Crazy Stupid…Avengers?!

I’ve been told, though I never really thought about it much, that Hollywood movies typically follow a standard three act formula.  But then I noticed something odd.  The current big summer blockbusting movie, Marvel’s The Avengers shares the same plot structure as last year’s romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love.  (I’m married, I see the occasional romantic comedy.  Also, yes, that is the full title of the Avengers movie.  Probably to keep people from looking for Emma Peel.)

In act one, an event occurs.  The protagonists were happy, or at least complacent, doing whatever they normally do in their day-to-day lives – taking their wives out to dinner, solving the energy crisis, interrogating arms dealers, whatever.  But the event changes everything, tilts the world off its comfortable center, and at first no one knows how to respond.  The Avengers starts with action, gunfire, and very expensive special effects.  In Crazy Stupid Love, the catalytic event is a simple sentence: “I want a divorce.”

In act two, the characters get off to a rocky start dealing with whatever has shaken their world.  In the RomCom, Cal, played by Steve Carell, tries to reinvent himself as a swinging single guy.  In a nice counterpoint, the guy who coaches Cal on being single gets caught off guard by a potential long-term relationship and has to reinvent himself to deal with that.  In The Avengers, the heroes are called together but fail to reach their potential as a team. 

The important thing about act two is that the world has changed but the characters haven’t caught up.  Cal still has the mindset of a married man.  The would-be Avengers are still used to functioning as individuals.  As act two draws to a close, things get worse.  Cal’s early dating mistakes come back to haunt him and the super-heroes almost tear themselves apart with only the smallest effort on the part of the villains.

Act three turns it all around.  I don’t want to spoil either movie any more than I already have, but let me say this:  Act three is when the characters decide what they really value, who they really want to be, and what they are willing to do about it.  Armed with this newfound purpose, they go out and face the adversity created in act one.  Only this time, the audience knows that they have at least the potential to triumph.  Instead of feeling sorry for them or shaking our heads, now we are rooting for them.

There is also an epilogue, a dénouement, a bit at the end, which affirms the protagonist’s new position in the world and underscores his (or their) triumph.  Cal gives a graduation speech.  The Avengers get news coverage.

So a couple of points for all you writers out there.  First, I’m not accusing either film of being trite or formulaic.  The fact is, each movie is a fine example of its genre.  What is interesting is that the formula is genre independent.  It isn’t the only formula, or the only way to tell a tale, but give it its due – it works. 

And there’s nothing wrong with that.  There is a temptation to recoil at the concept of formula.  Formula, you might think, is the opposite of originality.  But if anything, the sheer astronomical differences between my two example films should illustrate how much room for creativity the formula allows.

It is also worth noting that, if done correctly, the act three protagonist is a different (and typically a better) person than he (or they) were in act one.

And finally, because this has been a long post, consider the formula as a tool.  Can you break your plot into acts?  Can you see where your protagonist is and how he our she is changing in each act?

As an experiment, I decided to break down the last movie I saw into a few simple sentences, trying to lay bare the structure.  It looked something like this:

One:  A group of college girls decide to pursue loser boyfriends.

Two:  The girls experience disappointment and heartbreak because their boyfriends are losers.

Three:  The girls send their boyfriends soap.

Epilogue:  Life is a musical.

Perhaps I need to try a different movie…

Setting, Situation, Scene, Story (Part Two)

Today’s entry will make more sense if you’ve read Part One, which should still be available for review. Fair warning, and all.

So we have lots of samples of settings and situations, and even the start of a scene, but no story. But these are elements used in stories – so can we make a viable story from them?

I’d start with the scene because it has a pair of characters in it. Stories always involve characters. Always. Sure, I could tell the story of Olympic National Park, and I could tell it with conflict and excitement, but only if I can make you care about the park.  Make its successes and failures important to you.  At which point, it is a character. Never said they had to be human.

Our two characters from the previous blog are Frank and Angie. They’ve only just met, but she is madly in love with him. Awkward.  I need a place (possibly more, but let’s start with one) for their scene, and ultimately their story, to take place. Looking at the various settings I proposed before, I think I’ll take the weird office with the clones in the Mail Room.

I note that the reception staff are telepathic. So if I make Angie a receptionist, it starts to explain her falling for Frank before being introduced. But I also want something else going on, so they can explore their one-sided relationship in the midst of dealing with the crisis du jour.  From my list of situations, I choose the intriguing Charlie Brown lunch box on Mars.

But that’s a mystery, not a conflict. I need something that involves the characters and impels them into action.

