by John Vorhaus
THE HERO TAKES CONTROL
Having found this beautiful, beckoning door, the hero strides boldly through, ready for any adventure . . . or tentatively through, filled with trepidation. Whatever his thoughts going in, he immediately starts to take over in his new and challenging world. He enjoys early success here, and thinks that things are really, really going his way. He doesn’t know it yet, but it’s only a surface triumph, the appearance of success.
In Tootsie, Michael Dorsey enjoys early success in his new role. He has fans, money, approval, everything he could ask for. Is his victory real? No, because it’s not Michael Dorsey but Dorothy Michaels who’s earning all the kudos and encomia. He has the surface appearance; “Not triumph, an incredible simulation!”
In Romancing the Stone, the hero takes control when Joan Wilder arrives in Colombia and hires Jack Colton. She makes real progress toward her goal, and as things now stand, she has every expectation of success. Expectations, as we know, are made to be defeated. Otherwise, the story would go like this: A nervous young woman goes to Colombia to rescue her sister. She does. The end.
Not much of a story, is it?
In Everybody’s Dream Come True, Albert takes control by building Kathryn’s plane. When it flies, he thinks his story is over. If he were right, then she’d fly the plane, win a big air race, join him on the cover of National Geographic, and that would be that.
Why isn’t this real success? Why is it only surface success? Because the thing that Albert really wants, his inner need of self-respect, has not been addressed yet. He hasn’t been tested to the limit of his ability. In a very real sense, he hasn’t yet earned his wings.
So when you’re deciding how your hero takes control, think in terms of early success and surface success. Make things good for your good guy here. Make him enjoy what’s happening. Give him a fun time. Above all else, make him unaware of the greater battle that looms ahead.
In Star Wars, Luke takes control by going off to join the rebel alliance. Along the way, he learns the rudiments of being a Jedi knight. Early successes make him think that he’s learned it all. He knows there’s such a thing as the Force, and he knows it’s alive in his life, but he really doesn’t know how to use it. In one sentence, we’d say that the hero takes control when Luke goes off to find the princess and gets introduced to the Force.
In Big, Tom Hanks takes control by moving to Manhattan, getting a job, an apartment, and all the other trappings of adulthood. He seems to have realized his dream of being “big,” but he doesn’t have a clue what true adulthood really means. Real responsibility as yet eludes him, so his story has not yet been told. In a sentence: The hero takes control when he moves to Manhattan and starts behaving like an adult.
Meanwhile, back on television, Mary wants Ted and Lou to be better friends. The door opens when they agree to try. The hero takes control by inviting them both to dinner, and they seem to be getting along. You know that the story’s not over. Something’s bound to go wrong. It has to. It’s that or fifteen minutes of commercials.
An episode of Murphy Brown might find Murphy with the strong outer need of landing an interview with a tinhorn dictator from some banana republic somewhere. The door opens when Murphy gets the interview on the condition that she treat the dictator with respect she doesn’t feel he deserves. The hero takes control when she curbs her atavistic urges and conducts the interview on the dictator’s terms. But we know that Murphy’s not being true to herself, so her story is not yet told.
In the Gospels, Jesus’s strong outer need is to help the poor. The door opens when he starts his ministry, and the hero takes control by performing miracles, acquiring followers, helping the poor. He hasn’t yet addressed his inner need, so his story’s not done.
How does your hero take control? Think of one event that completes the following sentence: “The hero takes control by . . .” In Everybody’s Dream Come True, the hero takes control by building a plane that flies. In your story, the hero takes control by . . .
Now challenge yourself. Think of five different, smaller ways in which the hero takes control. These are the details of your story. You don’t need them yet, but you will. In Tootsie, the hero takes control by signing his contract, buying new clothes, doing well on camera, becoming friendly with Julie, and standing up to Ron. In Everybody’s Dream Come True, Albert takes control by designing a plane, helping Kathryn test it, taking credit for the invention, feeling good about himself, standing up to the town bully.
