by The Anatomy of Story- 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller (mobi)
You never want to create characters that sound like a mouthpiece for your ideas. Good writers express their moral vision slowly and subtly, primarily through the story structure and the way the hero deals with a particular situation. Your moral vision is communicated by how your hero pursues his goal while competing with one or more opponents and by what your hero learns, or fails to learn, over the course of his struggle.
In effect, you, as the author, are making a moral argument through what your characters do in the plot. How does this sort of moral argument, the argument of action, work in storytelling?
The first step in making an argument of action is to condense your theme to a single line. The theme line is your view about right and wrong actions and what those actions do to a person's life. A theme line is not a highly nuanced expression of your moral vision. And written as only one line, it can seem heavy-handed. But it is still valuable because it forces you to focus all the moral elements of the story into a single moral idea.
The complex argument of action that you will eventually weave through the story begins, as always, with the seed, which is the designing principle. Just as the designing principle is the key to your premise line, so is it the key to your theme line.
The designing principle is what makes all the actions of the story organic. The trick to using the designing principle to figure out your theme line is to focus on the actions in the story strictly for their moral effects. In other words, how do the characters' actions hurt other people, and how, if at all, do the characters make things right?
The same techniques of designing principle that help you deepen your premise will open up your theme as well. Here are just a few.
Traveling
The traveling metaphor, or journey, is a perfect foundation for a moral line because you can embed an entire moral sequence into the line. Huck's trip down the Mississippi is also a trip into greater slavery. Marlow's trip up the river into the jungle is also a trip deeper into moral confusion and darkness. The journey from Manhattan Island to Skull Island in King Kong suggests the move from moral civilization to the most immoral state of nature. But the return to Manhattan shows the real theme line, that both islands are governed by the most cutthroat competition, with the island of humans being the more brutal.
Single Grand Symbol
A single grand symbol can also suggest a theme line or central moral element. A classic example of the single moral symbol is presented in The Scarlet Letter. The letter A that Hester Prynne must wear stands of course for her immoral act of adultery from which the story begins. But it also stands for the deeper immorality to which the story leads, that of the townspeople who hide their own sins and who attack true love with their laws of public conformity.
In Tor Whom the Bell Tolls, the single image of the tolling bell signifies death. But the phrase "for whom the bell tolls" refers to another line that is the real key to the designing principle of the story and the theme that comes out of it. That line, from John Donne's Devotions upon Emergent Oc-casions, is "No man is an island, entire of itself. ... Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind. And therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." The symbol of man, not as an island but as an individual in a community, organizes this story under one image, and it implies the probable theme line: in the face of death, the only thing that gives life meaning is sacrificing for the individuals you love.
Connecting Two Grand Symbols in a One-Line Process
Connecting two symbols gives you the same benefit as the journey: the symbols represent two poles in a moral sequence. When this technique is used, it usually signals a declining morality. But it could be rising. Heart of Darkness uses the technique of the two symbols but also adds the traveling metaphor to express its theme line. Implied in the two-symbol title are the dark heart and the center of the moral darkness, both of which suggest an investigation into what constitutes human depravity.
Other designing principles—units of time, use of a storyteller, a special way the story unfolds—can also help you clarify your theme line. Let's re-turn to the designing principles of the stories we discussed in Chapter 2 to see the possible theme lines they produce.
Moses, in the Book of Exodus ■ Designing Principle A man who does not know who he is struggles to lead his people to freedom and receives the new moral laws that will define him and his people.
■ Theme Line A man who takes responsibility for his people is rewarded by a vision of how to live by the word of God.
Ulysses
■ Designing Principle In a modern odyssey through the city, over the course of a single day, one man finds a father and the other man finds a son.
■ Theme Line The true hero is the man who endures the slings
and arrows of everyday life and shows compassion to another person in need.
Four Weddings and a Funeral
■ Designing Principle A group of friends experiences four Utopias (weddings) and a moment in hell (funeral) as they all look for their right partner in marriage.
■ Theme Line When you find your one true love, you must commit to that person with your whole heart.
Harry Potter Books ■ Designing Principle A magician prince learns to be a man and a king by attending a boarding school for sorcerers over the course of seven school years.
■ Theme Line When you are blessed with great talent and power, you must become a leader and sacrifice for the good of others.
The Sting
■ Designing Principle Tell the story of a sting in the form of a sting, and con both the opponent and the audience.
■ Theme Line A little lying and cheating are OK if you bring down an evil man.
Long Day's Journey into Night
■ Designing Principle As a family moves from day into night, its members are confronted with the sins and ghosts of their past.
■ Theme Line You must face the truth about yourself and others and forgive.
Meet Me in St. Louis
■ Designing Principle The growth of a family over the course of a year is shown by events in each of the four seasons.
