posted
This is my first post to this board after lurking for some time. I can't say how delighted I am in finding a group of readers I can presume have good taste (it's on OSC's site, after all). I came here because I love fiction. I love to read it. I love to write it. I love to talk about it.
I love to analyze stories with the eye of an author and find out what makes drama work. Hopefully, this will make me a better writer also.
My main project write now is an epic fantasy novel, and at some point I would love to share some of my ideas on that, if for no other reason than to see what new ideas percolate in the discussion.
The project I have on the front burner is a short "story doctor" column. I started writing these on a whim, but then I began wondering if there is an audience for a theoretical analysis of drama in fiction, done in review style? Well of course there is. But is ther an audience for mine?
I thought of submitting to magazines, but what I really want is a discussion, not a monologue. I don't care about any potential nickels and dimes in it. I don't even care about a broad audience, since just a few folks smart and passionate about fiction would work even better.
The reason I want to share them is to open up a dialog with smart readers and fiction lovers and maybe learn a few things.
Even better, I would love to see some "story doctor" articles from any of you. I'll post a couple of samples to see if it can spark an interesting thread.
posted
I endured "The Distinguished Gentleman" for a couple of hours last night and came away surprised. It didn't surprise me that the entire story collapsed under the weight of every cliché imaginable. It didn't surprise me that I could've told you the whole story within thirty seconds of the movie starting. It didn't surprise me that each of the characters had only one motivation and emotion assigned by the screenwriter, so that they each seemed to be more like action figures than people.
What really surprised me is that the premise of this film had so much potential, and the screenwriter brushed it without recognizing it on his way out the door to mediocrity.
The story is a comedy (main character: Eddie Murphy) about a con-man who, upon discovering he has the same name as a recently deceased congressman, runs on pure name - recognition and next thing you know, he's on his way to Washington. Of course through the story he discovers that most of the congressman are bigger con-men than he is, and in order to win the heart of a zealous liberal lobbyist he's attracted to (the formula Hollywood love-interest), he must redeem himself and fight against the corruption. Oh, and we all learn that any congressman that becomes liberal is a redeemed hero.
Here's what the story doctor has to say about converting this from an eye-roller to a floor-roller:
The doctor says: comedy must flow from drama. The more serious, the more conflicted, the more painful the underlying drama is, the funnier the jokes when you make light of it. This movie treated a subject with deep dramatic depths so light-heartedly that it floated away like a balloon out of sight.
Making the love-interest the impact character (the catalyst character for the main character to change his nature) was an attempt to create a powerful motivation for the main character to change. A well-known device, but in this case one cliché too many. The main character had no contaganist (tempter) to hold him back, to cause an internal dilemma. In this case choosing between a conscience just born and a love interest dragging him down into further corruption would've created more interest and more laughs. Imagine trying to disguise furtive first attempts to solve a tragic social issue as naked greed to his love interest. Imagine his constituents getting a whiff of this disguise and now he must simultaneously convince them he is sincere. And the laughs commence as the action gets more and more exaggerated while he tries to juggle the two. Besides that, we had at least two other candidates for the job of impact character in sincere congressmen that the audience could sympathize with more. Nobody sympathizes with a political lobbyist just because they have a liberal agenda. A lobbyist is a zealot, and all zealots are hard to build into a story unless you want to make them a really major character and build audience sympathy appropriately, eating up screen time. But a congressman nobly fighting for a just cause in a sea of corruption, now there's a body we can care about. Show how he stands up to the pain, makes sacrifices, and turns down easy compromises. Then we'll be in his corner. And we have a more direct model for the main character to emulate.
They brought in another minor impact character with the combo of the mother with the cancer-stricken daughter. But they white-washed the pain so much that the drama and the comedy both lost their punch. Something like cancer should have deeper consequences than a bald head. Why try to save the audience by saying the cancer is cured? Give us the pain. Make her death imminent. How to make comedy out of that? Well of course you don't want to make the audience hate the main character. The trick here is to have the main character use humor to comfort the girl, to relieve her from the fear of near death. It's bittersweet, yes, but that's better than limp.