How’s this? The weird office – let’s call it Mad Science Inc. – found the lunch box while doing commission work for NASA, processing Mars Rover data. Unfortunately, the lunch box got there due to an illegal and dangerous time/space distortion experiment conducted by, you guessed it, Mad Science Inc.

Frank is a low pay scale data guy who notices that the info being fed to NASA has been tinkered with. He gets to discover what’s going on, become involved in a cover up, and make a moral choice whether to risk his job by blowing the whistle (or maybe risk his life – there’s some strange and scary stuff behind the doors of our Mad Science company), and he gets to do it all while being trailed by a love-sick, telepathic receptionist.

That’s better. Conflict, character, moral decisions, action. Much better. Still not a story, though. We’ve got all the pieces, we’ve started assembling the puzzle, what’s still missing?

Join us next time for part three, the conclusion.

Unexpected Romance

I have a sneaking suspicion that the novel I am currently reading is a romance novel. They used to keep the darn things safely quarantined in the bookstore, but recently they’ve been allowed to sneak over and infect the fantasy and time-travel stories.

It’s easy to poke fun at the romance genre, with its ripping bodices and lurid covers. But to be fair, I am hopelessly devoted to other genres that are just as ludicrous when viewed from the outside.  “No capes!” as Edna Mode would say.

If this is a romance, it will be only the second I have ever read. I didn’t know what I was getting into with the first one, either. I hope this one is a better novel. But I am having a problem with it.

In the story, the female lead, who is also the viewpoint character, is forced to work with the male lead.  She considers him to be arrogant, condescending, and generally infuriating.

And so far, I like him a lot better than I like her.

Now if I am correct and this is a romance novel, she will slowly come to appreciate his worth and he will ultimately prove worthy of her affection.  This means that the author has a difficult task – because looking back from the end of the novel, the male lead cannot have been so bad at the beginning that hooking up with him is unacceptable at the end.

So maybe I’m just not supposed to see the obvious, like not asking why no one can tell in a glance that Clark Kent is Superman.  The downside to relying on genre conventions to protect you is that the reader has to know what they are.

In any case, I appreciate that the author has set her viewpoint character up for a significant change in perspective. It should be a nice growth arc.  But so far, the change has to be in her, because the male lead is currently a lot better at knowing right from wrong and acting accordingly.  I think the sea change would work better if some of her accusations were a little more on the mark. (Ok, he is a little pompous.)

So maybe we can add a new thought to our early discussions of making a satisfying story:  It works even better if the reader doesn’t see it coming a mile away.

I’m only a third of the way into the book, so it is possible that it will break my expectations and prove to be something other than standard romance fare.  But if it wanted to be a horror novel, it is already too late.

More on that in our next installment…

Taming Ideas

I’ve been to a lot of writing conventions and read a number of books on writing. One question that always seems to come up eventually is – Where do you get your ideas?

And usually the answer is a bit sarcastic. Writers claim to get their ideas from inside cereal boxes or from a certain post office box in Schenectady. The reason for the sarcasm is because it’s the wrong question. (And, I suspect, because there isn’t an answer. Does anyone really know how our minds work?)

The right question, they’ll happily tell you, is what do you do with your ideas? The work comes in taking an idea and turning it into a story.

I have lots of ideas. Everyone does. I may have ideas about water-breathing people helping clean up a flooded city, or two clever librarians meeting and falling in love, or a quaint little post-apocalyptic coffee shop – but what do I need to sell any of these ideas to a reader?

I need these ideas, and the world’s they suggest, to to be explored by characters. Good characters with motivations and conflicts. And there should probably be a plot or two involving the characters dealing with the conflicts.

Think of a fictional character that you like. Captain Kirk, Indiana Jones, Sam Seaborn, Superman, George Smiley, Gregory House, Captain Ahab, King Lear, The Little Mermaid, Gilgamesh, Silver John, Doc Savage, anybody. You could easily write an interesting paragraph, maybe two, describing the qualities of your chosen character.

But I doubt anyone who read that paragraph would ask for more. We remember these heroes because of their stories. So I guess the real question is: How do you craft your stories?

And that, at least, we can discuss sensibly.

The Assumption of Adventuring

I like my action/adventure stories. Indiana Jones, Lord of the Rings, superheroes, all that. But the average citizen, of course, is not an adventurer. In fact, adventuring is an odd thing to do.

