Essential Analysis Questions

who's story is this?
what does he want
why can't he have it

The B Story/ Subplot

The B Story or Subplot piece of the plot revolves around/is derived from, the Backstory.

Charater's Belief has a structure.

In a drama and In life
 Act 1 (Introduction) Birth - belief is illustrated as true and confirmed by others
 Act 2 (Rising Action) Growth - belief is questioned and doubted by others
 Act 3 (Climax) Maturity - Belief is reinforced by others
 Act 4 (Falling Action) Decline - The doubted side of the belief is reinforced by others
 Act 5 (Conclusion) Death - Belief is illustrated as false and confirmed by central character

Jaws

To me Chief Brody's story is under-developed.
His story to me "a weak-willed man moves to a peaceful town and has to prove himself to the locals of his value when a strong-willed shark threatens their local economy and way of life." While his character does arc from weak to strong-willed. His relationship with the town's people isn't illustrated. The ending doesn't have a scene in which the towns people "crown him" and it fails to revisit Kitner's mother. 

Alex Kitner's death illustrates the cost of being weak-willed.  And his mother, should have been in the "Resurrection" stage of the hero's journey to remind us of this cost.

Also, a backstory incident is never clearly brought above the surface. I felt like this hero's journey type story, excluded: The Road Back. Resurrection Hero. Return with Elixir.
Inspite of those missing pieces, I feel the movie is enjoyable. So it seems possible to have missing story pieces and still have an enjoyable movie

My Structure for Comedy

A character wants a feeling - respect, love, freedom, control, etc.

A character enters their world and wants a relationship with them but the main character refuses to form one with them.

That feeling is brought about by specific people or a person in their life.  That relationship is severed during the inciting incident.

Now some incident in their past they caused haunts them.

The character tries to reconcile with the severed relationship character.  but they won't reconcile.

The character decides to cut themselves off completely from the severed relationship character.

The character forms a relationship with a new character.

IN terms of Genre:

Comedy Comedy - The past haunting incident is funny
Action Comedy - The past haunting incident is actiony
Horror Comedy - The past haunting incident is scary
Etc.

Tragedy and Comedy

A comedy is a situation in which a character resolves a scarring incident from their past.

A tragedy is a situation in which a character creates a scarring incident based on the desire for a future incident.

4 ACT Structure

Hero has his problem
Hero has fun and games
Hero has unpleasantries and work
Hero has his solution

Story Structure

Structure put together to try to keep myself focused on my Hero's story and his relationships.

ACT 1 - Old Attitude and Behavior overcomes obstacles
An Ally(Herald) uses the New Attitude and Behavior to solve the obstacle for the Hero
ACT 2 - Old Attitude and Behavior fails to overcome obstacles
Another Ally(Mentor) uses the New Attitude and Behavior to solve the obstacle for the Hero
ACT 3 - Old Attitude and Behavior of Hero fails to overcome obstacles
Ally(Shapeshifter, Trickster, Herald) uses Old Attitude and Behavior of Hero and everyone fails to overcome obstacles
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL - Transformation
The Hero having witnessed his own attitude and behavior in others, and seeing the failed results, and having witnessed the successful results of his allies during Act 1 and Act 2...adapts!
ACT 4 - New Attitude and Behavior overcomes Obstacles.
Hero uses New Attitude and Behavior and successfully overcomes obstacles.
(Defeats Shadow)

Main Character and Protagonist

Some stories have a main character as the central figure:

Great Gatsby
Shawshank Redemption
Au Revoir Les Enfants

The protagonist in these stories is actively doing things but we don't see every step they take and sometimes don't even know their true goals.

Sometimes they are narrated by this character, sometimes not like in Au Revoir Les Enfants.

When analyzing these types of stories, I can't ask what the objectives and obstacles are because the main character, the passive main character doesn't have clear ones that act as steps toward a clear goal.  Their objectives are more episodic so to speak...but they do all add up in another way.  They are Observational Objectives.  Each scene must have an observational objective.  One in which the main character learns something new about another character or object.

So while the protag and antag are effecting the scenes in one way, this character is observing and learning.

Heart of a movie - Screenwriting

The first scene puts your character in a shitty situation.

Subject of a Story - Screenwriting

The Subject of a Story is:

The Key Relationship between your main character and a group or another character that sits at stake; shaken up during the first scene.

It is not a thing, a person, or a place, but a relationship.  It is essentially the State of two things that are existing together that is now at stake, a relationship that may forever disappear.

Key to Story

Give your main character a relationship goal in the first scene.

Provide an obstacle that puts that goal at stake.

That's your story.

Movies - POV

Movies are usually not narrated from a first person POV.

Allies, help to make it feel like first person .  A main character needs someone to whine to, to explore the goal.

What does your character want? - Screenwriting

When your character gets what they want it can be unclear to the audience.

What?


Obstacles to a characters want...reveal the the want.  They make it clear to the audience.

The more obstacles to a want the clearer it becomes.