Latest / Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast / IFH 748: Screenwriter's Guide to Plotting Stories & Theme with K.M. Weiland

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IFH 748: Screenwriter's Guide to Plotting Stories & Theme with K.M. Weiland · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Indie Film Hustle
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  Podcast, Episode number seven forty eight. The beautiful part about writing is that
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  to order it, just head over to www. Dot filmbiz book dot com.
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  That's film bizbook dot com. Now, guys, today on the show,
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  we have returning champion author and writer Katie WiLAN And she has written some
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  of the best books on writing and characters in the marketplace today. The last
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  episode I had with her was talking about character arcs, talking about her book
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  Creating Character Arcs, The Masterful Arthur's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, and it
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  was easily one of the most downloaded episodes I have ever had. Of the
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  Bulletproof Spirit on a podcast, so when her new book came out, I
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  had to have her on now. Her new book is writing your Story's Theme,
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  The Writer's Guide to plotting stories that matter. And theme is that mysterious
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  cousin of plot and character, and it's too often viewed as abstract rather than
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  actionable, and theme is frequently misunderstood and left up the chance. Many screenwriters
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  insist on not even thinking about theme when they're writing their stories, and this
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  is extremely unfortunate because in many ways, theme is story. Theme is the
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  heart and the point of your story. Nothing that important should ever be overlooked.
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  And Katie and I go deep down the rabbit hole and discuss theme,
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  how to create themes from plot and character, why every supporting character and subplot
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  should be enhanced by the theme, how to prevent theme from seeming preachy or
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  on the nose, and so much more so, without any further ado,
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  please enjoy my conversation with Katie Wiland, I'd like to welcome back to the
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  show returning champion, Katie Wiland. How are you doing, Katie? Thanks
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  for having me, of course, thank you for coming back on the show.
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  Your first your first appearance on the show about character arcs was extremely popular.
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  A lot of people really really liked it. A lot of people in
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  the tribe really really liked it. So when I saw that you had a
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  new book out covering theme, of course I had to invite you back to
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  chat about the darks and theme are two of my favorite subjects. So,
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  and you're excited to talk to those and your new and your new book is
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  called Writing Your Stories Theme, Yes, And it just came out a few
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  weeks ago as of this recording. So and it's already number one on like
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  multiple lists on Amazon already and everything. So, yeah, that's very exciting.
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  It's always excited being on Yeah, I remember when I get when you
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  get that little, that little orange thing next like number one bestseller on you,
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  it's like the You're like, oh, that's so nice. It's so
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  nice when you do that. So all right, So, can you define
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  what a theme is the theme of a story is for for the audience?
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  Yeah, So I think that's kind of like why I wrote the book,
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  because I think that there's a lot of ways that we can think about theme,
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  and there are a lot of ways that people approach it. You'll have
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  one person talking about it in this aspect and somebody talking to the other,
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  and there there's a lot of confusion I think because of that, particularly about
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  applying theme, because some of those descriptions are not practical. Some of them
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  are just very abstract. So you can have theme as just like a unifying
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  idea of the story something like that. You can have thematic metaphors in which
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  the story represents something, it's an example of something that is, it's demonstrating
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  from within. But for me, the way that I approach theme, in
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  the way that I have found it most interesting and most practicable, is to
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  think of it to realize that really what it is is the meeting of plot
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  and character, and that, particularly when I was working on the character Arcs
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  book, it became really clear to me that when you're developing character arc,
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  what you're doing is proving your theme. And this is true ultimately, whether
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  people are trying to impose a theme onto the story apart from the character arc
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  or not. What your character undergoes and how he changes with over the course
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  of the story, that ultimately is what your story is about. And whatever.
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  We'll call it a lesson, though I don't really like that because it's
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  very moral of the story ish, but whatever lesson that character is learning,
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  whether it's existential or moral or I mean, it can be very deep or
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  very shallow, but that ultimately is what your story is putting out into the
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  world and what it's positing about our reality. And that ultimately is the theme
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  of the story. So if you can identify that that through line where your
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  black and your character come together, and also like harmonizes this debate we have
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  between plot versus character and which is better because together they come together and they
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  create the theme of the story and this beautiful through line. And then of
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  course there's so much complexity that arises out of that, and how we're then
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  able to, you know, bring in symbolism and bring in all kinds of
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  layers of metaphor to really garnish kind of the theme as we go along,
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  to support the theme if you will. Yeah, well, does every story
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  have a theme? I believe yes, even the bad stories. Well,
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  that's a good question. I think that I've always taken issue with this idea
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  that people will talk about just a story. I think that's totabal on me,
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  because ultimately, one way or another, a story is always saying something
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  about our world. Sometimes it's saying it really well. Sometimes it's not saying
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  it very well at all. I think a big problem with a lot of
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  stories that don't work is they don't really know what they're saying, and so
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  they're just kind of throwing out multiple messages. They're still saying something, but
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  it's not a unified, cohesive and resonant kind of a whole. But yeah,
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  I think every time you put a visual on the screen, every time
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  your character says something, every sentence on the page that's saying something, and
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  within the patterns that arise in a larger work, you're always going to have
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  a theme, whether it's well executed or not. So can we can I
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  can I do like a couple of rapid fire movie title and see if you
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  can decipher a theme for me, just like off the top, if you
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  see, I'm gonna try to choose some very popular wars. So any of
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  the Indiana Jones is like, what is the theme of Indiana Jones because he's
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  one of the more famous characters in cinema history. Yeah, So Indiana Jones
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  is interesting because he is a character that is typically seen not to have a
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  character arc you know, he's very very bond exactly exactly. It's very episodic.
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  I mean that's the way it was designed to be, as like the
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  old serial shows. A long time since I've seen those movies, I would
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  say the first one, we definitely can see themes of responsibility in the end,
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  in the climax, we see how the bad guys, the Nazis,
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  are disregarding the the arc of the Covenant and are not respecting the history and
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  the archaeology, and Indy does and Indy survives and they die. So right
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  there, I think even just in that, we have a statement, you
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  know, from the storytellers about what they think, you know, is a
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  truth, and inherent in that is a theme. So the theme is basically,
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  like I think you just said that clear word, it's a statement.
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  So the storyteller is creating a statement for the world to understand through the story
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  that they're writing, essentially, and that's what as a writer you should start
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  thinking about the theme or the statement that you're trying to make through character,
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  which then in terms goes through character plot and then essentially theme. And I
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  think isn't theme essentially character and plot kind of exactly together. Yeah, I
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  think a lot of there's this like misconception I considered a misconception that a lot
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  of it was definitely something that I was taught a lot or read a lot
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  when I was starting out. It was basically like, don't think about your
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  theme, don't write a theme. We'll be right back after a word from
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  our sponsor, and now back to the show, because if you do,
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  one of two things will happen. Either you'll end up with this horrible moral
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  of a story or you'll end up, you know, just trying to hammer
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  this theme into a story and it doesn't fit and it's inorganic. And I
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  think there's a lot of truth to that, But I think once you understand
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  that theme just emerges organically when your plot and your character are working together.
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  So I think it, Yeah, it's really important and amazing when an author
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  has a passionate statement that they want to make. But at the same time
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  I would be liptle cautious of that because you don't want it to end up,
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  you know, being so moralistic that that's all the story is about.
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  And it's the art of story is making the plot and the character arc an
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  external metaphor for the theme. So you could. There are many many stories
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  that never actually say what they're about, they never state what the theme is.
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  But if they're really well done, then just simply through the scenes,
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  the visual scenes, through the characters and their interactions, and ultimately through how
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  the characters have changed and what is decided in the climactic moment of the conflict,
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  the readers and the viewers get it. You know, we see very
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  clearly what is demon I mean, Indiana Jones is a great example because we
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  see it's very visual. We see exactly what is being said in this story
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  or not right exactly, so just so everybody understands listening. So if if
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  you, as if the author, if we lived, then on alternate universe
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  where I think there is a show called the The Man on Top Castle or
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  something like that, where the Nazis won, where the Nazis won, and
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  Indiana Jones then would have been never called Indiana Jones. It would have called
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  the Nazis or just trying to find some archaeological experiments. If that whole concept
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  was switched, where then the bad guys win, the good guys lose,
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  and that's just the way it's supposed to be. That's a statement by the
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  storyteller stating that that's the way the world should be. That's that's what they're
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  trying to put out there into the world. That's the theme of the story.