In your story, the hero takes control by . . .
Again, don’t worry if you’re wrong or right. The whole point of this exercise is just to give you a better feel for the sort of events that take place when the hero is taking control. All you really need is the umbrella description of these events. In City Slickers, the hero takes control by going out west to act like a cowboy. Is it as simple as that? Sure is, pardner.
A MONKEY WRENCH IS THROWN
I once taught screenwriting as a second language to students from Egypt, Spain, and Bulgaria, a veritable world conference on story structure. They all spoke at least some English, because English, thanks to CNN and M1V, is the language of the world these days. But American idiom gave them fits. This, in turn, gave me fits, so used was I to teaching in the cultural shorthand of my milk tongue. When I say to you, gentle reader, “a monkey wrench is thrown,” you know what I mean. But a literal deconstruction of “monkey wrench” yields “a device for twisting simians.” Illuminating? Helpful? I think not.
For monkey wrench, then, substitute “a new, bad thing,” because that’s what happens in the story when the monkey wrench is thrown. A screw-up happens, a new threat arises, a new character enters, or a complication develops. In a murder mystery, the hero will be in control, feeling like he’s got the case all but solved, right up to the moment when his prime suspect turns up dead. In comic stories, especially on film, the new bad thing that happens is a change in the hero’s state of mind.
In television sitcoms, the monkey wrench is usually thrown at the act break, the moment just before the commercial when the hero realizes that things aren’t going according to plan. In the example we’ve been tracking, no sooner has Mary negotiated her truce between Ted and Lou than a new, bad thing happens, not only renewing their hostilities, but escalating them and somehow making Mary a part of the fight. Suddenly she’s hostile too. She’s experienced a change of state of mind. In television terms, this is also known as the moment of maximum remove. At this moment, it dawns on the hero just how distant she is from her goal.
Remember that up until this moment, our hero has had things pretty much his or her own way. You find the monkey wrench in your story, then, by asking and answering this question: When does something go wrong?
In a comic story, the monkey wrench is usually thrown when the hero falls in love. Why is this a bad thing? Because it creates a dynamic and irreconcilable conflict between the character’s original, self-serving goal and his new goal of winning his loved one’s heart. All during the “hero takes control” phase of Tootsie, things go great for Michael Dorsey. He’s moving closer and closer to his goal of winning respect as an actor. Actress? Acting person. But the moment he falls in love with Julie, he’s sunk. It’s impossible for her to love him as long as he’s a woman. The longer he maintains his pretense, the closer he gets to his original goal, but the further he gets from Julie’s love.
In Romancing the Stone, Joan Wilder has no problems (apart from getting shot at regularly) until she falls in love with Jack Colton. Now her desire to see her sister set free is in sudden and dynamic conflict with her desire to go after the treasure with Jack and win his heart.
In City Slickers, everything’s going fine for Billy Crystal. He’s ridin’ the range, ropin’ them dogies, drinkin’ that chuckwagon coffee without a care in the world. Then he falls in love with Norman, the calf, and he’s stuck. Now he has responsibility. He can no lo
nger ride that range and sing them cowboy songs without a care. Out of loyalty to that li’l dogie, he’s got to bring the herd home safe.
The key word is “loyalty.” A character always starts out with loyalty to himself and loyalty to his goal. What happens when the monkey wrench is thrown is that the hero experiences displaced loyalty. Michael Dorsey displaces his loyalty to Julie. Billy Crystal displaces his loyalty to Norman. Luke Skywalker displaces his loyalty to the rebel alliance. This new conflict between original loyalty and displaced loyalty takes and turns the story on its head. Up till now, our tale has been a simple one of a character wanting something and going after it. When the loyalty gets displaced, suddenly the story is about a character wanting two things that are mutually exclusive. Irresistible force versus immovable object. Trouble.
