The Points Project.

For a few months now, I've been engaged in something I call the Points Project.  It started as a way for me to keep myself accountable to actually doing something with my days in the summer, but it's morphed into a general metric of becoming, I guess.

Here's how it works.  I made a little spreadsheet in Google Docs.  It looks something like this:

I figured out the goals of my life.  Not in the sense of what I want to accomplish as much as who I want to be.  There's a place for emotional development, spiritual development, physical development, whatever.  Then, I made up some activities and disciplines that need to be present in my life in order to grow in that area.  Each one gets a point score, depending on how difficult it is or how tricky it is to motivate me to do that item.

The system is not perfect.  I've tweaked it a number of times to try to be more accurate or more motivating.   I've added quite a few activities that are worthy of my time and interest so that, hopefully, my points help me track my growth as a person.

The trouble I've had lately is that I've not had a reason to get more points.  I'm far too sensible for it to be some kind of monetary goal.  I've got enough of those as it is without figuring out some kind of payout for points.  My new strategy is to post my scores online.  Hopefully, that will motivate me to keep getting my scores back into the 200 or 300 range, rather than the abysmal 100ish I've been getting lately...

So join me as I spam my blog and twitter feed with a contest that I'm playing with myself.

What's at stake?

The past two posts have been important questions of character development.  By establishing a strong desire, the main character can push the story forward.  By putting obstacles in their path, the story is advanced in meaningful ways and the character is forced to confront their inner demons.  But all of that is moot if it never matters if they succeed at their goal. 

The last major question to ask about the character is “What’s at stake?”  What happens if the character doesn’t achieve their desire?  What if they fail?  It is this question that gives the character motivation to overcome their obstacles.  It is what gives the story urgency and importance.  And, honestly, it may be the stakes more than anything else that allow us to identify with a character.  Without clear stakes, we as an audience don’t know what the point is.

Every desire, no matter how banal, has stakes associated with it.  Even the desire for a coffee and the obstacle of driving to Starbucks.  The stakes are comfort.  The achievement of desire.  But that’s not a good story, is it? 

The more dramatic the stakes, the better the story.   Look at the Lord of the Rings films.  The desire of most of the characters is clear: destroy Sauron by destroying the ring.  The obstacles are numerous.  There’s an entire army of orcs and Uruk-hai.  Good guys go rogue.  He’s made allegiances with the other men from the east.  What is at stake?  The entire freedom of Middle Earth.  Elrond makes this pretty clear at the council at Rivendell.  Should the Hobbits fail at destroying the ring – should Sauron be reunited with it – the entire free world would fall to his oppressive, evil regime.  Those are some pretty high stakes.  These high stakes are what get us so involved in the story.

So what is at stake in our lives?  I think it can depend on the desire.  Maybe a marriage is at stake.  Maybe physical or emotional health.  Maybe the achievement of a closely held dream.  For some desires, maybe it’s something much more tangible.  If you don’t get that job, you won’t be able to eat.  Without your passionate drive to end sex trafficking, more women will be oppressed and suffering will continue.  The larger the stakes, the scarier it is to live life as a story.

To me, one of the most motivating stakes in my life-as-story thoughts is waste.  I’m terrified of wasting the life and talents that God has given me.  For many years now, I’ve hated the word potential.  According to my teachers and mentors growing up, I’ve been given a lot.  One of the things at stake in my life is turning around and thinking that I didn’t achieve that potential.  I’m absolutely terrified of arriving at the pearly gates and, like the wicked man in the parable of the talents, having nothing to show for the gifts I’ve been given. 

I don’t think this is an abnormal fear.  We’ve all been given magnificent gifts.  We have minds that can think.  Most of us have bodies that work normally.  We have passions and desires and the ability to achieve those things.  What a waste of all that if we don’t even attempt to pursue those desires. 

What’s at stake for your desires?  What will you be forced to deal with if you don’t achieve it?  What won’t you get if you don’t overcome your obstacles? 

