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Once More Through the Meat Grinder: What Went Wrong With "A Good Day to Die Hard"

(Related article: 7 Screenwriters Reasons Why Die Hard 4 Failed)

In April, scribbler will celebrate its fifth anniversary. In recognition of this, I felt I would take you back to its origins. Back in 2008, I had one of my most painful experiences ever on DVD. The movie was the uncalled-for, unasked-for, fourth installment of the Die Hard “trilogy,” Live Free or Die Hard, a film so badly-plotted, badly-written, badly-everything that I felt I absolutely must articulate every way it had gone wrong. For eight pages. This analytical tirade became the very first scribbler article. Now, five years later, with a brand new Die Hard in the theaters (aka “Hey, We Got a Generic Action Script, Let’s Put Bruce Willis in It and Call It Die Hard So It Will Make a Ton of Money”), I thought I would indulge my masochism and do a sequel of my own.

First of all, A Good Day to Die Hard turns out (to my surprise) to be not as bad as the previous installment. Mind you, it is still a bad movie. It is just not the cavalcade of errors that was Live Free. Good Day’s main problem (along with its lousy direction and inability to shoot a single stable close-up) is that most of the film does not make any sense. The story action is so vague as to what people are doing, why they feel motivated to do it, and why they (and WE) should give damn about it. The result is a murky, dreary sludge barely held together by action sequences. It is a complete “shut your mind off” movie, because if you did try to pay attention and follow the plot, you would not get anything to reward you for the effort. This state of sludge-ness not only makes Good Day difficult to enjoy, but also difficult to critique. Despite this, I am going to do my damnedest to break it down and dissect its errors below.

When an audience finds a story murky, confused, or unclear, it is usually because the storyteller has failed to provide the proper amount of information necessary to orientate the audience to understand its basic elements. When this lack of clarity is found on the scale seen in Good Day, the culprit is always a poorly-constructed Story Spine. Yes, once again, like 90-98% of all script problems, everything comes back to that central principle of storytelling, the Story Spine. (If you are unfamiliar with the Story Spine as it is taught on this site, please read this article first so you may better understand what is to follow.) 

 

The main problem with A Good Day to Die Hard’s Story Spine is – it does not really have one. That is, if you consider John McClane to be the story’s protagonist. (The meaning of this odd statement will be made clear in a moment.) Here is a breakdown of what passes for John McClane’s spine:

1. McClane’s Story Problem: John McClane has come to Moscow to find his son, John Junior. Junior is in some vague trouble with Russian authorities for some vague criminal activity. However, as it stands, this does not amount to much of a Story Problem. A problem is capable of launching a suitable Story Spine only when it introduces a situation that poses an immediate threat to the protagonist, a threat the protagonist must act upon right away or else terrible consequences will occur. Because the audience has not been given enough information to fully understand the story’s premise, they have no way to know what threat, if any, Junior's situation poses to McClane himself. When the audience cannot fully understand the Story Problem, it is as bad as when there is no Story Problem at all.
2. McClane’s Story Goal: ????? – It is never clear what McClane plans to do once he catches up with his son. He simply shows up and jumps into other people’s business without rhyme or reason. He has no ultimate objective in mind that will give his actions focus and direction.
3. McClane’s Path of Action: ????? – With no established Story Goal, it is impossible to define what actions McClane must take to achieve success. Instead of pursuing clearly-defined objectives, objectives chosen to get McClane closer to an ultimate goal, McClane behaves like a rootless psychopath, throwing himself into one violent situation after another for no reason other than blind whim.
4. McClane’s Main Conflict: ????? – Since McClane has no clear Story Goal or Path of Action, it is impossible to identify what singular force, if any, directly opposes his actions.
5. McClane’s Stakes: ????? – This is the biggest problem. McClane has nothing recognizable to gain or lose from his situation. Why McClane should care about the events contained in this convoluted plot remain a mystery. Again, this behavior is psychotic. No sane person would willingly take on risk and danger unless that danger is outweighed by something to be won or lost.

Added together, it seems John McClane lacks a Story Spine, and therefore has nothing to structure his actions or allow the audience to understand his behavior.

