Seeing Story Movement
by Bill Johnson

editing by Lawrence Booth

Consider a man on a track who will to run a hundred yard dash.

The race has its beginning, its middle, its finish.

So we can "see" the outcome of the race

We can see him move from beginning, to middle to end.

Now, if we wanted to, we could film this race, and break it down frame by frame and discuss his body mechanics. Each movement of each part of his body serves the whole, to run the race from its beginning to end.

We might also consider an x-ray machine that looks inside his body during the course of the race. It would show us the mechanics of the racer's movement, how his bones work together so he can run, i.e., create body movement.

Each body movement must be orchestrated via his skeleton if he is to begin, run, and finish the race. In the same way, each story element must work together for the story to begin, move, and finish.

This story's movement could be broken down into that physical movement, motion by motion. Each motion setting up the next, in context with the movement before and after, and how they operate to create a whole race.

We might even concentrate on the story element represented by his feet and what they do. Or his hips. Or his body as a whole as it operates to run the race.

Now say this man has a knee deformity. It's an obstacle he has to overcome to run this race, a plot element that affects how he will run this race. Like all plot elements, it's associated with making the story's movement more potent and dramatic by creating suspense around the story/race's outcome.

Say he also suffers from epilepsy. Will he have a "physical" attack during the race, another plot device, that will affect how he finishes in the race?

We could also, as part of creating plot elements that affect the story's movement says there's a lose spot of gravel in his lane. If he lands on that spot, his skeleton will be thrown off kilter, and it will affect his movement.

So his outer environment and how it affects his ability to move can be seen as a plot element that affects the outcome of this race; just as his inner environment, and how it's impacted by plot elements, also affects how well he'll be able to run, and therefore shapes the race's outcome.

Now, consider this man in a different dimension. As a man with a body of emotion. See his body not as flesh, but as writ of emotion. Give those body parts and different emotions different colors. His trunk is his will. It shines bright.

But perhaps the question in this story is whether he is strong of heart. So at the beginning of this race, color his heart a pale red. But during the course of the race, it glows brighter and brighter red. We now have a movement of feeling that could be represented on a color scale.

Depending on whether he wins the race or not, his heart could move up or down that color scale in a significant -- visible -- way.

Continuing, when he was young, he was picked on and poor, and being a racer gave him a chance to go to school. He's driven by that inner state of emotion. It colors his overall state of emotion.

But only if he wins this race can he finish school.

We could amass a great wealth of detail about this man's emotional body and its colors and hues. All of it together gives both background on his history, and also what, on this day, the feeling states he brings to this race, and how they change according to each stage of emotion he passes through during the race and the plot elements that affect how well he runs and his feelings about himself and the race.

Note how his state of emotion interweaves with this quality of emotional-movement based on character, and obstacles the plot places before this character that must be overcome. Thus, the character's movement is made more dramatic by the action of both the plot, and by the writer's development of the character's state of emotions.

Note also that if readers are led to internalize this character's dilemma, they also internalize the story's movement toward its fulfillment. In this race-story, whether our main character wins the race might speak to some issue of courage. Or nobility in the face of oppression. Or compassion. Because readers desire to experience those states of feeling and thought in a state of fulfillment, they desire to internalize a particular story's movement to its fulfillment.

That is why the action -- movement -- of a story must, through its characters, revolve around some dramatic issue that a reader desires to internalize.

Upping the ante --

Let's say that because he can only continue in school if he wins the race, his feelings at the beginning of the race will be different than at the end of the race, depending on its outcome.

And then different in the middle of the race if he trips up and another racer passes him.

So there's a movement of feeling during this man's race.

The writer continues in this creation of this day and this moment and the movement that expresses the physical action, plot, (movement), and emotional action (movement), of this character.

In the audience is the woman this man would marry if he can only continue in school. What's at stake in this race has a deeper consequence than his just continuing in school. This new development serves to power his will/desire to win the race; it's an additional element that powers his movement, chosen by the storyteller for what it does to illuminate the meaning of his movement.

