by Jeff Kitchen
Perhaps audience sympathy hasn’t been stoked very well and reaction is lukewarm. This would make the Central Dramatic Question weak. But maybe the audience has seen Tasker lose his new bride in a fire that he barely survived, involving viewers much more in his fate. What if Sharp set the fire? Now they loathe him and care even more about the outcome of the miners’ fight. What if Tasker has just discovered that his mine is incredibly rich and he’s trying to keep that a secret until his brothers arrive to help him defend it? Each time we play with the variables in this way, the stakes go up and the viewers are gripped more intensely. The question itself never changes, but we come to care about it so much more. There are many more factors in assessing audience tension than just the specific language of the question. It’s very important to read the minds of the audience and articulate the question, but in order to judge how powerfully that question really impacts the audience it’s equally important to evaluate it within the context of the story.
As you work with the Central Proposition, recall that you’re dealing only with the main action. Bernard Grebanier says it well in his book Playwriting: “Proposition is an analysis of the main action only [emphasis by Grebanier]. It has reference only to action, not to motives, psychological states, moral issues or theme, for plot is entirely a matter of action.” Aristotle says something quite similar in the Poetics:
Most important of all is the structure of the incidents. For Tragedy is an imitation, not of men but of an action and of life . . . it is by their actions that men are happy or the reverse. Dramatic action, therefore is not with a view to the representation of character; character comes in as a subsidiary to the actions.
To locate the Central Proposition, we’re cooking down the entire story to its essence and focusing on the conflict. We’re stripping the plot to its absolute core, in which two main actions lead up to a pivotal question for the audience. However, since there are hundreds of actions in a screenplay, how do you distinguish which of them sets up the conflict and touches it off?
CONSTRUCTING THE CENTRAL PROPOSITION
The three components of the Central Proposition are isolated with a five-step process using deductive logic, starting at the end of the film and working in reverse. Some aspects of the proposition are slippery, so working backward helps pin them down. First, we look at the fight to the finish. Second, we ask about the question in the minds of the audience: How will this fight turn out? Third, we pinpoint the action that touches off the fight to the finish. Fourth, we reason in reverse to determine what action sets up the potential fight. Finally, the fifth step identifies the element linking the set-up and the touch-off. To assemble the three-sentence Central Proposition—(1) Setting up the potential fight, (2) Touching off the fight to the finish, and (3) Stating the dramatic question that arises in the minds of the audience—we will need these five pieces in hand. We’ll keep Training Day at the forefront as we study this process, so that next we can use its five components to determine the Central Proposition.
Step 1: Visualize the Fight to the Finish
First, we must Visualize the fight to the finish. Can you see it—literally see the fight to the finish—in your mind, as though you’re watching a movie? In Training Day we see Jake and Alonzo fighting it out in that rough neighborhood, and in Blade Runner Deckard and Roy have a showdown on the roof. Remember, conflict is of a different nature in a romantic comedy than it is in an action adventure. Pay attention to the context when you apply it to your own script.
To really emphasize opposition or conflict, you want to have two real people actually going at each other. Keep in mind that you’re writing for live actors. A character’s struggle with addiction or a fight against an unjust law won’t play well unless an actual human being personifies the addiction or the law. Imagine one boxer trying to fight in a ring and this point will become quite clear. Always remember that your script has to be actable. So the question here is, does the level of conflict in your script build to a fight to the finish, one that you can really envision?
Step 2: What is the Central Dramatic Question?
Next we ask, What’s the question in the mind of the audience once the fight to the finish has only just started and they don’t know how it’s going to turn out? We start with the fight to the finish and the Central Dramatic Question because it’s easiest to find this high point of suspense in your script. The beginning of the fight to the finish is the point of no return, and the audience genuinely doesn’t know how it’s going to turn out. The Central Dramatic Question in Training Day is, Can Jake take Alonzo down? In your own script, get down to the real question in the viewers’ minds, not what you hope it is. Be brutally honest with yourself—self-deception is useless in analyzing your own material. If you use it properly, this tool offers a real x-ray of your material’s deep structure.
Step 3: What Action by the Protagonist Touches Off the Fight to the Finish?
Now we ask, What action by the protagonist touches off the fight to the finish, giving rise to the Central Dramatic Question? Concentrate on the action of the protagonist, because that’s where the audience’s focal point will be. Bear in mind that there might not be a touch-off in your plot so far. Conflict isn’t necessarily inherent in a story; often, it needs to be developed. You may not notice how underdeveloped your conflict is until you apply the proposition to your script. And if it does exist, you may well be surprised by how weak your protagonist’s attack is when viewed under the harsh light of this tool. Once you notice this, then you can experiment with beefing it up—sometimes to a great degree—which empowers the whole script.
In Training Day, Jake touches off the fight to the finish when he goes into Alonzo’s girlfriend’s apartment, tells Alonzo he’s under arrest, and tries to take the $1 million for evidence. From this point on it’s war, and only one of them can win.
Step 4: What Earlier Action by the Protagonist Sets Up the Potential Fight?