■ Theme Line Sacrificing for the family is more important than striving for personal glory.
Copenhagen
■ Designing Principle Use the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to explore the ambiguous morality of the man who discovered it.
■ Theme Line Understanding why we act, and whether it is right, is always uncertain.
A Christmas Carol
■ Designing Principle Trace the rebirth of a man by forcing him to view his past, his present, and his future over the course of one Christmas Eve.
■ Theme Line A person lives a much happier life when he gives to others.
It's a Wonderful Life ■ Designing Principle Express the power of the individual by showing what a town, and a nation, would be like if one man had never lived. ■ Theme Line A man's riches come not from the money he makes but from the friends and family he serves.
Citizen Kane
■ Designing Principle Use a number of storytellers to show that a man's life can never be known.
■ Theme Line A man who tries to force everyone to love him ends up alone.
SPLITTING THE THEME INTO OPPOSITIONS
The theme line is your moral argument focused into one sentence. Now you must express the theme line dramatically. That requires that you split it into a set of oppositions. You then attach these thematic oppositions to the hero and his opponents as they fight.
There are three main techniques you can use to break your theme line into dramatic oppositions: giving the hero a moral decision, making each character a variation on the theme, and placing the characters' values in conflict.
The Hero's Moral Decision
In the hero's moral development, the endpoints are your hero's moral need at the beginning of the story and his moral self-revelation, followed by his moral decision, at the end. This line is the moral frame of the story, and
it tracks the fundamental moral lesson you want to express.
The classic strategy for dramatizing the hero's moral line is to give him a moral flaw at the beginning and then show how his desperation to beat the opponent brings out the worst in him. In short, he has to get worse before he gets better. Slowly but surely, he becomes aware that his central moral problem comes down to a choice between two ways of acting.
No matter how complex the actions of the characters over the course of the story, the final moral decision brings everything down to a choice between two. And it is final. So the moral decision is the narrow part of the funnel for your theme. The two options are the two most important moral actions your hero can take, so they provide you with the primary thematic opposition for the entire story.
This great decision usually comes just after the hero has his moral self-revelation, which shows him which choice to make. On rare occasion, the choice comes first, and the hero's self-revelation is a recognition that he made either the right or the wrong choice.
KEY POINT: Since the endpoint of the hero's moral line is his final choice, you want to begin figuring out the moral oppositions using that choice.
■ Casablanca: When Rick's ex-love, Ilsa, returns to him, he can use two exit visas to escape with her to America. Rick chooses fighting the Nazis over his love for Ilsa.
■ The Maltese Falcon: Detective Sam Spade discovers that Brigid O'Shaughnessy murdered his partner. When the police show up, Spade chooses justice over the woman he loves.
■ Sophie's Choice: Sophie tells a young American writer about her past as a prisoner in the Auschwitz concentration camp. When she arrived, she had to choose between two negatives: Which child would she let the Nazis kill? (You could argue that this is not a true choice.)
■ The Iliad: In a final showdown, Achilles kills Hector, the great warrior of the Trojans, and then drags Hector's body behind his chariot. Achilles lets Hector's father, Priam, take the body so that it can receive a proper burial.
■ Vertigo: Scottie finds out that his lover, Madeleine, helped a man murder his wife. His moral decision at the end comes before his self-revelation. He decides not to forgive Madeleine and so is destroyed when he realizes that his wrong decision has killed the woman he loves.
Characters as Variations on a Theme
Once you have figured out the deepest moral opposition by looking at the
hero's final moral choice, you detail this opposition through the character web by making each of the major characters a variation on the theme.
Here is the sequence for making this technique work:
1. Look again at the final moral decision and your work on the premise line so you are clear about the central moral problem your hero must deal with in the story.
2. Make sure each of the major characters deals with the same moral problem, but in a different way.
3. Start by comparing the hero and the main opponent, since these characters personify the primary moral opposition you detail in the story. Then compare the hero to the other opponents. 4. Over the course of the story, each of the major characters should make a moral argument in dialogue justifying what they do to reach the goal. (Good moral argument is done primarily but not solely through structure. We'll discuss how to write moral dialogue in Chapter 10, "Scene Construction and Symphonic Dialogue.")
Tootsie
(by Larry Gelbart and Murray Schisgal, story by Don McGuire and Larry Gelbart, 1982) Tootsie is the tale of an actor who disguises himself as a woman in order to get work on a TV show. But then he falls in love with an actress on the show, and various men are attracted to him as a woman.
The hero's central moral problem in the story is how a man treats a woman in love. Each opponent and ally is a variation of how men treat women or how women allow themselves to be treated by men.