At this point, some who have seen A Good Day may object. The movie definitely has a plot with some form of structure. What of all the action with the Russian villains? What about this “file” everyone is after? What about this vague government conspiracy everyone wishes to exploit? In truth, Good Day does in fact form its narrative around a Story Spine. Unfortunately, this Spine is attached to the wrong character. It turns out the plot's events have little to do with John McClane. They instead have everything to do with John Junior:

1. Junior’s Story Problem: Junior is some sort of “super-spy” (again, the details are pretty vague) sent on a mission to retrieve a secret “file.” Unfortunately, the villains cause this mission to go awry.
2. Junior’s Story Goal: Get the “file” before the villains do likewise.
3. Junior’s Path of Action: To reach his goal, Junior must rescue the only man who can access this file and then protect him until the file is found.
4. Junior’s Main Conflict: The villains are willing to destroy half of Moscow in order to kill Junior and get the file first.
5. Junior’s Stakes: Junior can either succeed and accomplish his mission, or he can fail in shame.

Here is the big conclusion: A Good Day to Die Hard has misidentified its protagonist! This story does not belong to McClane, but John Junior! This is the main cause of the story's confusion. John McClane, the franchise’s supposed hero, is not in the story’s driver seat and is therefore turned into a secondary character! Instead of being the story's active force, McClane spends most of the film passive and reactionary, standing idly by while others make all the decisions. He is simply along for the ride, a tag-along with no good reason to be in the picture. 

 

Unfortunately, the script never makes up for this mistake by allowing John Junior to become the story’s central focus. (Not that this would have pleased fans either. Not only does the audience want and expect McClane to be the hero, John Junior has been given the charisma of a tree stump.) The result is a film where NO ONE IS DRIVING THE BUS! The "hero" is not allowed to be the story's leader, and the leader is not allowed to be the hero. With no central figure for the audience to attach their hearts and minds, the audience is left with no choice but remain emotionally detached from the action, and never feels a reason to become personally invested in the outcome of events. In short, crap may happen, but no one gives a damn.

Yet, even if Good Day had avoided this problem, it would have still failed due to a number of equally pressing secondary problems. First, the premise is ludicrous. Are we supposed to honestly believe that John McClane’s son, a character we have never seen or heard anything about other than a few seconds of him as a little boy in the original Die Hard, could now without explanation be some sort of Jason Bourne super-spy? And McClane himself would know nothing about this? Good Day makes no attempt to provide any background information to make this contrivance believable. (Note: There is also the side-problem of creating a supporting character who drastically outshines the protagonist in heroic ability. McClane is still just a New York cop. “Super-spy” trumps cop a thousand times over. Don’t upstage your protagonist.) I realize that in my previous article on Die Hard 4, I suggested that many of that story’s problems could have been solved by making the supporting character (Justin Long, aka “The Mac Computer Guy”) McClane’s son. But while this would have been plausible in Die Hard 4, it is completely ridiculous here. The backstory between McClane and his son also lacks all orientation. The script’s attempts to create “father-son moments” all seem arbitrary and inauthentic. They seem to reference previously-established facts that are simply NOT THERE due to a lack of proper setup and orientation.

Secondly, the film (the first two-thirds, at least) suffers from a practically anonymous antagonist. Who is this guy? What is his deal? Why is he doing all of this? I don’t even remember if he has a name. Once again, no orientation. With no information given to the audience, the villain cannot possibly be considered as anything other than some random asshole doing random things. I guess, like in Die Hard 4, the audience is supposed to hate the guy just because he is good-looking. There is one odd attempt to give the guy some personality somewhere past the 40-minute mark where he eats a carrot (?) and does a little soft-shoe dance (??). But guess what? This is way too little, way too late. Characterization does not equal character. A carrot and a couple confusing lines of dialogue cannot make up for forty minutes of anonymity. But I guess the writers thought there was no point to developing an antagonist they were not going to even stick with to the end of the film. [SPOILER: The film pulls another structural boner when it kills off its supposed antagonist at the end of the second act. This basically renders the character and all he has done up to this point meaningless. The writers may have thought it dramatic to pull a villain switcheroo, but this move does nothing but throw a monkey wrench into the story's already damaged Story Spine. Dumping one antagonist for another is among the rankest of amateur mistakes. Changing horses in midstream will only confuse and frustrate the audience. Don’t spend half the film telling the audience that something is important, and then unceremoniously dump it in the trash.]

