by Will Dunne
In the opening of Edmond, for example, one of the most interesting and compelling images is that of the fortune-teller reading Edmond's palm. In some ways, it's a familiar sight-we have seen palm readers before-and, at the same time, it is unfamiliar. This is not an everyday occurrence for most of us, and its presence suggests a voyage into the unknown. It's the type of image that draws us in by automatically raising questions: what's the fortune-teller saying to this man? Is this for real or only a hoax? Will her predictions come true?
4. What is the strongest action in the first ten minutes? Characters are re vealed by what they do more than by what they say. So we, the audience, watch them and make inferences based on what we see and feel. This process engages us in the characters and helps us get to know them on an emotional level. What your main character does during the story's opening may be a critical factor in your ability to make the audience care.
A character's most important actions are usually those in which he or she is trying to affect another character in a meaningful way-whether positive or negative. They are actions driven by desire, obstacle, and high stakes, and they often center around important turning points in the character's life. Sometimes physical action rises to this level as well, especially in film.
In the opening of Edmond, one of the most interesting and compelling dramatic actions is that of Edmond ending his marriage after his wife complains about the maid breaking an antique lamp. His action is fueled by strong desire (to convince his wife that he doesn't love her), by an obstacle (he's been unable to express this to her for years), and by high stakes (his yearning for a new life).
One of the peaks of action here is Edmond's brutal confession to his wife: "You don't interest me spiritually or sexually." It's a sign of how deeply his soul has been stirred by the fortune-teller and a measure of how strong his motivation is. Characters at turning points like this have a way of grabbing our attention whether we like it or not.
5. What is the inciting event, and has it happened yet? Every story is a quest triggered by some type of turning-point experience that upsets the balance of the character's life in either a good or bad way. Ideally, this inciting event occurs onstage or onscreen after the story begins, but not too long after. In most plays and screenplays, the inciting event happens during the first ten minutes-or at least begins by then-because, until the inciting event occurs, the real engine of the story has not yet begun. In some screenplays, the inciting event is delayed to make room for a subplot.
In Edmond, the inciting event is the fortune-teller's warning that he is not where he belongs. This occurs on the second page and it's the first dramatic event of the story: it's what causes the story to take place.
6. What new goal does the inciting event arouse in the main character, and how well have you established this? The inciting event matters only when the main character knows about it and makes a conscious decision to do something about it: to restore the balance that has been upset.
A key word here is "conscious." The character knows what he or she must accomplish, or at least thinks so. In complex stories, there may also be a stronger subconscious goal that the character and the audience do not discover until much later. In either case, the story goal defines and drives the quest, and is only achieved, if ever, at the very end of the story. To grab the audience, let them in on what the main character is after, and why that's important. This knowledge will get us wondering whether or not the character will succeed, and will guide us to what's most important as the journey unfolds.
In Edmond, for example, the fortune-teller's warning arouses in Edmond the need to find where he belongs. This is implied by Edmond in the second scene when he tells his wife, "I'm going," and then later, "I'm not coming back," and then later, "I don't want to live this kind of life." All of this, coming right after the fortune-telling, shows us how much it has affected Edmond and defines his quest in the story. He doesn't find the kind of life he wants to live until the story's end-twenty-one scenes later.
7. What are the rules of the game, and how well have you established them? Drama is heightened reality, so even a naturalistic story may operate under laws, customs, and values that are unique to the world of the characters. Know the rules of the game for your story and show them or imply them as soon as possible. This is especially important if your story will depart from everyday reality, as in the case of magic realism. While establishing the rules, be sure it's clear what genre, or type of story, we are in.
Edmond, for example, is naturalistic drama. However, it takes us from the ordinary surface of New York life to a dark underworld where the top values are power, sex, and money, and the most common means to acquire them are treachery, theft, prostitution, violence, rape, and murder.
The nature of this world is established in scene 3 when Edmond meets a stranger at a bar who spews racial hatred, educates him about where to find a prostitute, and seals the deal with the buying of drinks. Within the first ten minutes of the story, we know what type of world Edmond is entering. We also understand that he can never return to what he left behind. The rules of the game have been drawn. We also have been prepared for a drama that will be told in short scenes of escalating tension.
8. What big question has been raised? Ideally, while watching a good story, the audience always has a big question lingering somewhere in the back of their minds. This big question is raised during the opening pages of the story and not answered until the final pages. It's a version of "How will it all turn out?" Know what big question you want the audience to ask and try to raise it within the first ten minutes.