The movie missed a chance for greatness when it almost put a real moral dilemma in the main character's lap. Convinced that he should legislate to protect Floridians from dangerously near power-lines, to prevent cancer clusters, he brings up the subject to his corrupt mentor. Never mind that he has manipulated the mentor into doing almost the completely impossible before, bringing him onboard a committee that no freshman congressman could ever dream of entering. No, he forgoes all the possible tension (and laughs) of a second round of manipulation directed at this new, more noble issue. It's the right choice to force the issue between them eventually. Maybe the screenwriter was running out of time in the movie, and fair enough. But at least give us some evidence as to why manipulation would fail for this seemingly much easier task. Now here's where the movie brushed greatness. He mentions scientific studies linking the power-lines to cancer clusters, and the suffering of cancer victims in front of his mentor and his industry cronies. Their response bordered on brilliant then failed. (And I mean dramatically brilliant, all politics aside) - They at first seem to have genuine sympathy for the victims, but then blow it. - They point out that other studies have different conclusions. - They point out that this is a five billion dollar cost to do in Florida alone and that - This would cause job loss, hurting the poor, wrecking the economy, raise prices for electricity - Homeowners near power lines would see the value of their homes plummet - other economic mayhem, and they could've pointed out that this would cause real hardship to people, especially the poor - They shouldn't have stopped here. They should've pointed out that even though they think that the cancer clusters are coincidental, that they give generously to cancer cure and treatment foundations. They should've volunteered to help the girl.
Now the main character is in a vice between one moral problem and another. He may be tempted to just give up caring and go back to being a pure con. So many possibilities for humor here. He could suggest solutions: "well all the people that lose their jobs can just come help you bury power lines, right?" He could turn to the absurd, suggesting that if the just build more power-lines near the right neighborhoods, they can kill enough poor people to achieve welfare reform. He could've ridiculed their study by cracking jokes about all the safe uses of power lines, and how they're so harmless. Instead, the character sits there and sulks as the mentor and his cronies throw out all shreds of humanity and make it a pure greed issue.
In the end, the character issue is muddied by the author's liberal agenda. Either make the story about going from corrupt to noble, or from one ideology to another, but don't dodge the issue. And here's what I mean: the main character pulls a final con to expose the corruption of his mentor, for the motive of revenge. He's still a con, he didn't even have a noble motive, just revenge. And the impact characters are ... happy with this? The reason we're to believe that the main character has transcended himself is because in addition to being a con who can avenge with the best of them, he has adopted a few liberal causes? Sorry, not even a completely liberal audience would buy it.
It would've been so much funnier if he had at least manipulated his mentor into supporting the noble cause against his own interests, like the story almost (almost brilliantly) suggested it would do. It would've been funnier if he had resolved his moral dilemma, painfully, instead of ignoring it. Either grow the character from one pole to another and have him win through honesty and integrity, or drop the liberal agenda and have the character master the situation through masterful deception and manipulation, forcing his mentor to help the victims and at the same time even duping the impact characters. Don't muddy the waters.
And the set up for a sequel (running for president) ... please don't do it. The screenwriter needs a few weeks in intensive care at the story hospital. Take some good medicine, and then go on to another idea. Recycling these clichés for a now even more clichéd sequel would make even the good doctor sick.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
It's a very good concept, actually, but I think you're only going to be able to "sell" that article on the Web. In the real world, people would look for "story doctor" advice from someone who had story-writing experience, and I think it would be hard to find an audience as a result.
On the web, however, you need no credentials. Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Aye, Tom, I agree. At this point I would be happy enough just discussing it with this board, and hopefully learn some things.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Well the good doctor is in for another round, this time to extol the virtues of a relatively healthy patient. The doctor still has a band-aid or two for this movie.
This time we'll be examining the movie, recently released on DVD, instead of the book. If you like to read, I would have to recommend that you read the book before you see the movie. Knowing the story will spoil the twists, and that is where this story excels best, so if you're a bookworm like me, opt for the book instead of the movie. Then again you may decide, as I did, that the movie version makes for a better date.
Fair warning: the good doctor can't do his diagnostic without dropping in plenty of spoilers. So if that matters much to you (and with this movie it should), go and see it and then shimmy on back to the doctor to learn a thing or two about story hygiene.
The story is obviously a courtroom drama, with the gun industry on one side and a widow who lost her husband to a armed criminal on the other. Whether you agree with the political message of the story or not, it's still a good yarn. It won't change anybody's minds, but it won't irritate the political opposition too much either. Of course you know automatically that we're supposed to root for the underdog.
