Much of our viewing consumption, whether at the cinema or through streaming services, has grown stale. There is a repetitiveness to the story structure, genre, theme, and the subliminal messaging. Superhero stories predominate, and what’s worse, the sequel-generating machine has diminished the spark that may have existed in the original. The disconnected and visually numbing Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, is a case in point.
What’s the reason for this? I’d venture a lack of originality and character authenticity which the presence of the brand alone can’t compensate for. Then there’s the easy access to tons of tv series and films on streaming services which has educated audiences about the tricks that go into a story. Formulas are exposed for being just that—formulas. Add the avalanche of cardboard characters and limp story lines and you get the picture.
So, what’s the remedy? My instinct is to go back to creating strong, authentic characters driven by credible goals, hopes and ambitions—characters who harbour wounds and secrets, and who are immersed in situations, albeit fantastical on occasion, that we find believable.
“We should banish what is stale in our stories by getting back to the basics, by concentrating on originality and verisimilitude.”
One of the things that makes Chinatown a great story is the power of the wounds and secrets that Evelyn Malwray harbours. These drive the entire story—wounds and secrets whose consequences affect the characters, generate subtext, and create story questions. And what a staggering reveal late in the story when Evelyn finally comes clean to Jake Gittes!
Citizen Kane too is an enduring classic in no small part because Kane has a painful secret that the audience is dying to know. Indeed the whole film is predicated upon unraveling the meaning of the word ‘Rosebud’ uttered by Kane on his deathbed. The theme that is encoded in that word—that the value of family outweighs material wealth and fame, also lends the story a transcendent meaning that elevates it and keeps it resonant and fresh. If only we could inject such verisimilitude into the current parade of stories.
Summary
Many stories have fallen prey to stale, repetitive formulas, plots, and shallow characters swimming in the sludge of endless franchises of dubious worth.
During one of my lecturers on the Hero’s Journey based on Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey, a student asked me about the nature of the relationship that exists between the eight archetypes and the twelve beats that comprise a tale of this sort. Before answering the question let me remind everyone of the Archetypes and story beats.
The story beats are: 1. The Ordinary World, 2. The Call to Adventure, 3. Refusal of the call, 4. Meeting with the Mentor, 5. Crossing of the First Threshold, 6. Tests, Enemies and Allies, 7. Approach to the inmost Cave, 8. The Ordeal, 9. The Reward, 10. The Road Back, 11. The Resurrection, 12. Return with the Elixir.
“Story beats and archetypal characters are two sides of the same story coin .”
One of the most essential relationships between story beats and archetypes is their proximity to each other—archetypal characters tend to be evoked at specific points in the story: The introduction to the Ordinary World, for example, entails that we meet the Hero in the context of his or her world. The Call to Adventure demands that we throw the Herald into the mix. The Meeting with the Mentor means that the mentor has to persuade the hero, who has previously Refused the Call, to take it on. The Crossing of the First Threshold necessitates that the Threshold Guardian makes an appearance to defend his threshold. Tests, Allies and Enemies means that these characters interact with the hero (and to us), to aid or block his path towards his quest.
The point is that the archetypal characters are embedded in the hero’s journey—they are two sides of the same coin. Together, they tell of how a character, the hero, rises to the challenge to subdue outer threats, which necessitates integrating the warring energies within himself or herself represented by the very archetypes.
Summary
Archetypal characters appear at specific points in the hero’s journey, so much so that several of these story beats contain their very name.
In her book, Advanced Screenwriting, Linda Seger explains that the confrontation scene is one which uncorks the pressure that has been building up in the story between characters.
It is typically about one character’ s anger or dissatisfaction directed at the wrongs, real or imagined, perpetrated by another against him or her. The time for hints and innuendos has passed. This scene allows a buried truth to be uncovered. Here the subtext finally explodes to the surface. In the words of Seger, this is the scene where a character ‘tells it like it is.’
In the film American Beauty Lester confronts the lies in his life. He desperately needs more from his job, his sexuality. And he needs something deeper from his wife who elevates her job and the couch above the meaningful things in life. Here is Lester’s confrontation with her about the gulf between them stemming from her shallowness and confused values.