His movement, running this race, now has a physical movement, an emotional one, and one of meaning.

Plot devices and effects could operate by blocking movement on any of these levels for this character, forcing the character to act with even greater strength of will.

Continuing, in the audience is a childhood enemy who has done our character a great wrong. This man will marry this woman if our character loses the race.

Do you see how the consequence of the race has again escalated, and how it powers his will to move and win?

The storyteller understands what elements to bring to this story world so what's at stake in the outcome of this race--the manifestation of its movement--will be visible and clear.

Perhaps it's a hot day, and our character runs better on a cooler day. Worse for him, another runner in the race runs better in the heat. So, again, the storyteller escalates the pressure, just by changing the environment of the race.

The physical environment in which the race will happen is part of the movement of the race, a plot device that increases the drama around the movement of the story.

Do you see how the purpose is to escalate the drama? We started with this simple idea of movement in which a man runs a race. But see how it reaches out to explain every element associated with the race?

The other four runners in the race also have their particular reasons and hopes and dreams for being in this race. They add to the depth of movement of the race and; increase the drama over its outcome.

In a complex novel, the storyteller might explore in a deep way every facet of the movement of every participant in the race and those watching, because all serve a purpose in the world of the story that the storyteller would bring them before our view.

The storyteller, understanding the movement of this story, must also understand how the story's movement will engage "we" who view/read this particular story.

The storyteller decides, will this be a simple race of the good against the evil?

If it is to be good against evil, then we don't need to know much detail about our main runner. Just the broad sweep of his place in the events around the race will create the movement for a simple story.

If the racer is heroic, and represents good, by winning the race in spite of personal pain and physical disabilities, he overcomes evil.

Thus, the movement of the story is made visible by this man's will to run and win the race.

For a more complex story, the story's movement--and the plot associated with that movement--might be created by myriad details. But all must be connected in their purpose, just like every physical element -- legs, arms, muscles, bones, etc. -- of the man running the race has to have its purpose and connection to every other body part if the man is to be able to run the race from beginning to end.

How deeply the storyteller reveals our runner and his physical body and his body of character and emotions, again, depends on the story and its movement. Complex? Simple?

If this were a fairy tale, the storyteller might bring in magical story elements. Say, that an elven king attending the race unseen is part of the "movement" of the story, i.e., that the king magically helps defeat evil so the man, on his own merits, can win the race.

Or maybe the runner in the race is Jesse Owens in 1936 Berlin, with Hitler in the stands. The movement for that story could be about democracy overcoming fascism. Or, about the movement of black people to equality in the body of Jesse Owens representing a racist America competing against a Fascist Germany.

Do you see, then, how movement reaches into every element of the story and our perceptions of the story? This means the writer who understands movement can spot where the movement of a story is false.

Say the writer begins to describe people in the stands who are dramatic in their own right, but who's story has no consequence to the outcome of the race.

Therefore, they disrupt the movement of the real story.

Since the writer, the controller of every element in this artificial world, sets out what the movement of the story is, he or she is always responsible for any story element that doesn't contribute to the movement of their story. No matter how dramatic a character or action might appear "moving" when viewed in isolation.

How can a writer tell if those people being described in the stand do not serve to "move" the story forward toward its fulfillment?

Remove them. If the story doesn't change, they've had no effect on its movement or outcome.

If they have no effect on the story's movement or outcome, they should be edited out.

This applies to any story element, plot device, dialogue, character revelation. If it doesn't have some effect on the story such that removing it alters the outcome of the story in some way, then remove it.

Say an inexperienced writer, through not understanding movement, gives their main character a physical deformity that means they cannot win the race. Understanding movement, we can see by this character's condition he can't win the race. But the writer has the main character win the race anyway, simply by using some special effect to make it so. But we, as the observers of this turn of events, feel "lied" to. The story had been "true to life" up to this point, in a way that led us to desire to internalize its movement. We felt the story "jump" out of its movement, out of the reality it had created for us.

