The stories we write are like life itself.

I’m not referring to how they reflect life – which they absolutely should do – or how poignantly you’ve rendered a character and how powerful your themes may be.

No, I’m talking now about structure and exposition.  About what happens.  The way we close out our lives is also the way we close out our stories – the ending is held hostage to what happens earlier.

Frustration, pain, satisfaction, peace of mind, business left undone, the state of our relationships – it’s all a function of how we’ve lived and what we’ve done prior to the commencement of the final act.

We must live out our days bearing the weight, and to whatever extent possible, celebrating the essence, of who we have been.

Our entire life, it could be said, is a set-up for how it will turn out in the end.

So it is in our stories – very little changes in the final act.  In fact, very little happens that isn’t completely and totally obvious.  It’s all just a chase scene culminating in a final showdown. 

Most of the time, the hero gets what she or he deserves.

And so it is in the final act of Avatar.

The Structure of Denouement

You’ll find very little substantive structural mentoring in the vast oeuvre of storytelling – including my own work – about how to end a story.  There are no Pinch Points to remind us of the central conflict, no new plot twists are allowed, there is no more setting up and foreshadowing.  Everything that becomes a factor in the story’s conclusion needs to have been previously introduced and put into contextual play.

You could almost – but not quite – say that the final act writes itself if you’ve done everything right prior to the 75^th percentile milestone, also known as the Second Plot Point.

In real life, that’s often when we retire and move to Florida.

You can test this with Avatar. 

Imagine walking out of the theater at the Second Plot Point, where the Corporate Boss tells the Security Chief to “pull the trigger,” to wipe out the Na’vi so they can bulldoze their land.

This is nothing other than lighting the fuse for an inevitable explosion of confrontation.

Would you – do you – have the slightest doubt about what will happen next?  Didn’t think so. 

The evil corporate troops, under the leadership of the sadistic Security Chief, will mount their flying machines and attack the Na’vi.  Jake will fight through his status as a perceived traitor to emerge as their salvation, their leader in battle, and in the process win back the heart of Neytiri.  The corporate soldiers will go down in flames, and we’ll most certainly see a mano-a-mano confrontation between Jake and the Security Chief, which won’t be pretty, but won’t have a surprise outcome, either.

The Na’vi will be saved, the land will remain theirs, and Jake and Neytiri will, after a trail of bodies and much soap box pontificating, live happily ever after.

Everybody in the theater knows this is precisely what is about to happen.

And with one little surprise, it does.  I’ve just described Act III of Avatar, rendered in about 16 scenes, two or three of which are composed of a series of quickly edited intercuts and battle montages. 

There is no suspense other than wondering which of the bit players we’ve come to know will die in the coming fight.  We know this confrontation is coming, we know Jake will be in the middle of it, and we know that good will triumph over evil. 

And because of Cameron’s skill as a storyteller, we know it will work.  This is the essence of almost every final act of every thriller story ever told.  And with a little less straight-line obviousness, every other genre of story, as well.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. 

As writers, our job is to imbue these inevitable ending sequences with pacing, visceral realism and the leveraging of emotions we’ve worked so hard to bring about within our readers.  To make sure our thematic intentions receive a strong voice in the way the consequences of certain decisions and actions come to bear on the outcome. 

In other words, that everybody gets, to some extent, precisely what they deserve.  And that – however it actually ends – there is some satisfaction, justice and peace to be found.

Unless that’s not your theme.  Then you can end it with all the darkness you can muster up.  Stephen King, Peter Straub and Clive Barker are living like kings by doing just that. 

The Concluding Scenes of Avatar

Cameron gives us a couple of nice (if not transparently inevitable; his foreshadowing was a bit on-the-nose here) surprises at the eleventh hour.

First – spoiler alert here – it’s Neytiri that kills the Chief, not Jake.  Then she saves Jake himself shortly thereafter .  I suppose Cameron could defend this violation of the never-save-the-hero ethic of storytelling by pleading that he’s made Jake a literal martyr for the Na’vi cause, thus completing his character arc in the name of his mythic, archetypical thematic intentions.

Hey, this guy made almost two billion on Titanic, nobody’s gonna get in his face about fudging the rules at the end.

And then, because we’ve seen the attempt to save Grace by transferring her soul from her dying human body into her avatar form – which doesn’t work – we know that’s precisely what Jake’s ultimate destiny will be.  Why else put him in a wheelchair?  We also know that this time it will work.

So where’s the suspense?  Answer: Cameron doesn’t care.  The battle is over.  He’s all about delivering a big warm hug to your emotional core at this point.  It’s the wrap-up, the character-outcome, the parting gift.

Looking back on the story, it’s easy to see that Cameron’s thematic agenda was as ambitious as his dramatic one.  The story is rich with environmental proselytizing and religious allegory about the arrival and sacrifice of a messiah-like figure, rendering the story mythic and timeless as it frustrates critics who saw it coming from the opening scene.

So what do we learn from the final act of Avatar?

We learn that the ending makes or breaks itself on the amount of reader empathy and affection that the story has earned up to the point at which it all hits the fan.  That empathy licenses inevitability.

We learn that the course of action on the part of both the hero and the antagonist must be in context to, and a natural outgrowth of, their persona and their demonstrated arc.  They must have earned their hero status before they live into it.

