by The Anatomy of Story- 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller (mobi)
Similarly, don't get hung up on the number twenty-two. A story may have more or fewer than twenty-two steps, depending on its type and length. Think of a story as an accordion. It is limited only in how much it can contract. It must have no fewer than the seven steps, because that is the least number of steps in an organic story. Even a thirty-second commercial, if it's good, will follow the seven steps.
But the longer a story gets, the more structure steps it will need. For example, a short story or a situation comedy can only hit the seven major steps in the limited time the story has to unfold. A movie, a short novel, or a one-hour drama for television will usually have at least twenty-two steps (unless the drama is multistrand, in which case each strand hits the seven steps). A longer novel, with its added twists and surprises, has fat-more than twenty-two structure steps. For example, David Copperfield has more than sixty revelations.
If you were to study the twenty-two steps in depth, you would see that they are really a combination of many systems of the story body woven into a single plotline. They combine the character web, the moral argument, the story world, and the series of actual events that comprise the plot. The twenty-two steps represent a detailed choreography of hero versus opponents as the hero tries to reach a goal and solve a much deeper life problem. In effect, the twenty-two steps guarantee that your main character drives your plot.
The table on page 270 shows the twenty-two steps broken down into four major threads, or story subsystems. Keep in mind that each step can be an expression of more than one subsystem. For example, drive, which is the set of actions the hero takes to reach the goal, is primarily a plot step. But it is also a step where the hero may take immoral action to win, which is part of the moral argument.
The following description of the twenty-two steps will show you how to use them to figure out your plot. After I explain a step, I will show you an example of that step from two films, Casablanca and Tootsie. These films represent two different genres—love story and comedy—and were written forty years apart. Yet both hit the twenty-two steps as they build their organic plots steadily from beginning to end.
Always remember that these steps are a powerful tool for writing but are not carved in stone. So be flexible when applying them. Every good story works through the steps in a slightly different order. You must find the order that works best for your unique plot and characters.
1. Self-Revelation, Need, and Desire
Self revelation, need, and desire represent the overall range of change of your hero in the story. A combination of Steps 20, 3, and 5, this frame gives yon the structural "journey" your hero will take. You'll recall that in Chapter 4, on character, we started at the endpoint of your hero's development by figuring out his self-revelation. Then we returned to the beginning to get his weakness and need and his desire. We must use the same process when determining the plot.
By starting with the frame of the story—self-revelation to weakness, need, and desire—we establish the endpoint of the plot first. Then every step we take will lead us directly where we want to go.
When looking at the framing step of the plot, ask yourself these ques-tions, and be very specific in your answers:
■ What will my hero learn at the end?
■ What does he know at the beginning? No character is a completely
blank slate at the start of the story. He believes certain things. ■ What is he wrong about at the beginning? Your hero cannot learn something at the end of the story unless he is wrong about something at the beginning.
Casablanca
■ Self-Revelation Rick realizes he cannot withdraw from the fight for freedom simply because he was hurt by love.
■ Psychological Need To overcome his bitterness toward Ilsa, regain a reason for living, and renew his faith in his ideals. ■ Moral Need To stop looking out for himself at the expense of others. ■ Desire To get Ilsa back.
■ Initial Error Rick thinks of himself as a dead man, just marking time. The affairs of the world are not his concern.
Tootsie
■ Self-Revelation Michael realizes he has treated women as sex objects and, because of that, he has been less of a man.
■ Psychological Need To overcome his arrogance toward women and learn to honestly give and receive love.
■ Moral Need To stop lying and using women to get what he wants.
■ Desire He wants Julie, an actress on the show.
■ Initial Error Michael thinks he is a decent person in dealing with women and that it is OK to lie to them.
2. Ghost and Story World
Step 1 sets the frame of your story. From Step 2 on, we will work through the structure steps in the order that they occur in a typical story. Keep in mind, however, that the number and sequence of steps may differ, depending on the unique story you wish to tell.
Ghost
You are probably familiar with the term "backstory." Backstory is everything that has happened to the hero before the story you are telling begins. I rarely use the term "backstory" because it is too broad to be useful. The audience is not interested in everything that has happened to the hero. They are interested in the essentials. That's why the term "ghost" is much better.
There are two kinds of ghosts in a story. The first and most common is an event from the past that still haunts the hero in the present. The ghost is an open wound that is often the source of the hero's psychological and moral weakness. The ghost is also a device that lets you extend the hero's organic development backward, before the start of your story. So the ghost is a major part of the story's foundation.
