by The Anatomy of Story- 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller (mobi)
22. Luke's fighter plane crashes. He escapes the walker just before it destroys his plane. Battle
23. Han orders Leia to board the last transport ship before it leaves. Imperial forces enter the base.
24. Luke blows up an imperial walker while another walker destroys the main power generator.
25. Han, Leia, and C-3PO are cut off from the transport ship. They now run to the Falcon.
26. Vader and the imperial forces enter the rebel base. The Falcon escapes.
27. Luke and R2-D2 escape from Hoth. Luke informs R2-D2 that they will he traveling to Dagobah. Desire
28. With TIE fighters chasing them. Han tries in vain to implement hyperdrive. Han steers the Falcon into an asteroid field.
29. Luke lands in a barren, desolate. Dagobah swamp. Plan
30. Vader orders the imperial fleet to follow the Falcon into the asteroid field.
31. C-3PO works on the hyperdrive function. Han and Leia continue their romantic sparring.
32. Yoda finds Luke but hides his own identity. Yoda promises to bring Luke to Yoda. Ally
33. C-3PO discovers the hyperdrive malfunction. Han and Leia finally kiss.
34. The emperor announces that Luke Skywalker is their new enemy. Vader vows to turn Luke over to the Dark Side. Opponent's plan
35. Yoda reveals himself to Luke as the Jedi master. Yoda worries about Luke's impatience and his commitment. Revelation
36. TIE fighters search for the Falcon in the asteroid field.
37. Han, Leia, and Chewbacca search for life outside the Falcon. Han flies the Falcon out of a giant serpent. Revelation, opponent
38. Luke trains with Yoda in the swamp. Luke leaves him to face a strange challenge from the Force. Need, drive
39. Luke enters a cave and fights with the specter of Darth Vader. Luke cuts off the specter's head and sees his own face. Need, revelation
40. Vader instructs bounty hunters to search for the Falcon. The admiral announces that they have found the Falcon.
41. TIE fighters chase the Falcon out of the asteroid field. Han flies the Falcon directly toward the star cruiser.
42. The admiral watches the Falcon fly directly toward the cruiser. The radar man loses the Falcon on the radar screen.
43. Luke continues his training. He fails to raise his X-wing fighter from the swamp. Yoda raises it with little trouble. Apparent defeat
44. Vader kills another admiral for his blunder and promotes another officer.
45. The Falcon hides in the star cruiser's garbage chute. Han decides to make repairs at Lando Calrissian's mining colony.
46. Luke foresees Han and Leia in pain in a city in the clouds. Luke wants to save them. Revelation
47. Han has trouble landing in Lando's colony. Leia worries about Han's troubled past with Lando.
48. Lando greets Han and the others. They discuss their stormy history. A hidden stormtrooper blows C-3PO apart. Fake-ally opponent
49. Yoda and Kenobi plead with Luke not to stop his training. Luke promises to return after he saves his friends. Attack by ally
50. The Falcon is almost repaired. Leia worries about missing C-3PO.
51. Chewbacca finds C-3PO in the junk pile. Lando flirts with Leia.
52. Lando explains his operations to Han and Leia. Lando leads the unwitting pair to Darth Vader.
53. Luke nears the mining colony. Drive
54. In a jail cell. Chewbacca repairs C-3PO.
55. Vader promises to give Han's body to the bounty hunter. Lando complains about the changes to their deal. Opponent's plan and attack
56. Lando explains the arrangement to Han and Leia. Han hits Lando. Lando claims that he did what he could.
57. Vader inspects a carbon-freezing cell meant for Luke. Vader promises to test it on Han first. Opponent's plan
58. Luke approaches the colony.
59. Vader prepares to freeze Han. Leia tells Han that she loves him. Han survives the freezing process. Opponent's attack
60. Luke battles stormtroopers. Leia warns Luke about the trap. Luke explores a passageway.
61. Luke finds Vader in the carbon-freezing chamber. They battle with their light sabers. Battle
62. Lando's men free Leia, Chewbacca, and C-3PO. Lando tries to explain his predicament. They rush to save Han.
63. The bounty hunter loads Han's body into his spaceship and leaves. The rebels fight the imperial soldiers.
64. Luke and Vader continue their battle. Luke escapes the freezing chamber. Pressurized air sucks Luke into an airshaft. Battle
65. Lando and the others head for the Falcon. He orders an evacuation of the city. They escape in the Falcon.
66. Luke fights Vader on the airshaft walkway. Vader reveals that he is Luke's father. Luke rejects the Dark Side and falls. Battle and self-revelation
67. Leia feels Luke's cry for help. Chewbacca flies the Falcon back to the colony to rescue Luke. TIE fighters approach.
68. The admiral confirms that he deactivated the hyperdrive in the Falcon. Vader prepares to intercept the Falcon.
69. Luke wonders why Kenobi never told him about his father. R2-D2 repairs the hyperdrive. The Falcon escapes.
70. Vader watches the Falcon disappear.
71. Lando and Chewbacca promise to save Han from Jabba the Hutt. Luke, Leia, and the droids watch them leave. New equilibrium
SCENES ARE WHERE the action is-literally. Using description and dialogue, you translate all the elements of premise, structure, character, moral argument, story world, symbol, plot, and scene weave into the story the audience actually experiences. This is where you make the story come alive.
