How a Children's Picture Book on Setting Boundaries Became a Dark and Gritty Young Adult Novel With Lots of Violence and Even More Obscenities

One day back in 2017 I was desperately trying to figure out where to go next with a protagonist in a novel I was working on. Out of the blue my muse struck. I had this idea, a picture book really, of a little boy at his school solving mysteries and learning important life lessons along the way. And I thought, “What if I made him a bit of a caricature of Sam Spade from The Maltese Falcon?” You know the guy. Hard drinking detective in San Francisco who would just as soon slug first, ask questions that lead to clues second. But Sam had a soft spot for the underdog and I wanted my little detective to have that as well. Tough without, tender within in. And of course I didn’t want him to get into too many fights at school!

So I put aside the story that was giving me fits and began a piece of flash fiction. In no time at all I’d scribbled well over 1500 words on a yellow legal pad, too long for your typical picture book. But the experience had allowed this new idea to take root, and I decided I’d make it a 10,000 word emerging reader. When I had done that I visited a writing conference, spoke to an agent, who very graciously told me she really liked my idea but saw it more as a middle grade book. “Add another 40,000 words and get back to me,” she said. So back to the drawing board I went, and somewhere along the way I began to see the book not as 50,000 word Middle Grade adventure but an 80,000 plus word Young Adult coming of age. I wanted it to be very dark and very edgy. It would still be a throwback to the pulp fiction and film noir era of Sam Spade. My high school detective, Nacho Blanco, would be tough without, tender within. But the themes would be very adult. Nothing would be off limits. The language would be very unredeemed. And it would not be a book I’d want my now 9 and 7 year olds to read until they’d gotten into their teens. I’m not kidding. These characters in what turned out to be We Planned a Murder have some terrible potty mouths. I must’ve written the word motherfucker I don’t know how many times!

And the book grew up and turned out to be what I was hoping it would become. I think it’s an interesting story. There’s theme. There’s humor. There’s adventure and suspense. There’s love. It has some memorable characters. And it has some very fun plot twists. And the reader can try to solve the mystery of the murder of Lincoln Hardcastle right along with Nacho Blanco.

Like raising kids, which I’ve also done, and am doing again, when you raise a book you learn some things the hard way, through mistakes and trial and error.

So here they are, ten things out of literally hundreds I learned as We Planned a Murder grew from a children’s picture book with a great little message to a dark and gritty YA Novel with its own worthwhile redeeming theme.

1. if you’re gonna kill someone then get on with it

Every good story has structure. Some structures are more rigid, some more loose, but they all have it. That’s what holds novels (and movies) together. That’s what makes them fun to read. Have you ever found yourself skipping paragraphs in a novel? Or maybe you’ve been watching a movie and thought “get on with it already!” That has to do with structure. For example, one of the markers for story structure is what is often referred to as the “Doorway of No Return.” The lead character needs to move from the world he knows to the world he doesn’t by somewhere between 20% and 25% of the way through the story. We don’t want him to stay in the familiar. If the character doesn’t move into the unknown the story will drag and boredom is gonna set in real fast. There are other markers along the way but that’s a big one. By the way, in We Planned a Murder, the “Doorway of No Return” happens at the 23% mark. I paid very close attention to that marker and all the markers of story structure.

2. plotting a murder IS SO MUCH EASIER THAN PANTSING one

They say there are two kinds of writers, those who plot first and write second, and those who wing it and fly by the seat of their pants (i.e. “pantsing”). I don’t know how you’d write a mystery without planning all the clues and red herrings and big reveals. But there are some very good pantsers out there, namely one Stephen King. But since I’m not Stephen King I spent a good deal of time planning out the novel before actually writing it. I started with a giant chart on the wall (okay I had several giant charts on the wall of my kids playroom) and ended up using an Excel spreadsheet on my laptop to plan out each scene. I only use my Excel chart during the first draft but I wouldn’t be able to write anything if I didn’t know where I was going first.

