Story Design Terminology

 

PLOT vs. STORY- Plot is Physical events; story is emotional context. Plot is what happens in a movie; story is how the characters feel about what happens.

(To) PLOT means to navigate through the dangerous terrain of story when confronted by a dozen branching possibilities to choose the correct path.  Plot is the writer’s choice of events and their design in time.

STORY vs. THEME: Story concerns the specific characters in a film/ Theme concerns the universal human condition. A theme is a truth about life that is embedded in and emerges from the experience of a film. Themes always relate to the struggles and power of the human spirit: honesty is the best policy; love conquers; one voice makes a difference; be true to who you are; be careful what you wish for.

STRUCTURE is a selection of events from the characters’ life stories that is composed into a strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.
 
A STORY EVENT creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a VALUE.
 
STORY VALUES are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next. For example: alive/dead, (positive/negative), love/hate, freedom/slavery, truth/lie, courage/cowardice, loyalty/betrayal, wisdom/stupidity, strength/weakness, excitement/boredom. They can reverse their charge at any moment. They may be moral, good/evil; ethical, right/wrong; or simply charged with a value.
 
A SCENE or STORY EVENT creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value and ACHIEVED THROUGH CONFLICT.
 
A SCENE is an action through conflict in more or less continuous time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a character’s life on at least one value with a degree of perceptible significance.  Ideally, every scene is a STORY EVENT.
 
    Ask yourself:
        1. What is the value at stake in my character's life at the moment? Love? Truth? What?
        2. How is the value charged at the top of the scene? Postive or Negative?
        3. How has the value turned at the end of the scene?
 
        If your answer is the same turn at the end of the scene, then ask yourself why is the scene in the film?
 
A BEAT is an exchange of behavior in action/reaction.  Beat by Beat these changing behaviors shape the turning of a scene.
 
        Example: The Lover's Breakup Scene-
 
        Six Beats with six distinctively different behaviors, six clear changes of action/reaction:
            1. teasing each other
            2. followed by a give and take of insults
            3. then threatening and daring each other
            4. next pleading and ridiculing
            5. Finally exchanges of violence that lead to the last Beat and Turning point of the scene.
            6. The guys decision and action that ends the relationship and the woman's dumbfounded surprise.
 
A SEQUENCE is a series of scenes, generally two to five, that culminates with greater impact than any previous scene.
 
An ACT is a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequence or scene.
 
STORY CLIMAX: A story is a series of acts that build to the last act climax or story climax which brings about absolute and irreversible changes. ( The most important scene in the film!!)
 
Setting: A story's setting is four dimensional: Period, Duration, Location and Level of Conflict.

    Period: is a story's place and time.
    Duration: is a story's length in time
    Location: is a story's place in space.
    Level of Conflict: the story's position on the hierarchy of human strugges, it's human dimension. Is the conflict personal, social, or societal