Story Learnings - The Incredibly Addictive Power of Breaking Bad

Not since the days of Matador have I found myself so helplessly captivated by a TV series. I am of course talking about Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad.

Sure LOST had its captivating moments of mystique in beginning, but once it dawned on me, that the creators also had no idea where the story was going, you emotionally disconnect.

My buddy, the excellent concept artist Cenay Oekmen, kept pestering me to watch it, as he relayed the storylines to me. It was not that I had never heard of Breaking Bad before. At the back of your head, of course you notice the distant thunder of the many, many awards rolling in, thereby adding the show to your mental to-do list of things to watch, as and when a convenient opportunity arises.

Then Danny Stack, from the UK Scriptwriters Podcast, went so far as to claim that Bryan Cranston, in Breaking Bad, delivers the best acting, bar none, in recent years (Daniel Day-Lewis included). That sure is a tall statement and a ringing endorsement to boot. So I had to see what the fuss was all about.

Conveniently Netflix offered a first free month trial, when recently launching in England and Breaking Bad was part of the library on view.

What I found, I was not prepared for.

The show grabbed such a firm hold of my person, that I was unable to wrest myself free of it, till I had watched it till the end. Frightened and fascinated of this stranglehold Breaking Bad had on me, I would write down observations on a notepad while watching, to help me analyze the powerful means of storytelling employed by the creators.

This is what I found.  

Tension

The tension, Breaking Bad produces in the viewer, is so strong, that it leaves you unable to break free from the story till the tension is finally released in the desired resolution. However the desired resolution never fully materialises, so you are always left hungry and never sated.

Once the desired goal seems within reach, something comes up: The Cat String Theory (a cat is only interested in that piece of string when it is out of reach) essentially.

The use of imagery in the opening sequence is very clever. Mysterious and ominous images are shown without any context beyond what the audience puts together to make sense of it. Some times consequences are shown before causes; some times the images are foreboding. It all increases the tension.

Shock is used deliberately and in clever ways. The effects of the shocks further increase tension and keeps your mind racing defensively at all times. The impact of the shocks are amplified through contrast: The brutality of the criminal drugs world is juxtaposed against the tranquility of domestic trivial family life.

Walt has a number of tension axes running through his life:

• Between Walter and Skyler runs an axis of smoke and mirrors, as Walt struggles to achieve his desire without alerting Skyler. Will he get found out, or will he not be able to carry out his plans for the benefit of his family?

• Between Walter and Jesse runs an axis playing on stupidity, as Jesse with carelessness inadvertently mess up everything Walt painstakingly tries to achieve with carefull planning.

•  Between Hank and Walter runs an axis focusing on both who can be the coolest father figure for Walt Jr., as well as their individual positions on either side of the law. With Hank parades his macho credentials as tough guy law enforcement officer, Walt is sorely tempted to reveal what a hardman his Heisenberg alter ego has become; A macho alter ego, Walt is openly in love with, as he finally releases all the frustration from the years of being an overlooked mild mannered chemistry teacher.

All of these tension axes, are like all the spinning plates an acrobat has to keep spinning simultaneously, or the whole act falls apart.

When Walt reaches his goals, he doesn't find deliverance, but rather more frustration. The frustration of 'why be King of the world, if nobody knows'? This mirrors his life-long frustration of being an incredibly skilled chemist labouring in obscurity in a dead-end job.

Empathy

Right off the bat, the audience thoroughly identifies powerfully with Walter White's desire because of the extraordinarily unjust plight of the protagonist. This is further amplified by how high the stakes are: Life and death essentially; his own, his handicapped son's and his unborn child.

Walter White and Jesse Pinkman is a classic "stuck with you" type of protagonist pair. They are mirror opposites and are reliving each others' lives in reversal. Yet they cannot see how similar they are; like a soon-to-be couple in a romcom, you feel like shouting out at them, "don't you realise you love each other?!"

Both halves of the protagonist pair, Jesse and Walter, are obviously well-meaning underneath their respective stupidity and brusqueness.

Our protagonists have their likability increased through plenty of "save the cat" moments.

Walter White only wanted a solution to his very unjust predicament when he started out. But now he is tainted and can never go back, which increases our pity for the protagonist's original plight.

Recurring Themes

The stakes will be raised by stating the goal, and then having accidents and unfair circumstances come in the way of the goal on the first attempt, whereupon dreams of ever achieving the goal are replaced with frantic damage control. 

The show dazzles a lot through really imaginative plot turns and clever use of chemistry (a bit like MacGyver) and science.

Recurring obstacles: Wife (and the rest of Walt's family) finding out, police, accidents, criminal predators and similar hazards, stupidity and naïveté.

The name of the protagonist (Mr. White) carries a lot of symbolism: A man who has hitherto never done anything illegal in his life.

Breaking Bad has a recurring themes of "good" people with "illegal" personal secrets; Skyler smokes while pregnant, and sleeps with her boss, while trying to impose morals onto Walter; Marie is a cleptomaniac shoplifter married to a law enforcement officer; Saul is a solicitor, who actively deals in criminal activity; Gus is an upstanding member of the community and a benefactor of the local DEA, while being a drug overlord etc.

Conclusion

All of these things are not particularly new; They have been part of the storytelling canon for ages. But the writing team and Vince Gilligan have employed these tools in absolutely expert fashion. I have never seen anything, before or after Hitchcock, where tension itself has been employed so effectively to hook in the audience for such long durations of time.

