9th step Passion, storyteller's log 1-24-2013

The 9th step of mapping your story is a doozie, as they used to say in the cartoons. I had a very interesting surprise in my writing this blog- as if I was actually living out this story! I thought about what I discovered a lot, and whether to write about it. I cannot write about it right now. It would ruin the effect I've been trying to create, which has been to demonstrate how we feel at different parts of a story. Once the overall pattern is exposed, I will share it will you.

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On to the 9th step, our character has hit rock bottom, and like the proverbial Phoenix they have risen from the ashes.

Here's what my Mac's dictionary has to say about the Phoenix:

          •(in classical mythology) a unique bird that lived for five or six centuries in the Arabian desert, after this time burning itself on a funeral pyre and rising from the ashes with renewed youth to live through another cycle.          • a person or thing regarded as uniquely remarkable in some respect.

This is interesting. Even the dictionary suggests our character can be described as remarkable like a Phoenix.

From here, there's no where to go but up. But, as in all good storytelling, it's also all uphill from here.

Let's check into where we are. The character has turned towards hope as they've been reborn. What is is it that guides us where to go from here?

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Earlier when our character started up towards hope, they ignored the lesson and took the wrong path. This time they have learned the lesson so now they're doing the right thing. What they've learned has transformed them. They see a bigger all inclusive picture that involves others. They're less selfish.

As I mentioned earlier, writing stories is literally weaving stories together. Each piece is connected to the tapestry of the whole. Doing the right thing is connected to the wrong path. They're opposites. This is key as we'll see when we look at how to use our map to weave our stories. The lesson is also a key component.

The lesson was first woven into the goal when it was shown to be a false goal. That's because the lesson was ignored. 

The next path of the lesson was woven from the" lesson ignored" to the "lesson learned" in the symbolic death. It all fits together logically and more importantly emotionally.

There is something else brewing in our story. According to Aristotle, this is the peak, on his mapping, where the audience should have maximum involvement in the story. But now we know how we got there.

With the character so well prepared, how do we keep the audience hoping against fear? The hero has learned, BUT so has the opposition. And they're sore losers. They'll throw everything they've got at our hero. So our roller coaster has more peaks and valleys. 

The opposition will be so desperate that they'll even throw the kitchen sink...

The fourth step- Reaching the goal. Storyteller's log 1-12-2013

Cut back to our character fumbling toward their goal. They've been persistent and eventually you have to let your character achieve their goal. Why? If you don't your audience will feel cheated.  You were leading them on to expect it, right? That's what the ups and downs were teasing them about.

They reach their goal but you can't make too big a deal about it. Again, why?  There are three reasons: one relates to the structure, the second relates to the story needs and the third is about dramatic irony. In an earlier post, we looked at Aristotle's mapping audience involvement over time. As long as the audience is engaged with dramatic narrative questions, they will stay engaged. When the narrative questions are answered, our interest wanes because there's nothing holding us anymore. We have closure, so tension disspates.  

When Remy, the rat cook, and Linguini, the new chef get proof that Linguini is the true owner of the resturant we have a happy ending. The problem is that happy "endings" are not supposed to be in the middle of the movie. It's like the movie starts up again and we still have another Aristotle plot curve to overcome.

The second reason, that we can't make a big deal about their goal, is that not all the characters are happy about the characters goal. The character might be really happy, but they're not noticing what's going on around them. 

Iggy always wanted to be on top of the world with his name in lights

The third reason, is dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows more than the character. This provides another source of tension for the audience- they know the character has been taking the WRONG PATH.

There are two that know sometimes amiss. The audience knows. And one of the other characters knows. This is another character who has already learned the lesson, the same lesson that main character ignored. Later we'll learn more about the specifics of this journey. For now, we're exploring the overall shape of our structure.

In the beginning we set up what was at stake if the character succeeds and if they fail. We've now shown the audience what will happen if they succeed. They've hit the glass ceiling the we set up.

Can you put together what happens next? That's the beauty of this structural shape, everything is organically connected. So it guides the mapping out of your story.

Here's some clues for what happens next. A few cliches come in handy...

"Be careful what you wish for."

and "What goes up..."

The 5 last puzzle pieces that allowed me to see what writers haven't. Storyteller's Log 1-7-2013

It's now time to present the map of story structure that fit all of my criteria about what a good story theory should have. But first, I 'd like to acknowledge some people who helped me see it. To do this I'd like to enlist the aid of a quote by someone you may know.

"A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labors of other people, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving." Albert Einstein

The thing I love the most about Einstein was his playfulness

I don't believe that we stand on the shoulders of giants. I believe that we stand on the shoulder of all the ordinary people who tried to make life a little better for themselves and others and in the process created this thing we call human culture. Take a moment to look around and see how many comforts you have that our ancestors have created. They literally created a magic lamp for us that has granted so many wishes.

