The geography of story · 8:17pm Nov 30th, 2012
Screenwriters John August and Craig Mazin said something interesting in their ScriptNotes podcast on Follies, Kindles and Second-Act Malaise: Geography symbolizes story. They didn't say it that way, but John said that one of the things that bothered him about the Broadway play Follies was returning to the same stage sets, and that doing so made him feel like the story wasn't progressing. Craig talked about Star Wars: You can return to a set if it's a vehicle, like the Millenium Falcon, that's going places, and you can return to a set if it has been destroyed to prove that you can't go back (Luke returning to his foster parents' house and seeing their burnt skeletons outside its wreckage).
Craig mentioned Casablanca as a counterexample, and I immediately came up with my own list of counterexamples: Death of a Salesman takes place almost entirely in the family house. The "third act" of Jaws stays on the boat. Night of the Living Dead takes place in one room. So do Rear Window, Wait Until Dark, My Dinner with Andre, and The Breakfast Club. Marty McFly returns over and over again to his hometown in the Back to the Future movies. Characters return to where they started in The Hobbit and Toy Story.
My Dinner with Andre and The Breakfast Club are oddities because the "journeys" the characters are taking are not physical. But the others all turn out to be exceptions that prove the rule. (That's what the phrase really means: You make a rule, and you find exceptions, and then you discover that the reasoning behind the rule also explains the exceptions.)
Casablanca, Death of a Salesman, Jaws, Night of the Living Dead, Rear Window, and Wait Until Dark all have something in common: The people in the story are trapped. The boat, the house surrounded by zombies, and the apartments are all death traps. Everyone in Rick's Cafe is trapped there and trying to escape. The characters in Death of a Salesman are trapped in the house by the mortgage and the refrigerator payments, just as they're trapped in their small lives by Willy's deluded faith in the power of friendship and of being liked. The characters return to or stay in the same scene to show that they're trapped.
Marty keeps returning to his hometown, but in different time periods and alternate universes, so that it's a strange and alien place. The changes he discovers in it are the plot. The Hobbit and Toy Story have triumphant returns, where the victory is for the protagonists to be able to return, and to show how much they've grown after doing so.
So in each case, physical movement symbolizes what's happening in the story. It appears, then, that you shouldn't send characters back to an earlier location just because the plot demands it; change or stasis in physical location must symbolize change or stasis in the character's situation. That means you shouldn't write a story like this:
Act I: Rarity leaves Ponyville and goes to Canterlot to meet a big distributor who will help her establish a boring but lucrative line of executive leisure suits in Canterlot.
Act II: Rarity returns to Ponyville to sew a bunch of suits.
Act III: Rarity goes to Canterlot with the new suits, suddenly realizes that she hates suits, and dumps them into a shredder, The End.
Act II is "wrong" because Rarity is returning to Ponyville physically, but story-wise, she is moving away from Ponyville. Act III is "wrong" because she is still in Canterlot physically, but has returned to the dress-making business that she began with, and so should end up where she began physically.
Maybe screenwriters think about this consciously. I never have. Is this real? Is it important? Can you come up with examples of great stories where movement between physical locations does not symbolize the movement of the plot?
The Seven Year Itch is a movie that takes place almost entirely in a man's apartment.
As for great story I'm not so sure that qualifies. But I liked the movie.
I don't quite understand this. The points you made about The Hobbit and Toy Story are perfect. They go back to properly end the story. It is to see how much they've grown. There's no reason why they shouldn't go back.
Is that even possible?
I mean if you write a story the characters movement is part of the plot. If it wasn't than you wouldn't have them go there. The only thing that I can think of that would be close might be 'Wagon Train' or the original 'Star Trek' series where they were always moving, but not. There were no destinations just points that they stopped at for an episode. The problem is that, being episodic, there was no 'plot' that connected the places or events so that they could be view in any order.
So, no. Movement takes effort and any effort not put towards the plot, whether character or story, are a waste of effort.
Is there an example where the lack of physical movement is not integral to the plot?
The symbolism is important, too, though.
Bilbo and Frodo both return home at the end of their adventures, only to find that it's not like they remembered and they don't fit in anymore, leading both to ultimately leave for good. That's important symbolism that shows how they've grown and changed.
Sam, meanwhile, really never grew through the story, so he's perfectly happy returning to his old life all the better for having made the trip.