Third, Good Day revolves around an extremely weak macguffin. (“Macguffin” is a Hitchcockian term for the person or object everyone in the story is chasing after.) We are told that all the plot’s events; all the explosions, all the shootouts, all the infrastructure-destroying car chases; occur because everyone is after a “file.” Evidently, this “file” is important because it has some dirt on a powerful muckity-muck in the Russian government. Well... who gives a crap? Why does the American government care, why do McClane or John Junior care, and most importantly, why should the audience care about some minor political flap on the other side of the planet? What does it mean to them? How is this file important enough to justify all the violence and destruction the characters must commit to get it? Later, we are told this file contains evidence as to who was really responsible for the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. Again... who gives a crap? Why take all this urgent action for the sake of something that has been over and done with for twenty-seven years? What does that mean TO US? If the macguffin does not pose an immediate threat to all involved parties, no one (including the audience) has a reason to care. 

This is the biggest problem with Good Day. There are NO REAL STAKES! There is no reason for either the characters or the audience to care about what will happen! What is the worst thing that might happen if the heroes do not get the file? Not much. What is the best thing that could happen if they do? Not much either. [SPOILER: I’ll avoid discussing the further BS on how the macguffin turns out to be a pointless red herring, contrived just as an excuse to get the characters to Chernobyl for the big final action sequence. Setting up something as so damn important and then suddenly dropping it like it never existed is more than poor storytelling. It is like giving your audience the middle finger.]

Errors in screencraft aside, the failure of both Live Free or Die Hard and A Good Day to Die Hard can be summed up as same cause for failure seen in almost every completed trilogy that has been recently dug up for another unnecessary go-around. The franchise has lost sight of what it was all about in the first place. What made the original Die Hard great (and to a lesser extent its first two sequels), was that it was a film about an average joe who unwittingly finds himself trapped in extraordinary circumstances. He has to take on extreme risk and face incredible danger, not because he wants to (he doesn’t!), but because he must. Someone or something he cares about more than anything in the world is in immediate danger. Only, it turns out that no one can help but himself. Because of this, the average joe must push himself above and beyond his perceived limits, finding the strength, ingenuity, and passion he never knew he had. Watching this story, the audience learns that every one is capable of greatness, even when things are at their worst, if they are simply willing to stand up and fight rather than lay down and die. This is what the title “Die Hard” means. Live Free and Good Day do not do this. They are not Die Hard films. They are simply movies that happen to feature a guy named John McClane.

Screenwriting Down to the Atoms is now Available as an eBook!

Screenwriting Down to the Atoms is now available to in electronic form from the following online retailers for only $4.99!:

Click on the images above to go directly to Atoms' product page on site. The Amazon Kindle Store provides versions that can be read on the Kindle and iPad/iPhones using the Kindle app. Smashwords provides a plethora of brand-independent formats that can be read on almost any electronic device, from the B&N Nook to your PC/Mac to a PDA.

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Plotting by Story Sequences: Quick and Dirty

On this blog, I make frequent references to story sequences and turning points. However, it occurs to me that, with the exception of one four-year old article written back when I began exploring the concept, I have never offered a full explanation of just what story sequences are and how they are used to construct a cinematic narrative. Since they are so important to the structure of a cinematic story, so much that their discussion takes up two whole chapters in my new book Screenwriting Down to the Atoms, I have chosen to dedicate this month’s article to a brief overview of this subject.

As frequent readers of this blog know, every great story is built upon an elegantly-simple five-component structure called the Story Spine. These components are: 1. The Story Problem, 2. The Story Goal, 3. The Path of Action, 4. The Main Conflict, 5. The Stakes. Put together, the Story Spine can be represented by a simple diagram:

However, this diagram has been simplified to be applicable to ALL types of story no matter what their form (fairy tales, plays, anecdotes, short stories). The feature-length film, in contrast, is a long-form mode of storytelling with a required length of ninety to over one hundred twenty minutes. This length creates problems for cinematic structure. If a movie’s protagonist does as the Path of Action on this simplified diagram seems to suggest, and pursues only a single line of action from the beginning of the film to its end, the story would quickly become repetitive and dull. The audience would grow tired of watching the protagonist ram him or herself forward after the same objective with the same actions without the benefit of development or change. To overcome this problem, the Spine of a feature-length cinematic story looks something more like this:

Here we see that a cinematic Path of Action is not made of a single line of action, but many short, separate segments, all twisting and turning their way to the protagonist’s ultimate goal. These segments are called STORY SEQUENCES. Simply put, a feature film’s required length forces its plot to be broken down into smaller, more manageable structural units.