Part of the classic Hero’s Journey formula is the Call to Arms – the point when the protagonist is given the incentive to leave the ordinary world and venture out into the extraordinary one. There has to be a reason for Luke Skywalker to leave the farm.

But apparently not always. I was watching an old 1970’s Sinbad movie the other day (Ray Harryhausen!) and I noticed that adventuring was just pretty much what Sinbad did. It was assumed from the beginning.

Remember the first Indiana Jones film? We see Indy the Adventurer first – dodging traps and running from hostile natives. If the movie started with Professor Jones in his classroom, the penchant for whips and leather would seem a lot odder. We’d want to know how this tweedy teacher got to be a two-fisted action hero type in his off hours. By establishing his hero identity first, the film neatly skipped over the question of how he is drawn into the adventuring life.

My point? I guess it is about predicting what your audience will accept. Since adventuring is not a normal profession, it raises questions. The classic formula provides one answer, but not the only answer.

A Certain Antagonism

Heroes tend to have villains. And the more the villain is thematically or stylistically linked to the hero, the stronger the story is.

One classic trick is to have the villain be just like the hero, only evil. Whatever advantages the hero has, whatever makes him or her special – this villain has them too. Holmes has his Moriarty, someone smart enough to challenge even the great detective. The Doctor has the Master, another Time Lord with a TARDIS and a screwdriver of his own. The trick is older than the popular examples I’m using, of course. MacBeth has his MacDuff, after all.

And then there is the archenemy who goes the opposite route, literally. The Joker is the classic example, here. Everything Batman is not: colorful instead of somber, crazy and unpredictable instead of rational and methodical, and, of course, murderous.

Both these villain types serve a double function in the story. They not only provide a high level of challenge even to their competent protagonists, but they also serve as foils – characters that the illustrate something about the nature of the protagonists.

While I tend to favor adventure fiction, these techniques are hardly exclusive to genre. A romantic rival could just as easily tell us something by being everything the romance protagonist is not. In the classic French Harlequinade, Columbine’s rivals, Harlequin and Pierrot have been described as sunlight and moonlight, laughter and sorrow.

The Movie Serial Aside

I have, through some quirk of random shopping, acquired a 1943 movie serial featuring Batman.

I’ve watched about half of it so far. As I expected, it requires a mind shift to get around the 1940’s production values and limitations. What caught me more by surprise was the propaganda – the fighting American, wartime, unapologetically anti-Japanese jingoism.

But what really threw me was the realization that the hero wasn’t really quite Batman yet. Sure, he has the cave and the costume and the faithful butler, but he comes across like a generic masked avenger. He could just as easily be the Green Hornet or the Grey Ghost.

He doesn’t have the brooding, driven personality. He isn’t haunted by the death of his parents. He isn’t overly brilliant or competent. He's just a rich playboy with an odd hobby.

The audience (presumably) follows him for the adventure and the sly nods when someone talks to Bruce about the mysterious Batman. They don’t need the backstory because they know his type. Everyone is the serial so far is a type rather than a character (although Alfred, played for comedy relief, comes close).

Not really sure what my point is, except maybe this: It’s odd to watch a serviceable story with no real character depth. The story has thugs and a mastermind and a damsel-in-distress, along with a notable hero and sidekick, all dutifully playing their roles.

But it would be better if it had Batman in it.

The Protagonist Problem

Each new writing project brings new learning opportunities. My April movie project has brought me a challenge I never thought of before (although a little research shows that other screenwriters have noticed it). The challenge is not overshadowing my lead with more interesting secondary characters.

In my novels I focus on a single, significant hero. No problem there. In my stage plays I have a small cast of characters who are more-or-less given equal weight (not a bad formula for the stage). But for my movie, as I noted in an earlier post, I have an ensemble supporting a lead hero.

To use an extreme example, in the Star Trek movies, the invariably human captains have to compete with the all the aliens and psychics and shapechangers.

In my case, my lead competes with a mysterious thief, a big surly guy, and a know-it-all story-chasing bard. Jon Warder is pretty much the straight man to all these comedians.

So here’s what I’m trying: First, I’ve made Jon an extremely competent warrior. This means that yes, that early fight scene I discussed in a previous post will be rewritten. Any time there’s a fight, Jon needs to be ruling it.

Second, the secondary characters cannot be allowed to resolve all the conflicts. This one is a little trickier, because I want to show their special skills and abilities and I want those skills and abilities to be significant to the outcome of the story. And, you know, I only have so many conflicts.

But ultimately, if Jon Warder doesn’t shine as the hero, I’m doing it wrong.