What's at stake in Back to the Future, Storyteller's log

The Dragon shape of stories has been continually surprising me with the new insights that I've learned since started looking at stories in this new visual way. Comparing the two dragons of Back to the Future with School of Rock was very illuminating and I'll show that when I finish storyweaving Back to the Future.

It maps the ups and downs of the characters and the audience as they are spellbound in hoping and fear. This X axis also shows what's at stake, in other words the biggest hope (+) and the greatest fear (-). It's important for the audience to know what the stakes of a story are in order for them to engage with the character's journey.

So continuing with the Dragonweave of Back to the Future, I thought I'd map where these hopes and fear stakes are introduced in the story.

(For those who want to work on their own stories in this way, I'm using VUE, Visual Learning Environment, it's a mapping software put out by Tufts University. What I like about it is that allows you to sort your elements onto various layers with on/off visibility and it's free. The dragon is my dragon shape on the locked bottom layer.) Click to go to the  VUE WEBSITE

(Click to enlarge)

The hopes and fears are also implied narrative questions. Will the hope succeed or will the characters suffer our worst fears? Each of these are two sides of the same coin with the audience always rooting on the side of hope. The villain roots for fear.

You can see how the filmmaker continually reminds the audience of what's at stake so the audience will keep hoping and fearing totally engaged in the story. This is so true that during one shot, while the DeLorean is supposedly traveling close to 88 MPH, the car ISN'T MOVING!

Below is a blank template of the dragon that you can import into VUE to map your own story weave.

(Click to enlarge)

Back to the Future part 5, ACT TWO storybeat functions

Well, I'm finally back to the present and here is the next installment of Back to the Future's complete story weave. When I took on this assignment for myself, I did realize how complex mapping all the beats of a story would be or how long it would take to just identify the function of each beat. There's that and the fact that ACT TWO is twice as long as ACTS ONE and THREE.

As you last remember, Marty hopped into the DeLorean time machine and tried to escape from the terrorists, whom Doc stole the plutonium from, and accidentally turned on the time machine set to 1955.

BACK TO THE FUTURE ACT TWO STORY BEATS AND THEIR FUNCTIONS:

41. ACTION- CRASH INTO A NEW WORLD:

A scarecrow suddenly appears startling Marty. He crashes into a barn. 

The noise wakes up the farmer and his family. Seeing the DeLorean, they think it’s an aliens spaceship. When Marty emerges wearing his radiation suit. 

Marty tries to explain but the farmer shoots at him. 

Marty escapes in the DeLorean.

42. REALIZATION- I’VE GONE BACK IN TIME!

Marty thinks he’s having a nightmare until he sees his future home site.  

The DeLorean runs out of gas so Marty hides it and walks to town.

His home town in 1955 is completely foreign to Marty. 

43. ACTION- GETTING ORIENTED:

Marty goes to a malt shop and finds Doc’s address in the phonebook.

44. DISCOVERY:

Marty sees his future father, George, next to him at the malt shop. 

Marty tries to understand what’s happening.

45. REALIZATION- RELATIONSHIP:

Biff comes in bullying George. Marty realizes Biff has bullied his father since they were teenagers. 

46. REALIZATION- RELATIONSHIP:

Marty follows George and discovers the reason that George was in the tree when his parents met, he was peeping on a girl in her bedroom.  

47. ACTION- REPLAY OF EXPOSITION OF WE’VE HEARD

George falls in the path of an oncoming car. 

48. ACTION- MARTY DOES IT WRONG- HE INTERFERES WITH HISTORY:

Marty pushes George out of the car's path gets hit himself.

49. CONSEQUENCE- MARTY CHANGES HISTORY

Marty is knocked out and taken to the driver’s house.

50. IRONY PAID OFF: MARTY’S MOTHER ACTS JUST LIKE SHE TOLD HER DAUGHTER NOT TO:

Marty wakes up hearing his mother's voice. He discovers she’s a teenager. And she begins to come on to Marty. Marty’s saved by a call to dinner.

51. ACTION- GATHERING INFORMATION:

At dinner, the family eats while watching "The Honeymooners" on their first television. Marty asks how to find Doc's address, which Lorraine's father says is over on the east end of town. 

52. DRAMATIC IRONY- WE KNOW MARTY WILL BE HIS KID:

Lorraine's father tells his daughter, if she ever has a kid like Marty, he'll disown her.

53. ACTION:

Marty finds Doc Brown's house. Doc answers and he hooks Marty up to an invention to read other's thoughts. But it doesn’t work.

54. INFORMATION GIVEN:

Marty tells Doc about his time machine works and he's from the future. 

55. CONSEQUENCE:

Doc doesn't believe him. Marty tries to prove it with photos but Doc thinks they’re forged.

56. DISCOVERY OF CONSEQUENCE OF MARTY’S ERROR:

Doc notices that Marty's brother's head is beginning to disappear.

57. EXPOSITION LEADS TO BELIEF:

Marty explains how Doc hurt his head and led to the vision of the flux capacitor- Doc finally believes him. Shows him a drawing.

58. ACTION:

Marty takes Doc to the DeLorean, Doc’s elated that his time machine works. 

59. COMMITMENT:

Doc vows to send Marty, “Back to the future”!

60. OBSTACLE:

Watching the video from 1985, Doc panics when he learns time travel requires 1.21 gigawatts of power. Doc explains plutonium is not easy to get in1955.

61. OBSTACLE COMPOUNDED:

The only power that can generate that power is a lightning bolt you can’t predict a lightning strike. Marty’s stuck in the past.

62. PAYOFF EXPOSITION:

Marty remembers the flier about the lightning strike at the Hill Valley clock tower in one week. 

63. ACTION PLAN:

Doc begins to plan to harness the power of the bolt and send Marty home.

64. WARNING:

Doc warns Marty about interfering with things that may change the future and jeopardize his existence. Marty mentions interfering with first meeting between his father and mother. 