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  So and then it's up to you to believe it or not. So
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  it almost becomes a propaganda. But propaganda now we're getting into another conversation where
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  propaganda is all about point of view, and the point of view of the
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  Nazis. It's not propaganda. It's a story, but from our point of
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  view is like, that's just essentially propaganda. Yeah, and I think that's
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  a really good example actually about point of view in that you could we could
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  and we have many stories that do not end well that seeming to be positing
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  something that most of us would completely disagree with. But because of the way
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  it's done, you know, it's done with irony, we understand like this
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  this is not like this isn't literally what the filmmaker or the writer is saying,
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  but they're using irony to kind of say the exact opposite, whereas in
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  other stories it's completely on the nose and like, yeah, Nazis are great,
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  that's that's the message, and that is you know, where we get
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  into the whole thing of propaganda. Right, Well, I mean so,
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  I mean, just using a movie like Thumb and Louise, I mean,
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  it does not end happily. I mean they do not. They do not
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  ride off into the sunset. They kind of do, but not in the
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  way that we normally. And I think that was also a beautifully twist that
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  they did. They literally did ride off into the sunset, but unfortunately spoiler
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  alert off a cliff. So, but the themes in that movie are so
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  powerful and and and that story are so powerful and so it's and it's I
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  mean, it is pretty on the nose. I don't know, how would
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  you like, I mean, im assuming you've seen Thumb on Louise. Oh,
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  yeah, it's it's on the nose, but it's it's not though,
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  I don't know, what do you think? Well, I was going to
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  say that I think that it's much easier to do themes that are not on
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  the nose when they don't end happy happy. It's not to say happy endings
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  don't work or aren't resonant, but when everything works out, you know,
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  when the hero is the shining night of truth and he's completely rewarded for this,
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  it doesn't resonate it doesn't ring true. And so I think in a
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  movie like Thelma and Louise, which ends tragically, there's this resonance because there's
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  also there's also a triumph. There's also a heroism in the way it ends,
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  because they they end in alignment with the story's truth, even though it
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  also is you know, the end of their lives and therefore tragic end the
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  story. So but I think that's that's a really important point. Actually,
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  it's not that you can't end happy endings. We all love happy endings,
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  but it's important that the happy ending when you if that's what you're doing,
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  is earned, that the character, whether they you know, have represented the
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  thematic truth throughout the story or they've come to it in the end, that
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  it hasn't been easy, because I think we all resonate with that because in
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  our own lives it's not easy, and we kind of resent it when the
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  hero is just like everything's just super easy for him, and then he can
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  shake his finger at us in the end and say, see that was the
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  truth. Everybody should do this, and we resent the authors is what we
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  resent when that happens. And that and that, and I'll use one of
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  the movies I bring I bring this movie up a lot because it's such a
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  powerful story, a very popular story, not powerful, but very popular story
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  in the zeitgeist of the world. Right now are the Avengers in the whole
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  Marvel universe where I'm assuming did you see the Last Avengers, the big the
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  Endgame one? Okay, so you know, And again, if no one's
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  seeing it, please stop the recording because I'm going to give you a couple
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  of spoiler alerts here. But the end of that movie, it could so
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  easily just been a normal the good guys beat up the bad guys. There's
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  no there's no risk, there's no no loss, no nothing. But yet
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  in that they they created not only a little loss, massive loss where Tony
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  Stark essentially sacrifices himself because the obstacle was so large that someone had to die,
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  and that made that resonate so much more than everyone sitting around eating scharma
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  at the end of the movie, which we're work fined for the first Avengers,
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  but not so much for the last one because they had built it up
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  over ten someone had to die in order for this to work. So would
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  you agree, Yeah, totally. I was really psyched that basically, they
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  brought the story to an end, you know, even though it's hopefully supposedly
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  it's going to continue in other movies. They brought that story to an end.
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  And that's something that I find is very problematic in serial fiction, whether
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  it's you know, TV series that just go on and on and on,
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  or things you know potentially like the Marvel universe, there's no end, and
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  if there's no end, there's no there's no meaning ultimately, because they're not
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  saying this is what the story is about. And also it's really hard,
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  like you say, to ramp those stakes and say this matters if there isn't
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  an end and there aren't consequences. So yeah, that was something I mean
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  that series as a whole big Marvel fan, but I mean it was,
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  like you say, it had its problems. It wasn't a seamless presentation by
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  any means. But I was very happy and very impressed with what they did
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  by bringing it full circle in that final story in a lot of ways,
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  first and foremost for bringing it to an end, but also I just thought
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  it was just fantastic how they brought it for full circle, how the beginning,
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  the very first movie, we go all the way back to Iron Man.
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  It ends with him saying I am Iron Man, and then we get
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  it come all the way to the end and it means something completely different.
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  In the beginning, it's totally egoic. In the end, it's totally self
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  sacrificial. So I thought that was very powerful, a very powerful example of
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  why we need to bring stories to an end. And also, I mean,
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  and we want to talk about thematic. I mean, well, comic
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  books is specifically the Marvel comic book characters. They are I mean, the
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  themes are so I mean, Stan you know, God at Rest in Peace
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  has created some of the most memorable characters in human history essentially, and but
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  their themes are extremely powerful, and I think that's one of the things that
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  resonates so powerfully with with people around the world, every one of those And
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  it's not stories that have themes, but I feel that the characters have theme
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  more because there's a theme attached to Spider Man and to Hulk and to Fantastic
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  Four and to X Men. X Men is racism and being a loner and
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  standing out. Spider Man is being a young kid just trying to figure things.
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  Hulk is obviously Anger Fantastic four is family issues, but they're themes associated
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  the character. Can you attach themes to characters? I mean obviously you can,
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  but you what's your take on that? Yeah, And I think that's
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  actually that's a great way to bring it back to plot and character because and
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  honestly, the whole Marvel if we look at the whole Marvel cinematic universe,
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  you know, through that story arc, there's a bazillion different plots going on.
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  Everybody's got their own plots. You know, every movie's got its own
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  plot. And really, at the end of the day, it's not the
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  plots we remember, you know. We we don't think about, oh,
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  that was such a great plot in in you know, that particular movie,
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  because most of them weren't. A lot of the plots were very problematic in
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  a lot of the movies, Like I could remember, Like when you said
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  that, I'm like, which are the plots I remember? Like Winter Soldier
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  was really good. Winter Soldiers probably one of the best. And there's like
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  a handful of like plots that I remember, But I don't remember the plots
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  as much. Yeah, you remember the characters. And I think that it's
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  exactly because theme is so rooted in character and the story, the series works
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  as a whole, overarching because that does have a plot that has a unifying
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  plot in which everything kind of works together with Thanos as the antagonist, which
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  is another good point about how antagonists pull together the plot, which is why
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  a lot of the individual movies had their problems with plot. But yeah,
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  it's the characters. Theme is inherent in the character arc. It's inherent in
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  the the internal conflict between thematic lies and truths that happen on a character level.
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  We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
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  the show. And you can stick, you know, themes onto the surface
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  of a plot and say, this plot is about why war is evil or
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  whatever. But if it's not happening inside of the character, if you're not
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  just feeling that struggle, then you're really going to struggle to execute a meaningful
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  theme that is going to resonate with with viewers or readers. Now, what
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  is the the thematic principle? Okay, thematic principle is basically a term for
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  any iteration of theme that you find in your story. So it's the unifying
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  idea though when you are trying to figure out what is my theme, and
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  you're you know, looking at like, well, it's kind of about this,
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  and it's kind of about that. The thematic principle is going to be
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  your through line. So that is something that once you identify it, which
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  once you identify what is at the heart of specifically the protagonist's character development,
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  that is going to become the thematic principle for the story and is something that
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  you can then kind of use as a plumb line to measure all the other
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  little elements and decide is this working, is this supporting the theme, is
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  it proving the theme, or is it just kind of extraneous and really telling
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  a different story altogether. Now, how do you prevent theme from becoming a
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  little bit on the nose or preachy, because that, I mean, we've
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  all seen movies or read books that are a little bit on the nose,
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  a little bit like, stop preaching to me so much and just tell me
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  a story. I think it's a good question because I mean, so many
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  of us, you know, if we're interested in theme at all, it's
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  probably because we really are passionate about certain topics and we want to be able
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  to comment on them. Or share our views in some degree. And honestly,
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  that's a tricky thing to do in the medium of fiction because when you
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  are on the nose, when you say this is the way it is,
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  this is what I think and you should think it too, it never goes
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  well. But I think one of my favorite ways to look at this,
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  and it isn't explicit, but one of my favorite kind of rules of thumb
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  is to think of it as if stories are not there to answer to provide
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  answers, they're there to ask questions. And I think this is most powerful
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  when the author himself is asking the question, because I mean, we all
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  have our ideas about how we think things should be or how things will turn
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  out if this and this happens. But I think when the author him or
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  herself really inhabits that question, whether they think they know the answer or not,
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  and explores it from within the drama of the story, you know,
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  throws the characters into the plot and lets events start happening. You to really
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  explore that you have to get down on the grind own and get down and
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  dirty and really question your own beliefs about things. Otherwise the characters do not
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  ring true and I've always said that if you don't, like, you're not
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  almost convinced by your antagonist's point of view, then you're not writing him write
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  and your theme is probably going to come across very one sided. I think
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  the most powerful themes are the ones where the protagonist and to some degree the
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  author and to some degree the readers have a serious question about what about the
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  worldview that's being presented? Is this working? You know, is this really
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  how it's going to be because of the sacrifices that are involved and the moral
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  gray areas and all of that. I think Sam Raimi's speaking of Marvel.
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  I think Sam Raimi's versions of his original two Spider Man movies first to get
• 23:48
  a really really great job of this really explored the consequences of heroism and responsibility.