We learn that we must immerse our reader/viewer into the thick of the fight, to saturate them with the tension that the character experiences, even though we know the outcome. 

This is key to making your ending work.  The character doesn’t know the outcome, and that’s the source of your empathy and your vicarious emotional investment.

Or, it can work the other way around – character knows, but the reader doesn’t.  Just make sure one or the other of these two dynamics is in place.

We need to make the reader root, and ultimately, make them feel.  What they feel is your call to make, but your storytelling success depends on how deeply you take your reader into a realm of emotional empathy.

Box office isn’t always a reflection of how well a writer has done that.  It could be argued that Cameron – just as M. Night Shyamalan did with The Sixth Sense – placed his bet on another square, that it wasn’t drama as much as it was spectacle and trickery. 

Many true mystery stories depend on the latter, which is fine if it also delivers a vicarious ride and a compelling hero.

Either way, though, we learn by paying attention.  If it’s a spectacle or a trick, make it the most spectacular trick you can.  If it’s reader emotion, use the tools of structure to create the pacing and exposition required to suck your audience into the heat and heart of the drama, and use the rules of character to make that something you can actually, by the time you write The End on your last page, achieve.

Deconstructing Avatar – The Final Act is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

A closer look at the third quartile of a two million dollar home run story.

Since the last post a reader got in touch to share his opinion of Avatar, story-wise.  Not so good.  Which prompts me to clarify, and to seize the teachable moment.

I’m not qualitatively endorsing the entertainment merits of Avatar.  That’s your call, and this isn’t a review.  That said, I don’t think Martin Scorsese is losing any sleep, this isn’t terribly high literary art, but it’s certainly a commercial visual benchmark and a box office juggernaut. 

Just because you dissect a corpse in med school doesn’t mean the dead guy was on the cover of Men’s Health or won the Nobel Prize.  More likely he lived under a bridge, but that’s not the point. 

That, and this deconstruction, are learning experiences.  That’s it.  In this case, an interesting one when you consider it is the most successful film of all time.

Perhaps we should pay attention.  Upon cracking open the body for a closer look, what we find may not make you forget Ingmar Bergman, but you will see a symmetrically clear model of the principles of story structure at work.

Welcome to Part 3 of this story.

As we passed through the story’s Mid-Point (Jake being fully accepted as a Na’vi warrior, both in their heart and his own), we shift from a reaction mode into a clearly proactive attack mode.  Jake has a job to do, and after well over an hour of figuring out what that involves, he’s now ready to get ‘er done.

Which may seem like an odd time to throw in the obligatory sex scene, but that’s precisely what happens.  Jake and Neytiri head off into the forest together, where he connects with the Tree of Souls and hears the voices of the dead, confirming Grace’s suspicions that there is more going on in this forest than photosynthesis.

This leads to their first kiss, their choosing of each other as mates, then… cut to them waking up together after what one imagines to be the Na’vi version of 9 ½ Hours. 

Actually, it’s Neytiri who wakes up.  Jake has been pulled back into his human body for a little face-to-face with the Chief, who thanks him for his hard work, promises those new legs are right around the corner, and announces that it’s time to get this homicidal party started.  Jake, as a newly-minted local at heart, assures him he’ll talk the Na’vi into leaving.  Reluctantly – clearly the Chief was looking forward to kicking some Na’vi butt – he gives Jake another chance, with a ticking clock and a loaded artillery division looming over him.

The next scene teaches us something about storytelling. 

Neytiri wakes from her post-coital slumber to the thunderous sound of an approaching earthmover the size of a small office building, but she can’t get Jake to wake up.  He’s back at Corporate being force-fed a meal by Grace, who fears for his human health.

They’re directly in its path.  Suddenly, irrespective of the big picture, we have an immediate and scary situation on our hands.

This is an example of using little micro-dramas – think of them as short stories within the larger infrastructure – to keep the narrative urgent and ratchet up the stakes.  These little mini-dramas have their own set-up, their own stakes (Jake will be squashed if she can’t wake him up), and their own resolution.

Of course Jake does make it back into his Na’vi body in time to jump onto the hood of the giant machine and smash its camera system (it’s being remotely controlled from headquarters) with a rock and an attitude.

The Chief sees this over the video feed.  He asks to freeze the frame, which exposes Avatar-Jake as the attacker.  Which means the charade is over – Jake and the Chief are now openly and inevitably on different teams.

The invasion, which is meant to scare the Na’vi into running for the hills, stirs the local warriors into a warring frenzy.  As Jake tries to explain what’s going on and how he can help, he must confess his initial mission as a human spy, which doesn’t go over well around the campfire.  They take he and Grace into the jungle equivalent of custody, binding them to an archway to await execution.

Meanwhile, back at the human ranch, the Chief and the Corporate Suit decide enough is enough.  It’s time to pull the trigger and wipe out the Na’vi camp and anyone foolish enough to try to fight back.

And this is the second Pinch Point, loud and clear. 