65. DISCOVERY: 

Doc looks at the photo of Marty and his siblings. Marty’s brother is fading from the photo as a result of Marty's interfering with his future parents.

66. ACTION & INFORMATION:

Doc takes Marty to the high school. They spot George being picked on. 

67. PERSUASIVE ACTION:

Marty tries to get George to talk to Lorraine but Lorraine has eyes for Marty. 

68. STAKES:

Doc worries that Marty has changed the past irreparably, George doesn’t have the guts to ask Lorraine out. 

69. ACTION- LIE:

Marty lies telling George that Lorraine wants him to ask her to the dance. 

70. SETUP:

Marty asks George what he's writing. Sci-fi stories. 

71. CHARACTER REVEAL:

Marty asks to read one and George refuses, fearing rejection.

72. RELATIONSHIP MISUNDERSTANDING:

George sees Lorraine with Biff and thinks that Lorraine wants to go to the dance with Biff.

73. ACTION:

Biff is across the cafeteria and harassing Lorraine. 

74. MARTY’S WRONG ACTION:

Marty stands up for Lorraine pulling Biff off her. 

75. CONSEQUENCE ACTION:

Biff begins pushing Marty and he pushing back.

76. INTERRUPTED ACTION:

Strickland breaks up the fight.

77. ACTION

Marty follows George begging George to ask Lorraine to the dance.

78. OBSTACLE & SETUP:

George continues to refuse and no one will make him change his mind.

79. PAYOFF ACTION:

That night, Marty wears his radiation suit and sneaks into George’s room. He tells George he's from another planet and orders him to ask Lorraine out, threatening to melt his brain if he doesn’t. George believes him.

80. ACTION:

Marty takes George to the malt shop where Lorraine is and gives George love advice to use on Lorraine which seem to work.

81. OBSTACLE:

George's efforts are foiled with Biff shows up. 

82. MARTY’S WRONG ACTION:

Marty defends George and fools Biff. Marty grabs a scooter from a girl and escapes turning it into a skateboard. 

83. CONSEQUENCE:

Biff and his gang follow Marty in Biff's car. 

84. ACTION:

Marty tricks Biff into crashing into a manure truck.

85. CONSEQUENCE:

Lorraine becomes even more attracted to Marty.

86. ACTION PLAN DEMONSTRATES EXPOSITION:

Doc shows Marty his plan, using a model car and scale model town, to use the lighting bolt to power the DeLorean. When the lighting strikes, the energy will travel a cable from the clock tower, cross the street to a hook attached to the car providing the 1.2 gigawatts necessary for time travel. It works great.

87. CONSEQUENCE DEMONSTRATES STAKES:

Except that it starts a fire.

88. OBSTACLE:

Lorraine interrupts them and she asks him out to the dance. 

89. SILVER LINING OF OBSTACLE:

Marty see a way to get George and Lorraine together and accepts her offer.

90. ACTION PLAN INFORMATION:

Marty tells George his plan. George will find Marty taking advantage of her in her car. George will pull Marty out of the car, pretend to beat him up saving her.

NARRATIVE QUESTIONS REMAINING:

Will Marty's plan succeed in getting George to kiss Lorraine at the dance or will Lorraine stay hooked on Marty until he fades from existence?

Will Doc's plans clock tower lightning plan work to power the DeLorean back to the future or will Marty go up in flames?

We want to keep watching to learn the answers. It's great how the filmmakers gave you vivid pictures of the hopes and the fears of these narrative questions.

These narrative questions are different from the ones that ended ACT ONE. There we wanted to know will Marty escape the terrorists?

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Stay tuned for the story beats and their functions from Act 3.

Dragonweaving Back to the Future part 4 storyteller's log

Sorry for the delay's with Back to the Future. I ran out of Plutonium and got stuck. Anyway, I'm still analyzing the beats of acts 2 and 3.  In the meantime,  I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what and how we're going to be mapping Back to the Future. I'm calling it Dragonweaving.

As we saw earlier, the dragon gestalt is composed of 4 progressions and three turns or changes of direction. These correspond to the three acts, with the second act being twice as long. (Remember, a gestalt is an emergent property that's greater than the sum of the parts.)

We're mapping both the ups and downs of the character along with the hopes and fears of the audience over time.

Here are the four progressions of Back to the Future:

Progression 1:
Marty has been hanging out with the dangerous Doc. We know he's dangerous because Principle Strickland tells us so. But we see just how dangerous he is right in the opening scene- he's stolen plutonium.

Turn 1:
Doc's actions cause consequences. The terrorists don't like being tricked so they kill him. Marty narrowly escapes in the time machine back to his past in 1955.

Progression 2:
In the past Marty disrupts the flow of the space time continuum changing the future. He saves his father causing his mother to fall in love with him. And he beats the bully Bif.

Turn 2:
Marty tracks down Doc and learns he's stuck in the past because you can't buy plutonium at the local 5 and 10. (For those who don't know a 5 and 10 store referred to stores where you could buy things for 5 and 10 cents. I guess it's equivalent to our current dollar stores. But even they don't sell plutonium) The consequence of this is that his brother and sister are starting to disappear from existence, this is shown by the visual icon of them fading from Marty's family photo.

Progression 3:
As Marty is beginning to lose everything, in the manner of Alice who worried she's going out like a candle flame. Doc makes a plan, which is BRILLIANTLY demonstrated by the use of a scale model. It shows us exactly what's at stake. The model car drives through the town and connects with the lightning bolt at a scale speed of exactly 88 miles per hour. (Ever wonder why 88 miles per hour?) What's brilliant about this scene is, not only to we see what the plan is with no dialogue needed, but we get to see what could happen if things go wrong- the car bursts into flames. A second plan is made where Marty will get his father to take his mother to the dance and have their first kiss.

Turn 3:
Marty gets his parent to kiss.

Progression 4:
Marty prepares the time machine while Doc has to deal with obstacles of getting the wiring back to the clock tower. The plan works and Marty is sent back to the future. The doc is saved and his family has changed for the better.

