THE QUINTESSENTIAL TEXT
The next step is to locate the quintessential text within the genre. By this I mean locate the movie, TV show, book, or web series that would be considered to be the “granddaddy” of the genre. The quintessential text is the most perfect or typical example of that genre and is usually highly regarded and honored. Think Star Wars (1977) as the standard by which most science fiction adventure films are compared today, or Bridget Jones’s Diary (1996 novel) for most contemporary chick lit franchises, High Noon (1952) for westerns, Psycho (1960) for psychological drama, Citizen Kane (1941) as a political drama, or Dragnet (1951–59, 1967–70) as the purest television police drama. Even though you may be writing a script, your quintessential text for your genre may have originally appeared in print or another form. All different types of media play into this research. Quintessential texts can be divided into sub-genres as well. For instance, Caddyshack (1980) is the quintessential text of all golfing-related comedies, and some might say The Haunting of Hill House (1959 novel) is the quintessential text of all paranormal psychological dramas, and Night of the Living Dead (1968) is the most influential movie of all zombie movies. Locating the quintessential text takes a bit of research as you may find a difference of opinion among critics/viewers/consumers regarding some of these titles due to generational and other differences, which we’ll address later in this chapter. The identification of a specific title isn’t always the end all and be all as you may find varying quintessential texts within your research. Having this information is part of The Writer’s Advantage.
HOW TO FIND THE QUINTESSENTIAL TEXT
Begin by asking those around you — your peers, parents, children, friends, etc. — what their favorite movie, TV show, book, or web series is within your genre. Often parents can pass along favorite pieces of media from their generation to their children and children can do the same for their parents. In the case of many standard quintessential texts, it’s because of familial information that has been passed down within generations that these pieces of popular culture are considered classics or standards beloved by many. If one generation says “You can’t miss this!” — whatever “this” is — pay attention. You should listen to them. Whether you agree with them later, after you’ve read or viewed the text, is up to you. Having the knowledge of the text is what is key here.
After you’ve gathered the above recommendations, it’s now time to begin with an internet and/or library search for your genre. Let’s say you are writing a script that involves a road trip. When I do a search for “road trip movies” I discover links to articles such as “30 Great Road Trip Movies — Entertainment Weekly” and “20 Great ‘Buddy’ Road Trip Movies — Boston.com.” When I peruse these sources I see a number of titles. None of the lists are exactly the same, and that’s because of their source. Mainstream resources like Entertainment Weekly are going to represent a broader, general audience versus other resources that are cited. An established organization such as The New York Times, while also a mainstream source, will mention slightly different titles due to their specific audience needs, as will a site constructed by or for the fans of that particular genre. Pay attention to the source. There will be, however, titles that crossover and appear on all of these lists. Make it a point to know those titles.
Also, visit Wikipedia and search for your genre. In the case of “road trip movies,” Wikipedia has them listed under “Road Movies” and further breaks them down according to style, topic, or setting, audience factors, and format/budgeting. Here you’ll find more lists of road trip movies and again, once you have processed and honed in on the type of road movie you’re writing, then compare this information to your other resources. In the case of road trip movies, some of the titles that appear on ALL of the lists (in no particular order) are Easy Rider (1969), Sideways (2004), National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), Thelma & Louise (1991), The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), It Happened One Night (1934), Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Lost In America (1985), and Midnight Run (1988).
Next, make a note of the movies you’ve seen on this list and become acquainted with those you are not aware of by either reading about them and/or viewing them. You’d be surprised of how many times I have heard a pitch for a specific genre and the writer is not aware of an important text from their genre. For instance, a writer who pitches a romantic comedy and has never seen nor even heard of Annie Hall (1977) or When Harry Met Sally… (1987) — this has sadly happened I can tell you — does not make for a solid pitch. It is important that you know your genre — everything about your genre. And even if you have never SEEN Annie Hall or When Harry Met Sally… (which would put you at a disadvantage in pitching a rom-com), then at least state that you’re aware of these movies. Not knowing about popular texts within your genre (and not just those from the immediate past/last five years) will result in you losing your pitch. I, as well as most producers, agents, and book editors, do not want to work with a writer who does not know their genre. That writer is clearly not writing with The Writer’s Advantage.
Additionally, we live in a marvelous time where most of the websites we utilize as consumers automatically do our research for us. Every time you download a movie or TV show on Hulu or Netflix they automatically suggest a boatload of other titles under the genre you have just viewed. Amazon delivers this information with “Customers who bought this title also bought” and the “Frequently bought together” features to further assist you with your selections. For your purpose, however, you can study these titles and gain more information about your genre and your target audience. And of course you can search for film and TV shows on Amazon, so Amazon is often the best place to begin your search no matter what venue you are working within.
