Inner struggle is not plot
It seems a lot of my scripts revolve around a character’s inner struggle and their inner demons creating destructive physical reactions (acting out). My question is: What if the main character’s motivation is finding their way because they are lost? Isn’t this a purely mental obstacle?
I know you say to make these obstacles physical and simple but this is the complete opposite. Any help would be appreciated.
– Dallas
Staten Island, NY
Write a book. Or a song. Or a poem.
Sure, many great movies feature characters struggling against their demons, or attempting to find themselves. But it’s invariably played as subtext against a more external conflict — the one that actually drives the plot. You need to be able to point the camera at something.
There’s nothing wrong with internal struggle. Just pick a medium that can handle it.
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April 16th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
If you want a movie about inner struggle, watch almost any Pixar movie. They’re all about inner struggles played out in a physical environment.
Marlin is over-protective because he’s scared of losing Nemo, he’s risk-averse. Naturally he teams up with a fish that is prone to taking every conceivable risk. He also doesn’t trust that Nemo can handle himself — and this is again played out in the Jellyfish vs. Trench scene.
Toy Story is Woody’s attempt to overcome jealousy when dealing with someone who’s clearly superior to you. Again, the external conflict supports the internal conflict.
Externalize the internal conflict.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
I’m gonna say “book” will not work with purely inner struggle either. MAYBE a short story, but (good) books are really plot driven too. Even memoir. I should know, it’s something I struggle with, lol.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Internal and external conflicts are usually co-dependent. You take something abstract, like an estranged spousal relationship, and create something tangible for the hero to tackle- Die Hard, The Abyss, True Lies. Once he resolves one, he resolves the other. Horror movies frequently tackle nascent sexuality, Steven Spielberg is notorious for making films about distant fathers. Many great stories treat internal and external conflicts as two sides of the same coin. It can be quite reductive to write a story solely about an internal conflict, and it can be quite bizarrely more subtle to create an actual demon for the protagonist to tackle.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Inner struggle is the best way to plot. Of course a literal depiction of one struggling with one self may border on pornography, in reality the struggle can manifest itself in how the character interacts with the world. This is a real and fictional problem. No one struggles with demons, they act on them (either by going to that hooker again or by staying home to play with the kids). Plot = character/human being making choices and taking actions based on his inner struggles. Simple pimple.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Cronenberg’s Spider is about inner struggle, there’s not much of a ‘plot’ to speak of. But I guess that’s the exception that proves the rule.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
I think this is the reason no one was ever able to successfully adapt Henry James… I’m trying to think of movies that were mostly about internal struggle and two that spring to mind immediately are Equus and William Friedkin’s Bug (probably not coincidentally, both were originally stageplays). In both cases, you have a disturbed personality playing against a relatively “straight” personality, which creates a nice tension. Neither of these narratives are plot-driven, but they both have a central mystery that acts as a kind of narrative engine (in Equus, the protagonist is in a mental ward after injuring some horses; Friedkin’s Bug opens with a shot of a corpse in a strange room and some ominous phone calls).
So being purely prescriptive here, I wonder if the success of a prospective psychological screenplay hinges on structure? Open with the aftermath or in the middle of a horrible / ominous / mysterious / intriguing event; the story then focuses on how the protagonist, driven by his damaged psychology, got into that particular situation.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:24 pm
There are plenty of movies that find a way to externalize internal conflicts and internal demons without becoming Die Hard. Not that I have a problem with Die Hard. But just off the top of my head:
Exotica Naked Ordinary People Carnal Knowledge Eyes Wide Shut American Beauty
If you know what the specific demons are, instead of just having a generic tortured soul, you should be able to come up with real physical action that matches the scene.
If the character has destructive physical reactions, what are they reacting to?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
That looked good in the preview, dammit!
Oh yeah:
There Will Be Blood
April 16th, 2009 at 3:04 pm
There Will Be Blood was boring.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
What if the main character’s motivation is finding their way because they are lost?
