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identity of "those guys." Those guys aren't just another posse our heroes can easily lose. They are the future stage of society. They are all-star lawmen, from all over the American West, hired by a corporate boss back East that Butch, Sundance, and the audience never even meet. But if Butch and Sundance don't figure out who those guys are in time, they will die.
Let's look at how particular kinds of scenes both execute and modify the basic principles of scene construction and symphonic dialogue.
The Opening
The opening scene is the foundation of every character and every action in the story, which is why it is probably the most difficult to write well. As the first scene in the upside-down triangle that is the full story, it must set a frame around the broadest scope of the story. The first scene tells the audience generally what the story is about. But it must also be a ministory of its own, with characters and actions that are dramatically compelling and provide an opening punch.
That's why it's helpful to think of the first scene as an inverted triangle inside the larger inverted triangle of the story:
In providing the big frame around the story, the opening scene also suggests the thematic patterns—of identity and opposition—that the author wants to weave throughout. But always these big patterns must be grounded in particular characters so that the scene doesn't come across as theoretical or preachy.
The best way to master the principles of the opening scene is to see them in action. Let's break down the first two scenes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
(by William Goldman, 1969) The first two scenes of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid constitute one of the greatest openings in movie history. Author William Goldman's scene construction and dialogue not only please and catch the audience immediately but also lay out the patterns and oppositions that determine the whole story.1
Scene 7: Butch at the Bank
In the first scene, a man (the audience doesn't yet know his identity) cases a bank while the bank closes down for the night.
■ Position on the Character Arc This is the story's opening scene and the first look at the main character, Butch. It is also Step 1 in the hero's process: a robber in the Old West who ends up dead.
■ Problems
1. Introduce the world of the story, particularly outlaws in an American West that has almost disappeared.
2. Introduce the main character, who is the first of two buddies.
3. Suggest that the heroes, like the West itself, are getting old and are almost gone.
■ Strategy
1. Create a prototypical Butch and Sundance experience that introduces the key thematic patterns.
2. Indicate the basic process of the entire story in one scene, which is everything closing down.
3. Make it lighthearted and funny while suggesting a darker underbelly and future.
4. Show a guy looking to rob a bank but finding it much harder than in the old days.
5. Trick the audience by not revealing up front who this man is. By forcing them to figure out that this is really a hank robber casing the bank, the author makes the final joke funnier but also defines the hero as a confident trickster and a man of words. ■ Desire Butch wants to scope out a bank to rob. ■ Endpoint He finds that the bank is much more secure, and it is closing for the night.
■ Opponent The guard and the bank itself.
■ Plan Butch uses deception, pretending to be interested in the bank for its looks.
■ Conflict The bank, like a living thing, is closing down around Butch.
■ Twist or Reveal The man looking at the bank is casing it in order to rob it.
■ Moral Argument and Values Aesthetics versus practicality. Of course, the joke comes when aesthetics are applied to a bank, especially by someone who would like to rob it. But this opposition isn't just good for a laugh at the end. It is the fundamental value difference in the story. This story world is becoming more practical, but Butch and Sundance are, above all, men of style, in love with a way of life that is rapidly disappearing.
■ Key Words and Images Bars going down, time ending, light going out, space closing in.
The dialogue in the scene points toward a punch line, with the key word and line of the scene last: "It's a small price to pay for beauty." But the trick to the scene is that the punch line comes at the same moment as the reveal about the main character: this man is a trickster (bank robber) who has a way with words. The line has two opposing meanings. On the one hand, this man doesn't care about the bank's beauty; he wants to rob it. On the other hand, the line really does define the man; he is a man of style, and that will eventually kill him.
Scene 2: Sundance and the Poker Game
In this scene, a man named Macon calls another man a cheat at cards. Macon tells the man to leave the money and get out. The man turns out to be the notorious Sundance Kid, and Macon barely escapes with his life.
■ Position on the Character Arc This scene marks Sundance's opening position on the arc of a robber who will end up dead and adds details to Butch's opening character as well. ■ Problems
1. Introduce the second lead of the two buddies, and show how he is different from Butch.
2. Show the two men as friends in action; above all, show that they are a team.
■ Strategy Goldman creates a second prototypical scene that has no effect on the plot. Its only purpose is to clearly define these two men in a snapshot.
1. In contrast to the first scene, this scene defines the characters through conflict and crisis because crisis clarifies essence right away.
2. This second scene primarily defines Sundance, but it also defines Butch by showing him acting in contrast to Sundance.
3. It shows both men working together as a team, like great musicians. Sundance creates the conflict; Butch tries to relieve it. Sundance is a man of few words; Butch is a talker, a classic trickster con man.