Practically the first thing every developing screenwriter is taught is that a cinematic plot is told through three acts. However, this is putting the cart before the horse. The thing is, acts are really nothing more than groups of consecutive story sequences. One cannot understand how acts work until they understand story sequences. Story sequences can be thought of as “legs” in the protagonist’s journey. When the story begins, the protagonist’s ultimate Story Goal seems far off and difficult to achieve. So, the protagonist must take things one step at a time by pursuing a series of smaller, more immediate SEQUENCE GOALS – one per story sequence – that slowly move him or her closer and closer to the ultimate prize. By pursuing a smaller, yet related sequence goal in every sequence, story sequences become united in their action as interdependent sub-adventures.

To provide a simple example, let’s say every morning you have the ultimate goal of getting to your job on time. To reach this goal, you must first accomplish a series of sub-goals. First, you must prepare to leave home by showering and getting dressed. Then, you must get to the corner in time to catch the right bus. Once on the bus, you must travel to your job’s location. Succeeding at that, you must then get to your work station with time to spare and start your day. With each sub-goal comes its own individual tasks and difficulties. However, with each sub-goal achieved, you take a step closer and closer to the ultimate goal – getting to work on time.

Sequence goals must always be directly related to the main Story Goal. They are sub-goals within the sub-narrative. If a sequence’s action is unrelated to the main story and its Story Spine, the story will skew off into a tangent, lose focus and direction, and basically waste the audience's time with a meaningless side-trip. Instead, the separate-yet-connected nature of story sequences allow a cinematic plot to seem to its audience to twist and turn in unpredictable directions, while keeping the main plot on track and always moving forward in a clear direction.

Story sequences typically last from eight to twelve minutes. Giving sequences a consistent length provides a plot with a sense of rhythm and balance, like evenly-spaced pillars holding up a large building. The average feature film is composed of ten to fourteen story sequences. Typically, the first act lasts two to three sequences. Act 2A two to four sequences, Act 2B two to four more (creating a grand total of five to seven sequences for the entire second act – I know this is bad math, but a second act with only four sequences usually proves too thin, while an eight-sequence act becomes too unwieldy), with the third act finishing the film with three to four sequences more. Three-hour epics such as The Godfather or one of the Lord of the Rings films will contain more sequences in each act, but this is the exception rather than the norm.

Sequences are grouped into acts because the consecutive plot actions contained within these sequences work together to create larger movements of plot. The sequences of the first act set up and launch the story action, pushing the protagonist towards a Point of No Return (the End of 1^st Act Turning Point). In Act 2A, the protagonist pursues goals that end up complicating the situation, leading to a Monster Moment (the Mid-2^nd Act Turning Point or “Midpoint”). In Act 2B, the protagonist pursues another series of goals aimed at overcoming the monstrous situation created at the Midpoint, inevitably forcing him or her into the end-of-act battle which creates the Third Act Catalyst (the End of 2^nd Act Turning Point). Finally, the sequences of the third act work together to propel the protagonist toward the Main Story Climax, which will resolve the main story conflict and bring everything to a conclusive end.

But what causes story sequences to zig-zag in unpredictable directions as suggested by the updated Story Spine diagram? A related and more important question is what causes each story sequence to begin and end? Each story sequence is brought to an end with an event called a TURNING POINT (represented by the little white circles on the diagram). Turning points are dramatic events that cause the protagonist to halt his or her pursuit of the current sequence goal, and then choose a new course of action. In doing so, the event literally turns the story in a new direction, beginning a new story sequence with actions aimed at a new sequence goal. Turning points are important. They are what give a story its sense of structure. They are the story’s most meaningful moments, the events that cause the narrative to undergo dramatic development and CHANGE. Because turning points cause the story to grow and change, the audience remains interested. Each of these dramatic moments of change reclaims the audience's curiosity and commands them to stay in their seats so they may discover how the hero will deal with the new and unpredictable situation to come.