Personally, I think subtly altering the environments can speak VERY strongly to plot progression and changes. It's the uncanny valley effect. We saw this place once, and it looked great, but the lighting is just different now, and it's unsettling. Depicting or describing subtle changes to recurring scenes, like a dream sequence for instance, can show that the character is gaining a greater understanding of the place or event, even though it's similar in content.
I'll take "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" for $500, Alex. The characters bounce all over the frigging map during the first half of that book/first movie of the two, and yet VERY little is actually accomplished. It's supposed to set up the idea that they're running scared while looking for Plot Coupons, but really, all it smacks of is railroading and padding out the story because the author was determined to cram in a significant number of Plot Coupons and couldn't make them all interesting on their own.
555913>>555926 I added an example to the end of the post to explain what I mean. The question is, Can you use the settings that would make sense logically according to your plot, or do you have to make sure that the settings you choose, and movement between them, corresponds to the movements your character make between the lifestyles or decisions that the story is about?
555946
It is definitely wrong. The movement serves no purpose, it's a waste of words. The return to Ponyville should be where she realizes that she hates the suits. Or where she begins to hate them and only realizes it on the return to Canterlot. Either way the movement needs to serve a purpose.
I think it comes down to good story telling. There are other parts of a story that are the same. Weather, time, appearance. Nothing changes without purpose in a story. Changing something without purpose is a sign of either poor planning or poor writing in general.
Sure, a story CAN move without purpose, but can and should are not the same thing. I can have an OC have sex with Celestia, I should throw away my keyboard first.
555946
I think I figured it out: You can use the settings that make sense logically for your plot, but as an author you have to use them correctly to symbolize your plot. So, to fix your example of doing it wrong:
Rarity goes to Canterlot- fine.
Rarity comes back to Ponyville- BUT the Boutique feels small now. Shabby. The Boutique doesn't change, but how she sees it does. As artists (especially writers) we can change the perception of a location without the location changing, to reflect the growth in our characters.
Rarity returns to Canterlot- BUT suddenly realizes how dull the business district looks compared to the quaintness of Ponyville.
(I realized all of this when thinking of Little Women. The plot returns to the March house thought the book, and the house never changes, but the characters perceptions of it change.)
556003
But that's just it. Something changed. The same is true for The Hobbit. The Vale (or was it Shale?) doesn't change, but the characters do. So the movement represents a change. There fore the change of environment demonstrates the change for the audience who might not otherwise realize that the character has really changed.
556014
But now you're just getting down to the idea that a plot has to change the character. That's basic, I think we already knew that. The geography isn't symbolic there, it's just the closest thing at hand to reflect what the character is going through.
Okay, to put it another way: In Bad Horse's example, that geography was incorrect, but in mine it was was correct, but it was the same geography. The only thing incorrect in Bad Horse's example is the "spin" the writer is putting on it. If that's all it comes down to, it has nothing to do with geography, and everything to do with character growth.
I think. My head is a little fuzzy right now.
You missed a good example of motion (or lack of it) having a tight relationship to the plot (or lack of it) -- Waiting for Godot. It's all one set and the ending is particularly resonant, i.e.:
"VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let's go.
They do not move.
Curtain."
As for a story where a great deal of motion accomplishes nothing, that's a little tricky. You can find bad stories with that feature, no problem, as the Deathly Hallows example above shows. (what was it with that book?) Good ones? Huh. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is a book by Iain M. Banks called Surface Detail. In it a character[1] goes from one end of the galaxy to another and a number of things happen around that character, but this character is fundamentally unchanged and accomplishes not a single damn thing. This isn't an accident because, firstly, Banks doesn't do things like that by accident, and secondly this is obliquely pointed out in the story itself. The same character moved a vast distance from their own home world to another in the backstory and all this to limited effect, so it could be a case of narrative symmetry. Anyway, that's the first example that comes to mind.
[1] I'm being deliberately vague. If you've any interest in science fiction at all, you can't go far wrong with Iain M. Banks. And, speaking of which, his mainstream lit stuff is both excellent and quite acclaimed.
556029
That's exactly it. Anything outside the character that reflects the character is symbolism, or reverse symbolism if you prefer. Be it geography, a foil character, weather changes, music... It all serves the plot, to show the reader something of value, and is therefore valid. The question wasn't if you could make it valid, but can a change in geography not be important to move the plot forward?
In any decent story the answer is 'No'.
