The Second Act Task

Is this a story?

Once I was in the supermarket getting some milk, and I met this gorgeous man in the checkout line, and now we’ve got three kids and a mortgage.

It’s a cute anecdote, but only if it’s true. And it certainly isn’t a story. Why? Because it has no larger meaning. It goes straight from Act 1 to Act 3, when Act 2 is what gives a script depth, substance, and most of all, meaning.

Act 2 uses subplots to fully explore the philosophical question that the third act will answer. But more than just the philosophical question.

Three questions weave through every story, and the second act has to address and advance all of them.

Three Key Questions

The Narrative Question:

• What is going to happen next in the story? Immediately, soon, eventually?
• What do your characters hope for and want to achieve? What do they fear, and want to avoid?
• What does the audience hope will happen? What do they fear will happen?

The Social/Psychological Question:

• What has to change – in society or in individuals – before hopes can be achieved, or fears be avoided?
• What is blocking those changes?

The Philosophical Question:

• How is your story bigger than its literal meaning?
• What does it have to say about how we should live and behave?

For more on these key questions see: Three Key Questions and Duelling Aphorisms and Double-Sided Questions

You may find yourself thinking, ‘Not another glib story formula, bound to produce glib formulaic stories!’

But this is a tool, not a formula. It depends entirely on what you bring to the story. Even with those constraints, you still have thousands of options. And it’s all about your subplots and your subplot characters.

So, how do you decide which subplots and which subplot characters fit your story? And how do you shape your subplots so they work better?

A few words about ‘Theme’

People often use ‘Theme’ as if it’s synonymous with the Philosophical Question. It isn’t.

It’s the difference between saying, ‘Have you ever noticed…?'(theme), and ‘I think this…, What do you think?’ (Philosophical Question).

The philosophical question is active. It grows. And it puts itself on the line. ‘Theme’ has nowhere to go. It doesn’t ask any questions, and it doesn’t demand that any questions get asked.

It’s the equivalent of stand-up comics getting a laugh out of ‘Remember when you were six and your Mum used to wrap your school lunch in rainbow coloured wax paper?’

Making an observation is not putting yourself on the line. Essentially, it’s filmmaking as proof that you’re more sensitive or observant than the audience.

Subplots in ‘Eternal Sunshine…’

One wonder of Charlie Kaufman’s script for ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (Gondry, 2004) is how the subplots address all three questions.

Here’s my take on those questions.

Narrative Question – what is going to happen? Will it be what we hope for, or what we fear?

Will Joel and Clementine rediscover what drew them to each other in the first place, and make another go of it? Or will he successfully erase all traces of her from his life? And whichever choice he makes, how will it leave him: better off or worse off?

Social/Psychological Question – what has to change within people individually or communally before the narrative question can be answered?

Social:

The commodification of happiness – can we create a pain-free society? Can psychological comfort be outsourced?

Psychological:

Can and should pain be successfully erased from our lives?

Philosophical Question – what does this mean about how we should live our lives?

Because ETERNAL SUNSHINE.. explicitly puts a Philosophical Question up front in the story, it’s easy to mistake this for the real Philosophical Question, which is buried deeper in the narrative, and specifically within the subplots.

For me, the headline question is something like: If we could successfully eradicate pain, should we? In individuals, and in society generally?

But the real Philosophical Question is more like: What is the engine of growth in relationships, memory or desire? And is desire a gift, or a demand?

And for me, it answers those questions in this way.

1. Desire is the real engine of relationships, including but not limited to sexual desire.
2. In relationships, memory is no more than crystallised desire. It enriches desire, but it cannot replace it.
3. When desire is reciprocated, it is both demand and gift.

So, how do the subplots enhance these questions?

Mary (Kirsten Dunst) could have been just another manic pixie dream girl in this story, but instead her story is the tragic counterpoint to Joel’s story.

‘Can we successfully erase memory without also erasing the desire that created those memories? And if we have to erase desire as well as memory, what’s left of us?’

And the Carrie and Rob subplot asks, ‘Sure, you can create stable companionship, if you put limits on the relationship. But without growth, what is a relationship worth? And how do you get growth without pain, or at least the risk of pain?’

Dr Mierzwiak promises a painless and process-driven solution to Joel’s pain. But if desire continues, can Joel ever be really free of his past, and still be himself? And still find happiness?

Patrick’s pursuit of Clementine, using Joel’s memories of their time together, is perhaps the clearest example of how a subplot can work across all three key questions.

It provides a major obstacle to the narrative question (Will Joel and Clementine get back together) because Patrick can selectively choose Clementine’s good memories. Plus, it gives Patrick the motivation and the means to stymie Joel’s desperate attempts to retain and recall his own memories.

It also addresses the social question by saying that, if you allow for the commodification of personal thoughts and feelings, you inevitably open up the possibility of exploitation beyond the subject’s awareness, or control.

Finally, the philosophical question, at some depth.

If memory is malleable and erasable, then the mutual consent of intimacy is meaningless. Starting with a ‘clean slate’ is cheating, and allows for cheating. Memory is not just pain or pleasure. It’s also acknowledgment of shared consequence. Most of all, you can’t fake desire, even if you control memory, the crystallised remnants of desire.

WHAT ABOUT CRUSADING SCRIPTS?

Even crusading scripts that make a clear and definite argument still need opposing forces within the story’s thematic and philosophical landscape.

For example, SPOTLIGHT is clearly a crusading film. It argues very strongly that:

1. All abuse of children is wrong.
2. That it’s doubly wrong of an institution to cover it up.
3. And triply wrong of an institution that lays claim to moral authority to cover it up.
4. Finally, it’s quadruply wrong to use its moral authority to protect itself.

Who could even try to argue against any of those propositions?

But if you want to argue those propositions through a story, not through a newspaper article, then you have to give your story substance by exploring opposites. Not by having a character or a subplot arguing that some abuse of children is okay, or even acceptable as a ‘cost of doing business.’ Don’t dilute your core message.

But there are plenty of other opposites you can explore through the subplots, and you can do them through opposites within the protagonist of your story (the journalists), and through opposites within the antagonist of your story (the Church).

The Protagonists:

In the journalist’s search for the truth, when will direct confrontation be the best tool, and when will subtle persuasion – perhaps even feigned sympathy – be the most productive?

Which opens a larger question: Can true justice can be reached through deception? Does the ends justify the means?

The Antagonists:

There are multiple layers here, because the story dares to take the church’s own claims seriously.

So, within the church you have a character who has power but is unable to do the morally right thing because that power traps them; while another character with little power within the institution responds to the moral imperative of the institution, but risks what little standing they do have.

The Internal Conflict of Faith:

As well, you can have people – either high up in the institution or at the bottom – for whom faith and belief are fundamental to their sense of safety, self and well-being, and for whom that faith is closely tied to the history and moral authority of the institution.

Do they protect the institution at the cost of their faith in it, and hence their own faith, or do they attack the institution and risk feeling outcast and adrift?

Now you have a story with meat and substance, without diluting the core argument.

Substance without Dilution

Subplots are not just interesting and amusing diversions along the route of your story. They are the core of your journey. They can provide colour and movement. But much more than that, well-constructed subplots give your story shape and coherence.

Narratively, they provide boosts and obstacles to the protagonist’s mission.

Socially and psychologically they explore what changes in people and in society are necessary before the narrative can be resolved.

And they give depth and substance to the philosophical question you are asking by fully exploring the arguments and counter-arguments.

RELATED ESSAYS:

• Duelling Aphorisms and Double-Sided Questions
• Three Key Questions