3. A book is not a collection of chapters. it’s a collection of scenes, in the right order, like links on a beautiful necklace from tiffany & company that one day could very well be used as a murder weapon

When I wrote We Planned a Murder I wanted to make sure each scene linked to the one that came before it and to the one that followed. If, at the end of one scene, Nacho is going to see Mr. Dream, then in that next scene he is going to learn something new from Mr. Dream, and this new information or twist or revelation would send him spiraling to something else in the scene that follows. And each scene had to have at least one of two purposes (and both if possible): forward the plot and/or reveal something new about one or more of the characters. I also liked it when I could add some little snippet of backstory to a scene, like when Nacho’s at a party and we learn why he likes to drink what he calls an 1885. Once I planned out the novel then I would plan out each scene with lots of details I wanted in that scene. Then I wrote it. We Planned a Murder has 32 chapters but 49 separate scenes, and each scene was pre-planned in detail before writing. Novels aren’t held together by chapters. They’re more like a series of scenes strung together one after the other like beads or links on a necklace.

4. These things always come in threes

It’s a popular saying, that bad days, or deaths, or any kind of misfortune always comes in threes. This is a device especially used in movies and books. Hollywood knows this big time. They call it the Rule of Three. The next movie you watch look for it. They’ll be at least one or two things that come in threes. I used the Rule of Three in We Planned a Murder. For example, Nacho has a favorite catch phrase, a tag line, and uses it three times in the story. I included others but you get the idea. The Rule of Three solidifies the story and communicates the messages behind it, including theme. Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em. And tell ‘em again.

5. Keeping track of other author’s murders was a must for making my own come true

Early on I begin keeping a reading log. I read primarily mystery and crime because, well, that’s what I’m interested in. I read to know what’s out there and what’s been out there. I read across all the different kinds of mystery and crime stories, and I read across the decades. I read from the Golden Classics between the two world wars and I read modern mysteries. And I keep track of them in a little book so I can see where I need to read more and where I need to read less. In the words of Stephen King, “If you don’t have the time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.”

6. Writing is the art … Publishing is the Business

The reason for this is simple. Reading is a subjective act. We could read the same novel, you and I, and you may think it’s garbage and I might think it’s the next War and Peace. And the same is true for agents. If a manuscript just doesn’t hit them they’re not gonna buy into it, and they’re not gonna be able to sell it to a traditional publishing company. I get that. I read a lot, and after the final page on some of them I’m like “how did THIS ever get published?” But it did. An agent liked it enough to sell it and a traditional publishing company liked it enough to publish it. And a lot of people are gonna enjoy reading it. Just not me. Some are not gonna like my book. That’s okay. It’s not for everyone. We Planned a Murder is a contemporary YA but it comes from the traditions of the old pulp fiction and film noir era. That’s not gonna be everyone’s cup of tea. But it was mine and they always say to write the book you want to read so I did. It’s a subjective art, this craft of writing, and it’s a subjective business, this work of the traditional publishers.

7. I know a guy who knows a guy, and he “killed my darlings”

His name is Jimmy Calloway and We Planned a Murder would not be the same without him. There’s a phrase in the writing community and that is you have to be willing to “kill your darlings,” all those pet lines and scenes and even chapters that you wrote that you’re just so in love with. I had some, and thankfully Jimmy found them and destroyed them. Jimmy was my developmental editor and he is the secret sauce behind the book. I met Jimmy in February of 2021. Jimmy works as the submissions manager at a well known literary agency in San Diego. Over the course of last year Jimmy did three developmental passes through the novel. He told me to cut some chapters, bring some characters more to the foreground, had me tone down some lines that were too strong, and so much more. His work was both developmental and copy editing. But as valuable as I found his critique and corrections, equally prized was his constant encouragement. Jimmy’s belief in the story was a source of strength to me and I continued to believe in the novel because Jimmy believed in it. Unequivocally, We Planned a Murder would not be the same without Jimmy Calloway. I’m already working on the second Nacho Blanco novel and you can bet your sweet bippy I’ll be sending that one to him too.

8. danger! danger! danger!

Self-publishing is a great option today but the danger is in publishing the manuscript too soon. As a part of my regular reading I include self published mysteries. Sometimes they’re very good. Sometimes they’re average. And sometimes they’re just done poorly. I read one where the jumping off point, the “Doorway of No Return” didn’t happen until halfway through the book. The dialogue was great but the book was boring and dragged because of structure. A developmental editor, a really good one, could’ve helped with that. My feeling was it got published too soon. Again, independent publishing is a great way to go but it’s also a great way to go down fast. It can be tempting to skip quality just to get the book out there for people to see. It’s fun to have We Planned a Murder on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Apple. But I had to make sure it was ready. And once it passed the Jimmy Calloway test, it was!