AN ABUNDANCE OF GENERATIONAL, ETHNIC, AND SUBJECTIVE DIFFERENCES
As you do this research you’ll discover, as noted above, that different resources have slightly different lists and information about your genre. In most cases, this type of data changes according to generations, so it’s important to note those movies or TV shows or books and even web series that are the oldest in their fields as they have stood the test of time. This does not mean that they are the quintessential text, however, just because they are the oldest — they could be — but it is not the only requirement for a quintessential text.
For instance, if we return to our list of well known, highly endeared road trip movies noted above, we see that the oldest title is It Happened One Night (1934). It’s important that you’re aware of this movie and because it continues to appear on various lists and critics and industry insiders continue to discuss it, there must be something about it that resonated to its original audience and continues to resonate to contemporary audiences. Make a note of this. In this case it’s probably not the quintessential text of the entire genre, but it’s important within the genre.
ROOM FOR DEBATE
Of the other titles — Easy Rider, Sideways, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Thelma & Louise, The Motorcycle Diaries, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, Lost In America, and Midnight Run — there would be audiences and groups of fans who would debate that Lost In America is more of a road movie than Easy Rider and vice versa. Continue to do your research to determine what’s being said about each (and all) of these movies. It’s my guess that most would agree that Easy Rider is the quintessential road movie because in essence that is exactly (and only) what it’s about — two guys heading out on the road in search of America. The movie appeared at a time in film history that reflected the zeitgeist of its audience and made a statement reflecting its generation and of youth in general. Easy Rider put this genre on the map (no pun intended).
The identification of quintessential texts can be mutable because different factors come into play; however, through this process of understanding what has been said about the movie in question and how the movie was received via box office receipts, cult/mainstream popularity, and collective memory, you should be able to de
termine one or two main movies within a genre that are important for you to pay attention to.
GAME CHANGERS
Additionally, you’ll find that there are always important movies that introduce elements to the genre that become game changers within the genre. For example, The Hunger Games (2012) is a game changer in the action-adventure genre because it successfully features a female lead. Up until that point female action leads were few and far between and overall not taken seriously, only being seen as sexual objects. Often game changer texts are extremely important to study as they take the genre to another level, such as the Harry Potter franchise (1997–2007), which introduced a little wizard instead of the many little witches we knew in pop culture before that, or even a movie like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994) — we have had hundreds of detective stories, but never a pet detective previous to this one. So you see how identifying a game changer in your genre is important.
SIFTING AND WINNOWING
As you examine the styles, the different settings and different time periods of your texts, along with their formats and level of popularity (by general and specific audiences), you’ll be testing your own idea and comparing your idea to these classic (and not-so-classic) texts in your genre. At this point, you may find that the quintessential text for you leans towards one or another of the most endeared movies within your genre, and that’s fine. You will ultimately use this title as the one that holds the highest standards for you. In the case of road movies, if your idea includes a young couple setting out to find their lives (or to find America or an answer of some sort), then Lost In America is a slightly better quintessential movie example for you than Easy Rider, which features two counter-cultural guys in search of existential dreams. They both have traits that you’ll need and they both represent your genre, one is just a bit closer to your idea and therefore that’s the one that becomes your quintessential text.
TOOLKIT SANDBOX
Twilight Isn’t the Only Game In Town, Some Questions, and Disaster-Rama
CASE STUDY: Vampire literature and finding the quintessential text
In vampire literature, research will unravel a “vampire craze” as far back as the 1720s and 1730s in Serbia. There’s a short German poem entitled The Vampire (1748) by Heinrich August Ossenfelder where many of the traits we know of today — drinking of blood, living by night, preying upon virginal souls, etc. — unravel throughout. There’s an obsession with these creatures during the 18th and 19th century throughout Eastern and Western Europe, although it isn’t until the appearance of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), a novel, that the definitive description of the contemporary vampire we know appears. The name Count Dracula was inspired by a real person, Vlad Tepes (“Vlad the Impaler” is the original story upon which the vampire legend is based) who was a notorious Romanian prince in the 15th century. Author Stoker combines many of Tepes’ modern-day myths that include blood-sucking creatures, a desire to live by night, the only way to kill them is through a stake in their heart, etc. — and this iconic figure is born.