• 23:56
  And I mean we really see that even in the second one, where
• 24:00
  Peter's like completely questioning, do I do I even want to be Spider Man?
• 24:03
  The stinks I don't want to do this, And that really flies in
• 24:07
  the face of kind of the surface obvious way to go about, you know,
• 24:11
  being a hero's great, this is awesome if everybody wants to, you
• 24:15
  know, have these powers, right, And I need. That was a
• 24:18
  very powerful exploration of that subject. Yeah. I mean, because you're right,
• 24:22
  because everybody's like everybody wants to have powers, but everyone. That's what
• 24:25
  made stand so amazing is that he gave superheroes problems, Like Superman never had
• 24:30
  any you know, like issues with his relationships. You know, at the
• 24:36
  beginning, you know, Batman was pretty wonderment like he's like you know,
• 24:40
  and wonder Woman did dead and Aquaman did that. But when you got into
• 24:42
  the Marvel, I mean you got Spider Man who had pimples and was dealing
• 24:45
  with you know, being a nerd at school, like oh, like everybody
• 24:48
  else that's dealt with at one point in their life or another, and gave
• 24:52
  it and giving those problems. That's I think what made those characters so they
• 24:56
  resonate so much even to this day. And that's why I guess the popularity
• 25:02
  of the MCU so much is because even the crazy even like ant I mean
• 25:06
  ant Man, like you know, Guardians of the gal Like when ant Man
• 25:08
  and Guardians of the Galaxy came out, I was like, wow, man,
• 25:11
  they are just scraping like the like nobody wants to see an ant Man
• 25:17
  movie, and yet ant man was like an amazing heist film. It was
• 25:22
  just like a fun heist film almost. It was just it's it's it's remarkable.
• 25:26
  But you also said something earlier in regards to antagonists bringing together the theme.
• 25:33
  Can you kind of delve into that a little bit more like using let's
• 25:36
  say Thanos as an example, because Santos was such a an overarching he was
• 25:41
  only this the true villain in two two movies, right it was the last
• 25:45
  two Avengers. He was that he was the actual villain where he always was
• 25:48
  kind of like, you know, he was a puppet master for the first
• 25:52
  eight years or something like that, and then he just showed him. He's
• 25:56
  like, well, apparently no one else is gonna get it done, so
• 25:57
  I'll show up and take care of it. But how how does a character
• 26:00
  like thatanals kind of bring together the theme of that whole overarching first ten years
• 26:06
  of the MCU. Well, I think to me, the best entry point
• 26:11
  to that question is really to look at how and the antagonist kind of defines
• 26:15
  the plot. And obviously, as we've been talking about the plot, theme,
• 26:19
  character, they're all they're all three sides of the same thing basically,
• 26:23
  So you can hardly talk about one without talking about the other. But the
• 26:27
  antagonist is as the obstacle that is opposing the protagonist in the story. He's
• 26:34
  what creates the conflict. So no antagonist, no conflict, no story.
• 26:38
  The protagonist just you know, goes straight to finish and gets two hundred dollars
• 26:42
  or whatever. But the antagonist is as we all get that, So,
• 26:48
  yeah, there's a horrible bad guy out there in the distance that we know
• 26:52
  is going to show up and be the big boss in the climax. But
• 26:56
  if that antagonist isn't consistently what is opposing the protagonists throughout the structure of the
• 27:03
  story, then ultimately the story it just I mean, at its best,
• 27:07
  it still kind of works, but it loses that deep cohesion and resonance because
• 27:12
  the protagonist is off doing other stuff. He's you know, dealing with other
• 27:17
  antagonists. And I think we see that again and again in the Marvel movies.
• 27:19
  It's like the antagonist is is kind of the subplot. He's off doing
• 27:23
  whatever shows up for the big battle, and most of the time it's more
• 27:27
  interesting personal problems that are actually the plot of the story. As we like
• 27:32
  Iron Man two immediately comes to mind you were like, I mean, like
• 27:36
  Black Panther had a great antagonyest he has a fan. There's there's a handful
• 27:38
  of really good villains. Very few though, I want to say probably like
• 27:42
  five out of all the movies that were like, Holy cal these are really
• 27:47
  good. I mean, I think Warmonger is actually going to get his own
• 27:49
  spin off movie. Really, I heard. I heard, I heard through
• 27:52
  the geek the geek vine, that that he's actually gonna get his own spin
• 27:59
  off because he was he was just the opposite side of the coin of Black
• 28:03
  Panther, and he arguably was was right and the in regards to what his
• 28:11
  point his world point of view was. Even Black Panther agreed with him.
• 28:15
  He just didn't agree with how he was doing it, but he agreed with
• 28:18
  it. That's what made it so amazing, because the hero is not supposed
• 28:22
  to agree with the point of view of the villain. But yet you're like,
• 28:23
  look, I you're right, you know things were bad, but you
• 28:26
  just can't go around killing people. Yeah. I think that Black Panther is
• 28:30
  actually a good example of kind of both sides of the coin, and that
• 28:36
  structurally it struggled with the antagonist a little bit. It had some issues with
• 28:40
  the antagonist being there throughout the story and being you know, he kind of
• 28:42
  doesn't show up until I want to say, like halfway through almost really like
• 28:45
  he's because they had the build they had to set up. Yeah, they
• 28:48
  had to kind of set everything up right anyway. But he's also a great
• 28:51
  example of what I was saying about how we need to be almost convinced by
• 28:56
  the antagonist's point of view, and when that happens, you get that really
• 29:00
  is like the generator of all of this potential for amazing change within the protagonist,
• 29:04
  And when the protagonist starts changing or any character, but particularly the protagonist,
• 29:08
  that's where then is generated because it can't help but just spontaneously emerge from
• 29:15
  what's happening from the events in the story. Well, yeah, like I
• 29:18
  mean, Thanos's point of view is like, look, everything's overpopulated. We
• 29:22
  need to we need to thin the herd. I mean again, rough conversation
• 29:26
  to have do we agree with the concept of like, yeah, all the
• 29:32
  resources are being taken away and there are too many you know, creatures in
• 29:34
  the world, in the universe and things like that, But you can't just
• 29:37
  kill everybody with the snap of a finger. So the point of view is
• 29:41
  it's like, it's not That's what I think. Always find a good villain
• 29:45
  to be in a good theme for a villain is is the the twisting of
• 29:48
  the mustache character. Oh, they're just horrible, They're just like, oh,
• 29:52
  he's just being bad because there's no point. I've just been We've been
• 29:56
  watching a lot since we've been locked up. Will be right back after a
• 30:00
  word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. A lot of
• 30:08
  old movies again, a lot of old shows again, and and when you
• 30:12
  see a villain, you're like, oh, that villain has no point of
• 30:15
  view, and it's the whole movie dies, the whole the whole story falls
• 30:21
  apart when the when the there's no real strong point of view. But when
• 30:25
  the villain does have the strong and you're right, theme just kind of just
• 30:27
  just flourishes right out of that because it has to there is no other way.
• 30:32
  It has to be there. Yeah, it's like the protagonist, you
• 30:34
  know, comes in and says, you know, this is the right way
• 30:37
  to do it, and then as soon as the antagonist comes up with a
• 30:40
  convincing argument, why that's not so, it's just the protagonist is kind of
• 30:42
  like, oh, well, plan B, I guess if there is no
• 30:47
  Plan B, And so then all of a sudden there's like genuine you know,
• 30:52
  character development, story development, unexpected, you know, original events that
• 30:56
  come out of that, because it is so genuine in in that the author
• 31:02
  or the storytellers are really you know, having that discussion with themselves like,
• 31:07
  oh well, maybe maybe my hero is not as right as I thought he
• 31:11
  was. What does that mean? And all kinds of interesting things come out
• 31:12
  of that, absolutely absolutely Now Thematically a film series and a character like James
• 31:18
  Bond, James original James Bond pre Daniel Craig, what is the theme of
• 31:25
  those movies? You know, woman eyes, drink a lot of alcohol and
• 31:30
  then just kill people in distract in describability, like like, yeah, I
• 31:34
  haven't seen any of the ones before Daniel Craig, but of course I'm familiar
• 31:37
  with the gist of them. I don't know. Yeah, see that,
• 31:42
  That to me is an example of every story has a theme, but just
• 31:48
  because it's saying something doesn't necessarily mean that it's having a positive influence on the
• 31:55
  world, right Because James, because James Bond, honestly before Daniel Craig Daniel
• 31:59
  once because you of course, I always consider Concino Royal probably the best James
• 32:01
  Bond movie in my personal opinion. Yeah, I really like that. I
• 32:05
  mean it's just it's a masterpiece in that genre. But he was a character,
• 32:10
  he had a character arc. James Bond never had a character arc before,
• 32:15
  like you know, Sean Connery's car, you know, and Pierce Bras
• 32:17
  and they were the same dude from the beginning to the end. They never
• 32:21
  really changed. They just kind of went along. Not even the people around
• 32:24
  them changed. I mean maybe some of the female toys that he used along
• 32:30
  the way, like the Bond Girls, which is so out of date,
• 32:32
  but that for the time that it came out, it was it was it.
