Story

Extended version of one of our first attempts to organize our work on story structure theory. Though undated, I probably wrote this some time in 1991.

Here 'tis.....

Contagonist. A word you've probably never heard. But it was the starting point to our discovery of a new system of story analysis and construction nearly ten years ago.

We had a script that didn't work. Try as we might, we couldn't figure out why. So, we decided to look to other similar screenplays for inspiration. We wondered if there were certain plot devices, rythms, patterns, and characters that appeared in all fulfilling screenplays of a similar basic nature to our own. If we could find the same thing in most of them, we should use it too. But at this stage we didn't even know if there were any aspects at all that were alike from one successful story to another, or if you really did have to write by the seat of your pants.

As we analyzized these other scripts, certain patterns began to emerge. Patterns of conflict, patterns of dramatic tension, patterns of structure and character. In fact, in simple adventure stories such as ours, many of the same character types kept reappearing, almost as if there were a limited number of types to deal with. Indeed, there were fewer than one dozen different characters we cataloged at that most naive stage of exploration.

There were the obvious two: A Protagonist (the hero) and an Antagonist (the villian). But everything from Star Wars to The Wizard of Oz to Jaws seemed to have one character that tried to reason his way out of problems, and another that responded primarily by emotion, almost with disregard to logic. There was also a Skeptical character that kept complaining and whining that they could never succeed. All he wanted to do was surrender or retreat, or not even admit there was a problem.

Of course, the Sidekick was around, but looked to us like just a plot device for the Protagonist to express his thoughts to, and an achiles heel to be used by the villian against the hero.
Every night for weeks we would get together or talk on the phone, and each time, we made what we felt was an incredible discovery. Then the next night, we would find problems with our Divine Inspiration only to make another discovery that built on the first one, making us feel Divinely Inspired until that brilliant concept fell the next night.

Eventually, we'd drop the whole effort for years at a time, then dabble at it, find new tools and new perspectives, hit a brick wall and put it back in the box for another day. This went on for nearly ten years until we got serious. One day, over breakfast, we realized the time was right. Suddenly, we both wanted to finish the bastard up and get the monkey off our backs once and for all.

Was there anything to this or not? Could a system actually be developed that would allow a writer to structure a story from scratch without becomming formula? Were there even any underlying principles at all to the art and craft of writing?

Okay, so we dusted off our file folders, fished our scraps of notes out of the shoebox and tackled the project in earnest. Once again we had daily inspirations, only to have them dashed and rebuilt the next day. But, strangely, it wasn't so much like blasting each previous days work, but more like rising to a new level and seeing the same thing from a different and more encompassing perspective.

And that is the way we're going to tell it to you. Because once we put the finishing touches on the system, everything, and we mean EVERYTHING had a place. Character, plot, motivation, moral decision, what have you. BUT!!!

You can't see the forest for the trees. The perspective that makes sense of story is alien to our normal way of thinking. This is because the concepts that govern story are derived from the way we think, and until we learn, STEP BY STEP how stories and character parallel our own minds, we cannot see the patterns for they are too much like ourselves.

So we're going to describe the way we came to discover the Overview. In essence, we're going to rediscover it with you. First, making startling revelations, only to discover the exceptions. But TRUST US! When we have arrived at the summit, THERE WILL BE NO EXCEPTIONS. Once you have scaled the Overview, ALL ASPECTS OF STORY STRUCTURE WILL BE SIMPLE AND CLEAR TO YOU.

So strap on your backpack and join us as we retrace the steps that led us to the Overview of Story Structure.

When we dusted off the files, we recalled that we had discovered two other common, almost essential characters. One was a helper or teacher who pulled the Protagonist out of scrapes and offered moral guidance.

