl carefully, but yet she gets lost at a flea market, and someone mysterious gives her a porcupine tick-tac gift.  But it's not the perp.
• After promising Jerry not to talk to men without telling him, she does.
• Jerry is a fisherman and is always "catching fish" with "lures."
• The FIRST place he goes in his investigation is a Christmas store to ask directions which just happens to be where the perp lives. But we never see the perp there.
• The antagonists (the perp) never tries to stop Jerry.
• We never see the perp or learn anything about his motivation or background. 
• The co-antagonists (his old police buddies) try to dissuade Jerry from the case, but in the end they help him, but then they leave him in the woods alone. There is no real antagonist. 

I'll stop here. But here's a great example of a big budget human drama ($45MM) with an all star cast (above), and in the domestic box office is does only $19MM... which is great if you have only spent $5MM, but I suspect $40MM of that budget was in hiring the principals. The production quality is excellent. Music... oh, yeah, the music was my Hans Zimmer.... another A lister.

Nothing helps a story with a false moral premise.

Now, Mr. Penn may think he respects his audience. I mean he spent a lot of time, and perhaps some money, on this picture. But he has never impressed me as someone who has a good grip on reality. This movie only serves to reinforce that.

Can a "moral premise" be "art"?

A reader (John Conley) writes:

How true does the following Moral Premises seem to you?

1) "A Society that denounces Art and practices Falsehood collapses; but a society that celebrates Art and Truth flourishes."

Or simply put:

"Denouncing art and practicing falsehood leads to a collapsed society; but the celebrating art and practicing truth leads to a flourishing society."  

These have potential but (at face value) are problematic because of how people can casually interpret "art."  

Too many people interpret "art" as "whatever I like."  I had a friend that is an artist that had a show once that exhibited a number of paintings of a dark and grotesque society. They were depressing and I couldn't wait to leave the exhibit. On the other hand I have seen paintings and photography of the poor and homeless, and the artist has discovered the dignity of the person in the painting and  elevated the viewer's interpretation to one of hope.  (Bestow Hope!)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church helps us here understand why some art is popular and others are not. Where the art lifts up human dignity and truth people will flock to it:

Indeed, art is a distinctively human form of expression; beyond the search for the necessities of life which is common to all living creates ... art is a form of practical wisdom, uniting knowledge and skill, to give form to the TRUTH of REALITY in a language accessible to sight or hearing. ( CCC 2501. c.f. CCC 2500-2513)

As artists (screenwriters are artists) we seek what is good, true, AND BEAUTIFUL... not just because such works have an opportunity at box office success, but also because working on such things gives us a healthy satisfaction that our life counts for something meaningful to others. 

So, John,  in that respect, if "art" is presented in that uplifting and dignified manner, your statements ring true. I'd also be careful that the virtue and vice are true psychological values and not physical acts, and that the moral premise statement can be easily applied to an individual as well as society. So, I might  revise the statements in this way:

The demeaning of true art, leads to falsehoods, which leads to collapse;
but elevating true art, leads to truth, which leads to vitality.

J.C. also asked if this moral premise statement sounded true:

"Leaving your health in the hands of others leads to death; but taking your health into your own hands leads to life."

Yes it does. It is very similar to the moral premise statement I came up with for A BEAUTIFUL MIND:

Depending only on others for our well-being leads to impotency; but
Taking personal responsibility for our well-being leads to productivity

Thanks for the good questions, J.C.... they get me to blog.

Stan

The Code of Chivalry

In posting the interchange between J.C. and myself, I came across this. I think audiences would like more of the list below... slightly edited.

FAIR PLAY

• Never attack an unarmed foe.
• Never use a weapon on an opponent not equal to the attack.
• Never attack from behind.
• Avoid lying to your fellow man.
• Avoid cheating.
• Avoid torture.

NOBILITY

• Exhibit self control.
• Show respect to authority.
• Respect women.
• Obey the law.
• Administer justice.
• Protect the innocent.