I think for most of us here it's just something that we know intrinsically and don't question.
556074
Okay, I concede that, but I was responding to where Bad Horse said:
. . . by pointing out that you can send the characters back to an earlier location, to some other galaxy, wherever you feel like it, as long as you show that new location in a light that makes sense to the plot. It's not the location itself that's symbolic, it's the characters view and the artists interpretation of it, and it can be reinterpreted by both of those parties.
556101
Yes it is.
The Boutique's stagnation and the change in Rarity are played off of each other to show how much Rarity has changed or grown. Thus her shop symbolizes what she was before and it is too small for what she is now.
Canterlot represents large drab industry. The Boutique is small, but full of life. Here the only thing that has changed is the location. The contrast between the two locations is focal point rather than between her and a location.
555971 I'm not talking about cases where people introduce extraneous movements. Suppose you have a plot in which it makes sense for Rarity to go to Canterlot, then back to Ponyville. She has to pick up something she left there, whatever, but her going back moves the plot forward. BUT, she is not at the same time returning to an earlier state of mind. Does that make it bad?
556003 That makes sense. I'm bothered, though, by being forbidden from doing some things because we're supposed to maintain this shallow symbolism.
556178
What I meant is that the location, any location, is not a static symbol that can only mean one thing. Any location can mean, well, anything. So as a symbol, any location is a blank slate in the hands of a writer. You can make a garbage dump symbolize home, or a castle symbolize poverty. Then you can reverse them later in the story. They both mean nothing, void of the authors voice.
Contrast that with Bad Horse's original example- which used the Boutique as a symbol of returning home, and Canterlot as a symbol of moving on. He said that by returning to the Boutique she was moving in the wrong direction for that act of the plot. I was showing him that the symbolism of the location could be totally rewritten to show the reverse. A location isn't a static symbol, so there's no wrong location, only the wrong way of looking at the location.
556045 Argh, Godot was one of the first on my list, but I forgot to add it when writing this up.
556219
Yes. Why does the story require her to return? If it lacks meaning for the character other than the movement of the plot than it can be rewritten to not require the movement. A story is at the mercy of the writer. If she forgot something then one of her friends can bring it. If she needs to talk to a friend, they can visit her. There is no need for her to return if the story gains no value for it.
That's like saying your bother that you have to conform to grammar rules.
556220
I agree.
556219
Like what?
Well, if you look at it one way, symbolism is just a form of communication- language through symbols and feeling rather than words. That's what "show, don't tell" comes down to, tricking people into listening to what you're communicating with symbols rather than language. So, in theory, you can play with the language of symbols the same way you can play with rules of language and grammar. You'd just better be damned good at it, or all you're going to do is confuse people.
"The Glass Menagerie" takes place entirely in a crappy apartment.
556219
> I'm bothered, though, by being forbidden from doing some things because we're supposed to maintain this shallow symbolism
C'mon now! Then don't maintain it. Play with it. Subvert it. You yourself said it, the exceptions prove the rule. They don't obey the rule, they throw it into sharper contrast. The job of the writer is knowing which rules to break when for maximum effect.
Unrelatedly, it's interesting that you bring up this larger point about the symbolism of location ... wait for it ... in the context of a show that continually sends its ponies off on world-shattering exotic adventures, and then returns them to Ponyville at the end of every episode. I'm sure there's some profound point I could attempt here about the essential stability of their lives and friendships serving as a solid foundation for their challenges, but the simplistic take on it is "the canon of the show we love is doing it wrong," and the only proper response to that is that either the rule itself is flawed or that it doesn't mean as much as we're saying it has to mean.
Don't write a story that reads like a story. Plays fall into this trap all the time. The more pretentious novels do it too. Narrative causality is all well and good, but if you're really going to play it to the hilt, make sure you're writing a comedy (because you're going to get laughed at). Real causality trumps narrative causality. Use them both, but when the two conflict, err on the side of the first. The exceptions are comedic. People will notice, and it will screw up dramatic scenes.
556377 I take issue with this. A story needs to serve a purpose, whether comedy, an idea, something. Anything that doesn't is just words and has no place.
556428
Any narrative that can only exist sans causality can only serve comedic or parodic purposes. You certainly aren't going to persuade anyone of your ideas like that. That's why it's important that symbolic rules in a story are always subordinate to the story's verisimilitude.