It’ happens at about the 98 minute mark (out of 156 total minutes), which at the 63^rd percentile is close enough to its target 66^th percentile mark to qualify.  That location is one of the clues that it is, in fact, a Pinch Point – there are many other moments that shove the central drama of the story right back into our face, which is another Pinch Point mission – but in combination with the line drawn in the narrative sand here, this labels it clearly.

What follows is an increased sense of pacing – very much in keeping with the principles of structure; it’s time to really crank up the drama here – as the Chief launches a full airborne attack on the Na’vi Hometree camp.  (One wonders if the similarities between the actual home tree itself and the World Trade Center was intended, as the tree is roughly the size of those buildings, and it tumbles in terrifying slow motion as the bad guys (the humans in flying machines) leer on with salivating satisfaction.

Jake and Grace are set free by Neytiri’s merciful mother.  We see many cuts of them running through the carnage, trying to find Neytiri and watching some of the peripheral Na’vi players we’ve seen before come to a violent and tragic end.

Jake finally finds Neytiri, who of course isn’t ready to forgive and forget, and in fact blames the entire nightmare on him.  Which is, by the way, an element of a sub-plot about to collide with the main plotline. 

After many minutes of this we see the big bad Chief, who has safely turned to home base, travel to the remote link facility Grace and Jake have been using and, literally, pull the plug on their piloting experience.

As they emerge from the link they are arrested and thrown into a cell.

Remember Trudy, the helicopter pilot who ducked out of flight formation during the attack because she couldn’t, in all good conscience, participate?  Seems she got away with it, since now she shows up to spring our heroes from jail, all in the name of getting back in the game and saving the Na’vi from continued and complete extinction.

Which is, by the way, the Second Plot Point.

Why?  Because it clearly delivers a major story transition, the beginning of the end, if you will.  There will be no new expositional information forthcoming.  A fuse has been lit, the final charge has been mounted.

More twists could happen – and they do – but they are in context to this new path, rather than christening a new path on its own. 

If the definition of the First Plot Point, back at the 20^th to 25^th percentile, is to launch the hero’s primary quest by defining both the immediate and new goal (assuming the hero was on a path prior to that moment), while defining the initial obstacles that stand in the way…

… then the Second Plot Point is to kick the story and the hero into a final, higher gear, equipped with all the information and the impending fruits of character arc at their disposal.  It takes the form of a discernable change in the story, a palpable shift in the pacing and energy, and a clear path ahead. 

Sometimes it’s obvious.

In the movie Tombstone starring Kurt Russell, the Second Plot Point manifests at the moment in which Russell, as Wyatt Earp, pulls a fast one on the bad guys, kills the man sent to assassinate him while wounding the other, then sends the terrified survivor back to his bad guy boss with a message: “Tell him the Clantons are done… tell him hell’s a comin’… and I’m coming with it!”

Behind him the lightning flashes and the wolves howl… music up… Plot Point Two has arrived.  You’d have to be either six or ninety six years old and speak English as a fifth language not to notice.

Avatar’s Second Plot Point isn’t quite that bold and obvious.  But if you know what to look for – which is the point here, after all – it’s close.

Next up — the final act (Part 4 if you’re a novelist, Act III if you’re a screnwriter) of Avatar.

If you’d like to learn about the principles of story structure so you can get more from this series, click here for information about my ebook, Story Structure – Demystified.

If you’d like to learn more about the techniques of characterization, and how the arc of your characters should relate to story structure, click here to learn more about my newest ebook – The Three Dimensions of Character – Going Deep and Wide to Create Compelling Heroes and Villains.

Read the first online review HERE.

Deconstructing Avatar – The Second Half of Act II is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Avatar is a clinic on story structure.  Every element is right where it’s supposed to be, which is both a relief and a revelation. 

The relief is for me – imagine my disappointment if I’d have gotten halfway through this deconstruction only to find the film is a structural mess.  The revelation is for all of us – nothing cements our confidence in and knowledge of story structure better than seeing it play out before our eyes.

A Quick Review of Avatar’s Part 1 Set-Up

In the first act (Part 1) of Avatar we rolled out 30 briskly-paced scenes, all of them in perfect context to what conventional wisdom defines as its mission: to set-up the story to come, and the First Plot Point in particular.

Mission accomplished. 

The main characters were introduced with backstory and a pending character-arc already in play.  We’re hooked, and soon we’re both intellectually and emotionally involved.

The concept was fleshed out with almost academic clarity. 

The bad guy leaves no doubt about what he wants – to kill some local natives – and in recruiting Jake to his team he establishes the story’s essential stakes. 

Most of all we empathize with Jake and we like him.  Which means when the banshee poop hits the fan we’ll also be rooting for him.

The Part 2 Response

Now we’ve been thrust into Act II (film-speak for Parts 2 and 3 of the equivalent novelistic storytelling model, comprising the middle 50% of the total length), where the story is no longer in set-up mode, it’s in response mode.  The context of everything Jake does until the Mid-Point will be his reaction to his new quest in the face of the obstacles placed before him.

Note that Jake doesn’t take any real substantive action in this section.  It’s all response and reaction as he evolves from his given assignment toward his destined one.

Here in Part 2 we’ll be looking for two primary elements – the first Pinch Point, which should occur precisely in the middle of this quartile, and how the film ramps up to and executes the Mid-Point milestone, which occurs near the middle-point of the entire story.

