The Anatomy of Story (50 page)

■ Moral Self-Revelation
Rick realizes that he must sacrifice to save Ilsa and Laszlo and that he must rejoin the fight for freedom.

■ Revelation and Double Reversal
Renault announces he's become a patriot too and will join Rick on the new path.

Tootsie

■ Psychological Self-Revelation
Michael realizes he's never really loved because he doesn't look beyond a woman's physical attributes.

■ Moral Self-Revelation
He sees how his own arrogance and disdain for women has hurt himself and the women he has known. He tells Julie he learned more about being a man by living as a woman than he ever learned by living as a man.

21. Moral Decision

Once the hero learns the proper way to act in the self-revelation, he must make a decision. The moral decision is the moment when he chooses between two courses of action, each of which stands for a set of values and a way of living that affects others.

The moral decision is the proof of what the hero has learned in the self-revelation. By taking this action, the hero shows the audience what he has become.

Casablanca

Rick gives Laszlo the letters, makes Ilsa leave with him, and tells Laszlo that Ilsa loves him. He then heads off to risk his life as a freedom fighter.

Toots
IE

Michael sacrifices his job and apologizes to Julie and Les for lying.

PLOT TECHNIQUE: THEMATIC REVELATION

I
n Chapter 5, "Moral Argument," I talked about the thematic revelation as a revelation gained not by the hero but by the audience. The audience sees how people in general should act and live in the world. This allows the story to grow beyond the bounds of these particular characters to af-fect the audience in their own lives.

Many writers shy away from this advanced technique because they don't want to sound preachy in their final moment with the audience. But done properly, the thematic revelation can be stunning.

KEY POINT: The trick is in how you draw the abstract and the general from the real and the specific of your characters. Try to find a particular gesture or action that can have symbolic impact on the audience.

Places in the Heart

(by Robert Benton, 1984)
An example of a brilliant thematic revelation is found at the end of
Places in the Heart,
the story of a woman, played by Sally Field, in the American Midwest of the 1930s whose sheriff husband is accidentally killed by a drunken black boy. Klansmen lynch the boy and later drive out a black man who's been helping the widow farm her land. In a subplot, a man has an affair with his wife's best friend.

The movie's final scene takes place in a church. As the preacher speaks of the power of love, the adulterer's wife takes his hand for the first time since his affair almost destroyed their marriage, and he feels the overwhelming power of forgiveness. The communion plate is passed down one row after another. As each person drinks the wine, he says, "Peace of God." Every character we've seen in the story drinks the wine of communion. And slowly, an amazing thematic revelation comes to the audience. The banker, who was one of the hero's opponents, drinks. The black man who was driven off—and has long since left the story—also drinks. The

Sally Field character drinks. Sitting beside her is her dead husband, and he drinks. And beside him, the black boy who killed him and died because of it drinks too. "Peace of God."

From a realistic depiction of the characters in this story, the scene gradually evolves into a moment of universal forgiveness that the audience shares. The impact is profound. Don't avoid this magnificent technique for fear that you may sound pretentious. Take a chance. Do it right. Tell a great story.

22. New Equilibrium

Once the desire and need have been fulfilled (or tragically left unfulfilled), everything goes back to normal. But there is one big difference. Because of his self-revelation, the hero is now at either a higher or a lower level.

Casablanca

Rick has regained his idealism and sacrificed his own love for the sake of someone else's freedom and a higher cause.

Tootsie

Michael has learned to be honest and less selfish about himself and his career. By telling the truth, he is able to reconcile with Julie and begin a real romance.

The twenty-two steps comprise a powerful tool that gives you an almost limitless ability to create a detailed, organic plot. Use it. But realize that it is a tool that requires much practice to master. So apply it to everything you write and everything you read. As you apply it, keep two points in mind:

1. Be flexible. The twenty-two steps are not fixed in their order. They are not a formula by which you whip your story into conformity. This is the
general
order by which humans try to solve life problems. But every problem and every story is different. Use the twenty-two steps as a framework for the organic unfolding of your unique characters solving their specific problems.

2. Beware of breaking the order. This second caution is the opposite of the first, and again, it's based on the fact that these steps are how

humans solve life problems. The twenty-two steps represent an organic order, the development of a single unit. So if you try to change the order too drastically in an effort to be original or surprising, you risk a story that seems fake or contrived.

Good writers know that revelations are the key to plot. That's why it's so important that you take some time to separate the reveals from the rest of the plot and look at them as one unit. Tracking the revelations sequence is one of the most valuable of all storytelling techniques.