9. It’s Gonna Cost Ya

Okay, so while we’re on the subject of self-publishing here’s another little thing I learned along the way from the novel metamorphosing from a children’s picture book to a dark YA. Spend some money on your cover art. We totally judge a book by it’s cover. Last fall I was in a Kansas City bookstore and straight up bought a mystery just because of its cover. Dark blue and black with an old fashion typewriter on the front in a scary looking manor. I mean, who wouldn’t want to read that! Indie writers need so spend some money for great covers because traditional publishing houses are. It’s a competition out there. There is so much entertainment vying for our attention these days. So many books. So many TV shows and movies. So many podcasts. It never ends. As authors we need to give our readers that first reason to buy the book. And we want the cover to be true to the story. I read a traditionally published book a few yeas ago and the title and cover were great but had nothing to do with the story. I can’t even remember what it was about now. By the way, I absolutely love the cover of We Planned a Murder. Maria at BeauteBook.com designed it. It cost some money but she did such a fabulous job and I think it accurately depicts the plot and tone of the book. It’s YA. It’s gritty. It’s bloody. And there are a lot of obscenities in it because, well, that’s the kind of people that would get mixed up in something like what happens in Ten Spot, Texas.

10. Collaboration breeds quality … especially when you’re plotting a murder!

As I mention in the acknowledgments section of We Planned a Murder, it takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to raise a book. People like Jimmy Calloway and Maria from BeauteBook.com. There were other developmental editors, other people who gave me feedback. And of course there was national bestselling author William Bernhardt who shared with me his own blueprint for bringing a novel to life. Without him We Planned a Murder would still be just a Word document on my laptop. And now my new friend TJ Clark is working on the audiobook version. Oh, wait until you hear him read the book! He is so good and he totally gets the tone of the story. I could not be more pleased with what he’s done so far. The audiobook is in production and should be done by the middle of May. It’ll be on Audible, Amazon, and Apple. But, I say all that to say this: it took more than just me to pull this book together. It’s been a collaboration with Jimmy and Maria and William and now TJ and so many others all bringing their individual talents to the table to help make the story what it is. And not just their creativity but their inspiration as well. In the words of our friend Stephen King, “Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don’t have to make speeches.” (Hey look, our third Stephen King reference … the Rule of Three strikes again!) Writing a novel is not a one man show, nor would I want it to be. I absolutely can’t wait to work with these four and the rest in the near future on the second installment of Nacho Blanco and other projects I am working on. I needed them. The book would’ve never made it without them. Hey, why plot a murder alone when it’s so much more fun to plot one together!

So there ya go, ten of the hundreds of things I learned along the way as We Planned a Murder grew up from a picture book to a Young Adult mystery. I wasn’t sure in the beginning what the final product would look like, just like we never know how our kids will turn out when they’re grown. But I like the life We Planned a Murder took on, and my greatest joy would be that you enjoy it as well. If you do, well then, as Nacho would say, “that’s all I ever really wanted.”

The joys of high school. The friends. The teachers. The assignments. The practices. The football games. The murders. Oh, yes, especially the murders.

It Was a Bloody Fine Summer

Remember when you were a kid and on the first day of school the teacher would have you write your first assignment on “What I Did Over My Summer Vacation”?  Okay, well my teachers did and I usually just tried to make up anything that sounded better than “I stayed home and watched reruns of Gilligan’s Island all day.”

This summer, in addition to a couple of long family vacations, I also did a study of the history of mystery.  While reading a book on writing I came across another called Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel.  Written by Julian Symons it is a fascinating history of the development of mystery as a genre.  Using Symons’ book as a guide, and some other resources I came across, I did some fun research on the historical development of writing mysteries.  Not only did this study broaden my perspective on the genre I am writing in, but it also helped me see my own novel as a blend of both the Golden Age of Mysteries and the period of the Hard-Boiled Private Eye. You’ll see what I mean in just a bit.  

In the meantime, here are ten cool (I think they’re cool) take-aways from some of the research I did over the summer on the history of mystery.  