But there was one other character that didn't quite fit any molds we'd been taught to cast characters with. This guy seemed to ve a villian, yet he was not the Antagonist. He might speak against a course of action, yet was not the Skeptic. He was a repugnant character in some stories, an admirable character in others, and could be associated with either the Antagonist or Protagonist. What kind of a character was this? He was Darth Vader and the Mayor in Jaws. He is Burke in Aliens, Belloq in Raiders and the Wizard in Oz. We were confused as blazes. The only thing he ALWAYS did in each and every case, was hinder the Protagonist. So we called him the Contagonist.

Now these are the characters we ended up with that kept showing up in all kinds of stories (we shall use simple adventure stories as examples for now as this most basic set of characters was derived from that genre).

The Protagonist: Luke Skywalker, Chief Brody, Indiana Jones. All easy to see, all simple to understand.

The Antagonist: The Shark, the Aliens, the Nazis.

The Emotional: Chewbaca, the Tin Man, Quint.

The Intellectual: Leia, Hooper (Dreyfus in Jaws), and the Scarecrow (yes, intellectual -- think about it!)

Skeptic: Han Solo, the Cowardly Lion.

Sidekick: C3PO, Toto, Newt (to Ripley in Aliens).

Teacher/helper: Glinda, Obi Wan.

Contagonist: Burke (in Aliens), Belloq, the Mayor (in Jaws), the Wizard, Darth Vader.

Okay, you get the idea. But we wanted to know if these characters are related. Yep. They're opposites and they all come in pairs.

Darth Vader is Balanced by Obi Wan, Lukes faith is balanced by Han's lack thereof. Quint's emotionalism is balanced by Hooper's Reason. The Antagonist is the Problem and the Sidekick holds the solution.

Now this was news. We always thought the Protagonist was balanced by the Antagonist. Not so. The Antagonist is the Problem. The Protagonist wants to solve it, the Skeptic wants to avoid it.

Things were shaping up nicely here. We had a pattern and it looked an awful lot like a morality play. Not religious morality, but the "good vs. evil" type thing. And this is what it looked like:
First diagram of simple characters goes here.

So what have we got? We've got a prolem represented by the Antagonist. The Protagonist (or Faithful character) wants to solve the problem; the Skeptic wants to run away. One character tries to reason a solution and his opposite responds without thinking. The whole process is swayed by the Contagonist ( representing temptation) who hinders the Protagonist and by the Guardian (representing moral conscience) who protects and aids him.

Next step: Each of these characters represents an aspect of the human mind in dealing with a problem. When a problem (Antagonist) appears, our will to overcome it (Protagonist) wishes to move forward toward a solution, but is held back by the fear of failure (Skeptic). We have feelings about how we want it solved (Emotion) and logic about the most efficacious way to solve it (Reason). We are swayed by the temptation to take the immoral but "easy" way out (Contagonist) and urged to do what is "right" by our conscience (Guardian).

Very definately: a morality play.

As we looked at the chart it became clear that there is not a single Protagonist, but rather, a Protagonistic Group. The Faithful, Skeptical, Emotional, and Intellectual represent aspects of a SINGLE MIND in dealing with a problem and move (in spite of interal conflict) as a team. Luke and Han and Chewy and Leia, Dorothy and Lion, and Tin Man and Scarecrow. Quint and Hooper and Brody and... and... And the characters are so easy to understand. But... what about the skeptic in Jaws? Who was that? What a devestating question. After all, if Brody is the Protagonist, who in the story was the skeptic? It wasn't Quint: he wanted to kill the shark. It wasn't Hooper: he wanted to kill the shark. It wasn't the Mayor: he wanted the shark problem to go away, but hindered Brody. He was the Contagonist. But... Brody was afraid of the water. And Brody said "You gotta get a bigger boat". Brody was both Protagonist AND skeptic.
Next step: Character types can be combined into a single indivdual. The strongest internal conflict is to combine opposites. This tears the poor Protagonist apart, until he succombs to or overcomes his own foreboding. Suddenly a whole new world of slightly more complex characters opened up: the self doubting hero who accepts the responsibility of the quest while doubting the success of the venture. But the nice thing was, he could be analyzed, designed and built to exact specifications because we knew what was going on in his head.

