As I've been writing some fairly traditional work of late I have been taking the time to refresh my understanding of the three act form. Yes, I've been indoctrinated with three act form for many years, but this time round I am looking at it more technically.
First up is this idea of A B and C stories - or plot and subplots. In a great script these will appear to be seamless and the distinction should disappear for an audience as they watch. In one sense A, B and C can be seen as views on the story (the external, the personal and the interpersonal), and one image for them is that of interlocking and interdependent gears (we'll come back to that). However when they get addressed like this - which seems to be a mostly American thing - then we should know what they are what they are meant to be doing:
In simplistic terms; 'A detective must find love in order to gain the understanding of human nature he needs to find the elusive serial killer'
Of course the great unwritten about the ABS story is that it exploits or reinforces (depending on your point of view) the humanistic location of the post-enlightenment individual. In this model the individual engine (ego) is fueled by desire to propel themselves to win a race, but do do so they they must come to terms with their lack (id) though the mediation of an external force (the other). I am always a little uncomfortable with that view on life as I don't believe we work like that, but I do believe that we can choose to use this common form to tell interesting stories. And I am realistic enough to know that stories that are written in this mode are more commercial. Note to self: Write about other story forms and strategies more...
Sounds pretty straight forward right?
Well it can be. But you know those action movies where you see the girl coming into the frame in about the fifth minute and you go 'uh-oh love interest'... well that's all well and good and no one really minds the obvious clunkiness in popcorn movies so much, but if you want to nail a contemporary drama or RomCom you are going to have to do a lot better than that. You have to work to the point where the subplots disappear - they are just so well formed and integral to the action that the audience just can't run the 'real time critique' that pops them outside the viewing experience.
Interlocking and interdependent...
At it's best the ABC structure acknowledges that humans have a limited amount of time they can follow one strand before it gets boring, adn take it beyond that to a place where the beat to beat action is fascinating but that the beats keep adding higher and higher and making a work that transcends the A plot through a combination of good story tellings (the whats and hows).
A good movie should work something like this: Imagine you've never seen a rubics cube before and you find one lying about, all mixed up. You make one edge - ah, the satisfaction - you make one whole side - ahh, fantastic - but then you make the whole thing, and the whole is much more than six sides and sixteen edges, it's a cube - you made a cube out of a bunch of plastic and some colors, hooray! That sense of surprise and delight at making connections should be there for your audience. And you are the cube master, making moves, edges, sides and eventually making the complete cube.
And you want to be doing this at the right pace so that the audience can't figure out the tricks you are using to get the cube out, or are so taken with the patterning that they willingly don't watch the tricks (aka willing suspension of disbelief). When we slow it all down we will see all the moves, which is one of the many good reasons to read screeplays - you see the cubemaster at work and begin to see how you can do it yourself.
To strain another metaphor
Enough of the cube thing: A GREAT story goes beyond it's 'cubeness' though, it gestures towards unspeakable and transcendent qualities of the human experience - it goes beyond it's 'whats wheres and hows' and into the WHY of it all. When all the parts 'click' there should be a sense that we are revealing something else, moving the audience into a new understanding or dimension.
To get a little quasi-mystical on you, this is about harmonics really. What we are really trying to do is not just tell a story, we are trying to tell a story with resonance, a story that is chordal in nature, where each note (beat) makes a tune (story) that is orchestrated to become a work that moves you beyond the factual nature of its existence and into... well, that bit's over to you. Just don't forget your ABCs - or should that be do re mis?!