To create a compelling and believable story, you need to bury that motivation beneath something more direct and immediate. Not just because the screen demands it, but because it’s what human beings do. We all have deep, complicated needs that we don’t know how to meet, so we pursue them along tangential lines that lead to completely different places.
James Bond, Spiderman, John McClane, Don Draper… they’re all desperately trying to “[find] their way because they are lost,” but it’s the sideways manner in which they try to meet that need that makes them memorable characters.
You’re on the right track. You just need to do the rest of the work.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
Just a quick heads up — typo on the final line.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
All internal struggle manifests outwardly.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Taxi Driver. That’s an example of one character’s internal struggle leading to him making choices that lead to actions that influence other people’s lives. Ordinary People — you could argue that’s an entire family’s internal struggle. In fact, now that I think about it, a lot of 70s movies are terrific examples of a character’s inner struggles leading to choices that move the entire plot forward. For goodness’ sake, even Dostoyevky has plot and if his books are not about internal struggles, I don’t know what is. And they certainly don’t skimp on plot. Burying an axe in your landlady’s skull is sure as hell a plot twist, no?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:12 pm
What does this line by you mean?
“Just pick a medium that can handle it.”
Do you mean pick literally another medium (as in moviemaking versus novel writing) or within the medium of movie making to find visual and external plots to show the internal struggle?
I often start with the internal struggle. What motivates my character before I can figure out what the plot is. So, I may reading your post wrong.
I agree with Mac-man about how to use inner struggle. It provides me twists in my story that may not be apparent at first.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Mac-Man: “Of course a literal depiction of one struggling with one self may border on pornography…”
You’ll go blind doing that!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:01 pm
@Michael:
Thank you. Matt is on vacation.
@Craig:
I mean this: If your story is about a character finding himself, write a book. If your story is about a professional gambler who flees to Central America and ends up defending a village against a local madman — and in the process discovers himself — write a movie.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:27 am
“There Will Be Blood was boring”.
Wash your mouth out!
April 17th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Mentioning a ‘lost charactor’ made me think of Lost. Every main charactor deals with external/internal struggles and one is the focus every episode by use of flash-backs (or flash-fowards). If you haven’t been following lately, try lostpedia.wikia.com for more info.
Anotehr movie that comes to mind is Neo in The Matrix. Neo internally struggles with his freewill and his destiny while externally struggling with the machines and sentinals of the Matrix. And solving one, solves the other.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:32 am
“the only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an ‘objective correlative’; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in a sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.” –TS Eliot
Even if you tell your story in a book or poem, you can’t avoid a concrete correlative—seems to me that’s the only way you can communicate to others what is purely abstract and in your head. They may not see it on a screen, but they still have to ‘see’ something in their heads. Otherwise, who cares? Lots of great films and books don’t have much of a plot, but something does need to happen.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I think Twilight was about inner struggle. Bella’s unsure ability to love something that would/could kill her. Then you have Edward’s inner desire to feed on her. All of this however, didn’t translate well to a movie.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Just thinking out loud here. Seems like with an internal struggle just holding a mirror up to that character is powerful. e.g. if you’ve got a guy having an existential crisis, throw him into a situation where he has to see death up close and personal. How do you get someone to extricate his head from his own ass? Get him into situations where he has no choice. Show him (and us) the gritty reality of whatever he is romanticizing (death, love, war, family, drugs?). Or vice verse. What’s the outward disconnect that caused his disillusionment? Where do you want the character to end up, psychologically? Will he be healed? Will he go down the toilet? What’s going to force him to make the choices that will get him there? Great question for discussion.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:28 am
I take it we’re not fans of Bresson, Ozu, Bergman, Antonioni, Wong Kar Wai, Godard, Malick, Altman, Cassavetes, De Sica, Fellini, Malle… ?