Next we ask, What earlier action by the protagonist sets up the potential fight? This time we’re moving backward a giant step in the story. In our proportion diagram for the overall script, the fight to the finish tends to start late, but setting up the potential fight happens earlier, perhaps a third or a quarter of the way into the story (although it’s flexible according to the demands of the specific material).
The first triangle indicates roughly where the potential fight is often set up. Remember, we’re trying to incorporate the proportion of the entire script with this tool—trying to encompass the complete action. Essentially, we’re setting up the conflict. This set-up is a point at which the protagonist and the antagonist “cross swords” or have a run-in, like a shoving match that will burst into a fight later. Bear in mind that quite often there may be no protagonist-antagonist conflict early on in the story as you’ve developed it so far. The Central Proposition will make this apparent so you can construct a scene that does set up a potential fight. And this, too, will boost your story’s power, sometimes immensely since you’re making your protagonist so much more proactive.
In Training Day, this scene occurs when Alonzo robs the Sandman and Jake challenges him about the stolen money, saying that Alonzo almost got them killed or put in prison. Alonzo tells Jake to forget working undercover with him, so Jake finally relents—for now. But they do go at it, setting up the audience expectation that the conflict between these two will clash later on. The set-up scene creates Dramatic Action, engaging the audience. Jake and Alonzo are at each other’s throats, and it stays that way at varying levels until their fight turns deadly.
Step 5: Do the Set-up and the Touch-off Have Anything in Common that Can Bind Them Together?
The last step in generating our dramatic proposition is to ask, Do the set-up and the touch-off have anything in common that can bind them together? What does this mean? All we’re trying to do is link together the set-up and the touch-off of the fight because it helps tie the script, thus unifying the plot. To understand it, we go back to the sy
llogism from which Price derived the Central Proposition, paying attention to the part of it that’s known as the “common term” (seen in italics below):
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
In formal logic, two premises that lead to a conclusion should be connected by a common term—in this case, the word “man.” This creates a valid chain of logic between them and is part of the reason why the above argument is irrefutable. We want this power as dramatists because a solid connection between the set-up and the touch-off will help make our script coherent and solid. In essence, we’re talking about a connecting rod—something that links them. Various elements in a story can serve as the common term, but whatever it is, if we can bind the set-up and the touch-off together in some way then it helps unify the plot.
As shown above in Training Day, a potential fight is set up when Jake challenges Alonzo about robbing the Sandman, and the fight to the finish is touched off when Jake tries to arrest Alonzo and take the $1 million as evidence of Alonzo’s crime. In order to isolate the common term in this proposition, we ask, Is there anything similar or common between the point when Jake challenges Alonzo, and the point when he tries to arrest him? In both situations Jake is really shocked at Alonzo’s blatant corruption. Jake will not stand for this and the intensity of his refusal grows as he discovers the depth of Alonzo’s treachery. So, we could say that the common thing between the set-up and the touch-off of the fight is that Jake cannot allow this blatantly corrupt activity to go unchallenged.
The Use of the Central Proposition for Training Day
Now let’s assemble the three-sentence proposition from its component parts (the common term is underlined):
Set up the potential fight
Jake is unable to remain silent after Alonzo robs the Sandman, and he challenges Alonzo on his conduct.
Touch off the fight to the finish
Now fully aware that Alonzo is a murdering thief, Jake refuses to let him go free, and tries to arrest him and seize the $1 million as evidence of his corruption.
The Central Dramatic Question
Can Jake take Alonzo down?
Putting More Detail into the Proposition. We have stripped the plot to its skeleton—right down to its chassis and engine. This important process should help you see the most basic plot without any padding whatsoever. However, Price did emphasize that once the plot is laid bare, it’s good to let a little bit of information back into the proposition so that a stranger to the story can make sense of it. For instance, who the heck is Jake? From the scant information in the three-sentence Central Proposition, he could be a used car salesman in Cincinnati for all we know.
The Complete Proposition for Training Day . Adding a few phrases into the mix can give a clearer picture of the movie. Imagine this as a short pitch to a Hollywood studio executive.
Set up the potential fight
Jake Hoyt, an ambitious rookie policeman on his first day as an undercover narcotics cop, finds himself under the supervision of Alonzo Harris, a wild, unconventional, street-smart veteran who shakes up Jake’s entire view of police work. When Alonzo robs a drug dealer, Jake cannot allow this corruption to go unchecked and so challenges Alonzo on his conduct.
Touch off the fight to the finish
Jake is drawn deeper into the questionable world of Alonzo and his crazy, criminal mode of policing. Things escalate when Alonzo and his crew of rogue undercover cops rob and murder a high-level drug dealer, and then order Jake to claim he was the one who pulled the trigger. When Jake will not be part of it, Alonzo almost has him murdered but Jake escapes. Now fully aware that Alonzo is a murdering thief, Jake finds him, tells him he’s under arrest, and tries to take the $1 million that will prove Alonzo is a dirty cop.
The Central Dramatic Question
Can Jake take Alonzo down?