• 32:36
  But you go back and thinking, like, this is not a message
• 32:39
  that kind of resonated. Now, if you just forget all about the message,
• 32:44
  just enjoy the ride, then I get it. It's a ride and
• 32:47
  you're going along. The good guy's going to stop the bad guy. But
• 32:51
  it's not really deep. Yeah, and I think that's fine to a point.
• 32:58
  But that's why I say there's no such things, just a story,
• 33:00
  because anything that you're bringing into your environment that is becoming a part of your
• 33:05
  own view of the world and your own reality that's changing you in some way
• 33:09
  or another. You know, whether you're it could be conscious, it could
• 33:13
  be not. So I think that's a great example. I haven't seen those
• 33:16
  movies, so I'm not I can't directly comment on them. I've only seen
• 33:20
  the Daniel Craig Winz. But I think it's a great example of how mindless
• 33:24
  entertainment is never actually harmless entertainment. There's always something that is affecting your view
• 33:31
  of the world. You know, you're absolutely right, because like mindless video
• 33:37
  games and things like that, people are like, it could get video games
• 33:40
  or stories and we're telling a story. With the video games, you're just
• 33:44
  performing the story yourself. But a lot of times those stories and those kind
• 33:47
  of mindless movies or mindless shows, there's something coming through it. Sometimes it's
• 33:54
  not good, and it does have an effect on people, whether that be
• 33:58
  ultra violence, whether that be misogyny, eaether it be you know, the
• 34:01
  Nazis, win I mean, you know, any of those kind of things.
• 34:08
  It's as storytellers we have a very big responsibility with especially if you're given
• 34:15
  the platform of and millions and millions of dollars to make a movie or show.
• 34:21
  We have a big responsibility and the creators have a big responsibility to what.
• 34:25
  I love what you alas you've been saying this a couple of times.
• 34:28
  The deposit what are you depositing into? You know, the statement you're making
• 34:32
  you're depositing this into the world's narrative. Now, that's a very powerful statement,
• 34:38
  and I love that you said. I might actually steal that because it's
• 34:43
  it's true every time you tell a story, you're depositing it into the library
• 34:46
  of the human experience that might live for a long time or might just fall
• 34:52
  off to the to the wasteland. But it is extremely important that you know
• 34:57
  that you have that you have this respon ponsibility. Would you agree, Yeah,
• 35:01
  totally. That's something I'm I'm very happy you said that, actually,
• 35:06
  because that's something I'm really passionate about, just in that I think there's so
• 35:13
  much entertainment is so available to us now, and it's so easy for people
• 35:17
  to create it. You know, we're all every and I think that's great.
• 35:21
  I mean, I think storytelling is a deeply important thing for anybody to
• 35:27
  do that it's it's very powerful just on a personal level. Never mind if
• 35:31
  you're actually able to, you know, share that with other people. But
• 35:35
  I think we are able to share what we're creating more and more easily with
• 35:38
  people around us. There's just so many platforms, and it's so easy,
• 35:43
  you know, and easy to you know, get out there and have an
• 35:45
  audience. And most of us do it because it's fun, it's entertaining,
• 35:51
  it's fun, you know, and we just want to We think we just
• 35:52
  want to entertain other people. And that's fine to a point, but I
• 35:57
  do think we have to truly recognize the responsibility of what we're doing. Stories
• 36:02
  are It's one thing to say this is my view of the world. I
• 36:07
  want you to believe it. It's another thing to write a story about it,
• 36:08
  particularly a relatively well crafted story, which ultimately is a subliminal message.
• 36:15
  You know, most people are not conscious of what they are, of the
• 36:17
  truths that they're receiving through stories. If the themes are really well done,
• 36:22
  nobody's saying them, but they're they're just the same. They're being proven,
• 36:24
  you know, through the reality of the story, through the visuals and the
• 36:29
  events. And I believe very strongly that it's deeply important for artists of all
• 36:36
  stripes, but particularly storytellers in this context to recognize that, you know,
• 36:40
  the power is yours to do what you well with, but be conscious of
• 36:45
  it, because there is no such thing as just a story. Even if
• 36:49
  you are the only person who reads it, it's still affecting you. It's
• 36:52
  changing you, and insofar as it changes you, it's going to have a
• 36:55
  ripple effect that changes the world around you. It is arguably one of the
• 37:00
  most powerful things that the human the humans have created. His story, because
• 37:07
  it is a story, can change a person's perspective, point of view.
• 37:14
  It could go bad or it can go good. And that's also relatively speaking.
• 37:19
  Like I always tell people, you know, Hitler didn't wake up every
• 37:22
  morning thinking he was the bad guy. He woke up every morning like I'm
• 37:27
  doing God's work, Like you know, that was that was as a villain.
• 37:30
  You have to think like Darth Vader is not sitting around going I'm so
• 37:35
  bad. No, he had. It's always about a point of view,
• 37:39
  and but it is we as filmmakers have to think that. And I know
• 37:45
  you've probably seen this as well when you read stories by first time writers or
• 37:50
  young writers, that that's not there. They're not thinking that far ahead in
• 37:55
  regards to the story of how this story could actually affect people. They're just
• 38:00
  trying to get a story written. That's hard enough, let alone, Like,
• 38:01
  oh god, you're can throw this responsibility on me now that I have
• 38:05
  to I have to like, oh my god, what I like? I
• 38:07
  have a loaded shotgun and I have them walking around with them like no,
• 38:09
  look, look, yes, but don't worry. You're not going to kill
• 38:14
  anybody with a story, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, But it is a
• 38:21
  responsibility. But you don't see that. And only when you start seeing like
• 38:24
  the master's work, then you start seeing they just weave theme in so effortlessly.
• 38:30
  Character is almost so effortlessly that you just go, Okay. So when
• 38:34
  you start reading Shakespeare, you know that dude, or you start reading you
• 38:40
  know, even current day masters like Stephen King or JK. Rowling and the
• 38:45
  Harry Potter series, like you start looking at the stuff that they did and
• 38:49
  how they wrote it. It's just but the themes just pop so heavily in
• 38:53
  all of those things. Yeah, And I think you use the word master,
• 38:58
  and I think that's the key there is that they've mastered the plot they've
• 39:00
  mastered the character. And because of that, like I say, the theme
• 39:04
  emerges and it's there, and it's so powerful because the stories they're writing are
• 39:08
  so cohesive, they're so resonant. All the pieces are there for a reason,
• 39:15
  and they had I think both Stephen Kingham probably rolling they have. They
• 39:17
  have things they want to say and they say them, you know, well
• 39:22
  they say them, you know, through the honesty of their own stories,
• 39:23
  and that has clearly resonated with billions of people. But yeah, I think
• 39:30
  I think it is perhaps good for writers who are starting out to realize that,
• 39:36
  yeah, you're it's not the weight of the world on your shoulders.
• 39:38
  It's more about just a consciousness just I mean, don't approach it. Approach
• 39:44
  it with fear and trembling, but don't approach it with this you know sobriety.
• 39:47
  Approach it with that same childlike wonder that you had when you were a
• 39:51
  kid and you were making up, you know, probably the stories of greater
• 39:53
  truth than you will ever write as an adult. We'll be right back after
• 39:59
  a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. And it
• 40:07
  was just fun, you know, you were just tapped into it and it
• 40:09
  was fun and exciting, and then I think we kind of we start overthinking
• 40:14
  it as adults. We were like so serious with the responsibility of our adultness
• 40:17
  and how we've got to make sure that everybody else is just as responsible,
• 40:21
  and you know, then we start writing stuff that's on the nose, we
• 40:25
  lose the muse, we lose that childlike innocence. Really, it's not just
• 40:30
  the wonder but the innocence that allows us to ask questions, you know,
• 40:35
  to just step into that story world and look around and see, you know,
• 40:38
  what, what do I think? I don't know. Let's let's find
• 40:42
  out. Let's you know, throw some characters out there and see what happens.
