April 8, 2011

The Back Seat Driver

Many thanks for your patience. Sorry I had to miss last week. It’s for a good cause, trust me.

I’m sure you’ve all heard that titular term before, yes? Most of you have probably experienced it at one time or another. It doesn’t even need to be in the car. There are folks who can be backseat drivers in the kitchen, at work, and at school. And definitely on the internet…

If you’re not familiar with the term, a backseat driver is someone who’s not behind the wheel, yet continues to tell the person who is what they should be doing. It’s not all that far off from the old chestnut “those who can’t, teach.”

I’m sure you’ve also all heard about plot-driven stories and character-driven stories. They’re terms that get applied to tales where the focus is either the characters or the plot. Summer blockbusters and best-selling “beach books” tend to be thought of as plot-driven while slow-paced indie films and more “literate” books are often considered to be character-driven.

Now, personally, I don’t think there’s any such thing as a plot-driven story. All stories are moved forward by the actions (or inaction, in some cases) of their characters, thus all stories are character-driven. I think it’s one of those cases where a shorthand term developed which then somehow became a mild pejorative. The usual implication is that if you have a plot-driven story you have crap characters who are flat on the page. That’s why you’ll often see people refer to (for example) “a character-driven horror story” or some such, because the implication is this was just a horror story, or (heaven forbid) a plot-driven horror story, it couldn’t be that good. Being character-driven validates a work, while being plot-driven invalidates it in some way.

Plot-driven generally gets used as a pejorative because it’s a common way stories get messed up. Some writers (or in the case of Hollywood, some development execs, directors, and actors) get so obsessed with individual beats and moments they forget the overall whole. Explosions are cool, but explosions that serve no purpose are just silly. Emotional monologues and character reversals are fantastic, but when they happen at awkward moments with no motivation behind them… well, then they’re laughable. When the story gets twisted to accommodate these things, it tends to get considered plot-driven. I have a list of plot points and I’m going to hit them no matter how bizarre, pointless, or crammed-in they feel.

But back to my driving metaphor…

Plot has to take a back seat to characters. As I’ve said here many, many times before, characters have to be your priority. If I can’t believe in Wakko and Yakko, their story’s dead on arrival. I need to accept their motivations, actions, and reactions. If characters act in an unbelievable way, it doesn’t matter what’s going on around them. Good, well-developed characters must be the driving force in a story.

I’m not saying plot isn’t important, and I’m sure as hell not saying you don’t need it. Anyone who’s been following along here knows how much a story with no plot drives me nuts. But at the end of the day, your audience is going to notice an unbelievable character over an unbelievable situation. So if you know your characters are good, you need to tweak the plot to suit them, not vice-versa.

In all fairness, I’m also guilty of this particular sin. I’ve done it before, I still do it today sometimes, and odds are I’ll do it again sometime in the future. Keep this little fact in mind for your summer reading–the final climactic day in Ex-Patriots was originally two days. Yep, right in the middle of all that’s going on in the last ten chapters, people stopped and went to bed for the night. Seriously. Is that lame or what? Fortunately I recognized that sticking this rigidly to my roughly-outlined plot was injuring the story as a whole and forcing my characters to act unnaturally.

Now, with all that being said, reality has to take a back seat to plot. And we’re out of back seats, so reality has to go in the trunk. Yeah, we could be in a limo or something, but the importance/ seating order is kind of reversed in a limo. That just messes up my beautiful metaphor.

Anyway, at the end of the day, people are reading your work for a good story, not for an education. Anyone who’s reading Dan Brown for an insightful and true view of the Renaissance is in for a major disappointment. Thomas Harris may not be the number-one source for how FBI profilers act. I just had a discussion with a publisher about brain structure which ended with us agreeing my words will sound pretty good to most folks, but hopefully any neurologists will be willing to suspend disbelief a little more than the layman.

You don’t want to bring a really cool plot to a crashing halt by rigidly adhering to facts. You don’t want to be blatantly wrong, but you’re also not writing a textbook. Well, maybe you are, but then most of this doesn’t apply to you. How many phenomenal movie gun battles would lose a lot if the filmmakers counted every bullet and showed the hero reloading again and again and again? If it took nine days for a steamship to cross the Atlantic but I say my Victorian heroine has access to a ship that can do it in seven, is that going to upset anyone?

Well, yes… there’s always someone on the internet who will feel the need to write an essay about the ludicrous degree to which I’ve massaged the facts. Can’t be helped. Just take that one as a given and move on.