Turning points transform the plot situation in one of two ways. Sometimes a turning point occurs because the protagonist successfully achieves the goal of the sequence. With the task completed, the protagonist can turn his or her attention to the next phase of the plan. This moves the story onward into its next sequence and gets the hero one step closer to the ultimate prize. This is called a positive turning point. However, more often than not, the protagonist does not achieve his or her sequence goal. An insurmountable OBSTACLE appears to block the protagonist’s way. Like a brick wall erected in the protagonist’s path, the obstacle makes it impossible for the protagonist to reach the current sequence goal through his or her current line of action. This creates a negative turning point. If the protagonist wishes to continue his or her adventure, the protagonist must abandon the current sequence goal and decide on a new course of action aimed at a new goal that will somehow circumvent the obstacle and allow the hero continue his or her journey. By making this decision, the hero launches the story into its next phase.

Turning points must do more than simply shift story action in a new direction. They have an added responsibility of progressively intensifying the story situation through events that cause DEVELOPMENT and ESCALATION. Development occurs when any event causes the story situation to change. But the developments that occur at each turning point cannot be just any simple change, but a major, complicating change. Something is added to the story which takes the situation further, deeper, and into more complex territory. With each turning point, a story is taken from a rather simple scenario at its beginning to an increasingly complicated situation as it moves forward. With each complication also comes escalation. The turning point event must alter the story in a way that forces the protagonist to take on bigger and bigger actions. To continue, the hero must agree to more danger, more risk, and a greater level of conflict. The protagonist must become more dedicated -- and, in reaction to the protagonist’s bigger, more forceful actions, so must the force of antagonism. Intensity then builds at each turning point, causing dramatic tension to slowly rise like a roller-coaster heading toward its highest point, until the conflict reaches critical mass at the main story climax. The roller-coaster then hurtles downhill in an explosive release of dramatic tension as the story comes to a satisfying end. The more development and escalation created leading up to the climax, the more emotionally exciting the climax will be at the story’s end. This is a second reason why turning points are so important. One by one, they create the steady build of tension necessary to create an end that the audience will feel has made the entire experience worthwhile.

For the sake of brevity, I have stuck to the sequence method’s bare bones for this article. There is a lot more to know about how sequences are structured, how they must serve the Story Spine, and how they allow the traditionally-taught Three-Act model to function like a well-oiled machine. If interested in learning more, I suggest you pick up at copy of my book Screenwriting Down to the Atoms, where these concepts are laid out in comprehensive detail.

New BOOK! New SCRIBBLER! New EVERYTHING!

You probably notice that this blog has recently undergone a significant makeover. This has been done in recognition of the fact that Screenwriting Down to the Atoms, my first book and the culmination of two solid years of hard work is now in print and available for purchase on Amazon.com. So feel free to explore. This is now a multi-page blog, with icon links in the box in the upper-right corner that will take you around the site.

While you are at it, please take a moment to visit the Screenwriting Down to the Atoms page on Amazon. You will find it is different than most other screenwriting books. It was designed to be different. There are a lot of screenwriting books out there, and (I find that) a good majority are a waste of your time. Atoms was written in direct reaction to the weak, repetitive, ineffective, and incomplete guides that promise readers the world, and then deliver the same old half-baked methods, confuse readers with incorrect notions, and then send them off worse than they started. At a compact 250 pages, Atoms gives beginners to advanced writers a comprehensive instruction on the craft, featuring new discoveries and groundbreaking approaches never taught before, all revolving around the Story Spine and audience-centered method I have developed through this blog over the past four and a half years.

Atoms is not more of the same-old, same-old. It goes deeper into the fundamentals of the craft and takes them into a new direction, richer and more detailed than ever before to push screencraft into a new direction for the 21st century.

