Showing posts with label Save The Cat!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Save The Cat!. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 08, 2021

Afterthoughts Part 2 Good and Evil

Afterthoughts

Part 2

Good and Evil


See? I told you there'd be more afterthoughts. 

Part 1 is:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2021/04/afterthoughts-part-1.html

Part 2 is in response to an observation on a Facebook writer's thread asking how you show a Good Character turning to the Dark Side. 

The discussion thread got all wrapped up in the writer's view of one specific character, but to solve the writing craft problem you need the underlying principle, not the surface decoration.  

Here's the basic PRINCIPLE: 

"Good" respects the Free Will and Personal Integrity of others, and will not use power of any sort to over-ride the Free Will choices of others (by lying or by withholding information). 

"Evil" is so focused on gaining (whatever - money, power, relief from fear, pain etc) that the Free Will (both the power of Will and the Freedom to choose to act differently than Evil wants) of others is not important enough to make Evil hold back on use of force, and tediously explain and teach and illuminate until the other changes their mind OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.  

Evil has no patience. Good has nearly infinite patience. 

Evil has no recourse other than FORCE - while Good has a life-time-created stockpile of various options.  

So just show your GOOD character taking pain to avoid forcing another -- then in later scenes show that character oblivious to another's right to choose their own actions.  

For more clues, read Blake Snyder's 3 book screenwriting series SAVE THE CAT!  

Previous mentions of SAVE THE CAT! include:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/11/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-10-does.html


https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/11/worldbuilding-from-reality-part-10-does.html


https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/08/index-to-posts-about-using-real-world.html


https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2019/06/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-21.html

"Saving the cat" is the description of how to formulate an opening scene establishing the main character as "good" -- someone who would take a risk to help an innocent. See the SUPERMAN movies. 

First establish the "good" -- then the imperative reason that "good" has to impose his "good-ness" on another despite the resistance of the other -- then redeem your MC by showing the epiphany where he internalizes the difference in when to use force and when NOT to.  

If you need more clues - read some books on Martial Arts and/or training to use a Gun.  Law Officer training manuals.  

In Tarot it's called THE LORD OF SHORTENED FORCE - 5-Swords.

https://smile.amazon.com/Not-So-Minor-Arcana-Books-ebook/dp/B010E4WAOU/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com


Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Plot-Character Integration: Part 1, The 3/4 Point Pivot: The Worm Turns by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Plot-Character Integration:
Part 1,
The 3/4 Point Pivot
The Worm Turns
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
 
We've talked about Theme-Character integration for 6 entries now.

Here's #6 on the Hero vs the Bully
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

Much of this is based on this method of constructing an opening to any story:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/01/constructing-opening-of-action-romance.html

And here is the index to Theme-Plot Integration series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

Theme-Plot Integration index has now been updated with more posts on acquiring the ability to carve out a theme and state that theme within a PLOT.

"Plot" is very concrete, very specific, well defined and easy to learn to distinguish from "story" for the purposes of this analysis.

Here is the post defining "plot" in contrast to "story". 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

Both "theme" and "character" are amorphous clouds it's very hard to get your head around. 

Theme is based on "philosophy" -- which despite being a couple thousand years old as a discipline (think Socrates) is still rather ill defined as a subject. 

Meanwhile a story "character" is based on how people internalize and use "philosophy" without even knowing they have one.

In fact, the biggest percentage of your audience as a Romance Writer is composed of readers who are convinced they do not have a philosophy, and are bored by philosophy.  They love Love -- not "philosophy."   

Put theme and character together and you wander away into mists of confusion that just don't produce entertainment.  Add plot, and presto, the mists crystallize into bemusing patterns like snowflakes.

Ruminating on theme or character won't  articulate words that a publisher can take to the marketing department expecting sales.

What marketers can sell is PLOT.

"Plot" as I've defined it throughout these posts is simply the sequence of EVENTS that happen on a BECAUSE LINE.

That's why so many books on writing craft tell (without showing) you to keep the reader turning pages by making them eager to know "what happens next."  The word "happens" is key, but "next" is vital to creating a plot. 

Plot is a structure.  Like "time" structures our reality, "plot" structures our fiction. 

There are just two plots that work across all genres: 

A) Johnny gets his fanny caught in a bear trap and has his adventures getting it out.
B) A likeable hero struggles against seemingly overwhelming odds toward a worthwhile goal.

That's it.  If you've got anything other than one of those two -- you don't have a widely marketable work.

Note each of those 2 basic types of plot integrates Character into the plot action. 