1. Edgar Allan Poe is considered the first American writer of mystery and detective stories.

Best known for writing horror stories, such as “The Pit and the Pendulum”, Poe also dabbled just briefly in the writing of mystery.  He wrote three short stories from 1841 to 1845, the first being “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.  Poe’s main character in each of these stories is a detective named C. Auguste Dupin who has been studied by many scholars as the main influencer in the development of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes.  Each year the Mystery Writers of America awards the “Edgar Award” to the best new mystery fiction of the previous year.  

2. Detective writing became American with the introduction of the Hard-Boiled Private Eye

Prior to the introduction of characters such as Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade and Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, the quintessential detective was one fashioned from the minds of British mystery writers such as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie.  The British detective always seemed to stumble upon a mystery at a beautiful country manor, and after gathering all of the evidence, and using just his intellect, would perfectly fit together the clues like puzzle pieces just before nabbing the killer.  In 1930 that all changed in America when Hammett published The Maltese Falcon and introduced a whole new breed of crime fighter, the hard-boiled private eye, who used his fists first and his mind second. And he wasn’t solving murders in beautiful country estates but in the back alleys of New York City and San Francisco. So popular was this new breed of mystery that it spawned a whole new and very American kind of movie genre known as Film Noir.  The Hard-Boiled Private Eye is truly an American contribution to the history of mystery. 

3. Jacques Futrelle was an accomplished writer of mystery and a hero on board the RMS Titanic

Futrelle held from Georgia and had become a very accomplished writer of mysteries in the early 20th century when he and his family decided to take a fateful trip aboard the very new and very impressive ocean liner, the RMS Titanic.   Needless to say, the voyage didn’t go as planned, and even though Futrelle had a first-class ticket and could have been one of the first to board the life boats, he refused, giving his seat to another.  He put his wife and their child in a lifeboat and the last time she saw him he was smoking a cigarette on the deck.  His body was never recovered.  

4. Charles Dickens also wrote a couple of mystery novels … and one was in progress when he died.

Not known primarily as a writer of detective novels, Dickens nevertheless tried his hand at it and more than once.  His first and most significant mystery is Bleak House, written in 1853.  When he died he left behind an unfinished mystery manuscript, The Mystery of Edmund Drood.  The killer is never identified in the book and readers have had fun through the years looking at the clues and speculating who Dickens had chosen to be the culprit.  

5. Winnie the Pooh’s author, A A Milne, wrote one mystery.

This one really surprised me.  Known mostly for writing about the adventures of a Bear called Pooh, Milne also wrote a novel entitled The Red House Mystery in 1922.  It was not well received at the time but today is more highly acclaimed when seen in the broader context of the history of mystery. 

6. In the 1920s the largest group of readers of mystery were women, which is why so many women, including Agatha Christie, began to write them.

The most well-known of the writers of the Golden Age of Mystery is of course Agatha Christie.  And it’s no accident that she quickly rose to prominence.  In the 1920s many stay at home wives and mothers soon found themselves with a little extra money and a little extra time and spent both on reading about murder.  You know the old saying, write what you want to read, and that’s just what many women began to do.  In addition to Christie, some of these Queens of Crime included Elizabeth Daly, Mary Roberts Rhinehard, and Josephine Tey. 

7. There were several attempts during the Golden Age of Mystery to formulize what a mystery novel should look like … and everyone broke the rules.

As mystery novels became popular during the 20s and 30s there were several attempts by writers of the fiction to normalize the standards of mystery writing. Ronald Knox, who wasn’t just a writer of mystery but a theologian as well, penned ten rules by which every murder mystery should abide.  “Not more than one secret passage or room” and “the detective himself must not commit the crime” are a few of the obligations of the writer according to Knox. His most curious rule is number five in which he says, “no Chinaman must figure into the story.”  Perhaps he wasn’t a fan of the immensely popular Charlie Chan detective novels. Some say he wrote the rules tongue in cheek.  Who knows.  You can read the entire list by going to https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/ronald-knox-10-commandments-of-detective-fiction.  Another writer S S Van Dine put together his own list of rules with twenty requirements.  You can read Van Dine’s list by going to http://www.thrillingdetective.com/trivia/triv288.html.

8. Pulp Fiction got its nickname because it was cheap … cheap to make,cheap to buy, and a very cheap read … if you know what I mean!