VALOR

• Exhibit Courage in word and deed.
• Defend the weak and innocent.
• Avenge the wronged.
• Crush the monsters that steal our land and rob our people.
• Fight with honor.
• Never abandon a friend, ally, or noble cause.

HONOR

• Always keep one's word of honor.
• Always maintain one's principles.
• Never betray a confidence or comrade.
• Avoid deception.
• Respect life.
• Defend freedom.

COURTESY

• Exhibit manners.
• Be polite and attentive.
• Be respectful of host, authority, and women

LOYALTY

• To God, country, and the code of chivalry.
• To friends and those who lay their trust in thee.

Chivalry vs. Rashness

Discovering what your story is really about, at the moral premise level, is always a challenge. Here's a short (edited) email exchange that can shed some light on the matter.  A reader writes:

Stan,

Good morning!  I have read most of your book over the weekend and now am trying to apply the steps. But I'm stuck.

I'm working on a romantic comedy and the theme is Chivalry. Now this is where it gets confusing: I have CHIVALRY as my Virtue and IMPOLITENESS as my Vice.

My moral premise is this:
IMPOLITENESS leads to LONELINESS, but
CHIVALRY leads to SOMEONE TO SHARE LIFE with.

My hero has RASHNESS as his assigned vice and the villain has LOVE as his assigned virtue.

Am I headed in the right direction???

John Conley

Before I share my response to J.C. let me help the reader see what J.C. has done.

Notice he wants to relate to each other the virtues of CHIVALRY and LOVE.

And he wants to relate IMPOLITENESS and RASHNESS.

Now, let's go to my reply.


Dear John:

You are close.

But, you'll have to be settled in your mind that IMPOLITENESS and RASHNESS are the same thing, just different examples of it; and that CHIVALRY and LOVE are likewise the same thing and just different examples of the same virtue. But to me (and I think to your audience) they're not the same. Let me give you some examples of how I'd go about this.

"Love" is too general in my opinion to be a good core virtue. "Sacrificial love" makes more sense, because it can't be confused with "lust"... a vice. So the terms you choose need to be specific enough that they can't be confused in your mind or your audience's mind. And while you may never state the moral premise in dialogue, the ideas will come across clearly in the subtext. So you have to be careful.

Second, "chivalry" is not necessarily the same thing as "love".

In my Rodale Synonym Finder, "chivalry" is associated with these terms: brave, valor, fearlessness, daring, tenacity, justness, magnanimity, grit. (all of which surprise me because I thought "chivalry" meant "being a gentlemen and opening doors for ladies".  (My Rodale is dog eared for reasons such as this.)

Likewise, Rodale associates "rashness" with: unduly quick, hasty, reckless, careless, thoughtless, over bold, impulsive, harebrained, etc. (there's also the physical aspect of "rash" which means a skin eruption. Hmmm? Might be something to use as a metaphor.)

So, it is possible for a character to be both rash and chivalry, or rash and a good lover (either in the sacrificial or the lustful sense) -- as in "He recklessly pursued the crook with tenacity;" or "He was rashly chivalrous;" or "He was rash in his demonstration of his love for her."

Also, "impoliteness" implies a lack of concern for others, or courtesy for others, as well as being imprudently bold, or not understanding protocol or good manners. Well, maybe your character understands what good manners are but he ignores them out of selfishness or laziness.

So, open up a synonym finder and find truly opposing virtues and vices.

Good Luck,
Stan

Dear Stan,

I just finished rereading your book.  This time through I made sure to look up in the dictionary all the words that I did not know.  BIG IMPROVEMENT.  I can now apply the knowledge in your book.  Here is the moral premise for a TV show idea I'm working on.  The overall theme is "service".

"Serving others leads to prosperity; but serving one's self leads to suffering."

OR

Serving leads to prosperity; not serving leads to suffering.