Sideways and the Healing Narrative -or- How Miles Got His Groove Back

Sideways, Alexander Payne's 2004 wine-country opus, and Academy Award-winner for Best Adapted Screenplay is treated by many as such a rare bird of cinematic storytelling. Oh, it is so different! It is so unconventional! Why, it seems to work with no real plot at all! Critics and naysayers of the teaching of screencraft then point to Sideways as proof that one does not need to learn rules and structure to create a great story. They seem to believe that by some bizarre happenstance this genetic mutant of storytelling happened to slip by the gatekeepers to create something different in every way.

What a load of crap. Sideways is as traditional as any other Hollywood film. It has the exact same structure and follows the same rules. It has the plain old normal three acts with the same plain old major dramatic turning points doing what they do in every well-written film. The only thing different about Sideways is its superficial details.

This becomes plain to see if one knows the right places to look. (However, experience has taught me that knowing where to look is an area of weakness for many critics.) Many people who write about this film seem unable to grasp what its story is really all about. First of all, Sideways is a Healing Narrative (Type #4 of my 16 Types of Story). It shares this story type with other well-known films such as The Sixth Sense, Goodwill Hunting, The Wrestler, and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. (I know that last one will raise some eyebrows, so there is a special section dedicated to it at the end of this article.) Alexander Payne seems to have a penchant for this story type, since his previous film About Schmidt was also a Healing Narrative. In fact, Sideways and About Schmidt follow almost (but not entirely) the same structure.

In a Healing Narrative:

The protagonist starts the story somehow wounded, and pursues an objective that will heal him or her, whether that healing be literal, figurative, or symbolic. Though the hero is met with external conflict on his or her journey, real moments of development occur when story events force the hero to overcome his or her resistance to healing, forcing the hero to get out of his or her comfort zone and into the unknown.

Sideways' protagonist Miles starts his story a wounded animal. Miles's divorce two years earlier left a gash in his spirit so deep that he has yet to recover. In response, Miles seems to have all but given up on the pursuit of happiness. The only emotions he seems to feel anymore are depression, frustration, and irritability.

So, Miles needs to heal. This will be the focus of the story. But what specifically occurs in Sideways that causes this healing to occur? Answering this question will point out the film's Story Spine. Unfortunately, most who have taken it upon themselves to analyze this film have misanswered this question and end up mislabeling rather insignificant events as the story's major dramatic turning points.

First of all, we must find the story's inciting incident. The inciting incident is the event that establishes the Story Problem, sets up the Story Goal, launches the Main Conflict, and sets the path the rest of the story will follow. Most people look at Sideways and declare its inciting incident to be the moment Miles and Jack leave LA on their trip to the wine country. This is wrong. Leaving for the wine country does not create any kind of Story Problem. Nor does it incite any sort of story conflict. How can an event be an inciting incident when it is something both characters want to happen? Everything at this point has continued to go according to plan, making this moment nothing more than another part of the film’s setup sequence.

To find the inciting incident, just ask: what is the story really about? It is about Miles finding a reason to give a damn about his life again. And how does he do this? By getting over his divorce by forming a relationship with a new woman – specifically, the Maya character (Virginia Madsen). And wouldn't you know it? Sixteen minutes into the film, right at the point when all the screenwriting books say the inciting incident should occur, this idea is first introduced. Jack says he is sick of seeing Miles feel sorry for himself and promises to get Miles laid. This is the film's inciting incident. It sets up the course of action through which Miles's healing will occur. It also creates the story's main conflict. Miles does not want to get laid and resists Jack's help. Typical to this story type, Miles resists the path to his own healing. Yet, Jack insists, setting the Story Spine into motion and getting the real story rolling.

Jack is a good example of an antagonistic comrade character. A comrade is a character who assists the protagonist in getting what he or she needs. However, in stories such as Healing Narratives, where the protagonist does not wish to pursue the objective he or she desperately needs, the protagonist needs assistance from the outside. Antagonistic comrades achieve this by creating a conflict that indirectly forces the protagonist to take action. The comrade acts like a foe to be a friend. Keep in mind though that while Jack often acts in an antagonistic manner towards Miles, he is not the film's antagonist. Jack does not stand in the way of Miles' goal the way an antagonist must. In fact, he wants Miles to reach his goal. The only character in Miles's way is Miles himself. Miles's refusal to grow and heal makes him his own antagonist – a trait found quite often in Healing Narratives. Jack's antagonistic behavior exists to provide a counter-force to Miles' self-antagonism, constantly pushing Miles forward in spite of his resistance.