In Edmond, the big question is "Will Edmond ever find his true place in the world?" This question begins to get raised right away with the inciting event-the fortune-teller's warning that he is not where he belongsand is reinforced by the action of Edmond walking out of his marriage and the comforts of a middle-class home to seek a new life. The big question doesn't get answered until the end, after Edmond has been put in prison for murder and assaulted by a fellow prisoner. He finds his true place-and redemption-in the prison cell he shares with his attacker.
9. What will make the audience wonder what happens next? Ideally, while watching a good story, the audience is always wondering "what happens next?" These smaller questions tend to lead us into the next scene or sequence, where they are usually answered and then replaced by new questions leading us forward again. Know what smaller question you want the audience to ask after the first ten minutes. This is the gateway to the rest of the story.
By the time we are ten minutes into Edmond, the stranger at the bar has stirred up some dangerous ideas and sent Edmond to the Allegro to meet a B-girl. The "what happens next" question is "What will happen to Edmond at the Allegro?" This question is raised by the trouble brewing: Edmond is a desperate man who has been drinking and is about to get more entangled in a dangerous underworld for which he is ill prepared. The question gets answered in the next scene: he does meet a B-girl, but gets ripped off and kicked out of the Allegro without getting sex.
io. What is the strongest hook in your opening pages now? Think about the characters, imagery, action, dialogue, backstory, and other elements at work in your first ten pages. Ideally, there is a hook that will grab the audience and make them want to go along for the ride. You may have already found this hook in your answers to the other questions. Determine what the hook is, what emotional response you want from the audience-for example, laughter, pity, anxiety, or anger-and whether you need to do more to make the audience care.
In Edmond, what grabs the audience by the throat is Edmond's desperate need to reinvent himself after seeing the awful truth about his life. Mixed in with this is the threat of danger that looms in the underworld. After the first three scenes, we are on a tightrope of emotion, hoping for the best and prepared for the worst. We are worried about where Edmond's quest will lead.
RETHINKING HOW YOUR STORY BEGINS
Focus on your response to the last question-what's
the hook?-and explore some new possibilities:
i. In your mind's eye, watch what happens during the first ten pages of the story when you are introducing your characters. Focus on one important image in this sequence and how you might boost its grabbing power by changing it in some way-for example, by adding something, removing something, or exaggerating what's there now. Suppose the image is a man and a fortune-teller seated across the table from each other. The image could be heightened by moving the man's hand, palm up, into the fortuneteller's hand. This simple change creates a more visually dynamic interaction between them and more clearly defines without words what's going on. Briefly describe a new version of your image.
2. Bring the revised image to life with a line or two of dialogue that, like a photo caption, adds meaning to the visual content-for example, the fortune-teller is saying to the man, "You are not where you belong."
3. Look at the opening sequence again and take another, even bigger, creative leap. Find a completely new image that could be added to this sequence. Imagine that this new image is more interesting and more powerful than anything you see there. Imagine that it has three elements: it centers around your main character, it has a strong emotional quality, and it is somehow startling or unusual. In other words, there is something about this new image that would make us look twice, raise a question, and make us want to know more. Describe the new image.
4. Bring the new image to new life with a line or two of dialogue that adds meaning to the visual content.
S. Will either or both of these images work in your opening? If so, how and where?
WRAP-UP
Use the opening of your story wisely. It's your best time to grab the audience by the throat and make them want to take the dramatic journey with you. Here is a summary of how to add grabbing power to the first ten minutes of your story:
• Introduce an interesting character with whom we can empathize, and make it clear that this is the main character of the story.
• Introduce an interesting dramatic situation with strong emotional qualities.
• Build in at least one interesting and compelling dramatic image, preferably one that centers around the main character.
• Make the main character active and use the actions to reveal something important and interesting about him or her.
• Introduce the story's inciting incident and let the main character be aware of it.
• Define the quest by establishing what story objective has been aroused consciously in the main character as a result of the inciting event.
• Establish the rules of the game so that we are prepared for the world we will be exploring.
• Raise an important big question that will not be fully answered until the end of the story.
• Raise an interesting smaller question that will make us want to see the next scene or sequence.
• Know what your strongest hook is and what emotional response you want from the audience at this point in the story.
THE QUICK VERSION
Use a step outline to track and manage the events of your story
BEST TIME FOR THIS
Any time you want to identify story events and see how they connect
DRAMA AS LIFE IN TRANSITION
Webster defines transition as "a passing from one condition to another." In drama, this passing is the step-by-step movement from how a character is at the beginning of a story to how the character is at the end. We often enter the character's life just before-or sometimes just as-an important turning-point experience occurs. This event arouses a desire that turns the character's life in a new direction, either positive or negative. By the time the story ends, the character has changed. Something dramatic has happened. A transition has occurred.