What do think?!  Do I have it?

Also I picked up a copy of Rodale's Synonym Finder.  Thanks for listing it as a resource.

One last question.  What's the best way to go about finding the Tone for any particular story you are creating?  Is it just a matter of looking around for something similar or is their a method that I can use?

--Thanks, John

Dear John,

Yes your moral premise statement sounds spot on. Both versions are excellent. The psychological virtue and vice are naturally opposite as well as the physical consequences. It's worth noting that the whole point of serving others is to alleviate their suffering. But when we try to alleviate ONLY our own suffering we cut ourselves off from the services and love of others... leaving us worse off. I think the natural law in all this is that we are made to be dependent on others. You know the old adage, "no man is an island."

TONE

Part of tone comes from the genre. Another part is the thread produced by the moral premise, assuming you consistently apply it. Tone also involves, obviously, emotion. You can have scenes that have elements that are mean spirited, but the overall tone of the movie will be dependent on how the filmmaker portrays the consequence of the mean spiritedness. (Example: AS GOOD AS IT GETS: Protagonist Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson) is as mean spirited as a character can get without committing a crime. But we have compassion for him because his OCD is so humorously displayed; we understand where he's coming from and we root for him to change. And by God's grace, by the end of the movie, thanks to his antagonist, Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt) he does.)

If a character is mean spirited, are the others in the scene also mean spirited out of revenge or do they illustrate compassion toward the person who is mean spirited? When my wife gets angry with me, am I angry back at her? The answer to that is, unfortunately, too often, yes. That results in an angry tone. But if I could be compassionate and connect better with her feelings, the overall tone might be one of consideration and compassion, accentuated by the contrast. The audience will naturally gravitate toward the virtue, which they know they'd prefer in real life.

What you suggest is an excellent way for any of the elements of a film. Copy the masters. All new stories have antecedents, that is, other films that have similar elements. Study them. Watch them over and over. Get the sense, the rhythm, the sequence of plot points. You might do well to replicate it (beat for beat in your own story) and see if you learn anything. No doubt you will.

Stan

What's Lindsay Lohan's Psychological Story Spine?

"Inspiration you will not find. It will find you." (George's professor,  "George Lucas in Love." )

That wonderful line is repeated in a more common form by George's "girlfriend" when she kisses him on the cheek and tells him, "Just write what you know." But how are you going to know what you need to write?

But if you do KNOW, what a liberating feeling for writers of any genre. Instead of knocking writer's block out of your head, become an expert on something. Who will dare argue with you then.

So, what has any of that to do with our latest new "love child," Lindsay Lohan?  Plenty.

But first, a comment about the picture at right, obviously taken during her more "natural" period, when she was feeling healthy and confident. She's a pretty girl, with a disarming, comfortable smile. I think this picture reveals her "true essence" and not the spoiled brat image she's more recently be able to convey as she  headed off to jail to have her hair extensions and false eyelashes removed by the guards (after she refused to do it on their own).

Do you see the character arc here? It's abundant. And I hope that Lindsay will be able to learn much about her true, natural beauty while sitting in her cell.  But, let's get back to the point.

"What point is that, Stan?"

Well, ah .... that characters you write about in your stories must reflect the true essence and real (but false) masks that regular people are and pretend to be. The artists that we revere, like Norman Rockwell, and even the great masters of the last centuries, frequently used real people to sit as models for their paintings.

Write what you know.

As fictional writers we sometimes get credit for "making up and creating" great characters. But, let's be honest. You're better off using real people as models. You'll stay more true to their true essence and false masks.

Usually, however, although we "watch" and contemplate those around us and in the news, we still may not know what makes them tick. We see the nuisances of their life, but what's driving them? Is there a childhood wound? Was the individual's parents as mentally deranged as our loving neighbor seems to be? What's the motivation for their erratic (and entertaining) behavior?  The problem is WE REALLY DON'T KNOW... but we need to know (even a tiny bit more) if we're going to write competently.