It takes a character to make something "happen next."  It takes a character to make readers care what happens next -- because what happens must happen to someone who deserves it (or doesn't deserve it.)

One more clue that I discovered by myself:

C) stay on your BECAUSE-LINE.  Plot=Because.

PLOT= CHESS -- that's it, a novel is a chess game between your student (your main POV character is your sock-puppet or student of Living Life) and your reader.

At your opening scene, the Character who will be the HERO -- the character whose story you are telling, DOES SOMETHING.  "Johnny gets his fanny" or "hero struggles."

Remember, your POV character is playing the WHITE PIECES and thus MAKES THE FIRST MOVE.

That's how you find the opening scene of your novel -- look for the singular point in your main character's whole life where they made that ONE SINGULAR fateful decision and took action on it.  Look for that singular point in his/her life where they had to play the white pieces and thus make the first move.

The singularity of that moment in a Life is what "hooks" the reader into wanting to know what happens NEXT. 

"The Plot" is the series of consequences of that initial decision/action.

For example, a soldier just returned from war "saves the cat" ... standing in line at a hot-dog stand, he hears a BOOM and reflexively sweeps the strange woman standing in front of him behind a car.

A building collapses on them, but they're in a sheltered cave under all that rubble.  They get acquainted as the rescue squad digs them out.  As a CONSEQUENCE (i.e. because) this man survived to return from war, this woman's life is saved.

What HAPPENS NEXT is the because line -- what are the further life-directing consequences of his reflex action? 

Is this fellow "Johnny" and the woman his 'bear trap' he must struggle free of?  Or is PTSD his bear-trap?

Or perhaps this Likeable Hero's "worthwhile goal" is uprooting the terrorists who blow things up, and the woman is either the overwhelming odds or the key to the conspiracy he's trying to unmask?

Or perhaps the Likeable Hero's "worthwhile goal" is to find a wife and settle down to raising kids (after almost being killed in war), and the woman he saves is his goal, and the terrorists who make explosions are the "seemingly overwhelming odds" (as he's just one person, and they are international organizations.)

Do you see how all these questions are folded up inside the description of a single EVENT?  That EVENT is the opening plot event of a novel.  Because that event happened, Hero did something that had consequences, then because of that consequence, She will do something, and because of the consequence of what she does, he will do something etc etc to HAPPILY EVER AFTER.

Literally millions of stories, no two alike, can be woven out of that plot.

The story is something else all together.

The story is the emotional effect those deeds and consequences have on the Characters. 

The story is all about who those characters are, the emotional impact of the Event, and the consequences of those emotions.  The story is all about the PLOT happening to the Character -- that is, impacting a Person, an individual like no other in the world. 

The plot is what the character does; the story is what happens to the character because of what the character did. 

The theme is the equation that relates the character's actions to the consequences of those actions -- the theme is this character's Life Lesson (and the title of the Work.)

The element that "integrates" plot and character is theme.

What happens and who it happens to are selected by the writer to reveal something primal about the nature of life, the universe and everything.  What is revealed is the theme.

For example, if the Hero is this fellow just returned from war looking for a wife, and terrorists strike the city, then that Event might define the THEME of this piece as something about how "Whatever you flee follows you because it originates inside you."

He can only free himself from a life of fighting terrorists by expunging that element inside him that binds him to either a life of violence (he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword) or to a life of opposing an ideology. 

Does he really want to change his life -- or does he just want to relocate his life?

Does she have to accept his life and enter it?  Or will he enter her life, leaving his behind?  Or will they create something new?

If that's the direction of your novel, you create the woman he rescues from the explosion to be maybe a daughter or grand-daughter of someone who holds the ideology the Hero has been fighting.

The plot is all about him chasing down the terrorists who dropped a building on his woman (and him, but hero types don't count themselves.)

The story that goes with that plot is all about him convincing her to change her ideology (or vice/versa).

Set this PLOT in Iran, for example, and make this Hero a guy who has just returned from fighting in Syria.  Change the hot-dog stand to ethnic food.  He rescues the comely niece of a Christian Preacher making World headlines from Jerusalem.  Did the explosion that collapsed the building on them originate with a Shin Bet operation undermining Iran?  Is she perhaps involved? 

Do you see how such a simple plot EVENT as an explosion can be pregnant with Questions of THEMATIC SUBSTANCE? 

Regardless of whether your reader knows that they live by a philosophy, they do in fact read stories in search of the underlying philosophy the Characters live by.  That is what causes the interest in "what happens next."