April 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
I think early on it’s hard to accept (and impossible to master) the requirements of story telling. So if you find yourself stuck in the internal life of your characters, smack yourself on the side of the head and make yourself think differently. It actually ends up being more interesting, in the long run, to write about actions that give us insight into human behavior, and you’ll come to think of your early efforts as having been well-meant but…boring.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
The demand for “literary” fiction — where internal plot points are emphasized, and external plot points are not life-and-death/all-consuming — isn’t that great. It’s hard for agents to sell, and most of it won’t make you any money even if you do sell it.
Writing a book or movie require different skill sets. Most literary writers don’t just “decide” to write lit fiction because their screenplay isn’t working out. It’s something they’ve done forever, and they know the limitations of it.
At any rate, I think you’re selling yourself short. Just because you’re better at figuring out a character’s inner struggle it doesn’t mean you can’t work at figuring out the external plot to go with it. It’s not supposed to be easy.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
Okay, best discussion ever. Ya’ll are so brilliant! Now if only this had all happened a few years back it would have saved me a heck of a lot of time! But even now, I got a tremendous amount out of it, so thank you everyone.
As for “There Will Be Blood”, it was bloody brilliant, mate!
April 17th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
@Chris:
With few exceptions, those filmmakers had to earn the luxury of making highly cerebral films, and they did it by writing and/or directing material that was much more externally focused and commercial. Most of the commenters/emailers on this blog are in the early stages of our careers, so we can’t afford to write the kind of script that Bergman or Fellini would have indulged in once they were well-established.
April 18th, 2009 at 1:23 am
John:
Thanks. I realize the source of my confusion. I wrote short stories before I wrote screenplays. They are not that different as you seem to suggest. My process is the same for fiction as it is for screenwriting. The end product is different, but it took me along time to realize that the process is not. I would need to know what inside the gambler compels him to defend a village against a madman. Without that wisdom, I could not screw with the character enough to make him or the plot interesting to the audience.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Wow. John, thanks so much for answering my question! I can’t believe I had a question you haven’t answered before. I’m in the middle of a rewrite and you’re a godsend for answering this question right before I dive into this major re-structuring and re-thinking of this story. It’s a sci-fi/drama dealing with body switching and voodoo so I have a tough rewrite ahead of me. So again, thank you!
@Jason – The story actually does have a demon in it and you’ve helped me realize that this demon can represent the inner demon of the main character. Thanks!
“There Will Be Blood” is brilliant. It’s funny though. I always saw that movie about greed, wanting to win, wanting everyone to lose… but recently my wife shed new light on it for me. She says Daniel Plainview is a tortured soul because everyone he loved abandoned him and that’s why he’s so driven to “Drink your milkshake!”.
That’s some inner struggle right there. PT Anderson is one of my favorite writers.
I LOVE this site. I will be here as long as it’s running.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
One of the best scripts I ever read was about grief – an internal conflict. But what made it so great was that the protagonist dealt with her struggle in an active way: she moved out of town, got a new house, got a job, got a new boyfriend, etc. Nobody wants to watch a movie about a women who sits around crying because her husband died. But if the woman is trying to get over her grief in a tangible way, I think it could work.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:26 am
“Write a poem.”
Or paint a picture.
Or do an interpretive dance.
Nice John, nice.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Bourne = a search for his identity. Boom.
Nick:
I get the sense that you’re biding your time. You sound like my Dad. He was waiting for the big score and he was still waiting when he died. Live brother. Be an artist now. No ditch digging necessary.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
@Mac-Man:
Actually, at least for the moment*, writing commercial scripts interests me more than writing stuff that’s smaller and more personal. So I’m in a good place.
April 20th, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Nick,
I’m glad for you. But who says art has to be small and personal? I’m talking about ambition. I’m talking about striving for art. There’s a multitude of ways to be “commercial.” The most satisfactory, in my opinion, is when one strives for greatness always.
The examples you provided in your post didn’t pay their dues, they strived for greatness and failed (and they were allowed to fail). They strived for greatness always and sometimes they succeeded (commercially, artistically, whatever adjective we use to label them).
Be great always….