The Anatomy of Story (24 page)

Justification:
Kick says he only looks out for himself now.

■ Immoral Action
Rick tells Ilsa he will help Laszlo escape, alone. This final lie to Ilsa—that the two of them will leave together—is actually the start of a noble action, saving Laszlo and Ilsa.
Criticism:
Renault says he would do the same thing in Rick's place.

Considering Renault's character, this is not a compliment.
Justification:
Rick offers no justification. He must fool Renault into thinking he plans to leave with Ilsa.

■ Battle
Rick has Renault call ahead to the airport, but Renault actually calls Major Strasser. At the airport, Rick holds a gun on Renault and tells Ilsa she must leave with Laszlo. Rick tells Laszlo that Ilsa has been faithful. Laszlo and Ilsa get on the plane. Strasser arrives and tries to stop the plane, but Rick shoots him.

■ Final Action Against Opponent
Rick takes no final immoral action. Although he shoots Strasser, within the world situation, he is justified in the killing.

■ Moral Self-Revelation
Rick realizes that his love for Ilsa is not as important as helping Laszlo fight Nazi domination.

■ Moral Decision
Rick gives Laszlo the letters, makes Ilsa leave with him, and tells Laszlo that Ilsa loves him. He then goes off to join the Free French.

■ Thematic Revelation
Renault's surprise flip at the end, where he decides to join Rick in the fight (a classic double reversal), produces the thematic revelation: in the battle against fascism, everyone must play a part.

U
LYSSES
and the Harry Potter novels exemplify one of the keys to great storytelling. On the surface, they couldn't be more different.
Ulysses
is a complex, adult, extremely challenging story, often considered the greatest novel of the twentieth cen-tury. The Harry Potter books are fun fantasy stories for children. Yet both writers know that creating a unique world for the story—and organically connecting it to the characters—is as essential to great storytelling as character, plot, theme, and dialogue.

The statement "Film is a visual medium" is extremely misleading. While it is true that movies let us see a story on a screen and witness incredible visual effects not possible in any other medium, the "visual" that really affects the audience is the
world
of the story: a complex and detailed web in which each element has story meaning and is in some way a physical expression of the character web and especially of the hero. This key principle is true not only in film but in
every story medium.

Notice that in this area, storytelling expresses real life by being the reverse of real life. In real life, we are born into a world that already exists, and we must adapt to it. But in good stories, the characters come first, and the writer designs the world to be an infinitely detailed manifestation of those characters.

T.S. Eliot called this the "objective correlative." Whatever fancy name you want to give it, the world of your story is where you begin to add the rich texture that is one of the marks of great storytelling. A great story is like a tapestry in which many lines have been woven and coordinated to produce a powerful effect. The world of the story provides many of these threads. Certainly, you can tell a story without adding the texture of the story world. But it's a big loss.

Notice that the physical story world acts as a "condenser-expander" for the storyteller. You have very little time to create a massive amount of material: characters, plot, symbols, moral argument, and dialogue. So you need techniques that can allow you to condense meaning into the limited space and time you have. The more meaning you condense in the story, the more the story expands in the minds of the audience, with the story elements mentally ricocheting against one another in almost infinite ways.

Gaston Bachelard, in his classic book
The Poetics of Space,
explains "the drama that attaches to the dwellings of men."
¹
Meaning is embedded in all kinds of forms and spaces, from shells to drawers to houses. His main point is crucial for the storyteller: "Two kinds of space, intimate space and exterior space, keep encouraging each other ... in their growth."
²
Notice that Bachelard is talking about organic storytelling: when you create the right world for your story, you plant certain seeds in the hearts and minds of your audience that grow and move them deeply.

To sum up this part of the writing process: you start with a simple story line (the seven steps) and a set of characters. You then create the exterior forms and spaces that express these story elements, and these forms and spaces have the desired effect in the hearts and minds of your audience.

The meaning we take from physical forms and spaces seems to be deeper than culture and learning; it seems to be part of the human psyche. This is why it has profound effects on the audience. So the elements of the story world become another set of tools and techniques you can use to tell your story.

The process of translating the story line into a physical story world, which then elicits certain emotions in the audience, is a difficult one. That's because you are really speaking two languages—one of words, the other of images—and matching them exactly over the course of the story.