L.A. Confidential
(novel by James Ellroy, screenplay by Brian Helgeland & Curtis Hanson, 1997)
In L.A. Confidential, three police detectives investigate a mass murder. All three are main characters, and each must deal with the central moral problem of administering justice. Bud is a cop who takes the law into his own hands, acting as judge, jury, and executioner. Jack has forgotten why he became a cop and arrests people for money. Ed wants to bring the guilty to justice, but he has become more interested in playing the political game of justice and rising to the top of the profession. All the other major characters exemplify a different version of the corruption of justice.
Dances with Wolves
(novel and screenplay by Michael Blake, 1990) Dances with Wolves follows the exploits of an army officer in the American West during the late 1800s. Gradually he is drawn to take up the life of the Sioux Indians he thought were his enemy.
The hero's central moral problem is how he treats another race and culture and how he lives with animals and the land. Each opponent and ally takes a different approach to this problem.
The Characters' Values in Conflict
Using your character web, now place the values of each of the major characters in conflict as these people compete for the same goal.
1. Identify a set of values for your hero and each of the other major characters. Remember, values are deep-seated beliefs about what makes a good life.
2. Try to give a cluster of values to each character.
Make each set of values as different from the others as possible. 4. As your hero and his opponents fight over the goal, make sure their values come into direct conflict.
It's a Wonderful Life
(short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern, screenplay by Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, 1946) Frustrated by living in a small town ruled by a tyrant, George Bailey is about to commit suicide until an angel shows him what the world would be like if he had never lived.
The hero and the opponent in this story compete over the town in which they live, based on the very different values each holds.
■ George Bailey (Bedford Falls): Democracy, decency, kindness, hard
work, the value of the common workingman ■ Mr. Potter (Pottersville): One-man rule, money, power, survival of the fittest
The Cherry Orchard
(by Anton Chekhov, 1904) In The Cherry Orchard, an aristocratic but poor family returns to their family estate, which is deep in debt, to try to save it.
These characters compete over who will control the estate. The focus
of this competition is the value of the cherry orchard. Madame Ranevsky and her family value it for its immense beauty and its evocation of their past. Lopakhin values it only for its practical, monetary value; he wants to cut it down so he can build cottages he can rent.
■ Madame Ranevsky: Real love, beauty, the past
■ Lopakhin: Money, status, power, practicality, the future ■ Varya: Hard work, family, marriage, practicality
■ Trofimov: The truth, learning, compassion, higher love ■ Anya: Her mother, kindness, higher love
Field of Dreams
(novel Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, screenplay by Phil Alden Robinson, 1989) Field of Dreams is an American version of The Cherry Orchard in which the "orchard" wins. The competition in this story is over the value of the farmland that Ray has turned into a baseball diamond.
■ Ray: Baseball, family, passion for your dreams ■ Mark: Money, practical use of the land
With characters as variations on a theme and opposition of values, you may want to use the technique of four-corner opposition, explained in Chapter 4. In four-corner opposition, you have a hero and a main opponent and at least two secondary opponents. This gives even the most complex story an organic unity. Each of the four main characters can represent a fundamentally different approach to the same moral problem, and each can express an entire system of values, without the story collapsing into a complicated mess.
KEY POINT: Your moral argument will always be simplistic if you use a two-part opposition, like good versus evil. Only a web of moral oppositions (four-c
orner opposition is one such web) can give the audience a sense of the moral complexity of real life.
Notice that all three of these techniques guarantee that the theme is not imposed on the characters but rather is expressed through the charac-
ters. This ensures that the story doesn't come across as preachy. Notice also that the story has more depth because the opposition between the characters is not just based on plot, on people competing for a goal. Entire ways of living are at stake, so the emotional impact on the audience is huge.
Moral argument doesn't mean your hero and opponent appear in the first scene and engage in a verbal argument about morality. Moral argument in a story is an argument of action you make by showing your hero and opponent taking certain means to reach a goal. This is how you weave theme through the story structure instead of preaching to the audience in the dialogue.
In fact, one of the great principles of storytelling is that structure doesn't just carry content; it is content. And it is far more powerful content than what your characters say. Nowhere is this principle more accurately expressed than in theme.
In a good story, the story structure converges near the end at the same time that the theme expands in the mind of the audience. How does a converging story structure cause the theme to expand? A diagram of good structure and theme might look like this:
At the beginning of the story, you set the hero and opponent in opposition. But the conflict is not intense, and the audience doesn't yet know
how the values of each come into conflict. So they have almost no sense of the theme of the story.
Throughout the middle of the story, the hero and the opponent come into increasing conflict, hence the converging structure. Through this conflict, a difference in values begins to emerge. So the theme starts to expand. Still, for most of a good story, the theme is largely hidden; it is quietly growing in the minds of the audience, and it will hit with full force at the end.