Story Learnings: Plot Turns

The happy and helpful people over at ScreenwritingU posted a lovely overview of the different types of plot turns. I found it well worth my time:

http://screenwritingu.com/screenwriting-articles/211-10-ways-to-create-a-plot-twist.html

Once I had stuffed myself full of anagnorisis, Chekhov's Gun and noted to my satisfaction the warnings of using Deus Ex Machina in any significant way, I noticed that the list was originally written by a certain T. N. Tobias. A particularly uncommitting fellow, who is struggling to keep up with his reading list (aren't we all?). He has since taken down his list and points to Wikipedia instead.

Wikipedia, who as it turns out, has a far superior list of types of plot turns, even more worth your time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plot_twist

Who would have known?

Post Scriptum

I shall shortly dismantle this blog and simply redirect to Wikipedia henceforth. All resistance is futile, and I have accepted that this singularity of knowledge is inevitable.

Story Learnings - So Far... Part 2: Practical Application

So... 

A friend of mine, from my native Denmark, who probably would like to remain anonymous, pointed out that my recent blog post (http://marquepierre.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/story-learning-so-far.html) was exhibiting myself as a pretentious ignoramus with an underlined copy of Story by Robert McKee in one hand, a dog-eared printout of the Casablanca script in the other, and somewhere in between (my ears) a little higher up, the notion that I also have a great idea for a movie!

I should point out, that said friend works as a script consultant, has done so for some years, and has an award-winning documentary under his belt to boot. So, not entirely an amateur with an opinion and a Blogspot account, like me.

I believe, I did mention that before, but I shall point it out once more for the record: I am not a professional screenwriter. I do get paid for the occasional piece of writing (very broadly defined), but it would be pretentious of me to pose as a professional screenwriter. This is what a blog of a bona fide working screenwriter looks like. What I am, is a man who loves stories, loves to learn about anything and everything regarding stories - all with the humble hope of improving my own storytelling skills and the stories they will produce over time. I am a wannabe screenwriter. Absolutely. I want to be a screenwriter. I am working hard to become a screenwriter, and when I have sold my first spec script, I will remove the "wannabe" tag. Until then, I have no problem displaying my direction, ambition as well as my current status.

The previous post was literally a page in one of the journals, I carry with me at all times. During a lunch break, I looked at it, and thought 'why don't I write this up?' 

Just as I am passing them on, the ideas therein have all come to me, and I am pretty sure they are not mine. Just as they probably didn't belong to the ones I learned them from. As the wise King Solomon said, "there is nothing new under the sun." Thus, before there were McKee, Fields and Snyder, there was Lajos Egri, before that, there were a whole bunch of other people, all leading back to Aristotle... Before him? See, that's when our records go a bit hazy. But there must have been somebody, because those universal principles of act structure, protagonists and inciting incidents are all found in one of the earliest found stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh. 

A whistle-stop tour of four millennia of story thinking, all simply to make the point that I am only standing on the shoulders of the giants before me. Is that understood?

Now, that was all the defensive stuff; The caveat, I might not have spelled out clearly in my last post.

On to the meatier part of this discourse: A good suggestion by said friend; These 11 points mean nothing, unless you can apply them practically. So please allow me to expand on my previous post, by showing how these principles help me in my writing and how I practically apply them in putting a story together. 

I think I should preface this with a little information about the script I am working on at the moment. A colleague, now a friend, approached me with an idea for a short film. I liked it, and agreed to start working, what was roughly two sentences, into a fully developed story. The basic premise is the relationship between a young and good but naive girl and an old and mentally very strong, but dying man. I suppose, the dramatic question can be boiled down to 'how do you preserve your life and values, when forced to live with an evil and powerful adversary?' We are telling it as a vampire film, which is not a vampire film.

Key to this was that we would potentially produce it ourselves, so I set myself a number of limitations on number of characters, locations and other things driving the costs up. Also this project is very much a job application of sorts: My friend wants to show, that he has what it takes to handle production design, and I would like to go through the entire process of writing, directing and producing the finished article. This also shapes a project.

So let me go through the 11 points from my previous post 

1. The universal story: Light wins over darkness

I would hate to tell a story, which does not leave the audience satisfied. You know those stories, that you enjoyed in parts, but at the end it was like something was missing? Partly for this reason I am happy to lean on the universal master plots and feel no need to rebel against and try to break the rules governing those. So light must win over darkness, and if there is no happy ending for your protagonist, it would mean that the protagonist was a dark character, who got what he deserved in the end. 

The basic premise for this story reminded me of the 'voyage and return' plot, with the exotic and fascinating new environment in the beginning, the emphasis on a young (of mind) protagonist and the nightmarish lead up to the climax and resolution. So I spent a bit of time reacquainting myself with the typical structure of 'voyage and return' stories and their commonalities in terms of characters and the psychological elements they employ. File under "background research".

2. The heartbeat of a story

In the beginning we spent a lot of time brainstorming signature images and key scenes that we felt belonged naturally to this story. So you end up with a notebook full of all kinds of moments, which on their own may be brilliant, but still need to fit into a meaningful plot. 

I like to use a whiteboard. On the whiteboard I literally draw a horizontal curve of the story's tension and another one of the pace of the story, detailing how I envision in this abstract way for the story to play out. Horizontally across the white board I then plot in key moments (Reminds me of mapping out key frames on an arc when animating). Remembering the idea of the 'heartbeat of the story', I am careful to add suitable moments of release after moments of tension and vice versa. Also as I naturally want the 'heartbeat of the story' to beat faster and faster leading up to the climax, I look at the mix of the length of the scenes as the pace curve progresses towards the finish.