A scene is defined as one action in one time and place. But what is a scene made of? How does it work?
A scene is a ministory. This means that a good scene has six of the seven structure steps: the exception is self-revelation, which is reserved for the hero near the end of the story. The self-revelation step within a scene is usually replaced by some twist, surprise, or reveal.
CONSTRUCTING THE SCENE
To construct any scene, you must always achieve two objectives:
■ Determine how it fits into and furthers the overall development of
the hero. ■ Make it a good ministory.
These two requirements determine everything, and the are of the hero's overall development always comes first.
KEY POINT: Think of a scene as an upside-down triangle.
The beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about. The scene should then funnel down to a single point, with the most important word or line of dialogue stated last:
Let's look at the ideal sequence you should work through to construct
a great scene. Ask yourself the following questions:
1. Position on the character arc: Where does this scene fit within the hero's development (also known as the character arc), and how does it further that development?
2. Problems: What problems must be solved in the scene, or what must be accomplished?
3. Strategy: What strategy can be used to solve the problems?
4. Desire: Which character's desire will drive the scene? (This character may be the hero or some other character.) What does he want? This desire provides the spine of the scene.
5. Endpoint. How does that character's desire resolve? By knowing your endpoint in advance, you can focus the entire scene toward that point.
The endpoint of the desire also coincides with the point of the inverted triangle, where the most important word or line of the scene is positioned. This combination of the endpoint of the desire with the key word or line creates a knockout punch that also kicks the audience to the next scene.
6. Opponent: Figure out who opposes the desire and what the two (or more) characters fight about.
7. Plan: The character with the desire comes up with a plan to reach the goal. There are two kinds of plans that a character can use within a scene: direct and indirect.
In a direct plan, the character with the goal
states directly what he wants. In an indirect plan, he pretends to want one thing while actually wanting something else. The opposing character will have one of two responses: he will recognize the deception and play along, or he will be fooled and end up giving the first character exactly what he really wants.
A simple rule of thumb can help you decide which sort of plan the character should use. A direct plan increases conflict and drives characters apart. An indirect plan decreases conflict initially and brings characters together, but it can cause greater conflict later on when the deception becomes clear.
Remember, the plan refers to how the character tries to reach a goal within the scene, not in the overall story.
8. Conflict: Make the conflict build to a breaking point or a solution.
9. Twist or reveal: Occasionally, the characters or the audience (or both) are surprised by what happens in the scene. Or one character tells another off. This is a kind of self-revelation moment in a scene, but it is not final and may even be wrong.
Note that many writers, in an attempt to be "realistic," start the scene early and build slowly toward the main conflict. This doesn't make the scene realistic; it makes it dull.
KEY POINT: Start the scene as late as possible without losing any of the key structure elements you need.
COMPLEX OR SUBTEXT SCENES
The classic definition of subtext is a scene where the characters don't say what they really want. This may be true, but it doesn't tell you how to write it.
The first thing to understand about subtext is that conventional wisdom is wrong: it's not always the best way to write the scene. Subtext characters are usually afraid, in pain, or simply embarrassed to say what they really think or want. If you want a scene with maximum conflict, don't use subtext. On the other hand, if it's right for your particular characters and the scene they are in, by all means use it.
A subtext scene is based on two structural elements: desire and plan. For maximum subtext, try these techniques:
■ Give many characters in the scene a hidden desire. These desires should be in direct conflict with one another. For example, A is secretly in love with B, but B is secretly in love with C. ■ Have all the characters with hidden desires use an indirect plan to get what they want. They say one thing while really wanting something else. They may be trying to fool the others, or they may use subterfuge they know is obvious but hope the artifice is charming enough to get them what they really want.
DIALOGUE
Once you've constructed the scene, you use description and dialogue to write it. The fine art of description is not within the scope of a book on story. But dialogue is.
Dialogue is among the most misunderstood of writing tools. One misconception has to do with dialogue's function in the story: most writers ask their dialogue to do the heavy lifting, the work that the story structure should do. The result is dialogue that sounds stilted, forced, and phony. But the most dangerous misconception about dialogue is the reverse
of asking it to do too much; it is the mistaken belief that good dialogue is real talk.
KEY POINT: Dialogue is not real talk; it is highly selective language that
sounds like it could be real.
KEY POINT: Good dialogue is always more intelligent; wittier, more
metaphorical, and better argued than in real life.
Even the least intelligent or uneducated character speaks at the highest level at which that person is capable. Even when a character is wrong, he is wrong more eloquently than in real life.
Like symbol, dialogue is a technique of the small. When layered on top of structure, character, theme, story world, symbol, plot, and scene weave, it is the subtlest of the storyteller's tools. But it also packs tremendous punch.
Dialogue is best understood as a form of music. Like music, dialogue is communication with rhythm and tone. Also like music, dialogue is best when it blends a number of "tracks" at once. The problem most writers have is that they write their dialogue on only one track, the "melody." This is dialogue that explains what is happening in the story. One-track dialogue is a mark of mediocre writing.
