Story Made Simple, pt. 1
(crossposted with Story Games)
LIT 101 IN A NUTSHELL
Let’s start with the first thing here: how, generally speaking, is a story created? Five easy steps:
1) Create a fictional character. Or more, if you want, but let’s use one guy for this explanation. We’ll call this guy “the protagonist.”
2) Put the protagonist in an untenable situation that demands action on his part. For the situation to demand action from the protagonist, he must a) be in a position to do something about it, and b) have some reason to care about it. His position can be desperate (or not), and his reason can be personal (or not).
3) Have the protagonist take action stemming from his personal fiber. His actions must reflect, in some way, what kind of person he is. Whether this means keeping in line with his personal tenets, breaking from them, or some combination thereof.
4) Have the situation react to the protagonist’s actions. This one’s pretty straightforward, right? This is where the situation pushes back, usually through one or more antagonists.
5) Continue the action until the situation resolves (becomes tenable again) in some way due in some part to the protagonist’s actions. The situation can resolve for better or for worse. The protagonist’s actions might save the day or spell doom for everyone; it doesn’t matter, as long as his actions actually had some manner of impact on how the thing resolved.
And you’re done. You’ve just created a story. If you do those five things, you create a story, whether you mean to or not. And you know what else? If you look at that story, if you look at how certain actions led to certain outcomes in the plot, and the reasons behind those actions, and above all look at the ultimate resolution of it all, you will find that the story expresses a theme, a meaning, a statement on some aspect of the human experience. Whether you meant it to or not.
If you’re gonna make a story, there’s an advantage do doing this stuff on purpose, being attentive and mindful of the process: it will be easier to make a story that you find satisfying.
How do you find theme in a story? Well, first off, lemme say that with most people, theme registers unconsciously. It’s why stories resonate with you, and it’s where that feeling of satisfaction comes from when you finish reading a story that really resonated. It’s why a movie with stunning production but a poor script can leave you feeling empty (see Terminator 3), and it’s why a movie with sub-par acting and production can be redeemed by a good script (see Terminator). You don’t have to analyze theme to enjoy stories, or to create them.
Odds are, however, that getting into the habit of analyzing stories for theme will make your experience of stories (enjoying and creating) that much more rich and resonant. Now, this is, in fact, a skill. It’s like learning to understand jazz or classical music. (Note that I didn’t say “learning to like”; whether you like it or not is a different matter. I’m talking about understanding it.)
That’s Lit 101 in a nutshell, and it’s the bare minimum you need to make stories intentionally.
THEME & THE DEATH STAR
Let’s look at an example. F’rinstance, when Luke destroys the Death Star by a) listening to the memory of his mentor, b) turning off his targeting computer, and c) using the Force instead. That seems to be saying something about being guided by faith, instinct, and your heart rather than by cold reason. Since it works, it seems to be saying something positive about those things. That it’s good to be guided by faith, instinct, and heart rather than by cold reason alone. (If it hadn’t worked, we’d be looking at a statement against hokey religions and sentimentality, in favor of cold, clear reason.) Whether you agree with that statement or not is a different matter; it’s merely an argument that the story is presenting. Which is what a theme is.
Now, putting it in a simple sentence might seem a drastic simplification. That’s because it is. It took a whole damn movie to make the statement that Star Wars (or, fine, fine, Star Wars Episode IV: a New Hope) makes; it doesn’t really come down to one sentence, or even to one moment. Expressing in such a way is just an abstraction, something that points at the heart of the story, the true theme, which is something that really can’t be expressed precisely into a simple statement - but it can be expressed through a story.
The context is very, very important. Notice how the Empire can be interpreted to represent cold reason over faith and heart. They are dedicated to bringing order and hegemony to the galaxy, even if that means blowing up planets and choking the shit out of your own guys. Do you see how the movie shows us that, by having the Empire actually blow up a planet, and by having Darth Vader actually choke the shit out of one of his own guys? Look at how cold and antiseptic their ships’ interiors are; compare that to the rugged interior of the Millenium Falcon. Compare the Empire’s ominous, de-personalizing uniforms to the ragged robes, travelworn shirts & pants, and thick, matted fur of the heroes. See how one side could be said to stand for cold reason, and the other for heart, faith, and instinct?
GREEKS & VIOLENCE
Let’s take a moment from the Iliad by Homer. Achilles, the greatest warrior on the Greek side of the war, has just killed Hector, the greatest warrior on the Trojan side. He ties Hector’s corpse to the back of his chariot and drags it around the walls at top speed, shouting and exhulting, glorying in the might and skill and prowess proved by his deadly deed. When Achilles is done with that, Hector’s father comes out from the gates into the No-Man’s-Land, runs to his fallen son, and weeps. Then Achilles approaches the old man, embraces him, and weeps also.
