Put your craft on auto-pilot: A STAR IS BORN

Fourth of July weekend done! It’s officially summer! Yay!!  

We all love these lazy days, and we deserve a break, right? Summer is for vacations, and spa days, and - well, let’s face it - no one feels much like writing, do they? I know I’d much rather be bingeing Big Little Lies (the jury’s still out on Stranger Things 3…)

But why not do both? Be lazy and enjoy summer AND get some writing craft work in at the same time?

We went to a looooong party over the 4^th of July weekend, and nobody felt much like doing anything on Sunday, so Craig and the cat and I ended up finally watching the latest A Star is Born.

Which I've always felt is a great story. I've seen a few of these. And it's a really good teaching movie, so let's do it - in a lazy kind of way.

As some of you know, I’ve written several books on story structure and teach a popular story structure workshop when I have time - or when the location is so great that I can’t resist. Like this one on a cruise ship to the Caribbean in November, for example.

 

Writers usually buy the writing workbooks and take my workshops because they’re looking for specific help with their specific books. And that’s great. But I also try to emphasize to my students and readers that everyone can be practicing the techniques of the Three-Act, Eight-Sequence Structure and becoming a better storyteller pretty much all the time, practically by osmosis.

I talk a lot about story patterns (WHAT KIND OF STORY IS IT?) in my workshops, and one of the first things I do is encourage my students to identify the kind of story they’re writing. Because whatever story pattern you are writing (or patterns - there’s often more than one at work!), it’s always astonishingly useful to watch three or four movies of this story type in a row, to understand the specific structure of these stories and what elements we, the audience, keep coming back to see.

So that you can make sure to be hitting those elements in your own story, and even giving us the new or deeper take that will make your story a classic. Right?

We have many Hollywood examples of the “Star is Born” story. All four of the movies with that title

(1937, 1954, 1976, 2018). Also What Price Hollywood (arguably the very first in the line), Funny Girl, and the TV show The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is an extraordinarily good, and successful, example of this story type.

I have to admit that I am particularly drawn to this story pattern because of the thematic deal with the devil aspect of it. A Star is Born never ends happily, does it? It’s a Hobson’s Choice - the heroine is always forced into a choice between fame and love. And the implication of the story line is ALWAYS that the heroine achieves fame only by sacrificing love. Even worse, the story usually says, implicitly, that the love of her life has to die in order for her to achieve fame. Or maybe what it’s saying is that even if he loves her, a man would rather die than be eclipsed by a female star.

Hopefully Mrs. Maisel will be a little more modern about it - we’ll see!

So let’s say you have an idea for a Star is Born story of your own. If you watch three or four of these Star is Born stories for common elements, you can’t help but notice that there is a scene early on in each one of these movies/shows that you could call the “Star Power” scene:  a musical or acting tour de force that makes us understand that the heroine was born to do exactly this.

It’s unique in that the heroine doesn’t just expresses her DESIRE for fame (the classic musical I WANT song) - the scene specifically has to blow us away with the force of her talent in this climactic SETPIECE.

Funny Girl is a great example of making the Heroine's Desire concrete and visual. Musicals so often do this brilliantly, in song, staging and visuals. Early in the story, Barbra Streisand as Fanny Brice is fired from the chorus line of a vaudeville show because she's a terrible dancer, and, well, not exactly cover girl material. She tries to convince the producer to rehire her in a comic song ("I'm the Greatest Star") but gets thrown out of the theater anyway. Out in the alley, she makes a decision and storms back inside to try again, still singing - only to find the theater empty.  Then alone, out on stage, she has that moment that I'm sure every actor and singer and dancer in the history of the world has had - that moment of being alone on an empty stage with the entire vast history and awesome power of the theater around you. She is speechless, silenced 0 and then finishes the somg with a power and passion we haven't seen in her yet. We see, unequivocally, that she is a star.

And that turn gets her hired back. 

I love that Star Power scene and most of the rest of the movie - it's a much more entertaining and thoughtful take on the Star is Born story than the actual A Star is Born Streisand starred in in 1976.

The 2018 A Star is Born nails the Star Power scene for damn sure with Lady Gaga’s stellar turn of “La Vie En Rose” in the drag club.

Mrs. Maisel’s drunken foray into standup comedy is a fantastic, non-musical variation on the scene. Yeah, that upper Eastside housewife has the goods.

And of course in George Cukor’s 1954 A Star is Born, the iconic Judy Garland rendition of “The Man That Got Away” is not just a famous scene, but one of the best-known scenes in film history.

  

You can do this kind of scene comparison for any story question/problem you have in your own story. Screen three movies in the genre you’re writing and let the scenes those filmmakers came up with inspire you to create your own classic scenes.

Isn’t that a goal for some lazy summer writing?

So - what kind of story are you writing? And do you have other examples of the kinds of stories I've listed above, or other kinds of stories to add to the list?

- Alex

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If you'd like to to see more of these story elements in action, I strongly recommend that you watch at least one and much better, three of the films I break down in the workbooks, following along with my notes.