Here is it mapped on the dragon. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Let's try one example of one thread of the dragonweave of Back to the Future:

Early in the film, Marty and his girlfriend Jennifer are about to kiss.

OBSTACLE & SETUP: The clock tower lady interrupts their kiss wanting a donation to save the clock tower.

ACTION: Jennifer needs to give him a phone number where he can reach her so she writes it on the flier and he puts it in his pocket. 

Now this information has been setup for later use. It also served as a story delay for their romance.

Later, in the past, Marty wants to go back to the future. (That was a very weird sentence- later, in the past...) 

OBSTACLE: They don't have enough power for the time machine to work. They would need a lightning bolt which you can't predict.

PAYOFF!: Marty remembers he can predict a lightning bolt strike- exactly where and when.

ACTION: Doc makes a plan to power the time machine with lightning.

OBSTACLE & STAKE: The model car goes up in flames.

Now we cut away to the dance action. Once Marty is successful in getting his parents to kiss he goes to meet the Doc.

Doc has the time machine all set and the clock tower wired. 

OBSTACLE 1. The wiring to the clock tower comes out.

OBSTACLE 2. The DeLoean time machine won't start.

The clock tower is a great prop to use because it also literally functions as the "ticking clock" countdown. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

You'll notice I've color coded some of the parts. The red boxes indicate obstacles and they are connected with an incoming red arrow. This means that things are going back for the character and the audience will start to grow tense and fear for the characters. The green arrows indicate a rise up towards good things and the audience's hope. The yellow dotted arrow shows where the setup has been paid off. 

As you can see dragonweaving becomes a very eleglant way to map the progress of not only your story and plot but also how it's affecting your audience.

This is the first time I'm doing a dragonweave so according to my theory I'll probably do some things wrong and then suffer the consequences and... 

One thing I already discovered is that this one thread contains 11 threads. I've got over 80 storybeats to map. I'm going to need a really big dragon.

See you next time and extra credit for anyone who can figure out why 88 miles per hour. 

Back to the Future Part 3 Act 1 Storyteller's log

In the last blog post on Back to the Future, after my CTN road trip detour, I described how I would first find the beats, then identify them as to their function. This is necessary in preparation for mapping the complete story weave of the story. Here are the beats for ACT 1 of Back to the Future and how they function in the story. I created this list of functions as I needed them to understand their role in the story and how they drive it along.

1. INTRODUCE WORLD OF PROBLEM AND DOC (Indirectly) 

Long camera pan reveals wealth of clues about Doc and themes of the movie.

In his garage laboratory we see a large collection of clocks, photos of scientists, inventions and indications that he hasn’t been there in a while. 

Robotic can opener opens dog food and empties into bowl marked Einstein.

TRIVIA HOMAGE: Look for Harold Lloyld hanging from the clock. 

2. INTRODUCE PROBLEM: Stolen Plutonium 

A news woman announces the theft of plutonium.

3. INTRODUCE UNKNOWN KID and Einstein

Marty McFly calls out, He places a set of keys under doormat, then drops it down. Marty enters the garage, calling out for Doc and whistling for Einstein. 

He comments on the mess the place is in.

4. PAYOFF INFO: Stolen Plutonium, NARRATIVE QUESTION: Why?

Marty puts down his skateboard, it rolls on floor to hit a box of Plutonium.

5. ACTION (MISDIRECT: Think turning on time machine) 

He turns dials on machinery, turning all the settings to maximum. 

5. ACTION

Marty plugs his electric guitar into a huge amplifier and plucks a string. 

6. COMEDY REACTION

The amplifier blows up, the impact throwing Marty back. 

7. INTRODUCE MARTY

Marty lifts up his sunglasses and we finally get to see his whole face.

8. INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACTION

 Marty answers Doc on phone who says to meet him at Mall at 1:15 a.m.. 

9. SETUP TIME 

The clocks all start chiming, Doc’s elated, his experiment worked, his clocks are slow.

10. DISCOVERY (MISDIRECT) Marty is shocked at the news. We think he’s excited about TIME TRAVEL but instead, it means he's late for school. Marty skateboards to school.

11. INTRODUCE: His girlfriend Jennifer warns the principal is gunning for him. 

12. INTRODUCE: Principle Strickland warns Marty to stay away from Doc, he’s dangerous. (ESTABLISH DOC’S PERSONALITY)

13. FORESHADOW: Strickland tells Marty he’s a slacker, just like his father. 

"No McFly ever amounted to anything in the history of Hill Valley”.

Marty replies, “Yeah well, history is gonna change."

14. SETUP SKILL: Marty and his band get up on stage to audition for school. 

A judge (Huey Lewis, in a cameo) cuts them off. They’re  too loud.

15. RELATIONSHIP POSITIVE: After school, Marty and Jennifer are walking through the Courthouse Square. Marty tells Jennifer his band got kicked off stage. He doubts he'll ever succeed in music. Jennifer tries to reassure him, she believes in him and gives him a pep talk.

16. RELATIONSHIP NEGATIVE: 

Marty expresses his fear of rejection if he sends in his music. 

17. SEGWAY: 

Marty admires a new Toyota. It would be great for their camping trip.

18. FORESHADOW RELATIONSHIP: Jennifer asks if Marty's mother knows about their plans for the next night. Marty tells her he lied, his mother thinks he's going camping with the guys. Marty says how his mother was probably born a nun. Jennifer defends her.

19. RELATIONSHIP PROGRESS: 

Just as they’re about to kiss, a tin can is shoved in their faces.

20. RELATIONSHIP INTERRUPTION TO PLANT INFORMATION

"Save the clock tower!" a woman exclaims. The clock tower was hit by lightning thirty years ago and hasn't run since. They want to preserve it.

Marty gives her a quarter to go away. She thanks him and hands him a flier.

21. RELATIONSHIP & DRAW ATTENTION TO FLYER TRANSFER TO MARTY: They’re about to kiss again, but a car pulls up honking. 

Jennifer's has to leave and scribbles her number on the back of the clock tower flyer with "Love You!!!". She gets into the car. Marty looks at the flyer and smiles.

