1. The Story Spine is SINGULAR
Every cinematic narrative has only ONE Story Spine. The main plot must revolve around the protagonist facing ONE problem and pursuing ONE goal. This is how you make a story strong, clear, and easy for an audience to follow. Your body works because it has only one spine. If you had more, you would be a disjointed mess. One of the best pieces of advice I have ever received is that key to a great script is “a simple story with complex characters.” Having a strong, singular spine allows one to achieves this.
One of the surest ways to turn a story into a dense, complicated, hard-to-follow mess is to force the protagonist to engage in multiple, competing lines of action at the same time. You can't do two things at once. Don't try to give your protagonist two separate plot problems or two simultaneous goals. Don't have your hard-boiled cop try to take down the mafia and catch a serial killer. You can't have your medieval warrior struggle to both kill the dragon threatening his town and fight off an invading army. One might think that adding a second set of problems and goals would increase audience excitement just by the fact that there is more going on. In truth, the result is the opposite. Instead of increasing the excitement, it spreads the excitement thin. Story #1 winds up gets sapped of its energy and momentum every time it gets put on the shelf to switch over to Story #2, and vice versa. Meanwhile, both stories will suffer from underdevelopment since they are forced to share their screen time with one or more other stories. With only half a movie to cover, they become only half-stories. Focus your main plot on a single problem, a single goal, and a single path of action. Save Story #2 for your next script.
This singularity also applies to each of the Spine's five components. There should only be one Main Story Conflict. Remember those two Joel Schumacher Batman movies, Batman Forever & Batman & Robin? Terrible, weren't they? The story was all over the place. The conflict was weak. This is because, instead of creating a strong, singular villain for Batman to face off with, each movie contained two. Two villains, both given equal weight. The story was split. Two villains also gave Batman two different goals-- and the entire story suffered for it. Had the writers chosen to make one villain the main antagonist and the other a subservient henchman, the stories might have been saved since there would be only ONE collective source of main conflict and one goal for Batman to pursue (as seen in many action movies where there is a strong villain and a loyal henchman).
As for Stakes, there is some flexibility in the singularity rule. Multiple things can contribute to the Stakes, but it is always best if these things are in some way related. And, like I mentioned with the villains, there should be ONE element of the Stakes which stands out as biggest and most important.
2. For every plot, a Spine must be
Okay, you might be saying right now, 'Wait a minute. I've seen lots of movies where the protagonist has more than one goal. I've seen warriors who are both trying to kill the dragon and marry the princess. I've seen detectives who are not only trying to find the killer, but fix their family problems. I've seen movies where the hero fights aliens AND tries to overcome his alcoholism.'
With this we've come upon the distinction between main plot and subplot. What I said before was that every PLOTLINE can have only one spine. Subplots are separate plotlines. And, in order for subplots to be strong and effective, they need to have their own spines as well. Your hero's main story goal may have to do with slaying the dragon, but there also needs to be a problem, goal, path of action, conflict, and stakes involved in his romantic subplot involving the princess.
Subplots do a lot to help a story in general. They add depth and dimension to a story that would be too thin with the main plot alone. They give opportunities to develop characters and theme in ways that might not be possible within the swiftly-moving action of the main plot. What is important, however, is the ability to tell whether you have a singular main plot and subplot that supports it, or if you have two main plots that steal attention from each other (two main Story Spines instead of one).
Subplots are often described as “smaller” stories. However, subplots are more like interior stories. They most often deal with personal struggles and relationships, while the main plot is an exterior story (the main story on the surface), involving physical conflict and direct action. Nothing can have two exteriors. That just wouldn't work. But an exterior and an interior can co-exist in harmony.
The key to a good subplot is that it be separate yet at the same time connected to the main plot. The subplot does not take away from the main plot, but adds to it. There is a symbiotic relationship between the Story Spine and subplot spine. The actions which take place in one work to influence the other, thus working together to help bring about mutual resolutions. Here is a link to a good article that uses the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids to explain this separate yet connected interaction.
3. “STORY SPINE” means “PROTAGONIST SPINE”
Alright. I don't want to confuse you. Or seem like I'm contradicting myself. So, I'll try to express this the best way I can. First, I said that the Story Spine had to be singular. Then, I said that each subplot had its own spine. But guess what? There are more spines. The protagonist has his/her spine to follow. But the other characters have spines too!
Before things get too complicated, back up and take another look at my previous article. Notice that all five of the Spine's elements are described in terms of their relationship to the PROTAGONIST. The protagonist's problem, the goal the protagonist sets, the path of action the protagonist takes, the conflict that stands in the way of the protagonist's goal, the protagonist's stakes. The “Story Spine” is in fact the “protagonist's spine”. The two terms are synonymous. Because the traditional Western film narrative focuses its entire attention on the actions of a central protagonist, the protagonist's character spine and the spine of the story arc are one and the same.
But, you may notice that in films with well-crafted characters, the protagonist is not the only individual with a problem, goal, path, conflict, and stakes. Though the narrative pays them less attention, all important characters have these elements informing their roles as well. When writers on screencraft say that every character should have their own wants, needs, and things they are after, what they mean is every character must possess their own, separate (and singular) CHARACTER SPINE. A character spine turns supporting characters into dimensionalized, active, true-to-life human beings with their own lives and reasons to exist. A character spines forms the difference between an antagonist who is a clichéd cardboard cut-out and one who is an active, flesh and blood individual. Character spines create the difference between a cast of supporting characters who are little more than living props existing for the convenience to the protagonist's actions, and a story world populated by motivated individuals who do what they do for strong, understandable reasons.
Let's look at one of the most famous of antagonists, Darth Vader. What is his character spine? 1. Vader's Problem: A Rebel army threatens the Empire's dominance in the galaxy. 2. Vader's Goal: To locate the Rebel base and destroy their forces for good. 3. Vader's Path of Action: Among other things, capture Princess Leia and force her to give the location. 4. Vader's Conflict: Members of the Rebel Alliance are doing all they can to stop that from happening. 5. Vader's Stakes: If he succeeds, his power in the Universe will be solidified. If he fails, it might mean the Empire's destruction.
Like subplots, character spines should be both separate yet connected in some way to the spine of the protagonist. The spines of all supporting characters must in some way work to either assist or conflict with the protagonist's spine. Otherwise, if their wants, needs, or personal actions have nothing directly to do with the protagonist's wants, needs, or personal actions (read: the MAIN STORY SPINE) for what reason have these characters been included in the story?
Character spines can apply even to the smallest of characters -- though this spine does not need to be developed to a large degree. Say you have created a one-scene bit part of a surly file clerk whom your protagonist is trying to get an important file from. If you give the file clerk a full character spine, an otherwise dull scene could potentially turn into something dramatic. Observe:
1. File Clerk's Problem: The protagonist is making him do something he does not want to. 2. Goal: Get the protagonist to go away. 3. Path of Action: Whatever strategies the file clerk chooses to get the protagonist to leave. 4. Conflict: The protagonist refuses to go away. 5. Stakes: If he fails, it means a whole mess of work he does not want to do, or possibly get trouble with his supervisors. The ensuing battle between the two conflicting character spines is what will make this scene entertaining.
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