Continuing Toward the Grand Unified Theory of Story: A Couple of Linear Models

My last post on the subject of storytelling models looked at the three most widely-known circular approaches: Dan Harmon's story circle, Blake Snyder's Save the Cat, and Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. When overlaid, they offer a strong template for figuring out where the key beats of your story are down to the intermediate level. By their very nature, they take us all the way around an adventure or journey. 

But even with these guides, I find that I only delay the onset of debilitating writer's block. It's all fair and well to say "Batman angers Gotham's mobsters, compelling them to hire the Joker." It's an entirely different thing to explain how exactly he does that. If Batman doesn't actually do something, then our only device is to have a mob meeting in which gangsters say out loud "I'm angry at Batman. Let's hire the Joker." It's an even bigger sin in video games, because you're making the player feel like a side character in their own story. 

Good storytelling demands that we show the protagonist (or a character) doing something. We have to get from angry mobsters to mobsters at the end of their rope. 

So it's not just about going from "You = Rick" to "Need = the serum to turn him from a pickle to a human." We need action that drives a change in values. Beth takes the serum away, and suddenly Rick goes from being a happy pickle to an imperiled pickle. 

There are models for this aspect of story. One is well-known for its champion, the great screenwriter Robert McKee. The other I only recently learned and has no name, so I'm going to call it The 27 Chambers, because kung fu movies and Wu-Tang Clan are awesome. 

Both of these models are linear, because they're dealing with story in a connect-the-dots fashion. There's value in that paradigm because it keeps us from losing the audience in convoluted plot twists. 

I'll tackle McKee's model first. It's more of a theory, but he applies it down to the level of individual lines of dialogue. If you haven't read his seminal work, Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting, go get it. 

The theory is this: In any exchange or action, there must be a change. Characters must always be winning or losing, increasing or decreasing tension, or encountering or solving complications. A concise summary of this principle comes to three easy steps:

VALUE STATEMENT

CONFLICT

VALUE CHANGED

Here's a demonstration of how not to do it:

Son: Mom, get on the bus.

Mom: No! 

Son: Mom, stop joking. Get on the bus.

Mom: I told you I'm not going!

Son: Stop being so stubborn! 

We're all familiar with the sin of repeating beats. Beginning writers think that tension increases simply by demonstrating how stubborn Mom is. But as an audience, we take her at her word the first time. Meanwhile, we are burning the screentime clock. Somebody is paying money for this. We owe them better:

Son: Mom, get on the bus.

Mom: No!

Son: Mom, I'm not playing around, either get on the bus or--

Mom: You can't make me! You're not even my son! You're adopted!

Son: I already knew that. (Pulls out a rubber chicken) Now, are you gonna get on that bus or do I have to use this? 

Now that hums a little more. And while a family secret and vulcanized poultry are shiny objects, they're just props. The underlying principle of changing values -- of revealing unexpected complications and potential danger -- is what compels us to throw rubber chickens.

Batman's stated value is to thwart crime in Gotham. The conflict? Their money-man is in Hong Kong. The change? Batman literally hunts a dude halfway around the world, upping the ante against the mob like never before. 

Rick's stated value is survival. The conflict? He's knocked into a sewer filled with roaches and rats. The change? He upgrades his body and escapes... only to find himself in the lair of the Russian mafia. 

You could almost think about each of these interactions as a "mini-story" within the larger meta-arc. Each interaction has a beginning, a middle, and an end. That's how the 27 Chambers model works.

I received this format from Jessica Bendinger, the writer of Bring it On and the podcast Mob Queens. It's beautiful in its simplicity. You start with your meta-arc. Your story has:

THE BEGINNING

THE MIDDLE

THE END

But you can break that down:

THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

THE MIDDLE OF THE BEGINNING

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

THE BEGINNING OF THE MIDDLE

THE MIDDLE OF THE MIDDLE

THE END OF THE MIDDLE

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

THE MIDDLE OF THE END

THE END OF THE END

And then break it down again:

THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

THE MIDDLE OF THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

THE END OF THE BEGINNING OF THE BEGINNING

I won't beat the horse further. However, since learning this approach to story development, I completely abandoned any and all beat sheets and created a map of this using Microsoft Word. It looks like this:

This model provides you with the most direct, chronological method of writing your story. It also emphasizes a similar discipline as what McKee calls for. Each segment of the story -- even one as infinitesimal as the beginning of the beginning -- should have an end. Know what the cutoff is. Define it through action. Batman drops the Chinese banker off at GPD Headquarters. Beth takes the pickle cure serum and leaves Rick in the garage. The scene is over and what comes next will necessarily be based on or a response to what we just saw.  