You do not allow yourself as a writer to TELL your theme - or reveal in explicit, on-the-nose-dialogue -  what that underlying philosophy of your characters is.

Why is that?  Because readers who don't know that they, themselves, have and live by a philosophy don't want to read about characters who DO KNOW that they live by a philosophy. 

What happens -- the Plot Events - define the entire philosophical underpinnings invisible behind the character's lives.  The Events -- what happens next -- are the plot, and the plot tells the story.

There are many possible consequences of any action, any Plot Event.

Which one actually happens is selected by the writer from the Theme because what happens (with or against the odds) eventually adds up to a sketch of the nature of reality, the structure of the universe. 

The plot reveals the theme; the story explains the theme. 

To Integrate the Plot with the Characters whose actions generate the plot, just let the Character collect enough information about "what action causes what to happen" and then arrive at a notion of the structure and function of their universe.

The Hero, who can be female, then takes a final action based on that new perception of reality.

And the final consequence gives the reader assurance that they have understood what the Character saw in their universe that caused them to choose this final action.

In the best selling books on screenwriting, Save The Cat!, Blake Snyder discusses the 3-act and 4-act structure, pointing out that recent blockbuster films are most all 3-act.

Novels, so far, have tended to be 4-act structures, even as best sellers.

Watch for this to change as the two fields blend.  To learn about 'acts' and the structure of an 'act' read up on stage writing, especially going back to the Ancient Greek plays.

So going with the 4-act structure of the typical Romance Novel, the end of Act 3 is the 3/4 point in the novel. 

3/4 is the point at which the Main Character arrives at the AHA! moment when he understands the world he lives in, the tricks his enemies have played. 

At the 3/4 point, the Who of the "who-dun-it" mystery is clear to the Detective, the "Dear God, I Love That Woman!" moment happens when the woman is about to marry someone else.

At the 3/4 point the main character understands what he/she must DO, regardless of the obvious consequences.  The action which is suddenly imperative was inconceivable prior to this understanding. 

This 3/4 point is the point at which THE WORM TURNS -- this is the cornered-rat moment, this is the wounded-elephant-rage moment.  This is where the character finally gets a grip on himself and shows what he's made of. 

The 3/4 point is where Story and Plot blend into one seamless whole.

At the 3/4 point the reader understands the theme.

To create that complex point, the writer has to have trimmed away all extraneous matter from the story and from the plot so that every story-reaction and every plot-event illustrates precisely the same theme. 

"Theme" is very nebulous until it's been defined by precision plotting.

A lot of writers don't do precision plotting with conscious intent, but finished product is the same.

At the 3/4 point, the writer may state the theme in a line of dialogue, a worded thought (in italics), or even a narrative statement, possibly even exposition where the writer speaks directly to the reader.  Dialogue is best for stating a theme, and the best character to do that is a secondary character -- not one of the two principles who are in conflict.  In film, this is your B-story character.

The thematic statement should be no more than one line, not even one whole sentence.

Sometimes, if you've done your work well by keeping every Event on the Because Line and selecting what happens next to clearly delineate the THEME, you can do this "theme-stated beat" with a single word that the reader has enough information to understand.

This verbalization of the theme should come several pages after the character clearly grasps the point he/she has been missing about how and why his world works the way it does.

Thus the writer is not informing the reader of what the theme is, but confirming the reader's suspicion -- or perhaps conviction -- of what makes this invented world tick.

The 3/4 point is the moment when the main character knows right from wrong, and understands what the right action must be.  It is a moment of value judgement, and thus often akin to a religious conversion.

One of the major tasks in rewriting is to cut, trim and adjust the entire manuscript so that this salient moment of revelation, of epiphany, comes at exactly the 3/4 (or 2/3 in a 3-act structure) point without moving the 1/2 point (highest or lowest moment of main Character's life) of its mark.  These critical story-structure points are called in screenwriting and stage writing "beats."  They have the emotional intensity of a drumbeat and structure fiction just as tempo structures music.

Placing these story-development points at the correct percentage points of the manuscript is what is technically called "pacing."  If the writer doesn't get the placement right in the submission draft, a good editor will insist that a chapter be cut here or a character be cut there.  That final edit against a deadline can be brutal and high-pressure for the writer, so it's better to do it yourself at the outline stage.

The final act, the last quarter (or third) of the novel, is configured around the main character taking an action (plot) based on his new understanding (story) of his world (theme). 

When at the end, his world reacts to his action as he understood at the 3/4 point, the reader feels that events corroborate the reader's understanding of the novel.

