So I'm back with another article I read. This one is a little bit more relatable to my film studies and my focus in writing. I have linked the article here for you to look at either before or after reading my review and synopsis. Now this article is based off of this one amazing video by Darious Britt. This article then takes the main points that Darious makes and puts them into an easily understandable form. The article breaks down the four main components of a good story- the conflict, stakes, sympathetic characters, and transformation.
It starts off with Conflict. Darious tells us that conflict is important for many reasons. Any conflict in a story can so us the true character behind a person and their friends. It can also show us how the character would act. Whatever it does for a story, conflict opens the plot up to the audience and helps us to relate to the events that follow.
Another important component is the stakes that the protagonist is against. If there is nothing to fight for, than there is no point to the quest the main character must go on, or the stakes they must fight. Without risk there is not reward, and this is true in every story. Take Romeo and Juliet for example, if there was no fighting between the two families, than there would be no risk to the love affair and the story would be boring compared to the classic.
Next up is the sympathetic characters. These are crucial. These are what make the conflict and the stakes all worth it. If an audience can relate to a character, then they feel something for that character and they want them to overcome the conflict and beat all odds. This is what makes us fall in love with Rose and Jack and want for them to fight their way out of the Titanic. Well kind of. If you are like me, then you despise the Titanic for being a cheesy romance movie with predictable, at best, plot lines and actions. But that is beside the point. We see relatable (ish) character traits and by the end we are rooting for their love to prevail over the difficulty of surviving the ill-fated ship. This is all because those character evoke our sympathy through relatable traits and a love triangle even messier than the ocean it takes place in.
Finally we have the Transformation. And no I am not talking about the Transformers where the character morphs into another being. I am talking about the change emotionally and sometimes physically that the character goes through that makes him into the person we see at the end. This kind of transformation is one that what makes us see the humanity in the character. Lets take Iron Man for example. I know an action movie, but still a great example of character transformation. Anyway at the beginning of the movie we see Tony, a womanizer who doesn't care who gets hurt as long as he makes enough money to fund his lavish lifestyle. He is then kidnapped by the terrorist group who wants more of his weapons. After being forced to place an electromagnet in his chest to save his life he realizes what damage he really did to many lives he changes his ways and shuts down his arms program, much to the anger of his coworkers and business. We see Tony go from an uncaring jerk who steps on everyone to get to the top, to a man who risks his own life to right the wrongs of his mistakes and try to protect the world. This is an example of character transformation, and a very good one at that. By changing his character he becomes a loveable man that sees the wrong he commits and tries to fix it.
Overall this article over the componants of a good story is a great one. It helps us to see the true things we love about films and provides an understanding of the complexity that goes into each story. Overall I would recommend taking a read at this article and watching the video that it goes with it is very interesting and insightful. I will be seeing all you guys next year for my last year of e-comm and I will take along with me on the experience. Thanks for reading and I will talk with y'all later.