THE $4.95 WRITER'S AID

One day, while trying to figure out the personality disorders of some students, I was walking through a college bookstore. As I turned a corner I was almost run down by a seven-foot rack containing dozens of colorful, laminated Academic QuickStudy.com aids. Printed on three-hold punched, plasticized, tightly packed text cards, were the answers to all the college exams ever given. There was one for Physics, American History, Biology, Calculus, French and dozens more. And then I saw it, the answer to ever writer's dream. It was titled "PSYCHOLOGY: ABNORMAL" (emphasis in the original).

Like God guiding my hand I lifted it quickly from the rack. I started to drool. The colorful boxes were labeled with titles that lite up like flashing neon signs on a dark night: "MENTAL ILLNESS...Criteria & Definitions, Causal Factors, Cause of Disorders, Classification & Diagnosis, Treatments, General Causes of Abnormality."  Opening up the card (it's one 11 x 17 inch laminated sheet folded to 8.5 x 11) there are short, understandable descriptions of disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence (e.g. childhood wounds), Anxiety Disorders, Substance Related Disorders, Mood Disordeers, and it goes on and on -- with fairly specific descriptions like this one:

Dissociative Fugue: Characterized by episodes of sudden, unexpected travel away from home or one's ordinary place of work, accompanied by an inability to recall one's past and confusion about personality or the assumption of a new identity.

That could be the diagnosis of Colton Harris-Moore (aka "the Barefoot Bandit"), accompanied by:

Antisocial Personality Disorder: A pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood..."

Has anyone talked to his mom lately, who considered Colton her hero.

As for Lindsay Lohan, well, as I read the story about her refusal to take out her hair extensions, remove her false eye lashes, and how she had collagen lip implants just before entering jail,  there's this:

Body Dysmorphic Disorder: The preoccupation with an exaggerated or imagined effect in physical appearance.

Or

Histrionic Personality Disorder: Characterized by pervasive and excessive emotionality and attention-seeking behavior, originating in early adulthood and manifesting in a variety of contexts.  Individual feels uncomfortable and unappreciated if he/she is not the center of attention. Individuals with this disorder will often behave in a melodramatic, histrionic, and flirtatious manner.

Then, again, she could be suffering simply from:

Immaturity: Maturity level is below the degree of what is expected at specified age or social milieu.

What's nice about the Quick Study aid is the focused summation of personality and psychological descriptions that would all a writer to focus the behavior of a character to a specific set of actions. 

Shirley Sherrod the NAACP: What Can We Learn About Storytelling?

The developing story about Shirley Sherrod, who is black, and who was (is/will again be) the Agriculture Department's director of rural development in Georgia, provides us with important lessons in dramatic story writing.

In Ms. Sherrod's case the video of her speaking to an NAACP chapter that was released by conservative bloggers, was snipped from a larger story that revealed the context, or truth, of her remarks. In other words, what the clipped video tells us is not the whole story, nor is it true of her perspective on race.  

What made her edited remarks news-dramatic, entertaining, provocative, and "got people to the theater," were four dramatic elements that WILL help every fictional story we create. 

1) JUXTAPOSITION OF SCENE. The story about her (a black lady)

IRELAND: A Story of Love Betrayed.

In Ireland...

"The Greatest Wound ... in This Present Crisis Is the Betrayal of Love"

Below I provide a clip and then a link to a document I copied from the ZENIT NEWS SERVICE, 7-10-10. It is instructive but not because it's from a Catholic Cardinal who addresses the recent priestly-sex-crisis in an emotionally torn Ireland. It is instructive because it explicitly explains the importance of stories in a culture torn by troubles — troubles that are abrupt turning points, where protagonists make moral decisions, and change history forever. That is what happens in real life stories, and that is what must happen in our fictional stories.