22. TRANSPORTING:

Marty skateboards hitching on the bumper of a cop car to his house.

23. SETUP RELATIONSHIPS:

Marty sees his father’s wrecked car. Biff his dad’s supervisor, is blaming his dad, George for Biff’s accident. Then he berates him for not typing up his work for him. Biff ridicules Marty as well as he leaves. Also sets up that he knows his mom, Lorraine.

24. MORE SETUP RELATIONSHIPS:

Marty’s brother leaves dinner to work at a burger joint. His sister tells him that Jennifer called twice.

25. MORE IRONIC FORESHADOWING:

Her mom, Lorraine lectures that any girl who calls a boy is inviting trouble.

Lorraine says she was never like that.

26. SETUP EXPOSITION:

Linda asks how she's supposed to meet anyone by waiting. 

27. PAYOFF EXPOSITION:

Lorraine tells Linda it will happen like when she met her father, George. Lorraine explains her father hit George with his car after he fell out of a tree.

She asked him to the school dance and when they kissed she knew.

28. ACTION:

Doc tells Marty to get the video camera. A DeLorean rolls out of the van.

Doc emerges from the DeLorean and tells Marty to start recording.

29. ACTION: VIDEOED

Doc puts Einstein in the DeLorean, with a watch, Doc's clock is synched to the exact same time. 

Doc pulls out a remote control and sends the DeLorean streaking right towards him and Marty. A bright light flashes and the DeLorean disappears. 

Doc cheers, "88 miles per hour”!

30. IRONIC MISDIRECT:

Marty’s shocked thinking Doc disintegrated Einstein.

31. EXPOSITION:

Doc tells Marty he sent Einstein into the future.

32. ACTION:

The DeLorean returnes. Einstein is alive and well, but his watch now one minute late. 

33. EXPOSITION & SETUP: TIME TRAVEL EXPLAINED 

Doc shows the "flux capacitor", inserted in the DeLorean, which makes time travel possible. 

Doc explains in 1955 hitting his head caused a vision of the Flux Capacitor. 

It took 40 years to develop it. The time machine is a success and Doc plans to travel through time. 

34. ACTION:

Doc absently sets the vehicle's destination time to 1955.

35. EXPOSITON:

When Marty asks what the DeLorean runs on, Doc tells him it needs plutonium to generate a nuclear reaction to create 1.21 gigawatts of power . 

Marty asks where he got plutonium. Doc hired terrorists to steal it with the promise of making them a bomb. But instead, Doc delivered a fake bomb.

36. ACTION:

Doc and Marty in radiation suits, load plutonium into the DeLorean. 

Marty shoots video. 

37: OBSTACLE CONSEQUENCE ACTION:

A van drives into the parking lot and begins shooting at them. 

Doc yells, “run”, it’s the terrorists that Doc cheated. The terrorists kill the Doc.

38. ACTION:

Marty tries to hide but the terrorist tries to shoot him. Marty prepares for his end.

39. SURPRISE TWIST:

The terrorist’s rifle jams. 

40. MAIN CHARACTER ACTION:

Marty tries to escape in the DeLorean. The time machine begins to activate. And when it reaches 88 mph there’s a flash of blinding light.

This is the end of ACT 1. It also marks our first crossing of the x axis 0 point. It is at this point that Marty has taken significant action towards propelling the story by escaping in the time machine, not realizing that it will take him back in time.

When I look at this list, I'm already overwhelmed. I can't keep it all in my memory. There has to be a better way to see the big picture. 

To start, lets' look at the hierarchy of narrative questions raised in ACT 1. We'll focus on the main driving questions of the story and ignore ones that are for comedic purposes, such as the giant guitar amp. Some of these questions are asked directly in the story, while others are implied. Sometimes even the title can ask an implied question. In Back to the Future we want to know who's going to time travel and when will they go to and what will happen?

The reason why these are important is that you are making a pact with your audience that you will answer these questions for them by the end of the story. If you don't, you risk alienating your audience. 

First, we want to know who the Doc is, and who the kid is. By delaying the introduction of the Doc, he becomes more mysterious. We also focus on Marty who will be our main character that we identify with. We also want to know who will travel to where with the time machine. This expectation is played with by the suggestion that all of the guitar amp dials could also be read as dials on a time machine. As writers we should know that we, the audience, couldn't have had enough information to go time traveling in the first few pages. 

Marty is late for school and is warned about the principle. Can he escape him? He can't. He's warned he'll become like the rest of his family. Will he? The next question asked is will Marty's and Jennifer's relationship develop? Then the woman interrupts their attempted kiss with a request to save the clock tower. Will they save the clock tower? 

Marty returns home where we're given a lot of exposition that will guide us later in the story. Marty then videos Doc as he demonstrates the time machine. There's a quick visual question asked, what will the time machine look like? The second quick narrative question is did Einstein get disintegrated? We get the answer almost immediately as he returns demonstrating that the DeLorean time machine works. Then the terrorists come, and we ask will they get away. The answer is no- the Doc is shot. Will Marty get shot too? The gun jams, and Marty gets away then there's the flash of light. Where's he go?

When I say it's a hierarchy of narrative questions, I mean that there are big overreaching questions and then smaller questions that get answered along the way of the bigger questions. I've found a way to map these is to imagine them as a computer programming language where everything must be contained within hierarchical matching brackets.

Let's give it a shot.

{Who's going to time travel? 

{When? 

{What will happen? 

     {Who is Doc?

         {Who is Marty? 

           We learn Marty is a school kid who's friends with the Doc.}

                 {Will Marty evade the principle? 

                          {Is Marty a "slacker"?

                                 {Will Marty and Jennifer's relationship develop?

                   No. Instead it's an excuse to be given more exposition.}

                        {Will they save the clock tower? But does it matter?...

      We meet Doc the eccentric inventor.}

       {Will the time machine work? 

