Want. Refusal. Reversal. Repeat.

When I was starting my hamster-wheel journey to become a famous screenwriter, I studied all sorts of books, with all sorts of complicated breakdowns of movie structure. Field. McKee. Vogler. Snyder. There's a lot of stuff in all of them about internal and external arcs. Wants versus needs. Act breaks. Midpoints. All is lost moments. They say a lot of the same things in different ways, but no matter which one you choose, it's a lot to take in. It gets intimidating, mapping out your protagonist's journey. I'd worry about my protagonist's journey as a giant, complicated thing, like I was conducting a hundred instruments for an opera.

But nowadays, I've started to see how maybe it's not so complicated. Maybe it's jazz. So long as you know three things, and layer them over each other with subtle variation, you can improvise a story pretty organically.

Go watch a movie with three steps in mind, and count out how they repeat, and build off of each other. Over and over, you'll see want, refusal, and reversal.

Here's how it works: The protagonist wants something--let's go with boy wants girl. But boy can't talk to girl, he's too shy (refusal). But then the boy sees a car rushing toward the girl--now his want comes into conflict with his refusal: He HAS to talk to her to save her life! Hey, pretty girl, look out! She doesn't react, so he dives and saves her, and asks if she's okay. She says she is--in Danish. Oh crap, she doesn't speak English. Who does boy know that can teach him Danish? Only the last person in the world he would ever talk to, his alcoholic father who abandoned him (refusal). But now his want overpowers his refusal again, and he takes the girl to his dad's place. The dad teaches him Danish, so that the boy now understands when the girl says she loves him. Oh no! This is that dangerous intimacy like the kind his dad ran away from! Now he understands his dad's fears! He dumps the girl just like his dad did, because he can't handle the intimacy (refusal). But now his heart is empty. What can fill it? The booze he swore he'd never start drinking because it ruined his dad's life? Say hello again to mega-reversal: Now he's drinking with his father. And that's the only time his father is ever able to be real, and confess his regret. He wishes he was stronger, like his son. And now boy realizes he must overcome his fear of intimacy (reversal). He goes and finds the girl to take her back. But now she's dating the marine that the boy has never defeated in battle. He can't win! Yet now he must! And so on. 

Hold on, I've got to go register this gem with the WGA… Boom, steal at your peril!

Now if you want to see an even better example of this sort of story jazz, can I just wholeheartedly recommend The Visit? Shyamalan is back. He constructed a fantastic story which I'm not going to spoil, but I suggest you go see it and watch his use of want, refusal and reversal. I hope Shyamalan never makes another movie with over a 10 million dollar budget, because small budgets force him to do what he may be better at than anyone: making internal journeys as cinematic as external ones.

From the want of two kids hoping to reunite their mother with their grandparents, Shyamalan pulls off at least half a dozen refusals and reversals, the last one in the movie being one of my favorite reversals ever. Again, won't spoil. Go see it and let's talk about it in the comments!

And next time you're stuck wondering where your story should be going, clear your head, put down the opera, and pick up the jazz. Want. Refusal. Reversal. Repeat.