These models very much go hand-in-hand. One thing leads to another, and usually that also means that things will never be the same thereafter. 

For my next trick, I'll attempt to reconcile the linear with the circular. Between five points of story, three acts, twelve steps in the hero's journey, seven components of a cat rescue, and 27 chambers, there's no common denominator. I think the key is a matter of proportion. The end of the end of the end doesn't need as much page space or screen time as the middle of the middle of the middle. With that in mind, I think the circular and linear can do a lot to inform each other and sharpen story development. 

Girl-Powered: A Narrative Review of Knights and Bikes

Every good story-- especially adventure stories-- should have two simultaneous arcs. There's the physical journey the hero takes to vanquish adversaries, obtain treasure, and achieve an important outcome, and then there's the spiritual journey by which the hero's views are challenged, forcing them to change, mature, and become an overall better person. Avengers: Endgame does that extremely well. We don't cry because Tony Stark gets the Infinity Stones. We cry because he completes the journey of totally reversing on the promises he made in the beginning to not get involved and to stay alive for his daughter.

Video games rarely deliver a good inner journey, and it should be viewed as a weakness. From the Doom Guy to Samus to (for the most part) the Master Chief, game protagonists are frequently as emotionally blank as their helmet visors. They have to remain pretty much the same person at the end of the game so that they're ready to begin the sequel. And that character's emotional depth typically has to be limited to a narrow range between cold-blooded toughness and vengeful rage because that's what's most comfortable for the FPS genre. I find stories like The Last of Us, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Tomb Raider refreshing for their departure from those tropes. With rare exception, female protagonists have much more nuanced and rewarding inner journeys. 

I just finished playing Knights and Bikes with my 4-year-old daughter. I know the game is a little older and It Takes Two is all the rage, but I didn't see any reviews that really remarked on its narrative, and there are some truly profound elements within it that I think inform how people should approach the inner journey for ALL games.

The other reviews I've read do the game a disservice. Yes, the gameplay is pretty simple. Yes, the puzzles frequently offer a mix of over-obvious solutions and forcing you to look under too many couch cushions for the key. But I think all those reviews are based on adults who know what Portal is. I got to enjoy it with a 4-year-old girl. And from that perspective, it's nigh game-of-the-year status. 

Honestly, I was totally fine with the gameplay because it was just challenging enough for my daughter that I played as her Obi-Wan Kenobi most of the way, telling her which way to go, helping her through puzzle actions, and protecting her during boss battles. More than anything, we were utterly riveted to the game's story. The ease of play kept her encouraged and the story beats kept her on the edge of her seat.

For a quick overview, the game follows two young girls, Demelza and Vanessa, around the small northern British island town of Penfurzy. Demelza's mother has recently died and her father, who runs a local campground, is in a deep depression. Vanessa arrives at the island by stowing away on a ship and indicates that she's an orphan or a runaway from abuse. After finding a book left by Demelza's mother indicating that a local legend about an ancient knight's treasure is real, the girls go in search of its hidden location. A curse put on the treasure seeks to keep it protected, and begins attacking the whole island. The girls must find the treasure to save Demelza's dad from financial ruin and help Vanessa live at the campground.

That's the physical journey. Emotionally, the girls actually deal with a LOT. I was surprised at just how much ground the team that made this game covered in the span of a relatively small map and short amount of gameplay time. The girls confess their deepest fears and regrets to each other, deal with the loss of a parent, and even have a falling out. Anyone who overlooks that a co-op puzzler includes a story beat in which the characters stop cooperating is missing a stroke of genius. The game even takes control of the characters away at certain moments to reflect how their anger makes them lose control. It's like haptic feedback for emotional distress. These were little things that really fed the emotional journey. That contributes to the moment when the girls do eventually make up. It enhances your ability to feel real growth in that moment. When Vanessa gets control of her anger, you get control of her back. It is a profound mind-meld of character and player. 

While the challenges along the way are easily solved, each and every one is attached to a beat in Vanessa and Demelza's relationship. The game embraces 80s nostalgia and the story follows the best traditions of films like Stand By Me, The Goonies, and Stranger Things. The story does an amazing job of requiring the girls at one point to steal a car to get away from the curse. They wind up totaling it and getting themselves and their dad into even deeper trouble. So while the player succeeds, the character fails and kicks the whole thing into high gear for the third act. Dad can't pay for the car and decides to sell the trailer park to cover the expenses. Now Demelza is on the verge of losing everything that she's been trying to save for the entire game. That transition is played out with a beautiful level of realism in the narrative, in terms of how kids would feel about doing something so wrong and reacting to consequences so severe. My daughter was in absolute fits over this twist. We had to play nightly to get the treasure. Taking breaks was letting Demelza down. It was thrilling to see her so excited about it.