I do full breakdowns of The Matrix, The Wizard of Oz,  Chinatown, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Romancing the Stone, Sense and Sensibility, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, and The Mist - and act breakdowns of You've Got Mail, Jaws, Silence of the Lambs, Raiders of the Lost Ark in Stealing Hollywood.

I do full breakdowns of The Proposal, Groundhog Day, Sense and Sensibility, Romancing the Stone, Leap Year, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Sea of Love, While You Were Sleeping and New in Town in Writing Love.

 

STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook, $3.99    
STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, $14.99

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Junowrimo Day 10: Are you stuck? Do you have a PLAN?

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One third of the way through June! This is a very good time to pause (briefly) and ask yourself: 
WHAT'S THE PLAN?

The Protagonist's PLAN drives the entire STORY ACTION. The Central Action of the story is carrying out the specific Plan. And the CENTRAL QUESTION of the story is – “Will the Plan succeed?”

Take a favorite movie or book (or two or three) and identify the PLAN, CENTRAL STORY ACTION and CENTRAL QUESTION and them in a few sentences. Like this:

- In Philadelphia Story, Cary Grant’s PLAN is to break up Katharine Hepburn’s wedding by sending in a photographer and journalist from a tabloid, which he knows will agitate her and her whole family to the point of explosion. (So the CENTRAL ACTION of the story is using the journalists to break up the wedding, and the CENTRAL QUESTION is – Will he be able to break up the wedding?)

- In Inception the PLAN is for the team of dream burglars to go into a corporate heir’s dreams to plant the idea of breaking up his father’s corporation. (So the CENTRAL ACTION is going into the corporate heir’s dream and planting the idea, and the CENTRAL QUESTION is – Will they succeed in planting the idea and breaking up the corporation?).

- In Sense And Sensibility the PLAN is for Marianne and Elinor to secure the family’s fortune and their own happiness by marrying well. (How are they going to do that? By the period’s equivalent of dating – which is the CENTRAL ACTION. Yes, dating is a PLAN! The CENTRAL QUESTION is, Will the sisters succeed in marrying well?)

- In The Proposal, Margaret’s PLAN is to learn enough about Andrew over the four-day weekend with his family to pass the INS marriage test so she won’t be deported. (The CENTRAL ACTION is going to Alaska to meet Andrew’s family and pretending to be married while they learn enough about each other to pass the test. The CENTRAL QUESTION is: Will they be able to successfully fake the marriage?

Now, try it with your own story!

- What does the protagonist WANT? 

- How does s/he PLAN to do it? 

- What and who is standing in his or her way? 

For example, in my thriller, Book of Shadows, here's the Act One set up: the protagonist, homicide detective Adam Garrett, is called on to investigate the murder of a college girl - which looks like a Satanic killing. Garrett and his partner make a quick arrest of a classmate of the girl's, a troubled Goth musician. But Garrett is not convinced of the boy's guilt, and when a practicing witch from nearby Salem insists the boy is innocent and there have been other murders, he is compelled to investigate further.

So Garrett’s PLAN and the CENTRAL ACTION of the story is to use the witch and her specialized knowledge of magical practices to investigate the murder on his own, all the while knowing that she is using him for her own purposes and may well be involved in the killing. The CENTRAL QUESTION is: will they catch the killer before s/he kills again - and/or kills Garrett (if the witch turns out to be the killer)?

- What does the protagonist WANT? To catch the killer before s/he kills again.

- How does he PLAN to do it? By using the witch and her specialized knowledge of magical practices to investigate further.

- What’s standing in his way? His own department, the killer, and possibly the witch herself. And if the witch is right… possibly even a demon.


The PLAN, CENTRAL QUESTION and CENTRAL STORY ACTION are almost always set up – and spelled out - by the end of the first act, although the specifics of the Plan may be spelled out right after the Act I Climax at the very beginning of Act II. 

Can it be later? Well, anything’s possible, but the sooner a reader or audience understands the overall thrust of the story action, the sooner they can relax and let the story take them where it’s going to go. So much of storytelling is about you, the author, reassuring your reader or audience that you know what you’re doing, so they can relax and let you drive. 

It’s important to note that the Plan and Central Action of the story are not always driven by the protagonist. Usually, yes. But in The Matrix, it’s Neo’s mentor Morpheus who has the overall PLAN, which drives the central action right up until the end of the second act. The Plan is to recruit and train Neo, whom Morpheus believes is “The One” prophesied to destroy the Matrix. So that’s the action we see unfolding: Morpheus recruiting, deprogramming and training Neo, who is admittedly very cute, but essentially just following Morpheus’s orders for two thirds of the movie. 

Does this weaken the structure of that film? Not at all. Morpheus drives the action until that crucial point, the Act Two Climax, when he is abducted by the agents of the Matrix, at which point Neo steps into his greatness and becomes “The One” by taking over the action and making a new plan, to rescue Morpheus by sacrificing himself.