Previously for us, writing for this type of character was confusing and frustrating. But now, we could see much more clearly what drove him and therefore our heros could become more interesting, human, and three dimensional. The one caution was never to lose sight of the dual nature of this character. He must be consitant and true to both his motivations, which therefore must be clearly defined. Brody was faithful to his sense of duty, but skeptical due to his fear of water, but he was not wishy-washy about his drive to hire Quint and go after the shark. Similarly, he was not corageous, but terrified when he went out on the water.

Aha! Once aspect of his personality was plot oriented - what he had to do. And the other was motivational - how he felt. That is how he didn't get muddled. Each aspect operated in a different realm.

Next step: All characters operate on two levels, a Motivational Level and a Situational Level.
What do we mean by that? Well, we found that each character plays two roles. First he represents an approach to solving the "moral" problem on the internal or motivational level. Second, he represents an approach to solving a "plot" problem on the external or situational level. But wouldn't the approach be the same on both levels for a given character? In SIMPLE characters, they are. That, in fact, is exactly what MAKES them simple, by definition.

More precisely though, we discovered that the approaches on both the level of the mind and the level of the body were SIMILAR, not identical. Let's describe each simple character on both levels and see how the approaches differ.

The moral level represents the human mind trying to solve a mental dilemma; trying two choose between two ATTITUDES, one right, but difficult, one wrong, but easy. For example, in Jaws, Brody must decide whether or not to overcome his fear of the water, or succomb to it.

If he makes the "right" choice and conquers his fear, he MUST succeed at the plot level in defeating the shark or we, the audience would feel cheated. Making the proper moral choice is what makes a hero, and the hero MUST win once he has done so. (Remember we are talking about SIMPLE characters in adventure stories at the moment. Obviously, this is not true for more complex characters in other genres. Rest assured, we will address those as well STEP by STEP).

If the hero chooses incorrectly, he is hero no longer and MUST be defeated by the Antagonist for us, the audience, to feel fulfilled.

But notice here the connection between a moral choice and success in the plot. They are intimately bound up together. What happens when we separate them for analysis purposes?
The faithful character is made up of the moral aspect of accepting the burden of considering the moral dilemma. His opposite, the skeptic, refuses to consider the issue. Indeed, he may even deny the issue (or question) exists. Acceptance and Denial, the first moral pairing.

On the plot level, the faithful character Pursues the quest, while the Skeptic avoids it. Pursuit and Avoidance, the same characters paired on the plot level.

But note the subtle differences Acceptance is a condition, not a process like pursuit. Similarly, Denial is a condition, not a process like avoidance.

Now let us look at the Emotional. On the moral level, he approaches the dilemma with his feelings. On the plot level, he is FRENZIED. This creates the stereotypical character who reacts violently without thinking, common in simple stories. And the Intellectual. On the moral level he employs reason, but applies that reason on the plot level with calm and almost calous disregard for the "human" impact of his action, and is not influenced by how people feel about a situation. Again, a pairing of opposites on both levels. Feelings are not equal to Frenzy, and Reason is not equal to Calm, but they go hand in hand in simple characters in simple stories.

What about the Antagonist? Well, on the moral level, he causes the moral dilemma to exist. As long as he exists, he forces the Faithful (Accepting) character to consider the issue. And he cannot be defeated until the Faithful character makes his moral decision. Luke cannot destroy the deathstar until he turns off his computer and "trusts the force". Indiana Jones cannot defeat the nazis until he finally believes in the power of the arc "Close your eyes, Marianne; don't look at it!". Brody cannot defeat the shark until he overcomes his fear, "Smile, you son-of-a-bitch!".
Only AFTER the faithful character has made his moral decision can he face the Antagonist in the final showdown. Corollary: Once the moral decision has been made, the faithful character MUST face the Antagonist in a final showdown.