Which is why the ending was especially disappointing. I hate to say it, but it failed to stick the landing on so many fronts. As the girls close in on the treasure, they find the haunted "pickled head" of the decapitated knight who buried the treasure. While he guides them to the hidden keep where it's buried, he frequently teases that he'll be the final boss-fight once reattached to his body. The girls also begin arguing over what exactly to do with the treasure. They each obviously have compelling motivations to get at it and you feel torn over which problems should get solved. I was watching my daughter nervously throughout the whole dungeon run, thinking we were headed for a huge battle that would force us to give either one girl or the other the happily-ever-after. 

Instead, we got no boss fight, the choice was taken from us, and the happily-ever-after was replaced with a rather unsatisfying deus ex machina. 

The pickled knight head winds up being inspired by the girls to make amends for his ancient sins and opens the treasure for the girls before disappearing. That was unexpected, and while it probably made life easier for my daughter gameplay-wise, it really felt like the girls deserved the chance to engage in a final battle and physically manifest everything they'd developed in their relationship along the way. Alas.

But the worst part came in the end. With the castle crumbling, the girls discover that the treasure is actually the magical ability to live forever. In a cut scene that tries to do way too much way too fast, Demelza gets angry that her mom for not having obtained the treasure to prevent her death, comes to terms with it, and realizes that she also doesn't want immortality because that would prevent her from changing as a person. Instead, she embraces the value of growth and decides she will continue on the journey to adulthood. 

Pouring salt into that wound is Vanessa's ending. After getting over her distrust of the world and establishing the first real friendship of her life, she decides that her destiny lies with the treasure. She walks into the light coming from the chest and disappears. 

The dungeon crumbles and Demelza wakes up back on the surface above to find a rescue helicopter picking her up. Her dad is suddenly inexplicably better and ready to leave Penfurzy behind. They'll go to the "mainland" where the helicopter pilot says that he has a daughter Demelza's age that would love to meet her. It's kind/of-sort/of implied that it might be Vanessa. You can tell the writer was going for some kind of magical ending there, but it's not clear enough to get what they were aiming for.

Demelza's turn is a good and believable twist, but I couldn't believe at how rushed it was in the delivery. The game was so well-paced throughout, and there was plenty of time in the final dungeon to deliver that change in the character along the way. To get it all in one cutscene just robbed me of the ability to appreciate it emotionally because I had to focus so much on processing it cognitively. 

As for Vanessa, it seemed totally out of her character to abandon the first and only friend she's ever had. Especially when the entire game has been building up to keeping them together. The game didn't do itself any favors by having the dad in the final scene imply that Vanessa was just a figment of Demelza's imagination the entire time. While the boss fight - get the treasure - happily-ever-after sequence was much more predictable, I think it would have been more satisfying than what happened. The game went for big surprises and wound up ruining suspension of disbelief. At least for me. 

But in the end, even that failure is informative to the overall development of narrative arcs for characters in games. Could there be a sequel to this game? Absolutely. Demelza will be changed, much like the character of Eleven is in Stranger Things from season to season. She'd necessarily have a different sidekick (I guess), as would the kids in the show. And that'd be okay. I don't need the character to be the same. I only need her to be interesting, and she is certainly that. 

I would play a sequel to this game because of the strength of the writing and the way in which the gameplay team really worked with the narrative. I get it that this was an indie game. It didn't have a billion-dollar budget to throw at level development and combat systems. And that wasn't what they wanted to achieve with it in the first place. Instead, the team invested its energy into creating a synthesis between the character's physical and spiritual journey. It was chicken soup for the gamer's soul, and so many games would be so much better if they could. Given how comparatively little resources this team put into it, you'd think that the AAA developers could break off a little more change to do the same.

Reinventing the Wheel: An Integrated Model of Everybody's Story Circles

If a group of crows is called a murder and a group of vultures is called a congress, what do you call a group of writers? I think 'an argument' would be a good term. Because the laws of thermodynamics state that the longer a group of writers remain in proximity to each other, the more certain it is that someone will ask a question that creates infinite debate:

Which story structure do you like to use?

Story structure is an immensely important subject to study, because understanding structure enables you to bring it to your own stories. A story without structure is a kindergartner telling you about their trip to Disney World. The center cannot hold. All is sound and fury. 

But asking "what structure do you use" isn't studying structure. It's asking Stan Lee who would win in a fight between Spider-Man and the Thing. There may be no such things as stupid questions, but "which structure is best" does not meet the criteria for a smart one. 