As the title of the Cardinal's talk can be put into moral premise terms:

"The Betrayal of Love leads to the Greatest Wound; but the faithfulness of Love leads to the Greatest Healing."

Stan Williams

* * *
Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor Addresses Ireland's Priests

MAYNOOTH, Ireland, JULY 10, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Here is the address Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the retired archbishop of Westminster, delivered June 15 at the Maynooth Union Celebrations to mark the end of the Year for Priests. The address was written and the invitation extended prior to his appointment by Benedict XVI as the apostolic visitor for the Archdiocese of Armagh.

* * *

I am delighted to be with you this afternoon and I am very pleased so many of you are here. Perhaps before I begin I should say that this address was just about completed before my appointment by Pope Benedict as one of those involved in the Visitation here in Ireland.

When we come together on these anniversary occasions we have plenty of stories to tell. Being Irish it would be strange if we didn’t. Stories are important. They carry our history, our experience, our humour and our pain. When we tell them, we again put shape on a life and a history. Sometimes, they carry a memory of which we can’t let go. Often, they carry a moment, a person, an experience that still nourishes us. In sharing our stories we share ourselves and express not only our past but also our future hopes.

As well as our personal stories, there are also the grand ones; those that have shaped the identity of the nation and of the Church. How many times has the story of Ireland been told - its sorrow and its triumphs? To how many foreign lands has that story been carried by generations?

READ MORE >>  (Downloads PDF)

ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS - Mean Virtue

Back in February 2010 I wrote about how a producer I was working with had suggested that the vices of a particular story we were working on were at the two extremes of a moral continuum, with the virtue being in the middle. I had always said that any virtue taken to extreme produces a vice; but I had never diagrammed it or put it in a table until that day in the story meeting. It struck an immediate chord. You can read about that illumination at this post: EXPANDED CONFLICT OF VALUES AND THE MORAL PREMISE.

What that producer articulated was the result of some insightful thinking thousands of years earlier by Aristotle in an essay known as ARISTOTLE'S NICOMACHEAN ETHICS. (Wikipedia Article.)

I felt embarrassed to have missed such a basic piece of early literature that is reflected in the Moral Premise book. (As I have said, this is nothing I invented; but just trying to articulate it and make it useful for today's story writers).

A summary of Nicomachean Ethics and that "middle" or "mean virtue" discussed in the Feb. blog can be expressed in a table, which Aristotle constructed. Below is a simplification and expansion of his table thanks to ideas and prompting from several readers: Thank you Janet and Kit.

I have blogged several times since about this, and you can find those articles collected HERE (which is the TOPICS link in the right column).

The words in the table, like all words, contain contextual and cultural connotations that may be different from your understanding or your character's experiences. Therefore, the table should be used only as a guide or suggestion and not as a rule.

Feel free to add your comments and suggestions to the com box thread.

Click on the chart below to enlarge.

Addendum November 15, 2025

I came across two additional charts that enhance the above content. Here they are.

Moral Premise Analysis by Miquiel Banks

Some time ago I started receiving emails from an independent film reviewer, Miquiel Banks. Since then, Miquiel has been creating a series of beautiful on-line documents that are very much like the movies he's writing about -- there are nearly as many pictures as there are words.

But what interests me with Miquiel's work is that he's the first to repeated use the moral premise as a cornerstone of his analysis and writing.

I have not read everything Miquiel has review, and indeed I have not seen all the movies he's thought-through, but I've seen enough to recommend his effort and frequent good insights.

You an find his reviews here:
http://www.scribd.com/document_collections/2509330
I'm sure he'd like to hear form you via scribd if you so choose.

In the meantime I've asked him about his source of film stills. But he's keeping that a secret.
Here's a link to his Karate Kid review. He came up with a good moral premise for the movie. He's done a lot of good work.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/33617688/TMP-Film-Review-The-Karate-Kid-2010

My moral premise analysis of Karate Kid (2010) is HERE. 

