CSUN Professor Eric Edson: These comments that flow into things…actually it was one
of your clips.
Somebody down there was saying “I hate plot!
I want story!”
And that poor person is obviously not educated about these things because plot and story
are the same bloody thing.
Story is plot.
Plot is story.
Maybe we can get there in a minute or two.
But make those mistakes and that’s just ignorance.
You can get educated and you can learn the tools and how to use them.
To be out there and say “I’m going to create this beautiful, big, intricate thing”
and not know the pieces is like saying “I’m going to create this big, beautiful house
and not know anything about cement, electrical cabling, roofing shingles, glass.
You’ve got to know all these things before you can build a house.
And I believe the same is true for really good screenwriting.
I’ll throw out some of the silly stuff but useful stuff.
Did you know that there are only four variable goals in all narrative screenwriting?
Win, Stop, Escape or Retrieve.
So okay, you’ve got an idea for a character or hero or heroine, great!
And they have…okay now what is it they want or they have to have a goal to pursue.
Well it has to fall into the category of Win, Stop, Escape or Retrieve.
Now these are big categories.
There are many versions of each one.
Many permutations of each one, so it’s not like it’s that cut and dried but it will
appear to a lot of people like “That’s too cut and dried for me!”
The point is this there is only those four because those four share something in common.
They all provide a visible, physical, three-dimensional goal for motion picture that will result in
a physical climax and obligatory scene.
It preclude the use of internal goals and that’s one of the things people have to
get over.
An internal goal, that is great and it’s separate from what drives the movie.
You need a physical, visible goal.
Each one of those four goals has a finish line, a visible finish line and a goal like…well…they
want to feel better about themselves.
That doesn’t work on film, it just doesn’t work.
And that there are only four emotions.
Mad, Glad, Sad and Scared.
You haven’t heard that one?
Film Courage: No?
Eric Edson: Again, there is a lot of variation between Mad, Sad, Glad and Scared there are
many permutations and dimensions there but the way they are useful is like this: if you
are building, if you are outlining something a section (a particular section) Hero-Goal
Sequence or a particular scene the thing is the way you guarantee that it’s going to
have conflict and change in it…change is one of the single most important…we can
talk about that in a minute or two.
Change is THE power that makes screenplays either work or not work (you’ve got to quantify
it but it can be done wonderfully) but that if the hero (lead character) walks, stomps,
jumps, falls into a scene and they are either Mad, Sad, Glad or Scared by the END of the
scene, they have to be one of the others.
If they are mad when they show up, they have to be scared when they walk away.
Or if they are scared when they show up, they have to be glad when they walk away because
that guarantees dramatic change in a scene and it’s a way of checking yourself because
there are a whole lot of scenes that are just talk and they are the same and everything
is the same at the end as it was in the beginning.
And that is not a viable scene for visual storytelling (things like that).
Do you know there are only 14 character categories in all of dramatic writing and all of narrative
writing?
And you have to know how they work and how they interrelate, the puzzle pieces to relate,
plot, how they advance, how they can advance the story…
Film Courage: What are a few of the 14?
Eric Edson: For instance…let me qualify them…there are 14 character categories that
advance and serve story.
Story is a central character who undertakes to do something (psychically do something)
in order to achieve a psychical, visible goal by the end.
And in that pursuit there are 14 other character categories that serve as either helpers or
hinderers toward that hero.
First of all the main categories are either hero or adversary.
Adversary is much unsung and under-appreciated.
The advisory is critical.
Without conflict you don’t have story.
There is no story without conflict.
That’s just it.
So that adversary is key for you to get conflict and that puts a lot of weight on the adversary.
Hero, adversary, then there is mentor (a very wide and delicious category).
Back to Joe Campbell and the assessment of mythological approach.
There are some of those character.
I mean he called the adversary a shapeshifter.
That’s the more specific use, yes it’s adversary.
Shapeshifter is something that appears one thing on the outside and becomes something
else.
That is one kind of adversary (but not the only kind).
And then there is mentor, there is the love interest character.
This is interesting…I really go into this in detail for folks, for some…the love interest
character brings depth and humanity and helps, augments, eases character growth forward for
the central character.
And it is the least used character category of all the grad students who pass through
here.
Film Courage: Interesting.
Eric Edson: Yeah, it really is.
And I think it’s the character…it gets too close to home.
Maybe their experience in these things, emotional central experiences are highly limited or
something?
What it is?
Something about it but that is a key character in stories that work and you have a romance
subplot that love interest character.
Whoah…and it’s done well, it’s one of the most powerful things you can add to a
story.
And then there are helper/follower allies.
And sidekick.
Sidekick is another category.
Very specific function displayed by the sidekick and others.
There is the adversary agent.
See there is one adversary.
Adversary can only be one person.
A human being or a personified thing, a monster that behaves like a human being and thinks
like a human being, but one thing, one human being.
But they can also have all kinds of adversary agents running around doing the bidding of
the adversary.
Film Courage: So let’s say in ERIN BROCKOVICH, they are fighting this toxic tort or whatever.
And so the workers of the plant are sort of the adversary agents because they are not
totally calling the shots but they are working for the people calling the shots.
Eric Edson: Yes.
Except for the ones that turn to the good side, you know?
Who jump over to the good people.
And then there’s a group of characters called gate guardians and I would put those people
in the gate guardian category.
Gate guardian is a character (this is from Campbell and the mythological structure, too).
Gate guardian is a character who when first met by the hero, first confronted by the hero,
stops them, says “No!
You cannot enter here.”
But once the hero finds a way to outsmart that gate guardian, it’s never brute force.
It’s when they outsmart them, find a way to get around and continue their journey after
that the gate guardian becomes an ally.
At first opposes and then assists.
And there are a few more in there, too.
But the point of this is…all of these characters…there are only 14 that help you create a plot.
That help move a story forward and any other character that the particular writer wants
to plot…”I really like this character.
They’re kind of interesting and peppy and zippy.
And they talk funny and I like it.”
If they do not serve the story, if they do not help drive the plot forward…[whispers]
get rid of them!
Loose them because they have to serve a function.