Writer's Block

So, continuing my previous post:

2. Writer's Block
I have suffered as much as any man. My woes are deep, my distractions shameful - sorry, wrong story. Writer's Block, I now understand, hits a writer (of any ilk) for the following simple reason:

The writer doesn't have a full understanding of their characters.

Sure, that's very simplified when you consider exactly the multitudes of problems a writer's faced with on a word by word basis. In fact I could list specific situations in which the writer finds angst:

• Do I describe this here?
• What POV should I use?
• Am I giving away too much?
• I hate this scene!
• I can't think of how to describe this setting!
• What did my character have for breakfast?

For me, I have identified this problem with the help of Dramatica. I have quite literally spent an extended weekend getting to know my characters through a process of analysing my 4 Throughlines and mapping my characters according to the roles I have set them... Checkout the image:


On the Motivation chart my character's motivations behind their actions are laid out - this is what drives them - for example, my lead:

Sam Baker (as played by Mr. David Tennant) is in the position of:

1. Consider (he is leading the adventure so must deliberate over the best course of action), in also in the position of:
2. Pursuit (he must seek the story goal, whatever the outcome is and/or will be good or bad), also the position of:
3. Conscience (my protagonist has taken on the responsibilities of his friends and families because his backstory has led him to guilt. He wants to keep everyone safe and make everything work out well for them), continuing in that frame he is also in the position of:
4. Support (Sam supports everybody, but this is working against him, because he's spread too thin. He's trying to be everything to everyone, and no one can do that... he's failing), and finally for Motivation, he's in the position of:
5. Hinder (in order for Sam's character arc to be complete for the pilot episode... perhaps I'll split the pilot episode in two! For his arc to be complete he must learn to let go of that responsibility. He must allow friends and family to learn from their mistakes and grow).

So, considering that is just one of four quads - the others being: Purpose, Evaluation and Methodology - I will have a very definite grasp on each of my characters and their roles.

And these aren't archetypes either. If I were using archetypes, one would be...

Okay, let's take Sam's wife, Claire Baker (as played by the rather lovely Rose Byrne). She is currently opposing Sam's friend, Mark Morgan (played by ever hilarious Kris Marshall) in the top two quads. First the top-left, Claire is Feeling and Mark is Logic. Feeling is warm-hearted emotion, Logic deals with cold, hard facts.

Next, in the top-right quad, Mark is Uncontrolled and Claire is Control. Uncontrolled being someone unable to resolve themselves... oh you get the point.

Right then. In Star Wars, Princess Leia plays Logic and Control. She takes control, keeps her emotions in check, knows what she wants, where she's going, and is a fairly practical gal. Chewbacca plays Feeling and Uncontrolled. Chewie is ruled by his emotions. Threepio and Han both warn of a Wookie's anger, and how many times do we see the shaggy carpet running amok, smashing things, throttling someone, and coming over all mushy?

Well Logic and Control is one archetype (we're just taking Vogler's mythic archetypes as ported from that other guy - his name will come to me... answers on a postcard). One of the Protagonist's allies, who supports everything he does, but plays the straight man (Tinman in the Wizard of Oz?).

The other ally is the archetype of Feeling and Uncontrolled. You see, these pairs are destined to be together, aren't they? (Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz?).

Through Dramatica I have been able to realise my characters first as archetypes: Sam is the Protagonist (easy), Claire, his emotional wife (she's having his baby don't you know), and Mark, his logical friend (a programmer - very knowledgeable).

But, then you just give it a little twist, change archetypes into conflicted, complex, deep characters, and you give your audience a little bit more to enjoy:

Claire is Feeling. She's Sam's caring, loving wife, made emotional by the hormones from her pregnancy. She worries, she has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and is a bit fraught with life.

Mark is Logic. He's Sam's business partner, and programmer. He follows logical processes, hides his emotions in wit and sarcasm.

However, Claire is also Control. She keeps her life in order, Sam too. She knows right from wrong and never strays, berates her husband for doing wrong, spreading himself too thin, or giving too much to his brother's selfishness.