The key to the revelations sequence is to see if the sequence builds properly.

1. The sequence of revelations must be logical. They must occur in the order in which the hero would most likely learn of them.

2. They must build in intensity. Ideally, each reveal should be stronger than the one that came before it. This is not always possible, especially in longer stories (for one thing, it defies logic). But you want a general buildup so that the drama increases.

3. The reveals must come at an increasing pace. This also heightens the drama because the audience gets hit with a greater
density
of surprise.

The most powerful of all reveals is known as a
reversal.
This is a reveal in which the audience's understanding of everything in the story is turned on its head. They suddenly see every element of the plot in a new light. All reality changes in an instant.

A reversal reveal is most common, not surprisingly, in detective stories and thrillers. In
The Sixth Sense,
the reversal reveal comes when the audience discovers that the Bruce Willis character has been dead for most of the movie. In
The Usual Suspects,
the reversal reveal comes when the audience discovers that the meek Verbal has been making up the entire story and that he is the terrifying opponent, Keyser Soze.

Notice that in both of these movies, the big reversal reveal comes right

at the end of the story. This has the advantage of sending the audience out of the theater with a knockout punch. It's the biggest reason these movies were huge hits.

But you must be careful with this technique. It can reduce the story to a mere vehicle for plot, and very few stories can support such domination by the plot. O. Henry gained great fame using the reversal technique in his short stories (such as "The Gift of the Magi"), but they were also criticized for being forced, gimmicky, and mechanical.

Let's look at the revelations sequences in some stories besides
Casablanca
and
Tootsie.

Alien

(story by Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett, screenplay by Dan O'Bannon, 1979)

■ Revelation 1
The crew realizes that the Alien is using the air vents to move through the ship.

■ Decision
They decide to flush the Alien toward the airlock and vent it into space.

■ Changed Desire
Ripley and the others want to kill the Alien.

■ Changed Motive
They must kill the Alien or die.

■ Revelation 2
Ripley learns from the computer, MOTHER, that the crew is expendable in the name of science.

■ Decision
Ripley decides to challenge Ash's actions.

■ Changed Desire
She wants to know why this was hidden from the crew.

■ Changed Motive
She suspects that Ash is not on the crew's side.

■ Revelation 3
Ripley discovers that Ash is a robot that will kill her if necessary to protect the Alien.

■ Decision
Ripley, with Parker's aid, attacks and destroys Ash.

■ Changed Desire
She wants to stop the traitor among them and get off the spaceship.

■ Obsessive Drive
She will oppose and destroy anything and anyone who aids the Alien.

■ Changed Motive
Her motive remains self-preservation.

■ Revelation 4 After his robot head is revived, Ash tells Ripley that the Alien is a perfect organism, an amoral killing machine.

■ Decision
Ripley orders Parker and Lambert to prepare for immediate evacuation and the destruction of the spaceship.

■ Changed Desire
Ripley still wants to kill the Alien, but it now means destroying the ship.

■ Changed Motive
Unchanged.

■ Audience
Revelation
The Alien remains an unknown, terrifying force throughout. So the audience learns things at generally the same time as Ripley and the crew, depriving them of a sense of superiority over the characters and increasing their fear.

■ Revelation 5
Ripley discovers that the Alien has cut her off from the shuttle pod.

■ Decision
She races back to abort the self-destruct sequence, ■
Changed Desire
Ripley doesn't want to blow up with the ship.

■ Changed Motive
Unchanged.

■ Revelation 6
Ripley discovers that the Alien is hiding on the shuttle. ■
Decision
She gets into a spacesuit and opens the shuttle to the

vacuum of space.

■ Changed Desire
Ripley still wants to kill the Alien.

■ Changed Motive
Unchanged.

Notice that the final revelation is the classic horror one: the place you escape to is actually the deadliest place of all.

Basic Instinct

(by Joe Eszterhas, 1992)

■ Revelation 1
Nick discovers that a professor was killed while Catherine was attending school at Berkeley.

■ Decision
Nick decides to follow Catherine.

■ Changed Desire
Nick wants to solve the murder and bring Catherine down off her throne.

■ Changed Motive
Nick and the police thought Catherine had been cleared but now think otherwise.

■ Revelation
2
Nick finds out that Catherine's friend Hazel is a murderer and that Catherine knew the professor who was killed.

■ Decision
He decides to continue following Catherine.