On the plot level, the Antagonist represents the external obstacle that must be overcome to achieve an external goal.

On the moral level problems must be solved. On the plot level obstacles must be overcome.
The Guardian at the moral level acts as Conscience and at the plot level to help.

The Contagonist at the moral level acts as a Tempter and at the plot level to hinder.

It took us a long time to see the subtle differences between characteristics on the two levels because we were looking only at simple characters. In that case, these characteristics match up with the most similar one from the other level. That is exactly why the characters ARE simple.
But once we realized that there were two levels, we wondered what would happen if you rotated one level in relation to the other, creating characters that possessed dissimilar attributes. What we discovered was that these "complex" characters explained just about every other character we could think of.

Mix and Match. Any one of the moral approaches can be matched with any one of the plot approaches to create a complex character.

First, we tried it among the four protagonistic group characters. For example: Suppose you match the moral approach of Feelings with the plot approach of Calm. You might end up with a much more interesting character who is driven to his decisions by his convictions, but institutes his plans methodically. His direct opposite might be a character who Reasons his way to solutions, but pursues his goals in a rampant, inefficient manner.

We found that any of the characteristics of the protagonistic group on one level could be matched to any characteristic on the other. And, of course, you could still combine characteristics on one level into a single character. In fact, they could all be placed in one character, just as they are in a real person. But this makes it difficult to see each aspect clearly, which defeats the purpose behind creating stories in the first place. Still, it was perfectly correct to do so, and explained alot of other characters we had encountered.

The main thing to remember is that each characteristic on each level MUST be represented somewhere, or the story is not as well rounded as it should be. That is to say that an aspect of the human mind in dealing with a problem will be missing and the point you, as author, are trying to make will not be as convincing. You will have left a hole in the complete pattern of proving your moral or situational point.

Once you start combining moral approaches with dissimilar plot approaches, characters become consistant, but unpredictable to the audience, and therefore much more interesting. The course of action such a character will embark upon, as well as his attitude stems to how that character perceives the weight of moral obligation to plot necessity. And which of these somewhat conflicting internal approaches will prevail shifts from scene to scene, situation to situation, as that balance changes or is perceived to change by that character.

Next, we tried swapping the Contagonist and Guardian on the two levels and found that, indeed, the Guardian could be the conscience on the moral level, but hinder the Protagonist at the plot level, especially if the Protagonist is trying to do something wrong. Similarly, the Contagonist could be temptation on the moral level, and HELP the Protagonist to achieve his incorrect goal. This made for much more interesting characters in these roles.

Now, our curiosity at full power, we tried mixing the role of conscience with Frenzy, or Calm or any of the others, and found that, once again, YES you can do it successfully, but it tends to make the visibility of the workings of each aspect less clear. Nevertheless, it can and does work, and explains many other complex characters.

The next logical step was to try putting only one aspect from one level in each character. This would require eight protagonistic group characters, two for each of the original simple characters, and two for Antagonist, Contagonist, and Guardian as well.

Again, YES you can do it. But it tends to simplify the characters so much, that they tend to appear unreal, and less than well rounded. But it is possible, and explains even more characters.
Now, let's look back. Stories reflect how the human mind deals with problems. Characters represent the approaches. There is a mental or motivational level and a physical or situational level. The mental level deals with morality, the physical level deals with plot. The moral level requires a decision to solve the problem; the plot level requires action to reach a goal. Simple characters combine the most similar aspects, one from each level. Complex characters combine dissimilar aspects, one from each level.

Now we felt we understood individual characters fairly well by themselves. By mixing and matching between the levels we could analyze virtually every character we came across. Better still, we could CREATE unpredicable, yet consistent characters, with a full understanding of their motivations, and a complete knowledge of what they would and would not do. Plus, we knew all the basic approaches that needed to be represented so there would be no holes in our We had it all wrapped up. Except we couldn't write a story from it.