From the last part of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th, readers who found themselves at a drug store or the train station or just about anywhere a counter was available for a small magazine rack, able to afford and enjoy any numerous cheap magazines that soon became known as “pulp fiction”.  The nickname derived from the kind of cheap paper the magazines were printed on, pulp wood.  The stories were even cheaper and often pictured very scandalous scenes on the cover that may or may not have anything to do with the short stories inside.  One of the most popular of the pulp magazines was The Black Mask in which many of the early writers of the hard-boiled detective stories got their first start, including Dashiell Hammett and his detective The Continental Op.

9. The public wouldn’t let Sir Arthur Conan Doyle murder the world’s most famous detective … but he did try

After two series of short stories that were eventually published as two separate collections, Doyle, tired of his infamous detective, sent him and his nemesis Moriarty over a waterfall never to heard from again.  It is said that Doyle then felt a huge sigh of relief.  He had come to hate his own creation and wanted an end to him.  The public wouldn’t have it and eight years later Doyle revived the detective with one of his best novels, The Hound of the Baskervilles.   The author never tried to kill off Holmes again.  I guess he figured out which side his bread was buttered and like it or not he and Sherlock were to be tied together for the remainder of his life.  

10. Agatha Christie died on my 10th birthday ... that's not creepy!

So, this one has no real significance for anyone but me … unless you happen to have been born on January 12th.  Incidentally, the day she died I received my first two Hardy Boy mystery novels for my birthday, Coincidence?!  Yeah, it probably is!

THIS ONE THING WILL CHANGE FOREVER THE WAY YOU WATCH MOVIES! (PART 2)

Last night I sat down and watched one of my favorite recently released movies.  It’s “Get Out” and it’s actually up for an Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Director. I’m going to give you a spoiler alert right now.  If you haven’t seen this movie and want to you should stop reading right now.  We are about to deconstruct this amazing movie and that means you’re about to know everything that happens!

In my two previous blogs I noted that every movie has the same ten parts, and once you know them you can identify exactly where the movie is going next!  As it turns out successful movies (and novels) follow what is referred to as the “Universal Story”, or the “Hero’s Journey”, which moves the lead character through all ten stages of the story.  This means that when you strip away all the thematic and dramatic elements, Finding Dory is the same story as Back to the Future which is the same story as The Last Jedi.  At the core of each of these movies is “The Universal Story”, which is the story of you and me.

By way of review, here are the ten stages and the order they come in:

1. The Hero is shown living in his NORMAL WORLD unaware of changes about to come.

2. The Hero receives a CALL TO ADVENTURE with an “Inciting Event” that first introduces the problem.

3. At first the Hero REFUSES THE CALL to adventure.

4. The Hero is forced to accept the call to adventure and goes through the DOORWAY OF NO RETURN into the Unknown World.

5. The Hero begins moving along the ROAD OF TRIALS as he tries unsuccessfully to solve the problem.

6. Right in the middle of the movie there is a MIRROR MOMENT which requires the hero to change his way of thinking and change his plan for attacking the problem.

7. The Hero tries and tries but eventually begins to lose hope, believing ALL IS LOST.

8. Having found one last ounce of hope, the Hero enters the FINAL BATTLE.

9. The Hero moves us through the DENOUMENT where all ends of the story are tied together.

10. Finally, the Hero begins living in a NEW NORMAL WORLD, better than he was before.

Last time I illustrated each of these stages using the movie “Frozen”. Now, let’s do the same thing using a completely different movie genre.  This time we’ll use “Get Out” which is a Horror movie wrapped up in a Thriller, Disguised as a Suspense.

“The important thing to remember about the Doorway of No Return is not when it occurs but what it signifies.  It’s that moment when the hero moves away from the world he knows into the unknown  world ... and there is no going back!”

When the movie begins we see our hero Chris in his NORMAL WORLD. He has a girlfriend named Rose who brings bagels and coffee over to his apartment in the morning.  She’s white and he’s black, and they are getting ready to go see her parents for the first time.  We quickly realize his CALL TO ADVENTURE has already begun.  This is a trip they have been planning. He’s worried though that her parents won’t approve of him and tries to talk her out of it.  This is him REFUSING THE CALL.  He tries to tell her that it is probably not a good idea, but she persists, and they head out on this adventure anyway.  The moment they pull up in front of her parents’ massive house he enters through the DOORWAY OF NO RETURN.  He moves from a world he is very familiar with to one that is more unknown to him than he will ever imagine!