3. 

You know, I can't tell you.

4. The Gap

Remembering 'The Gap' means to me, that I never play nice with my characters. Personally I would like nothing better than to please them and make life easy for them, but instead I force myself to always write them into trouble; Never giving them what they want without letting them work for it first; Surprising them time and time again with a piece of bad news, until they, backs against the wall, have to dig down to their innermost core and pull out astounding things at great cost. It makes me feel like, I am always the jerk, but I believe it makes for more interesting drama.

5. Sub text versus text

I write the subtext first. Sometimes it is only a single sentence. But then you can prod it a bit by asking yourself, 'Why this is sub text and not text? Why would the character hide this? Why would this make the character embarrassed, angry, uncomfortable etc.?' Knowing that, you can then look at , how you would make such and such a situation respectable and civilized. How would the character try to hint at these things, and how explicit would the character dare to make these hints under these circumstances? Drawing on my experience from sales work, you often find that people ask other people exactly the question they would like to be asked themselves. When strong feelings are involved - let's say you are massively embarrassed about the colour white - people will carefully and purposely talk about the exact opposite (the colour black in this case) to hide what is really on their minds. So knowing as much about the subtext and the nature of it, gives you very precise ammunition for how you want to tinge the lines of dialogue and what direction you want to drive them in (away from the thing on everybody's minds or towards it).

6. Character is shown through dilemmas

I turn this one upside down. You should have a pretty good idea of who your character is in the beginning of the story and how you want and need the character to develop over the course of the story. So knowing what values, emotions or traits I need the character to demonstrate, I simply ask myself, which situations would force such a response from this character? Or what situations would test those traits or values to the limit for this character? 

The answers can take a bit time to find; I have yet to devise or learn a method that instantly facilitates brilliant dilemma after dilemma in answer to your question. But I suppose this is where your imagination need to earn its screenwriting chops. 

7. No scene, that doesn't turn

This is a quick and dirty benchmark I use to find what needs to be cut or changed. On my floor, I have all my note cards with scenes arranged according to the plot. I will go through them one by one, analysing the scene in my head. If a scene doesn't change or "turn" the emotional values in it, it either must be cut, or if you absolutely need it, say to build up to the next scene, you must give it some major attention till it both serves its purpose in the overall plot and also offers more than mere treading water in the moment.

8. Show, don't tell

'Show, don't tell' is another snappy benchmark I apply to a lot of things. We want to minimise, or cut altogether scenes and dialogue, which only serves the purpose to fill the audience in on background knowledge, but do not drive the plot forward.  Anything that can be told without words at all, and just images, must be done so. No line of dialogue, which could be cut and the meaning still be read, must be left alone. What doesn't makes the story stronger, will make it weaker. And so I travel through my script with a razor sharp pair of scissors, trying to trim the baby fat as I go along. In reality it is hard work. I hate cutting my own words. I love all of them dearly. So instead, as I write, I try to keep this in mind beforehand and stay economic before I even put the dialogue on page.

9. Storytelling is story delaying

Do you know how little children sometimes ruin a joke by telling you the punch line first? We can be so enamoured with our wonderful imaginary world, so full of fascinating details and complex back story, that we can't wait to show all of it to the audience in the very first scene, if not even before the opening credits. 

But storytelling is story delaying. So as I work my way backwards through my story (see point 11 below), I ask myself what information is crucially needed for the audience to understand the development of the plot. These "must-know" bits of information all have individual places in the plot, where before this point they would be unnecessary and after this point, they would be too late. You may be able to put parts of the same piece of information in different locations. This both helps your story to not be overloaded in the beginning. You don't want the audience to feel like they have to munch through a mountain of broccoli to get to the good stuff. Another thing is that the audience is smarter than you may think. Avoid the groans tearing them out of the suspense of disbelief as one painfully obvious thing after another is pointed out to them. Lastly it helps building suspense. 

In the story I am working right now, I want to build an escalating sense of dread. So the intentions of the old man to essentially trap the young girl, I will reveal spread out as bread crumbs building up to the nightmare feel that I want. Revealing it all in the beginning ("Ha ha, you are trapped!") might create a bit of shock and some mild confusion, but that would evaporate long before we hit the climax. Revealing it all in the very end would only confuse the audience to what is going on. In either case, the suspense would be lost. For other parts of the story -  a subplot involving the girl's recently deceased grandmother - I need to reveal some bits early, while the death of the grandmother is still fresh in the audience's mind, in order to bridge us over to when the resolution comes in that plot line.

I guess, I like to be quite organised about these things; I am scared I will miss out on something important, so I like to lean on a bit of structure. Hence my whiteboard is my friend, where charts and curves all pinpoint the location when the crucial elements must take place. I like having those big tent pole elements placed first, that gives me peace of mind to write more impulsively in between. 

10. Setup and pay off

This takes me back to my white board. Looking over the key moments of my story, I want to make sure that the preceding scenes fill the audience in on the things they need to know, in order to readily understand the key moment to come. Also I like to increase the impact of these moments, if at all possible, by leading into it with an opposite (a bit like anticipation in animation before a "take"). This takes us back to the 'heartbeat of the story'. On the grander scale, the story's resolution will be preceded by the story climax of tension and conflict. But setting up smaller points, such as a sequence climax, will also benefit the impact.