There are only 16 scenes in Part 2, compared to 30 in Part 1.  And yet Part 2 eats up nearly the same amount of storytelling time, nearly 40 minutes, very close to it’s target of 25 percent of the total running time.  So far everything is in near-perfect proportion in terms of length.

You’ll recall that the First Plot Point was Jake being told by Neytiri that he was special, a chosen one, as indicated by the glowing seeds from the Tree of Souls landing all over his avatar body, as if to anoint him as such.  Prior to that he was a spy with a deadly agenda, but from that point forward we (the viewer) know that his journey will be quite different.   

You could argue that the First Plot Point was a bit earlier (which would be more in line with perfect timing for it) when Neytiri shows up to save him.  Cameron isn’t here to break that tie, but it doesn’t matter – what is clear is that over the course of these three to four scenes where Jake first encounters Neytiri, everything about the story changes. 

Plot Points are like that.  They can be subtle, and they can sometimes be the sum of a sequence of related scenes that turn the story on its ear.

Jake emerges from this scene with a sense that something has shifted, but he’s less clear about this than we are.  The story’s response-mode going forward, then, becomes the dramatization of how Jake comes to realize it, too. 

The story really begins right here. 

Jake follows Neytiri back to Hometree, the primary camp and meeting place for the Na’vi tribe.  Along the way he is again rescued by Neytiri, this time from a band of Na’vi brothers led by Tsu-tey, who has an eye for Neytiri and is immediately threatened by Jake’s presence (an additional antagonistic force blocking Jake’s path).

The next two scenes depict Jake’s tension-filled introduction to the tribal elders, who because of the possibility that he is a chosen one (those glowing seeds again), they decide to give Neytiri a chance to train him instead of killing him on the spot. 

It’s all pure response-mode.  Jake is just along for the ride at this point.

We then quickly cut back to Corporate with Jake in his human body, where Grace tells everyone about Jake’s success, followed by a key scene in which the Security Chief tells him that things are heating up.  They’ve determined that the richest vein of unobtainium (the $20 million per ounce bounty in this story) resides directly beneath the tribe’s Hometree camp, which means Jake needs to either talk them into leaving or get out of the way as they bulldoze them into oblivion.

The stakes just got even bigger.

He has three months to get that done. 

Jake says he’s up for it, but the viewer can tell he’s already having second thoughts.  This is a visual cue, something a novelist would have to show with clever phrasing relative to his dialogue in this scene.  Either way it’s just storytelling, and it’s necessary exposition to further the plot at this juncture.

What happens next is a four minute montage of intercut scenes showing Neytiri training Jake in the tribe’s ways.  Jake narrates this evolution from an outsider to a quick-study warrior who is quickly earning the respect of the tribe, and most of all Neytiri.

It’s wall-to-wall response mode, with very little else in play other than a growing sense that Jake needs to, and is about to, shift his priorities.

The First Pinch Point

Remember that the mission of the Pinch Points, which occur precisely in the middle of Parts 2 and 3 (at about the 37^th and 62^nd percentile) is to remind the audience – not necessarily the hero – what the stakes are and what the primary antagonistic element in the story is all about.  To bring the essential core conflict of the story back to center stage.

The first scene following the montage is Jake debriefing the Chief, giving him the layout of the Na’vi camp in preparation for an impending attack.  But we can tell Jake is having second thoughts – he’s done his job too well, since now he’s far more a Na’vi in spirit than he is the minion of this muscle-bound sadist.

The next scene is the Pinch Point, occurring precisely where it needs to. 

Grace realizes the Chief is about to put the hammer down, and she isn’t about to allow him to ruin her progress in negotiating a peaceful settlement with the Na’vi.  She knows the Chief intends to shut her down, including the piloting of avatar bodies.  It’s time to get serious with these savages.  But she won’t let that happen.

So the scientists and avatar pilots move to a remote mountain lab, already outfitted with links for continued consciousness-transfer into avatar pilot-mode for the purpose of allowing Grace and Jake to complete a peaceful agreement that will save the Na’vi.

This commences a series of quick, visceral scenes in which we see Jake bonding with his Na’vi brothers, learning to break and then fly a banshee, a near-death encounter with the Great Toruk (the B-1 bomber of banshees), and Grace’s initial explanation of the significance of the Tree of Souls (foreshadowing).

The series ends with Jake completing his first successful hunt, pronounced by Neytiri as a “good kill,” which means he has now internalized the spiritual connection between all creatures and creations on Pandora, which cuts to the heart of the film’s thematic intentions, while also forecasting the ultimate conclusion. 

Jake is one of them now.

Over the course of these scenes Jake realizes he’s fully emotionally invested in his Na’vi life.  It is here where he fully realizes he has to change teams.

The Mid-Point scene occurs precisely where it should, at the 78-minute mark in the film (do the math, the total running time is 156 minutes).  This isn’t a coincidence.  This is James Cameron showing a command of story structure.

The scene is a celebration at Hometree in Jake’s honor to welcome him to the tribe in an official capacity.  Even Tsu-tey has come around, and anyone looking closely can see that Jake and Neytiri are hot for each other.  Sexual hijinks will soon ensue.

How does this fulfill the mission of the Mid-Point milestone?

