Session 3: Wrap-up

Session 3 : Wrap-up

This session we covered:

• Session 2 Exercise: the Elevator Pitch prompt

• The Inciting Incident

• The Hero's Journey

Last Session's exercise: Elevator Pitch prompt

The elevator pitch prompt we posed as a warm-up exercise for this week proved challenging, whether trying to create an elevator pitch for an existing work (film/book) or our own.

We discussed Die Hard ("Why are all these people dying, again?") and the Fifth Element, before diving into our own elevator pitches.

Drawing from Blake Snyder's screenwriting book Save the Cat, we talked about how you can weave in the cause-and-effect verbs to create an information-packed and catchy sentence, perhaps even with a dash of irony.

See if your elevator pitch might fit into something like: Because of x, y must z before the villain blows up the world (or whatever else is putting pressure on the protagonist to get the job done!).

Inciting Incident

This elevator pitch exercise led us into the inciting incident (II), or the 'x' from the formula above.

The II is a moment/action/event that changes everything, from which there is no turning back. You could think of it as lighting the fuse—once that inciting incident has come to pass, the dynamite/canon/firework of your story's climax is bound to blow.

In examining the inciting incident from three movies, we learned that the main character's relationship to the II can be proactive or reactive. Has something happened coincidentally and the Main Character gets drawn in, or does the MC actively stage his or her own point of no return?

Let's look at the (truly head-scratching!) examples:

The Hunger Games: This was a great example because the inciting incident is twofold, and both proactive and reactive. Prim is selected as the tribute, which prompts Katniss to volunteer herself ... all within the space of a minute.

Titanic: Tricky, because this is a story within a story. There is Jack winning the hand—and the tickets to the Titanic—in a game of poker (without this event, the story wouldn't have happened) ... but that's nested within the larger framework of the elderly Rose discovering that her portrait was excavated from the wreckage of the Titanic, after which she decides to share her story. It comes back to the question: Whose story is it? And, ultimately, it's Rose's story.

LOTR: Also a meaty one. Is the inciting incident when Bilbo pulls his disappearing act, tipping Galdalf off to the presence of the ring? Or is it the moment Frodo receives the envelope? (The one containing the ring, after which he tells Gandalf what happens when he puts it in the fire.) OR is it in the voice-over preamble when the ring is created in the first place?!? Hmmmmm ...  Again, the purpose of the exercise is to get us thinking about it in terms of whose story it is and, in this case, it's Frodo's story. No ring=no adventure.

Inciting Incidents can be genre-specific (it's about audience expectation).

   Romance: the lovers meet
   Sci-fi: something malfunctions (think Passengers, The Martian) or is stolen
   Horror: something is unleashed or attacks
   Crime/Police Procedural: a body is found

Think of the II as the promise to the reader, that the ending will be a reasonable, inevitable, and surprising conclusion to what has kicked off beginning of the story.

Hero’s journey 

We didn't talk much about the larger flow of the Hero's Journey (as outlined by Joseph Campbell, good overview here from The Writer's Journey) as most people were familiar with it. Instead, we dived straight into the start of the adventure from the Ordinary World to the point of no return, thinking about the Hero, and what sustains them through the journey, because this is related to the inciting incident.

Good to ask: Who’s doing the action and why are they doing it? 
Asking this question also answers: What’s at stake?

The WHY is the driving motivation that will take them and compel them through the entire journey. It’s what they’re looking for, or DEFENDING. It will also give you the shape of what the character will look like (what they’ve learned) by the end, even if they don’t WANT to learn it.

It's easy to understand if we look at the extreme: if the 'why' is because the protagonist wants to stay alive. That's the ultimate driver.

But it can be equally driving if your goal is to 'save your wife from the hostages' (Die Hard) or 'bring down the powers that be' (Divergent).

If you don’t know:

Make a list of Wants / Needs and hierachy-ify it.

Then write it on a sticky note and stick it on your computer to refer to, because unsurprisingly (since it came out of your head) it will also give YOU, the writer, core motivation to drive the story from go to woe.

Next look at the things that will obstruct them from their goal.

This can be internal or external.

NB Genres have different weightings of this: e.g. James Bond traditionally (until the last 3 iterations, at least) has had literally NO internal obstacles. He only has external obstacles like: enemies of Britain chasing him or obstructing him, being captured or blown up, even his boss who tells him he's not supposed to be doing something. (Does he let this stop him? No. He's 007. He's a machine.)

Identifying what’s at stake.

What do you have to risk/sacrifice/give up?

In the survival adventure 127 Hours James Franco has to literally get to the point where he can decide to cut off his own hand. Nice. NB: in this case, the ultimate antagonist is a rock!

We discussed how the Hero’s Journey links into so many components. e.g. We can also look at the villain’s story and how that interacts with the hero. Is the villain's most pressing want or need in direct conflict with the hero's? Or do they want the same thing, and are thus in a competition with each other?

Often, when you set your antagonist level of 'badness' or 'evilness' at the highest possible level, it enables you to up the stakes to make it harder and harder for the protagonist. (Think Star Wars: You thought Vader was bad? How about The Emperor?!)

It's helpful to think of the Antagonist as the dark side of the Protagonist.