• 40:45
  And maybe by the end, you know, I will have been impacted
• 40:47
  by this more than anybody who reads it. But it's exciting, It doesn't
• 40:52
  it needs to be something that we take seriously. But I definitely think that
• 40:58
  ultimately it's still about having It's still about entering that kind of that dream zone
• 41:02
  and just playing. Absolutely. Now, we talked a lot about character affecting
• 41:08
  theme. How can you use plot specifically, how can we use plot to
• 41:15
  help create our theme? Yeah, So, like I say, plot,
• 41:19
  character theme, they're what I call the Big three. And really, if
• 41:22
  all, if your story is working well, then they are seamlessly, organically,
• 41:27
  even effortlessly, going to be working together. So if your plot is
• 41:30
  working really well, then it's almost certain that your characters and your theme are
• 41:35
  also there. And if something's wrong with your plot, it's probably because something's
• 41:37
  off with one of the other two. But specifically, if you look at
• 41:43
  character arc and how that works over the entirety of the story, you can
• 41:47
  see how deeply tied in it is with plot structure, and you know,
• 41:53
  more or less all plot structure systems are pointing to the same thing, just
• 41:58
  with you know, different perspectives. I specifically use the three act structure,
• 42:01
  and you can just pretty much just overlay you know, a basic character or
• 42:06
  structure onto the plot structure and they interact. You can't have one without the
• 42:09
  other. It's not like the characters off doing his little subplot development. Well
• 42:15
  you know the James Bond action is happening over here, Yeah, because then
• 42:17
  they wouldn't be. But that's also then you wouldn't be the main character,
• 42:22
  you'd be a sub character. Yeah, So it's it's happening together. The
• 42:27
  internal conflict is what is prompting the character to act in the external conflict,
• 42:31
  and then the external conflict is you know, coming back and asking him to
• 42:36
  question within himself what he's doing and why he's doing it. And so it's
• 42:39
  it's from within that the character has certain mindsets and ideas that he wants to
• 42:45
  accomplish, and the plot is then through the conflict, you know, and
• 42:49
  the consequences and the stakes is going to prove one way or the other whether
• 42:53
  the characters you know, initial ideas are true. And from that is where
• 42:58
  fem emerges. So well, can you tell can you talk a little bit
• 43:04
  about the difference between theme and a message, because that is that there's a
• 43:08
  there's a subtleness to that. Yeah. So I think it was Michael Hauga
• 43:13
  who wrote writing screenplays that sell I believe, Michael Hay, Michael Haig,
• 43:17
  Yeah, Michael Hegg Okay, Yeah, So I believe he was the one
• 43:22
  that that differentiated that, or was the first person I'd seen who differentiated theme
• 43:27
  from message, and I thought that was such a keen observation. And the
• 43:31
  way he defines them basically is that theme is a universal principle. It's we'll
• 43:37
  just say, love conquers all something that everybody resonates to, regardless who they
• 43:42
  are, where they live, their their circumstances. Message, however, is
• 43:46
  very specific to the situation within the story. So the message is something that
• 43:52
  is only going to apply to people who are like the protagonist, people who
• 43:59
  are in this situation. You know, like I'm trying to think of something
• 44:05
  that has to do with love conquers All. But you know, in your
• 44:07
  specific love story, right, it's like it only applies to you and your
• 44:12
  partner. It's not something that's necessarily you know, the lessons that you learned,
• 44:16
  and the theme of that isn't something that's necessarily going to apply to all
• 44:21
  people everywhere, even though we all relate to the idea of love, right.
• 44:24
  So I think that's really important because it allows you to play out the
• 44:28
  specifics of a scenario and yet still have something to say to a much broader
• 44:31
  audience. Beauty in the Beast, love Conquers All. I was racking my
• 44:37
  love conkers all un comfort Beauting the Beast perfect, okay there? Yeah,
• 44:40
  And how many of us, you know, have to go through that where
• 44:43
  you're you know, it's the beast and you have to redeem him and you
• 44:45
  know, well, that's pretty specific. That's uh well, I mean arguably
• 44:50
  that is, it's according to my wife. Uh not that not that specific.
• 44:54
  Uh, I mean that's true. That's the beauty of it because it
• 44:59
  is like a premely archetypal story. And yet again the specifics of it,
• 45:04
  you know, particularly in the fairy tale medium, very specific. The message,
• 45:08
  you know is, you know, don't make the fairy mad when she
• 45:12
  comes to your castle, you know, or she's gonna cursey and you're gonna
• 45:15
  have to go through all this. So let's let's let's since we've talked now,
• 45:17
  since we've touched upon the fairy tale. The fairy tale is is these
• 45:22
  stories have been around for hundreds, if not some of them, even thousands
• 45:27
  of hear some of these stories, and they're so archetype. They're so on
• 45:31
  the nose. They're so on the nose. Like beauting the Beast is fairly
• 45:36
  on the nose. There is nothing subtle about beauting the Beast or Little Mermaid
• 45:39
  or Lion King or I'm going through Disney movies now, but but they're they're
• 45:45
  they're very on the nose. They're those themes are such, but those that
• 45:49
  kind of those kind of stories are extremely important to the human condition the whole.
• 45:52
  The love conquers All is a very powerful and important theme that as humans
• 45:59
  we should understand stand or at least have some sort of inkling of what that
• 46:04
  is. These stories, like I always love that George Lucas said this,
• 46:08
  He's like, myth is essentially the meat and potatoes of our society, and
• 46:14
  that's how we pass along the core elements like love conquers all, good versus
• 46:20
  bad, you know, be honest, you know, the boy who Cried
• 46:24
  Wolf. These kind of like very struck these kind of themes. I'd love
• 46:30
  to hear your take on that. On fairy tales and what the power of
• 46:34
  what they do. I am archetypal stories or something else I'm very passionate about,
• 46:40
  and I think I would argue that they are not on the nose.
• 46:44
  I think that they are because they are so metaphor. I mean, they're
• 46:49
  not literal. You know, nobody actually turns into a beast. You know,
• 46:52
  they're not cursed by fairies and turn into a beast. That's a metaphor.
• 46:55
  And therefore, even though the stories are very straightforward and simplistic, in
• 47:00
  some ways, they're not on the nose, simply because they're not literal.
• 47:05
  If you had a good boy criedwoof, you know, if you if that
• 47:09
  was a story where the boy the mother told the boy stop lying, and
• 47:12
  the boy came in, and you know, it's no longer about what's actually
• 47:16
  you know, being dramatized. It's specifically like an in my book, in
• 47:22
  the theme book, I talk about how when I was in middle school,
• 47:25
  I had to read these stories about kids who you know, did kid stuff.
• 47:30
  They had to mow the lawn to earn some money they had, they
• 47:32
  found they found a lost wallet and they had to return it. You know.
• 47:36
  It was like these these little lessons about how to be a good kid,
• 47:38
  you know, and that's all they were. There was nothing about them
• 47:43
  that wasn't literally, this is what you're supposed to do as a kid.
• 47:45
  And I hated them even as a kid. They're so preachy and on the
• 47:51
  nose. But stories, I think, like you know, anything where you
• 47:54
  find that really archetypal element, whether it's fairy tales or our Wars or comic
• 48:00
  books, I think it's because they transcend the literal. Spider Man is just
• 48:07
  a teenage kid who reminds all of us of ourselves at some point in our
• 48:12
  lives. But he has spider powers. You know, that's nothing that any
• 48:16
  of us actually relate to. It's just a metaphor and a hyperbole of our
• 48:22
  own lives. Now we've talked about theme in regard to like I think you
• 48:30
  were talking about, well, that's the concept of love conquers all and certain
• 48:34
  themes within stories. But genre has such a powerful point in regards to theme.
• 48:42
  Whereas there's certain things that you just can't do with theme because of the
• 48:46
  genre they're in, and then sometimes when you can transcend that because then you've
• 48:52
  really hit like get Out is an amazing example of taking the horror genre and
• 48:59
  completely flipping it on his head. Thematically. Yeah, yeah, I think
• 49:05
  genre actually, to me, genre stories are very archetypal. I think the
• 49:08
  essence of genre is archetype. We have most obviously perhaps in the romance romance
• 49:14
  genre, but also in many, many different I mean the very fact that
• 49:17
  there are tropes and there are templates that readers expect you to follow that creates
• 49:22
  an archetype. But most of them are even more deeply rooted in archetype than
• 49:28
  even just modern conventions about the actual genre. So yeah, there are certain
• 49:32
  themes that are inherent in certain genres, love conquers all being an obvious one
• 49:37
  for romance, or the you know, good conquers evil being an obvious one
• 49:42
  for action adventure stories, things like that, And so yeah, I think
• 49:46
  we can see that these are they're archetypal because there's stories that are perennially asking
• 49:52
  the same questions. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and
• 50:01
  now back to the show. Because we say love conquers all or good triumphs
• 50:08
  over evil, But then there's that part of us that has a question,
• 50:13
  you know, like there is a deep part of us that believes in those
• 50:15
  things. But for most of us, there's also a question too, does
• 50:19
  love conquer all? Does good always triumph over evil? And so I think,
• 50:23
  no, yeah, no, no, The answer is because we live
• 50:27
  in the real world exactly, And I think that the really good genre stories
• 50:32
  are the ones that keep asking those same questions over and over in ways that
• 50:37
  give us fresh insights into really are not perennial statements, but are perennial questions
• 50:43
  within the human existence. One thing that I found one of the storytellers that
• 50:47
  I've always studied and loved. I'm a big fan of as a director or
• 50:52
  writer. Director is James Cameron because he is obviously he knows how to tap
• 50:55
  into something. Because his track record is nobody else has ever had a track
• 51:02
  right, nobody, not even Spielberg, not even It's just a very specific
• 51:07
  track record that he's created for himself. But what I've noticed in all of
• 51:10
  his stories he does something that is really interesting. He he actually not only
• 51:20
  smashes genres together, but also I'm not sure if he's he smashes themes together,
• 51:27
  but he definitely mashes genres together. So if you look a Terminator,
• 51:30
  his first real work, it's an action adventure, but it's a love conquers
• 51:35
  all story. You know, you look at the Abyss action adventure, Love
• 51:39
  Conquers All, Titanic action adventure, Love Conquers All, and then some other
• 51:44
  themes in there as well, about classism and and that kind of stuff.