11. Plot turns

This is how a story comes to be in my universe: It all starts with a few garbled up images or words which only really makes sense to me. They become a string of key moments or parts of scenes. Little by little you end up with a growing number of things (characters, story beats, scenes etc.), which just has the right feel for your story. Before that list grows too big, you need to know where you are going; You need to nail your ending down. There is no room to manoeuvre on the ending. It must be good. It must be satisfying. It must be surprising. So before you paint yourself into a corner, by creating too many lovely darling ideas, do yourself the favour of figuring out where this journey is going to end.

Once I have my ending pencilled in, I work backwards from there to the beginning (funny, how the possible beginnings often are among the first feeble scribbles). What I aim to do, is alluding to the ending and how everything is resolved in subtle ways throughout the story. Carefully delaying the full explanation, or at least cutting it up in small bites and placing them as a bread crumb trail throughout. I kinda explain this to myself, as folding a piece of baking paper with an arrow drawn in one direction. You know the semi-transparent stuff you use to line oven trays with? To make it really, really simple, let's say at the ending, the protagonist turns out to be good (as opposed to evil). This is revealed at the climax. Taking a step back, we need to fold the baking paper back over itself, so now the arrow points the other way. Lo and behold, in the sequences before the climax we believe the protagonist was an evil so-and-so. Taking yet another step back, we fold the baking paper again, and now the arrow is once again pointing in the good direction - the protagonist is good as gold. As you keep folding the paper, working your way backwards through the story, each of these folds, or changes of direction, represents a plot turn, where we turn the story on its head. Also as with real baking paper, you should be able to see or make out what is on the layer underneath, although not as clearly as the topmost layer. Obviously, there is an upper limit here, where the more times you turn things upside down, the more ludicrous it gets. Similarly, the more layers of baking paper you got, folded on top of each other, the more opaque the whole stack eventually becomes.

Looking back over my folded stack of baking paper, so to speak, I try to see if I can match up some of the changes of direction in the story, to what I already have in my file of things, that just feels right for the story. If not, I need to start answering the hard questions of, why such and such is not what it seems, why character so-and-so would completely go against his/her character traits in extreme circumstances, or how things (believably) against all odds will turn out like this. This is very much one of the jigsaw puzzle parts of putting a story together. But also enormously satisfying, once it locks elegantly into place.

Outro

Right. At the end of the day, this is only meant to make writing good stuff simpler. A good screen play is a good screen play is a good screen play. No amount of theory can make up for that, nor guarantee that. So I better get back to writing what really matters, my next screen plays!

Wow

Wow!

I get ahead of myself.

London Screenwriters Festival today announced the long list of their 50 Kisses screenwriting competition.

http://www.facebook.com/notes/50-kisses/50-kisses-longlist/422240594485043

The competition will eventually have 50 winners, who will have their contributions made into a feature film for theatrical release on Valentine's day 2013. The organizers received an astounding 1870 submissions. Today the long list consisting of 500 candidates was released.

Back in May, a colleague forwarded me the competition details. "Considering as you seem to have a good hand at writing", she said. She must have been referring to all the silly nonsense emails (a topic for multiple posts in the future, no doubt) I dream up, and bombard my colleagues with on a daily basis. I objected that "there is big difference between spewing silly nonsense with fancy words and telling a good story that tugs the heart strings." And then put a story together in a lunch break. "You miss a 100% of the shots you don't take", said Wayne Gretzky. So why not?

It sure felt good seeing my name on that list today. Who knows what other adventures are waiting out there?

Story Learnings - So Far...

One of the side effects of spending too much time at work, writing company wide emails about made-up nonsense (more about that in another post), is that you become the go-to guy for writing just about anything.

The other day one of our lighters asked me to teach him about storytelling. Massively flattered as I was, I managed to object, that I am only just learning myself. But what I do know, I will happily share. So put on the spot like that, I managed to break into a 10 minute improvised lecture - which in hindsight wasn't half bad. We continued this over our instant messenging client over the days that followed.

As I said, I am just a humble student of storytelling, but I do think others might benefit from what I have learned at the feet of the masters so far. Here goes:

1. The universal story: Light wins over darkness

I have spent a lot of time looking into universal plots and what they tell us about the human psyche and our need for and use of storytelling. In short, there is really only one plot: Light wins over darkness. All other meaningful plots are merely viewing this master plot from different angles.

2. The heartbeat of a story

A story must invariably be told with a certain rhythm: Tension and release; Greater tension and greater release; Greatest tension (climax) and greatest release (resolution). Like a heartbeat, constantly expanding and contracting. If you follow tension with more tension and more tension still, you will lose the effect of the tension. Likewise with release. The audience will grow numb.

3. 

I could have sworn there was a 3rd point in there somewhere. Which I seem to have lost. I will leave it unnamed as the unmarked grave for the anonymous soldier. Or maybe I just don't want to reveal my secret sauce? You will never know...

4. The Gap

Hitchock said, "drama is like ordinary life, with the dull bits cut out." Yep. We can't have that. Dull bits. Things that go exactly according to plan. It doesn't make for good stories. So when we write, we look at what our characters are expecting... and never give them that. In that gap between the expectations of the characters and the outcome sits lovely, lovely drama; Conflicts that force your characters outside of their nice-guy behaviour; Conflicts which escalate tension; Conflicts which entertain the audience at the expense of our characters, who now will have to work harder for it.