Because it alters the context of the story.  Prior to this moment Jake was officially a spy for the Corporation that intends to get the Na’vi out of their way.  After this scene, though, Jake is no longer that solider.  He is now a Na’vi in his heart and soul. 

Welcome to Part 3, wherein Jake leaves his reactionary ways behind and swings into proactive attack mode, just as the principles of story structure say he should.

Next up – Deconstructing Part 3 of Avatar (the second half of the film’s Second Act), leading up to the Second Plot Point.

If you’d like to learn about the principles of story structure so you can get more from this series, click here for information about my ebook, Story Structure – Demystified.

If you’d like to learn more about the techniques of characterization, and how the arc of your characters should relate to story structure, click here to learn more about my newest ebook – The Three Dimensions of Character – Going Deep and Wide to Create Compelling Heroes and Villains.

Deconstructing Avatar: Act II (The First Half Up to the Mid-Point) is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

An Analysis of a Two Billion Dollar Story in Context to Accepted Structural Modeling

In the first post in this series we analyzed the first 19 of the 30 scenes that comprise Avatar’s opening act, or in novelist terms, Part 1 of the story. 

If you’re doing that math, you’ve already red-flagged this, and are likely composing an email to me that reminds me that 19 isn’t half of 30.  But from another and more appropriate standard, the math works: the first 19 scenes consume nearly 24 minutes of screen time, and the first act ends (at the First Plot Point) at 42 minutes of screen time.

So let’s call it half and move on.

Thus far James Cameron has set this story up according to the principles of story structure – we’ve met our hero, we see where he’s coming from, what his current situation is (most notably, in a wheelchair), what this new world is about, and who he’ll be working with.  We’ve also foreshadowed the coming drama through the set-up of a cold-hearted corporation looking to strip-mine Pandora, even if it means massacring the local citizens, the 9-foot tall and very blue-tinged Na’vi (pronounced Navee).  

And then, roughly in the middle of this opening act (Part 1) at scene 19, we get our first information about Jake’s forthcoming journey when the resident bad guy Security Chief wants him to be his spy as he pilots his avatar body into the Nav’d community.  Officially he’s there to protect head science cheese (Grace, played by Sigourney Weaver) as she tries to negotiate a peaceful settlement, but as far as the Security Chief is concerned, Jake is all about intel and the eventual slaughter of the innocents to come, about which he is already salivating.

Someone unfamiliar with story structure could easily pronounce this plot twist as the commencement of the plot, or even as the first plot point.  Because it appears that Jake now has a purpose and a new quest.

More accurately, this is a foreshadowing of the plot, rather than the commencement of it.

Plot twists are perfectly legit during an opening act, to an extent that the only thing that keeps them from wearing the official Plot Point One nametag is the mere fact that they show up too early.

But the First Plot Point always happens in a well told story at a prescribed place, and too early isn’t it.  It needs to show up somewhere between 20 and 25 percent in to optimize dramatic tension.  

So such preliminary layers of story exposition are just that – a way to infuse the story with stakes as part of the set-up. 

Such foreshadowing and the introduction of stakes are critical to the mission of Plot Point One.

In Avatar, scene 19 (Jake’s marching orders from the Chief) doesn’t define Jake’s real journey in this story, just its contextual starting point.  It’s a twist, perfectly timed and necessary, but it’s not Plot Point One.

The opening act continues with its mission to further set-up the First Plot Point.

Welcome to Pandora

Some books and movies fall into a category called arena stories, in which the environment and/or culture is intended to be a significant part of the attraction and the basis for the story itself. 

A love story can unfold anywhere – in an accounting office, in a Target store, at a freeway rest stop, etc. – but none of those are arenas.  When that love story unfolds in a specific place or culture that is inherently interesting and/or unfamiliar – a funeral home, an insane asylum, flight school, or another planet – then it becomes an arena story because the story will be impacted and empowered by the setting.

Avatar is the poster boy for arena stories.  Everything about the story depends on the setting.  Which is why Cameron takes such pains to set-up the arena as he does.

More Part 1 Exposition

The scenes after Jake’s face-to-face with the Chief takes us on our first helicopter (or the future equivalent thereof) ride over Pandora’s bizarre jungle terrain.  After we land we see a science experiment – critical foreshadowing here, both in terms of plot and theme – in which Grace determines that the plants and trees are all connected by a network of common energy, implying a shared awareness, even a common intelligence, between them.

Then, of course, Jake encounters first one, then another species of hungry special effects beast, the latter of which chases him over one of those killer waterfalls, thus isolating him in preparation for the forthcoming plot point.

Some might believe this to be the plot point, but it’s not.  It’s certainly another plot twist – you can have as many of them as you want, big and small, as long as the critical First and Second Plot Points are where they need to be, and do what they are required to do – but it falls short of defining Jake’s story-related journey sufficiently to qualify. 

Think of a First Plot Point as someone turning 21 years of age.  Big party.  But does that mean that can’t have had any parties when they were 12?  Or 15?  Or 18?  No matter how many parties there were, though, that 21^st birthday means something, it changes everything going forward.