        After Marty thinks Einstein is disintegrated, the answer is yes.}

                {Will the terrorists kill Doc?

                  Yes, doc gets shot.}

                        {Will Marty get shot?

                          No. The gun jams. Marty gets away.}

                                {Will the DeLorean time travel?

Yes, and it takes Marty and we know that Doc set it to 1955.}

If you follow the narrative questions and their answers, we see that there is one important driving question left and two smaller ones. What will happen to Marty in the past? Will he become a "slacker"? And what will happen with their relationship? Also how does his family fit into this?

There's one more question, will the clock tower be saved but do we care? The first question, what happens to Marty, keeps the audience sticking around to see what's going to happen. The second question we don't really have enough information to care about.

To be continued...

                  

                 

      

Back to the Future story weave part 2

In order to weave the story of  Back to the Future, I identified all the key beats of the story. The next step is to label each beat for it's story line and how it functions in the story. Then we can color key each story thread to make it easier to follow.

It also might be cool to create icons for each function. This could be another important mapping tool to show you when you might need a song or have too much action and need to give the audience a break or maybe you're missing a symbolic death.

In looking at the beats of the story these are the functions that I identified:
Narrative questions. These are usually answered during the story with actions.
1. Problems
Introductions
Setup information
Suggest a direction
Twists
Warnings or messages
Foreshadowing
Character emotions
Conflicts
Setup Ironic contrast
Action
Trigger Action (TURNING POINT)
Explanation
Surprises
Set scene
Comedy
Discovery
2. Wrong action
3. Consequences
Obstacles, function as story-delays
Setup payoffs
Ticking clocks
Plans
Goal (TURNING POINT)
False goal
Choices
4. Right actions The audience often cheers when this happens.
Symbolic death (TURNING POINT
Reorganization
Music
Love

Here's our chart once again. We have 4 progressions and 3 changes of direction.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE) 

A narrative question is a question that is implicitly raised by the actions of a story that leave the audience wanting to know the outcome. This is the key way we engage in stories. 

A narrative question and it's answer are the smallest unit of a story. Here is the formula:

? > .

I'll have more on this later when I get to the algebra of storytelling. Don't worry there's no math involved. (I wonder if you noticed the narrative tease.)

Here are the main narrative questions of Back to the Future:
Will Marty get away from the terrorists?
Will Marty get back to the future?
Can Marty get his parents together?
Can Marty get Doc the information to save his life?

There's also lots of smaller narrative questions.
Will Marty see the Plutonium?
Will Doc fall off the clock tower?
Was Einstein, the dog, disintegrated?
Can Doc get the plug back in in time?
Can Marty start the Delorean?
Bif introduces a whole lot of narrative questions as the main obstacle for the progress of the story.
For example, can How can Marty escape Bif in his car, while he's on an improvised skateboard?

Here are the main storylines:
The terrorists and theft of Plutonium.
Marty and Jennifer.
Marty goes back to 1955 and must return.
Marty interferes with his parents romance and must restore it, before he returns.
Bif is an obstacle for Marty and George's plans.
Doc creates the time machine and has to help Marty go back to the future.

I identified over 80 significant beats that tell the story of Back to the Future. In the next post, I'll write up the list of beats with their function identified. When I look at the list as text it appears that they all look the same. I think what I creating could be called "spatial writing", you can see the function of each part and where it fits in relation to the others as well as how the audience is responding to it. As Marty would say, "This is heavy".

And stay tuned for some Back to the Future trivia...

Back to the Future- Complete story weave part1

I'd now like to show you several analyses of movies to show how the dragon theory applies. From there, we can see how there are interesting structural variations to fit different types of movies. And it also gives us a new taxonomy of movies in addition to genres. A taxonomy is a type of science concerned with classification. This was an unexpected insight after looking at many films through the dragon lens.

Today we're going to start with, one of my favorite films, Back to the Future. I already analyzed this film, in terms of how it was edited, for my book, Directing the Story. Here I want to attempt a full analysis of the story weave of the the film's dragon. This is the first time I've tried analyzing a complete story-weave. Previously, I've only looked at the broad strokes of films, for example the School of Rock example.

Back to the Future

Why do a complete story weave? I hope to show that by analyzing the complete story-weave it will reveal how the film is literally woven together. In this way, you can, by virtue of the visual dragon structure see how all the pieces literally fit together to make a tapestry. If this works the implications are very powerful as an analysis tool to help you make sure you film is completely woven together in a way that can satisfy your audience.

But first a digression. All story theory's are by nature an abstraction of the essence of a story. I believe that the trick is to find the right degree of abstraction that fulfills two criteria. First, it must be abstract enough to allow for it to encompass many types of films. In other words, there must be some degree of open ended-ness. Secondly, it must be specific enough to guide you through the maze of screenwriting or novel writing. In my experience most film theories err on the side of being too abstract. In other words, they leave me lost in the maze. It is my hope that the dragon approach will allow you to follow the path of the dragon through the maze without being lost. When you see the tapestry, it's like a revelation.

Now many writers have written stories that fit the dragon gestalt without knowing anything about the dragon. They've used their own methods or compilations of other theories. However, I think that any theory that says it fits "every story ever told", as does the hero's journey, must by nature be too abstract to be useful or just not true. As Kurt Vonnegut showed in his mapping the ups and downs of the character's fortune. Kafka's story the Metamorphosis does not follow the hero's journey. However, Kafka shows a way to map it, nonetheless. So, according to Vonnegut, it appears Campbell was wrong.

What I propose with the dragon approach is that the dragon is an emergent shape that emerged when I analyzed movies based upon mapping the audience's hopes and fears in a way that provides an emotionally satisfying experience and a learning experience. This just also happens to be the shape of many successful stories and movies. I don't care if it fits "every story ever told". Those aren't stories I wish to tell. I believe and hope to show that the dragon gestalt has just the right degree of abstraction to be useful as a guide, and yet still opened ended enough to allow for a wide range of stories to be told that all feel unique.