LICENSE TO WED

You want a bad example of a moral premise that seems to be right, but fails at the box office? Okay, here you go.

Pam and I are catching up on some Netflix DVDs that have been laying around. (We really should go see ToyStory 3 and a few others...but we were tired.)

Interesting premise, this film. Ben (John Krasinksi) and Sadie (Mandy Moore) "fall in love" and start living with each other. Six months later they decide to get married. Her family are lapsed church goers to what evidently is an Episcopal Church called St. Augustine where Rev. Frank (not FATHER Frank, is played by Robin Williams) has been the pastor for 20 years. Rev. Frank's specialty is pre-marital counseling. Of the hundreds of couples that have passed his "course" and that he has agreed to marry, none of gotten a divorce. The ticking clock is that there is only one opening in the church's schedule for the next two years, and that's in 3 1/2 weeks. Thus, the ticking clock, so to speak. But in the end we discover that is is of no consequence. False ticking clock — weak story beat.

As typical romantic comedies go, this story seems to have the physical and moral premise elements all in place to be really true and funny—the most dominant premise being that Robin Williams promises to "open" the movie. I should also say that Many Moore is a good draw, but John Krasinski seems to be out of his skin and awkward. But I'm not a reviewer postulating my preferences.

What makes this movie noteworthy for this blog is that while all the elements seem to be there, the movie was barely noteworthy at the box office. From a $35MM budget it did only $43.8MM in its opening domestic frame. Now Robin Williams is not truly an opener, as you might think. He's definitely the best at getting and delivering a joke. He can recite the Yellow Pages and make you laugh; but he's never been known for opening in a protagonist role and carrying the story.

Here are some bullet points that were obvious during the first viewing of LICENSE TO WED.

1. The protagonist seems to be Rev. Frank, insofar as Robin Williams gets star billing, gets a great deal of screen time, AND the title of the movie LICENSE TO WED is about him. 
2. True to form for a protagonist, Rev. Frank makes 80% of the decisions that drive the story forward, as he creates intriguing situations for the young couple to navigate as they prepare for marriage. ("No more sex until the wedding," "write your own vows," "learn to be a good back-seat driver",  "learn how to argue." etc.)
3. But front to back, beginning to end, Rev. Frank, although a bit wacky, has no vice, only a sense of virtue that is wacky but not disordered. One key is that he is exactly the same at the end of the movie as he was at the beginning. No arc. What? A protagonist with no arc?
4. O, but the young man or lady must be the co-protagonists. Well, that would seem like a good idea for a romantic comedy. Duh! But if you plot out the major moral decisions Ben and Sadie make on their own, you discover that there are about only two, one in Act 1 (when they decide to get married BEFORE taking Rev. Frank's course) and one in Act 3 (when they decide to get married AFTER Rev. Frank's gauntlet.) That would suggest they are the antagonists. What!?

Yep, things are a little backward here. Entertaining. Some good laughs. A nice ending. The young couple learn some valuable lessons (which hint at one of a number of true moral premises.) But ultimately the story disregards many of the natural laws of story telling, see points above, and the moral lessons are not consistently about one thing. Instead there's a pleasant potpourri of moral truths about "being friends before being lovers," "be dependent on your spouse more than others," "show deference to your spouse's needs," "respect and be gracious to your in-laws," and "don't agree to participate in stunts that are funny but have no purpose" (that last one was for the actors). The "argument lesson" and the "driving lesson" and the "one-on-one lesson" were cute scenes that did not reinforce any single story concept about Ben or Sadie other than Rev. Frank is crazy and this might be a funny movie to let Robin Williams ad lib. 

