Archives for August 2016

I watched Rocky again the other night. It’s been a few years since I last saw the film, and I was trying to remember how it takes before Rocky gets the offer to fight Apollo Creed. This offer is the change that starts the real story of the movie. We’ve met Rocky. He’s a “might-have-been” boxer in a slow decline, who works as a collector for a loan shark. And suddenly he gets this big chance, which sets off the parts of the movie most people remember – the raw eggs, the training, “Getting strong now.”

The movie is about two hours long. If you were to follow the conventional wisdom, there should be about 30 minutes of introduction before that big “inciting incident.” So, for thirty minutes, we get to know Rocky. He has heart, but he doesn’t try too hard. He works for a loan shark but he can’t bring himself to break a guy’s thumbs. He’s been demoted from having a regular locker to having his gear in a bag on the wall. He missed his chance to be a good boxer. And then comes the big moment – “Rocky – you’re going to fight Apollo Creed.” And his life changes and the story starts.

Well, the movie seems like it’s going to follows this pattern. At around the 32 minute mark, Apollo Creed picks Rocky’s name from the Big Book of Boxers. But Rocky doesn’t know this, so it has no effect at all on his character. In fact, after this huge revelation, the story chugs along for another twenty minutes with more sweet scenes from Rocky’s pathetic life. It’s mostly about Rocky and Adrian. She argues with her brother. She has a date with Rocky. They skate. They go back to his place. They kiss and presumably have sex on the dirty floor.

In fact, we’re halfway into the film, around the 56 minute mark, before Rocky discovers that Apollo Creed has selected him as an opponent. That’s a very long introduction. Too long.  But the movie works. It’s amazing.

That’s not the only oddity with Rocky. For example, that romance with Adrian. He finally gets to go out with her halfway through the movie, and that’s pretty much the end of it. She loves him, she loves him… her  clothes sense improves, she can speak above a whisper, she stops needing glasses, and the relationship moves forward without a hitch.

Some people say “Rocky isn’t a boxing story. It’s a love story.” The original poster makes it look that way. And the film ends with him calling his girlfriend’s name… “Adrian!” It certainly could have been a love story. But it isn’t one.

For example, remember that moment when Rocky has been knocked down, and Burgess Meredith is saying, “Down! Down! Stay down!” Then Adrian enters the arena, and sees Rocky struggling up there, and she can hardly look. And what happens…?

What would happen in a love story is that he’s about to give up, but he sees her, and he sees the love in her eyes, and the pain as she realizes that he’s been beaten, and that he’s going back to obscurity, because they’re both sad losers… and because he loves her, he’s inspired… he gets to his feet… and he finishes that fight…

But no. Adrian is just there as an observer and an admirer. Rocky get to his feet on his own and finishes the fight on his own. This is a story about Rocky, not a story about Rocky and Adrian. Not a love story.

Rocky was a huge hit – deservedly so – and many writing gurus have analyzed the film’s structure to show how it fits their favourite pattern. But actually, the film’s structure isn’t that great. It’s slow to get going, Rocky isn’t as active in making choices as he might be, and it misses a few opportunities. Early versions of the script had even bigger problems – apparently, the first version ended with Rocky throwing the big fight, quitting boxing and opening a pet store.

But the characters are great, and the film is packed with surprising little details that feel very real and help build up the plausibility of his world – Rocky putting on a big pair of glasses before he makes notes in his book, the beleaguered loan shark trying to manage his bickering henchmen. And the emotional beats of the film work well – Rocky is a naive, sensitive character who reacts strongly to everything that goes on around him, and that makes him appealing. The story works in spite of its structure, not because of it.

Many rules of writing are not helpful to the writer. (I’ve always hated “A story has a beginning, a middle, and an end.”) But one story rule I have often found genuinely helpful when I’m trying to invent a story, is this one:

“An appealing character struggles against incredible obstacles to achieve a worthwhile goal.”

I call it the COG rule. Character-Obstacles-Goal.

