Faulkner on Story

William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949. Here is his speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm.

"Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands."

READ ENTIRE SPEECH

Conflicting Dialog

Egri proposes that the reason we're drawn to conflict, is because it exposes character. No need to establish mood, atmosphere, background, before the action begins. It should happen throughout the story with conflict. Constantly. Without interruption. Every conflict exposes something about the character. If for any reason a character is NOT in conflict, the story stops, right then and there.

Dialog, then, grows from the character and the conflict, and, in its turn, reveals the character and carries the action. Good dialog is the product of characters carefully chosen and permitted to grow until the slowly rising conflict has proved the premise. No speeches. No Soapboxes.

Transitions

The real art to the story, Egri tells us, is how the writer handles transitions. No big jumps. Smooth transitions. Show how the character moves from one pole to the other. We are never, for any two successive moments the same. And transition is the element which keeps the story moving without any breaks, jumps or gaps. Transition connects seemingly unconnected elements, such as winter and summer, love and hate. Never oscillate between transitions, always move towards the goal. Building the conflict. Don't go back and forth. Once you've passed a threshold, move to the next level.

How to move from FRIENDSHIP to MURDER.

• Friendship-->Disappointment
• Disappointment-->Annoyance
• Annoyance-->Irritation
• Irritation-->Anger
• Anger-->Assault
• Assault-->Threat (to greater harm)
• Threat-->Premeditation
• Premeditation-->Murder

Point of Attack

Egri is adamant that the story should start with the first line uttered. The characters involved will expose their natures in the course of conflict. It is bad writing to first marshal your evidences, drawing in the background, creating an atmosphere, before you begin the conflict. Whatever your premise, whatever the make-up of your characters, the first line spoken should start the conflict and the inevitable drive toward the proving of the premise.

A writer must find a character who wants something so desperately that he can't wait any longer. His needs are immediate. Why? You have your story or movie the moment you can answer authoritatively why this man must do something so urgently and immediately. Whatever it is, the motivation must have grown out of what happened before the story started. In fact, your story is possible only because it grew out of the very thing that happened before.

It is imperative that your story starts in the middle, and not under any circumstances, at the beginning.

Some examples:

• When a conflict will lead up to a crisis.
• When at least one character has reached a turning point in his life.
• When a decision will precipitate conflict.
• When something vital is at stake at the very beginning of the movie.

There must be something at stake--something pressingly important.

Unity of Opposites

Egri suggests that compromise is impossible between the main characters driving the story. Characters duel until death. United to destroy each other. Bound together. But the death is actually a transformation. A loss of equilibrium. But then the character needs to seek a new equilibrium. After you have found your premise, you had better find out immediately--testing if necessary--whether the characters have the unity of opposites between them. If they do not have this STRONG, UNBREAKABLE BOND between them, your conflict will never rise to a climax.

Strong Character

According to Egri, contradiction is the essence of conflict, and when a character can overcome his internal contradictions to win his goal, he is strong. Strong characters force the issue in question until they are beaten or reach their goal. A weak character is one who, for any reason, cannot make a decision to act. Every living creature is capable of doing anything, if the conditions around him are strong enough. There is no such thing as weak character. The question is: did you catch your character at that particular moment when he was ready for conflict? When the author has a clear-cut premise, it is child's play to find the character who will carry the burden of that premise. Characters create the conflict. A plot without character is a makeshift contraption.

Character Growth

More from Lajos Egri: A character stands revealed through conflict; conflict begins with a decision; a decision is made because of the premise. The character's decision necessarily sets in motion another decision, from his adversary. And it is these decisions, one resulting from the other, which propel the story to its ultimate destination: the proving of the premise. A character moves relentlessly from one state of mind toward another; they are forced to change, grow, develop, because the writer had a clear-cut premise which it was their function to prove. The contradictions within a man and the contradictions around him create a decision and a conflict. These in turn force him into a new decision and a new conflict. Growth is evolution; climax is revolution. Character must have a seed in the beginning and must follow a logical and believable path of evolution. A Character's background , his temperament, is the seed which ensures growth and proves the author's premise.

The Bone Structure

To build a character, Lajos Egri suggests using The Bone Structure:

Physiology

1. Sex
2. Age
3. Height & Weight
4. Color of hair, eyes, skin
5. Posture
6. Appearance: good looking, over- or underweight, clean, neat, pleasant, untidy. Shape of head, face limbs
7. Defects: deformities, abnormalities, birthmarks, diseases
8. Heredity

Sociology

1. Class: working, ruling, middle
2. Occupation: type of work, hours of work, income, condition of work, attitude toward organization, suitability for work
3. Education: amount, kind of schools, grades, favorite subjects, poorest subjects, aptitudes
4. Home Life: parents living, earning power, orphan, parents separated or divorced, parents' habits, parents' mental development, parents' vices, neglect, Character's marital status
5. Religion
6. Race, nationality
7. Place in community: leader among friends, clubs, sports
8. Political affiliations
9. Amusements, hobbies: books, newspapers, magazines, sports played

Psychology

1. Sex life, moral standards
2. Personal premise, ambition
3. Frustrations, chief disappointments
4. Temperament: easygoing, pessimistic, optmistic
5. Attitude toward life: resigned, militant, defeatist
6. Complexes: obsessions, inhibitions, superstitions, manias, phobias
7. Extrovert, introvert, ambivert
8. Abilities: languages, talents
9. Qualities: imagination, judgment, taste, poise
10. I.Q.

Premise

From Lajos Egri, The Art of Dramatic Writing:
No idea, and no situation, was ever strong enough to carry you through to its logical conclusion without a clear-cut premise. If you have no such premise...you will not know where you are going. You must have a premise--a premise that will lead you unmistakably to the goal your play hopes to reach. Must be worded so that anyone can understand it as the author intended it to be understood. An unclear premise is as bad as no premise at all.