True to traditional 3-Act form, Sideways ends its first act with a major dramatic turning point that forces Miles past a Point of No Return. True to his word, Jack arranges a date between Miles and Maya. Miles does not want to go on this date, but agrees because he cannot let his buddy down. Act 2A is made up entirely by this date. And, just like any other cinematic story, in Act 2A Miles' character flaws cause his actions – though well-intentioned – to make the situation worse. Miles drinks too much, drunk-dials his ex-wife, and fumbles with every opportunity to make progress with Maya.

As usual, Act 2A culminates with the arrival of a Monster Moment at the Mid 2nd-Act Turning Point. The Monster Moment is a complicating event that unexpectedly puts the protagonist into a situation far worse than the one that existed before. Miles, once again acting as his own worst enemy, blows what seems to be a sure thing with Maya. With this disappointment in his rearview, Miles now realizes how stupid it was to resist his own healing. He now wants to heal, but the opportunity seems to have passed him by. He is angry at himself and just might spend the rest of his life pathetic and alone.

 After this point, Sideways becomes less of a cut-and-dry narrative as its multiple threads start to emerge and develop on their own. Because of this, like the inciting incident, there is a lot of confusion over what events count as Sideways' final two (and most dramatically significant) turning points: the End of 2^nd Act Turning Point and the Main Story Climax. However, both are easy to identify as long as we remember one thing. The Story Spine is all about Miles healing through his relationship with Maya. This is what the story continues to be all about, even though Maya appears only sporadically for the rest of the film. Since this relationship is the focus of the Story Spine, the End of 2^nd Act Turning Point and Main Story Climax must directly involve and build upon the relationship between the two characters.

In Act 2B, as usual in the Healing Narrative, Miles overcomes his initial resistance and becomes willing to heal. Only Jack's driving force is no longer available to make things happen. Miles must now man up and take responsibility for his own happiness. Miles reaches success, only to have his negative traits screw things up once again.

The second act ends with a traditional Dark Moment – though the scene itself is so short and subtle that it usually slips under the viewers’ radar without them noticing that the storyline has taken a dramatic turn. The End of 2^nd Act Turning Point is not the moment when Miles has his falling out with Maya. It is not when Jack gets his face bashed in. It is the scene afterward when Miles, at his lowest moment, calls Maya from a pay phone and leaves a voicemail in which he admits he is a loser. This is an admission of failure on Miles's part. He is symbolically throwing in the towel, giving up on not only finding any happiness with Maya, but possibly with anyone else in the future. Just like any run-of-the-mill Hollywood flick, the protagonist reaches his deepest, darkest point right before the moment he and Jack must begin their final journey home.

The third act of Sideways is nearly a carbon copy of the third act of Payne's previous film About Schmidt. Both protagonists accept failure at the end of their second acts and return home in despair. Their lives then circle the drain as both seem to have given up on life altogether. Then, the gloom is reversed by a nearly-identical burst of hope.

Not long ago, I read an article on Sideways in which the writer claimed the story's climactic moment occurs in the extremely short scene where Miles drinks his prized bottle of wine alone in a burger joint. I don't know what kind of stuff was in this guy's pipe, but this is absolutely ridiculous. First of all, the story is not about the bottle of wine. Drinking it does not resolve any conflict or do anything to complete the Story Spine, so there is no way that this action could constitute the climax. Furthermore, what idiot of a screenwriter would put a story's climactic moment in the middle of a montage? Not the end of the montage. The middle. If the montage itself has not yet finished giving all it has to say, how does it make sense that the story itself finds its end smack-dab in its middle? Miles's drinking of the wine holds no significance to the plot other than the symbolic. It communicates that he has given up on having any more great moments in life, the kind he has been saving the bottle for. Now, if this really was the story's climax, how depressing would this ending be? “Miles needs to heal. Miles fails. Miles gives up. THE END.”

No, dummy. Where the hell is Maya?