I once offered in a class that it doesn't matter which one you use because they're all the same. I got a lot of blank looks. Then the instructor followed up with "they're all equally good and what you choose is a matter of preference, so find the one that works for you." 

I don't agree with that. You can't take an English class and call yourself a linguist. You can't buy a hammer and call yourself a carpenter. You have to study the whole subject and make a practice of using all the tools. If you just use one story structure all the time and have no ability to use another type to either build or assess your stories, are you a storyteller or just someone that tells a certain kind of story?

I use multiple structures to build my stories. I think you can use them all at once. I do it frequently. I even used one I just learned four months ago to outline a western drama I'm writing. And while marveling at how well it worked in comparison to everything I thought about how I was subconsciously using it in the context of all the others. That got me to thinking about how I might have saved myself a couple of drafts if I'd been a little more conscious of that context. I went looking for a visual reference that would help me do that. Certainly, there was somebody out there who'd done it before, right? 

Not that I could find. So, I decided to make one. I found out why nobody had done it yet, because it wasn't easy. I wound up making a complete diagram of three well known models to get to the combined one. I'll share them here and a little background for anyone who's never encountered any of them.

And also because I insist on proving all those classmates who'll never see this that I'm right. 

First and simplest Dan Harmon's Story Circle. And I mean "simplest" as a compliment. For all the modeling that the world's top storytelling scientists have performed, Dan has found elegance in simplicity. Eight, count 'em, eight major components. That's it. Eight episodes of Community and three episodes of Rick and Morty (on top of running both shows) can't be wrong. It works. Not only does it make brilliant TV, but he can explain it in less than four minutes on YouTube. 

For those seeing this for the first time, there are some pros and cons. Pros first:

1. Simple and streamlined. Identifies the big pieces of a story's requirements.
2. Allows plenty of room to work out details.
3. Loose enough to be adapted to most genres (horror is always different, right?)
4. Small and simple. Could be used to plot multiple arcs and connect them into a larger narrative.

The cons:

1. Can lead to lots of ambiguity. How many beats between points? What are they?
2. Allows you to misinterpret what individual elements mean, leading to plot holes.
3. Leaves a LOT of work to be done in the actual writing. 

If you're trying to keep a macro-level view of quests in a game or sub-plots in a series, this is a great tool to throw down in a larger map. It also works for half-hour comedy and animated shows because each of these elements covers 3-4 pages of script. But it's probably not the engine you want to drive your Oscar contender for best original screenplay.

Now for one everybody in science fiction and fantasy has seen or heard. Please welcome the Lovecraftian Leviathan that spawned all others, the monomyth with the most, Joseph Campbell's very own Hero's Journey.

Oh, yeah. Breathe it in. Twelve points, each drawn from an unrivaled pantheon of European fables and folklore. From the walls of Troy to the moon of Endor, it covers 'em all. With Campbell's The Hero of a Thousand Faces on your shelf and this diagram by your side, you have everything you need to write an epic rivaling those of Herbert, Jordan, or Martin. So why don't more writers do it? 

Primarily because they don't actually read the book. But there are also pros and cons to the model. Pros:

1. Much more specific and structured. Helps identify points between the most basic elements.
2. The journey offers geographic orientation. It's a great way to connect events and locations. 
3. Forces you to get your characters out of bed and on the move.
4. Helps connect plot points to avoid holes and disconnects.

Cons:

1. Strong temptation to chase rabbit holes like worldbuilding and tropes.
2. Because of obstacles and enemies and magic, you could write a story in which the character doesn't do much and instead just has a bunch of stuff happen to them (Disney Princess Syndrome)
3. Can lead to a misinterpretation that each story element gets an equal amount of page space or screen time. 

The hero's journey is a tool of immeasurable, eldritch power. Homer and Tolkien and the Arthurian tradition used it before Campbell even gave it a name. But it's not easy. While I also urge you to read the book, you might find it easier if you give yourself a compass, like so...

Will ya look at that? You are in the ordinary world. But once a call comes, you suddenly discover a need, which propels you to go into the special world, and endure trials as you search for what you require. You find and take the treasure, then return to the ordinary world a changed person who now masters both realms. 

I don't blame you if you're not convinced yet. Two of a kind is just a coincidence. Stay with me. 

I've talked about the latest and the greatest. What's in the middle? What about Blake Snyder's 'Save the Cat' structure?