LESTER: Carolyn, when did you become so joyless?…This isn’t life. It’s just stuff. And it’s become more important to you than living. Well, honey, that’s just nuts.
Lester’s words are not overly angry or numerous, but their import is devastating.
“The confrontation scene is where the subtext explodes to the surface.”
Sometimes the confrontation scene is anticipated, which builds tension. At other times it is unexpected although the reader or audience has sensed that it is coming.
In the film Tootsie, Michael confronts his agent for not informing him about an audition for a play. The agent suggests that Michael’s problems have made him essentially unemployable. The scene exposes Michael as being in need of therapy.
Summary
The confrontation scene is typically one where the subtext bursts to the surface, where one character confronts another about a wrong perpetrated against him, whether real or imagined.
It’s all about character – the subject of Linda Seger’s book.
In her book, Creating Unforgettable Characters, Linda Seger advises writers to be on the look-out for opportunities to extract and store details from the people and world around us.
Our stories should spring from reality but be developed through our imagination according to the requirements of the genre we are working in—fantastical creatures as in the Harry Potter books and movies, or straight-forward people as in any drama or crime thriller.
In summarising her Chapter Two on how to start to create a character Linda Seger quotes the writer Barry Morrow who characterises the process in this way: “It’s like shaping a lump of clay, or whittling a stick. You can’t get to the fine stuff until you get the bark off.”
“It’s all about character. Knowing where to begin is half the battle.”
Here is how Seger summarises her chapter:
Through observation and experience, you begin to form an idea of a character.
The first broad strokes begin to define the character.
You define the character’s consistency, so the character makes sense.
Adding quirks, the illogical, the paradoxical, makes the character fascinating and compelling.
The qualities of emotions, values, and attitudes deepen the character.
Adding details makes the character unique and special.
Summary
Plots without interesting and unique characters to drive them fall flat – ultimately it is all about character.
One of the most common errors inexperienced writers make is to write scenes that start early and end late. There’s just too much fat at both ends, especially in a screenplay, where every unnecessary line costs hundreds if not thousands of dollars to shoot.
One way to eliminate unnecessary material is to concentrate on the gist of your scene. What is it that you want to convey through your character actions and dialogue? Do so and move on!
In Your Screenplay Sucks, William M Akers provides this example of how to cut a scene to the bone. An earlier draft looked like this:
———————
INT. GRAHAM’S SEVEN PAINTINGS.
Huge, nearly abstract canvases of bloody, dead, eviscerated animals. Road kill under a layer of sloppy handwriting. Graham poses with Magda, more photos.
Magda departs. Camilla approaches.
CAMILLA: I’m Camilla Warren. Nice night.
They shake hands, slowly. She is very appealing.
GRAHAM: Buying, or watching?
CAMILLA: Watching.
She inspects him.
CAMILLA: Sold anything?
GRAHAM: I will.
CAMILLA: When you do, find me.
And she’s gone.
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Here’s how the scene ended up:
INT. GRAHAM’S SEVEN~ PAINTINGS
Huge, nearly abstract canvases of bloody, dead, eviscerated animals. Road kill under a layer of sloppy handwriting. Graham poses with Magda, more photos.
Magda departs. Camilla approaches.
CAMILLA: Sold anything?
GRAHAM: I will.
CAMILLA: When you do, find me.
And she’s gone.
—————————
So, there you have it. To start late and end early means to get to the point. This entails getting rid of unnecessary diversions, greetings and niceties since they slow the pace and muddy the story.
Summary
Scenes should start late and end early. Your story will be more compelling and energetic for it.
Throw Mama from the train showcases masterful emotion in writing.
Here is a masterful example, taken from William M. Akers’, Your Screenplay Sucks, of how to set up a scene in order to create genuine and powerful emotion—in this case, tear-jerking compassion!
In Throw Mama from the Train Larry Donner, played by Billy Crystal, is roped into attending dinner at Owen’s house. Owen (played by Danny DeVito) lives with his mother. He is Larry’s worst writing student at the community college where he teaches. Owen is a rather simple-minded, talentless, irritating imp of a man who lives with his mother, a cantankerous old woman with a painful voice and an even worse personality. We learn that Danny’s father is dead.