5. Sub text versus text

Just as in real life, what is said is never the full picture. Dialogue is the text, the sub text is what the characters really are feeling, thinking and reallly trying to say. I remember the great salesman Frank Bettger always said, "The first reason sounds good. The second reason is the real reason." Also in stories, nobody will volunteer what they really mean all the time - unless they are the fool on the hill. It is up to us as storytellers to construct these layers of what is said, and is really meant underneath.

6. Character is shown through dilemmas

Take any serial killer, dress him up nicely, ask his neighbours about him - 'oh, he's such a nice young man'. What is really inside of us, will only be revealed when we are out of our depth; When we have no game plan and we have to improvise. Those are the moments where the slick surface of careful grooming and learned manners crack open to reveal the true person underneath. All the surface stuff doesn't really count. How do we create those cracks? Throw our characters into tough dilemmas, where they have to make tough choices about the lesser of two evils. That is when we will see what they are really made of.

7. No scene, that doesn't turn

A scene that starts with a man being in a good mood and ends with him being in a good mood is a non-event; A waste of precious time. It will not advance the plot, it will not entertain, it will most likely just be there to fill in the audience about background details (exposition). Never should it be found in your stories. By "doesn't turn", I mean the emotional values do not turn: Turn from positive to negative or the other way around. No scene, that doesn't turn! It is storytelling fluff. We can't have it!

8. Show, don't tell

Actions speak louder than words. A nigh on universal truism. Also in stories. What we tell people will not have as much impact as what we see them do. In screenwriting whatever can be said with images should be done so. Only resort to dialogue, if you can not tell the same parts of the story with images. The emotional response from the audience will be far greater.

9. Storytelling is story delaying

Save the best for last, they say. I guess, that is just good showmanship. Likewise, a story is not a story, if you upfront tell your audience all the facts. For starters, suspense goes out of the window as all questions are answered. So don't insult the intelligence of your audience, and don't tell them anything a moment before they absolutely have to know. Tension will build and as a result the exhilleration of the revelation will be so much stronger, when you do tell.

10. Setup and pay off

You know how there are two parts to a joke? The punchline is what people laugh at, but it makes no sense without the setup. Likewise, the really important moments of your story needs careful setting up as well, to make sure they will have the impact on the audience that you intend. 

11. Plot turns

Ah plot turns... Those moments of exhilleration, where a story is completely turned upside down. As you learn that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father, your mind races, in a split-second, back through two entire movies, and all of a sudden there are so many things that make sense at last. Carefully setting up plot-turns with subtle hints and delivering them with impact will leave your audience thrilled and excited as they experience the joy of piecing it all together in their minds. Believable plot turns take quite a bit of imagination and careful planning on the structural stage of a story. But if you can manage to deliver a well-built plot turn, it will stay with your audience for the rest of their life - the above example being ample proof thereof.

I could, and probably will, add another 20 to these 11. But it is a start. Besides, I need to practise some more; Juggling with 11 balls in the air, is plenty hard for me still.

What are the most important parts of storytelling for you?

Story Learnings: Plot #4 - Voyage and Return

Reaping the rich rewards from Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, we have reached the fourth of the seven master plots (You can find my posts on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster as well as an introduction to The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, here, the second master plot, Rags to Riches, here, and the third master plot, The Quest, here.):

Voyage and Return

There is a second plot based on a journey, quite different from the Quest. The stories we find using the Voyage and Return plot seemingly have nothing in common, perhaps except that they are some of the most haunting and mysterious tales in the world.


The essence of Voyage and Return is that the hero travels out of their 'normal' world and into another world completely cut off from the first, where everything seems disturbingly abnormal. At this first this strange new world is exhilarating, but gradually a shadow intrudes. The hero feels increasingly threatened, until by way of a 'thrilling escape' the hero is released from the abnormal world and can return to the safety of the 'normal' world where he started. These are the stories we call Voyage and Return and they follow these five stages:

1. Anticipation Stage and 'Fall' into the Other World
We meet our hero as he is in some state, which lays him open to a shattering new experience; His consciousness is often restricted in some way: young, naive, curious, bored, drowsy, reckless or actively craving a diversion. Wittingly or unwittingly, what they have in common is that they are psychologically wide open for some shattering new experience to invade their lives and take them over. So he 'falls' into a strange new world, unlike anything he has ever experienced before. The event which precipitates the hero into the abnormal world is often shocking and violent.

2. Initial Fascination or Dream Stage

At first this new world is exhilarating, mainly because it is so puzzling and unfamiliar. Even so it can never be a place where our hero can feel at home. It is always very clear to the hero that something very queer is happening to them. One way or another the story work every conceivable permutation on their hero's sense of what is normal, even in terms of the most basic assumptions we make about our identity as human beings.

3. Frustration Stage
Gradually the mood changes to frustration, difficulty and oppression. A shadow is looming and increasingly alarmingly so; Being in the alien world becomes less and less pleasant. The hero will experience everything in a kind of dream-like semi-detached way; The other world will never be wholly real to them - even if some of the experience threatens their very survival.


4. Nightmare Stage
The shadow becomes so dominant that it seems to pose a serious threat to the hero's survival.


5. The Thrilling Escape and Return
Just when the threat closing in on the hero, becomes too much to bear, the hero makes his escape from the other world, back to where he started. Has the hero changed, or was it all 'just a dream'? This is the most important question in the Voyage and Return story.


To answer that question, we need to look closer at the hero. Voyage and Return stories never have a princess or a kingdom as a reward, but instead a possible inner switch from darkness to light; ignorance to knowledge. As such Voyage and Return stories fall into two distinct categories: Either the hero will be transformed by the mysterious 'other world' or they will not.