Chris’ entry through the “Doorway of No Return” happens 14 minutes into the movie.  It marks the end of the first act in the story.  As I’ve noted previously, in the Hero’s Journey this scene most often occurs approximately one quarter of the way through the story. That is not a hard and fast rule as we see here.  Only thirteen percent of the movie (not the customary twenty-five percent) has rolled by when Chris shows up at her parents’ house. Remember from my last blog that Anna’s “Doorway of No Return” in “Frozen” occurred AFTER the twenty-five percent mark.  The important thing to remember about the Doorway of No Return is not when it occurs but what it signifies.  It's that moment when the hero moves away from the world he knows into the unknown  world ... and there is no going back!

Act Two begins and Chris follows the ROAD OF TRIALS as he suffers through so much awkwardness in meeting her family and friends:

• he meets her family and discovers all of them are racists

• he meets the gardener and the cook and they continue to give him strange looks

• her mother hypnotizes him without his permission.

• a bunch of white people begin showing up for the weekend party

• he gets “interviewed” by all of the white guests though at the time he doesn’t realize it

Remember that “Get Out” is a 104-minute movie.  The exact midpoint of the movie is the 52-minute mark.  Just two minutes earlier, at the 50-minute mark, something unusual happens that begins his MIRROR MOMENT (the "mirror moment" is always right in the middle of the story).  It’s at that very moment that he talks with his friend Rod who works for TSA.  Chris updates him on all of the weirdness and Rod tells him he thinks Chris has been hypnotized to be a slave.  And you can see it in Chris’ face when he hears that.  The light bulb in his head turns on.  This makes sense to him.

So, what does Chris do?  He was passively rolling with the punches just to get along with his girlfriend’s family. Now he has a new plan which involves aggressively trying to figure this thing out and fight the pull he continues to feel towards something dark and sinister.  That’s what the mid-point mirror moment does.  It changes the hero’s behavior from one of being reactive in the first half of the second act to being proactive in the second half of the second act.  And, as a result of the midpoint mirror moment Chris does several things:

• he calls the housekeeper Georgina the “B” word twice (he has no more empathy for her)

• he takes a picture of the other black man (who had been kidnapped)

• he sends the photo to Rod because he thinks he know that guy from the past

• he tells his girlfriend Rose he just needs to leave because he feels totally messed up since the hypnotisim

Interestingly enough, 13 minutes after his “mirror moment” Chris actually is looking in the mirror when he gets a call from Rod saying the other African American man was kidnapped.  This confirms his mirror moment and he tells Rose “we gotta go now”.  At the 70-minute mark, with just over a quarter of the movie remaining, Chris is captured and the third and final act begins. 

At first it seems like ALL IS LOST because Chris is tied to a chair and waiting to have a brain transplant with a white man who wants the body of an African American man.  But our hero doesn’t give up and the moment he puts the chair stuffing in his ears to drown out the hypnotizing spoon and teacup the FINAL BATTLE begins.  Chris kills everyone in the family before they can kill him, including his so-called girlfriend Rose who took several shots at him with a rifle.  The DENOUMENT begins when we see his friend Rod pull up in his TSA cruiser and rescue a wounded Chris.  As they pull away Chris is now back with his friend Rod (who says “I told you not to go in that house!”) but it is a NEW NORMAL WORLD he lives in.  He will go back to his friends and his job as a photographer, but his new world doesn’t involve the girl friend who set him up and then tried to kill him.   

And there you have it.  Another perfect example of the Universal Story or Hero’s Journey.  Every good story, in print or on film, regardless of the theme or genre, follows this same pattern.  It works because it is the story of everyone.  The Hero’s Journey resonates deeply within all of us. 

This One Thing Will Change Forever The Way You Watch Movies! (PART 1)

I guarantee the following words will forever change the way you watch movies!

I absolutely love going to a theater and taking in a great popcorn flick. But up until a few years ago I never thought about the way a movie (or novel) was put together.  Over the last few years I’ve discovered something that has changed forever the way I watch movies. 

In a nutshell, every movie has the same ten parts, and once you know them you can identify exactly where the movie is going next!