So let's go back to the future. What do I mean by story-weave? I literally mean how the story is woven together. We're going to track the theme and sub-themes, actions, discoveries, setups, payoffs, conflicts, dramatic ironies, expectancies, twists, surprises, hierarchy of narrative questions, lessons, problems, wrong solutions, consequences, right solutions, choices, plans, ticking clocks (Yes, multiple clocks), symbolic deaths, rebirths and opposites traveled to reach new worlds never imagined. And we're going to do it visually.

We'll start with the basic four components.
1. Introduce a world of problems.
2. Attempt wrong solutions.
3. Suffer the consequences.
4. Do the right thing.

Here is the 4 part chart again for reference. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

One reviewer of Iggy's Incredibly Easy Way to Write a Story described this very eloquently in his review.

"Glebas' method reminds me of a fine gesture drawing. Like a gesture it articulates the feeling, structure and story of the pose in a quick, clear way without the artifice of a bunch of extra squiggly lines. In fact, the "Visual" portion of the book that depicts the structure is conveyed literally like a gesture drawing."

I wish to express my appreciation for everyone who has written reviews of my books. Thank you.

WARNING SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN BACK TO THE FUTURE, STOP READING AND GO WATCH IT NOW! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. 

Back to the Future

1. The problem is introduced in the opening Rube Goldberg-type montage opening of the film. A TV radio announcer reports news of the theft of Plutonium. We meet Marty, Doc's friend. We also learn that Doc has created a time machine.

2. Already actions have consequences, Doc's theft of Plutonium in exchange for giving a bomb to terrorists has backfired when they realize he gave them a fake bomb. This triggers the story into motion. During the demonstration of the time machine, Delorean car, the terrorists return attempting to kill Doc. Doc is shot and Marty escapes in the Delorean and into the past! He "crosses the threshold" to the past. (Who was guarding the threshold?)

Marty now does things the wrong way. He immediately gets involved with his future mother and in-laws potentially changing the course of history.

3. Marty must now suffer the consequences. He's already facing symbolic death as his siblings start disappearing from existence. This is signified in a beautifully visual way by them literally dissolving out of the photo of Marty and his siblings. He's next if he doesn't make things right.

4. Marty must now make everything right. He has to get his future father on track with his future mother so they'll kiss and history will be righted, and he must face further obstacles to warn Doc and return to the future.

Back to the Future fits the dragon shape. But it's interesting, first, because the problem of the story is also because of a character taking a wrong path. The Doc steals Plutonium. This has dangerous consequences. It also sets the story in motion once all the introductions are made. Secondly, Marty's taking the wrong path seems to happen accidentally. He just happens to be there with the Doc when the terrorists come. He just happens to try to escape by driving away in a Delorean, which also happens to be a time machine. He just happens to time travel to 1955. It's not until Marty follows his future father, George, and tries to save his life does he do the wrong thing and change the fabric of time. It is now Marty rather than George who gets hit by the father of  Marty's future mother, Lorraine. She now falls for him instead of George. But we all know what Freud say about accidents.

Another thing I don't care for in certain film theories is when they say something must happen on page x. Once again, if the theory is abstract enough, then yes, something exciting can happen on page x. Once these four parts are mapped unto the dragon we can see that the dragon guide has some flexibility in it's elastic use of time. When I demonstrate the dragon for 127 hours you'll see something very interesting about the elasticity of time. Here is the chart again showing the elasticity of time and the parts.

P.S. While researching the map, I came across some interesting charts mapping the time jumping from Back to the Futures 1, 2, and 3.

To see original page: Back to the Future charts.

Next time we'll start weaving. Till then, tell each other good stories...

Storytelling Mad Libs style

CONGRATS TO THE CONTEST WINNERS! Thank you to all who participated. The signed books are going out this weekend.

It was really great hearing from my readers. One told me he had just graduated and was going through a hard time looking for work. He told me reading my blog kept him excited about his passion for storytelling. This made my day.

I realized that he was in the chaos phase. You go to school, study hard and then you graduate. You're on top of the world. But then the structure, that school provided for your entire life, is gone. No job yet and the goal proves to be empty. I painted houses the year I graduated.

It feels like symbolic death. Remember, this key point, it's a symbolic death. You're not dying and new opportunities will emerge in your life that you could have never dreamed of. But you can't sit around waiting for them. Continue to hone your craft. Continue to look for work and take any work that will help you towards your goal. (Even if it doesn't see related at the time.) In the future, I may post some blogs about the job seeking process. 

I'm writing this blog to talk about a number of things, but also to write my book on my Dragon theory of story. I still don't have a great name for it yet. Maybe another contest could be in the works. 

So far I've presented the writing theories that don't work for me. I think Aristotle led everyone astray by mapping the audience's involvement during the time of the story. That would be great if he told you how to get them that involved, but unfortunately he did not. However, everyone still follows this old greek pied piper.

After that I wrote and drew my new approach of mapping the ups and downs of the character and the hopes and fears of the audience. This is where I differed from Kurt Vonnegut who also mapped the ups and downs of the character's fortunes. This is an important distinction between the character and the audience, which we'll see when I show structural variations of the dragon. This culminated with the School of Rock example.

I'm now preparing a new thrust for this next chapter where I'll examine more examples so I can start showing structural variations. I have to watch and analyze some films for this.

In the meantime for your reading pleasure...

I thought it would be fun to combine a Mad Lib with the cliches of storytelling to make Mad lib to make a story the dragon way. (Mad Lib structure with no dragon chart.)

Mad Libs

In the 1950s, Roger Price and Leonard Stern created the Mad Libs book series which is still going strong today. They're played with two people. Basically, a mad lib is a short story. Words are cut out of the story. One then asks the other to fill in the blank word with a word with the same part of speech as the word in the original story. So if it was a noun, you ask for a noun. An adjective you replace with an adjective. Now the person answering has no idea of what the story it. The fun comes when you read  the new story with the random additions. They're lots of fun and I have great memories of using them on long car trips.