If the hero formed a relationship with someone from the opposite sex, while in the other world, he will have to abandon this person, when he returns and furthermore he will not have learned, or is not transformed, when he returns.


In some instances the hero, like Peter the Rabbit, has simple gotten a terrible shock or is physically exhausted from his folly. In other cases such as Robinson Crusoe, our hero eventually arrives on feelings of profound repentance for his former frivolity.

Summing up
Some of the very earliest stories a child can grasp are simple version of the Voyage and Return plot (long before they can appreciate the complexities of a Rags to Riches story with its 'Princes', 'Princesses' and transformation scenes). Goldilocks and The Tale of Peter Rabbit tells of a young person straying out of the familiar world of home and nearly getting killed for it. But on a more grown-up level the Voyage and Return plot is about the hero being in a state of limited of awareness and this has plunged him into a realm of existence, which leads to a nightmare threatening him with annihilation. But as a result he has learned something of fundamental importance. He has moved from ignorance to knowledge. He has had a chance to reach a much deeper understanding of the world, and this offers him a chance to completely change his attitude to life. 


The heroes starts out by being selfish; not really recognising anything in the world outside themselves. This blind egocentricity is very much the same characteristic we have seen in dark figures in the earlier plots who actually opposed the hero. So the hero is presented here as far from light, and it is precisely this that plunges him into the adventure that threatens to destroy him. The real victory in the Voyage and Return stories is not over the forces of darkness outside the hero, but over the same dark forces within the hero.

Examples
The Voyage and Return stories are an incredibly eclectic bunch: 


Alice in Wonderland, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, H. G. Wells' The Time Machine (as well as a lot of other science fiction), Beatrix Potter's Peter Rabbit, Brideshead Revisited, Orpheus Journey to the Underworld, Gone with the Wind, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Robinson Crusoe, The Lord of the Flies, Gulliver's Travels, The Lost World, Lost Horizon, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Golden Ass and many others.

The next of the seven basic plots contains some of the most complex stories ever told. We'll look at Comedy next.




Questions and comments are welcome.

Story Learnings: Plot #3 - The Quest

Continuing my way through Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, we have reached the third of the seven master plots (You can find my post on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster as well as an introduction to The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, here, and the second master plot, Rags to Riches, here.):

The Quest

Far away there is some priceless treasure, worth any effort to achieve. When the hero learns about this, the need to set out on the long and hazardous journey to reach this, becomes the most important thing in his life. Whatever perils and trials are in the hero's way, he must go on until this objective has been triumphantly secured. These are the stories we call The Quest and they follow these five stages:

1. The 'Call'
We meet our hero as he finds that life in some way has become intolerable. The mood is one of urgent compulsion. Something has gone terrifyingly wrong. In the midst of all this comes the 'Call'. The hero realises that he can only rectify matters by making a long and difficult journey. Even though the hero and his friends feel under intense compulsion to depart, they often have to face every kind of discouragement and opposition before they can set out.

2. The Journey

The hero and his companions set out. Their journey follows the classical storytelling rhythm of constriction and expansion; tension and release. They go through a succession of terrible, and often near-fatal ordeals, interspersed with periods of respite where they can regain their strength.


The opposition comes in two main flavours. Actually, that should be three, because in stories of The Quest variation, the acutely hostile terrain is almost an obstacle in itself; It will be wild, alien and unfriendly. The other two, more specific obstacles are: Monsters and temptations. 


The monsters follows the archetypical description of monsters from the Overcoming the Monster plot. The Temptation, on the other hand, is usually centred around a promise of some physical gratification, which stands in stark contrast to the hard nature of the task the hero has been set. Underneath the surface, the Temptation have much in common with the Monsters, except that the latter uses direct confrontation and the former uses guile and seduction to lure the hero to his doom. If the temptations are mastered or overruled in some way, they may completely change nature and their relationship with the hero, and become useful allies.


Each encounter ends with a thrilling escape. Ordeals alternate with periods of respite. Along the way the hero and his companions will receive hospitality, help and advice from 'wise old men' or 'beautiful young women'. The hero may have to make part of the journey through the underworld, where spirits from the past will give him guidance.

3. Arrival and Frustration
The hero is now within sight of the goal. However, now on the edge of the goal, a new and terrible series of obstacles surface and must be overcome.


4. The Final Ordeals
Despite the lengthy and perilous journey the hero and his companions have already travelled, they are usually only halfway through the story, when they arrive within sight of the goal. The hero has to undergo a last series of tests (often 3) to prove that he is worthy of the prize. The story culminates in a last great battle or ordeal, which may be the most threatening of all the many ordeals the hero has been through so far.


5. The Goal
After a last 'thrilling escape from death', the life transforming treasure is finally won: A final coming together of man and woman, or the establishing of a kingdom; The hero now has an assurance of renewed life stretching indefinitely into the future - or 'he lived happily ever after'.

Companions

The companions of the hero is a distinctive mark of The Quest. They come in four different varieties:

1. Simply a large number of unnamed people. For example the main body of Jews accompanying Moses in the exodus from Egypt.
2. An alter-ego with no particular distinguishing marks except loyalty and fidelity. Frodo in Lord of the Rings has the loyal Samwise Gamgee.
3. An alter-ego with opposite qualities of the hero. Think of King Lear and the Fool, or Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
4. A group of people, each with distinct qualities which together forms a 'whole'. In King Solomon's Mines the leader and hero Allan Quartermain is accompanied by the strong Sir Henry Curtis, the rational Captain Good and the intuitive and mysterious Umbopa.

