Save the Cat! Strikes Back: More Trouble For... (14 page)

I bring this up to let you know even steely pros with years of experience, scads of talent, and working at major studios, fall into the same traps as you and I. I also know that the answer isn't always
clear. Many times it's only after I or my partners have written THE END and dropped the script in the outgoing mail that we suddenly say:
Wait! I know what it's about! And I know where to stick in the line that lets the audience know what that is!

But sometimes it's only with objectivity that we see it.

We were dancing around it the whole time!

What's the guide for finding the theme in your movie? Well, here's another great fix-it tool I'll put out there: Make a list. No matter what writing problem we're facing, by sitting down with a blank piece of paper, labeling it, as an example, “30 Bad Ideas for the Theme of My Story,” and not stopping until you blast out all 30, somewhere among those 30 bad ones will be a great one. It will be THE one. For help on solving Theme, here are some hints:

► What does the hero learn?

► What is the moral of the story?

► What's on your mind? What statement, issue, or ax to grind finds voice in your characters?

► If the theme were your title, what would it be?

► What film is yours most like and what's its lesson?

And so… if you follow the rules of how to find the spine of your story, paying attention to all five major questions posed, something truly amazing will occur:

You will find the answers faster than you ever have!

All this is well and good, Blake, but can you give us some examples of how these rules of yours actually work in real scripts and give us more advice on how to fix these?

Why thanks for asking, anonymous voice in my head.

I'd be glad to!

Here are three case studies that show just what I mean:

CASE STUDY #1 – “Brian B.’s Hero Quest” – Writer Brian B. had the problem of deciding
whom
his story was about. His idea was based on a friend of his who met a woman at a convention of therapists who told a remarkable tale of her adventures during World War Two as a French resistance fighter. As interesting as that is, what's the story?

Brian started by assuming the protagonist was the woman. She was the most interesting character; why shouldn't she be the lead? But by being open to:
Who's the hero?
Brian and I realized a better protagonist might be another, a younger man or woman, also a therapist, who comes to the convention facing a dilemma. What about the older woman's story would make a difference to
this
hero?

We next asked:
What's the problem?
and came up with one that made the hero's dilemma match the lesson the woman passed on. Now it's not just a flashback to World War Two, but a “story within a story” about betrayal. The woman's story helps our hero realize he has betrayed another, and his “coming into awareness” that this is his problem is the spine and how we demarcated his “milestones of growth.” By the time our hero leaves the convention, he knows what he has to do to make amends for his wrong deeds — all thanks to “the most important event that ever happened to the hero of this story.”

CASE STUDY #2 – “Jerry C.’s Hero Is Too Good” – Jerry C. had a great romantic comedy: a mismatched pair of lovers, one a Border Patrol Agent, the other a fiery Mexican illegal, and a hot topic — immigration.
Illegal Love
speaks to these issues, and yet we were having a hard time getting it off the ground. Why? The male half of the romantic duo was a little too good. Good job, good family, nice guy, with the result that when he gets together with his female half — the fireworks weren't an explosion but a fizzle.

Were we “snipping the ends” as much as we could? When I asked Jerry that very question, he admitted that he didn't want to take his hero “all the way back” because he didn't want him to appear unlikable — so he made him already half-evolved. But if that's the
case, why does he need this adventure? How are he and his world one way at the beginning and opposite by the end?

I often talk about
Romancing the Stone
when this problem comes up. One of the reasons it works is because protagonist Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner) is a socially frozen author when the movie starts. She lives alone, has a wild imagination and one friend — her agent. If she were more evolved, or more daring in life, if she dated, or even left her apartment occasionally, it wouldn't be nearly as much fun when she meets Michael Douglas in the jungles of Colombia.

Well, same here. Odd things happen when we don't take the hero “all the way back.” It torques everything and makes the story spine crooked. Not only is snipping the ends not big enough, but the Fun and Games of the movie is less fun. Isn't it better for our hero to loudly denounce illegal immigration at the start? And won't it be more fun when the hero is thrown together with the one woman who will change him by being someone who's not only illegal but equally vehement about the laws?

There are two kinds of problems for a hero at the start: individual and systemic. There must be a personal flaw, an Achilles heel, blind spot, what I call
the shard of glass
buried inside, that this adventure will pull out and force him to deal with — and there must be something wrong with the world, too. Both will get fixed in the course of this story. But to make it work, you have to let go of the notion that your hero is you, take him all the way back to before he becomes evolved, and snip the ends of the story to make sure that your spine is straight!