You can also think of this first kind of ghost as the hero's internal opponent. It is the great fear that is holding him back from action. Structurally, the ghost acts as a counterdesire. The hero's desire drives him forward; his ghost holds him back. Henrik Ibsen, whose plays put great emphasis on the ghost, described this structure step as "sailing with a corpse in the cargo."5
Hamlet
(by William Shakespeare, circa 1601) Shakespeare was a writer who knew the value of a ghost. Before page 1, Hamlet's uncle has murdered his father, the king, and then married
Hamlet's mother. As if that wasn't enough ghost, Shakespeare introduces in the first few pages the actual ghost of the dead king, who demands that Hamlet take his revenge. Hamlet says, "The time is out of joint: O cursed spite, / That ever I was born to set it right!"
It's a Wonderful Life
(short story "The Greatest Gift" by Philip Van Doren Stern, screenplay by
Frances Goodrich & Albert Hackett and Frank Capra, 1946) George Bailey's desire is to see the world and build things. But his ghost his fear of what the tyrant Potter will do to his friends and family if he leaves—holds him back.
A second kind of ghost, though uncommon, is a story in which a ghost is not possible because the hero lives in a paradise world. Instead of starting the story in slavery—in part because of his ghost—the hero begins free. But an attack will soon change all that. Meet Me in St. Louis and The Deer Hunter are examples.
A word of caution is warranted here. Don't overwrite exposition at the start of your story. Many writers try to tell the audience everything about their hero from the first page, including the how and why of the ghost. This mass of information actually pushes your audience away from your story. Instead, try withholding a lot of information about your hero, including the details of his ghost. The audience will guess that you are hiding something and will literally come toward your story. They think, "There's something going on here, and I'm going to figure out what it is."
Occasionally, the ghost event occurs in the first few scenes. But it's much more common for another character to explain the hero's ghost somewhere in the first third of the story. (In rare instances, the ghost is exposed in the self-revelation near the end of the story. But this is usually a bad idea, because then the ghost—the power of the past—dominates the story and keeps pulling everything backward.)
Story World
/> Like the ghost, the story world is present from the very beginning of the story. It is where your hero lives. Comprised of the arena, natural settings, weather, man-made spaces, technology, and time, the world is one of the
main ways you define your hero and the other characters. These characters and their values in turn define the world (see Chapter 6, "Story World," for details).
KEY POINT: The story world should be an expression of your hero. It shows your hero's weaknesses, needs, desires, and obstacles.
KEY POINT: If your hero begins the story enslaved in some way, the story world will also be enslaving and should highlight or exacerbate your hero's great weakness.
You place your hero within a story world from page 1. But many of the twenty-two steps will have a unique subworld of their own.
Note that conventional wisdom in screenwriting holds that unless you are writing fantasy or science fiction, you should sketch the world of your story quickly so that you can get to the hero's desire line. Nothing could be further from the truth. No matter what kind of story you are writing, you must create a unique and detailed world. Audiences love to find themselves in a special story world. If you provide a story world, viewers won't want to leave, and they will return to it again and again.
Casablanca
■ Ghost Rick fought against the Fascists in Spain and ran guns to the Ethiopians fighting the Italians. His reason for leaving America is a mystery. Rick is haunted by the memory of Ilsa deserting him in Paris.
■ Story World Casablanca spends a great deal of time at the beginning detailing a very complex story world. Using voice-over and a map (a miniature), a narrator shows masses of refugees streaming out of Nazi-occupied Europe to the distant desert outpost of Casablanca in North Africa. Instead of getting quickly to what the main character wants, the film shows a number of refugees all seeking visas to leave Casablanca for the freedom of Portugal and America. This is a community of world citizens, all trapped like animals in a pen.
The writers continue to detail the story world with a scene of the Nazi Major Strasser being met at the airport by the French chief of police, Captain Renault. Casablanca is a confusing mix of political
power, a limbo world: Vichy French are allegedly in charge, but real power rests with the Nazi occupiers.
Within the story arena of Casablanca, Rick has carved out a little island of power in his grand bar and casino, Rick's Cafe Americain. He is depicted as the king in his court. All the minor characters play clearly defined roles in this world. Indeed, part of the pleasure the audience takes from the film is seeing how comfortable all the characters are in the hierarchy. Ironically, this film about freedom fighters is, in that sense, very antidemocratic.
The bar is also a venal place, a perfect representation of Rick's cynicism and selfishness.
Tootsie
■ Ghost There is no specific event in Michael's past that is haunting him now. But he has a history of being impossible to deal with, which is why he can no longer get work as an actor.
■ Story World From the opening credits, Michael is immersed in the world of acting and the entertainment business in New York. This is a world that values looks, fame, and money. The system is extremely hierarchical, with a few star actors at the top who get all the jobs and a mass of struggling unknowns at the bottom who can't find roles and must wait on tables to pay the rent. Michael's life consists of teaching the craft of acting, going on endless auditions, and fighting with directors over how to play a part.
Once Michael disguised as Dorothy wins a part on a soap opera, the story shifts to the world of daytime television. This is theater totally dominated by commerce, so actors perform silly, melodramatic scenes at top speed and move quickly to the next setup. This is also a very chauvinistic world, dominated by an arrogant male director who patronizes every woman on the set.
