The Cheeky Monkey
Page 16
FOLLOWING CHARACTERS
Characters drive stories, not the reverse. While apparently random and unexpected things occur in stories, most ‘inciting incidents’ (the event that gets the story moving) are not unique: the arrival of an unpopular relative, a tidal wave or a bag of money have all been done before. It’s how characters respond to these events that makes a story original.
Selecting an appropriate response to a situation is best done from ‘inside’ the character. Being ‘outside’ a character means making value judgements about their behaviour by comparing it to what you might do in the same situation. Being ‘inside’ is to stand in their skin, think as they might think. Inhabiting a character imparts a more fluid sense of their possible responses to a given situation. You can come up with action that is quirky or surprising, but that action is more likely to be true to character if you’re inhabiting them rather than imposing action from outside. After all, your characters stem from you and are a part of you. They each reflect some aspect of your personality and your experience of the world. Even an evil character should carry within them some quality you personally identify with. This is not to say that everything in your stories should be cut and pasted from your life. Writing is, after all, an act of the imagination. But you should always understand each character’s point of view.
Your life can furnish you with inspiration, but rarely can it furnish a complete story. For example, you might devise a character based upon a school bully from your youth. You vividly recall his negative traits (e.g. cunning and physical strength), but to write that character convincingly requires the addition of a sympathetic quality that allows you to inhabit the character (e.g. he’s lonely). Now you are ‘inside’ your created bully and better able to judge what he’ll do in your imagined scenario. Who knows? The story may require that he turns out to be a good person who’s merely misunderstood. Stubbornly adhering to your understanding of real-life characters and past events inhibits your imagination. If that’s your aim, make a documentary.
Once you’ve built a character, confront them with a challenge or place them in jeopardy. How they react will set your story apart from any other. If a bag of money arrives on their doorstep, a swindler’s response might be different to a detective’s; but your swindler and your detective may surprise you again.
When you know your characters well, they take on a life of their own and lead you through your imaginary world.
KICK START A STORY
Once a setting is established, throw a spanner in the works. The ‘spanner’ can be a simple event, such as a man has an old school friend over for the weekend. But this event should be loaded with at least one complicating factor that is not easily resolved, for example the man’s wife has always had a crush on thefriend.
The purpose of any comic story, no matter how outlandish, is to reflect real and spontaneous human interactions. It’s important to identify each character’s motivation, emotional state, and their given circumstances at every step.
A powerful, clear desire can turn even an independent, strong-willed character into the writer’s plaything. In the service of that desire they will do things they regard as repellent, terrifying, criminal or embarrassing. In fact, having done so, their investment in the object of their desire is even greater, leading them to perform acts even more drastic or heinous. The object itself may appear trivial to the viewer, but that’s the fun of it.
Clear and imperative desires inspire strong, clear emotions, which are ideal material for building a scene. Identify an emotional arc (happy-to-worried, angry-to-forgiving etcetera) for every character in every scene, or even every exchange of dialogue of your script. Knowing a character’s emotional state and motivation at all times helps the writer to select the appropriate joke.
In the case of the husband above, his initial motivation would be twofold: show his friend a good time, and keep his wife away from the friend. He may even have a third desire—to cast his friend in an unattractive light, without the friend being aware of it. At the outset, the husband’s emotions will range from excitement at the prospect of seeing his friend and trepidation or jealousy that his wife’s old flame will be rekindled. The wife and friend will also have their own emotional states and motivations. And it’s possible that each of the three characters is not being open about their true feelings and desires when the story begins, fooling each other and the audience.
It’s vital to know exactly what is happening in the hearts of your characters at every point in a story. Characters’ motivations and emotions will change as their circumstances change. For example, the husband’s priorities will change if his schemes to dampen his wife’s desire for his friend are discovered by the friend. His new priority will be to save his friendship and his emotional state will be more panicked.
If you know your characters well, the range of their responses to a situation should be clear. No matter how an episode’s events escalate, keep the essential question before you: ‘How will each of these characters react now?’ It’s likely more than one option will present itself. Trace where each option leads and what complications arise from it. Then assess those complications based on how uncomfortable they’ll be for the characters, and how they serve the theme of your story (which usually means whether they continue to play on the same character weaknesses). The most uncomfortable complication for your main story is usually the one to pick.