I’ve been wondering where this rule came from. People claim it’s an “old rule” – but writers are often careless when it comes to citing ideas about writing. If it’s old, it certainly doesn’t seem to have a long history in print, but there are many versions

Here’s a vanilla version:

“A sympathetic character overcomes obstacles to reach a worthwhile goal” ¹Connecticut Review, Volumes 5-6 (Board of Trustees for Connecticut State Colleges, 1971), 10

Sometimes the problems are ramped up:

“An attractive protagonist (hero or heroine) overcomes great adversity to achieve a worthwhile goal.”²Stephen M. Archer, ‎Cynthia M. Gendrich, ‎Woodrow B. Hood, Theatre: Its Art and Craft (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc, 2010), 93

Obstacles often become odds:

“An appealing character strives against great odds to attain a worthwhile goal”³Doris Ricker Marston, A Guide to Writing History (Michigan: Writer’s Digest, 1976), 176

And the odds can also be intensified:

“A likable character overcomes almost insuperable odds and by his or her own efforts achieves a worthwhile goal.”⁴Marion Zimmer Bradley, “What is a Short Story” accessed 28 August 2016, Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust, http://www.mzbworks.com/what.htm

Marion Zimmer Bradley’s version is particularly interesting. In her role as an editor of other people’s fiction, she’d obviously felt some frustration at the deluge of bad writing she had to deal with. Her addition of the words “by his or her own efforts” seems almost redundant – if a character is overcoming tremendous odds, it seems obvious that it should be by his or her own efforts, but even the writer who has gone to the trouble of creating a fascinating character, and given them a great goal and forbidding obstacles is still likely to throw the hero a magic helper or easy solution.

The fact that “by his or her own efforts” needs to be emphasized shows how powerfully the average author is pulled away from the very choices that will make the story a success. There’s an instinct to sabotage it, to lower the tension, and to make the story safer and duller.

We have an instinct to be entranced by stories, and we seem to have a matching instinct not to entrance others. Telling good stories is much harder that it should be.

Overpopulation is a common problem in storytelling.

Here’s what happens. You have a main character, who’s trying to achieve some high-minded goal. But he’s a little… I dunno… boring? But you say to yourself, that’s okay because that’s just what a hero is like, right? He’s an “everyman” so that’s why he’s a chore to write.

The hero meets other characters – local eccentrics, perhaps. You love these characters. They’re so interesting. Almost (although you hate to admit it) more interesting than the main character. So they come along for the ride.

Maybe the hero meets a scowling enemy, who was supposed to be an obstacle. With the help of his friends, the hero overcomes this enemy, but you love this crusty bad guy. So the enemy joins the troupe.

Before you know it, your hero is part of an ensemble of characters. When the hero runs into trouble, his entourage can help out, tell the hero what to do, provide material assistance, pass a potion, hack a mainframe, clonk the villain on the back of the head with a frying pan.

They’re filled to the brim with eccentricity and quirk. Everyone says, “What wonderful characters! Although the story seem unfocused somehow…”

Your story has lost its way. You started with a character who had challenges and enemies. Now the challenges have been made easy, the enemies have been won over, and the main character has become an object that his more-lively troupe carry along.

Don’t get me wrong. Some stories can work as an ensemble piece. In TV, The Mary Tyler Moore Show was an ensemble comedy that remained firmly centred around the “normal” Mary Richards. But this “Centre and Eccentrics” structure is a hard trick to pull off, and you need to work hard to keep your main character in the thick of things. When the same production company followed the same strategy in WKRP in Cincinnati, the person who was supposed to be the central character, Andy Travis, seemed to fade in the light of his quirky co-workers.

The temptation to increase a story’s population is very powerful, and once you’ve added characters, it can be hard to remove them. You see this problem even in some very successful books. The Harry Potter series has a bad habit of surrounding its main character with helpful assistants. The story remains on Harry long enough to keep things moving, but the main character becomes steadily less interesting as the series progresses.

It also seemed to be a problem in Lord of the Rings. In one letter from 1944, Tolkien admits that his gardener sidekick, Sam Gamgee, is more interesting than his hero, Frodo: “Certainly Sam is the most closely drawn character, the successor to Bilbo of the first book, the genuine hobbit. Frodo is not so interesting, because he has to be highminded… The book will probably end up with Sam.” Tolkien knows how to tell a story, and keeps Frodo on track, but it takes a toll. At the end of the novel, Frodo is sick of life, but it feels more like Tolkien is sick of Frodo.