• 51:46
  Same thing with Avatar action adventure, Love conquers All, and then then there's
• 51:52
  also you know, environmental themes and other things like that he threw in there,
• 51:55
  but he slams all of this stuff together. So Avatars are really good
• 52:00
  example of that. There is a lot of stuff going on in Avatar thematically.
• 52:04
  Yeah, I think that that it's first of all, I think it's
• 52:06
  He's what you've presented there is a good example of how you can have a
• 52:09
  main through line of the where the theme and the plot and the character all
• 52:13
  come together and provide that cohesion in resonance, and then you can still explore,
• 52:16
  you know, other things that come up naturally through the story's premise.
• 52:22
  But I would specifically like to reference Terminator and Titanic because I think that the
• 52:28
  thing to me about James Cameron, because he is, like you say,
• 52:31
  does all these crazy things with genre, and yet underlying it, particularly for
• 52:37
  those two movies, I feel, is this rock solid archetypal story and I
• 52:42
  think we don't always notice it because it's not the hero's journey. And this
• 52:46
  is something that I'm really excited about right now and I'm going to start writing
• 52:50
  about on my site hopefully next year. But just the realization that we are
• 52:55
  so fixated on the hero's journey, like that's the only archetypal underpinning for all
• 53:00
  stories everywhere, and of course it's not. And I think that actually something
• 53:06
  that I realized in reading Kim Hudson's her book was called The Virgin's Promise,
• 53:12
  I think, but she pausits specifically like a counter type character journey that's more
• 53:19
  feminine based. And in that too, she talks about how really that's just
• 53:22
  the first act the hero, the virgin and the hero are just the first
• 53:27
  act of human existence. Most stories do not even tap, you know,
• 53:30
  the more mature archetypes of the second act, much less our elder archetypes in
• 53:36
  the third act. So this is something I've really been researching this year and
• 53:39
  I'm really excited about. But to me, why James Cameron was so fantastically
• 53:46
  on point in Terminator and Titanic specifically, was he nailed the virgin journey.
• 53:53
  He nailed that version, that feminine journey, and not just within the character
• 53:59
  but specific Terminator. The whole thing is a metaphor for that feminine journey.
• 54:04
  You've got the protector and the predator and then how in the end they both
• 54:07
  die and she's the one who has to deal with it, and it's just
• 54:10
  fantastic. I love Terminator, the first Terminator and the second one of just
• 54:15
  the best of the series. Yeah, anyway, but really I think what
• 54:19
  it is for me anyway, why those stories work is not just because they're
• 54:22
  well told, well plotted, not just because they're entertaining or have something to
• 54:25
  say, but because they are just rock solid on that archetypal level. Yeah
• 54:30
  and and yeah they take the virgin story, but then they also take I
• 54:35
  mean, if you look at Terminator is such a brilliant just a genius piece
• 54:38
  of literature, not literature but of cinema, but just writing the storytelling.
• 54:44
  And that is so complex on its but it's on its surface there's a big
• 54:50
  dude with a gun trying to kill two other people. That's that's on the
• 54:54
  surface. But that's what That's the brilliance of Cameron, I think, is
• 54:58
  that on the surface, it's a the Titanic, it's about we all know
• 55:01
  where we all That's what the thing when I heard about Titanic, like James
• 55:05
  man like we all know where the ending, we all know where this is
• 55:07
  going, Like how can you be excited about a movie that you know the
• 55:10
  ending to? But yet he was able to pull that off in such a
• 55:15
  way. And I'm always fascinated. I always love talking to story people who
• 55:19
  really analyze and study story about Avatar because Avatar story and themed. I mean
• 55:25
  he theme thematically Avatar is pretty it borders preachy. Sometimes it borders preachy.
• 55:34
  Yet how was it because it wasn't just the cool visuals, because we've seen
• 55:37
  cool visuals before. There was something else that resonated in the human condition that
• 55:44
  made it the biggest movie in the world of all time and arguably still is
• 55:50
  one of the biggest movies of all time. What did he do in that
• 55:53
  story from your point of view that connected thematically? Because I think the themes
• 55:59
  are extremely Love conquers all you have to protect that obviously, the environmental themes
• 56:06
  good versus very big, good versus evil themes, Like, what did you
• 56:10
  think about that? It's been a long time since I've seen that movie,
• 56:14
  and I only saw it once, so I'm trying to remember. I think
• 56:19
  all of everything you've said, you know is really true is what gives it
• 56:23
  a big feel. I would say though that really I'm as far as I
• 56:29
  remember, because again it's been at least ten years since I've seen it.
• 56:34
  It's it's that character, the main character, and how he's we get a
• 56:37
  good character arc from him. And also there's that this relatability because of the
• 56:43
  situation that he's in. He's crippled, he you know, gets to go
• 56:45
  off into video game land and you know, have a whole new body.
• 56:49
  And I think there's something there's always something powerful about, first of all,
• 56:55
  completely understanding why a character is the way they are and why they're doing what
• 57:00
  doing. Because he's kind of a jerk in the beginning, if I remember,
• 57:02
  right, he was, Yeah, but we still you know, you
• 57:06
  can still get why why he's doing what he's doing. Why because of you
• 57:10
  know, this deep motivation that I you know, I want my body back.
• 57:13
  Basically, I want to be able to walk again, and then to
• 57:16
  be able to take that and arc it. It's a really tricky thing when
• 57:22
  you're doing a positive change arc, and so the character has to start basically
• 57:24
  a deficit, you know, he's he starts in a negative place and then
• 57:29
  arcs to the positive. So how do you make the character in the beginning
• 57:31
  somebody who's likable and not the character the readers you know, aren't just immediately
• 57:36
  fed up with because he's not. He doesn't get it, you know,
• 57:37
  he's not on the right side of it. And in a in a complex
• 57:43
  story that particularly rises out of you know, complex lies that the character might
• 57:47
  believe and why he's you know, confused in the beginning, because we all
• 57:52
  are, you know, so there's there's a deep relatability there that even in
• 57:55
  characters who aren't as inherently likable, I think when we understand stand where they're
• 58:00
  coming from, that's really a really powerful way to begin the character. In
• 58:05
  therefore the theme, because we'll follow them. If you're not going to follow
• 58:08
  the character, you're never going to get to the you know, the juicy
• 58:10
  parts of the theme. Well, I mean, I think you touched on
• 58:14
  something that characters are driven by the story that they've told themselves about the world,
• 58:20
  about about how the world works, and that's James Bond has a very
• 58:24
  specific story he tells himself to get up in the morning. Indiana Jones has
• 58:29
  one. Luke Skywalker at the beginning of Star Wars has one as opposed to
• 58:32
  at the end of the trilogy, he has another story he tells himself.
• 58:37
  In a lot of times, humans, specifically now in the story, but
• 58:42
  also in real life, we will fight tooth and nail to defend our point,
• 58:47
  our story point of view, our life point of view. And it's
• 58:51
  extremely difficult to change that perspective, because that could be societal, that could
• 58:55
  be experimental experience, the experiences you've had in life, like if you're if
• 59:00
  you're a girl, and and we're beaten by your father all your life,
• 59:07
  early on, in your in your in your childhood. The association that all
• 59:09
  men are bad is a very tough conversation to have because it's a story that
• 59:15
  you've told yourself and it's honestly the story that's holding you together. Yes,
• 59:22
  it's an idea, it's exactly, it's the identity that you've put yourself together.
• 59:25
  And to break the identity, people will will die to defend it.
• 59:30
  Is that so as a story as I know, we're going deep now,
• 59:34
  uh, we're going a little deeper than theme, but but actually could actually
• 59:37
  could touch back to the theme. I'd love to hear what you think about
• 59:39
  that. Yeah, I think in essence that story and I think that's definitely
• 59:45
  the foundational principles of character arc. The way I approach it, it's character
• 59:51
  arc is basically this conflict, this inner conflict between a lie the character believes
• 59:55
  and the thematic truth. Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:05
  and now back to the show, and depending on the type of arc,
• 1:00:09
  the character might start out believing in the lie or the truth, and he
• 1:00:13
  might represent the truth steadfastly throughout the story. But in a positive change arc,
• 1:00:17
  where you have a story a character who starts out the story with a
• 1:00:22
  limiting belief of some kind, that's the essence of the story. The entire
• 1:00:27
  story is going to be built to put that character into situations that are going
• 1:00:31
  to challenge that belief, show him the limitations, and yeah, you know,
• 1:00:36
  if he arcs positively, is going to bring him out of that into
• 1:00:38
  a greater truth. But again, in you know, the conversation of not
• 1:00:44
  having it beyond the nose, the way we keep that from happening is it's
• 1:00:46
  not easy. You know, there's a reason we hang on to these limiting
• 1:00:51
  identities and these limiting beliefs, and we all do it every single of the
• 1:00:54
  day. Every human being on the planet does it. Yeah, absolutely,
• 1:01:00
  and it's you know, we're we're quite happy to stay that way, and
• 1:01:01
  so is the character. And tell something happens that you know, that first
• 1:01:06
  plot point happens and completely rocks the character's normal world and suddenly they have to
• 1:01:10
  start questioning not just you know, how do I defeat the bad guy.