Mark, on the other hand, is Uncontrolled. Whilst he should be partnered in with Control, he's not... because, he just won't take anything seriously. Not Petersen's business, data or threats. He's lazy, thinks too much of himself and without Sam, would have gone under long ago. He needs Sam to play straight man to his flights of fancy. It is this Uncontrolled nature which sparks the descent of the story.

Mark and Claire sit in opposition to each other in every aspect of their lives - they really wouldn't get on well in the same room together... so, thinking about that, why haven't I put them together? That would make a great scene!

So you see how creating complex characters we can really give you food for thought with your characters and their plotlines?.. hang on, wasn't this post about Writer's Block?

What I've been meaning to say is that by planning out your characters, really investing some thought in their roles, and who they are inside, their backstories, motivations, purposes, the methodologies that they carry out, you will know at all times what you can do with them, and this will help you in those dark hours of Writer's Block, because you can fall back on your character's roles, and ask yourself what would they do, why would they do that, and is that relevant to them.

Screenwriting 103(3) - Vogler's Character Archetypes

Vogler lists seven character archetypes that appear frequently in folk tales and myths. They are:

Hero
The Hero archetype represents the ego’s search for identity and wholeness.

Mentor
A positive figure who aids or trains the Hero.

Threshold Guardian
A powerful guardian at each new threshold who acts to keep the unworthy from entering.

Herald
Acts to issue challenges and announce the coming of significant change.

Shapeshifter
May mislead the Hero or keep her guessing: their loyalty and sincerity is often called into question.

Shadow
Represents the energy of the dark side.; the unexpressed, unrealised, or rejected aspects of something.

Trickster
Embodies the energies of mischief and desire for change. Clowns or comical sidekicks, but the Trickster Hero is common in many myths.

Note: Andy Conway says: "It is important to stress that Vogler sees these archetypes as masks, worn by the characters temporarily as they are needed to advance the story. A character might enter the story performing the function of a Herald, then switch masks to function as a Trickster, a Shadow or a Shapeshifter."

Screenwriting 103(2) - Adaptation(ing) Vogler's Hero's Journey

So, to put Vogler's Journey into a full-on test, we shall look at Charlie Kaufman's "totally unstructured" Adaptation (purported to be an Arthouse movie because of that very reason) in respect to the Hero's Journey.

The Ordinary World
We actually begin in Kaufman's OW. He's on the set of Being John Malkovich, and quite literally doesn't seem to fit. He's in the way, feels awkward, is filled with self-doubt, and wonders why he ever came. We are in no doubt that this is our "hero" and this is his OW. Ironically this is where he is most comfortable in being himself.

The Call to Adventure
Kaufman is offered the script job to adapt The Orchid Thief. He is also called, by his brother, Donald, to learn Script-Legend, McKee's lessons. And finally, his Inner Conflict comes to bear on his wanted relationship with the Violinist. The call is to overcome his self-doubt in relationships, and to kiss the girl.

Refusal of the Call
Kaufman wants to drop the script - he can't adapt it. He bins McKee's list that his brother puts up on the wall, and he rejects the Violinist by dropping her back at home and not following up on her hints to go in with her. Finally she appears to reject him, but this is her response to a relationship she can tell is going to go nowhere.

Meeting with the Mentor
The film's mentor is clearly McKee, however, Kaufman doesn't meet with McKee until at least half-way through the film. McKee's presence in the first half of the film comes through Donald. Donald is Mentor-by-proxy, providing his brother with necessary support that Kaufman rejects.

Crossing the First Threshold
Kaufman finally picks up his dictaphone with inspiration, having listened to Susan Orlean's voice in his head. But his brother and his brother's girlfriend arrive, and he listens to them discuss Donald's own screenplay. Donald has commited himself, regardless of how Kaufman feels about the ludicrousness of it. However, after this, Kaufman commits to his own screenplay by writing himself into it.