Every good premise is composed of THREE parts.

FRUGALITY LEADS TO WASTE

1. FRUGALITY - suggests character
2. LEADS TO - suggests conflict
3. WASTE - suggests the end of the play

Other premises:

• Bitterness leads to false gaiety.
• Foolish generosity leads to poverty.
• Honesty defeats duplicity.
• Heedlessness destroys friendship.
• Ill-temper leads to isolation.
• Materialism conquers mysticism.
• Prudishness leads to frustration.
• Bragging leads to humiliation.
• Confusion leads to frustration.
• Craftiness digs its own grave.
• Dishonesty leads to exposure.
• Dissipation leads to self-destruction.
• Egotism leads to loss of friends.
• Extravagance leads to destitution.
• Fickleness leads to loss of self-esteem.
• Ruthless ambition leads to its own destruction.
• Escape from reality leads to a day of reckoning.
  

You must believe in your premise, since you are to prove it. Great love defies even death. You must show conclusively that life is worthless without the loved one. And if you do not sincerely believe that this is so, you will have a very hard time finding the emotional intensity needed. The premise should be a conviction of YOUR OWN, so that you may prove it wholeheartedly.

It is idiotic to go about hunting for a premise...it should be a conviction of yours. YOU know what your convictions are. Look them over. Suppose you do find a premise in your wanderings. At best it is alien to you. It did not grow from you; it is not part of you. A good premise represents the author.

You may start with an idea which you at once convert to a premise, or you may develop a situation first and see that it has potentialities which need only the right premise to give them meaning and suggest an end.

ONLY ONE PREMISE PLEASE.

Hide the premise. It is impossible to denote just where the premise is and where story or character begins.

The Story

Ira Glass explains the essence of good storytelling.

Genre

More notes from Blake Snyder. Make sure your story is one of these genres.

• Monster in the House. Jaws. Confined space. Sin committed.
  
• Golden Fleece. Star Wars. Quest. Road Movie. In search of one thing, discovering something else, himself. Internal growth. Heist movies.
  
• Out of the Bottle. Flubber. Wish fulfillment. What if... Hero must be put-upon Cinderella. And learn that magic isn't everything. Lesson at the ending.
  
• Dude with a Problem. Die Hard. Ordinary guy, extraordinary circumstances. The badder the bad guy, the greater the heroics. Dude triumphs using his individuality to outsmart the more powerful forces.
  
• Rites of Passage. Ordinary People. Everybody's in on the joke, except the person going through it. Surrendering. Give up to forces more powerful than ourselves. That's life!
  
• Buddy Love. Rain man. Love story in disguise. All love stories, are buddy movies, with potential for sex. At first they hate each other, but their adventure together shows how much they need each other, and realizing this leads to more conflict. Need All is Lost moment where they separate. Then they have to surrender their egos to win.
  
• Whydunit. Chinatown. Not about hero changing, its about discovering something about human nature we did not think possible. Walk on the dark side. Turns the view back on us and asks, are we this evil?
  
• The Fool Triumphant. Forrest Gump. The wisest among us. Underdog. Everyone underestimates his ability. Thus, allowing him to ultimately shine. Not give up despite the odds. Usually against an "establishment" bad guy. Everyone discounts his chances for success, and an institution for the underdog to attack. Fool has an accomplice, an "insider" who can't believe the fool is getting away with his "ruse." Insider gets brunt of the slapstick, sees the idiot for what he really is, and being stupid enough to try to interfere. Give audience vicariouos thrill of victory.
  
• Institutionalized. M*A*S*H. Honor the institution and expose the problem of losing one's identity to it. Pros and cons of putting group ahead of ourselves. Often told from point of view of newcomer. Good for exposition, can ask, how does that work? Way to show what is a "crazy" world to us civilians. Who's crazier, me or them?
  
• Superhero. Gladiator. Extraordinary guy finds himself in ordinary world. Tales about being "different." Superhero must deal with those who are jealous of his unique point of view and superior mind. We all feel that way. Sympathy must come from plight of being misunderstood. Inspires us to what could be our potential.

For more in-depth analysis, see Blake's excellent book, Save the Cat! Goes to the Movies.

The Bad Guy

So much has been said about The Hero, but as William Akers has said in Your Screenplay Sucks!, it's the bad guy that makes the hero change. No bad guy, no change in The Hero. Here's a checklist from Mr. Akers:

• If it's the hero against the system, put a face on it. Make him a human.
  
• Make him GREAT! All powerful. Stronger than hero.
  
• Always taking action. Plotting. Planning. Killing. Wounding.
  
• Give him some good points.
  
• Put him with hero as much as possible.
• Bad guy has buttons that push the hero.
• The Opponent makes the HERO change.
  
• Bad guy has REASONS for what he's doing. We have sympathy for motives, just the means to get it are BAD.
• Need Bad Guy SPEECH. Explain why he's doing what he's doing. Makes more fascinating.

Primal Emotions

Here's a little tool based on Robert Plutchik's, The Nature of Emotions, to help you define the emotional state your character goes through when faced with an event. Plutchik said that, "stimulus events, either external or internal (as in dreams), act as primary triggers that start the emotion process going," and the "function of emotion is to restore the individual to a state of equilibrium when unexpected or unusual events create disequalibrium."

And as Blake Snyder always reminds us, make it PRIMAL. The chart shows PRIMAL stimulus events that even a caveman would identify with.

VIEW TOOL

Transformation Machine

We've all heard the advice, the hero needs to TRANSFORM. It's about change. BIG Change. Life affirming change. Here's a device to help define your hero's transformation.

VIEW TRANSFORMATION MACHINE