CASE STUDY #3 – “What's Kathy H.’s Story About?” – One of the best scripts I've consulted on is
Amends
by Kathy H. She is a great writer, and this script is one of the best mysteries I've read in a long while. It concerns an alcoholic Angeleno accused of murdering his wife in a blackout. In the course of the adventure, he discovers his part in her death, and within its twists and turns is a mystery that is also a Rites of Passage tale. Bravo!

But there were two problems: Because of the hero's character and condition, he seemed unmotivated. Both his “tangible goal” and his “spiritual goal” were blurred into a nightmare without direction and a Theme that seemed MIA. Part of Kathy's dilemma was based on the premise: As an alcoholic in the final stages of his disease, the hero didn't care. Even when accused of murder, he ambled from one clue to the next. By giving him a tangible goal — to prove his innocence — we gave the hero a clear driving force.

But where was the spiritual goal? What was this
about
? After hashing it out, we found the Theme… in the title.
Amends
is a story about taking responsibility and making it right, and though the hero finds the truth by script's end, he also realizes his part in his wife's death, which gives this story meaning for both the character and the audience. All because we asked:
What's it about?
and insisted we give the hero both tangible and spiritual goals!

In each of these cases, the story spine was crooked — but how? By asking the five questions, we got to the heart of why, and in each case figured out what was wrong. Storytelling is problem solving, and as long as we approach it as such, without self-recrimination but as steely pros seeking answers, we let go of our fear of being wrong — and just fix it!

And I love the process.

Of course I do. It's not
my
script!

Whether you think you have a crooked spine of a script, or
know
you do, it's best to deal with it by making sure. Story scoliosis, the crooked tale that meanders every which way except the way we want, is no longer a problem… so long as you're aware of your tendency and take note if you wander off the beam.

You must offer us the biggest journey, the greatest change, the most dramatic beginning and end, and meaning in buckets. It must have a hero who changes, and we must be able to show how those changes look from the first glimpse of him to the last. We must show milestones of change throughout with breathtaking clarity.

The Wages of Fear
: Zut alors, we are stuck in zee mud of our plot. If only I had straightened zee spine of my story!

And the easy remedy is this checklist:

1.
Who's the hero?
Whether it's a solo journey like
Maria Full of Grace
or an ensemble like
Crash
, pegging
whom
this story is about is vital; it's who we'll follow from beginning to end.

2.
What's the problem?
Without a set of defects, both in the hero's character and his world, why bother watching? We cavemen are looking for clues to fix our lives, so show us yours!

3.
How does it begin and how does it end?
This is an exercise called Snipping the Ends that you must continually rework. What is the greatest or biggest “- to +” or “+ to -” change for your hero?

4.
What are the tangible and spiritual goals?
The tangible goal is the specific, concrete thing the hero wants; the spiritual goal is the under-story of what the hero needs.

5.
What's it about?
This question relates directly to the spiritual goal. The theme ties in to the B Story, the “helper story” that gives the hero the lesson she really needs to learn.

And if you are having a hard time with any of this, force it. say “Here's the bad way to do this,” and if that fails, there's always making a list that will generate the answer!

If you do this, ladies and mens, you can get into that lovely little Citroën truck, light up a Gauloise, and proceed. Whatever package you're carrying — nitroglycerin or Academy Award®-calibre screenplay — you are safe to move on down the highway.

Your spine is straight, your map clearly demarcated, your objective in plain sight. It's blue skies and lollipops for all!

But wait… what's that up ahead??

Blake's Blog/
May 7, 2009

“Words have power. We know better than anyone. Let's make sure our words are well chosen.”

“Hell is other people,” wrote Jean-Paul Sartre. And for the screenwriter, the experience of dealing with “other people” can certainly
feel
hellish, especially when said people have your script in one hand and an uncapped red Pentel® in the other.

All the wonderful moments you had while writing — the amazing a-ha's, the glorious break-throughs, the synchronistic chills when everyone seemed to be talking about
your
story — are over. Your script is lying there on a steel table — like the rubbery dude in that
Alien Autopsy
video — while strange men and women with scalpels hover over it, occasionally holding up its gloppy innards, only to inquire in puzzlement: “What the heck is this thing?”

And all you can do is watch.

Your script made sense back in your “writer's room.”

But here, in the cold light of Burbank, you're not so sure.

And if you find yourself in a room with executives who have
paid
you for this experience, it's time to not only live with other people, but learn to
love
them — or at least not hate them.