That moment of corroboration is the payload for every novel, every film, every story.

Corroboration provides the satisfaction, confidence, and relaxation that can only come from understanding your reality.  (Never mind if that understanding is wrong; it is yours, and that's all that matters.)

That corroboration is the resolution of the conflict that generated the plot on page 1, and it is also the resolution of the internal conflict that generated the story. 

Reading a good Ending is like putting the final piece into a jigsaw puzzle so you can see the entire work of art without any holes.  The final piece falls into place and the fictional world makes sense -- which provides the feeling that the real world makes sense. 

Ultimately, that's why we read fiction -- to discover how and why our real world, our real life experience, makes sense.

The 3/4 point beat is where the hypothesis becomes a theory, and the end is where the theory is proven to be fact.  That proof releases the tension wound into the springboard at the opening moment.

Here is the index to the series on creating Story Springboards:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

In that series on Springboards we discuss what exactly it is that makes a novel "interesting" -- what does a writer do to tell "an interesting story" and what "interesting" means from an editor's and reviewer's point of view.

Here is the index post listing the Art And Craft of Story and Plot Arcs
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Theme-Character Integration Part 6 - The Hero vs The Bully by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Character Integration
Part 6
The Hero vs The Bully
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 Previous parts in this sequence on Theme-Character Integration:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-4.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-character-integration-part-2-fire.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/theme-character-integration-part-1-what.html

Integrating THEME and CHARACTER -- making them a seamless center-pole of your story-plot integration structure is pretty easy, but you do need to focus on the energy-sources that drive people.

Note, in the political arena, how it happens when one person states their position, another will leap up and hammer them with counter-statements.  Don't listen to the vitriol itself, but rather focus on the energy driving the interaction.

That raw energy-pattern is what drives stories, what causes characters to act in ways that make trouble, whereupon the trouble made causes another character to act. 

All actions in this world are kinetic.  Think of your story as a billiards table with balls scattered about.  You are the player with the cue.  You TAP a ball, it flies across the table with enough kinetic energy to SMACK into another ball.  That ball rolls less energetically (some energy got absorbed in the smack) and hits another ball that just barely moves -- but falls into a pocket.

That's a story. 

The main character grabs some energy and a tool (the stick, your muscles) and SMACKS another character -- with an idea, a sloe-eyed glance, a stinging insult, out-right defiance of authority, or slinking behind someone's back. 

It doesn't matter so much what the ACT is, but it matters that on page 1 your main character is introduced first, and the first thing any reader learns about him/her is via their ACTION -- that the reader must interpret to suit the reader, not to suit the writer.

In other words, you create a character, and introduce that character to the reader in a SHOW DON'T TELL -- an action.

Now, first decide if your POV character is The Hero or The Bully, then create the Situation etc that will lay out your theme in visuals, in pictures, and in what seems to the reader as mere decoration. 

If your POV Character is The Hero, his first ACTION on that first page must be a SAVE THE CAT! action -- he has to "save the cat" as defined by Blake Snyder.

What does it mean to save the cat?  It's an action which puts the character at risk in some way (doesn't have to be life and limb).  Something is at stake for The Hero that will seem to the reader to be more vital -- more crucial or important -- than what is at stake for the "owner" of the cat. 

"The Hero" is a character who risks losing something of vast importance of his own in order to mitigate, offset, or eliminate (rescue), a LESSER LOSS for someone else.

How the person who is rescued then reacts (doing things,) to the Hero reveals that secondary character's worthiness to be rescued.  How each assesses what might have been lost against what might have been gained provides the SPRINGBOARD for a Romance. 
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/index-to-story-springboards-series-by.html

Differing 'values' are source of conflict that is the energy to power your springboard or billiards game.

So back to billiards -- "conflict" is the point where your cue's point hits the billiard ball.  That's the initial conflict defined on page 1.

Prior to that point, there is only potential energy, -- the thought, the chalking of the cue, the study of the lay of the table, the measuring of angles, the positioning, and the working of muscles in which potential energy is stored -- all of that is "backstory" --then the energy is RELEASED in that SMACK, or the springboard rebounds.

Contact between the cue and the ball is conflict illustrated.  That is the point at which the two elements that will conflict to generate the plot first meet.  And that's the definition of a story opening.  The ending is where the ball falls into the pocket (HEA) or fails to fall in (sad ending or teaser for a sequel.)

The Hero is a character who has a vast amount of potential energy, maybe isn't aware of it or doesn't care, but also has the most to lose, and doesn't dwell on The Stakes.