An episode’s inciting incident should rub the show’s characters up the wrong way. In the Dad’s Army episode ‘Branded’ (by David Croft and Jimmy Perry), the gentle and lovable Godfrey, a private in a troop of World War II home guardsmen, announces to his comrades that he was a conscientious objector in World War I. Conscientious objection is bound to provoke a reaction from a band of weekend warriors, but each of the other characters reacts in their own way. Captain Mainwaring is outraged (his love of duty is challenged) and he condemns Godfrey as a coward. Private Walker, the troop’s shady spiv, feels ‘a bit sorry for the old boy’ but doesn’t defend him. Pike, the innocent young guardsman, has no understanding of conscientious objection beyond his mother’s advice to her lover that ‘men ought to be men’. Godfrey is ostracised by the other troop members, but this soon becomes emotionally unbearable for the old chums. As the third act unfolds, Godfrey is proven to be the opposite of cowardly when he saves Captain Mainwaring’s life. He’s also revealed as a hero of World War I: he objected and joined the medical corps, but went into no man’s land to save several of his comrades. His fellow guardsmen have a unified response to this news that shows the values they share: they’re all surprised that Godfrey could keep such heroism a secret, sheepish at their own behaviour and relieved to welcome the soft-hearted fellow back to their fold.
Private Godfrey’s story is a touching and funny three-act tale that reminds us not to judge books by their covers. The characters each act and react in ways that accord with their natures. Conscientious objection to war is a ‘spanner’ that would create problems in any Home Guard unit, yet a surprising, funny and moving story develops from the original and believable reactions of these particular characters.
BUILDING SCENES
It’s a rule of thumb for drama and comedy narratives that the state of things at the beginning of a scene should be changed in some way by the end of it. The more stark and swift the changes in each scene, the more interesting the story will be. While it might be amusing for a short time, a scene in which characters simply say witty or silly things to each other will soon lose the audience’s interest. Sure, it works in stand-up comedy, but a comedy story must obey the ancient laws of storytelling or it will tread water until it drowns. Characters must be doing things, chasing their goals, reacting to situations, at war with each other, struggling against all odds and adapting to meet challenges.
Before writing a given scene, map out the basic events of the scene, the changes of fortune, the purpose of the scene in the story and the character qualities that are being challenged.
Dynamic scenes are often what could be called a ‘dance of opposites’ in that characters swap roles and perspectives. For example, a king might become the pawn of a servant if the servant is blackmailing him. Great scenes can be built by cycling through the possibilities that a situation or character offers. For example, in Scene 8 of an episode of Will & Grace entitled ‘I Never Cheered For My Father’ (by Adam Barr), Will’s mother Marilyn reveals she’s been having a secret affair with her ex-husband (and Will’s father), George. The affair has been going on behind the back of George’s former mistress (and now girlfriend), Tina.
Marilyn’s been enjoying the tantalising secrecy of her affair and chastises Will for revealing it to Tina. Will’s attempt to bring everything into the open has taken the excitement out of it. Because of this, Marilyn is considering ending the affair.
Tina, busty, brash and beautiful, arrives. She’s appalled that Marilyn is the ‘whore’ who’s seeing her boyfriend. Just when Tina was in a stable relationship (that she gained through wicked seduction), an interloper is stealing her man!
So, the ex-wife is acting like a seductress while the seductress is acting like a wronged wife.
The scene then cycles to a new position: Will orders Tina to leave his father and Marilyn to return to her husband. The two ladies reluctantly agree.
Next, the ladies privately agree upon a third and final position: they’ll each take George on specific nights of the week. ‘Oh, this is great!’ exclaims Marilyn. ‘And it’s even more exciting now that we’re lying to Will.’
Adam Barr, the writer, has both ladies at the beginning of the scene playing the opposite of their stereotype. Will, the son, then adopts the role of a disciplinarian ‘father’ ordering the women back to their stereotypical roles. Finally, the script cycles the roles again, returning the situation to its starting point, with a twist that will keep both ladies satisfied: Will is going to play the unknowing partner.
The scene follows a three-act pattern. The set-up is Marilyn’s chastising of Will. The complications are the arrival of Tina, the swapping of roles and Will’s negotiation. The third act of the scene first shows a false resolution where the two ladies agree to Will’s demands, then moves to a true resolution where the ladies agree to deceive Will and share their time with George.
This three-act pattern involving the swift cycling of opposites creates a delightful farcical dance that takes less than five minutes to complete. Like the ‘Old Friends’ episode in The Golden Girls, it shows comedy’s compression of narrative. The events of the scene could be stretched to comprise an entire episode or even a dramatic movie-length story.
COMIC DIALOGUE
Finally it’s time to put words into the characters’ mouths. At the first pass, however, none of them needs to be witty—only the bare essentials of whatmust be said are required. This part of the process could be regarded as listing the dialogue’s ‘bullet points’. Essentially, you are laying down the subtext: the message under the words or actions in a scene—what’s really being said. The exchange might look like this:
GAZZA: I’m standing my ground. My creative integrity is paramount.