The dinner is terrible, Owen is as irritating as ever and his mother is just plain horrible. ‘Owen, you don’t have any friends,’ she rasps, stating the obvious. Larry desperately wants to leave, heck, we want him to leave, but he seems stuck there out of an abundance of politeness.
Up to now, the scene has made us uncomfortable, generated feelings of confinement, of being trapped in a hostile and hopeless environment. We shift in our seats and pray for it to end.
Finally the mother goes off to bed. Here is Larry’s chance to escape! But no. Owen asks Billy if wants to see his coin collection, and Billy is forced to say yes, again out of politeness.
“Knowing how to evoke emotion is the single most important skill to master in story-telling.”
Up to now, we have come to dislike Owen, well, for being Owen, and for putting Larry through such an excruciating evening. Not much to like here.
Then Owen dumps several coins on the floor—a few worn out quarters, some old dimes and nickels. So that’s it? This is his magnificent coin collection?
Then this happens: I’ll quote Akers who quotes Owen’s exact words from the scene: ‘ “This one here, I got in change, when my dad took me to see Peter, Paul, and Mary. And this one, I got in change when I bought a hot dog at the circus. My daddy let me keep the change. He always let me keep the change.” ‘
Wow! What a shift in our emotions—not a dry eye in the house! We’ve gone from loathing Owen to loving him through this sudden injection of feeling rooted in his nostalgia for his past life with his father. It explains why, in a certain sense, the child-like Owen stoped growing beyond the days spent with his father. He is still irritating, but now we understand him a little more, and we adore him for it; perhaps we even feel a little guilty for having loathed him in the first place.
This is masterful writing. Well done to the screenwriter, Mr Stu Silver!
Summary
Knowing how to evoke emotion in writing is the single most effective thing you can do to improve your stories.
In his book, Your Screenplay Sucks, William M Akers admonishes us to introduce characters in our screenplays in a concise but telling way. He provides the following counter example:
“MURIEL REED, a grounds Keeper, captivates Gary. She fills the sprayer with soda and mists brown over the grass.” This is perhaps a little too scanty. Akers suggests that you tell us about a character’s personality, their flaws or tics, but hold back on the smaller physical details until they are of importance. He suggests that specifying race and height, unless truly relevant, is best left out.
“When you introduce characters for the first time in the action block of a screenplay avoid superfluous physical details. Hone in only on details that provide a snapshot of personality.”
It is better to include physical detail that characterises—does double duty. Here’s an extract from Good Will Hunting:
“The guy holding court is CHUKIE SULLIVAN, 20, and the largest of the bunch. He is loud, boisterous, a born entertainer. Next to him is WILL HUNTING, 20, handsome and confident, a soft-spoken leader…”
From Ghostbusters:
“Venkman is an associate professor but his rumpled suit and manic gleam in his eyes indicate an underlying instability in his nature.”
This example, from The Big Lebowski, is Akers’ favourite:
“It is late, the supermarket all but deserted. We are tracking in on a fortyish man in Bermuda shirts and sunglasses at the dairy case. He is the Dude. His rumpled look and relaxed manner suggest a man in whom casualness runs deep.”
There you have it. A no nonsense approach of how to introduce the characters in your screenplays from one of the best.
Summary
Introduce characters by highlighting some quintessential aspect of their identity. Avoid superfluous details.
Bob Rodat scored a hit with Saving Private Ryanafter his agent rejected his earlier screenplay in the gangster genre.
In his book, Your Screenplay Sucks, William M. Akers stresses that understanding the right genre tropes and conventions and their current popularity is essential if your story is to have a chance in the market place. He stresses that if you don’t have a clearly defined, simple to understand genre, you’re probably off to a poor start.
Is the genre of your story a sci-if, a western, a coming of age story? Still not sure by page ten of your screenplay or novel? Then ‘you’re toast.’ If you’re not sure, the readers certainly aren’t either.