The Pre-Plot Point Ramp-up

Sometimes the arrival of the First Plot Point is sudden and jolting.  Frequently though, you can sense it coming.  The actual Plot Point becomes the culmination of a series of scenes devoted not to foreshadowing and character, but to the mechanics of the Plot Point moment itself. 

Avatar does precisely that.

Grace tries to find Jake in the helicopter, but nightfall is upon them and they must suspend the search.  She fears he won’t survive the night – we already know better – which sets the stage for what happens next.

In the new darkness Jake realizes he’s not alone.  He’s surrounded by a pack of wild dog-like creatures with huge fangs and glistening skin, who are about to make him their dinner.  He fights like the champion warrior we know he is – note that in this scene, and in the prior beast-confrontation scene, Cameron gives Jake some of the most laughable and misplaced dialogue ever; he sounds like a UFC fighter who’s seen The Fast and the Furious too many times – but he isn’t enough for these critters.

Suddenly Jake gets rescued.  Enter the story catalyst, the love interest, Jake’s reason for a new quest.  Her name is Neytiri (played by Zoe Saldana), and she is as beautiful (in a Na’vi sort of way) as she is fierce and courageous.

Neytiri mortally injures one of the beasts trying to rip out Jake’s throat, but instead of comforting Jake she finishes off the animal with a merciful stroke of her knife while in tears about this unnecessary loss (a foreshadowing moment).  She then turns on Jake and basically tells him he’s a child, albeit one with a brave heart.  After a harrowing pursuit through the fantastic Pandora jungle on Jake’s part, she tells him that he shouldn’t be there.

And then something magical happens.  So magical, in fact, that itr becomes the First Plot Point, occurring at about 42 minutes – roughly 27 percent of the total running time, a bit late, but it’s not an exact science –  into the movie.

The First Plot Point of Avatar

Like many First Plot Points, at first blush this one doesn’t seem to be as unexpected or jarring as some of the earlier plot twists.  But it does fulfill the requisite mission of a First Plot Point, and wonderfully so, which, in combination with its placement, make it the unquestioned First Plot Point.

When we see the glowing seeds of the Sacred Tree descend on Jake to perch gently all over his body, this means (according to Neytiri) that Jake is, for lack of a better term, the chosen one, a sort of messiah, a savior to these people.    

Jake, of course, doesn’t get this, but he’s paying attention and realizes things are about to change.

But we get it.  A new journey is about to begin.  One with stakes we already understand.  Jake’s mission as a spy for the Chief now has an obstacle in his new destiny as a savior, however that might take shape, and his new mission to save them has a huge obstacle in the company that wants to squash them like bugs. 

It’s a whole new ballgame. 

Jake must respond by working out who he is and what he wants going forward, juxtaposed against the stakes of having his legs restored and serving the needs of the Company that employs him.

Everything we’ve seen in the prior 42 minutes has been a set-up to empower this moment with meaning and emotion.  To invest the viewer in both Jake and the Nav’d he’s there to save them from the crushing machines of the Company.

The stage is set for a story about spiritualism, environmentalism, profiteering, greed, and love to emerge and evolve.

You can download James Cameron’s script for Avatar here.

If you’d like to learn about the principles of story structure so you can get more from this series, click here for information about my ebook, Story Structure – Demystified.

Deconstructing Avatar – The Second Half of the First Act is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

An Analysis of a Two Billion Dollar Story in Context to Accepted Structural Modeling

Allow me to open with what this is, and what it isn’t.  Actually, the other way around is better.

What this isn’t is a sequential description of the movie on a scene-by-scene basis.  For that you can simply go see the thing in a theater, or download the screenplay from Movieweb for free here.

Or, you can watch the movie online by clicking here.  Not sure it’s completely kosher, but it’s there for you if you have a beefy Intel chip and a bit of patience.

This series will deliver an analysis of how Avatar unfolds in context to what we’ve been studying here on Storyfix about structure, observing how the various criteria and milestones that comprise its parts manifest before your eyes.

Today we’ll look at the first half of  story’s Part 1 segment (one of four structural segments in a well-told story), with specific scenes pointed out for your reference.

To see these principles in play is to not only believe them, but to learn them, as well.

So what are we looking for?

You’ll recall that the first quartile of a story, called the set-up, has a succinct big picture mission to accomplish, along with several specific things to get across.  Many writers get this wrong by forgetting to establish a short list of requisite story context before things get really rolling, plot-wise. 

Which, by the way, happens at a very specific point at a prescribed place in the linear sequence of the story, called Plot Point One.  

The culmination of this opening quartile is that esteemed and venerable Plot Point One, which is arguably the most important moment in the entire story.  When you mess up the most important moment of pretty much anything in life, you’re in big trouble, and storytelling is no exception.

We’ll check in on all of this with Avatar, with an emphasis on understanding how, specifically, the film meets the various all-important Part 1 criteria.

Or not.

Bridging the Movie-Novel Storytelling Gap

There’s always a debate as to whether screenwriting and novel writing are in fact different expressions of the same storytelling skillset and model.

I say they are – I engage in both – but we must also recognize the differences between the end products, if not the processes.  Especially when using one or the other in a deconstruction exercise like this one.   

The primary difference for our purpose here, among several other differences, involves defining what a “scene” means in either form.

