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When Minor Characters Take Over a Story 12/22/2009 12:54:51 AM
Bill Johnson reviews recent movies and documentaries to explore principles of storytelling.
The September Issue
posted 12/21/2009
The September Issue is a documentary about the process of creating the September issue of Vogue. The editor of the magazine is Anna Wintour and she makes the final decisions. She's like a general leading an army.
Comparing the production of the September issue to a story's plot, some of the plot questions here are will they be able to meet the deadline and get the issue out in time? What photo will be chosen for the cover? Will the page count exceed other years?
Anna's second in command is Grace Coddington.
She's the creative director for the magazine.
I've been exploring what happens when an author's main character in a novel is diffuse, and minor characters are more interesting. This documentary is a great example of why and how a minor character can be more compelling than a main character.
What drives Anna as a person -- her dramatic truth in story terms -- is diffuse and comes out late in the documentary. It revolves around revelations that her siblings find her job as editor of Vogue, and fashion in general, trivial. Her daughter apparently agrees with her siblings.
What Grace wants -- to have particular sets of photos featured in the September issue -- comes across immediately, with the introduction of her character, along with what she feels as various photos she champions are eliminated from the issue.
Comparing Grace to a story character, what she wants and feels is accessible to the documentary's viewers. What Anna wants and feels is not.
I strongly urge any unpublished author who has been consistently told that his or her minor characters are more interesting than a main character to watch this documentary, so they can see the difference between a diffuse main character and a dramatically defined minor character.
Then ask yourself, is what your main character wants set out for your readers? Is what your main character feels about what they want accessible? Do his or her feelings shift and change as new complications arise to block him or her?
In The September Issue, Grace is like a fully charged live wire that shines brightly; Anna is a low-voltage, dim bulb.
The Men Who Stare at Goats
posted 11/21/2009
There's some funny material in this film, and an over-reliance on voice over to get across the history of the
military's attempts to teach troops paranormal abilities. Part of the need for the narration is three time lines, the present,
the recent past, and a time after the Vietnam war. Multiple time lines can work, but they require a strong story
line to connect all the material so a story builds toward the fulfillment of its promise
. Here, the two main characters have issues that don't really connect, one discovering his true path in life, the
other seeking redemption, so the story becomes a shaggy dog story that moves to a funny conclusion.
It's always odd to watch a film where the narrator is explaining the obvious.
A young man feels alone and without a real family, until a zombie Holocaust leaves him a survivor with a
redneck and two con artist sister. By the end of the film, he has the girlfriend and the family he's sought.
Paul Giamatti plays himself as an actor struggling with a role in a Chekov play. When he reads an article about
how having one's soul removed can help one remove neurosis, he has the process done. And finds his acting too
exuberant and unmodulated. So he gets resouled with the soul of a Russian poet, but it's really the soul of a
suicidal factory worker. This actually helps his acting but ruins his sex life. Ultimately he struggles to get
his original soul back.
This is a darkly humorous story about what it means to have something of our essence removed.