My pros and cons list here might be the most skewed, because admittedly I like to use Snyder's tool in a very specific way. That is, I use it to inspect work after it's done rather than draw plans beforehand. I use Snyder's measurements to figure out where things might be a little out-of-whack, imbalanced, or not quite on the level. I have great success with it during editing. The pros:

1. It's oriented to time/story space. If you have a defined word/page-count, it gives you a reasonably good estimate of what your allocations are for each portion of your story. It's great if you're writing for e-readers. 
2. Keeps you on pace throughout development. 
3. Establishes limits early so you don't plan more story than you can actually write.
4. It's very open-ended as to actual things that must happen. This model is broad enough to work equally well for John Wick and Power of the Dog. 

The cons:

1. Can cause you to feel like you're constricted by hard-and-fast rules. Hampers creativity. 
2. The terminology doesn't lend itself to nailing down plot points. What's the difference between debate and choice? When do you know you're out of one phase and into the next? It's not intuitive, so it could induce banging-head-against-wall syndrome from trying to sort it out.
3. It's very character-focused. Between the first three elements and "Dark Night of the Soul," you could fall into the trap of writing 37% of your story inside your protagonist's head without them taking action. 

Feels like it's a little too esoteric. Maybe it needs some hard-and-fast reference points to define what's going on. Try this:

Now's an appropriate time for a "see what I mean." Look at how the models synchronize. Set-up necessarily starts with the 'you' of the protagonist and flows naturally to their need. They enter a debate with their environment or an adversary and ultimately make (or be forced to make) the choice to go and do something about it. Things in Act II are a little less synergistic, but at least Harmon's search informs Snyder's fun and games. It gets intuitive again around the return and change in the finale. 

Let's try it a different way. 

Now we're playing with real power. I want to note that the synchronization here is not a result of any graphical trickery. I'm keeping with all the conventions that everyone else used to make their circles. Up is up. Everything is 360-degrees and correct fractions of radians. Snyder's portions are proportionate. The reason these different methods overlay so well is the same reason that Beowulf and Gilgamesh and Odin and Oedipus and MacBeth all pulled it off before anyone had invented these circles. Because they're based on the same proven conventions of successful storytelling. 

In other words, they're the same circle.

Sorry, I couldn't help it. But if you accept that fact and let these circles nest with each other, look at what happens. You suddenly have a tool that kills all the weaknesses of its components. Where Campbell leaves you at risk of making your protagonist a victim of their world, here comes Snyder to help you think about how your character feels about what's happening to them. 

Look at how choice overlaps supernatural help. Remember that the character can either make or be forced to make a choice. Forced by who or what? There's Campbell to inform Snyder. 

Look at how return and atonement blend with dark night of the soul. It's always darkest before the dawn, and who needs atonement that isn't laid low? One informs the other. 

And now for the big reveal. We've seen that each of these works with the others. Time to form Voltron.

Booyah. Look at what we achieve:

1. How do we keep from getting too far into our character's head or too far into White Walker land early in Act I? Simple. Let Harmon remind you that you must clearly define a NEED by the end of the Set-Up. 
2. What does Snyder mean by "fun and games" early in Act II? Campbell and Harmon have some ideas.
3. Those synchronicity hiccups between Snyder and Harmon late in Act II? Campbell helps fill in the gaps. 
4. Want solid tension throughout Act II? Follow the sequence of Find the Treasure, Fight Bad Guys for Treasure, Face Death, and finally Take the Treasure. 
5. Is Act III lame? Is it just Frodo flying home on an eagle? Maybe he should reflect on how he almost threw the whole game. Don't let him master two worlds without seeking some atonement. All of that is essential action to demonstrate his change. 
6. Have some of these points make you feel like problems in your story are more easily solved? They should, because the unified model has enough overlap that you no longer feel constrained by Snyder's hard-and-fast percentages. They're guidelines upon other guidelines. 
7. We're also no longer grasping for ways to connect Harmon's eight elements. We don't have to talk to a guy with a portal gun or an 800-year-old Jedi, but there's now a space reserved for some sort of interaction or beat that can fulfill our story's needs. 

I think this combined model works best using a "work from the outside in" approach. Nail down your fundamentals according to Harmon's elements. Develop the connective tissue with Campbell's principles. Allocate your page space, dialogue, scenes, and cinematics with Snyder's model. Write it and then figure out what you need to do with the second draft by working from the inside out. What's too long? What needs more room? Why? What questions or plot holes are lingering? Is that because some fundamental element is unclear or incongruous with the others?

But ultimately, I don't think you can escape the weaknesses of any one story structure by using it over and over and over. You can master using a hammer, but it'll never help you drill a hole or cut a board. 

In closing, I acknowledge that I didn't consider linear story models in this presentation. I actually played around with doing that a bit, but I haven't quite settled on how I want to lay those out. It's a challenge I won't leave laying around for long.