It's an example. It was a dark (adjective) and stormy night (noun).

The result might be- It was a green and stormy breakfast.

Story cliches are those expressions you're all familiar with such as, Once upon a time, meanwhile, or little did he know.

Let's mix the two up and see what we get. Try it out with a friend and if you write a blockbuster, let me know. NOTE: Letters and numbers refer to parts that repeat unchanged or modified during the story. For example the goal A1 is replaced later by A2.

The tale of the Dragon in Mad Libs style.

Once upon a time, in _________ (place) there lived ________ ( main character).

One day their world turned upside down when _________( problem X1).

They wanted to fix this and gain ___________(goal A1).

But they didn’t know how to fix it and they were scared, so they tried    _________(wrong approach Z).

Along the way they found a message in a bottle which read __________ (Lesson C). But they didn’t bother to read it.

But meanwhile, the evil ___________ (Bad guy K) planned an obstacle course for (main character).

Our character faced terrible ____________(Obstacles) along their journey.

But they persevered and won ____________( part of the goal A 1/2.) 

They were on top of the world. But slowly things turned as they realized ________ (Who did they hurt along the way?) 

Suddenly, their world started to fall apart because of them doing it the wrong way. They had to face ____________ (Consequence of their own actions Z).

They felt like they died. All was black and ___  _______ (adjective + new problem X2).

But then unbelievably ____________ ( message) the message in the bottle returned.

This time, because they took the journey, the journey had changed them by ________ (change). They were now ready for the lesson  ____________ ( Lesson C.) 

As if the sun rose filling them with light, this lesson changed everything and they could see _____________( new better goal) with perfect clarity. They now knew what they had to do.

They faced bigger more frightening ____________(More obstacles from K).

Finally they were faced with an impossible choice ___________(Double bind choice)

Sacrificing __________ ( Something about themself ), they chose correctly proving they learned ____________ (The Lesson C.)

There was no stopping them now. They won ___________ ( new goal, revised A2) for everyone.

They made the world a better place by ______________(Accomplishment)

The End.

See you next ______ (noun).

A quick post on pacing: storyteller's log

A quick post today on the shape of the dragon related to pacing. As we commented earlier, Aristotle's mountain graph works well to help shape the pace of a movie. It doesn't help to discover what to put in your movie.

The dragon spine has ups and downs.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

The pace is suggested by the steepness of the slope. Act one starts out with fairly slow pace. This is because we're introducing the audience into the world of the story and the problem. They need time to get oriented and get familiar with the characters and decide who we like and don't.

Act two starts to have a steep slope so it moves quicker. But its also traveling more ground because the obstacles are big and push the story back and forth between hope and fear. 

At the top it levels off and slows down. They're on top of the world. Just when the character believes that, they suffer the consequences and come crashing down fairly quickly. They try some things to slow their descent but it's like a cartoon character seeing that they've walked off the edge of a cliff and now gravity kicks in. 

This image by Chuck Jones and Warner Brothers says it perfectly. The character must suffer the consequences of their actions. It's already too late by the time they recognize that they've walked off the cliff and have to face the law of gravity. (There is one exception, it doesn't happen to Bugs Bunny because he never studied "law".) I'm a big fan of the Warner Brothers Looney tunes. Is it Looney tunes or toons? At one job, I had to animate some Coyote actions for a demo. Chuck Jones saw it and commented he liked my animation. I was high for weeks after that.

The symbolic death also must move quickly during a story because externally it's boring. How long do you want to look at someone depressed. In real live this psychological event feels like it will last forever. The realization that you're not dying, but just your limited views of reality are inadequate, helps you become willing to change and grow and move into the next phase.

Finally, doing the right thing, and conquering evil, takes place fairly quickly because it's often where most of the action is in the movie so it feels fast and exciting. There are two moments of slowness: first is the calm before the storm, anticipating what's to come, and second, the final decision needs to be a moment that is suspended in time to allow the audience so soak in the full impact.

I do not believe that things in a screenplay need to happen on specific pages. These can be very useful guides and there are a few that seem invariant. Something significant has to happen at the beginning on page 1 and the story quest has to begin at about the first third, and the character's lowest moment should happen at then end of act two. Looking at it this way, as percentages rather than page numbers, also allows for variations in script length from 80 for animation to 120 pages for live action. I've been using the dragon to write 32 page children's books. I can't wait to page thirty to start the journey.

I just realized the pun in the first sentence. Just a "quick" post on analysis of pacing. More to come... (Story analysis not puns.)

Exploring the story shape: dragons, dinosaurs, and Argo

So, stories have the shape of a dragon. Who would have thought? Maybe that's where dragons came from in the first place! Or am I just wishful thinking.

For this blog post I'd like to go over the shape in a little more detail. I've been amazed at how much insight this shape has yielded once I found it. Today we'll start by looking at the spikes.

The spikes are why it had to be a dragon. It could have been a Stegosaurus but I like the mystical and mythical quality of dragons better. And on closer inspection Stegosauruses have big sharp spikes on their tails. What does this mean in terms of story story structure? Let's look at the dragon first and well come back to the extinct stegosaurus.

Dragon spikes

If we look at the dragon's back we see a series of spikes. What are these? We're mapping the hopes and fears of the audience and our character. So the spikes represent the audience going from fear to hope and back again. A short story might have 3 of these spikes, during the doing it wrong section, which could represent scenes. A complex story might have many more. The whole dragon's spine is covered with them. Is this the infamous SPINE OF THE STORY???? Have you ever seen the spine of your story before?

The Stegosaurus has sharp spikes on it's tail- the start of the story. These spikes are sharper than the rest of the Stegosaurus's spikes. That would mean that Act 1 would have to have something really big and exciting to bring the audience up to hope and down to fear that quickly. The problem is that the story hasn't been set up for this yet, and secondly, this would make the rest of the story anticlimactic.

Where'd the hope go?