Romeo and Juliet have no real problems until they fall in love. Robin Hood and Maid Marian. Oedipus and Jocasta.
In Midnight Cowboy, Jon Voight displaces his loyalty from himself to Dustin Hoffman. In Paper Moon, Ryan O’Neal displaces his loyalty to his daughter, and once that happens, he’ll never be at peace until he squares what he wants for himself with what he wants for her. In The African Queen, Bogart displaces loyalty to Katharine Hepburn. In Casablanca, Bogart displaces his loyalty to Ingrid Bergman. In Key Largo, Bogart displaces his loyalty to Lauren Bacall. In The Maltese Falcon, Bogart displaces his loyalty to Mary Astor. Displacin’ kind of guy, old Bogie.
Once you’ve got everything going your hero’s way, pull the rug out from under him. Drop love on his head. Make him want two things and make it so that he can’t have both. In Everybody’s Dream Come True, Albert falls in love with Kathryn. His loyalty thus displaced, he can’t be content to take sole credit for their invention, nor can he win her heart until he gives her her due.
How does your hero’s loyalty displace? What monkey wrench can you throw into your story to make things impossible for your hero? Who can you put in his path to create conflict between what he wanted in the first place and what he wants right now?
Your answer might look something like this: Paula’s monkey wrench is thrown when she falls in love with Chris, making it impossible for her to marry Bill.
To make this twist work, you obviously need a character for your hero to become loyal to. Now may be a good time to go back, invent such a character, and create a throughline for that character to follow. You’ll be looking for your old friend Mr. Comic Opposite, the person who can give your hero the worst possible time. That’s who you want your hero to fall in love with. Nice person, you.
Okay, let’s recap using two fresh examples. In American Graffiti, Richard Dreyfuss plays a high-school graduate who wants to go to college. The door opens when he gets a scholarship. The hero takes control when he drives around town, enjoying his last night of freedom. A monkey wrench is thrown when he falls in love with the girl in the white Corvette.
In Strictly Ballroom, the hero is a young dancer who wants to make his mark on the world of ballroom dancing. The door opens when he starts to dance his own steps. He takes control when he finds a new partner to dance with. A monkey wrench is thrown when he falls in love with her.
I hope that you’re starting to see that this throughline can be an effective way of boiling down a story, yours or someone else’s, to its essence. One thing it’s good for is revealing flaws. If, for example, you don’t yet have a decent monkey wrench, you’ll see it now. For my money, it’s far better to discover story problems here at the start than to write 120 pages of rambling screenplay or 400 pages of a comic novel, only to find out later (and too late) that the script is flawed on the level of the story.
As an aside, if you want to break off an affair, simply take your future former lover to the movies and start analyzing a film out loud. “That’s what the hero wants,” you say, “and now the door opens, and now he’s taking control. Oh look, look! Here comes the monkey wrench! Boy, I saw that coming, didn’t you?” You’ll be alone before the popcorn grows cold.
The hurling of the monkey wrench is only the first in a series of bad things that happen to our hero. He’s had a fairly smooth ride up till now, but things are going to get bumpy from here on in, because, as William Butler Yeats promised in “The Second Coming . . .”
THINGS FALL APART
Remember what I said a few chapters ago about taking perverse pleasure in making a .hell for your hero? Well, now is when your hell-making skills really come into play. Once the monkey wrench has been thrown, you really want to litter your tale with bad news for the good guy.
In Tootsie, things fall apart when Michael’s contract is renewed, when Julie thinks Dorothy is a lesbian, when Julie’s dad proposes marriage, when Jonathan van Horn makes a drunken pass, when Michael discovers that his contract is ironclad, and when Sandy feels betrayed. Life is hell.
Just as “the hero takes control” encompasses a series of positive events, “things fall apart” encompasses a series of negative events. The challenge of the throughline is to boil all that bad news down to one simple statement. How about this: Things fall apart when Michael becomes trapped in the role of Dorothy Michaels.