So on top of all of the screenwriting and drama writing books that I have read which taught me a wealth of valuable information about writing, there were four more puzzle pieces that lead my long search to a emergent surprise that allowed me to see how to write.

1. The first was Aristotle's original idea to map a story. Only I think he mapped the wrong thing. His mapping is important but secondary.

2. Second, Nancy Duarte and her book, Resonate, showed me that what's at stake could be mapped over time.

3. Third, it was Toy Story producer,  Ralph Guggenheim, that taught me C programming when we were both at NYIT's Computer Graphics Lab, as part of the emerging of the field of computer graphics. I had taken math in high school and college but never understood the concept of mathematical functions. Ralph showed us how a circle could be mapped over time onto a sine wave by graphing it. Finally, I got it because I could literally see it. Little did I know, (Dramatic Irony, check out "Stranger than Fiction" for the full reference.) that this would be a crucial piece of the puzzle.
The hero's journey is a circle. But what does it map? It maps a journey over time and as Chris Vogler pointed out in his book, The Writer's Journey, that journey is a psychological one. It's just not in a form that I can use to help me write. But sine waves are the key, that and another math concept Ralph taught us- fractals.

BLOGGER NOTE: Do not be afraid, there is no math involved in this theory.

4. The discovery that stories are woven sequences of cause and effect. And it was my Vocabulary of the Media Critic class, in which Dr. Alwyn Scott told us if we wanted to be filmmakers, we better learn about semiotics. This was back in 1980 and he was right. Though semiotics I discovered there are many types of causality beyond the pure physical causality of a Rule Goldberg machine.

5. The fifth and final piece of the puzzle came from Peter Dunne's book, Emotion Structure: Creating the story beneath the plot. From his excellent book I learned that character's use psychological defenses to try to achieve what they want. I won't go to much into this here. Don't want to give away too much now, but this book was very helpful in allowing me to see story causality.

Emotional Structure

Finally, in answer to the rhetorical question that I heard in my mind,  "Why could I see it when no other writer could for over 2000 years?" Read that sentence again for the answer.

So the first mapping of a story is to map that there is a problem. I'll leave you to think about that question.

We've begun.

What do plot points plot? Storyteller's Log 12-5-2012

 

DISCLAIMER: I am presenting parody of story writing books that I've read to make a point. While it's meant in good fun, I don't want to diminish the fact that there is great information in these books which have informed my owning thinking on the subject. My advice, read them all.

Before we get to plot points, I wish to explore plots. Here's what Apple's Dictionary has to say on the subject of plots.

plot |plät|noun1 a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful: [ with infinitive ] :there's a plot to overthrow the government.2 the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.3 a small piece of ground marked out for a purpose such as building or gardening: a vegetable plot.4 a graph showing the relation between two variables.• a diagram, chart, or map.verb ( plots, plotting , plotted ) [ with obj. ]1 secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action): the two men are serving sentences for plotting a bomb campaign | [ no obj. ] : Erica has been plotting againstme all along.2 devise the sequence of events in (a play, novel, movie, or similar work).3 mark (a route or position) on a chart: he started to plot lines of ancient sites.• mark out or allocate (points) on a graph.• make (a curve) by marking out a number of such points.• illustrate by use of a graph: it is possible to plot fairly closely the rate at which recruitment of girls increased.PHRASESlose the plot informal lose one's ability to understand or cope with what is happening: many people believe that he is feeling the strain or has lost the plot.the plot thickens see thicken.
What parts of this apply to story writing? I believe they all do but in different ways. Obviously, number 2 is the most common usage of plot- the main events of a play, novel or movie. The first could be considered an example of one type of plot- a group making secret plans.
The last two, 3 and 4 are interesting for their application to story structure. What do plot points actually plot?

This is where I have problems with plot point theories of story. What do plot points plot? They've left off the last two aspects of the definition of plotting as a verb. They don't mark out points on a graph, they don't make a curve from the points and they don't illustrate anything. They don't show me my story's structure.

In the last post, we saw that Aristotle tried to make a plot by graphing time along the x axis and audience involvement along the y axis. But we also saw that this had limited usefulness, mainly as to help pacing.

"What if we plot something else?"

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Bunny. The problem as it exists is that each of the plot point theories followed Aristotle's rut of plotting audience involvement. Each author of the plot point theories tried to differentiate themselves by how many plot points they chose and what they called each point.

Let's look at some of these theories. (Without naming names)

One has five points.

Another one has nine points.

One might have twelve.

Why not go for fifteen?

Why stop there?

Help, I can't stop!

It's all going dark...

There is even one version that has 120 points, one for each page!

