Memo from the Story Department. Christopher Vogler

Чтение книги онлайн.

      CHAPTER TWO

      THE “WANT” LIST

      —— McKENNA ——

      “ There are three rules to writing, and nobody knows what they are.”

      —W. Somerset Maugham

      This is a quote from one of the twentieth century's best storytellers, and I use it to keep myself humble as a teacher. I don't know how anyone creates art. It's a mystery that requires inspiration, hard work and something indefinable that can't be learned by following rules from a book (I can hear my publisher groaning).

      Thankfully, craftsmanship (if not artistry) can be taught. It has hard rules that become malleable under an artist's touch. So a wise artist goes through “basic training” with those rules before toying with them.

      However, it seems to be the way of the world that uninitiated would-be artists dive right in without submitting to this “basic training” in craftsmanship.

      My drama school classmates and I were not particularly wise in the matter of training. We were acting students, filled with passionate impulses and skeptical about the need for wisdom. We would perform scenes for our teacher, filled with youthful brio and good intentions. Most of our work was pretty crappy.

      Having suffered through our work, that teacher would begin each critique session with a simple question: “What does your character want?” Dozens of scenes would be performed throughout the semester, and the question was posed every single time. Without fail, the response was a lot of hemming and hawing from us students. We were pretty hilarious in our insistent ignorance.

      It's a legacy that continues. I've taught my share of acting classes and have seen hundreds of acting scenes. As my teachers did before me, I almost always ask: “What do you want here?” As I and my classmates did decades ago, my students look at their shoes and mumble something along the lines of “I dunno.”

      So, in the name of basic training in craftsmanship, I want you and I (mostly you) to make up a list of “wants.” Since we know that the question will be asked every single time, we will look like “A” students if we at least have some sort of answer.

      So, what do people “want”? We can start with the basics: food, clothing, shelter. Can we make up a story about these basic desires? I don't see why not. Isn't the desire for all three the issue that drives the heroes of Blake Edwards' Victor/Victoria?

      We can open things up from there. Alcoholics want booze; just ask Nicholas Cage from Leaving Las Vegas. Sinners want redemption. Almost all of us yearn for love and recognition. Braveheart's William Wallace laid it all on the line for freedom and, after all these years, Mick Jagger still can't get no satisfaction.

      In case we've forgotten, Cyndi Lauper informs us that girls just want to have fun.

      In fact, pop songs are a virtual textbook of “wants.” The kids from Fame “want to live forever.” Aretha wants R-E-S-P-E-C-T, and in Some Like It Hot, Marilyn Monroe wants to “be loved by you, just you and nobody else but you.” In Marilyn's case, it looks like a sweet yen. But give it to Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction, and the simple “want” gets downright scary.

      Michael Corleone wants family, and he's willing to kill to secure it. That's his tragedy, right? How many of us just yearn for a mate and kids? What dramatic action would we take to acquire such things?

      It's probably not polite to say so, but most of us are willing to make damned fools of ourselves to fulfill our sexual “wants.” And how about the supporting character in Mary Chase's comedy Harvey who just wants to sit under a tree with some beer and a girl who pats his hand saying “there, there”? It doesn't seem like much, but it feeds an entire “B” plot.

      Money drives most of us to some degree or other, and James Bond wouldn't have much to do unless an endless stream of bad guys wanted to dominate the world. James himself seems satisfied with a bottomless supply of exotic cigarettes, devastating femme fatales and martinis shaken, not stirred. Come to think of it, I want those things, too.

      Sports teams want to win championships, and hundreds of films record what they sacrifice to accomplish it.

      Almost every Broadway musical opens with an “I want” song. It's the anthem declaring the hero's desire that will be shaped and tested by the ensuing action. Belle from Beauty and СКАЧАТЬ