The Win Space
In a recent edition of their podcast Narrative Control, seannittner and Justin Evans springboard from a rob-donoghue post about Exploring the Premise. Rob uses this term to describe moments in a narrative structure that seem less devoted to conflict than to establishing the story’s basic conception of its world and characters. Rob’s cinematic examples are as follows:
- In Groundhog Day, once we've established that Bill Murray is reliving the same day over and over again, we get to spend time watching him do the things we would do; taking advantage of the situation, basking in consequence-less existence and having fun with it.
- In Ghostbusters, once the guys have started their company, we get to see them bust slimer in the hotel. This doesn't advance the plot in any meaningful way, but it gives us a chance to see them do the things we came to the movie to see them do: bust ghosts!
- In Spiderman, after Peter discovers his powers, we get to spend time with him testing them out and goofing around with them. This approach is common in a lot of superhero stories.
Rob has grouped together a number of narrative devices under his premise exploration umbrella. I thought it might be fruitful to unpack these and look at them separately.
The first of these is the demonstration of competence. The last two of the above examples fall into this category. Much of the Narrative Control episode is given over to this subject as well.
Demonstrations of competence are not actually conflict-free moments, but sequences in which the heroes get to win. What they lack is not conflict, but suspense (we aren’t made to worry that the heroes might fail) and consequence (their victories incur no significant cost.) Demonstrations of competence generally serve a two-fold purpose:
1. As a plot point, we see how the heroes fit into the hierarchy of the world. (Often their competence disrupts that hierarchy, but that’s a story for another day on the riverbank.)
2. We, the audience members, get a vicarious thrill of easy victory. In turning point terms, the scene is marked with an upwards procedural arrow.
At certain points, particularly in a screenplay, the protagonist(s) occupy what you might call the win space. This is a prolonged sequence of back-to-back victories without significant risk or consequence. This is often presented in an “enjoying the good times” montage. In superhero movies, it’s the post-origin moment where the character has blossomed into a hero and enjoys his newly acquired powers, as per the Spider-Man example above*. In an outlaws on the run flick, it’s the string of successful robberies, interspersed with partying sequences in which the heroes bond by celebrating their ill-gotten gains. In a comedy about rag-tag entrepreneurs, the montage shows the growth of their plucky business empire.
In a game, you might mark the win space by ensuring consistently low difficulties/resistances/creature stats, by steering PCs away from darker plot threads, or by skipping rules resolution to allow them to simply narrate the results of their automatic victories.
Whatever the genre trappings, the individual beats within an “enjoying the good times” sequence occupy an upward emotional trajectory, featuring one procedural up arrow after another. Although sequences in the win space do explore the premise, and do provide excellent trailer fodder, they also fulfill an overarching emotional objective. As the phrase “enjoying the good times” implies, they provide a height for the heroes to fall from. Often appearing at the top of the second act in a movie, these sequences are always followed by a sharp turning point where things turn darker. Suspense hammers down on the heroes. Consequences deepen. Every early up arrow is paid for in a later down arrow. The win space is followed by a loss space.
Or, in other words, a prolonged idyll always prefigures a storm.
More later...
*If you take a look at the Spider-Man sequence from the point where Peter begins to discover his powers, you’ll find that it’s actually a less than ideal example of the win space. It’s full of procedural and dramatic ups and downs, and is intercut with suspense beats furthering the Norman Osborn / Goblin plot line. Even in the win space, no protagonist in a Sam Raimi flick goes for very long without getting pummeled by something.
I suspect that if you look at them on a beat-by-beat level, many other apparent sequences of pure premise exploration are in fact subtly maintaining a varied emotional temperature as they unspool.