The man-made spaces of Michael's world are the tiny apartments of the struggling actors and the television studio in which the show is shot. The studio is a place of make-believe and role-playing, perfect for a man who is trying to pass as a woman. The tools of this world are the tools of the acting trade: voice, body, hair, makeup, and costume. The writers create a nice parallel between the makeup
Michael uses to play a part in the theater and the makeup Michael uses to play a woman in front of and behind the camera.
The make-believe, chauvinistic soap opera world expresses and exacerbates Michael's great weaknesses: he is a chauvinist who will lie and betray the trust of others in order to get a part.
3. Weakness and Need
■ Weakness The hero has one or more character flaws that are so serious they are ruining his life. Weaknesses come in two forms, psychological and moral. They are not mutually exclusive; a character can have both.
All weaknesses are psychological. The inner person is damaged in some way. A weakness is also moral if it causes someone else to get hurt. A character with a moral weakness always has a direct negative effect on someone else.
KEY POINT: Many writers think they've given their hero a moral weakness when it is only psychological. The key test for a moral weakness is if the hero is clearly hurting at least one other person at the beginning of the story.
■ Need Need is what the hero must fulfill in order to have a better life. It almost always requires that he overcome his weaknesses by the end of the story.
■ Problem The problem is the trouble or crisis your hero faces at the very beginning of the story. He is aware of the crisis but does not know how to solve it. The problem is usually an outgrowth of the hero's weakness and is designed to quickly show that weakness to the audience. While it should be present at the beginning of the story, it is far less important than weakness and need.
Casablanca
Rick seems not to want or need anything. But he is only hiding his need.
He seems stronger than others, self-contained. While his cynicism does
reveal a man who is deeply troubled, he is the master of his world. He runs
his club as a kind of benevolent dictator. He is also a man who controls
women. And he is a man of extreme contradictions: though he is now cynical, bitter, and often immoral, he was a freedom lighter lor various good causes in the not-too-distant past.
What is unique in this story is that the main character, though very much in control, begins as an observer and a reactor. Rick is a man of great power and history, but he has chosen to withdraw from his rightful domain in the world, back to his club in one of the world's lost corners, Casablanca and back into himself. Rick is a lion caged in a cell of his own making.
■ Weaknesses Rick is cynical, disillusioned, reactive, and selfish.
Psychological Need To overcome his bitterness toward Ilsa, regain a reason for living, and renew his faith in his ideals. ■ Moral Need To stop looking out for himself at the expense of others.
■ Problem Rick is trapped in Casablanca and trapped in his own bitter world.
Tootsie
■ Weaknesses Michael is selfish, arrogant, and a liar. ■ Psychological Need To overcome his arrogance toward women and learn to honestly give and receive love. ■ Moral Need To stop lying and using women to get what he wants, ■ Problem Michael is desperate to find work as an actor.
Openings
Ghost, story world, weakness, need, and problem constitute the all-important opening of your story. There are three kinds of structural openings in storytelling in which these elements are established.
Community Start
The main character lives in a paradise world where the land, people, and technology are in perfect harmony. As a result, the hero has no ghost. He is happy, with only the most minor problem, if any, but is also vulnerable to attack. This attack will come soon, either from without or within. Meet Me in St. Louis and The Deer Hunter have this warm, communal opening.
Running Start
This classic opening, designed to catch the reader in the first few pages, is actually made
up of a number of structural elements. The hero has a strong ghost. He lives in a world of slavery, has a number of serious weaknesses, has both a psychological and a moral need, and faces one or more problems. Most good stories use this opening.
Slow Start
The slow start is not one in which the writer simply fails to include all the structure steps of the running start. Rather, the slow start involves stories with a purposeless hero.
Purposeless people do of course exist. But stories about them are extremely sluggish. Because the hero's self-revelation is to learn his true desire (and thereby gain a purpose), the first three-quarters of the story have no goal, and the story has no narrative drive. Very few stories are able to overcome this huge structural flaw, but On the Waterfront and Rebel Without a Cause are two that do.
4. Inciting Event
This is an event from the outside that causes the hero to come up with a goal and take action.
The inciting event is a small step, except for one thing: it connects need and desire. At the beginning of the story, when weakness and need are being established, the hero is typically paralyzed in some way. You need some kind of event to jump-start the hero out of his paralysis and force him to act.
KEY POINT: To find the best inciting event for your story, keep in mind the
catchphrase "from the frying pan into the fire."
The best inciting event is one that makes your hero think he has just overcome the crisis he has faced since the beginning of the story. In fact, due to the inciting event, the hero has just gotten into the worst trouble of his life.
For example, in Sunset Boulevard, Joe is an unemployed screenwriter.