But how big is a plot point? They don't say. Does it matter? Do they come in different colors?

How to you get from one plot point to another? Jump? Careful Bunny. 

This is my problem with the plot point theories. They don't clearly show how they relate to one another.    They are too abstract to show a relationship between them. So this still leaves me lost in Act Two. How can I see if something belongs in it or not?

One theorist suggests that the plot point are like a suspension bridge taking you from the beginning to the ending. Again, like Aristotle who told us that stories have a beginning, middle and end, this is someone with a keen sense of the obvious but not really helpful to me as a writer.

There's one theory that suggests arranging them strung out on a clothes line. Interesting metaphor but it still doesn't differentiate the difference between the socks and underwear from the shirts. That reminds me, I have to go do my wash.

Was Aristotle wrong? Storyteller's Log 12-4-2012

Aristotle was an ancient greek who wrote one of the first books on storytelling circa 300 BC. He wrote a book called the Poetics. I bet he never dreamed that 2000 years later you could buy it over the internet. Well, Aristotle's Poetics is still affecting writers everywhere.

Aristotle gave us the three act structure- a beginning, a middle and an ending. He also suggested that we map the involvement of the audience over the time of the play. His chart looked like this.

This can be helpful in ways that Aristotle never imagined. We can use it to help our pacing. Watch what happens when we vary his structure. Start with a bang! We can start with something that gets the audience involved right away. After we have their attention, we can calm it down and build our story.

Another pacing issue structure is to provide a calm before the storm. Give the audience a change to rest before the big crisis and climax. Have you ever been in a museum and you get museum fatigue? Oh, another Matisse. Yawn. At a certain point you get saturated and can't take anymore in. You need to rest. Some action movies can be notorious for not giving the spectator a change to catch their breath. Ironically, instead of making the action bigger, it deadens us to the action through burnout. This calm period also provides a contrast in pacing. The calm before the storm creates tension with the audience waiting for the storm to hit.

The other thing I found useful with Aristotle's map was what happens when you vary the ending. Sometimes structural flaws can still be successful movies. Take this quiz and see how you do. 

What movie starts with a bang like this?

What movie looks like this camel back?

What movie looks like a receding mountain range? It's not Snow White and the Seven Drawfs.

What movie looks like a sand dune that was blown away?

What movie looks like a shark fin?

No, it is not Jaws.

So there is your quiz. The answers are below. But first I have some more thought about Aristotle. I think what happened is that with Aristotle we got into a rut that over time became a freeway that every writer rides along without thinking that there's no other way. In some ways he's like the philosopher, Descartes. You know, the,  "I think, therefore I am" guy. Well, we've been suffering with the cartesian subject ever since. He split reality into mind and matter and everybody believed him. (except mystics and post-cartesians)

Here's my problem with Aristotle. There are three parts to a story a beginning, middle and end. OK, I grant you he had a keen sense of the obvious. But tell me, does that help you write a story? It doesn't help me. He also never told anyone that you should start at the end but that's another subject.  

Does his mapping audience involvement help you write a story? I find it helps discover my pacing but it doesn't help me write a story.

I have learned from Aristotle but it wasn't enough. I, like Diogenes*, have kept searching.

ANSWERS

Yes, good old James Bond. Every 007 movie starts with a big action sequence. Then he returns to headquarters to get his new mission (the one of the movie) and he gets his cool gadgets.

Remember, Remy, the little rat chef from Ratatouille? I felt like the movie ended in the middle about an hour into it. There was a big fat happy ending right in the middle of the movie and I thought it was over. My spider sense was saying something's wrong here. Then the villain came back and the movie started over.

I loved Lord of the Rings and never wanted it to end. But I really didn't want it to end six or seven times! 

I hated The Remains of the Day. (My personal opinion) Most people will love or hate a movie because of the ending. Think if that's true for yourself. This movie felt like Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, the romantic longing was so intense you could cut it with a knife. The filmmakers promised us fireworks. But all we got was a dud. Anthony Hopkins never went after Emma Thompson. I mean come on, it's Emma Thompson. She's right up there with Emma Peel. 

No Country for Old Men was even worse. (My personal opinion) This movie was good. It took me along for the ride right till the end and then... nothing. I was angry when it was over. Couldn't they write an ending? 

Interestingly, some people read my clues as iconic images rather than graphs. In retrospect, I unconsciously did this when I pointed out that the graph that looked iconically like a shark fin was not Jaws. The other one was The Remains of the Day graph looked iconically like the deserts of  Lawrence of Arabia.

* Diogenes of Sinope was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived around the time of Aristotle. He was also known as Diogenes the Cynic, and most famous for carrying a lamp and searching for an honest man. I did not know that he was notorious for his philosophical stunts and this was one of them, he would carry his lamp in the daytime.