The Helpers
In addition to the companions and all the negative figures the hero meets on his journey, he also encounter some very different figures - helpers. The helpers will offer him positive assistance such as periods of respite or perhaps crucial guidance. Among the helpers two very important figures predominate: The benevolent wise old man and the beautiful young (or mysteriously ageless) woman. In the story of The Quest, their roles are not so much to intervene, but to act as guides, drawing on unusual knowledge and wisdom. In Lord of the Rings we have for example the omniscient old wizard Gandalf and his ally the beautiful, ethereal queen Galadriel.

Examples
Some of the most celebrated stories in the world are quests: Just think of Homer's Odyssey, Dante's Divine Comedy, Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Steven Spielberg's Raiders of The Lost Ark.

Of the other well-known examples we find: Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, Watership Down, Around the World in 80 Days, King Arthur's Quest for the Holy Grail, Jason and the Golden Fleece, The Firebird from Slav folk stories, Virgil's Aeneid and many others.

Further variations

From time to time we also see The Quest plot crossed with the Overcoming the Monster the monster plot. Particularly in stories inspired by the Second World War: The Guns of Navarone, The Dirty Dozen, The Heroes of Telemark, The Wooden Horse, The Colditz Story and others.

A dark version of The Quest is Heman Melville's Moby Dick. Here the central figure, Captain Ahab, sets out in an obsessive quest across the oceans to find the almost supernatural white whale. Ahab looks on Moby Dick as a prize of infinite value, worth any sacrifice to seek out. The whale is clearly a symbol for the essence of life. But there is nothing life-enhancing about the way Ahab seeks it. He is only out to destroy it at all costs. Of course such a story can only end in disaster.

The next of the seven basic plots is also based on a journey, although quite different from The Quest. It has inspired some of the most haunting and mysterious tales ever told. We'll look at Voyage and Return next.




Questions and comments are welcome.

Story Learnings: Plot #2 - Rags to Riches

Continuing my way through Christopher Booker's excellent tome on storytelling The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, we have reached the second of the seven master plots (You can find my post on the first master plot, Overcoming the Monster, and an introduction to The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories, here.):

Rags to Riches

This is clearly a type of story, which appeals immensely to the human psyche. Think of the massive inclination to root for underdogs and the wishful feelings people have, wanting to trade places with celebrities. As the title indicates this is a plot where the hero starts out ordinary, insignificant and unappreciated, but then suddenly steps to the centre of the stage, and is revealed to be someone quite exceptional. The Rags to Riches plot usually follows these 5 stages:

1. Initial Wretchedness at Home and the 'Call'
We are introduced to our hero, or heroine, in a lowly and unhappy state at home. The hero is usually young in age, or has not yet ventured out in the world. Obviously this is a plot, which is concerned with the process of growing up. The hero starts the journey of a human being from unformed childhood and needs to reach the state of complete personal maturity.


To start with, the hero is overshadowed by malevolent dark figures, which come in two distinct varieties: Adults acting in the place of a parent or figures closers to the hero's age and status (evil stepsisters, for example). Something happens to either call or send the hero out into the world.


2. Out into the World with Initial Success

The hero is now out in the world away from the original home, or starting point. New ordeals await, but these are also rewarded with the first limited success, which is also a prevision of the eventual glory, which the hero will find. The hero is thus lifted out of his original state of misery. However at this point the hero is not ready yet for the complete fulfilment.

3. The Central Crisis
Everything suddenly goes wrong. The shadows of dark figures return. The hero is separated from his greatest treasure/friend/love. The hero is overwhelmed with despair at this. Because of the earlier lift in the hero's fortunes and because the hero is so powerless, this is the absolute low point of the story, where it all seems lost again.


4. Independence and the Final Ordeal
The hero gradually emerges from the crisis and is shown in a new light. The hero discovers in himself a new independent strength. This new strength is put to the final test, against a dark and powerful figure, which stands between the hero and his final goal. This dark figure is characterised by egocentricity and incapacity for true, selfless love. Basically the same characteristics as the monster from the Overcoming the Monster plot. 


5. Final Union, Completion and Fulfilment
The hero is rewarded with a complete, loving union. The hero succeeds to a "kingdom"; a domain over which they will rule wisely and well. By the end of the story no one ever doubts that the originally derided and humble little hero should be worthy of their final glorious destiny, however improbable it looked at the beginning, since they have along the way revealed such admirable qualities which show their true inner worth. And thus the hero has deserved that mysterious central goal in storytelling, where everything at last is perfect and complete.

The Dark Version

The Rags to Riches plot can also be told in a 'dark' variation. The hero will attempt to do the same climb from rags to riches, but in some ways fails to reach the fully rewarding conclusion. The heroes in these stories are not the selfless and goodhearted ones we are used to. In fact they react to any kind of opposition with egotism. Instead of being the victim, it is their surroundings who fall victim to the hero's actions. Although the ultimate symbolic goal of the hero is remarkably similar to the original Rags to Riches plot, the hero in the dark version really is a monster. His ambition is only a means to egotistical gratification and a desire to dominate others. Of course the attempts to reach such a goal will always be frustrated, and surely it brings about his complete destruction.

Examples
This plot is very richly represented in stories through the ages and continues to be very popular. Just think of the Hollywood cliché moment where the ever handsome hero removes the spectacles from the plain girl, lets down her hair and gazes at her in awe, "... but you are beautiful!" 