Test, Allies, Enemies
Kaufman's biggest enemy is himself (Inner Conflict), but he comes across multiple people who may or may not be friendly, and the subplots begin to interweave - script, relations, McKee - there's the agent, the executive, the Waitress (with whom Kaufman fails), the Violinist, and the scene in which Kaufman looks at the many different women, analysing their types, as if representative of flowers, and finally we end with Susan Orlean.

Approaching the Innermost Cave
Kaufman goes to New York, to meet Susan Orlean - just as with the Matrix this uses an elevator - but Kaufman can't commit himself. Then, Susan Orlean turns up in the lift, and Kaufman slinks back from her, unseen. Although this is another rejection of the call by Kaufman, he is here, the closest point to his goal/nemesis/enemy.

Supreme Ordeal
Kaufman returns to his hotel room and gets a call from his agent. The agent gives him the news that Donald's script is going to be big and make a lot of money (a serious blow to Kaufman). At his lowest ebb - and remember this is the midpoint of the film - Kaufman finally goes to McKee's seminar. This is the destruction of his ego - the nadir if you will. He has rejected everything Mckee stands for, and now is confronting it.

Reward (Seizing the Sword)
After the seminar profoundly changes Kaufman's view of screenwriting, and also the way in which he wants to live his life, he takes McKee to the pub for a final questionning session - he's got a lot of new info, but now he's committing and he wants to prove that by consolidating his new knowledge. McKee tells him to find an ending for the screenplay. "Wow them in the end", he says, and the audience will love it.

Road Back
Kaufman patches things with his brother and invites him out to New York to look at his script. With McKee's aid, his ego is gone, and he knows where to look for help.

Resurrection
In a massive about-turn for the whole plot, the last half of the film descends into everything that Kaufman has been battling against in his own screenplay - everything that McKee and Donald embrace - it's as if Donald has taken over the script of Adaptation (and don't forget the imagiary brother co-wrote Adaptation - the first time an imaginary character was ever nominated for an Oscar).

We have drugs, car chases, sex, profound life lessons are learned (Donald's admitting that you are what you love, not what loves you, give Kaufman an epiphany), and finally we have McKee's last tenet - avoid all Deus Ex Machina - and the screenplay introduces and Alligator at the right moment to off La Roche and save Kaufman.

Return with the Elixir
Kaufman, now alone since his brother's death, commits to writing the screenplay the way we have just viewed it. He kisses the girl, despite the possibility of rejection, and then drives off into the sunset.

There are sub-heroes in Adaptation, and further analysis of Susan Orlean and La Roche would show their own Hero Arcs - albeit unfullfilled or twisted because of their anti-hero stances toward the end of the film. It's interesting however that Kaufman invested the time in these characters to generate the Hero's Journey on a smaller scale for them, but it does help us identify somewhat with these two.

Screenwriting 103 - Vogler's Hero's Journey

Literary Professor Joseph Campbell came up with the Monomyth of the Hero's Journey in 1949 with his book The Hero With a Thousand Faces. He said that essentially all stories are the same story. Just as Vladimir Propp analysed thousands of Fairy Tales, Campbell analysed stories from across the globe, looking at cross-culture tales and looking for what made them the same (amongst all the guff).

In 1992, Christopher Vogler took Campbell's idea and ran away with it. He was a Story Exectutive at the time for Disney, but he placed Campbell's paradigm against films, and the 3 Act Structure. By writing the Writer's Journey Vogler made Campbell's paradigm more accessible to a wider audience. In actual fact, like Hauge, Vogler considers that we really have a 4 Act Structure to the stories we tell (again by splitting up Act 2... in two).
But Vogler also took Campbell's Archetypes as well (a more comprehensive version of Hauge's 4 primary characters). However, whereas Hauge states that the characters remain as their chosen type, Vogler argues that character roles may shift, as if the characters are wearing masks, and change their face throughout the story, to assume different roles. In this way, characters serve different functions at different times. Take Han Solo, for example, at first he could be either friend or foe. He is the trickster, out for himself, and the protagonist, Luke Skywalker, doesn't know whether he's trust worthy.