How are you going to apply these techniques to your story? The se-quence lor creating your story world goes like this (the first three steps have to do with creating the story space, the last two with the work! over rime):

1. We'll begin once again with the designing principle, since this is what holds everything together. The designing principle will tell you how to define the overall arena in which your story will occur.

2. Then we'll divide the arena into visual oppositions, based on how your characters oppose one another.

3. Then we'll detail the world using three of the four major building blocks—natural settings, artificial spaces, and technology—that make up the story world, with an emphasis on what these spaces and forms inherently or typically mean to an audience.

4. Next, we'll connect the story world to your hero's overall development and apply the fourth major building block of the story world, time.

5. Finally, we'll track the detailed development of the story world through the story structure by creating a visual seven steps.

FINDING THE STORY WORLD IN THE DESIGNING PRINCIPLE

Since the world is part of an organic story, you should start by going back to the nucleus of the story, which is the designing principle. Just as premise, characters, and theme take their shape from the designing principle, so does the story world.

For many reasons, finding the world in the designing principle is more difficult than finding the premise, characters, and theme. As I mentioned before, story and "visuals" are really two different languages. But languages can be learned. The deeper problem is that the designing principle and the story world work in opposite ways.

The designing principle typically describes
linear
story movement, like a single main character who develops. The story world is everything
surrounding
the characters all at once. In other words, it represents
simultaneous
elements and actions.

To connect them, you take the rough sequence of the story line, found

in the designing principle, and expand it three-dimensionally to make the story world. Again, start simply. Look at the designing principle, and see if you can come up with a single visual idea that expresses the line of the story.

For practice, let's return one more time to the designing principles of the stories we discussed in Chapter 2 on premise, this time to describe the story world in one line.

Moses, in the Book of Exodus

■ Designing Principle
A man who does not know who he is struggles to lead his people to freedom and receives the new moral laws that will define him and his people.

■ Theme Line
A man who takes responsibility for his people is rewarded by a vision of how to live by the word of God.

■  Story World
A journey from an enslaving city through a wilderness to a mountaintop.

Ulysses

■ Designing Principle
In a modern odyssey through the city, over the course of a single day, one man finds a father and the other man finds a son.

■ Theme Line
The true hero is the man who endures the slings

and arrows of everyday life and shows compassion to another person in need.

■ Story World
A city over the course of twenty-four hours, with each of its parts being a modern version of a mythical obstacle.

Four Weddings and a Funeral

■ Designing Principle
A group of friends experiences four Utopias (weddings) and a moment in hell (funeral) as they all look for their right partner in marriage.

■ Theme Line
When you find your one true love, you must commit to that person with your whole heart.

■ Story World
The Utopian world and rituals of weddings.

Harry Potter Books
■ Designing Principle
A magician prince learns to be a man and a king by attending a boarding school for sorcerers over the course of seven school years.

■ Theme Line
When you are blessed with great talent and power, you must become a leader and sacrifice for the good of others.

■ 
Story
World
A school for wizards in a giant magical medieval castle.

The Sting

■ Designing Principle
Tell the story of a sting in the form of a sting, and con both the opponent and the audience.

■ Theme Line
A little lying and cheating are OK if you bring
down an
evil man.

■
 
Story
World
A fake place of business in a run-down Depression-era city.

Long Day's Journey into Night

■ Designing Principle
As a family moves from day into night, its members are confronted with the sins and ghosts of their past.

■ Theme Line
You must face the truth about yourself and others and forgive.

■
 
Story
World
The dark house, full of crannies where family secrets can be hidden away.

Meet Me in St. Louis
■ Designing Principle
The growth of a family over the course of a year

is shown by events in each of the four seasons.
■ Theme Line
Sacrificing for the family is more important than striving for personal glory.

■
 
Story
World
The grand house that changes its nature with each season and with each change of the family that lives in it.

Copenhagen

■ Designing Principle
Use the Heisenberg uncertainty principle to

explore the ambiguous morality of the man who discovered it.
■ Theme Line
Understanding why we act, and whether it is right, is

always uncertain.
■
Story
World
The house in the form of a courtroom?

A Christmas Carol

■ Designing Principle
Trace the rebirth of a man by forcing
him
to view his past, his present, and his future over the course of one Christmas Eve.