I got to hear Ray Bradbury tell a wonderful story once about how he was hired by the Smithsonian to spruce up the script for their failing planetarium show. Their show, he immediately realized, was a dry recitation of facts rather than an exploration of the wonders of the universe. When he turned in his version, he got back a list of notes that was longer than the script itself–and every note was replacing one of his poetic exultations with another rigid, precise fact and an explanation of the fact. When they challenged Bradbury’s statement that the universe was over fifty billion years old, he dared them to prove it.

“So they fired me,” he said gleefully, “for being a smartass.”

And another planetarium happily bought his script.

So… the characters are driving. The plot is in the back seat where it can offer suggestions if need be. Facts are in the trunk–we know right where they are if we need them and they can be heard if they yell really loudly.

Make sense?

Next time I’d like to talk to you about Jenga. Yeah, Jenga. The wooden-blocks game. Trust me, it’ll be cool.

Until then, hit the road. And go write.

September 10, 2010

Alphabet Soup

Wow, is it Thursday again already? The three day weekend really threw off my schedule. You get used to things in a certain order and suddenly there’s Thursday, showing up a day early. You expect there to be a few more days in there, y’know…?

Anyway…

I don’t know about the rest of you, but most of my ideas tend to spark with small moments. It’s very rare that an entire story pops into my head fully-formed. I’ve had it happen with a few pieces of flash-fiction and maybe two short stories. For the most part, though, when I start writing something it tends to begin with a random snippet of dialogue or a clever scene of some kind. Then another one. And another. And so on and so forth.

Now, when it comes time to start organizing all of these, I end up with a rough outline of sorts. I say rough because I know there’s a lot of stuff that’s not there. I may have snappy dialogue A and clever reveal B which lead to action scene C, but all the stuff in between… well, there’s usually a lot of discovery in there that doesn’t come out until I start putting words on paper. For example, who would’ve guessed that Danielle’s baseball shirt would be so important in Ex-Patriots? I sure didn’t. I just realized the other day how it tied up a few things into a neat package.

However, there’s also times that I pound my head on the desk for hours trying to figure out what the hell goes between A and B. It can take ages but I usually find something. More often than not, it’s something I’m not thrilled with and it tends to be something that gets cut later.

Which is what I wanted to toss out to you.

If you’ve got A and B, what goes between them?

No, don’t overthink it. Just answer the question. What’s between A and B?

The answer is nothing, which is what a lot of people have trouble with. I had trouble with it for the longest time. Sometimes the reason nothing seems to fit or work between two plot points or story beats is because… well, nothing fits or works between them. There’s a reason no one ever talks about A.5 or A and 3/4.

This is very important in screenwriting, where the goal is to keep everything as lean and tight as possible. When a reader comes across a page of dialogue or action that’s just filler–and it will be apparent to a professional reader that it’s just filler–they’re going to toss that script in the big left hand pile. At the very least, they’re going to be swiveling their chair in that direction and waiting for the next excuse to toss it.

I’ve often mentioned my first real attempt at a novel, The Suffering Map. The first draft of it was bloated, and part of the reason is that I was convinced something had to happen between A and B. And between P and Q. And between V and W. At one point, because I was somehow convinced there needed to be time and space between two events, I had a Mafia boss discover the whereabouts of the guy who slaughtered three of his men and then decide to wait three days before sending people to extract vengeance. Three days that I had to fill up with unnecessary nonsense just because I knew there had to be something between that moment Uncle Louis learns about Rob and the bloody slaughter that followed.

What I eventually realized, though, was that Uncle Louis wasn’t the kind of guy to wait. There was nothing between A and B. Once I realized this and made a few sweeping cuts, the story was stronger and that whole sequence was much more powerful.

The same thing happened once or thrice in Ex-Heroes. I had a few points where characters would go on for a page with random dialogue or actions for no real reason except that I was convinced that there needed to be a break between this and that. Two of my early readers caught these moments and pointed out there was no reason R couldn’t come right after Q. It should come right after Q. That’s how the alphabet works, right?

Now, just to be clear, this doesn’t mean there should never be anything between story points. You may put them next to each other and end up scratching your head at the oddness you just created. Sometimes there really does need to be stuff separating A and B. However, that tells you something right there, doesn’t it? If this is the case, you’re not dealing with A and B, but A and C, or perhaps even A and D. Once you figure that part out, you now know how much needs to go between those two points you have.

So the next time you get stuck trying to figure out what needs to be between A and B, stop for a moment. Try putting your two plot points or story fragments next to each other and see what happens. You may discover you’ve got a solid connection already. At the very least, maybe you’ll get a better idea of what needs to be between them.

Next time, what happens when simple math tricks go wrong.

Until then, make a point to fill in all that blank space on the page. Go write.

August 20, 2010 / 5 Comments

Chefs Do That

Every now and then I get to do some really cool stuff for my job at Creative Screenwriting. Part of this is pitching ideas for articles or interviews and the little thrill when someone says yes to a wilder one. What’s really cool, though, is when you pitch a complete long-shot idea and the screenwriter said idea centers around says “sure, let’s grab a coffee or something.”

