The Story Solution. Eric Edson
is why story architecture, or the ordering of plot events, remains so critically important for screenplays.
WHY WE WATCH
Watching a really good movie is a kick like no other. Imagine how diminished life would feel if suddenly we didn’t have motion pictures any more.
But in order for us to write effectively we must understand the primary, personal reason why each member of the audience sits there enduring those pre-show countdown commercials waiting for the feature to begin.
So why do we go to the movies?
To be entertained. Sure.
And to experience those adventures we probably never will know in real life. Yes.
We go to laugh. Absolutely. We go to cry. The stunning international success of Titanic is based on nailing that reason down cold.
But the answer to this question contains our basic purpose as storytellers, so we need it distilled down to its simplest form.
We go to the movies to feel deeply.
We go because we want all manner of emotion to wash over us. That’s what successful motion pictures do. Dramas or comedies, they lead us to touch our inner humanity and experience a catharsis of feeling.
Everything a screenwriter sets out to accomplish begins with the focused, simple, paramount goal of leading an audience into a meaningful experience of feeling deeply.
EVERY TALE A MYTH
Good movies command our attention with intriguing heroes and the seemingly insurmountable problems they must overcome. But every well-conceived story also has a larger personal impact on us because underneath the plot, every movie offers some object lesson in the way we should live our lives.
Whether it’s a good film or an awful one, we search out the message inside the story. We can’t help ourselves. The human brain arrives at birth hardwired to seek meaning in everything. And the way people respond to storytelling originates right here, in our common need to find the significance of all experience.
So, consciously or unconsciously, an audience will dig into each film story seeking the point, whether any theme has been intentionally put there by the screenwriter or not.
We owe audiences nothing less than our best and most true observations of life.
Every movie made is a myth about a hero who confronts staid social customs in an attempt to change them — or who sets out to protect valued ideals in order to preserve them.
Myths hold meaning. And screenwriters must know how meaning gets conveyed in a movie.
THEME AND WHERE TO FIND IT
The message inside a myth is called the “theme,” and in any screen story theme can most often be found within the human frailties of the hero.
When a writer constructs some fictional hero to face a daunting journey, she builds into this character a personal flaw or failing. Then along the way, while the character struggles to overcome this shortcoming in order to achieve her story goal, the theme of the film emerges.
Whether it’s a big action extravaganza or the small exploration of a relationship, what your hero learns about how to improve his own inner emotional life will be the gift of significance presented to the audience.
Think of a screen story as the hero’s emotional journey of growth from immaturity to maturity. Each hero’s tale is a voyage that parallels our natural passage through this world.
Many great film artists build cinematic narratives around a character who overcomes wrong-headedness in his relationships with others to discover the truth about who he really is. Author and top Hollywood script consultant Michael Hauge calls this progressive discovery of personal truth the hero’s inner journey: a transformation from identity, the state of hiding behind a self-protective mask, to essence, where the hero at last reaches an unmasked, emotionally honest and fulfilled existence.
In the sweet romantic adventure Shrek we’re introduced to a gentle ogre who lives alone deep in the swamp. He wants only to be left in isolated peace. If anyone intrudes into Shrek’s domain, he scares them away. By so doing, Shrek gives people exactly what they expect from an ogre, and it allows him to hide his true wounded feelings of rejection.
Shrek thinks he prefers to live in solitude. But when his swamp gets invaded by scores of fairytale creatures driven from their own homes by Lord Farquaad, the only way Shrek can evict them is to sally forth on a grand adventure and fetch a princess. Along the way, this loveable ogre learns that in order to achieve genuine happiness he must risk revealing his true heart to others.
We all fear the pain of rejection when we commit to emotional openness. But accepting some suffering in life is necessary to live fully. So at last Shrek musters the courage to honestly declare his feelings to Princess Fiona, and his candor allows true love to enter his world.
We find the theme of Shrek revealed through the hero’s personal character growth: in order to find love, we must be willing to accept some pain and remain emotionally open.
Many films build their themes around explorations of love. One of the most studied movies ever made, Citizen Kane, presents an unspoken thematic question in the very first scene when Charles Foster Kane dies alone in his palace, Xanadu. We wonder how a man who possesses absolutely everything money can buy could end up dying alone.
And we discover that throughout his life Kane longed to be loved. But he was never able to give love in return.
“He never gave himself away,” friend Jedediah Leland says of Kane, “He never gave anything away. He just left you a tip.” Wanting love without giving it is mere vanity. So when Charlie Kane’s unresolved character flaw of self-centeredness results in a lonely death, the meaning of the movie emerges: in order to receive love, we must first give love freely to others.
But what about films that stay on the surface of life? What’s the theme of, say, an early Bond movie? This charming one-dimensional hero lived only to triumph over the bad guys. And he never lost. So the message in any early Bond film has to be: good always triumphs over evil.
From shallow genres come shallow themes, but we must note that there is a theme, even in a James Bond movie.
Today Bond has been overhauled to make this iconic character more interesting and he has finally been given human flaws and inner conflicts that allow new 007 stories to contain deeper themes about love and the hollowness of revenge.
So the screenwriter’s goal is to design from beginning to end a captivating, meaningful journey for a troubled hero — a journey that leads the audience to discover some universal human truth and experience strong emotion.
SUMMING UP
• Before you dive into writing screenplay pages, it’s important to think through your story idea completely and create an effective outline with Hero Goal Sequences®.
• A story communicates to an audience through a prescribed ritual of presentation. This makes screenplay structure, or the ordering of plot events, critically important in movies.
• Everyone longs to feel deeply, and screenwriters must allow people to participate emotionally in each story.
• In every tale told the audience will unconsciously seek out a meaning whether the writer actually has one in mind or not. So good movies must deliver a carefully crafted, true message about life. Movies communicate what’s good and evil, right and wrong, and every screenwriter bares the responsibility to offer a meaning under her story that reflects human truth.
• The specific message of each film is called its “theme,” and it resides within the character flaw of the hero. How the central character must grow as a person in order to resolve the plot conflict reveals the theme.