What would be easily rendered as a single scene in a novel is often delivered as a sequence of shorter scenes and cutaways in a film.  What the novelist can easily reference as a side-thought becomes a series of visual shifts on the screen – a cut or an edit, if you will – something the movie viewer assimilates as naturally as a reader comprehends exposition from the page.

The first four “scenes” from Avatar make this point clear. 

The Opening Hook

Our stories need to open with something that snares the interest of the reader on a conceptual level.  To literally make them want more, to ask questions and seek answers.

Avatar opens with a sequence of four scenes (slightly over three minutes) that are bridged with a voiceover from Jake Scully, our hero, as he travels from some obscure jungle location to the planet Pandora to take his dead brother’s place in a fantastic and ambitious scientific experiment.

It is the voiceover that launches this story, the visuals serving only as a sort of postcard illustration of the jungle in which he was injured, his awakening after five years of suspended animation in space, a cutaway to an exterior shot of the spaceship and the destination planet and its moon, Pandora, and a flashback to the day Jake was recruited at his brother’s cremation.

In a novel this could easily have been one seamless scene of narrative recollection and introduction. 

What’s more important to notice here, though, is that the hook is solidly in place in the first three minutes for a 156 minute story.

In three minutes we learn who Jake was (a Marine), who he is today (a wheelchair bound ex-warrior mourning his brother), where he is going (Pandora), and a quick and juicy glimpse of why (to take his brother’s place in an experiment).

But it’s what we don’t know that’s just as intriguing.  We have no clue what this experiment is all about, and yet, we absolutely want to know more about it and this new world that will be Jake’s new lease on life.

Hooked.

Conceptual and Character Introduction

Two of the missions of Part 1 of a well told story are to introduce the conceptual landscape, as well as the current life and world view of the hero.  The next 14 scenes (out of 30 in Part 1) do nothing other than those two things.

Actual plot exposition takes a backseat to defining this world and the essence of the concept.  The first real “plot” moment comes just as Jake is exiting the shuttle upon his arrival, when we see huge arrows protruding from the massive tires of an earth-moving vehicle that nearly runs us over.  It’s quick, and it foreshadows (part of the Part 1 mission) the promise of hostile locals wielding low technology.

We hear a briefing from the evil Security Chief about how dangerous this place can be, and how primitive the locals are (scene 7). 

Along with Jake, we see what’s going here – he and another new recruit will be “pilots” of Avatar bodies grown from conjoined human and local (they’re called the Naveed) DNA, yielding 9-foot tall creatures that bear an eerie resemblance to the human whose DNA resides in its cells crossed with a marine reptile.

By using coffin-like pods as an electronic linking post, the “pilot” transfers his consciousness into the body of his or her Avatar body, giving them complete control – literally a physical presence inside that body – over it, while maintaining their very human intellect, language and deductive powers. 

Sort of like putting on an Avatar Halloween costume, which we are sure to see next October ad nauseam.

This goes on for 17 minutes.  We meet Grace, the head scientist chain-smoker resident grouch, grossly over-written.  We meet the corporate scumbag who commands a mining enterprise seeking to extract a mineral called “unobtainium,” which despite its ironic name is worth $20 million per kilogram, or about what J-Lo’s wedding ring is worth.  We see all the cool technology at hand, a real fan-boy videogame fantasy come to glorious life.

By the 20 minute mark –precisely halfway through Part 1 of the story – we’ve come to know Jake, we understand what he believes to be his purpose, we’ve met his peers and his boss, we’ve met both bad guys, and we’ve been seduced by the visual tapestry and special effects (the equivalent of the writer’s voice in a novel), and we’ve seen our first real Avatar clone up close and personal.

James Cameron knows it’s time to give us something new and scary to chew on.

Break Out the Stakes

Scene 19, at the 20 minute mark (which shows you how many quick flashes of story narrative have been delivered, and at what pace), the story gets serious for three all-important minutes. 

It’s a milestone scene, easily mistaken for a – perhaps The – plot point had it been in the proper place, which it isn’t.  This is just a killer plot twist.

One of the important missions of Part 1 of a well-told story is to introduce and invest us in the stakes of the story.  Not just for the hero, in this case, but for the antagonistic force (the “company”) as well.

In this scene Jake comes across the linebacker Security Chief as he’s bench pressing twice his body weight in a make-shift gym next to all the cool machines, which is where all the future guys will undoubtedly workout.  As they talk the steroid-infused guy moves from the bench to take the helm of a giant robot straight out of Transformers, all the while informing Jake that they are kindred spirits, warrior brothers, who are both different and superior to all those science pukes looking to sing Kumbahya with the locals.  Jakes role as an Avatar will be to provide security for Grace as she continues her attempt to strike a peaceful accord with the Naveed, but that’s only for looks.  The Chief has something much more interesting in mind.

Jake’s real mission, says the Chief, is to be his eyes and ears, and to feed him information about the locals that can be used when it’s time to drop the hammer on them.  If he succeeds, the Chief promises, he’ll make sure Jake gets his legs back.  Literally. 

It seems the medical technology has evolved by this time (2058) to fix such physical injuries, but the costs are prohibitive on a G.I. disability bill.

