In this post, I’m simply asking myself a question about scene building and the nature of the protagonist’s objective.

THIS IS ME JUST MUSING! Expect little to no advice from this post. But I welcome your thoughts and comments on the question I raise.

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Yesterday I sat in on an enjoyable class with Tim Grahl of StoryGrid. To tell you the truth, I had doubts – my opinion of StoryGrid so far has been decided mixed – but I found the event truly helpful and insightful. I feel sure I’ll leverage much of what was taught.

I’m going to dig into one lesson and ponder its implications as I see them.

StoryGrid protagonist: wants objective without consequence

When constructing a scene, Tim suggested that one compose the following sentence:

The protagonist wants A without having to B.

Rather like a quote from Chris McQuarrie that I like to reference – which sums up a lot about story – this simple sentence contains the seeds of much that happens in a scene.

• “The protagonist”: who drives the scene
• “wants A“: what’s the protagonist’s objective? (the “object of desire”)
• “without having to B“: what’s blocking the protagonist?

In the StoryGrid model of scene writing, every scene must have the following elements:

• An objective
• An inciting incident: something knocks the protagonist’s life or expectations out of balance.
• A turning point: when the protagonist realizes they won’t get what they want.
• A crisis: where the protagonist must choose between incompatible things.
• A climax: where the protagonist acts on that choice.
• A resolution: the result of the choice.

Now, I have some quibbles with the idea that every scene must follow this format. To me, it fails to capture a lot of corner cases, and it ignores huge swathes of what a scene can accomplish and how it can be structured.

For example, a postcard scene might simply describe a time or situation; or a contemplative scene allows the protagonist to weigh options; or indeed a scene may not resolve internally. These are just examples.

Be that as it may, let’s take Tim’s model as a reasonable rule-of-thumb for what most scenes should do. As I’ve stated many times, stories are about change through conflict. To me, this is a great starting point for that type of scene, and such scenes will make up the vast majority of most stories.

And I have to say that I really do like the idea that the protagonist should (almost) always have a concrete objective, and that you should know this before writing a scene.

Example, part I: Casablanca

Let’s take this classic scene from Casablanca as an example.

We have two characters, Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Sam (Dooley Wilson). Each has an objective: Rick wants to punish himself; Sam wants to protect Rick by getting him out of the cafe. They both suspect that Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) will return. Rick wants to confront her while Sam hopes to prevent that confrontation.

Notably, the scene – looked at on its own – lacks nearly every other element that StoryGrid suggests every scene must have. The inciting incident driving the conflict isn’t part of this scene: the event that knocked Rick’s life out-of-balance was Ilsa’s return, which we witnessed earlier. Even Rick taking to the bottle isn’t part of the scene; we’re joining in media res.

Neither is there a true turning point, crisis, climax, or resolution. Instead, depending on how you look at it, the scene either has a complementary scene (which we’ll look at in a second), or is simply cut in two as Rick drifts off into memory. Looked at as an independent scene, it concludes without resolution.

So, to use Tim’s/StoryGrid’s device we might say:

“Rick wants to demonstrate his strength without exposing himself to more pain.”

He expresses this “strength” over and over in his ability to drink, his desire to hear the song he associates with Ilsa, his willingness to remain for the inevitable confrontation. Of course his actions demonstrate that he is, in fact, weak where she’s concerned. Inside he knows this, and it’s this essential tension which drives the scene.

Example, part II

Ilsa does return and we get a resolution, so let’s watch how that plays out.

We now get a third character, Ilsa. Her objective is to explain herself to Rick, hopefully to gain his aid in helping Victor escape the Nazis.

If we take these two scenes as simply two halves, then Ilsa’s return changes the polarity between those halves. In the first half, Rick punishes himself. Ilsa’s entrance represents a turning point – Rick realizes that he’s not going to get through this confrontation without feeling pain. So he has a choice: he can either relent, he can listen to Ilsa and understand her perspective, or he can continue to show his idea of strength by lashing out. Of course he does the latter. If he has to feel pain then she will, too. “If she can stand it, I can!” goes both ways.

Taken together, we get a pretty good sense of how “the protagonist wants A without having to B” works.