Shane Black came to national attention as Hawkins, the bespectacled, dirty-joke-spewing soldier in Predator who comes to a quick and messy end. What most people probably don’t know is that his role in the iconic movie was an off-the-table part of his deal (so the story goes) for Lethal Weapon, the screenplay he wrote that made him one of the darlings of the late ‘80s spec script boom. Since then he’s also written The Last Boy Scout, The Long Kiss Goodnight, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which he also directed). More to the point, I got to chat with him back at Christmas and we talked for a while about writing and storytelling. And Santa Claus fighting Satan. Anyway, he brought up a very interesting angle on storytelling that I’d like to expand on and share with you all.
As fair warning, some of these terms may not be used exactly as you’re used to them. Try not to think of it in terms of “this means this” but rather the ideas and concepts behind this little sub-rant. For example, to avoid confusion, I’m going to be using the word tale a lot in these next few paragraphs.
Any tale can be thought of in terms of plot, story, and theme. These three elements are really what make up every tale you’ve ever heard. Every now and then you may stumble across one that doesn’t have one of these elements, and nine times out of ten that tale is flawed because of it.
The first of these, the plot, is what’s going on within your particular tale. It’s the elements you’ll usually see on the back of a book or the DVD case. If you’re a screenwriter, it’s usually the idea you pitch. If you’re a novelist, it’s that quick summary in your query letter.
–The plot of Star Wars (no subtitle, never was) is Luke and Han trying to rescue Princess Leia and destroy the Empire’s super weapon, the Death Star.
–The plot of Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is Scott trying to defeat seven super-powered exes so he can be with his dream girl, Ramona.
–The plot of The Count of Monte Cristo is a man trying to take revenge on the people who destroyed his life decades ago.
–The plot of The Long Kiss Goodnight is a presumed-dead agent trying to stop a murderous conspiracy concocted by her former employers.
–The plot of IT is six friends coming together again after years to try to defeat a monster that lives under their home town.
–The plot of Raiders of the Lost Ark is Indy is trying to find the Ark before the Nazis do and get it safely back to America.
You may have caught something there. For most good stories, the plot is the attempt to do something. Pull off a heist, get a date, beat the bad guys. This is the action (of one type or another) that makes the reader need to turn to the next page.
Some indie films don’t have a plot. They’ve taken the idea of a character-driven tale to the extreme and tend to just meander. They’re slice-of life tales where beautifully-rendered people don’t really do anything. There is a certain appeal to this, on some levels, but in the end it’s a very niche audience.
The flipside of plot is the story. Story is what’s going on within your characters. It’s the personal stuff that explains why they’re interested in the plot and really why the reader is interested in the plot. Story is why Never Let Me Go is different than The Island, because they’re taking what’s essentially the same plot and approaching it with two very different stories.
–The story of Scott Pilgrim is about becoming more mature in order to shape a lasting relationship.
–The story of Rick Blaine (Casablanca) is about the resurgence of the man he used to be a long time ago and the causes he used to fight for.
–The story of Samantha Kaine (The Long Kiss Goodnight) is figuring out who she is; an amnesiac, single-mom schoolteacher or a ruthless assassin who created the identity of Samantha as a hiding place she could sink into and “retire”
–The story of Edmund Dantes (The Count of Monte Cristo) is about letting go of the past and accepting what he has in the present.
–The story of Indiana Jones is about reconnecting with a past love and learning to believe in something bigger than himself.
You may notice here that while the story and plot are often complementary, they don’t always tie directly to each other. Story is the character arc and the reasons behind that arc. Plot makes us need to turn the page, but story makes us want to turn the page.
A lot of stuff in the action genre is light on story. If there are enough explosions, karate chops, and gunshots the audience may not notice that the characters never really change or develop in any way. Which is fine for your supporting folks, but not so good for your protagonists.
Last but not least is the theme. Theme covers everything, and it applies to both the plot and the story. A tale’s theme can be something broad and simple. The theme of Raiders, for example, is just “good ultimately triumphs over evil (even if good gets the crap kicked out of it first).” That’s a common theme that covers a lot of tales. “You can’t beat the system,” is another common theme that shows up in a lot of dystopian tales like 1984, as does its close cousin “might makes right.” A theme can also be much more specific, like “unrestricted greed caused the financial crisis” or “the Bush Doctrine endangered more American lives than it ever saved.” As a theme gets more specific, though, a writer has to be careful it doesn’t just become an overriding message.
When a tale is lacking one of the previous elements, it’s usually doesn’t have much of a theme, either. Tales without a theme, even one of the simple ones above, tend to wander or be inconsistent. It’s kind of like going out for a drive–you may get somewhere, but it wasn’t in your mind when you set out… and it probably wasn’t the most efficient way to get there…
Next time around, I’d like to talk about triplines, deadfalls, punji pits, and other dangerous assumptions people make about writing.
Until then, go write.
April 15, 2010 / 2 Comments

How To Get Away With It

Not really pop culture, but it seemed relevant considering the day. My other option was “This Serves No Purpose!!!” from Galaxy Quest. That’s pop culture and it’s a perfect example of what I wanted to prattle on about.