The truth of what I'm writing here was made clear when you watch the DELETED SCENE commented on by the director, Ken Kwapis. In each he tells you that these fully shot and edited scenes (many of them clever) had nothing at all to do with Rev. Frank's intervention in Ben and Sadie's relationship. Thus, they seemed out of place. The scenes were more traditional romantic comedy fair where the co-protagonist's false identity and true essence battle it out. But, Ken, tells us that in his mind the Rev. Frank interventions were what the movie was about, and thus the movie was about Rev. Frank... the minister ... who had no "ark".  And without an ark one sinks in deep water.

Can Games Have a Moral Premise?

I came across this post today by Reid Bryant Kimball a game designer, about how the moral premise can be used in game design. It's very well thought out and comprehensive.

Infusing Games with a Moral Premise

My main complaint with morality choices in games is that they seem to be a collection of random situations that the developers hope players will find engaging. But they are unconnected and don’t contribute to any sort of analysis of what the whole gaming experience means.

Cultures thousands of years ago first used values to help influence behaviors and decisions among their people. Values have been so fundamental to the evolution of civilizations that they have helped spawn legal and religious systems that continue to this day.

The strength of a society is often derived from how strongly the public defends its core values. If its people do not strongly protect their values, then it is deemed to fall eventually, as those in power subvert their own laws once deemed inconvenient. It’s worth considering creating games based on values, since values have served an important purpose for thousands of years and will continue to do so.

Read the rest of this interesting article by clicking on the link below. (Reid posted a comment below.)

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/ReidKimball/20090706/84747/Infusing_Games_with_a_Moral_Premise.php

Story Structure Basics - 13 Major Beats

[Revised 18 March 2015]

Click for Larger Image

Often when a producer or writer sends me a script to analyze it's because they sense that there's a problem with their story. Usually they're right, and the biggest offender is a lack of structure.

The problems reveal themselves in several ways. There may be three acts, but the protagonist doesn't have a physical goal that the audience can see and root for. Their protagonist may have a physical goal, but the turning points are not the result of the protagonist's moral decision or action. There may be turning points initiated by the protagonist but not for any singleness of moral purpose. In biographies the writers are often so taken by what they presume to be the moral virtues of their protagonist that they fail to include any serious conflict or an antagonist that forces the protagonist to change. The result of problems such as these is the lack of drama, weakened entertainment value, or no way for an audience to become emotionally engaged. 

Perhaps most difficult to obtain is an even emotional roller coaster effect throughout the story. Often critics and viewers complain about a slow second act, or a "sagging middle." The beat outline describe in this post can solve that problem. Each beat (13 or 20), when properly understood and applied, creates a regular roller coaster from front to back. Notice the wavy blue line in the graphic; this represents one ideal of how an audience's emotions can be manipulated by understanding the placement of the 13 (20) beats. Each peak and valley of the line corresponds to a beat. If the beats are missing or misplaced, the blue line sags or plateaus.

What causes the ups and downs is whether or not the protagonist is portrayed as achieving his goal or not. Is he or she being successful or endangered? That emotion is tied directly to the           assimilation of the Moral Premise in the life of the protagonist—will the protag. learn the truth of the moral premise and achieve his or her goal or not. All of this happens in the minds and hearts of your audience on a subliminal level, but it should never be subliminal to the creator, you.

What follows is a generic summary of what I might write in a story report to such writers or producers, as I explain the basics of what's missing in their story. I usually start off by describing that what follows is a natural law of story telling. It's not my opinion, but the consequence of untold experiments of storytelling over the ages. If you want a story to connect, then you can't ignore this stuff, at least not story foundations. [See subsection Story Development Steps/Story Foundations]

First Entertain

There's an adage in Hollywood, and similar industries, that says: "FIRST ENTERTAIN."

Successful entertainment, to me, is defined as emotionally engaging audiences so that they're willing to buy a ticket, or dispose of some of their free time. 

For me, the term "entertain" has an emotional element and a training element. (I'm sure this is NOT the word's etymology, but humor me.) Successful entertainment always emotionally engages your audience, AND it passes onto them some true moral message usually hidden in the subtext.  (For the girl on the right that truth is "Never, ever believe your mom when she says, 'Trust me, you'll love it.'")