Put that in your story-pipe and smoke it. The Iliad is complicated, nuanced, and sometimes ambiguous. I certainly can’t state the theme in a simple sentence. The Iliad is, among other things, a serious statement on man’s sordid love affair with violence, all the more so because it acknowledges both the horror and the beauty of it. Unlike Star Wars, it doesn’t draw clear-cut lines around things. It doesn’t say, “here’s violence, and here’s love, and here’s why one is better.” What it does is show us people caught up in the unarrested momentum of violence, reveling in its glories, and weeping at its horrors. We see suffering breed suffering, and we see love breed suffering also. (And, those of you who have read The Rustbelt, do you see why I cite the Iliad as an influence?)
Here, let’s look at the related play, Agamemnon by Aeschylus. Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter to Artemis so that the Greek ships would have the wind they needed to reach Troy. When he gets home, his wife Clytemnestra kills him for it. Then their son, Orestes, kills Clytemnestra for killing his father. Orestes is put on trial for this, and acquitted of charges: his actions are found to be just.
Look at that. Agamemnon kills his own daughter so that his army can get to a city where they will kill more people, and many of their own people will be killed, and society calls it a “sacrifice.” Clytemnestra is like, “fuck that, you killed my daughter,” so she takes revenge. Society calls that killing “murder.” When Orestes kills her, his own mother, society calls it “justice.”
There’s even a little more to it: Clytemnestra doesn’t kill Agamemnon alone, she does it with the aid of her lover, Aegisthus, who is avenging the hideous murders of his brothers at the hand of Agamemnon’s late father, Atreus. Orestes also kills Aegisthus, and is acquitted of that charge as well. There’s also the fact that the court system that acquitted Orestes was a new thing, replacing the traditional system of justice in which murder was avenged by the next of kin, only to have the avenger himself revenged upon, in a bloody cycle; so, perhaps, from all this suffering, some wisdom of civilization was born.
Put that in your story-pipe and smoke it. See the cycle of violence? See the inability of man to break free from it? See the minds of men finally justifying it, to put an end to it? Or are they just justifying it to shield themselves from the horror of it?
CONFLICT, ESCALATION, & WHY HAN SOLO SHOT FIRST
In Lit 101 terms, the thing that makes the situation untenable is called the conflict. When this conflict is finally dealt with, the situation is once again tenable. But the conflict is never dealt with easily. It takes a big bang, like blowing up the Death Star, to do it. That big bang is what Lit types call a climax.
To get to the climax, you gotta raise the stakes of the conflict. Lit types call this the escalation or the rising action. It starts where the conflict is introduced, and climbs gradually upward until you hit the climax.
Let’s go back to Star Wars. It starts with a young man inadvertently receiving a mysterious message, and it ends up with that same young man blowing up the Death Star. Now look at the escalation between those two points: Luke’s family is killed, he learns that the Empire is behind this, he learns that the Dark Lord holding the reins killed his father, he is forced to hook up with smugglers, Leia’s planet is blown up, the wrath of the Empire is turned directly at Luke and his comrades for rescuing Leia, Luke’s mentor is killed by the same man who killed his father. (Never mind that Darth Vader is his father; I’m speaking strictly within the bounds of Episode IV, as the story would be understood when it was the only film of the series made. But, just for fun, know this: when Darth Vader reveals that he is Luke’s father in Episode V, that’s - you guessed it - escalation.)
That’s some bog-standard escalation, in some very obvious terms. There are, of course, ways to make escalation more gripping, and there are ways that it can fail to be gripping. Let’s take it to the tape. You probably know that there’s two versions of the Mos Eisley scene: one in which Greedo shoots first, and one in which Han Solo shoots first. I prefer the one where Han shoots first. Lemme tell you why.
In story terms, it’s escalation that Luke has to partner with smugglers - criminals - in order to accomplish his goals. He’s already a farm boy in over his head, and now he’s even more over his head. But there’s a thing here. If we know that Han Solo is trustworthy, a good guy, then that’s not much escalation; where’s the tension? It’s far more interesting if we don’t know whether Han Solo is trustworthy, at least not yet. Even better is if we’re shown evidence suggesting that Han Solo really might be untrustworthy. That’s why he shoots first: to make Luke and the audience seriously wonder if Han can be trusted.
Do you see how “Luke hooks up with shady characters” is more escalation than “Luke acquires more allies”? More escalation is a good thing (assuming that you don’t jump the conflict, forcing a premature climax). The more the conflict escalates, the greater the impact of the climax. Develop an eye for this. Watch your favorite movies, read your favorite books, and look for the little pieces of escalation.
STAY TUNED FOR PART 2, IN WHICH I START ACTUALLY APPLYING THIS STUFF TO GAMING