The overall shape of the Stegosaurus is wrong it starts to go up right away towards hope with obstacles along the way. But we haven't set up the problem yet. Then it gets worse as a story structure. It goes down at the right time but it never goes back up! The audience would be left hanging wishing for something better. We never give them more than they expected.

What about a Brontosaurus? What about that shape? The Brontosaurus shape takes us upward towards hope then a sight dip and then way up to hope! Great right? No. There are two problems with the Brontosaurus shape. There are not spikes so the story won't have ups and downs and twists and turns to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. Secondly, no one would sit through an Act 1 where nothing happens. The tail is flat.

Boring Act 1 won't take off.

The other problem with the Brontosaurus is that scientists now claim that Brontosaurus's are not a new species but rather a variant of the Apoatosaurus. Not only are Brontosaurs's extinct, but they never existed in the first place!

To learn more about the great Brontosaurus hoax...

One could argue that a James Bond movie has Stegosaurus-like spikes in Act 1. The spikes at this point are pure action without too much emotional involvement. The spikes would have to start at the end of the tail (beginning of the story) but the spikes on a real Stegosaurus start a little further along the spine. However, another way to look the Bond series is that they are all part of a continuum. One Bond movie carries over to the next. (We haven't gone into what happens in the backstory or after the story is over yet.)

QUESTION: Do we have to "willingly suspend our disbelief "that James Bond is played by different people in the different films. I've always thought that the theory of "willing suspension of disbelief" was bogus. I've never gone into a movie theatre, got my snacks, waited for the lights to go down and the movie to start and willingly suspended my disbelief. I have also never heard anyone in the audience yell out, "Stop the projector! I haven't willingly suspended my disbelief."

 Pierce Brosnan

    Daniel Craig

     Roger Moore

 Timothy Dalton

 George Lazenby

      David Niven 

      Barry Nelson

      Sean Connery

List of Actors playing James Bond with films, dates and salaries

Metaphors We Live By- Lakoff & Johnson

According to George Lakoff, in Metaphors We Life By, metaphors have entailments. Some fit and some don't. We need to be careful with the metaphors we choose in our lives to make sure they don't unconsciously undermine us. The dragon shape is a metaphor which has very powerful explanatory power as well as explaining the emotional involvement of the audience. The thing about metaphors is that some aspects fix and act like a flash of illumination, and other aspects may not fit and are ignored. The dragon shape has many aspects that fit story structure and illuminate aspects of storytelling. Other aspects of the metaphor don't fit.

Getting back to our dragon, I actually like to use two colors. One color shows the spine very clearly as it goes up and down over time. The second color is used to show the interaction with the plot events of the story- all the smaller obstacles along the way. This helps you not confuse your plot and your story.

2 color story weave

I'm reminded of the ending Argo. Without spoiling the ending, the escape in Argo had many close calls of fear dips and back to hope.  There was one point where they piled on one more obstacle and I said to myself, "Enough! That was one too many." The result was that it momentarily took me out of the film. If the directors do their job, the audience gets sucked into the world of the film, like a dream. They don't have to willingly suspend their disbelief. The director only needs to guard the dream by creating a seamless illusion, so the audience doesn't wake up until the end. For that one moment in Argo, I woke up but then quickly went back to the dream.

Argo

We still need to go over what happens if we change the shape. More to come...

School of Rock Graduation Surprise! Congrats!

A graduation speech? Arrrrghhh...

Hey, I directed Donald Duck in Fantasia 2000. Sometimes a little Pomp and Circumstance is appropriate.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE IMAGES)

Problem with school is that when we leave it we forget the things we've "learned". Why is this? Did we really learn it? What is learning?

I think of learning as not just acquiring knowledge, but learning what to do with it. It's a combination of How to and Why to. Theory and practice in the real world. Knowing the names of all the countries of the world is different than taking a trip through one of them.

But you also don't know what's going to prove important to you later in life, what kinds of problems you'll encounter. Well, now you have a road map for dealing with problems. Pay attention to the lessons offered. Face the consequences before they get overwhelming. And when your old methods of reality coping aren't working anymore, and you feel like your'e dying, trust the process. Allow yourself to grieve and let go of your old ways and you'll see rebirth in ways unimagined. I know this from experience.

In writing my new approach to story structure, I took ideas from every screenwriting book I've read, but also books about playwriting, novels, mysteries, drama. But in addition I added narrative theory, structuralism, semiotics, gestalt, Neurolinguistic programming, Eriksonian Hypnosis, Freudian, Jungian and Lacanian psychoanalysis, mathematics, rhetoric, fables, magic and tricks learned from my mentor- Scheherazade.

I hope I have demonstrated how easy it can be to write a story. The plot is where it gets complicated. But now there's a guide to help you along the way. We'll talk more about plot later. So how can I make it that you won't forget what you've learned?

It's time for you diplomas and surprise. Cue the music. Daaaaa da da da daaa da...

Do you remember this image of Iggy leaving Bunny behind at the Igloo. Look at it again. What do you see?

Image from:

Iggy's Incredibly Easy Way to Write a Story

Do  you see the dragon, perhaps? Did you see it the first time you saw the image? Or did the story of Iggy distract you from seeing? That's the good old misdirection technique in action.

Graduation surprise: The secret revealed Dewey traveled the secret path of the dragon!

Here is your diploma- a Ride the Dragon template, the golden roadmap to the heart of your story.
Feel free to print it out and use it well. Please retain the copyright information: ©Glebas2013

(I just looked and found the image was small on the blog page. If anyone knows a way to make it a downloadable file, please post a comment. Thank You.)

If you like working on index cards just lay it out the dragon way.

We'll look at my story theory criteria and see if it fits. I know that now you've gone through the journey with me starting back last November 2012, you'll never forget the image that sums it all up. Each part tells you what has to come after and before in a totally organic process. Give your audience a Ride on the Dragon they'll never forget.

In School of Rock, they sing, "The movie's almost over. But we're still on screen". Well, we're not almost over, we're just getting started...

Image from:

The Animator's Eye by Francis Glebas