Great dialogue is not a melody but a symphony, happening on three major tracks simultaneously. The three tracks are story dialogue, moral dialogue, and key words or phrases.
Track 1: Story Dialogue—Melody
Story dialogue, like melody in music, is the story expressed through talk. It is talk about what the characters are doing. We tend to think of dialogue as being opposed to action: "Actions speak louder than words," we say. But talk is a form of action. We use story dialogue when characters talk about the main action line. And dialogue can even carry the story, at least for short periods of time.
You write story dialogue the same way you construct a scene:
■ Character 1, who is the lead character of the scene (and not necessarily the hero of the story), states his desire. As the writer, you should know the endpoint of that desire, because this gives you the line on which the dialogue of the scene (the spine) will hang.
■ Character 2 speaks against the desire.
■ Character 1 responds with dialogue that uses a direct or indirect plan to get what he wants.
■ Conversation between the two becomes more heated as the scene progresses, ending with some final words of anger or resolution.
An advanced dialogue technique is to have the scene progress from dialogue about action to dialogue about being. Or to put it another way, it goes from dialogue about what the characters are doing to dialogue about who the characters really are. When the scene reaches the hottest point, one of the characters says some form of the words "You are .. ." He then gives details of what he thinks about the other person, such as "You are a liar" or "You are a no-good, sleazy . . ." or "You are a winner."
Notice that this shift immediately deepens the scene because the characters are suddenly talking about how their actions define who they essentially are as human beings. The character making the claim "You are ..." is not necessarily right. But just the simple statement makes the audience sum up what they think of these characters so far in the story. This technique is a kind of self-revelation within the scene, and it often includes talk about values (see Track 2, moral dialogue). This shift from action to being is not present in most scenes, but it is usually present in key scenes. Let's look at an example of this shift in a scene from The Verdict.
The Verdict
(novel by Barry C. Reed, 1980; screenplay by David Mamet, 1982) In this scene, Mr. Doneghy, brother-in-law of the victim, accosts attorney Frank Galvin for turning down a settlement offer without consulting him first. We come in about halfway through the scene:
INT. COURTHOUSE CORRIDOR DAY
DONEGHY
. . . Four years ... my wife's been crying to sleep what they, what, what they did to her sister.
CALVIN
I swear to you I wouldn't have turned the offer down unless I thought I could win the case . . .
DONEGHY
What you thought? What you thought. . . I'm a working man, I'm trying to get my wife out of town, we hired you, we're paying you, I got to find out from the other side they offered two hundred . . .
GALVIN
I'm going to win this case . . . Mist. . . Mr. Doneghy . . . I'm going to the jury with a solid case, a famous doctor as an expert witness, and I'm going to win eight hundred thousand dollars.
DONEGHY
You guys, you guys, you're all the same. The doctors at the hospital, you . . . it's "What I'm going to do for you"; but you screw up it's "We did the best that we could. I'm dreadfully sorry . . ." And people like me live with your mistakes the rest of our lives.
Track 2: Moral Dialogue—Harmony
Moral dialogue is talk about right and wrong action, and about values, or what makes a valuable life. Its equivalent in music is harmony, in that it provides depth, texture, and scope to the melody line. In other words, moral dialogue is not about story events. It's about the characters' a
ttitudes toward those events.
Here's the sequence in moral dialogue:
■ Character 1 proposes or takes a course of action.
■ Character 2 opposes that action on the grounds that it is hurting someone.
■ The scene continues as each attacks and defends, with each giving
reasons to support his position.
During moral dialogue, characters invariably express their values, their likes or dislikes. Remember, a character's values are actually expressions of a deeper vision of the right way to live. Moral dialogue allows you, at the most advanced level, to compare in argument not just two or more actions but two or more ways of life.
Track 3: KeyWords, Phrases, Taglines, and Sounds-Repetition, Variation, and Leitmotif
Key words, phrases, taglines, and sounds are the third track of dialogue. These are words with the potential to carry special meaning, symbolically or thematically, the way a symphony uses certain instruments, such as the triangle, here and there for emphasis. The trick to building this meaning is to have your characters say the word many more times than normal. The repetition, especially in multiple contexts, has a cumulative effect on the audience.
A tagline is a single line of dialogue that you repeat many times over the course of the story. Every time you use it, it gains new meaning until it becomes a kind of signature line of the story. The tagline is primarily a technique for expressing theme. Some classic taglines are "Round up the usual suspects," "I stick my neck out for nobody," and "Here's looking at you, kid," from Casablanca. From Cool Hand Luke: "What we've got here is failure to communicate." From Star Wars: "May the Force be with you." From Field of Dreams: "If you build it, he will come." The Godfather uses two taglines: "I'll make him an offer he can't refuse" and "It's not personal; it's business."
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid shows us a textbook example of how to use the tagline. When the line is first uttered, it has no special meaning. After robbing a train, Butch and Sundance can't shake a posse. Butch looks back at the men way off in the distance and says, "Who are those guys?" A while later, the posse is even closer, and Sundance repeats the line, this time with a hint of desperation. As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Butch and Sundance's main task is to figure out the