If we skip ahead a few hundred years, we’ll see the fact that one of our most popular vampire influences appears on television. Dark Shadows was an American TV series that appeared weekdays on ABC between 1966–1971. Gothic romance writer Marilyn Ross’ franchise Barnabas Collins was the show’s original text. As we learned in our brief history of mass media, there were only three television networks operating in the ‘60s. That fact plays into why Dark Shadows became so popular — it was the first vampire-related show on American television on a regular basis. Anyone between the ages of 6 and 66 who may have been interested in the occult or metaphysical stories watched this show with fanatical interest.
The show continued in syndication after its original run. It’s a well-known fact that film directors Tim Burton and Quentin Tarantino were fans, along with Madonna and Johnny Depp. Depp vowed that he would one day play the lead Barnabas Collins and, in fact, Depp did indeed embody the character in the 2012 theatrical release which ultimately died (no pun intended) at the box office. That version of Dark Shadows will go down in history as an unauthentic text mostly due to the bastardization of the original storyline and a plot that had no direction whatsoever. View this version only after you have had the chance to see the original. You’ll realize quickly why the Burton-Depp version sucked (flopped).
This Dark Shadows example illustrates how a piece of text that is well-known among a certain generation can rest quietly for a long time, only to be resurrected and celebrated once again, with a new spin for a new generation. Dark Shadows (2012) is an example of how a number of generations with curiosity in this text — along with those of a newer generation who have been exposed to vampires and all-things vampires via another source — mostly Twilight — can both enjoy a particular piece of popular culture, arriving at the text from different points of view.
Let’s return to the 1970s, where Dark Shadows plays and a small, quiet group of folks gather as fans to watch (on weekdays no less!). At this same time, a series of novels by writer Anne Rice appears known as The Vampire Chronicles, with its first volume Interview with the Vampire (1976). The novel is a bestseller. Here the vampire legend lives on and has the opportunity to be interviewed (Rice’s spin, her authentic version of this material) to tell us of his desires, his conquests, his history, etc. Readers are captivated and years later (1994) a filmed version is produced starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and many would agree that the movie version would not be the quintessential text for the genre as the movie is a poor execution of the novel.
These texts influence writer Joss Whedon, who in 1992 writes a movie that becomes a popular television series (TV again) entitled Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Whedon incorporates postmodern and gender feminist theory into the vampire myth and an authentic text example is born (some might even say Buffy is a game changer as a female vampire is in the lead). With proper research, one would find many more popular books featuring the vampire legend, however it isn’t until 2005 that Stephenie Meyer’s series Twilight appears, and again a phenomenon occurs surrounding this genre. It seemed an entire new generation was waiting for their own vampire text, and they happily embraced Edward and Bella and the Pacific Northwest scenario these new vampires inhabited.
There have now been numerous additional vampire texts jumping on the Twilight bandwagon. There’s True Blood, HBO’s hugely successful vampire series, and The Vampire Diaries, another teen version of the vampire legend on the CW, created by Kevin Williamson and based on the books of the same name. Are these texts copycats of those listed above, or are they just examples of consistently good content? (The answer is they are consistently good content, as audiences are fascinated with the vampire legend — ever since the 1700s). Through all of these versions, research will show that Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the quintessential text of the vampire genre. It stands the test of time and features most, if not all, of the typical traits of vampire-related stories.
QUESTIONING WITH THE WRITER’S ADVANTAGE
Now that you’ve been introduced to the 36 dramatic situations, which one (or combination) best represents your plot? (There are any number of websites that will link you to the list of plots — just do a search for “36 dramatic situations” or Georges Polti.)
While doing your research, do authors of articles or web-based columns consistently refer to a specific title over and over and reference that title when comparing all titles within your genre? Make a note of this.
Within your research, is there a mention of a text that seemed to be a game changer for its genre? In other words, the movie, book, TV show, or web series that introduced something to the genre that forever changed the way that genre was made.
Continue to ask yourself, as you gather information and process the details, whether you agree with the critics and authors of articles, etc., with their choices for quintessential texts. Stand by your reasons and know why you do or do not concu
r with them.
Do you see the subjective evaluations that go into determining the quintessential texts for each genre due to generational, style, format, budget, and other factors?
Does your idea have the potential to be a game changer in your genre? Why?
Do you think a genre can exist without a quintessential text representing that genre?
EXERCISE
Disaster-rama
Disaster movies of the 1970s provide a great scenario to study Quintessential Text energy. There have been many movies that feature disasters throughout the history of film, however the ‘70s are considered the Golden Age of disaster movies. Do some research on these movies. Hint: start with Airport (1970) and see where your research leads you. You’ll see how an entire genre thrived off of one major movie hit.
CHAPTER 7
IDENTIFY THE TRAITS OF YOUR GENRE AND HOW THEY RELATE TO YOUR STORY
The Writer's Advantage Page 8