The Anatomy of Story (49 page)

■ Changed Desire
Rick no longer wants to hurt Ilsa.

■ Obsessive Drive
Rick's first obsessive drive occurs when Ilsa shows up at the club and he desperately wants to hurt her because of the pain she caused him. This is another unique element in
Casablanca.
Rick begins at a much higher level of passion and obsession than the heroes in most stories. At the same time, this high level of desire has somewhere to go because Rick ends the story by going off to help save the world.

Notice also that Rick only
appears
to become more immoral as the story progresses. In fact, he has decided to help Ilsa and Laszlo escape together and is determined to make that happen.

■ Changed Motive
Rick has forgiven Ilsa for what she did.

Toots ie

■ Revelation
The soap opera producer tells Dorothy that they want to sign her to another year's contract.

■ Decision
Michael decides to get George to break his contract.

■ Changed Desire
Michael wants to escape the hassle of his masquerade and get close to Julie.

■ Obsessive Drive
Michael is determined to escape Dorothy.

■ Changed Motive
Michael feels increasing guilt because of the decent way Julie and Les have treated him.

Additional Revelation

■ Revelation
Les proposes to Dorothy.

■ Decision
Dorothy leaves Les at the bar.

■ Changed Desire
Michael wants to stop misleading Les.

■ Changed Motive
No change. Michael continues to feel guilty about his actions.

Notice that Michael's moral decline increases here, even though he is

feeling guilty and trying to escape his predicament. The longer he keeps

up this charade, the more pain he inflicts on those around him.

16. Audience Revelation

The audience revelation is the moment when the audience—
but
not
t
he
hero
—learns an important piece of new information. Often this is when the audience learns the true identity of the fake-ally opponent and the fact that the character they thought was the hero's friend is really an enemy.

No matter what the audience learns here, this revelation is a valuable moment for a number of reasons.

1. It provides an exciting pop in what is often a slow section of the plot.

2. It shows the audience the true power of the opposition.

It allows the audience to see certain hidden plot elements played our dramatically and visually.

Notice that the audience revelation marks a major shift in the relationship of hero to audience. In most stories up to this point (farce being a notable exception), the audience learns information at the same time as the hero. This creates a one-to-one connection—an identity—between hero and audience.

But with an audience revelation, for the first time the audience learns something
before
the hero. This creates distance and places the audience in a
superior
position to the hero. There are a number of reasons why this is valuable, the most important being that it allows the audience to step back and see the hero's overall process of change (culminating at the self-revelation).

Casablanca

Rick forces Renault at gunpoint to call the airport tower. But the audience sees that the Captain has actually called Major Strasser.

Tootsie

This step does not occur in
Tootsie
, primarily because Michael is scam-ming the other characters. Because he is fooling them, he is in control. So the audience learns things at the same time as Michael.

17. Third Revelation and Decision

This revelation is another step in the hero's learning what he needs to know to beat the opponent. If the story has a fake-ally opponent, this is often the moment the hero discovers that character's true identity (what the audience learned in Step 16).

As the hero finds out more and more about the true power of the opposition, you might think he would want to back out of the conflict. On the contrary, this information makes the hero feel stronger and more determined to win because he can now see all that he's up against.

Casablanca

■ Revelation
Ilsa comes to Rick for the letters and confesses that she still loves him.

■ Decision
Rick decides to give Ilsa and Laszlo the letters of transit, but he keeps this decision hidden from Ilsa and the audience.

■ Changed Desire
Rick wants to save Laszlo and Ilsa from the Nazis.
■ Changed Motive
Rick knows that Ilsa must go with Laszlo and help him with his cause.

Tootsie

■ Revelation
When Michael gives Sandy chocolates that Les gave Dorothy, Sandy calls him a liar and a fake.

■ Decision
Michael decides to go to George and find some way out of his contract.

■ Changed Desire
Unchanged; Michael wants to leave the soap opera.
■ Changed Motive
Unchanged; he cannot go on lying to all these people.

Additional Revelation

■ Revelation
When Dorothy gives Julie a present, Julie tells Dorothy

she cannot see her anymore because it would be leading her on.
■ Decision
Michael decides to tell the truth about his masquerade.

■ Changed Desire
Unchanged; Michael wants Julie.

■ Changed Motive
Michael loves Julie and realizes he can't have her as long as he plays the role of Dorothy.

18. Gate, Gauntlet, Visit to Death

Near the end of the story, the conflict between hero and opponent intensifies to such a degree that the pressure on the hero becomes almost unbearable. He has fewer and fewer options, and often the space through which he passes literally becomes narrower. Finally, he must pass through a narrow gate or travel down a long gauntlet (while being assaulted from every direction).