Most successful movies (and novels) make use of what is called “The Universal Story” or “The Hero’s Journey”.  Popularized by Joseph Campbell with his 1949 book The Hero With A Thousand Faces, the Hero’s Journey is the story of all of us, and by extension, the same but different story found in every successful movie or novel. 

In other words, strip all the thematic and dramatic elements away and Finding Dory is the same story as Back to the Future which is the same story as The Last Jedi.  At the core of each of these movies is “The Universal Story”, which is the story of you and me.

The Universal Story, or Hero’s Journey, goes something like this. The Hero lives in his normal world, often unsatisfied but just as often unwilling to make any changes. The Hero is pulled out of his normal world, usually against his will, into a world he knows nothing about.  Some cataclysmic event pushes the Hero into this new, unfamiliar world and he must walk through no man’s land until he is able to overcome the “villain” (which comes in all shapes and sizes). In the process of walking through the perils of the unknown world the Hero is changed, usually for the better, but not always, and is different when he reenters the familiar world by the end of the story.  That is the universal story upon which all stories, in print and in film, are built.  As Martha Alderson writes in her book, The Plot Whisperer,

My most important insight is this: All of us face antagonists and hurdles, hopes and joys, and by meeting these challenges we can transform our lives. I have come to believe that every scene in every book is part of a Universal Story that flows throughout our lives, both in our imaginations and in the reality, that surrounds us.

Every great movie is built on the Universal Story, and that story resonates deep within us because it is the story of all mankind.

Now, check this part out.  This is where it gets really interesting! This is the part that’s going to change the way you watch movies!

Writers of writing have taken to dissecting this Universal Story into discernable smaller parts that can be easily replicated in print and on film.  What are those key building blocks that make up the story of us all?  What are the key ingredients for every successful movie?  Well, in part, that depends on who you read. 

• In 1949 Joseph Campbell listed 17 separate parts of the Hero’s Journey.

• In 2005 Blake Synder pointed out 15 separate beats to a successful movie in Save the Cat!

• In 2007 Christopher Vogler listed 17 different parts of the Hero’s Journey in his seminal book The Writer’s Journey.

• In 2016 K.M. Weiland noted 20 separate parts of the character arc in her book Creating Character Arcs.

• Todd Klick has listed 120 different “beats” in his book Beat by Beat.

• And just last year Neal Soloponte noted there are 195 different “stages” to every movie or novel in his book The Ultimate Hero’s Journey.

So how many are there?

While the actual number of parts or beats or stages differ from expert to expert, they all agree on the following 10 biggest blocks.  Once you know them you can track a movie from beginning to end and instinctively know where the story is going even before it gets there.  Here are the 10 parts of every successful movie:

1. The Hero is shown living in his NORMAL WORLD unaware of changes about to come.

2. The Hero receives a CALL TO ADVENTURE with an “Inciting Event” that first introduces the problem.

3. At first the Hero REFUSES THE CALL to adventure.

4. The Hero is forced to accept the call to adventure and goes through the DOORWAY OF NO RETURN into the Unknown World.

5. The Hero begins moving along the ROAD OF TRIALS as he tries unsuccessfully to solve the problem.

6. Right in the middle of the movie there is a MIRROR MOMENT which requires the hero to change his way of thinking and change his plan for attacking the problem.

7. The Hero tries and tries but eventually begins to lose hope, believing ALL IS LOST.

8. Having found one last ounce of hope, the Hero enters the FINAL BATTLE.

9. The Hero moves us through the DENOUMENT where all ends of the story are tied together.

10. Finally, the Hero begins living in a NEW NORMAL WORLD, better than he was before.

That’s it! That’s the game plan for every successful movie.  It works because it describes in a step by step manner a story that resonates deep down within each of us.  

In part 2 of this blog, I will illustrate each of these 10 blocks with examples from various genres of successful movies.  In the meantime, take this list of 10 with you to Cinemark or AMC over the next couple of weeks and see if you can identify each part in your next movie.  And just to make it easier here are a couple of helps. 

• The “Doorway of No Return” happens about one quarter of the way through the movie (30 minutes into a 2-hour movie).

• The “Mirror Movement” happens exactly halfway through (1 hour into a 2-hour movie).

• The “Final Battle” begins the last one quarter of the movie (with only 30 minutes left in a 2-hour movie).

Cool, right?  I told you this would change forever the way you watch movies!