In our Mary Tyler Moore story, things fall apart when Lou and Ted turn their anger on Mary, blaming her for the problems that exist between them. In Star Wars, things fall apart when Luke is forced to battle Darth Vader. In City Slickers, things fall apart when
Jack Palance dies, when the other cowboys leave, and when a savage storm threatens the success of the cattle drive; in short, things fall apart when Billy Crystal finds himself leading the cattle drive. He’s caught in a trap of his own making.
This is a key phrase: caught in a trap of his own making. More often than not, as tension builds between your hero’s original loyalty and his displaced loyalty, he discovers that somehow or another it’s his own damn fault. Of course, the Ghostbusters aren’t responsible for all those ghosts running loose in Manhattan, but their cavalier attitude, and their carelessness in letting the captured ghosts escape, lead directly to a trap of their own making.
Let’s walk a new movie all the way through and see how it tracks to this point. In The Bad News Bears, Walter Matthau, the hero, wants redemption for mistakes in his baseball past. The door opens when he agrees to coach a little-league team. The hero takes control when he recruits Tatum O’Neal and turns the team around. A monkey wrench is thrown when he displaces loyalty to the kids and realizes that their goal of winning has become important to him. Things fall apart when his own bad attitude (the trap of his own making) causes the players to lose faith in him.
Substitute Emilio Estevez for Walter Matthau, and hockey for baseball, and you have The Mighty Ducks.
Which raises an interesting point. Many successful comic stories have the same structure, so you might think that there’s no original thought out there at all. In one sense, you’re right. In terms of theme and structure, in terms of the way a story is told, we comic writers get led again and again to the same authentic places. This is not a bad thing. If you know anything about pop music, you know that most hit songs are written in major keys. If they’re not written in major keys, they don’t sound like hit songs. It’s as simple as that. Likewise, if your story isn’t structured conventionally, it doesn’t work like a conventional story. Does this mean vote no on unconventional stories? Of course not. It’s just that conventional stories, conventionally structured, are far, far easier to write, and to read, and to enjoy.
The trick, of course, is to transcend the structure with new and interesting comic characters, with inventive and amusing details, and with plot twists that make the conventional story uniquely your own. Just because The Bad News Bears explored the theme of redemption through baseball doesn’t mean that there’s no room for a movie that explores the theme of redemption through hockey, or a story like Hoosiers, which explores redemption through basketball.
Tell me if this wouldn’t work: Birdies! (I�
�m making this up) is the story of a former world-class badminton player who molds some ragtag children into a badminton powerhouse. The hero, Twyla Hengst, wants redemption for mistakes in her badminton past. The door opens when Twyla has to teach badminton to the misfit kids. The hero takes control when she convinces them that “there’s beauty in the birdie” and starts to shape their skills. A monkey wrench is thrown when she displaces loyalty to the kids and signs on to their dreams of victory. Things fall apart when Twyla is offered a shot at the Olympics, which would mean leaving her team in the lurch.
Will it be funny? Sure—if the characters are real comic characters in strong opposition, if exaggeration and clash of context are present, and if the characters’ strong comic perspectives allow funny words and actions and situations to emerge. Does it matter that this ground is familiar and well-trod? I think not. As Pablo Picasso said, “You just keep painting the same picture over and over.”
Which brings us back to our stories, yours and mine. In Everybody’s Dream Come True, things fall apart when Kathryn accuses Albert of stealing credit for her inventions, when their plane crashes and Kathryn is injured, and when Albert faces the prospect of flying solo in an upcoming air race. In short, things fall apart when Albert realizes that he’s going to have to see this plane thing through to the end.
Now do yours. First, list as many ways as you can in which things fall apart, and then boil them down to a single sentence.
You may find it useful right here to do what I just did with Birdies! Start over with a fresh, new idea and run it through the throughline. I think you’ll find that it’s easier to hit the marks the second time around. And the third, and the fourth. Eventually it will become almost automatic.