The entire Story Spine has been about Miles's relationship with Maya. Every major turning point has been about Maya. Therefore, to end the story with any kind of satisfactory closure, the climactic event must not only involve Maya, but resolve the entire situation between the characters. Sideways' real climax comes in the exact same way as the climax of About Schmidt -- only instead of a letter from Ndugu, it is a voicemail from Maya. The protagonist has given up on life and resigned himself to failure, only to receive unexpected contact from the person they really care about, reversing his view of the world into one again filled with hope. Maya's voicemail – and more importantly, the scene that follows – completes Miles' Story Spine and resolves all story conflict. The story's Major Dramatic Question has asked “Will Miles ever heal?” After hearing Maya's voicemail, Miles abandons his last bit of resistance towards healing and bounds after the one thing he needs to make himself whole again. The moment he knocks on Maya's door, Miles is a fully-healed man.

Return of the Jedi

Here's something that will make you sound smart the next time you're around a bunch of know-it-alls. Sideways and Return of the Jedi are the exact same type of story. Jedi is also a Healing Narrative.

First of all, it must be noted that the original Star Wars trilogy follows the same unique structural form seen in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. In this structure, the first film is a single, self-contained adventure where the protagonist is at the head of a group of supporting heroes. Then, in the second and third installments, plot structure splits into two dual narratives. In the primary narrative, the protagonist from the first film continues the quest established in the first film, only this time he does so (relatively) alone. However, this is only half the film. The other half is made up of separate-yet-connected secondary adventure, in which a former supporting character steps up into a leading role. (The team of Han Solo and Leia becomes the protagonists of the secondary narratives in Empire and Jedi. Aragorn takes this role in The Two Towers, Gandalf in Return of the King.) Therefore, to study Jedi as a Healing Narrative, one must ignore all the stuff with Han Solo running around Endor with a bunch of teddy bears, because that material is all part of a secondary narrative which follows its own line of action.

Jedi's Healing Narrative is all about Luke Skywalker. Due to the events that ended The Empire Strikes Back, Luke begins Jedi a wounded man, both physically (he lost his hand in battle with Darth Vader), and emotionally/psychologically (the revelation that Vader is his father has traumatized Luke and left him in a morass of emotion). Like Miles, Luke must be made whole again.

At the inciting incident, Luke receives the challenge through which his healing will be achieved. He is told by Yoda he cannot complete his Jedi training until he confronts Darth Vader and overcomes his psychological wound. Luke then sets a goal. He will not only face his father, but will try to save Vader’s soul by bringing him back to the virtuous side of the Force.

It must be noted that Darth Vader is NOT the antagonist in Jedi. The Emperor is Luke's antagonist. Luke's goal is to bring his father back into the light. The Emperor directly opposes this goal through his desire to do the exact opposite – draw Luke to the Dark Side with his father. Vader himself remains relatively passive. Jedi is almost like a hackneyed romantic comedy where Luke is trying to steal his dream girl away from her jerk fiancee.

However, like Miles in Sideways, Luke Skywalker has internal flaws that stand in the way of his healing. Luke's wound cannot heal as long as he remains motivated by hate, anger, or fear – negative traits the Emperor uses against him. As in Miles’s case, Luke can either abandon these traits and clear a path to his healing, or he can succumb to them and let them drag him down into the Dark Side.

In the end, Luke wins, reconciles with his father, and heals the wound that has been inside him since the film began.

November article and a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

Those of you who read this blog may have noticed I usually get my monthly article posted right as the month runs out. Though I have been chipping away at my November article, it doesn't look like I will get this one finished before the 30th. But I do have a good excuse. I have been waiting to make this announcement, and now seems like a good a time as any.

Throughout 2012 I have been working, almost nonstop, on completing my first book Screenwriting Down to the Atoms: Digging Deeper into the Craft of Cinematic Storytelling.

Atoms is a comprehensive guide on screenwriting for the beginning to intermediate writer, making use of my Scriptmonk method with its focus upon the Story Spine, the storyteller-audience relationship, and the proper communication of story information. Intended as the next generation of screenwriting guides, Atoms not only explores established concepts in greater detail than ever before, but introduces many new perspectives and methods yet to be found in any other source.

I am very excited about this book. It is the culmination of years of study and possibly the beginning of some big things. Final revisions are reaching completion. Published copies are expected to be available from online retailers by mid-January in both hardcopy and e-book formats. I will keep readers updated in the coming months.