Imagine a traveler who is in San Francisco and headed by train to New York. To reach the final destination, the traveler must make a journey and pass through a number of different cities along the way. Dramatic characters also make journeys. Instead of going from one city to another, they travel between other types of places-for example, from cowardice to bravery, or from honesty to corruption, or from failure to success. To make the journey, they must move through a number of different experiences along the way. These experiences are the steps of the story.
As you develop scenes, try to keep an eye on your main character's big transition, step by step, from beginning to end. A common problem in new scripts is a weak throughline. The main character's journey is not clear or seems illogical for that particular character. Or the journey unfolds too quickly or too slowly. Or it has too many steps or not enough. In some scripts, there simply is no transition. The whole story is told over and over in each scene, with the same dynamic repeated in slightly different ways. To create a big transition that works, you need these elements:
An established starting point. We won't know that a transition is taking place unless we first have a clear understanding of the starting point. If this is not well defined, we have no way to know when we have left it for somewhere else. If the character will move from honesty to corruption, for example, we will not understand the change unless the character's honesty has first been clearly demonstrated. Or, to use the travel analogy, we will not know that we left San Francisco unless we realize that's where we were to begin with.
An established end point. We also need to know where we have ended up. If this end point is not clearly shown, we have no way to compare it to the starting point and see that something important has changed. This is not to say that the story must avoid ambiguity-great stories often leave questions unanswered-but we need to sense that things have changed in a certain way. In the journey from honesty to corruption, for example, we must experience the corruption. Or, in the travel analogy, we must see the landmark that finally welcomes us to New York.
Steady movement. While life is full of sudden changes, it is difficult for a dramatic journey to hold our interest unless it unfolds steadily in a series of steps. If we stay in the same place too long, we grow tired of being there. (Is this still San Francisco?) If we move too quickly from one place to another, we have trouble following the journey. (How did we get to Chicago already?) By creating a steady, step-by-step transition, you enable us to follow and become part of the journey. These steps vary in size and importance, but their overall effect is one of ever-forward movement.
Steps that are unique. Each scene of the character's journey is different from the rest. Once we leave San Francisco, we arrive in Las Vegas and not San Francisco again. Once we leave Las Vegas, we arrive in Salt Lake City and not another Las Vegas. If each next step is truly different, we keep entering new territory and moving ahead to the final destination.
Steps that are connected. The steps of the story are woven together through cause and effect. Because that happened then, this will happen now. These dynamics make each event essential in the chain of events and create a logic that we can follow at gut level. In the journey by train from San Francisco to New York, for example, we would get confused if there were a stopover in Paris. While surprise can be effective dramatically, an illogical surprise can take us out of the story or make us feel we have gotten off track.
Steps that fit the character. There is no magic formula to determine what steps or how many steps a character must take in order to complete a dramatic journey. Just as there are a variety of possible routes and stopping points between San Francisco and New York, there are many different ways to move from honesty to corruption, or from love to hate, or from injustice to justice. Figuring out the steps of the story is one of the hardest tasks you face. It requires that you know not only who your character is, but also-at each new step-how the character's experience and knowledge has now changed as a result of the previous step.
Change that matters. If the transition of the story is too small, we will have a hard time staying interested in what goes on. We go to the theater to experience journeys that are meaningful and profound. For example, a journey from one thing to its
opposite-from cowardice to bravery, from ugliness to beauty, or from infidelity to fidelity-can certainly be a journey worth watching. When in doubt, err on the side of being too bold.
Some stories go even further by taking us around the world so that the end point is the starting point again. In other words, we leave San Francisco and return there in the end. This type of journey can work dramatically if the San Francisco we ultimately reach is not the San Francisco we left. For example, if an honest man faces increasingly powerful temptations, succumbs to them, corrects his errors, and resists corruption in the end, his final honesty has more meaning because it has been tested in the real world and strengthened.
ABOUT THE EXERCISE
Use this exercise to create a step outline: a planning and revision tool that sums up the key events of your main character's dramatic journey. By compressing this journey to a manageable size, you can see it all at once, explore how events connect or don't connect, and determine whether you have the right events in the right order for the story you want to tell. A step outline is also a useful tool for eliminating events that do nothing more than duplicate other events or are tangents that lead nowhere and fail to support the central throughline.
To develop a step outline is to explore the dramatic continuum of the story, its inseparable past, present, and future. While focusing on what's happening here and now, each step reflects certain consequences of what has happened earlier and implies certain possibilities of what might happen later. This continuum is what creates the throughline and enables the big transition to occur.
You can use step outlines different ways. Some writers don't begin writing scenes until they have mapped out the whole story. Others wait until they have finished a first draft and extract the outline to see where to revise. Still others develop the step outline as they write so they have an ongoing way to track what they have so far.