What's in the way?

The second biggest question when developing characters (at least when I learned screenwriting basics) is “What is in the way?”  Desires are not worth a whole lot if we don’t have anything stopping us from getting them, right?  I mean, they wouldn’t even be desires, would they?  They’d just be…  I have this thing.

Anyway.  I think obstacles are the very stuff of story.  Without them, stories wouldn’t exist.  It would just be Once upon a time, a prince went off in search of a princess.  Then he found her and they lived happily ever after.  There’s nothing of interest there.  Nothing moving.  Nothing inspiring.

Take Twilight, for example.  I have never read the books, but I saw the movie last week.  One of the central problems in the first two acts of the film is the lack of obstacles.  There is no clear obstacle keeping the lovers apart.  And that’s what makes a love story interesting!  It’s the Montagues and Capulets fighting.  It’s the clear stubbornness that “I’m fine on my own!”  It’s the curse that keeps her a hawk in the day and him a wolf in the night.  Twilight didn’t interest me until the third act, when all of a sudden, there was a real desire (keep dad safe) and obstacles in the path (evil vampires with a wicked sense of smell).

Oftentimes, in story, we find that there are actually two major obstacles in the way of the hero getting their desire.  The first is easy.  It’s the external obstacle.  In Star Wars, it’s the empire as symbolized by Darth Vader.  In Final Fantasy VII, it’s Sephiroth summoning Meteor.  In the excellent silent film, City Lights, it’s the Tramp’s poverty.  These are clear, physical obstacles preventing the heroes from getting what they want and, no doubt about it, they must be overcome.  But in the best stories, there is also a second obstacle: the internal. 

It’s a common trope that all characters need some kind of flaw, right?  But this flaw is usually so significant, it is this internal obstacle, not the external, that truly prevents the hero from getting what he or she wants.  In film school, one of the great questions we asked was, “How does who the character is get in the way of what the character wants?”  One of my favorite films (known and beloved by all for its artistic merit) is Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.  It satirizes so many things I hold dear, but it makes this distinction very, very clear. 

SPOILER ALERT.  (As if my whole blog doesn’t spoil all kinds of stuff…) (Also, go see this movie.)  (Now.)

At the climax, Scott goes to confront Gideon, the leader of the League of Evil Exes.  On the surface, the obstacle standing in the way of Scott reuniting with Ramona is Gideon.  He’s evil.  He has a cool sword.  And ninjas.  But Scott, ultimately, cannot defeat him.  One trippy dream sequence and one whispered, “I think I learned something” later and Scott has had his big transformation.  As he all but says out loud later, his biggest obstacle is that he has only found his value in girls rather than finding intrinsic value in himself.  Armed with this newfound “Power of Self-Respect”, Scott can defeat Gideon once and for all and reclaim the lady that he loves.  This time, though, he has a real chance of keeping her, since he’s not expecting her to be his sole affirmation of existence.  (If that sounds cheesy, just go see the movie.  It’s totally not.  Or it is.  Either way, it’s on purpose and awesome.)

Other stories do this much more subtly.  In many romantic comedies, it’s the moment that the guy realizes that his real enemy isn’t her parents/her friends/a long distance/whatever else.  Really, he just needs to settle down and commit to this wonderful woman, despite her flaws.  In the Lord of the Rings movies, it’s when Aragorn finally grows a pair and leads his kingdom.  In Casablanca, it’s when Rick calls in a favor with Renault to send Elsa away with her husband.  All of these moments – and simultaneous actions – are caused by these characters overcoming their fatal flaws and interior obstacles.

The interesting thing is that none of these characters would have overcome – or even been aware of – their internal obstacles and flaws if it had not been for the external flaws.  Without Sauron rising to power, Aragorn would have never questioned his decision to run away from the throne.  Without the drama in the romcom, the Guy would not have proposed.  Without the Nazis and Elsa’s husband, Rick never would have called in that favor and grown to be a freedom fighter again.