That's one key to success in the climb to high places noted in this blog entry:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

In the book cited in that entry, the point is clear that high profile (celebrities, politicians, people in the news all their lives) liars never consider what might happen if they're caught.  They never worry about what it would mean to lose.  They don't worry about The Stakes. 

So read Dialogue Part 5 to see how to construct the inner dialogue as well as the spoken dialogue.  It's not just what you put there, but what you leave out that shows rather than tells what stuff your character is made of. 

The core definition of Hero is the person who handles their own power well.

The core definition of a Bully is the person who has more power than they can handle.

A bully is a sad sack indeed, but instead of feeling sorry for such people we often cringe in fear before them.

That's not irrational.  There is nothing more dangerous than a 3 year old with a loaded gun with the safety off.  That image pretty much defines the bully.

The bully has deep, twisted, terrible emotional problems that viciate their strength of character.  When such a person is physically larger than his/her peers, has a larger reputation, more charisma (the High School clique leader), more powerful parents, employer, associates, has weaponry that out-guns others, that power will be put to the service of assuaging that person's emotional issues.

That's the way every human being is made.

It is depicted in Astrology (as explained by Noel Tyl) as the Moon, Saturn and the Sun as positioned in the natal chart.  The Moon represents the emotional core of essential NEEDS, or what you WANT (what you always feel is missing no matter how much you have).  Saturn represents your ambition.  The Sun represents your energy -- how it flows into and through you, driving your actions.

The key that Noel Tyl teaches with astrology is that a personality will organize (by maturity) to put the ambition and energy at the service of the reigning need.  Life is lived trying to fulfill that need.  Tyl also factors in the Moon's nodes and aspects to them to get a picture of the internalized stresses acquired in childhood which people work out in later life.

A Bully is someone who has more Need than Power.

A Hero is someone who has more Power than Need.

If your story is about a Hero, your theme will have to reflect that strength of character that controls, subverts, dismisses, ignores -- or whatever mechanism -- the character's reigning Need. 

If your story is about a Bully, your theme will have to reflect that weakness of character that lets the screaming pain at the center of this person dominate all actions, reactions, ambitions and goals, whether the person knows it or not.

In either case, Hero or Bully, your theme will have to deal with the Source of Power, the method of accumulating Power, the use of Power, the goals that Power is aimed at, and of course the theme determines the ending. 

If the Bully wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Power to assuage Need.

If the Hero wins, you are making a thematic statement that the way to an HEA is to use Need (sensitivity to others) to harness Power. 

The Hero uses Power in the service of other people's needs.  The Hero doesn't feel deprived, doesn't feel he/she is Giving anything because the Hero has so much extra Power, and is tapped into the Divine Source of power which the Hero knows is not his/her own, so that whatever impossible task is presented, it is accomplished without diminishing the Hero's Power.

The Bully, on the other hand, goes around with something to prove, and a Need not just to be dominant, but to make everyone acknowledge that dominance.

The Hero does not dominate, and has no need for anyone to know he/she exists nevermind has a lot of Power.

The Bully is insatiably thirsty for more and more Power -- somehow knowing that to make the screaming Need shut up, there has to be more Power than Need. 

And that's true.  It is one way to turn a Bully into a Hero. 

Experiencing, even for a moment, enough power to shut that need up can change an individual's entire personality.  There are two ways to accomplish that reversal of proportion of Power and Need.  You can reduce the amount of Need, or you can increase the amount of Power. 

Thus a young Bully can be 'cured' by having a victim stand up and smack him down in front of his cronies.  This reduces the amount of social Power the Bully has -- and if it reduces the Power level to below the Need level, the Bully can become a level-headed functioning member of society who is ashamed of his prior behavior.  It's all a matter of the relative intensity of the potential energy tied up in Need and Power.

Also a Hero can be transformed into a Bully by reversing the proportions of Need and Power.  That's the source of the saying, "Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely." 

Any individual can have their Power/Need balance disrupted and find their character cracked and crumbling (high drama in that; tragedy and death or hard lessons learned).  The Wisdom to avoid taking on more power than the character can handle is not usually a trait of the Hero.  Wisdom is usually a trait of the archetype of The King or The Priest -- that is, the elders who made that mistake decades ago and learned from it.

Astrology does not say you are a Hero or a Bully.  The Sun, Moon, Saturn relationship does not determine that at all.  It's not what you've got that matters, but how you choose to use it.