This is also the moment when the hero visits "death." In myth stories, the hero goes down to the underworld and foresees his own future in the land of the dead.

In more modern stories, the visit to death is psychological. The hero has a sudden realization of his own mortality; life is finite, and it could end very soon. You might think that this realization would cause him to flee the conflict, since it could cause his death. Instead, it spurs him to light. The hero reasons, "If my life is to have meaning, I must take a stand for what I believe in. I will take that stand here and now." Thus the visit to death is a testing point that often triggers the battle.

The gate, gauntlet, and visit to death is the most movable of the twenty-two steps and is often found in other parts of the plot. For example, the hero may visit death during the apparent defeat. He may pass through the gauntlet during the final battle, as in the trench fight in
Star Wars
or the tower in
Vertigo.
Or he may pass through it after the battle, as Terry Malloy does at the end of
On the Waterfront.

Casablanca

This step occurs during Rick's efforts to reach the airport with Ilsa, Laszlo, and Renault and Major Strasser's attempt to catch up with them.

Tootsie

Michael experiences a gauntlet of escalating nightmares when he must baby-sit Julie's screaming infant, Amy; deal with Julie's rejection when he tries to kiss her; dance with Les, who has fallen in love with Dorothy; get rid of John, the soap opera actor who also wants Dorothy; and refute Sandy's accusations when he gives her the candy Les gave him.

19. Battle

The battle is the final conflict. It determines who, if anyone, wins the goal. A big, violent conflict, though common, is the least interesting form of battle. A violent battle has lots of fireworks but not much meaning. The battle should give the audience the clearest expression of what the two sides are fighting for. The emphasis should not be on which is the superior force but which ideas or values win out.

The battle is the funnel point of the story. Everything converges here. It brings together all the characters and the various lines of action. It occurs in the smallest space possible, which heightens the sense of conflict and unbearable pressure.

The battle is where the hero usually (but not always) fulfills his need and gains his desire. This is also where he is most like his main opponent. But in that similarity the crucial differences between them become even clearer.

Finally, the battle is where the theme first explodes in the minds of the audience. In the conflict of values, the audience sees clearly for the first time which way of acting and living is best.

Casablanca

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. Major Strasser arrives and tries to stop the plane, but Rick shoots him.

Tootsie

During a live broadcast of the soap opera, Michael improvises a complicated plot to explain that his character is actually a man and then pulls off his disguise. This simultaneously shocks the audience and the other people on the show. When he's finished, Julie slugs him and leaves.

The final conflict between Michael and Julie is fairly mild (Julie's punch). The big conflict has been replaced with a big reveal whereby Michael strips off his disguise in front of cast, crew, and a national viewing audience.

One of the brilliant touches of this script is that the complex plot that Michael improvises for his character tracks the same process of female liberation that he has undergone by playing a woman.

20. Self-Revelation

By going through the crucible of battle, the hero usually undergoes change. For the first time, he learns who he really is. He tears aside the facade he has lived behind and sees, in a shocking way, his true self. Facing the truth about himself either destroys him—as in
Oedipus the King, Vertigo,
and
The Conversation—
or makes him stronger.

If the self-revelation is moral as well as psychological, the hero also learns the proper way to act toward others. A great self-revelation should be
sudden,
for better dramatic effect;
shattering
for the hero, whether the self-revelation is positive or negative; and
new—
it must be something the hero did not know about himself until that moment.

Much of the quality of your story is based on the quality of the self-revelation. Everything leads to this point. You must make it work. There are two pitfalls to making it work that you should be aware of:

1. Make sure that what the hero learns about himself is truly meaningful, not just fine-sounding words or platitudes about life.

2. Don't have the hero state directly to the audience what he has learned. That is a mark of bad writing. (Chapter 10, "Scene Construction and Symphonic Dialogue," explains how to use dialogue to express the self-revelation without preaching.)

PLOT TECHNIQUE: DOUBLE REVERSAL

Y
ou may want to use the technique of the double reversal at the self-revelation step. In this technique, you give a self-revelation to the opponent as well as to the hero. Each learns from the other, and the audience sees two insights about how to act and live in the world instead of one.

Here's how you create a double reversal:

1. Give both the hero and the main opponent a weakness and a need.

2. Make the opponent human. That means, among other things, that he must be capable of learning and changing.

3. During or just after the battle, give the opponent as well as the hero a self-revelation.

4. Connect the two self-revelations. The hero should learn something from the opponent, and the opponent should learn something from the hero.

5. Your moral vision as the author is the best of what both characters learn.

Casablanca

■ Psychological Self-Revelation
Rick regains his idealism and a clear sense of who he really is.