Looking for Unities, Finding Tools

This posting builds on the last two, so if you haven't read those, it might make sense to start with "Props Manager" and then read "The Number Three" before reading this entry.

Or not. We talked about looking at the props in a scene as a way of working with meaning, and we talked about how you can build unity into a script by repeating just about anything three times or more. So now you're probably wondering how this becomes useful. Let me give you an example.

I realized recently that a script I'm planning out has three or four significant scenes built around meals. It opens with a birthday breakfast that goes horribly wrong. There's dinner with the white-trash parents. There's the main character realizing his girlfriend is cooking breakfast for her kidnapper. What does this do for me?

I realize that meals are a TOOL for me as I think through the plot. How?

I can characterize the location: the food is a source of humor.

I can characterize the main character with his reaction to it. I can build sympathy and dramatic interest. Can this poor guy just get a decent meal?

I can use the meals as a pacing device. Right now they're placed roughly every twenty minutes through the first hour.

And that last one helps me with the ending: Maybe he finally gets the meal he wants.

There are lots of "cans" and "maybes" at this stage. That's a given. But it's all worth trying out. I will try writing the perfect meal at the end of the script. I will try looking to the food as a source of visual humor.

None of it may work. All of it might. It's most important to look at this as an EVOLUTION.

Making a unity perfect isn't the point. A unity has to awaken a connection in the viewer's mind. It's best when it's not too obtrusive. The Coen Brothers are kings of this stuff.

Seeing the potential unity helps me think about the scenes the way an audience might view them. To capitalize on this, I'll write the scenes together. I'll make them work as a story. I'll do what I talked about in last posting.

I'll find a repeated food issue. I'll find the one thing he hates. I'll think of a line to repeat, and see how much meaning and humor I can get out of it. I'll tell the story of one poor guy and four meals. As I work to exploit the meaning, I'm learning more and more about the character.

When I take it back into the script, I will undoubtedly shift some material. It's not a script about meals. Meals are just a small part. Some stuff won't work. I will not be gentle. It doesn't help me if it's just funny. It doesn't help me if it's a perfect unity. It's what I can use. It's a tool.

This stuff is the fun part. This is what writing's for. But then comes the hard part:

Throwing stuff out. Moving it around. Being flexible. CONTINUING to think through new material. Rewriting. It's a long road, but you're writing. That's what makes a good day, right?

Unity is a tool. It helps you write the story, but it's not the point of the story.

The Number Three

I've got toddlers visiting right now, and it's given me a great chance to think about the dramatic unities and Aristotle. Let me explain.

Like all toddlers, these two go from happy, curious, and delightful to screaming banshee devil spawn faster than you can say bath time. We were playing a dinosaur game: adding -osaur to everything. Scriptwrangler-osaur is going to get Dante-osaur with the help of... blanket-osaur! And then the little girl hit her brother. And the biting started. So Scriptwrangler-osaur let himself get killed by Dante-osaur, and it was time for a new game. More wailing. But we moved on.

Next day, we play the same game. As the bad stuff starts coming out, Scriptwrangler-osaur takes a dive. Time for a new game. There's wailing, but less so.

Third day, same game. As things are starting to get out of hand, I fall to the ground. Is he dead? Silence. I peeked. The little girl gave me a hug. They knew what this means, and they backed off. They learned the pattern. All right, maybe I just got lucky. But there's a point here.

There's something very special about the number three. If we see something once, it's an event. If we see it twice, it's a tendency. If we see it three times, it become a pattern: something that can be relied upon. Movie viewers rely on it. And writers rely on it. It helps create a unity, a cohesiveness, to your story which can be extremely helpful.

Humans are pattern-recognition machines. We are hard-wired for it. More than that, we love to do it. That's a large part of why we love stories. We love to find the one thing that is different. Building patterns and parallels into your script can communicate more than pages of dialogue. Take a look at the exercise in the posting below (Props Manager: The Game). We took a scene, and then swapped out props to see how that changed the meaning and the feel of the scene.

Now change it up a bit. Take your scenes, and try to lay out three variations in a sequence. Try to build a story. Try to show development. For example: three scenes with (much of) the same dialogue.

Say you've got an elderly man sitting next to his wheelchair-bound wife in the park.
They chat.

Next, he's walking with a cane in the park, talking to his daughter. Same dialogue, different character.

Third he's by himself, in a wheelchair. He talks to himself.

That's a rather sad story. But you can use patterns to achieve any dramatic goal, from humor, to relationship development, to plot development. You name it.


A geeky young man tries to convince his overbearing mother to go to the comic book convention with him. She tells him to grow up.

The same guy asks a fashion model on a date... to the comic book convention. He repeats the same lines. She rejects him mercilessly.

The same geeky guy rides the bus alone. Pulls up to the comic book convention. Meets eyes with a geeky girl as they both get off. She repeats his line to him. He smiles.

Ta da. Love story.

Try it. Play props manager. See what happens.