Undertaking the Hero's Journey

It is often the case these days that although Vogler states we begin in the Ordinary World, it is the Extraordinary World in which the tale opens. Like a prologue, it is a quick way into the story, making a promise to the audience about what is to come. In Star Wars, we open in the extraordinary world of Space, a Space battle, Darth Vader, stolen plans, a Princess, Droids on the run... and only twenty minutes in do we meet Luke Skywalker in his ordinary world. Indiana Jones always opens in the extraordinary world. In the Matrix, we open on the Police and the Agents tracking down Trinity. She pulls some funky, world-defying moves and bends reality with her skills, all before we settle back into Neo's ordinary world.

Note: In the case of the Matrix, the beginning opens with a voiceover between Cypher and Trinity, in which Cypher questions Trinity on watching 'him'. So we are given a nugget, possibly about our coming protagonist.

So, using the Matrix:

The Ordinary World ... limited awareness of the problem
We find Neo asleep (a metaphor for his real world situation). Neo is at home, surrounded by his hacker stuff, and we know this is his OW. However, thanks to the prologue we know he's going to up against that EW.

Call To Adventure ... Increased awareness
The Matrix has several calls to adventure. Neo is told to follow the White Rabbit; Trinity tells him he is close to answering "What is the Matrix" and the phone call by Morpheus to save him from the agents, resulting in Neo clambering onto the scaffold and...

Refusing The Call ... Reluctance to Change
Despite Neo's motivation to free himself and learn, he can't commit himself to the danger of escape. He refuses to climb out of the building and onto the scaffold, and is caught by the agents.

Meeting with the Mentor ... Overcoming Reluctance
The Mentor, Morpheus. Mentor comes from the Greek word Menos, encompassing the meanings: Intention, Force, Purpose, Mind and Courage. Here Neo, receives his final call to adventure, and takes it.

Crossing the First Threshold ... Committing to Change
This can be either physical or mental, direct or subtle. In the case of the Matrix, Neo steps free of the construct and emerges from his battery-womb, and comes face-to-face with reality.

Tests, Allies, Enemies ... Experimenting with the First Change
Neo undergoes a number of tests, meeting new friends, and potential enemies (who is the traitor? Is there one?) and a number of trials, again in the Matrix seen physically as the fight with Morpheus, the Lady in Red and the Jump program. The relevance of these tests and meetings often represent foreshadowing of later events, providing the audience with enough information to accept later developments or character abilities.

Approaching the Innermost Cave ... Preparing for Big Change
Here we close on the midpoint of the film. Often this is a symbolic cave. In the Matrix, Morpheus leads Neo back into the construct and Neo confronts the life he had. They then progress to the Oracle, going into a block of flats, then an elevator, until, in a dark corridor, it is up to Neo to go through the door.

The Supreme Ordeal ... Attempting Big Change
This is the midpoint of the film. The moment of death and ressurection. Our protagonist, or group, must come up against their greatest ordeal so far, and seemingly fail against insurmountable odds. Morpheus is captured by the agents, Apoc and Switch die, Cypher has betrayed them... all seems lost.

Reward (Seizing the Sword) ... Consequences of the attempt
This is the moment of improvement and setback for the protagonist, the point at which our hero chooses to make their stand and commit to their needs and wants. Having been told by the Oracle that he must choose between his life and Morpheus's, Neo stops Tank from pulling the plug. Neo finally sees his own potential and the possibilities of what he could do. This bit ends - clearly - with "Lots of guns".

The Road Back ... Re-dedication to Change
Our intrepid hero, taking the symbolic sword with him, chooses to go forward, not back. In the case of the Matrix, Neo and Trinity enter the heavily-guarded building and kick ass, committing themselves to pursuing their ultimate goal.

Resurrection ... Final Attempt at Big Change
In the Matrix, this occurs in two parts. Firstly, Neo accepts what must be done, and fights Agent Smith. Secondly, after he makes a dash for the phone, Smith guns him down, and kills him (I hope I'm not ruining this for anyone - rhetorical, don't answer that). Through Trinity's kiss he is resurrected, and literally stops the bullets.