A WORD ABOUT THE ANTAGONIST
Since we’re dealing specifically with the protagonist-antagonist conflict in this chapter, let’s focus on the antagonist for a minute. Alfred Hitchcock said that the more powerful your antagonist is, the more complex and dangerous the situation is, the more formidable your protagonist must be to overcome it, and therefore the more powerful the movie is. Think of the saying, “The movie is only as good as its villain.” If you ratchet up the intensity of your antagonist, the whole energy of the script rises. Sometimes you’ll find that there’s plenty of room to pump up the antagonist because you haven’t paid much attention to that character. But in almost any case you can get a little more out of even a well-defined antagonist. Stack your antagonist against the all-time greats. How does he or she compare to Keyser Soze? Hannibal Lecter? Matty Walker from Body Heat? Darth Vader? Gordon Gekko from Wall Street? HAL 9000? Alex Forrest from Fatal Attraction? The Terminator? Noah Cross from Chinatown? Annie Wilkes from Misery? Sergeant Barnes from Platoon? Or any of the other all-time great villains?
THE USE OF THE CENTRAL PROPOSITION FOR FILMS
Now that we’ve done Training Day, let’s apply the Central Proposition to the rest of the movies we’re working with. You’ll see how versatile it is as we encounter different genres and styles.
The Use of the Central Proposition for What Women Want
The conflict in What Women Want is intriguing because there’s very little overt resistance from Darcy. The opposition is there because Nick and Darcy are definitely competing at certain levels, but she has no idea she’s being taken advantage of. Nick is obviously very active in his secret war against Darcy.
The fight to the finish is about his attempt to win Darcy back, but it takes some unexpected turns. He actually starts the fight by demanding that Dan, their boss, rehire her. Then Nick must struggle through all the problems he caused in trying to get rid of her. On his way to find Darcy he hears that Erin (the suicidal girl) didn’t come to work, so he goes to her and tries to straighten out the mess he’s made by treating the firm’s women so badly that they’re falling apart. After he rescues Erin, he learns that his daughter is freaking out at the prom, so he tries to be a real father for the first time in his life. After setting that right, he admits to Darcy the truth about what he did to her. Nick is running the gauntlet, confronting his screwed-up behavior pattern and undoing all his messes so that he can become someone who really deserves Darcy. He’s fighting for his life—his emotional life—and for the love of the most amazing woman he’s ever met.
Let’s work our way back through the five steps to construct the proposition for What Women Want.
Step 1: Visualize the Fight to the Finish Nick is fighting to win Darcy back. To do so, he must dig himself out from under a lifetime of mistreating women—in an attempt to set everything right and become the man Darcy fell in love with.
Step 2: What is the Central Dramatic Question? Will Nick somehow manage to win Darcy back?
Step 3: What Action by the Protagonist Touches Off the Fight to the Finish? Nick demands that Dan rehire Darcy and then fights through all the things that separate him from her.
Step 4: What Earlier Action by the Protagonist Sets Up the Potential Fight? Nick gets into a skirmish with Darcy when Dan asks their opinions about some artwork. Nick reads Darcy’s mind and steals her idea, taking credit for it with Dan. Darcy plans a rebuttal in her mind, but Nick hears her thoughts and shuts her down, making himself look good and making her look bad.
Step 5: Do the Set-up and the Touch-off Have Anything in Common that Can Bind Them Together? In both the set-up and the touch-off scenes, Nick is attracted to Darcy. In the set-up, he can’t help noticing how beautiful and open she is, and he gets into a real conversation with her about his daughter and the prom. By the time he starts the fight to the finish, hoping to win her back, he’s fully in love with her—and she with him.
Here’s the stripped-down assembly of the three-sentence proposition (again, the common term is underlined):
Set up the potential fight
Nick, attracte
d to Darcy in spite of himself, reads her mind and steals her idea, making himself look good and her look bad when Dan asks their opinion on some artwork.
Touch off the fight to the finish
Now fully in love with Darcy, Nick demands that Dan hire her back, and then struggles to undo all the damage he’s done.
The Central Dramatic Question
Will Nick manage to win Darcy back?
Now let’s fill out the proposition with some clarifying detail so that it makes sense to someone who doesn’t know the story:
Set up the potential fight
Nick Marshall, a chauvinistic lady’s man, is an advertising executive who gets passed over for creative director when Darcy Maguire, a woman from outside the company, gets the job. He vows to get rid of her, and when he mysteriously acquires the ability to read women’s minds, he begins using it to unseat her. When their boss asks about some artwork, Nick, beginning to fall for Darcy in spite of himself, telepathically steals her idea and makes her look bad.
Touch off the fight to the finish
As Nick succeeds more and more in his effort to undermine Darcy, he also finds that he’s falling in love with this truly incredible woman. Even though his resolve is wavering, he steals a major idea of hers, lands a huge new client, and ends up with all the credit. Upon learning that she’s been fired, and now completely realizes in love with her, he goes to the boss and demands her rehire, and then starts fighting his way through all the things that separate him from her.