Additionally Akers advises that writers work in a genre that they like and are good at. If you only watch cop movies but have decided to write a love story, that might be an attempt to spread your wings, but you probably lack the experience in the genre to pull it off right away.
“Picking the right genre that is going to be all the rage by the time you’re done writing your masterpiece is at best a hit-and-miss affair. The point is to write in the genre you like and to never stop spinning that wheel of fortune.”
Have you decided to write in a specific genre because it’s currently all the rage? Probably a dumb idea. Here’s why: It will take you several months to write that script or novel, perhaps even longer. Now consider how long it takes to bring a story to the screen or press. The genre could well have lost steam by the time you’re done.
Akers provides the example of Bob Rodat who decided to write a gangster movie but send it to his agent on the same week three gangster movies opened and bombed on the circuit. The agent shrugged his script off.
But the story has a happy ending: Bob never gave up and went on to write Saving Private Ryan!
The point is that you never know when the timing’s going to be right for a particular genre. Akers’ advice is therefore to write in a genre you like or are competent in. Be aware, though, that someone else might be thinking the very same thing too. Just never, ever give up on writing and you might get lucky, just like Bob Rodat did!
Summary
Write in a genre that you like and are competent in, knowing that its popularity depends on some timing and a lot of luck.
The idea behind It Chapter Two can be contained in a single sentence, as discussed below.
If you had to undertake the almost impossible task of condensing the existing wisdom for writing a good story into a single sentence, what would that sentence be?
Today’s writers have an advantage over those who have gone before them—access to a body of knowledge that has been extracted from the great exemplars of the past—Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Proust, Dickens, William Golding and John Steinbeck, to name some of the few great writers I admire.
Then of course, in more recent times, we have the impressive list of screenwriters and filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock, Aaron Sorkin, David Mamet, and many more.
The single sentence: What does your protagonist want and why can’t she or he have it?
An argument can be made that familiarity with great works has a trickle down effect; that we grow through osmosis, as it were. But is there one bit of wisdom, gleaned from the ‘encyopedia of writing’, one single instruction to keep on top of mind?
I would venture yes: What does your protagonist want, and why can’t he have it? This one sentence not only demands an answer for the protagonist’s pursuit of the goal; it also hints at the obstacle(s) that stand in his or her way.
Here are two examples of this at work.
A Roman general seeks to revenge his family’s slaughter but is imprisoned by Rome’s brutal emperor, Commodus, and forced to become a gladiator: Gladiator.
A group of friends reassemble in the small town where they first encountered and defeated an unspeakable evil to fight it off once again, but are weakened by the suicide of their friend and rising doubts of their mission: It Chapter Two.
You get the idea.
Summary
As a first step to writing a new story, try to conceive of the tale as a single sentence that states the goal and obstacles facing your protagonist. This will give you the spine of your tale.
Robert McKee is one of the foremost mentors on writing.
Do you follow a writing mentor? Do you need to? Well, we are living in an time in which there is an over-abundance of information. This includes information on creative writing and screenwriting. Sifting through it all to find the right stuff can be a challenge.
In an attempt to make this task a little easier I mention five writing mentors whose books are studying.
Although each mentor emphasises different aspects of the screenwriting craft, they all adhere to a similar structural approach that agrees with the film critic John Egan’s definition of a conventional screenplay telling ‘a story that involves a single plot that revolves around a single protagonist who is supported, opposed and offset by a cast of secondary characters.’
Of the five mentors mentioned here, perhaps only Christopher Vogler offers a somewhat different inflection at first glance—-although even he employs a template in his use of the quest as a generic structure. But more of that later.
“I view writing mentor Syd Field’s work as focusing on the structure of a plot which is centered on a protagonist who struggles to achieve the story goal against mounting obstacles.”
Syd Field, who claimed to be one of the first mentors to package Hollywood codes and conventions into a single paradigm, asserts in The Screenwriter’s Workshop, that ‘before you can express your story dramatically, you must know four things: 1) the ending, 2) the beginning, 3) Plot Point I, and 4) Plot Point II. These four elements are the structural foundation of your screenplay.’ He later adds a fifth element, the midpoint, which he defines as ‘a link in the chain of dramatic action.’