Applying the model

Per Tim, you can apply the model to your writing by looking at your scene and doing the following:

• Identify the protagonist for the scene (this may or may not be the story’s main protagonist).
• Figure out the inciting incident.
• Concretely determine the objective for each character.

Now write the sentence: The protagonist wants A without having to B.

Within the StoryGrid model, just having this sentence now does a pretty good job of identifying how the six required elements in “every” scene will manifest themselves.

Not bad for a single sentence.

My objective: dig a little deeper

Here’s where my musings begin.

When I look at my own scenes, I observe a frequent pattern, which may be expressed as follows:

Presented with an imperfect version of X, the protagonist now wants Y.

Characters evolve within a story. If they didn’t, there’d be very little reason to read, watch, or listen to them. Indeed, it’s a frequent pattern for a character to have a different objective leaving a scene than entering one. Quite often, this manifests itself in subsequent scenes:

• Luke discovers that Darth Vader is indeed his father. His new objective is to confront him.
• That thing killing people is indeed a shark. Brody’s new objective is to kill it.
• Hazel and the rest of the rabbits at last find a home at Watership Down, but they’ve (rather surprisingly!) overlooked the importance of female rabbits. Their new objective is to find mates.

But can the protagonist not evolve within a single scene? Can we not observe the change of objectives in real time?

I’m inclined to think that not only can we, but that we see this all the time.

New objective, no waiting

It seems to me that this is by no means an unusual occurrence. Frequently, new information or challenges require the protagonist to alter their objectives on-the-fly.

• Someone/something new is in peril. The protagonist’s new object of desire must incorporate saving this (usually even dearer) party.
• The protagonist realizes she’s walked into a trap. Her object of desire shifts from exposing the villain to getting out alive.
• The protagonist receives devastating (or joyful) news, making their prior objective moot or unimportant.

I suspect – and the examples I’ve investigated so far support this – that this change of objectives occurs most commonly at a scene’s “turning point”, which in Save the Cat terms I’d call a midpoint. This is usually where the scene’s protagonist (and sometimes the antagonist) realizes that their objective is out of reach, imperfectly attainable, or irrelevant.

Example, To Kill a Mockingbird

In Chapter 15 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee presents us with one of the novel’s most striking scenes. Atticus sits in front of the Maycomb jail, essentially requiring a group of townsfolk to go through him if they want to lynch Tom Robinson. Halfway through the scene, Scout and her older brother Jem burst into the confrontation, drastically altering the scene’s polarity.

Objective: the townsfolk, represented by Walter Cunningham, want to lynch Tom.

Objective: Atticus, our protagonist, wants to prevent them from doing so.

When the kids insert themselves into the standoff, Atticus is presented with an imperfect version of preventing the townsfolk from getting at Tom. He can do so, but only at great risk to his children. At this turning point, the protagonist (Atticus) realizes he won’t get what he wants because the risk is too high.

But something interesting happens here. Atticus’ objective changes from the moment he realizes that his children are in danger. He still wants to protect Tom, but now he also needs to protect his kids.

Indeed, the polarity of the scene shifts again moments later, when Jem refuses to leave and Scout begins applying the lessons she has learned from her father. By engaging Walter Cunningham, by refusing to assume his malevolence, by challenging him to display his own humanity, Scout defuses the situation, while Jem’s strength before Atticus allows her to do so.

At the end of the scene, Atticus has achieved his initial objective, but we observe that he’s not the same person he was moments ago:

“As they passed under a streetlight, Atticus reached out and massaged Jem’s hair, his one gesture of affection.

Atticus has accepted that his children have power to affect his world. That they are, in fact, growing up.

Things change…so what?

My point in this rumination is simply to consider with greater subtlety what an objective is. Objectives are not necessarily fixed, extrinsic objects like The Ark of the Covenant. They may be highly fluid and apt to alter as values shift. New information, new threats, new insights may alter them suddenly in ways large and small.

When considering a scene, I’ll certainly use the StoryGrid tool. It’s a fine, basic instrument for rough-hewing a scene. But it also strikes me as an imperfect tool and one of many to consider.

Just as a painter may have brushes with many shapes and different types of paint to achieve different looks, the writer – I’d suggest – should not rely on any one tool as if it’s the only way to achieve one’s…objective.

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