The true Hero confronting a Bully will see himself in that Bully -- and know how to handle that particular Bully to bring the Power/Need balance to functional proportions.

As I said, there are two ways to cure a Bully -- reduce Need or increase Power.  Psychiatrists prescribe drugs to reduce Need.  Politicians prescribe more control of public funds to increase Power.

In any universe you create for your characters, if you choose to tell the story of a Bully vs. a Hero, you will have to deal with themes involving the use and abuse of Power.

Here is a discussion of Six Kind of Power in a Relationship:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/six-kinds-of-power-in-relationship.html

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, December 03, 2013

Reviews 3 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Finding Your "Voice"

Reviews 3 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Finding Your "Voice"


Previous posts in this series:

Here is the index of previous posts relevant to this discussion:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/index-post-to-art-and-craft-of-story.html

In Part 3 of this series on episodic plotting and story springboards,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-3-art-of.html

we started sketching out the issues and topics relevant to constructing an Episodic Plot.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/story-springboards-part-4-art-of.html

In this "reviews" series we're exploring places you can find examples of what we are discussing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/reviews-1-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/11/reviews-2-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

So here we are in the middle of Chanukah, a time of re-dedication, renewal -- what's called in the Comics world "An Origin Story."

This time of year is about beginnings, more than endings.

Marion Zimmer Bradley taught the oldest truth of storytelling -- "Every Ending Is A New Beginning."

Back in the Fall when I watched the first episode of the new ABC drama "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D." -- I noticed how it used that line - the Origin Story - as what SAVE THE CAT! by Blake Snyder terms, "theme stated." 

Theme-stated is a line of dialogue that shows without telling the philosophical core question the work deals with, and states the question in such a way that you can "hear" the Author's Voice and know what the work is really about, regardless of what it is ostensibly about.

THEME-STATED is all about "Voice."

"Voice" is one of those elusive subjects new writers natter on about, obsess over, and just can't quite get a grip on.  It's like "style" - an intangible that can't really be taught or even learned, but must be discovered by the writer herself.

So the opening episode of this new TV drama (composed of characters and material that has been market tested in comics, film, and other media) told the "origin" of a new series.

The script provided the opening "beat" (to use another SAVE THE CAT! term) of the new series, hinting at a long series of episodes.

In November, we began an exploration of the necessary elements to construct an episodic story.  We looked at some previous posts on story-mechanics then began peeling away the masks of the element called "Springboard" (a term borrowed from TV Screenwriter's Marketing).

Story-Springboards are the mechanism that makes episodic structures work, that make Movie Serials (Flash Gordon) work, that make TV Series work, and yes, comics and novel-series too.

The elements of a series of novels are all present in, but invisible during, the first novel or episode. The universe the story will explore has to be in that first "hook" -- yes, even inside the first line of the first episode.

From there it "unfolds."

Note how the AGENT TV series opens with a guy and his kid looking into the window of a very geekish comic store with action figures -- a few lines of dialogue set up the subject of the theme (family relationships, a well-raised kid who doesn't throw a "Daddy-buy-me-that!" temper tantrum while knowing his Dad is "out of work.") The "universe" of this series is in that store window. 

Just as that quick set-up scene is in progress BOOM, an explosion high up in a building behind them -- and we do not know that the Dad has had business on the upper floor of that building. 

We just watch the Dad check to see the kid didn't get hit by debris, then TRUST the kid to stay put, and the Dad rushes across the street toward the fire while everyone else is fleeing. 

Then the Dad looks this way and that (like Superman about to change clothes and fly up from an alley -- really well acted!  My Geek-nerves thrilled no end!) drives his bare hands into the bricks of the building and climbs up into the fire.  He flinches from the flames, races into the burning room, and jumps out of a high window holding a woman draped over his extended arms.

That's an important visual -- he is NOT holding her in a "fireman's  carry" over his shoulders as he should be, but in the Superman/Lois Lane rescue position depicted on comic book covers.  It's also the position favored by Pulp Fiction covers with aliens kidnapping helpless human women (nobody explains why) and the position used by human Hero rescuing helpless human woman.

It's stupid and dangerous, but seems to be the "image" that telegraphs "strength" -- more strength and confidence than is necessary or wise.

The show progresses through explaining and demonstrating the modern tech (complete with James Bond allusions!  -- I'm gonna love this show!  It's a scream and a laugh between every commercial!) -- and ends with the inevitable showdown scene.

In that ending scene we get the REST OF THE THEME STATED ("voice" remember?).