Of the more well-known examples we find: My Fair Lady, Superman (and similar heroes, who go from weedy bespectacled kids to all-powerful superhero), the biblical story of Joseph, Cinderella, Aladdin, Puss in Boots, David Copperfield, The Ugly Duckling, Charlie Chaplin's The Gold Rush, Jane Eyre, Moll Flanders, Great Expectations and many, many more.


The next of the seven basic plots is instantly recognizable, and even more so than any of the other six plots. We'll look at The Quest next.




Questions and comments are welcome.

Story Learnings: Plot #1 - Overcoming the Monster

I am trawling my way through Chris Booker's excellent tome on storytelling The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories. Booker has basically over a life-time gone through the massive mountain of storytelling from the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh to present day James Bond movies, comparing and cross referencing as he went along, until he managed to successfully distil the sum total of man's prolific storytelling through the ages into no more than 7 basic, but distinct plots. Obviously there are very interesting psychological reasons why these essentially same stories have occurred since the beginning of man's history. It is also very interesting and worthwhile to storytellers to note what happens, when you try to bend or disregard the rules governing storytelling, as you end up with a product sadly lacking in impact and satisfaction.

The Seven Basic Plots - Why We Tell Stories weighs in at a hefty 700+ pages. Even so I am amazed at how there is absolutely no fluff or empty space in this gigantic work. As I am working my way through this huge treasure trove of storytelling insights, I will summarize my findings, or rather Christopher Booker's findings as told to me.

Without further ado, let me introduce you to the first plot of the seven master plots:


Overcoming the Monster

This is a type of story, which the human imagination is particularly fond of forming. As the title indicates this is a story in which a hero is called to face and overcome a terrible and deadly personification of evil. The story is usually presented as a long build-up to the final confrontation between the monster and the hero, and it will usually follow these 5 stages:

1. Anticipation Stage and 'Call'
At first we see the monster, or become aware of it, from a great distance. We gradually learn of its fearsome power and reputation, and how it is casting a threatening shadow over the community. The hero then experiences a 'Call' to confront it.


2. Dream Stage

The hero is now making preparations for battle. For a while things seem to be going reasonably well. The audience still feel comfortably remote from and immune to the danger presented by the monster.

3. Frustration Stage
We finally find ourselves face to face with the monster in all its awesome power. The hero now feels small and alone. He is slipping into the monster's power, and there seems to be only one possible outcome - the death of the hero.


4. Nightmare Stage
The final battle between the monster and the hero, where the odds are massively stacked in favour of the monster. And just at the climax, when all seems lost, comes the reversal.


5. The Thrilling Escape from Death, and Death of the Monster
In the nick of time, the monster is miraculously dealt a fatal blow. This is a moment of fundamental significance to storytelling. In fact, 'the thrilling escape from death' is one of the most consistent motifs in storytelling. The community is then liberated and our hero emerges to enjoy the prize: Usually some kind of treasure, a princess or a kingdom.

The Monster
The monster is characterised by being heartless, egocentric (as opposed to the hero, who is selfless in his deed of risking his life for greater good or the community) and seemingly omnipotent. However the monster usually has a blind spot (often tied to its egocentricity), which renders it vulnerable. 

The monster will have three distinct roles playing through the progression of the story: First an active role as a predator looking for victims; Secondly a passive role as holdfast, where it will sit in its lair jealously guarding its "treasure"; Thirdly the monster takes the role of avenger, lashing out viciously, when its guardianship is challenged.

Constriction and Release
As with all stories, the overcoming the monster plot, follows the general rhythm of tension and release in successively greater amounts leading up to the climax and final resolution; In a story well-constructed, these phases of tension and release alternate, in a rhythm like the heart beat of a story, which provides one of the greatest pleasures we get from stories.

At the climax of the story, we feel the final surge of liberation; and as it fades, we are left with the warming knowledge that the hero has now won a much deeper hold on life, which will last indefinitely into the future - or as the saying goes 'live happily ever after'...

Examples
Needless to say, this very straightforward plot has been used countless times in genres of all kinds: 

Melodrama (Nicholas Nickleby); war stories (The Battle of Britain, The Sinking of the Bismarck, The Longest Day, The Battle of the Bulge, The Guns of Navarone etc.); the Hollywood western (The Magnificent Seven - and its inspiration The Seven Samurai, High Noon etc.); thrillers (King Kong, The Three Musketeers, The Final Problem, The Thirty Nine Steps, all James Bond stories etc.); science fiction (War of the Worlds, The Day of the Triffids, Star Wars); disaster movies (The Towering Inferno, Airport etc.); Gothic horror (Dracula, Canon Alberic's Scrap Book, Frankenstein, The Castle of Otranto etc.); myth (St. George and the Dragon, David and Goliath, Perseus and Andromeda, Beowulf, Theseus and the Minotaur, Oedipus and the Sphinx, Jack and the Beanstalk, Epic of Gilgamesh etc.) and many, many others.

The next of the seven basic plots also appeals massively to the human psyche; We'll look at Rags to Riches next.






Questions and comments are welcome.

Old Boards

Found these old boards kicking about (I really need to clean my/make myself a new website). They are from my 2nd year at University of Teesside. Obviously, I have immense love for all beings canine. 

Enjoy: 

A bit of slapstick there. I remember, I wanted this to read like it was a single panel newspaper cartoon. I am not sure if panel number 9 reads correctly as the dog is sniffing his crotch. I wonder how you'd visually tell that stronger?