Ultimately, it is this battle that inspires us more than anything when we interact with stories.  Sure, watching the Empire go down is fun.  But we want to see the hero go from self-serving to self-sacrificing.  At the end of the day, that’s what makes us want to live our lives better.

I feel like I don’t have to do a lot of work to connect these story concepts to real life.  If we really want something as badly as I talked about yesterday, we will encounter resistance.  Obstacles will present themselves.  Maybe it’s funding.  Maybe it’s workplace politics and a stubborn superior.  Maybe it’s straight up evil men.  Either way, we will have external obstacles and I think it’s important to name them.  Naming an obstacle for what it is is the first step toward making a plan to overcome it.

Internal obstacles are a bit trickier.  Most characters spend the story finally discovering their real flaw.  They are usually ignorant at the beginning.  We, however, are often acutely aware of our flaws.  (I know I am.)  I do think – and this is getting a lot more speculative – that if we are aware of our flaws, then they become more like external obstacles.  We know what the issue is and we can make a plan to overcome it. 

Just like story characters, though, we have numerous hidden flaws.  There will always be blind spots in our understanding of ourselves.  I often find that, as I pursue what I want, I discover that the real blind spot – the real inner flaw – is a theological issue.  I don’t trust God.  I don’t trust that he’s good.  I don’t fully believe that he forgives me or empowers me or loves me.  For you, maybe it’s something else.  Maybe a secret arrogance or a hidden jealousy.  No matter what it is, the only way we’ll actually discover it is to pursue something.  We should keep on wanting something enough to risk until we are confronted by a facet about ourselves that we never knew. 

(Side note: this is why having important friendships is incredibly important.  They can tell us, often before we know ourselves, what that flaw is.  Maybe if we listen, we can avert the tragedies…)

So perhaps we should reframe how we look at the obstacles in our path.  It is they, not some inner discipline and force, that helps make the story worth the telling.  Obstacles show characters (and us) who they really are and what the real problem is.  It is the obstacles in life that God uses the most in shaping our character (this time I mean the inner person, not a story-person).  Through adversity, we grow and are shaped. 

What’s in your way?  What prevents you from getting what you want, both externally and internally?  How can you develop a plan to fight the external obstacles while remaining attentive to the internal? 

What do you want?

It’s a simple question, right?  What do you want?  One of the first words many children learn is “want”.  It’s almost an instinct.

The first major question in character development is “What does the character want?”  Good characters are active characters and they can’t be active without a desire.  It is this first imbalance that starts the action of the story.  This can’t just be any desire, either.  It has to be a desire so strong, that the character is willing to risk something to get it. 

In Gladiator (a favorite in my screenwriting classes), Maximus, more than anything else, wants to be with his family.  It is what motivates his wanting to win the battle in the beginning.  It is what stops him from returning to Rome with Caesar.  After their murder, it is what keeps him moving in an almost suicidal direction toward saving Rome.  And when he dies in the end, he not only dies as a hero (a very powerful way to end a story), he also finally gets the single thing that he’s been working toward for an entire movie.  He has risked everything, including the one thing he feared most, leadership of Rome, in order to be with his family again.

Even video game stories follow this rule of character development, often putting the player in the shoes of the character who wants the most.  Take the original Donkey Kong, for example.  There really isn’t much of a story.  We know that Jumpman’s girlfriend, Pauline, has been captured by Donkey Kong.  Obviously, Jumpman wants her back.  He wants her back so badly, that he’s willing to risk his life to climb up this building after Donkey Kong to get her back.  This single action, this single desire, is enough to drive an entire game’s action.

I have found that in the story that is our lives, this question is actually pretty difficult to answer.  Ask any college freshman what they want to major in, and 60% of the time, they’ll have no clue – at least, no strong desire.  (The cruel thing is that I know many students who don’t really figure that out until their senior year…)  I learned to start asking this question many years ago.