Up until this final-showdown scene with an impending explosion that could take out half a city, (talk about the cliche stage-writing-trick of putting a "bomb under the chair.") we aren't really sure who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys" and whether this new guy belongs on the good-guy's roster.

Oh, yeah, you know because you know the universe and who owns the franchise, who wrote and produced -- I mean who hasn't been following all this on Google+ and Facebook? -- but the innocent audience hasn't been shown, so they are on the edge of their chairs wondering if they're going to like this new TV Series or not.

So we're in the showdown scene at the end of ep 1, and we learn that this building-climbing guy has a chemical in his system that will cause what amounts to an atomic explosion that could take out half a city.

This fellow, whom we met in scene 1 got fired from a low-level job because he got injured, found a doctor who was running an experiment (for an unknown nasty), got implanted with this material that will explode (just like the previous experimental subject exploded in scene 1 and took out a building top laboratory), and became a "super-hero" with a "crazy-streak" that is breaking out now.  So his inner resentments have been heated up artificially, and he is raging mad at the injustice of it all. 

Our sympathies are with this guy.,  This guy saved-the-cat by promising his kid, in scene 1, that they'd see what they could do for his birthday present, then rescued a woman from a fire!  This script is pure SAVE THE CAT! writing.  

But the SHIELD team that is supposed to be our "good guys" have decided they have to take this guy out (with a shot to the head) to save a good chunk of the city from annihilation.  (The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, as Spock said.)

So the head of this SHIELD team is talking to the new guy while the marksman on the team is targeting the new guy's head.

The new guy gets dialogue lines that -- in lean, spare, precise, perfect dialogue! -- state one side of the political argument going on in America today, that will be the main subject of the elections of 2014. 

And right out loud, on TV, the new guy mentions GOD!!!  The source of his moral/ethical stance (which we've just seen him violating) is God.  Yet he states his resentment of the "Suits" -- the big money, ruling class, people who hire, destroy, and discard "workers" as he has been discarded -- he clearly states which "side" he's on -- what we recognize as the Good Guy Side.  Yet, just as clearly, he is not sane at that moment.  The team leader states that this new guy has expressed the philosophy that indicates he is just exactly the sort of person who should be on his team.

At that point the part of the audience which is clueless is deciding if they want to watch this show or not.

They are listening for the VOICE of the producer, but they don't know that's what they need to hear. 

They want to know what this series will be "about."

What the show is about is inside the timbre of the "Voice" of the producer, and it comes through clearly in the last few moments after all the suspenseful buildup.

The marksman makes his shot -- something is embedded in the new guy's skull, and he falls motionless.  (No blood.)

The audience sees the group they thought were the good guys apparently murder a good guy whom they liked.

Spirits plummet.  This is not a show for me.  These people are BAD, and not in a good way at all.  Yuck.


Last scene -- it is made clear that the new guy will survive and be OK.

And in that survival is the VOICE OF THE PRODUCER and the SPRINGBOARD for the series.

The "voice" is within the THEME STATED (this sub-set of that larger theme says "good guys don't murder good guys"), and the "springboard" is wound tight.  The viewers are ready to tune in next week (or DVR next week's show).  This set of Good Guys and their bags full of techie magic tricks captivate because they are "interesting."  They are "interesting" because they take risks and win -- which creates the suspense-line "what if they don't win?" 

As with The Dresden Files (long book series by Jim Butcher - 16 and counting)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bookseries/B00CKCWAEA/

... we have a classic character with 6 problems but in this case represented by the 6 members of the team.

This is from ABC's website: http://abc.go.com/shows/marvels-agents-of-shield/about-the-show

--------quote-----------

Clark Gregg reprises his role of Agent Phil Coulson from Marvel’s feature films, as he assembles a small, highly select group of Agents from the worldwide law-enforcement organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. Together they investigate the new, the strange, and the unknown across the globe, protecting the ordinary from the extraordinary. Coulson's team consists of Agent Grant Ward (Brett Dalton), highly trained in combat and espionage; Agent Melinda May (Ming-Na Wen), expert pilot and martial artist; Agent Leo Fitz (Iain De Caestecker), brilliant engineer; and Agent Jemma Simmons (Elizabeth Henstridge), genius bio-chemist. Joining them on their journey into mystery is new recruit and computer hacker, Skye (Chloe Bennet).

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel’s first television series, is from executive producers Joss Whedon (Marvel's The Avengers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), Jed Whedon & Maurissa Tancharoen, who co-wrote the pilot (Dollhouse, Dr.Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). Jeffrey Bell (Angel, Alias) and Jeph Loeb (Smallville, Lost, Heroes) also serve as executive producers. Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is produced by ABC Studios and Marvel Television.