556428 I don't see how this relates to what PPP said.
556484
That's not quite what I meant.
I'm not saying that you should include things that wouldn't happen. I'm saying that you shouldn't include something just because it would.
There is a reason that stories don't detail a characters bowel movements.
Movement is demonstrative of the plot's advancement but also of the means and methods your characters might go about resolving their issue. I must agree that how free your characters feel will be largely wrapped up n how much you make them move from place to place.
It should be noted that even if there is a huge quantity of motion within an environment, you can still make characters feel trapped or oppressed by limiting how far they can move in comparison to the people doing the reading or by presenting them with roadblocks frequently enough that advancement feels like a lot of hard work even while moving over vast distances. Fallout Equestria is a prime example.
-Chessie
556377>>556548
Upon review, I totally misread that. Sorry.
556593
I'm not quite saying you should include everything that would happen, either. I'm saying that implausible events shouldn't happen for symbolic reasons, and that sensible, realistic actions shouldn't be discarded entirely because they're not immediately relevant to the narrative structure. In the given example of Rarity going to-and-fro from Canterlot, saying that the story is "wrong" isn't quite sufficient, as it puts too much weight on repairing a symbolic element.
The fact that Rarity's equipment and supplies are all in Ponyville poses a logical difficulty for the story that must be handled in some way. Handwaving it away in order to preserve the symbolism of the journey would be damaging to the story. It should be handled in some similarly logical manner. You could have the supplies shipped to Canterlot and handle it that way. You could have the would-be buyer in a position to offer production equipment locally. This would keep Rarity in Canterlot until such time as she gets sick of suits and gallops home.
That said, the literal locations of the characters aren't the same as the narrative locations of the characters, and the story could work even while literally transitioning Canterlot-Ponyville-Canterlot. Rarity's narrative location could remain in Canterlot during her time back in Ponyville. For instance, she could end up tailed back to Ponyville by enough Canterlot characters that Act II takes place in a temporarily very different Ponyville. Imagine if Fancypants decided that Mareseille was stuffy and somewhere "quaint" would be a better place for his next vacation... and oh, there's Rarity, with such wondrous news about going into a new line of clothing. Let's celebrate! ...and lo, Ponyville is overwhelmed by a herd of Canterlotians as Fancypants' every move inspires his frightfully imitative followers. Local culture would be somewhat overwhelmed. Rarity may even get a walk-in customer! (I'll never understand why she set up a clothing shop in a nudist colony.) The stress of dealing with so many eyes on her when she's dealing with an unfamiliar fashion of clothing could even be woven into the story quite well.
556671
I think you've got nothing to apologize for. I quite enjoyed writing up an example of how literal and narrative location aren't the same, and I wouldn't have gotten to do that if you hadn't challenged me.
556684
I agree.
As to the other stuff. My point still stands. In the example given nothing happens that is of value to the story. Rarity travels to Ponyville. Rarity retrives supplies. Rarity leaves Ponyville.
You can change this to make it useful. You can add meaning to her return, you can add character interactions, you could have Rarity deep in thought the entire time, you can do any number of things. All of your examples add something to the story and make the scene mean something. But if the only thing that happens is Go. Grab. Leave. then why are you writing it out? It can be easily glossed over without the story losing anything other than words.
556692
I quite agree. I love having people challenge me, forces me to write out and organize my thoughts.
556736
Bad Horse's example is stripped down to a deceptive symbolic point. If the story is well-written, the information in the example could accurately describe the story without sinking the narrative. If the story isn't well-written, moving things around to fix the symbolism probably won't be sufficient. Glossing over the return (omitting Act 2 entirely) fixes the symbolism but risks being unsatisfying even if done well and may introduce plotholes if done poorly. The author should do more than that. Moving straight from 'got the contract' to 'rejected the contract' without time spent gathering resources and doing the work feels way too abrupt. Not having Rarity do something in the intervening period would be like Art of the Dress without the dress-making montage and titular song.
556779
That's the point. Everything in the story needs to have meaning. It can be on the character level, displaying quirks of behavior, all the way up to points along the over arching story in an epic. Two friends sitting down to have tea in the middle of a sweeping epic about space aliens works as long as it either A) Contributes to the plot based on what is discussed or B) Shows aspects of the characters in action and their relationship to each other. or C) Other things that I don't want to think up.
The issue with Art of the Dress is that a great deal happens in that montage. Character interactions, frustrations, dresses get made. The big one being the character interactions.