So, we have something that is emotional (E) and we have a training element (TRAIN). That gives us E-TRAIN. Also there is the idea that both the emotional and the training enter into the person's consciousness and become INGRAINED (which rhymes with ENTER-TAIN-ED -- like I said, humor me). The key word there is ENTER.

Successful entertainment, therefore, ENTERS into a person EMOTIONALLY and TRAINS them about something true. First ENTERTAIN as you EMOTIONALLY TRAIN.

Okay, Okay, so TRAIN and TAIN are not the same. Let me  s t r e t c h  it for ya. TAIN rhymes with STAIN, and good entertainment leaves behind a stain.... no, no, you potty head... a stain in your brain—a memory. (Geez! I can't take you anywhere.) Another way to understand this is that ENTER-TAIN is a lot like INNER-TRAIN. That is, something is "entertaining" because it has the ability to train our memories. The reverse is also true: if we want to train our memories there must be some emotional involvement, some entertainment. Memories do not "stick" without adrenalin burning some synapses together in our brain.  

The long of this short post is that successful communication has three components. It must ENTERTAIN, and for it to do that it must be MORALLY TRUE (at a psychological, spiritual, or subliminal level), and it must EMOTIONALLY ENGAGE (it must be be a visceral simulation of life).

That is what stories do better than a thrill ride at an amusement park, and what stories do almost as good as real life experiences (life's best teacher), but with out the physical danger.

(And you can believe the little girl above would feel a lot safer at the movies. Real life does have its drawbacks, especially when your mother is C R A Z Y!)

Screenplay Checklist & the 4M's of the Moral Premise

SCREENPLAY CHECKLIST

Came across this very good checklist for screenwriters at Danny Santos' blog.  Here's the first of eight sections. All good. The only problem is you have to have some sense of what the answers SHOULD be.  Check out the whole list at his blog, HERE.

Plot

• Does the script make yourself ask “what comes next”, is it a page turner?
• Are the stakes realistic for the setting?
• Is the journey compelling?
• Does the protag make a decision that leads to an action?

THE 4M'S OF THE MORAL PREMISE

Danny has also condensed the essence of the moral premise to four words. I like this. You can read the full post (it's short) HERE:

It takes 4 “M’s” to work out the moral premise, they are Morality, Malignance, Maturation and Misfortune.  The first two are the choices the protagonist has to choose between [that] ... lead to the other 2 “M’s”, Maturation and Misfortune, these are the effects of the choice.

But he doesn't mention the book or my site.  : (>

The Moral Premise Statement LIST

I have created a single page that lists all the moral premise statements used in the book and my workshop slide presentation. In the weeks to come, I'll be adding statements from his blog, of which I think there are more than in the book and workshop. That page is here: http://www.stanwilliams.com/MORALPREMISE/MPS.php

The page is the idea of William Fitzpatrick who created and manage a WikiScreenplay site that is no longer operative...it appears. 

Abby Sunderland's Story Leads to Inspiration

In the wake of Abby Sunderland's rescue in the South Pacific, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Austrailia and at least one fishing vessel, some have compalined that the rescue cost too much money. Others have written that letting a 16-year old sail around the world by herself was foolish and should have been prevented. And still others suggest that the parents and/or sponsors should be punished  and forced to pay for the rescue.

But there is a more significant reason we do not hesitate to rescue people like Abby Sunderland.

Abby's quest is an inspiration and a salute to our efforts to overcome the difficulty of the human condition. Her attempt to sail around the world (even with the rescue) rouses in our spirit a desire to conquer what seems otherwise impossible. While thousands of teenagers are destroying their lives with drugs, violence, sex, and more mediocre journeys of self-indulgence, Abby Sunderland rises above the roar of the headlines with a truly remarkable accomplishment... even in her rescue.