The deeper and much more interesting story is about the two underground groups trying to manipulate the jury to the verdict they want. It's a fascinating combination of spy v spy and courtroom drama. On one side you have the jury "consultant" that the gun industry hires, of course the best that money can buy, as the antagonist. He's brilliant, he's crafty, he's perceptive, and cares about nothing but winning. On the other hand, you have the protagonists who are apparently free agents looking for bids from either the gun industry's crony or the lawyer of the widow.
The protagonists are beautifully mysterious, with revelation moments coming out slowly but with great impact, and it is great fun watching them play the game. The screenwriter does a brilliant job of illustrating that the protagonists are vulnerable, perhaps out of their league. And because they're the underdogs, and so clever, and because we hate their opponent, we sympathize with them. This is a clever construct by the author since ordinarily we would find it hard to sympathize with protagonists who are out to swindle millions of dollars by corrupting justice.
I love a story that can still surprise me. This story had plenty of surprises, and a big one at the end. The author does this by concealing real motives, so that the audience defaults to the cliché' motive, until they are revealed. Ditto with character abilities. He reveals them one at a time, delighting and surprising us with each break from cliché'. The movie starts with revealing the perceptiveness of the antagonist. It reveals his methods, clever and clandestine, one by one. It reveals new abilities from the protagonists, from deft manipulation to desperate hand to hand melee.
Now for the band-aids.
The antagonist is a bit too flat. The author had to make us hate him, to prop up sympathy for the protagonists. By definition of his role he has to be corrupt to the core. All we needed really was a bit more evidence for what drives him to win at all costs, something to make us say, at least, oh, how sad. We can still hate him this way, but maybe we can believe in him a bit more.
The widow's lawyer is too preachy about his noble principles, and comes off as arrogant at parts. Even just a shard of self-deprecation or humility would help. In the end the author has him fall from his principles and lose faith in the system, which could've been developed into a delicious tragedy. But we don't feel his pain, because the whole time we've been wanting to knock him off his soapbox anyway.
The story has one major break from believability, when one of the protagonists tries to tell the audience (by saying it to the vanquished antagonist) that the jury decided without manipulation. Bull. You show us the manipulation, you show the protagonist dominating the deliberations, you show how he has manipulated them masterfully during the whole story without much effort, the jury comes out with a verdict far beyond what we expect, and now you want us to swallow that whopper? Eyah, whatever. An attempt to top off the nobility of the protagonist makes him look like a liar for no good reason.
Could be that all of these little faults have to do with compression from novel to film, but the good doctor doesn't know. It was already a pretty long movie.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Ornery has "guest essays". Maybe Hatrack could have "guest reviews"? Or maybe that's what this forum is supposed to be. Either way, I'd love to draw out your theoretical knowledge of drama, and banter some ideas around.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Nice post, and welcome. This idea is interesting, though I wouldn't expect -too- much structure from us . I've not seen The Distinguished Gentleman, but I have seen Runaway Jury (though I have not read the book) and would be interested in reading your post on that. Not that your first post wasn't interesting, I just don't have much to say in response to it .
Edit: Yeah, I am slow.
quote:The widow's lawyer is too preachy about his noble principles, and comes off as arrogant at parts. Even just a shard of self-deprecation or humility would help. In the end the author has him fall from his principles and lose faith in the system, which could've been developed into a delicious tragedy. But we don't feel his pain, because the whole time we've been wanting to knock him off his soapbox anyway.
I actually dug the widow's lawyer. In a film where early on you seem to realize that you're rooting for "the bad guys", which isn't in and of itself a bad thing at all, I thought it was nice to find a character who inspired you and kept the film from being totally morally upside down. While it would have been nice to have the lawyer a little more developed as a character, he actually seemed very human to me. I liked the story...it was a fun ride, but I thought the widow and her lawyer gave it more strength and hope.
posted
Thanks, Derrell. Maybe if there's a book or movie you've recently digested you could offer a story doctor on it. This idea will only really work, as far as I'm concerned, if everybody chimes in.
Posts: 8 | Registered: Mar 2004
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I think this is a cool idea.
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. I've not seen The Distinguished Gentleman, but I have seen Runaway Jury (though I have not read the book) and would be interested in reading your post on that. Not that your first post wasn't interesting, I just don't have much to say in response to it 