-----end quote-----------

The nature of a character's character and the intricacies of the 6 problems (in this case the relationships among the 6 and the external problems they face together) are two of the essential elements in forming the "springboard."

The "springboard" has to be a "board" (character) that can BEND or DEFORM, and be made of a substance (such as a belief in God, or a disbelief, a cause, a dedication, a trusting relationship) that has the "potential energy" to make that deformed board SPRING back and hurl the character into a NEW LIFE. 

In this case, each of the six being assembled into a team are leaving what they had to become something new.

Every ending is a new beginning.

That in itself is a theme which is a component of larger themes.

The trick to understanding how theme becomes VOICE is to understand that theme is "what your story says" and that what your story says is very likely not what you set out to say, what you read it to say, what it seems to say to you. 

In fact, what your story really says is very likely not even what most of your readers think it says.

Worse -- not even academics or reviewers always nail the theme of a story.

But academics who study the whole body of a writer's work often do uncover a common thread among those works.  Sometimes they divide an author's work into "periods" -- sets of works that share something in common, and an appeal to specific audiences that are different from one another.

Authors, like people, grow and over a lifetime change, evolve different philosophical takes on the world and the meaning of life, as well as increasing skill producing text that reflects that meaning.

Every ending is a new beginning -- and as Gene Roddenberry taught, the purpose of fiction is to ASK QUESTIONS but not provide "answers." 

Themes frame those questions and begin explorations of all the related questions.

Now study up on SOUND -- and how digital sound analysis can "recognize" voices.

That's what a reader "hears" in the themes, sub-themes, and various "notes" present in the voices of the characters in a story.  It's a whole symphony of thematic-sounds -- of tones and pitches.

Every subject about human life has thousands of tones, just like "white-noise." 

The story-teller's job is to make "music" out of the "white-noise" of life by sorting tones out of the background and putting them together into something that harmonizes -- like the "voices" of the instruments of a symphony orchestra.

But the "quality" of an instrument or an orchestra lies in the "resonances" the playing of an instrument produces.  The violin you rent to give your kid his first lesson is not the same as the violin played by the lead violinist of the Philadelphia Philharmonic.

The difference in those instruments lies in the resonances of the wood and glues.

Each hand-made violin has a "voice" composed of such resonances.

Each writer has a "voice" composed of the resonances aroused within the author by handling the themes of life composing the story being told.  Note how a trained singer's voice differs from that of a person who has not exercised vocal chords and trained voice and ear.  Note the Drill Sergeant's Parade Ground voice is loud -- how does that happen?  It's not just innate -- it's training, practice, exercise, and technique. 

"Voice" is not just the strings or the bow, the touch of the violinist, the composition of the piece, the acoustics of the Hall (or recording studio), or the recording technology.

"Voice" is all of that and more.

For a work of fiction, "voice" is not any one of the craft techniques we've been studying in this blog.  It is the connections (glue) between those components, the parts of the writer's character as a person that the writer herself is not aware of -- that's the part that vibrates and produces an induced vibration in the reader.

The reader "hears" the vibration of their own body/soul combination -- not the writer's vibration! 

The "voice" the writer speaks in is not the "voice" the reader hears.

We say, as we grow up, that we've "out-grown" a particular genre or type of story.

Writers too out-grow their first stories and evolve a new voice. 

With music, as we age, our "ear" may lose acuity in certain tonal ranges.

With reading, (or TV etc) our ability to respond to certain "springboards" vibrating as they toss a character into story may change. 

As I've quoted Alma Hill saying, "Writing is a Performing Art." 

The stage upon which the writer performs is theme, which is composed of many "boards" and "nails" -- and may be hollow underneath and echo, or have trapdoors for magic tricks. 

Stages can be simple (a soapbox) or complex.  The only way to develop a "voice" is to stand up on the stage and perform just as a singer must sing to strengthen the voice's muscles. 

Here are some previous posts on THEME.

Here are 7 parts:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

And with links to parts 8, 9 and 10:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/theme-plot-integration-part-12-tom.html

We've also been examining the integration of theme into other fundamental components of storytelling such as character:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/theme-character-integration-part-3-why.html

Until I have enough on a subject to post an Index, I generally list previous parts of a discussion at the top of a post -- and include links to other related subjects within a post, but often rely upon you to remember parts of a discussion.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com