• 1:01:15
  But you know what am I going to have to change within myself? You
• 1:01:19
  know, what views, what stories? What identities? Am I going to
• 1:01:22
  have to painfully shed in order to be able to grow and move forward?
• 1:01:27
  Or you know, refuse you do that and stay where you're at basically,
• 1:01:30
  and that is basically the analogy of life. I mean, it's that's what
• 1:01:36
  That's why we resonate so much with story and theme in general, because it's
• 1:01:42
  just an example of what we're going through. It helps us deal with this
• 1:01:46
  existence. Right. Yeah, I think that you know, people, people
• 1:01:53
  you know, start learning about story theory and story structure and you know,
• 1:01:58
  all these ideas about theme and care, and a lot of times there's this
• 1:02:01
  feeling of like, no, you know, I don't want to impose all
• 1:02:05
  of these rules onto my creativity, onto my story. And you know,
• 1:02:09
  it can feel that way when you're you know, you're first making all of
• 1:02:13
  this conscious. But the truth is exactly the opposite. The only reason we
• 1:02:15
  have these ideas, these theories about structure and character, arc and theme is
• 1:02:20
  because we've seen them arising from you know, thousands of years of stories and
• 1:02:27
  thousands of years of our lives. The psychological journey of a potent character arc
• 1:02:31
  is only potent in a story because we recognize and resonate with it from our
• 1:02:36
  own lives. Right The hero's journey, which is it's something that resonates pretty
• 1:02:42
  much in every culture around the world. It's because we've all done that,
• 1:02:46
  we all we all understand that. That's why it's such a powerful That's what
• 1:02:51
  Joseph Campbell was talking about with The Hero with a Thousand Faces, is that
• 1:02:54
  that is a very through line. I just literally had Chris Fogler on the
• 1:02:59
  show, who wrote the Writer's Journey, and I was I actually tell him,
• 1:03:02
  I'm like, Christ's let's talk for a second, Chris. A lot
• 1:03:07
  of people say, you know, this hero's journey things out of me,
• 1:03:09
  like it's completely out of whack. You know, it's done. Everybody knows
• 1:03:13
  that. We've all seen Star Wars. It's kind of blase, you know,
• 1:03:16
  is it even worth dealing with the hero's journey? And today's very advanced
• 1:03:21
  storytelling audience, You know, the audience is so well versed. It's so
• 1:03:24
  much harder to be a storyteller today than it was four hundred years ago.
• 1:03:30
  One hundred years ago, you could get away with so much. That's totally
• 1:03:34
  true, and now you really got to know what to do. And he
• 1:03:37
  said something very very and I wanted to see what he said, and he's
• 1:03:40
  just like, Alex, I agree with you one hundred percent. It is
• 1:03:44
  one of many ways to do it. But elements of the hero's journey,
• 1:03:49
  all of those archetypes are in every story. Yeah, It's just that's regardless
• 1:03:54
  if you want to believe it or not. There is always going to be
• 1:03:58
  a trickster somewhere, you know, depending on the story you're telling, a
• 1:04:01
  trickster, a mentor the old man, the young the young buck who's trying
• 1:04:06
  to, you know, become a man and all this, all of this
• 1:04:10
  kind of that's always going to be there. But he goes. But of
• 1:04:13
  course, there's a thousand different kinds of story structures. There's a thousand different
• 1:04:15
  ways to tell that story. But the hero's journey is a model that we
• 1:04:20
  It is the meat and potatoes. It is the foundation that we all kind
• 1:04:24
  of need to understand as a storyteller. Would is that a fair statement?
• 1:04:28
  Yeah? I would agree with that, And I think that you know what
• 1:04:30
  I'm researching and exploring right now, is the idea that the hero's journey is
• 1:04:34
  not the only one specifically within just the basic, you know, really simplistic
• 1:04:40
  level of archetypal mythic storytelling. And I think that's a lot of the reason
• 1:04:44
  the way people you know, wonder like, come on, here's journey one
• 1:04:47
  story, you know, one ring to roll them all. And by the
• 1:04:53
  way, you can, you can throw the hero's journey on almost any story
• 1:04:57
  like after the fact, after the fact, and the truth of it is
• 1:05:00
  a because it's that archipat type story, but also because it is you know,
• 1:05:05
  it adheres to that three act structure and so those beats. That's something
• 1:05:10
  that I am realizing is that, yes, it looks like the hero's journey
• 1:05:14
  applies to all stories, and it does often. But a lot of it
• 1:05:17
  is that we think we were not aware of these other these you know,
• 1:05:25
  these other archetypal journeys, and so we just kind of say, you know,
• 1:05:30
  there's similarities, right, they all follow a similar arc. It's just
• 1:05:33
  more of a life progression as instead of it just being you know, the
• 1:05:36
  young buck the hero. So I think that's part of why people don't always
• 1:05:42
  It's why I didn't resonate with the Hero's Journey. For a long time,
• 1:05:45
  I felt like it was just too confining, but then I started realizing,
• 1:05:48
  like, this is totally it's the three act structure. It is, it's
• 1:05:51
  right there. But the nuance, I do think that it changes and evolves,
• 1:05:57
  and that's something that I like, I said, I want to start
• 1:05:59
  exploring or am I in a series on my site soon? Very cool,
• 1:06:01
  but yeah, I'm really excited about it. But yeah, I think that
• 1:06:06
  the Hero's Journey is an incredibly important archetypal story and that it's important because it's
• 1:06:16
  so simple, and I think that there's there's a difference between We think sometimes
• 1:06:21
  that complicated stories are the way to go, you know, the way to
• 1:06:26
  talk to our very sophisticated audience, and I don't think that's the truth at
• 1:06:29
  all. What we want is complex stories, and complexity is born out of
• 1:06:32
  simplicity. It's that simple archetypal layer that's provided by archetypal stories like the Hero's
• 1:06:40
  Journey, and then we get to build the complexity on top of that by
• 1:06:43
  really exploring those themes and asking those questions and looking at the million different you
• 1:06:48
  know, angles on a story that's you know, it's it's complexity, but
• 1:06:54
  it's all coming out of the same base instead of you know, being who
• 1:06:57
  knows where all over the place. And that brings us back to James Cameron,
• 1:07:01
  which is a perfect example. The Terminator is is is a question of
• 1:07:06
  like, will the machines eventually take over? There's that's that's one question,
• 1:07:12
  but we'll love conquer all. And it's a very simple story. You know,
• 1:07:16
  it's basically three characters running, that's the story. Yeah, exactly,
• 1:07:23
  But there is so much complexity in that story and the themes that he the
• 1:07:28
  themes that he asks questions about. He asks a lot of questions in his
• 1:07:32
  in his movies, and and that's a really I think that's what really drives
• 1:07:38
  his kind of storytelling and all of the films that he's made. It is
• 1:07:43
  very That's why I'm really curious about the new avatars, all four of them.
• 1:07:45
  I think he's going to be doing for the next eight years or something
• 1:07:51
  like. But anytime, anytime he comes out with something, people like,
• 1:07:55
  what do you think of Like, dude, in Cameron, I trust like,
• 1:07:58
  yeah, I can't. Like I stopped not betting on camera and after
• 1:08:01
  Titanic I was like, you know what, just if you can make this
• 1:08:05
  work, brother, you can make almost anything work. And just do you?
• 1:08:10
  You do you? James? Yeah, Now I'm gonna ask you a
• 1:08:14
  few questions. I ask all my guests. I usually ask like, what
• 1:08:16
  are three screenplays that every screenwriter or storyteller should read? If you if that,
• 1:08:21
  if you don't know anything specific, three screenplays, three films that which
• 1:08:26
  I mean obviously we would talk about Terminator, but yeah, other films.
• 1:08:30
  Yeah, I'm not much of a screenplay reader, so I will. I
• 1:08:35
  mean, I think that it's like super obvious. But I have to always
• 1:08:39
  go back to the original Star Wars because I feel like that number one.
• 1:08:44
  I feel like it's gotten lost kind of in the the new movies. But
• 1:08:49
  for me, there's no comparison, and I feel like that, I mean
• 1:08:51
  that to me is that's the essence of our modern myth. And so I
• 1:08:55
  say, you know, go back to that one. I go back all
• 1:08:58
  the time constantly. But that's the he But that's the hero's journey, Like
• 1:09:01
  that is the exactly perfect personification of the hero's journey, and yet you go
• 1:09:09
  back to it constantly, even as as simplistic as the hero's journey is and
• 1:09:13
  everything, but it's it's executed. It's like eating a really good apple pie.
• 1:09:16
  Like it's a simple thing. It's not a complex dessert that's going to
• 1:09:20
  explode. But if you do it, well, you've got a business.