4. To create a crisis scene, Goldman starts with a classic Western story beat, the poker game, with its built-in audience expectations, and then flips it. Instead of a normal showdown, this is the goofy way a guy defends his honor when he's called a cheat. And then Goldman flips the classic scene again and creates an even greater Western hero: it turns out this goofy guy really is that good.
5. Goldman's key strategy for the scene is to trick the audience about who Sundance is at the same time Sundance tricks his opponent. More on this in a moment.
■ Desire Macon wants to take all of Sundance's money and toss him out of the saloon with his tail between his legs. ■ Endpoint Macon is humiliated but gets to see that he made the smart choice when Sundance shows his ability with a gun. ■ Opponent Sundance and then Butch.
■ Plan Macon uses no deception. He directly tells Sundance to leave or die.
■ Conflict As Macon and Sundance square off over the card game, the conflict escalates to the point of a gun battle, with one man sure to end up dead. Butch then tries to defuse the conflict by negotiating a deal but fails.
■ Twist or Reveal The key to the whole scene is the way Goldman constructs it around the revelations. Notice that he withholds information so that he can flip the audience at the same time he flips Macon. The author starts Sundance in an apparently weaker position and exacerbates it when, like a little kid, Sundance insists he wasn't cheating. Sundance weakens even further in the audience's eyes when Butch reminds him that he's getting older and may be over the hill.
So when the tables suddenly turn, Sundance's effect on the audience is huge. Sure, they see he's an action hero by the way he uses his gun at the end of the scene. But what really shows his greatness is his ability to fool the audience and his willingness to look like he could lose. He's that good. ■ Moral Argument and Values This situation is an extreme example of warrior culture: the showdown in public, the contest of physical ability and courage, the power of a man's name and reputation. Butch would never get into this bind; he is from a later soc
ial stage than Sundance. He just wants everyone to stay alive and get along. ■ Key Words and Images Getting old, time closing down on them— but not quite yet.
The dialogue in the showdown is very lean, often with a single line for each character, which heightens the sense of these combatants trading verbal blows. More important, the language is highly stylized and witty, with the precise rhythm and timing of a stand-up comic's routine. Even Sundance, the man of action, is the master of verbal brevity. When Macon asks him, "What's the secret of your success?" he responds simply, "Prayer." Sundance's first line in the film is one word, and its stylish and confident insolence defines him perfectly.
Notice that the second section of the scene shifts to a conflict between Sundance and Butch. These buddies are so close they will argue even when one of them is facing a life-and-death situation. Butch's dialogue is also lean and stylish, but it shows Butch's unique values as a conciliator along with the story's major theme of getting older and being over the hill.
The heart of the scene plays out the absurdity of the solution that both Butch and Sundance concoct for this apparently deadly fix. Even though he appears to be in a weak position, Sundance says, "If he invites us to stay, then we'll go." Incredibly, Butch takes this proposition to Macon, but he tries to soften the humiliation by saying, "What would you think about maybe asking us to stick around?" and "You don't have to mean it or anything." Besides showing the audience their strengths by stylishly flipping this familiar Western situation on its head, Butch and Sundance show their greatness as a team, and they do it by being a comedy team.
After this long setup, Butch then snaps the punch line when he says, "Can't help you, Sundance." And again, notice that Goldman puts the key word of the line, "Sundance," last. Suddenly, the power positions flip, the terrifying Macon is now terrified, and the comedy teamwork between Butch and Sundance moves quickly to the final point. Macon says, "Stick around, why don't you?" and Butch, always affable and considerate, replies, "Thanks, but we got to be going."
The scene ends with an obvious setup when Macon asks Sundance how good he is and Sundance responds with a remarkable display of physical ability, confirming in action what the audience has already guessed by Sundance's words. But again notice that the key thematic line of the story comes last, forming the final point of the triangle of this opening scene and suggesting the final point of the entire movie. Butch says, "Like I been telling you—over the hill." This obviously sarcastic comment is clearly wrong in light of Sundance's recent physical display and the verbal display earlier when Butch and Sundance conned Macon and the audience. It's only later, in hindsight, that the audience sees that these two are over the hill, but they don't know it, and so they die. This is brilliant scene writing.
SCENE-WRITING TECHNIQUE: THE FIRST SENTENCE
The opening sentence of the story takes the principles of the opening scene and compresses them into one line. The first line is the broadest statement of the story and frames what the story will be about. At the same time, it must have dramatic power, some kind of punch. Let's look at three classic opening sentences. I have included a number of lines that follow the opening sentence so you can see how the sentence fits the author's overall strategy for the scene and the story.