It is a terrific way to show a huge character arc: Neo stepping into his destiny. And I would add that this is a common structural pattern for mythic journey stories - in Lord of the Rings, it's Gandalf who has the PLAN and drives the reluctant Frodo in the central story action.

Here’s another example. In the very funny romantic comedy It’s Complicated, Meryl Streep’s character Jane is the protagonist, but she doesn’t drive the action or have any particular plan of her own. It’s her ex-husband Jake (Alec Baldwin), who seduces her and at the end of the first act, proposes (in a very persuasive speech) that they continue this affair as a perfect solution to both their love troubles – it will fulfill their sexual and intimacy needs without disrupting the rest of their lives. 

Jane decides at that point to go along with Jake’s plan (saying, “I forgot what a good lawyer you are.”). In terms of action, she is essentially passive, letting the two men in her life court her (which results in bigger and bigger comic entanglements), but that makes for a more pronounced and satisfying character arc when she finally takes a stand and breaks off the affair with Jake for good, so she can finally move on with her life.

I would venture to guess that most of us know what it’s like to be swept up in a ripping good love entanglement, and can sympathize with Jane’s desire just to go with the passion of it without having to make any pesky practical decisions. It’s a perfectly fine – and natural – structure for a romantic comedy, as long as at that key juncture, the protagonist has the realization and balls – or ovaries – to take control of their own life again and make a stand for what they truly want.

I give you these last two examples – hopefully - to show how helpful it can be to study the specific structure of stories that are similar to your own. As you can see from the above, the general writing rule that the protagonist drives the action may not apply to what you’re writing – and you might want to make a different choice that will better serve your own story. And that goes for any general writing rule.

ASSIGNMENT QUESTIONS: Have you identified the CENTRAL ACTION of your story? At what point in your book does the reader have a clear idea of the protagonist’s PLAN? Is it stated aloud? Can you make it more clear than it is?

And you guys, you really need to understand this. This idea of a CENTRAL STORY ACTION goes back THOUSANDS of years, to the Golden Age of Greek drama. Aristotle laid it out in the POETICS.

If you think you can fight thousands of years of dramatic structure (which is by now, I would venture to say, part of our DNA strand...) well, good for you, you rebel, you! But why make things so hard on yourself? Think about it. Thousands of years, this stuff has worked. Fight it at your peril, is all I'm saying.

- Alex

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                                        STEALING HOLLYWOOD

This new workbook updates all the text in the first Screenwriting Tricks for Authors ebook with all the many tricks I’ve learned over my last few years of writing and teaching—and doubles the material of the first book, as well as adding six more full story breakdowns.

 

STEALING HOLLYWOOD ebook    $3.99

STEALING HOLLYWOOD US print  $12.99

STEALING HOLLYWOOD print, all countries 

WRITING LOVE

Writing Love is a shorter version of the workbook, using examples from love stories, romantic suspense, and romantic comedy - available in e formats for just $2.99.

- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)

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Screenwriting Tricks for Authors in June

I'm teaching not one, but TWO of my rare Screenwriting Tricks For Authors workshops in June - the DC Romance Writers weekend conference and the five-day intensive I do every year at the West Texas AMU Writers Academy. If you're in the DC area, you can still sign up for the DC conference
at an amazing rate - and you don't have to be a romance writer to benefit!

I've been leading my workshop participants through some basic prep that would work really well for Junowrimo prep as well - here are the questions if you want to play along.

     1.  The genre of your book. 
 
     2.  The premise of your book - the story in one or two sentences.  (Read about premise here. )

(If you DON'T have a book idea yet, that's fine, too - just let us know and we’ll give you alternate homework.)

     3 .  This is the most important:  Compile a list of TEN books and films (at least five films, please)  in your genre that are somewhat similar to your book structurally.    

We learn best from the storytellers and stories (in any medium) that have most inspired us. And as authors we can learn a whole new dimension of storytelling by looking specifically at films that have inspired us and that are similar to what we're writing. 

     4. For extra bonus points, write out the premises of each film on your list (in one or two lines, only. This will be hard, but very, very good for you. ) 
 

For people who are struggling with nailing down a premise sentence, it helps to answer these questions first:

• Who’s the story about? 

• What’s the setting? 

• Who’s the antagonist? 

• What’s the conflict? 

• What are the stakes?

- Alex

STEALING HOLLYWOOD in print!

The PRINT workbook of Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, STEALING HOLLYWOOD, is out now! I know some of you have been waiting for this one for practically ever – well, it’s completely worth the wait!  

The workbook is gorgeous, inside and out, and the 8 X 10 textbook format means it lies open beautifully for highlighting and scribbling in the margins.

$3.99 ebook, $14.99 print textbook - all the material from my workshops and on this blog, and much much more.

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For UK writers - 

I’m very excited to be teaching one of the writing Master Classes for the Bloody Scotland crime writing festival next month, along with the brilliant Denise Mina, one of my all-time favorite authors and a major inspiration for my Huntress Moon thrillers.

You can sign up for classes here:  Master Classes  - or follow along with class homework on my blog!
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