Memo from the Story Department. Christopher Vogler

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      CHAPTER FOUR

      THE CONTRACT

      WITH THE AUDIENCE

      —— VOGLER ——

      If a scene is a deal, then what is a story? One answer is that a story, too, is a deal, but the contract in this case is not between characters in a scene but between you and your audience. The terms are these: They agree to give you something of value, their money, but also a much more valuable consideration, their time. As a screenwriter you are asking them to pay attention to you and you only for ninety minutes, and as a novelist for much longer. Think about that! Focused attention has always been one of the rarest and most valuable commodities in the universe, and it's even truer today, when people have so many things fighting for their attention. So for them to give you even a few minutes of their focus is huge stakes to put on the table, worth much more than the ten bucks or so they shell out for a book or a movie ticket. Therefore, you'd better come up with something really good to fulfill your part of the bargain.

      There are many ways to fulfill that contract with the audience. I used to think the “Hero's Journey” model that I describe in my book The Writer's Journey was the whole contract, and an absolute necessity. I still think it is the most reliable way to honor the terms of the deal with the audience, providing them with a cathartic metaphor for their lives that includes a taste of death and transformation. They tend to read it into any story anyhow, and it's actually hard to find a story that doesn't display some of its elements. But I've come to see it's not the only way to hold up your end of the deal.

      At a minimum you must be entertaining, that is, able to hold their attention with something a little novel, shocking, surprising, or suspenseful. Be sensational; that is, appeal to their sensations, give them something sensual or visceral, some experience that they can feel in the organs of their bodies, like speed, movement, terror, sexiness.

      Laughter is another way to fulfill the contract with the audience. People are so starved for laughter that a movie that makes you laugh out loud a few times is probably going to be a hit. They'll overlook a stupid or pointless story if the movie delivers on the laugh clause in the contract. They didn't go to see movies about Francis the Talking Mule in the 1950s for the heart-warming, thought-provoking Hero's Journey stories, and they don't expect Alvin and the Chipmunks to change their lives.

      A good ride to another place and time can fulfill the contract. I don't remember much of the story of The Abyss but I felt well repaid by being taken to a cool dark place under the sea for two hours on a hot summer afternoon. James Cameron is great at creating entire worlds, the elegant world of Titanic, the ravishing world of Avatar, and his movies are rewarded with success because they satisfy the “take me to another place” part of the contract so well.

      Giving the audience stars they like in appealing combinations is a way the studios have always used to fulfill the contract with the public. Breathless movies trailers used to proclaim: “You loved Tracy and Hepburn in Adam's Rib; here they are together again in Pat and Mike!” Putting beloved stars into different costumes is another way to satisfy the entertainment contract. You thought Russell Crowe looked good in the gladiator kit; you'll love him in the Robin Hood outfit.

      Sheer novelty weighs heavily with audiences, justifying the investment of their time and attention. It's worth a lot to people to be able to talk about the movie everyone's buzzing about, be it Psycho, The Crying Game, Pulp Fiction, The Blair Witch Project, The Passion of the Christ or 300. To fulfill that clause of the contract, there'd better be something really strange, scary, shocking, thrilling or surprising inside that movie so that people can talk about it knowingly after they've seen it.

      One of the most powerful ways to honor the terms of the entertainment contract is to fulfill a deep wish held by many members of the audience—to see the dinosaurs walk again in Jurassic Park, to fly and wield superpowers in Superman, to be seduced by sexy teen vampires in the Twilight series. Walt Disney realized that fairy tales were driven by wishes and built his brand identity around giving people the wholesome fantasy experiences they wanted, filled with wish-granting fairy godmothers, wizards and genies.