Alas, taxes are a certainty…

Speaking of taxing something, a while back I mentioned the problem of false drama. It’s when random stuff happens between your characters for no reason. Dot suddenly hates Wakko. Out of nowhere, Yakko is smitten with Phoebe. For motives we can’t understand, Wakko has decided to start arguing with the ninjas. Likewise, I’ve rambled on about motivated action and motivations in general. Stuff don’t “just happen” in a story because there’s a guiding force behind it all–the writer. Even acts of God in a story need to have a purpose.

Things also can’t happen just to fuel the story. That’s the difference between a character’s motivation and the writer’s. Anything in a story that isn’t natural or organic breaks the flow, and one of the worst things a writer can do is give the reader time to sit and think about how ridiculous something in a story is. It taxes their patience and strains suspension of disbelief.

With that being said, sometimes we just need a coincidence or an irrational act. It’s the curse of being a writer. Wakko needs to argue with those ninjas.

Now, I recently got to talk to some of the writers from LOST and an interesting term came up. Every now and then, by nature of their show, the story requires them to put in an odd coincidence or have a character make a very unusual choice. One way they solve this, according to Eddy Kitsis, is by “hanging a lantern on it.”

As the name implies, hanging a lantern on something means drawing attention to it. Not as the writer, but within the story. It’s when something odd or unlikey happens and the characters themselves comment on the oddness or unlikelihood of this.

On LOST, when Sun needs a pregnancy test, she and Kate find one in Sawyer’s stash of scavenged medication and toiletries. And while they’re waiting for the result, they both wonder what kind of person would bring a pregnancy test on an airplane. Really, isn’t that just a bit ridiculous?

In my book, Ex-Heroes, we’re told early on that the Mighty Dragon’s real name is George Bailey. Yes, George Bailey just like in It’s A Wonderful Life. He tells us this himself in a first-person chapter. And then he immediately points out how cruel his parents were and also that he owns the movie and has watched it several times.

So, why does this little trick work?

When the characters themselves immediately acknowledge a choice or action is unusual or ridiculous, it takes the edge off that element for the audience. We can’t forgive the million-to-one coincidence that everyone takes in stride, but we can if the people involve recognize those odds and comment on the unlikeliness of it.

What we wouldn’t forgive is the bizarre coincidence of someone flying with a one-use, specific item like a pregnancy test and everyone ignoring that coincidence. Good characters mirror their audience to some degree, so if the reader thinks this is a bit ridiculous, the characters probably should, too.

Look at Casablanca. It’s got a classic lantern moment. When the film begins, Rick has tried to vanish. He’s gone to another city, in another country, on another continent to escape his previous life, and a few years later the woman who tore out his heart comes walking through the door of his new place. Think about it–the odds of this are astronomical. But we never even consider the odds because Rick himself broods over them in a drunken stupor. “Of all the gin joints in all the world… why did she have to walk into mine?” We accept it because he’s sitting here acknowledging his miserable luck.

Now, does hanging a lantern make a story’s lucky coincidence totally acceptable? Well, not always. What it will do, though, is push back the suspension of disbelief a few notches. By acknowledging this convenient bit of plot or character within the story, the writer’s showing that their characters aren’t stupid, which taxes the reader’s patience. It’s also acknowledging that the reader isn’t stupid, because they just get angry when a writer does that.

So if the coincidence is a small one (say, two guys with the same name also have girlfriends with the same name) and you make a point of commenting on the oddness of it, we as the readers will probably accept it without question. If it’s one of those “you’ve got to be &*%#!ng kidding me!!” type of coincidences… well, you might be able to get it down to a raised eyebrow and a slight eye roll.

It’s also worth keeping in mind, this doesn’t mean you can include dozens and dozens of bizarre coincidences in your screenplay or manuscript and get away with pointing out each one. Like most magic tricks, it’s something you can only do once or thrice before people start to catch on to what you’re really doing. And once they see what you’re doing the illusion’s shattered on a bunch of levels.

Next time around, I’d like to prattle on about that old chestnut, writing what you know, and why fighter pilots don’t always make good writers.

Until then, go write.

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