Pride and Prejudice
(by Jane Austen, 1813)
■ Position on the Character Arc Before the hero is even introduced, there is the world of the story—specifically, the world of women looking for a husband.
■ Problems
1. Jane Austen needs to let the reader know this is a comedy.
2. She has to give some suggestion of the world of this story and its rules of operation.
3. She has to let the reader know this story will be told from a woman's point of view.
■ Strategy Begin with a mock-serious first sentence that seems to state a universal fact and act of altruism but is really an opinion about an act full of self-interest. The content of the first sentence tells the reader the story is about marriage, about women and their families chasing men, and the essential connection in this world of marriage to money.
Having presented the general arena of the story comically in the first sentence, the author proceeds to a particular family who will play out the opening principle over the course of the story. Notice there is not an ounce of fat in these opening lines.
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds
of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?" Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.
"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."
Mr. Bennet made no answer.
"Do not you want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.
"You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it." That was invitation enough.
David Copperfield
(by Charles Dickens, 1849-1850)
■ Position on the Character Arc By using a storyteller, the writer creates a hero who is at the end of the arc but is talking about the very beginning. So the hero at the opening will be very young, but with a certain wisdom. ■ Problems
1. In telling the story of a man's life, where do you start and where do you end?
2. How do you tell the audience the kind of story you are going to tell them?
■ Strategy Use a first-person storyteller. Have him say, in the chapter title, "I am born." Three little words. But they have tremendous punch. That chapter title in effect is the opening sentence of the book. The storyteller is planting the flag of his own life. "I am important, and this will be a great story," he says. He is also indicating that he's telling a coming-of-age story in myth form, starting with the birth of the hero. This story has big ambitions.
Dickens follows this short but punchy line with "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life . . ." Immediately he is telling the audience that his hero thinks in terms of stories (and is in fact a writer) and is concerned with fulfilling the potential of his life. He
then goes hack to the exact moment of his birth, which is extremely presumptuous. But he does so because it has a dramatic element to it: as a baby, he awoke to life at the midnight tolling of the bell.
Notice another result of this opening strategy: the audience gets nestled in the story. The author is saying, "I'm going to take you on a long but fascinating journey. So sit back and relax and let me lead you into this world. You won't be sorry."
I AM BORN.
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born (as I have been informed and believe) on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night. It was remarked that the clock began to strike, and I began to cry, simultaneously.
In consideration of the day and hour of my birth, it was declared by the nurse, and by some sage women in the neighborhood who had taken a lively interest in me for several months before there was any possibility of our becoming personally acquainted, first, that I was destined to be unlucky in life; and secondly, that I was privileged to see ghosts and spirits; both these gifts inevitably attaching, as they believed, to all unlucky infants of either gender, born toward the small hours on a Friday night.
The Catcher in the Rye
(by J. D. Salinger, 1951)
■ Position on the Character Arc Holden Caulfield is in a sanitarium remembering what happened to him the previous year. So he is close to the end of his development, but without the final insights that will come to him by reviewing and telling his own story.
1. He has to figure out where to begin his story about himself and what to include.
2. He wants to tell the reader who he really is by the way he tells his own story, not just by what he says about himself.
3. He must express the basic theme and value that will guide the story and the character.
■ Strategy
1. Write in the first person, which puts the reader in the mind of the hero and tells the reader that this is a coming-of-age story. But since the hero is speaking from a sanitarium and talks with a "bad boy" vernacular, the audience will know that this is the opposite of the usual coming-of-age story.
2. Surprise the reader by making the storyteller antagonistic to him. Put the reader on warning, right up front, that this isn't going to be the usual fluffy, phony kid's story and he (Holden) is not going to "suck up" to the reader to get his sympathy. The implication is that this narrator will be brutally honest. In other words, telling the truth as he sees it is a moral imperative for him.
3. Make it a long and rambling sentence so that the form of the sentence expresses who the hero is and what the plot will be like.
4. Refer immediately and with disdain to David Copperfield, the ultimate nineteenth-century version of the coming-of-age story. This will let the reader know that everything the narrator says will be opposite David Copperfield. Instead of big plot and big journey, this will be small plot, perhaps even antiplot, and small journey. It also hints at ambition: the author implies that he's going to write a coming-of-age story for the twentieth century that's just as good as the best of the nineteenth.
Most important, the reader will know that the guiding value for the hero and how he tells his story is "nothing phony." Get ready for real characters, real emotions, and real change, if it happens at all.
If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. . . . I'll just tell you about this madman stuff that happened to me around last Christmas just before I got pretty rundown and had to come out here and take it easy.