Overpopulation is a symptom of problems with the main character. Your hero must be determined, driven, interesting. If your main character starts to feel like an “everyman” (whatever that is!), then make improvements so he or she is more interesting to you. Add facets to make your hero a more interesting gemstone. Don’t try to liven up a drab hero by surrounding them with brighter jewels.

When you’ve created a lovable hero, you’re going to have a hard time giving them a hard time. Be a sadist! Put your hero through the grinder. When the situation is bad, don’t give them a helper – give them another problem that makes things even worse. And then figure out some unexpected, but plausible way the hero finds a solution on their own efforts. (Any good solution will take time to invent, and it will seem impossible at first, but you’ll figure out something!) That way, the hero stays admirable, likeable and interesting.

And your story won’t buckle under the weight of a dozen main characters.

Gustav Freytag was not antisemitic.

Sure, he lived in Germany in the 1800s, and many Germans back then were antisemitic. But Freytag honestly believed that Jews could be excellent German citizens.

He had married a Jewish wife. He was a member of the League Against Antisemitism. He was just appalled by the ways Jews had been treated in the past by some of Germany’s Catholic extremists.

Richard Wagner, the famous composer and a virulent antisemite, wrote articles denouncing Jews. Who stepped forward to defend the Jews against these charges? Gustav Freytag, that’s who!

When he wasn’t on the pro-Jewish lecture circuit, Freytag was a writer, one of the country’s best. He was the Charles Dickens of Germany.

His most famous novel was Debit and Credit – the story of a good German lad, and some good German aristocrats, and a wicked Jewish villain, Veitel Itzig, a skulking, scheming, greedy coward, a kind of Ebeneezer Scrooge without the redemption. A man who is determined to bring down these kindly, wealthy Germans and to profit from their ruin.

Some of Freytag’s friends challenged the author about this Itzig character.

“We know you are pro-Jewish and all, but isn’t this a bit… you know… antisemitic?”

But Freytag said, “No no no. Veitel Itzig isn’t meant to represent all Jews. He’s just one person. One type of Jew.” Freytag insisted he’d met Jewish people like that. And he pointed out that there were also some good Jews in his book.

The novel was a huge success. Freytag died in 1895, but Germans kept on reading his book. They loved the story. They hated Itzig. And “Itzig” became a common taunt against Jews.

In the 1930s, under the Nazis, activists put signs on Jewish-owned shops. “Beware Itzig, go back to Palestine!” And, of course, when they didn’t go, they were rounded up and killed.

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Freytag spent years campaigning and writing against antisemitism. And he wrote one story, with one memorable Jewish villain. Long after his lectures were forgotten, his fictional villain was still influencing Germans.

Stories are that powerful.

I write for TV. A few years ago, I had a pitch meeting with a network executive. It was a typical meeting. It began with the usual chitchat, talking about a mutual friend. Then she asks the line they always ask.

“So, what have you got.”

I describe a few TV ideas I’ve been thinking about. A comedy cop shows. A comedy law show. Some others. I’m trying to sound spontaneous, although I’ve got a version in my bag where it’s all written out, with lovely matching graphics, just in case I have to leave something behind.

But I can see today’s meeting is going nowhere. She asks polite questions, but she’s bored. When a person listens to pitches for a living, it’s amazing how fast their eyes glaze over when they hear one they don’t care about!

I mention another idea. This one was about an once-successful stage magician who’s trying to resuscitate his career. For some reason, that one caught her imagination. Now there’s a different look in her eyes. It’s a trance. Staring, interested. Exactly the same you get from a child when you read them a bedtime story.

What really struck me, in that meeting, was how powerful an effect that “story trance” has on us.

Here’s a woman whose job is to listen to dozens of stories every day for a living, sifting through the good, the bad and the awful. But even for someone in the story business, stories have power of them. They can be entranced and transported just like the rest of us.

We’re wired to be fascinated by stories. We’re programmed to be sucked into a story trance. Why does it happen? How can you make it happen?

That’s what this blog is about.