• 1:09:25
  Yeah. Well, and I think we see that with Rowling, right with
• 1:09:28
  the Harry Potter series again, I mean, so similar to Star Wars,
• 1:09:31
  and people just ate it up again, you know, and honestly to me,
• 1:09:35
  well, I mean, we'll leave that to the books. I guess
• 1:09:38
  I was going to say the movies, but I know I recommended this the
• 1:09:42
  last time that I was on the show, but it's still my all time
• 1:09:45
  favorite movie, so I have to say it again. And that is the
• 1:09:47
  classic World War two movie, The Great Escape. This is directly by John
• 1:09:51
  Stars. Yeah, but that went to me. There's so much, such
• 1:09:56
  a simple story again, you know, guys want to escape. We'll be
• 1:10:00
  right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.
• 1:10:11
  So much complexity, so much character development, and the themes are so
• 1:10:15
  subtle, they're never stated, they're just you know there. But there's all
• 1:10:18
  of this, just this this richness in this subtext that's happening there. And
• 1:10:25
  then number three oh, why not say Terminator because I feel like like there's
• 1:10:34
  there's just a lot of goodness in that story, and I think it's it's
• 1:10:38
  a really good counterpart to Star Wars, and that Star Wars is very much
• 1:10:42
  the male hero's journey, and Terminator is this, in my opinion, pitch
• 1:10:46
  perfect female, the feminine journey, the feminine psychological journey. So I think
• 1:10:51
  that they're really good book ends, and it's so it's just a it's so
• 1:10:56
  amazing that a man has written so much being like some of the most impressive
• 1:11:03
  female leads in cinema history. He's written between Aliens and Terminator, and all
• 1:11:11
  of his films that he's worked on, a lot of them have really strong
• 1:11:15
  Pertamine Rose. I mean, she's pretty strong. She's essentially she ends up
• 1:11:20
  being the character that runs Titanic. Well, I think, and I do
• 1:11:26
  think that the you know, why not? You know, I think that
• 1:11:28
  archetype. But we all have this deep archetypal understanding. And when he's telling
• 1:11:32
  archetypal stories so well, to me, it's like, yeah, why not?
• 1:11:35
  And I think we see it with a rowling. You know, there's
• 1:11:38
  a woman writing a story about hero's journey and a boy. Yeah, So
• 1:11:42
  it's like that's the fun of writing, you know, that we get to
• 1:11:45
  explore all of these things that are different from us and do it from a
• 1:11:48
  place of deep psychological understanding that sometimes we don't even know we have. I
• 1:11:56
  wanted to ask you a side question because it just came up. You know,
• 1:12:00
  as a storyteller. You know myself and with the work that I've done
• 1:12:02
  over my life. As you get older, that story, that perspective,
• 1:12:10
  that story you tell yourself morphs and changes a lot, and a script that
• 1:12:16
  I might have written ten years ago I go back to and go ouch,
• 1:12:23
  that is definitely a perspective of a thirty year old That is not the perspective
• 1:12:27
  of a forty five year old man who's gone through some other stuff in the
• 1:12:30
  last fifteen years. There is such a focus on youth and telling that youth
• 1:12:35
  story of the young buck turning into a man, or the virgin story of
• 1:12:42
  the on the woman's side. But yet you kind of touched on this earlier.
• 1:12:45
  There isn't a lot of story about the third chapter in our Lives,
• 1:12:48
  or even the second chapter. Is they're starting to get mean, you know,
• 1:12:51
  lifetime pretty much runs the midlife crisis story now either for men or we've
• 1:13:00
  been going through like oh god, I'm just joking, but there is more
• 1:13:03
  stories now about people our age, uh and this kind of this kind of
• 1:13:10
  second chapter, you know, midway through chapter of Our Lives, but there
• 1:13:14
  is very few good stories about that the third chapter of Our Lives? Can
• 1:13:21
  you make a make a And it's also because it's harder to sell. Is
• 1:13:27
  that the main reason you think? Well, I think it's it's an interesting
• 1:13:30
  thing because, yeah, as I've been preparing to do this this series,
• 1:13:34
  it's been very challenging to find really good examples of these later life arcs of
• 1:13:40
  the third act, you know, the third act of the human life.
• 1:13:44
  It's because there aren't a lot of them. And I think, yes,
• 1:13:46
  to some degree, it's a hard sell because you, like you say,
• 1:13:48
  we're a very youth centered culture who's terrified of death, so we really don't
• 1:13:53
  want to go there. And because I think a lot of times when we
• 1:13:58
  do see stories about the you know, the end of life, that they're
• 1:14:00
  not empowered stories. Their stories about you know, coming to terms with death
• 1:14:05
  in a pretty limited way. And what I'm discovering is that you know,
• 1:14:11
  there there are empowering arc, the arcs in the second act Midlife, and
• 1:14:15
  the arcs and the third act for the Elder Years. They are just as
• 1:14:19
  powerful and magnificent in some ways, more so than what we've grown used to
• 1:14:24
  with the Hero's Journey. And I think it's just that we as a culture
• 1:14:28
  have so lost touch with our elders. You know, it's not a we
• 1:14:32
  don't have. Very few of us really have people in our lives from that
• 1:14:38
  time in their lives where they can you know, we can see that and
• 1:14:41
  they can mentor us. And I think that's part of too even you know,
• 1:14:44
  we don't have the mentor character who shows up for us in our own
• 1:14:48
  Hero's Journey when we are young, and so there's a there is a missing
• 1:14:54
  piece kind of I think that's that has happened within the archetypal story of our
• 1:14:58
  culture. So yeah, I think it's a hard sell, but I think
• 1:15:01
  there are some amazing stories to be told from those later arcs. And I'm
• 1:15:09
  not thinking of any examples off top I can give you that. I can
• 1:15:13
  give you one that is probably as pitch perfect as humanly possible, which is
• 1:15:15
  Up. Yeah, okay, Up is as perfect well up as a masterpiece,
• 1:15:23
  as I mean in the first basically, that first three minutes is the
• 1:15:27
  best, the best summary of a human life. I've ever seen it in
• 1:15:30
  my entire life. It's so well thought. But it's a it's an older
• 1:15:35
  character going on a hero's journey. He goes and his mentor happens to be
• 1:15:41
  a boy scout in any ways, what it is is it's the little boy
• 1:15:45
  who's going on a hero's journey and he's the mentor, but it's told from
• 1:15:49
  his point of view. The characters all come full circle, right, it's
• 1:15:53
  the mentors in the hero's journey who are the heroes of the third act character
• 1:15:58
  arcs, right, but we don't ever see that, right. That's why
• 1:16:00
  I was so like everybody. And it's an animated kids film, which is
• 1:16:03
  so brilliant. I can't like, only Pixar could do something like that.
• 1:16:09
  But yeah, there aren't many good stories like that. But that's funny though,
• 1:16:12
  if you look up resonated with kids around the world as well as every
• 1:16:20
  every stage of life, from a kid all the way to someone in their
• 1:16:25
  elder years watches up and goes, okay, I get it, I get
• 1:16:29
  it, And that's the kind of if you can. If you can pull
• 1:16:31
  that off, you're doing something as a storyteller. That's the power of archetypal
• 1:16:36
  stories. Now, where can people find your new book and more about you
• 1:16:43
  and all the cool stuff you're doing. Yeah, so obviously the books on
• 1:16:45
  Amazon and all of those places, but if they want to specifically look at
• 1:16:49
  what I'm doing, they can visit my website at helping Writers Become Authors dot
• 1:16:54
  com. Very cool, Katie, Thank you so much for being on the
• 1:16:58
  show. I know I want to keep talking to you, just want to
• 1:17:00
  keep I just want to keep talking. I love talking story. I love
• 1:17:03
  going deep into this kind of nerdy story stuff and it really helps me just
• 1:17:09
  think about In all honesty, it just helps you think about life more.
• 1:17:13
  Totally. Totally, It just makes you think about life. And we are
• 1:17:16
  in a weird time. There's a lot to think about. There's a lot
• 1:17:20
  of stuff going on right now in the world, and I feel like that's
• 1:17:24
  one of the reasons why we're gravitating to story and our Netflix. I have
• 1:17:29
  Netflix, Hulu, HBO, like I got all of them, but like
• 1:17:30
  I just need I need something to escape to. I need something to attach
• 1:17:34
  myself to to escape this crazy world we're living, but it does just help
• 1:17:39
  us get through the day of this insane existence that we call life. So
• 1:17:45
  I want to really really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you so
• 1:17:47
  much, and keep doing the good work that you're doing. Yeah, you
• 1:17:50
  too, Thank you so much for having me. I want to thank Katie
• 1:17:54
  for coming on the show and dropping her knowledge bombs on the bulletpoof screenwritingbe Thank
• 1:18:00
  you so so much, Katie. If you want to get links to anything
• 1:18:02
  we spoke about in this episode, including how to buy her new book Writing
• 1:18:08
  Your Stories theme, head over to any film huscle dot com forward slash seven
• 1:18:12
  forty eight, and if you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking
• 1:18:15
  podcast dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show. It
• 1:18:20
  really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you again so much for
• 1:18:24
  listening. Guys, as always, keep that huscle going, keep that dream
• 1:18:27
  alive, Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks
• 1:18:30
  for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at indiefilm hustle dot com. That's
• 1:18:34
  I N D I E F I L M h U S T l E
• 1:18:38
  dot com.