Return with the Elixir ... Final Mastery of the Problem
Neo returns to the construct at the very end of the film. He looks around him, his eyes are open (in much the same way Mayo looks back on himself at the beginning of An Officer and a Gentleman) and we see how far Neo has come. He is now Master of Both Worlds. He then uncovers his most potent ability yet - to fly.

The Hero's Journey - Adaptation

Next week on NAW, we're looking at the popular Hero’s Journey paradigm through Charlie Kaufmann’s screenplay for Adaptation (with passing reference to Star Wars and The Matrix). The Hero’s Journey is usually applied to more genre-heavy stories so it will be interesting to try it out on a film that’s more arthouse and experimental.

From Wikipedia:

The screenplay is based on a true story. After the success of his screenplay for Being John Malkovich, Kaufman was hired to write a screenplay based on Susan Orlean's book, The Orchid Thief. However, he soon realized that the book simply couldn't be filmed. As he came under increasing pressure to turn in a screenplay, the "adaptation" became a story of a screenwriter's attempt to write a screenplay about a book that can't be adapted into a screenplay. Kaufman handed the script to his employers in the firm belief he would never work again. Instead, the backers enjoyed the script so much they decided to abandon the original project and film Kaufman's screenplay instead.

The film is self-referential, in that we see the creative process behind the movie we are watching. At one point, Charlie is unable to think of a satisfactory ending for the script, and asks his brother Donald (also played by Cage) how he would end it. At that moment, the style of the movie changes to Donald's style of scriptwriting, with intrigue, sex, drugs, car chases and guns replacing abstraction and angst.

Throughout the course of the film, Charlie writes or dictates ideas for his script of The Orchid Thief that are in fact used in this movie itself, such as the rapid timeline of Earth's development, or even of himself sitting there talking into a tape recorder. As well, virtually all of the things Charlie tells the producer that he doesn't want his script to turn into (a 'typical' Hollywood movie, where characters fall in love, or it turns out to be about drugs, or somebody unexpectedly dies) each occur after Donald "takes over" the writing of the movie. The forced inclusion of "Happy
Together" as a meaningless pop-culture reference such as are used in movies
Charlie criticizes creates yet another self-referential satire.

The self-referential nature of the film raises questions as to Donald's existence: that is, whether he is a real person, or merely an embodiment of one aspect of Charlie's personality (as he is in real life). Blurring the lines between fact and fiction, Donald is not only credited as a co-writer for the film, but the movie's end credits feature a dedication to his memory (implying that, if he is indeed an existing individual, he died during the writing of the screenplay). In addition, The Three is assumed to be an existing screenplay, and an excerpt from it is also featured in the credits. Another reference to Donald and his film can be found on the DVD release in the filmography section on the disc. It includes a page for Donald, listing his works as Adaptation. and The Three.

An ironic aspect of the film's post-modern self-referencing is the appearance of Robert McKee (Brian Cox), a real-life host of screenwriting seminars. McKee is renowned for warning his students about the technique of the deus ex machina. In the film, Kaufman represents McKee as the deus ex machina, as he gives Charlie the
solution to his problematic situation. The movie talks about the "Holy Grail", but all of the characters' quests in the story either fail or turn out to be futile:

• Charlie Kaufman wanted to write a movie just about flowers, and to impress
  Susan Orlean. He failed on both counts. Also, he failed in writing a screenplay
  wherein nothing much changes, as in "real life", seeing as his character
  prevails and finishes his screenplay.
• John Laroche wanted to be a leader in many different and obscure fields.
  Whenever he accomplished this, however, he would abandon his hobby for a
  completely new one. Susan Orlean wanted desperately to see the Ghost
  Orchid and care passionately about something. When she saw the Ghost Orchid, she was disappointed. When she found passion, she devolved into a hopeless addict.
• Donald Kaufman didn't really want anything out of life but he lucked into
  all the things his brother Charlie was desperate for and wrote a hit script
  called The 3.