Jake now has purpose.  He has stakes in that purpose.  And because he’s a nice kid, we care about him and these stakes.  We also may already care about the poor Naveed, who are surely to be the victims of these profiteering corporate types. 

This, in combination with our previously established fascination with this world, buries the hook even further.  Because we are beginning to care.

The Big Picture Context of Part 1

As a writer, it’s critical to understand where we are in this narrative sequence. 

On one level the story is well underway, but when you look closer with a writer’s informed sensibility, you see that it’s all just part of a long set-up.  That the real story hasn’t really started at all.

You know that won’t happen until Plot Point One arrives, at which time things will change, and dramatically.  You know that you’ve been given pieces of information about the story to come, most notably the stakes for Jake’s continuing along a prescribed path.

But in a story this complex – not because of the dramatic premise, but because of the requisite rules of the universe being created here, without which the viewer would be lost – there is much more setting-up to do.

Sixteen more minutes of set-up, in fact.  We have new characters to meet, a deeper understanding of the concept to absorb, and a lead-up to some serious drama that culminates in the arrival of the Plot Point One that will indeed change everything, and according to the structural rules of great storytelling.

To watch the Avatar trailer and other interviews and fan clips, visit YouTube here.

In our next post, we complete the Part 1 analysis of Avatar, including a detailed breakdown of Plot Point One and what it means, juxtaposed against the rigid criteria for this all-important story milestone.

If you’d like to learn about the principles of story structure so you can get more from this series, click here for information about my ebook, Story Structure – Demystified.

Deconstructing Avatar – Part 1 of the Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

My wife’s gonna kill me.

After sitting at the computer yesterday for six hours proofing my new characterization ebook (coming next week, or thereabouts), I owe her better.  She’s become my much appreciated typo Nazi, and when you see a typo here (which you do, and all too frequently), it’s because I’ve written the post in the middle of the night while she’s sleeping like a kitten.

But that kitten has a whip when she sees a typo here.  It’s pre-dawn as I write this, so it won’t have her stamp of approval, and while I’ll do my best before I hit the “Publish” button, I really do suck at proofing. 

But I owe you, too.  I’m excited about the forthcoming series of Avatar deconstruction posts, which begin tomorrow, and would like to share a few preliminary thoughts.

Why Deconstruct Avatar, or any other story?

James Cameron’s little sci-fi flick has chalked up over two billion dollars in revenue in less than two months.  That’s a juggernaut by any standard, and whether you like the genre or not, as writers we should strive to understand why it works.  Or not.

Many will argue that this success has little to do with the storytelling.  And granted, the visual presentation is unprecedented and off-the-charts stunning in both 2-D and 3-D.  A couple of Storyfix readers have told me that they’re looking forward to this deconstruction because they’ve heard there’s not a story there at all, that it’s all about special effects. 

Which, for me, makes the analysis all the more intriguing.  Not to prove anyone wrong, but to make the point that you can’t grab that kind of audience without a great story.

After going deep into it (while my wife was proofing the ebook yesterday I was busy watching Avatar online – a pirated version, I’m sure… I could hear a baby crying in the background the whole time), I began to appreciate the story in a new way.  The writing gets clunky in several places, but the core story is mythic, classic, even Biblical, and it obviously works. 

Story structure is a model that sounds almost too theoretical.

But when you see it in action, the clouds part and the storytelling sky turns a glorious blue.  The best way to get it is to see it in action.

That’s why I’m deconstructing this movie for you.  And it’s why I’ll be doing more of that on a regular basis.

The Movie vs. Book Delta

That’s engineering-speak for difference.  You haven’t lived until you’ve sat in a conference room full of engineers flinging that word around.  And you thought delta was an airline.

The first caveat is that movies break what would be a single scene in a book into several visual cuts that play like separate scenes.  The opening of Avatar does that, connecting them all with a first-person voiceover.  At a glance it seems like about five seperate scenes, including a flashback, but in a book it’d all be one narrative scene.

I’ll present it to you as it appears on the screen, but it’s important to grasp this difference.

Another caveat is that the story is 156 minutes long, meaning each of the four parts — and there absolutely are four parts — takes about 40 minutes.  Cameron understands that this story requires a rich set-up, so his first plot point happens at 41 minutes in, a little on the long side.

It reminds me that the standards of length in story structure are just guidelines, and that if you pack enough rationale into any violation of those rules it can still work.  Especially if your name is James Cameron.

So here we go.  Get ready to see a breakdown of Avatar from a writing perspective, with an analysis not only of structure, but also of characterization and the writing itself.

This form of analysis for both movies and books — it’s all story — is, in my opinion, the most productive self-training a writer can engage in.  But it only works when you view stories from an informed perspective, that you know what to look for and can recognize it (or the lack of it) when you see it.

There are plenty of posts here on Storyfix to deliver that ramp-up.  And, if I might say, an ebook, too.

See you tomorrow with the first Deconstructing Avatar post.

Gonna go make coffee for my wife now.  The kitten stirs.

(Postscript: found two typos in the feed version — betting you did, too – and five smaller clunkers after reading it as distributed.  All changed now.  The kitten never saw it and the coffee is hot, so all is well here in Storyfixer land.  God I love that woman.)

Deconstructing Avatar – A Quick Friday Preview is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com