If in Act 2 the only thing that happens is Rarity makes the dresses then there is no point to spend time on it and it doesn't deserve to be a third of the story. If things happen (she struggles to make the dresses, her friends try to convince her not to leave Ponyville, Canterlot Elites invade
) then yes, included. Otherwise it would work just as well without.
Yes that is bad writing, that was my point. Something should happen in Act 2. But if Act 2 is as long as Act 1 and 3 something more needs to happen than Rarity goes to Ponyville, sits at a sewing machine pumping out dresses, and leaves. If that is all that happens make it Two Acts and Act two opens up with Rarity returning with the dresses.
>executive leisure suits in Canterlot
Double space
"you can return to a set if it has been destroyed to prove that you can't go back (Luke returning to his foster parents' house and seeing their burnt skeletons outside its wreckage)" - In that example Luke does go somewhere else, at least in terms of his spiritual (call it psychological if you prefer) development.
This was very useful, very good; I'm glad a I read it
Good on ya.
Strange~
Movement defined as any kind of progress whatsoever, I would say, is the key in writing a good story. Physical movement, I would say, is useless if the character is not moved by it. However, I do agree in part because making sure there is physical movement in a story would be at least a partial guarantor that there is that sort of movement that I assert is essential.
As for stories that do not have this kind of physical movement (I prefer displacement, that is, final location relative initial location; as opposed to distance traveled), I cite all of them . There is not one single story that I can think of where the character doesn't end where he started in some way. In Star Wars, Luke really started his journey with the rebel alliance, not on Tattooine, and he does end up back with the rebel alliance at the end of the series. In the Lord of the Rings Frodo and the hobbits return to the Shire. Ang returns to the Southern Air Temple, if you remember. Goku still lives in his grandpa's shack, albeit with an addition. The mane6 haven't moved out of their homes in two, going on three, years (I assume it's because they've paid down their mortgages already). Francheschina in the Dutch Courtesean and Tartuffe in Tartuffe, it is implied, both end up exactly where they started; in the whore house and prison. In short, every story ends where physically it began.
I see a criticism. 'But there are a great many books, plays and movies that do not end where they began'. Yes, and those we call book ones and part twos and middle sequels and act threes. They are, if you haven't guessed already, books, plays and movies that are not the end of the story. The main characters always want to go back home, if they have one. If a story actually ends with the hero not going home, or being unable to go home (I take Halo 3 as a very poorly written example), then it is not a story that can be considered over. These are stories, if you will, that the actual ending, that is, coming home, cannot be written or the writer does not know how to write it. There is always a tension when a character can't go home. After all, the only reason Frodo left the Shire was so that one day it would be safe for him come home to; it is miserable fate to him that he cannot stay, in the end. It is often true that one has to change, that someone's soul or mind has to go reside in a different place in order to be able to remain (physically) at home. A soldier must banish his naivete and have his soul travel from it's former country, innocence, in order to have the ability go out and protect his body's native land, so that he may return to that land and live there, presumably forever.
And that brings me to my final point that proves my argument finally. The goal is always to come home, that is, to get back to where you started. This is because home (if it is our true home) is good. In fact it is the best place to be, that is why it is called 'home'. The movement we see in stories is really a character progression whose end is to protect (physical) home, or return to it. This is most evident in stories concerning martial arts masters. They are at home, they are at peace, they are good people and their lives are therefore complete. But often they are attacked by ninjas and jealous emperors. These masters, then, are seen leaving the temple to fight the bad guys, but they fight them so that they may safely return to the temple in the end. The novice must leave the temple to bring his mind to knew knowledge in order to fight the bad guys, but this progression of character is all done so that he might be wise enough and strong enough to return to the temple.
Note that the mane6 are all good characters; that is why they can remain at home, and in fact why they start out at home, whereas many other characters do not. But that is a point for another post. In the mane6, though, we also see the proof that home, where we started, where we belong, is good (would you not want to live in Ponyville?) Therefore in FiM we must conclude that every time the ponies leave home it is to protect it, or to grow so that they can in the end return to it.
That Twilight ends up in her library, Spike beside her, and Rarity in her Boutique, at the end of every self contained MLP story, proves finally that physical movement is not the thing that's important. Another sort of movement is, but the truth about the topic at hand is that every story ends with the character being exactly where he started.