PRODUCER: I’ll ruin your career.
GAZZA: I surrender.
The exchange is so bald it lays bare the subtext: Gazza is a mouse who thinks he’s a lion.
The next step is to see where and how a narrative gag or straight-up gag might support this. In the instance above, Gazza changes his mind under pressure from his producer, so the dialogue could take the form of a comic reversal: the character states their position firmly, pressure is placed on the character, the character changes their mind but tries to keep their dignity.
GAZZA: I have my standards. That scene is the heart of the episode. There is no way I will cut it.
PRODUCER: I guess I’ll have to find another writer.
GAZZA: Wait! I just needed time to think about your feedback. Let’s cut the scene.
An allusion to an archetype can make the point even sharper. For instance, the exchange between Gazza and his producer could be framed as a slave versus his pharaoh. Gazza’s ideals are useless against his Producer’s power.
GAZZA: (as Moses) Let my juices flow!
PRODUCER: No.
GAZZA: I demand creative freedom.
PRODUCER: (to a lackey) Bring me another writer!
GAZZA: … Uh, the creative freedom to do it your way, oh mighty one.
This process can be applied in reverse. The purpose of any line in a scene is to advance the story, change the characters’ emotions, reveal character, offer a new (relevant) perspective or reflect the story’s theme. To ensure every line of action or dialogue is performing one of these functions, write out the subtext of each line. If the subtext of a given line or exchange (or indeed the whole scene) doesn’t do any of the above, it may need to be cut or altered so it serves a purpose.
You may find a gag-type or principle that can transform your dialogue bullet points into a humorous exchange. Remember a character can get a laugh simply by displaying their known qualities or by summing up the situation.
SITUATION CREATION
Amongst the many things required by situation comedy is (you guessed it) a situation. Devising a comic situation, however, can be a maddening process—particularly when the writer puts the cart before the horse. The horse, in this case, being character.
Characters drive stories, not the reverse. Any narrative demands active characters who respond to events in accordance with their own personalities, creating or causing further events. Consequently the place to start a story is always with your characters.
One of the easiest traps to fall into is ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if … ?’ Having a vision of your characters dealing with a particular ludicrous event is fine, but it’s possible to go mad building a sitcom situation that accommodates that event. Cause and effect are the building blocks of story development but working from effect to cause doubles your workload.
Let’s imagine you want to include a pink pony in the climax of your script. For some reason, the pink pony appeals to you—it’s new, original and could be a funny sight. Except, how does the pony get there? And why is it there? And what are the characters doing about it? Why? Why? Why? Before you know it, you’re writing the story backwards, which is about as easy as reading one backwards.
The beginning is the best place to start. Bring in the pink pony at the start, either physically or as an issue that the characters must deal with. As a story element it might be enough to get your characters moving—but only if it creates a problem beyond feeding and dung-disposal. That is, it cannot simply be an amusing event. It must create a situation.
So, start with the pony, see if it tests your characters in some way. If the pony’s cute and funny but doesn’t spark an interesting chain of events, cut it.
The best situations challenge a character’s true nature. For instance, a ruthless character who doesn’t care what people think of him won’t be too concerned at being exposed as a liar. But if this exposure will lead to the loss of his true love, then he will work hard to maintain the friendship and alliance of anyone who discovers the lie—even though it is his nature to hold them in contempt.
Start with a character, identify one or more of their qualities and build from there. You may find the following three-step process useful in building situations that place your characters under pressure.
Set-up (e.g. the insecure h
usband (protagonist) excitedly prepares for the arrival of his old friend visiting to watch the footy Grand Final on TV).
Complications (e.g. his wife reminds him she had the hots for his friend when they were all at school together. The friend arrives and is still very attractive and likable. And he’s become rich! With the protagonist in a stew, the next step is to have them deepen the situation with an action).
Resolution for better or worse (e.g. the husband decides to lie that his friend is gay so his wife will lose interest).
The situation is now evolving, or ‘active’. The husband’s actions will cause complications that he will have to overcome as the story approaches the second turning point. Typically, the second turning point presents him with an opportunity or crisis that allows him (and us) to frame the terms of the climax, even though we don’t know whether he will succeed. As he nears his goal, the third and final turning point brings him up against the thing he fears most—in this case, loss of his wife and friend due to their new-found romance or to his own dishonesty.
Usually, protagonists deepen their trouble by acting ‘externally’, making efforts to change the situation without changing their own outlook. External actions might include donning a disguise, telling a fib, cheating, hiding evidence, manipulating others, forcing others to do their will or obeying the will of others against their own better judgment. External actions tend to be improvised short-term fixes, for example, if the husband whispers to his wife that his old friend is gay.