We could design the most interesting and well-rounded characters, but we didn't know what to do with them. We could conceive of the most explosive combinations of traits, but had no clue how to employ them. Character motivation, no matter how well designed and understood, is only dramatic POTENTIAL It told us which characters might come into conflict, but not what that conflict would be. -- Frozen Potential.

The obvious finally occurred to us: Story is like a machine. It is a physical apparatus run by energy to accomplish a task. Without energy, the machine will not move. Without the physical gears and rotors, there is no way for the energy to accomplish anything. Only when energy is APPLIED to physical material is WORK done. In other words, for a current to flow, potential must be applied across a resistance.

Story is the current, Motivation is energy or potential, Situation is the machine or resistance.
Motivation told us WHY something might happen, but not WHAT (resistance/situation/plot) or HOW (current/action/story).

So where do you start? Anywhere you want! You can begin with anything at all that makes you want to tell a story and fill in the other blanks from the character structure. In a moment, we'll show you how. The point is: different authors get their inspirations in different ways. Even a single author may be inpsired by a person he knew or a period in history or a geographic location, ad nauseum.

Now here's the first beautiful thing: You can write about anything you want. outer space, the Civil War, homeless children, a man hen-pecked by an overbearing wife, a puppy trying to find his way home, whether it is better to do a sure thing for yourself or a chancey thing for others, a low-level government clerk who uncovers a plot to overthrow Zsa Zsa Gabor -- ANYTHING!! And note that we listed a mixed bag. Some items were plot, some a setting, some a character, moral dilemma, whatever.

But even in this wide open field, structure exists to guide us. Let's back track for a moment to "morality". Who exactly is it that decides what is moral? In real life, that role is ostensibly reserved for the Creator, and in Story, the role is the same.

The author decides what morality is in Story. That is the author's Point Of View. Without a point of view there is no way for the audience to know if the Protagonist makes the right choice or not.

Try to imagine writing a story without a point of view. Everything that happens, everything that is done, the actions of every character are neither good nor bad, they simple are. There are no villians, no heros, and no satifaction for the audience. It would be a dull story indeed!
And look at why you write stories in the first place. Do you want to make a statement that will lead to people taking action to stop a war? Do you want to document a migrant worker's courage. Do you want to share the joy of a special Christmas morning you had as a child. Do you simply want the audience to thrill to the exploits of a larger than life hero?
Fact is, no matter what inspired you to write a story in the first place, you always end up establishing a moral point of view that tells the audience how to feel about the characters and the situation.

We all know what theme is: point of view applied to situation. And now we all know what morality is: point of view applied to motivation.

Okay, so you've got your starting point and your point of view, which suggests your theme and your morality. All you need to get started is a plot goal. And again, a plot goal can be anything you want it to be. A priest might want to become a painter, a small child might want to find the parents who abandoned her, a general might want to overthrow a president -- ANTYTHING AT ALL!!

Let's take stock: Morality, Situation, Point Of View, Theme, Goal, Moral Decision, all of these are connected and interrelated. And once you have nailed them down and selected your characters, you have all the elements to begin telling a story.

So how do you nail them down? By design or by chance, it doesn't matter. You see, you could write a story about a priest who wants to find the parents that abandoned him or about a general who wants to be a painter. And they could be in outer space, or in the Civil War. It really doesn't matter. If you had no preference, you could put several hats on the floor, drop goals in one, themes in another, settings in another, etc., then draw one from each hat and have a complete story at your disposal. And we guarantee it would not be formulaic. All you would have to do is decide how you were going to mix and match the moral and plot character aspects and you could start writing. Of course, it would make a much more integrated story if the Theme, Moral Dilemma, Point of View, etc., were all related. THAT way, you could make a very strong statement to get your point of view across to the audience.

Now, you have all the elements you need to write a story. Great! Except there's still no clue as to what SCENES you need to create. And you sit there with all your characters and situations and settings and don't know what to do with them.

There is a solution.

Conflict. A very simple word, but essential to determining what scenes are needed in a story.