Additionally, the midpoint ‘expands the character’s depth and dimension’. Field sees the typical film as comprising three acts, balanced by the midpoint, which breaks up the middle act into two units roughly of equal length. Each act is about 30 pages, or 30 screen minutes, in length and focuses on the vicissitudes of the protagonist’s fortunes.
Linda Seger
Linda Seger follows a similar line, but offers more detail about subplots. In Making a Good Script Great, she writes that ‘subplots give the protagonist an opportunity to smell the flowers, to fall in love, to enjoy a hobby, to learn a new skill.’ Emphasising that the function of subplots is to support and add density to the main plot, Seger stresses that subplots have their own beginning, middle, and end and are most effective when they intersect and connect with the plot line. Importantly, subplots carry the theme of the story. But no conventional story is possible without a central lead.
Michael Hauge
Michael Hauge lays down five essential requirements for crafting a successful protagonist or Hero, the inclusion of which he sees as the first essential element of a well-crafted conventional story. In Writing Screenplays That Sell, Hauge asserts that the Hero, as the vehicle that drives the story forward, must allow for audience identification, pursue a clear and visible goal, face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, and show some sign of courage.
Interestingly, Hauge does not place character growth, which he defines as the ‘character’s search for courage [which] results in greater self-knowledge, maturation, or actualization’, within the first five essential elements of his story-concept checklist, although he does include it at number thirteen, after high concept, originality and familiarity, subplots, genre, medium, and cost, and before theme.
Lastly, Hauge defines theme as ‘a universal statement about the human condition that goes beyond the plot. It is the screenwriter’s prescription for how one should live one’s life.’ Theme, then, is generated from the premise or argument of the story within a wider context of received moral and ethical values.
“Who is your favourite writing mentor?”
Robert McKee
Robert McKee’s Story, in addition to concepts already explored above, the book includes a survey of major non-canonical forms which he labels ‘anti-plot’ and ‘miniplot’, as well as a detailed examination of genres.
McKee’s definition of the following terms is also useful: The Premise is that which shapes the dramatic context of the story by asking an open-ended question – ‘What would happen if…?’; a beat is ‘an exchange of behaviour in action/reaction’; a scene is ‘a story event, usually in continuous time and space’; an act is ‘a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values’; the inciting incident, as ‘the first major event of the telling, is the primary cause for all that follows’; and the ‘obligatory scene’ or crisis, is ‘an event the audience knows it must see before the story can end’, which most often takes the form of a final confrontation between the protagonist and antagonistic forces.
Christopher Vogler – writing mentor extraordinaire
Christopher Vogler, by contrast, employs a mythological approach, inspired by the work of the American mythologist Joseph Campbell, defining the screenplay in terms of a quest. In The Writer’s Journey, Vogler describes each stage of the narrative as a journey undertaken by the Hero as he struggles to achieve his goal.
Here the Hero starts in the Ordinary World, receives a Call to Adventure, which initially results in The Refusal. He typically meets with The Mentor, Crosses the First Threshold, is Tested by Enemies and assisted by Allies, approaches the Innermost Cave, suffers an Ordeal, is Rewarded, begins his Journey Back, is Resurrected, and finally Returns with The Elixir. In doing so, he is aided and impeded by a host of archetypal characters (or combination thereof); namely, the Mentor, the Threshold Guardian, the Herald, the Shapeshifter, the Shadow, the Ally, and the Trickster.
This approach to storytelling has much in common with Vladimir Propp’s description of the fairy tale, in terms of character function, put forward in his Morphology of the Folk Tale. Although some of Vogler’s offerings seem ostensibly different from other mentors, his definition of character and character action, in adhering to a predetermined template based on structuring narrative elements according to function, remains much the same as Field’s, Hauge’s, Seger’s, and McKee’s.
Summary
Syd Field, Michael Hauge, Linda Seger, Christopher Vogler, and Robert McKee are five important writing mentors who have packaged much of Hollywood’s conventional wisdom into various screenwriting systems. Collectively, they offer new and established writers an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the writing craft.