I moved from New Mexico when I was a junior in high school.  Obviously, that sort of thing is sort of disruptive to your social life, so, as a graduation gift a year and a half later, my parents sent me to New Mexico for a week to spend some time with my old friends.  I got to catch up with people, see graduation, play video games, and go to several graduation parties.  At one of these parties, I got into a conversation with one of my friends’ dad.  He had had a bit to drink and started giving us advice. 

He said some wise things to some other friends before turning to me, “You know what your problem is, Kemp?  You don’t know what you want.  You keep going out with these girls and breaking their hearts.  But it’s just because you don’t know what you want.  Before you go out with another girl, you better be sure you know what you want.”

He was right.  I spent most of high school going in and out of relationships with girls and hurting them every time.  All because I didn’t know what I want.  I didn’t know the kind of girl I was interested in.  I didn’t know who I was.  I didn’t know what I was doing or what I wanted to do.

What do you want?  What do you want so badly that you’re willing to risk to get it?  It may not be much.  Maybe you want that girl’s number.  Do you want it badly enough to risk the embarrassment of finding out that she’s got a boyfriend?  Maybe you want to get a master’s degree.  Do you want it badly enough to spend a few years after undergrad doing work you don’t like in order to save enough money for that master’s?  Maybe you want to be your own boss, work from home, and start your own business.  Do you want that so badly you’re willing to risk your livelihood, the embarrassment of failure, and a whole lot more?  Maybe you want something even bigger than that.

Actually achieving that desire is sort of irrelevant.  Many stories end with the characters never getting what they want.  Sometimes, they find out that they never really wanted that thing in the first place.  Or maybe it just wasn’t worth wanting.  Or maybe they just weren’t meant to get it.  Either way, their lives have been a story worth telling.  As Christians, we can trust that, for a time, God wanted us going after that thing.  Through that story, through that journey, he has shaped us into who we are.  Hopefully that’s more like him.

What about you?  What do you want?  Really.  Ask yourself that question.  What are you willing to risk to get?  How much does that desire factor into your daily life?  What are you doing today to get it?  If you’re not doing anything, how can you expect to really live a life worth telling?

Character.

I love story. 

I remember my first encounter with the study of story structure.  It was Drama 1 class in 9th grade with Jonathon Dunski.  (By no small coincidence, also the class I was in when the towers went down in 2001…).  We talked about three act structure, exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and the frequently missed denouement.  I was fascinated.  I started filtering everything I watched and played by that structure.

In Acting 1 class a few years later, we learned more about character development.  MOOSASSO, I think was the acronym.  Motivation, Objective, Obstacles, Strategy, Action, something…  something else… and outcome.  All things that every character should have in every scene.  It was the first time that I, as an actor, starting thinking in a more analytic way about character development.

It was unsurprising that when I changed my major to film in college, I focused on storytelling and structure.  I read lots of books (with many more to go).  I analyzed movies, TV shows, raw screenplays, and the video games that I played.  My understanding of story deepened and I grew to appreciate it more and more.  Robert McKee’s Story is a love letter to the screenplay and stories in general.  The Writer’s Journey, though not my favorite tool, is still an inspiring look at the deeper goings-on in the stories that we interact with every day.

Over the last several years, my life has been dominated by stories and storytelling.  The more I learn, the more determined I am to tell a good story with my life.  I don’t think that God has created us to sit idly by, wishing more exciting things were happening to us.  My church often quotes John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”  A full life is not one where we never risk anything.  A full life, I think, should leave us full of stories to tell.  Stories about God’s goodness and provision.  Stories of desperate circumstances and terrible choices.  Stories that reflect the magnificent gift of life that God has given us.

The stories that inspire us the most have great characters driving them.  For the next couple of days, I want to address a couple of thoughts that I’ve had in the last few years about being that great character.  What makes a good character in a story?  How can we reverse engineer a storied life from that?