Since the writer creates the movement of the story in its every word that is connected to every other word, that connects plot effect to plot effect, character effect to character effect, the writer is responsible for the movement of every element of the story. And, whether any of those movements feel "false."

Just like we could use a film camera and break down every single movement of his body that powers his movement to run the race, as the storyteller, we can, indeed must see into his heart and mind and put there every significant thought and feeling that powers his need and will to run the race.

Since the only relevant thoughts and feelings are those connected to his running and winning the race, any other thoughts and feelings are irrelevant and should be removed because they derail the movement of the story.

And if the purpose, movement, of our story is about good defeating evil, that determines the kind of thoughts this man would have if he would belong in this world about good defeating evil.

As the storyteller, we create the thoughts and feelings of all who either run in the race, or watch it.

During this race, we would not have him suddenly think of a childhood experience of going fishing with his father unless his father or that experience connected into the movement of what he needs to do to win the race to prove that good can defeat evil.

The overall movement of the story moves through this man's every thought, physical movement and sense impression.

The storyteller, however, must also be aware of how these different story elements work together to create a certain effect. Think of it as like a bone specialist who understands how our skeletal structure must work in a certain way if we are to have a natural body movement.

Now, each of us will have a different body, but this bone specialist/storyteller will have an understanding of how the bones in a skeleton, say, the plot elements in a story, work together.

We could extend this metaphor to a physician who understands the hormonal system of the body and how it dictates moods, feelings and thoughts.

This could be applied to a psychiatrist, who understands the nature of thoughts.

In sum, the storyteller must have an innate sense of what creates different kinds of physical and emotional movement, and how an environment shapes a certain kind of expression of movement for humans.

A storyteller has an understanding of the nature and purpose of human thought, and which thoughts are natural and appropriate for creating certain states of integral feeling in a character. And, how that character might elicit such states of thought and feeling in other characters.

The storyteller also understands how what we experience through the senses affects our thoughts and feelings.

Those who fail as storytellers can fail in movement on any of the different levels of movement.

The storyteller can create a skeleton/plot that doesn't allow for movement, which will be clear to the reader/viewer, who will then disengage from their story.

The storyteller can create thoughts/feelings that don't create movement, or elicit the movement that appears on the page. The reader will disengage.

The Storyteller can create spectacle that doesn't engage the reader viewer.

So a storyteller brings to their stories an innate understanding of the mechanics of physical, emotional, and mental movement and how what we take in through our senses affects how we operate, move, in the world.

As the storyteller, then, we need to be aware of how all these separate movements work together to create a complete experience in feeling, thought and senses for those who read/view the story. Why those who watch/read "feel, think, take into their senses" what they do and how it affects them.

We, as the storytellers, must understand this if we are to understand what kind of movement in our story will elicit what kind of emotion, thought, sense experience in our audience as they either watch the film, and take the story directly into their brain. Or, read the words, and create the world of the story within themselves.

So we as the storyteller use the movement on the screen, or words on the page, to create an illusion of life in our readers/viewers that is more true and potent than what they would feel in real life. This is because what we offer them is complete and true in its effect and purpose, not fragmentary, or incomplete, like real life.

This issue of movement can be taken down into this runner's very cells, into his atoms, into forces that comprise individual atoms.

Or we can scale up to the movement that created the life in the stadium, or the Earth where this race takes place, or the universe.

We chose the scale of our story movement.

The storyteller has "double vision." One is inward, toward the meaning of various movements and how they combine to create a certain experience taken in through the senses, i.e., feelings, thoughts, sense instruments and then interpreted by the brain, to create a story-like quality of fulfillment.

The other is an outward vision, understanding how these harmony of movement can create/affect the feeling/thought/sense states of those taking in the movement of a particular story and the effect its creates with its movement and fulfillment.

Again, every element of a story, down to its atoms, is chosen by the storyteller to create the story-like effect of fulfillment that engages those who read or view the story.

Remember that ideas, too, have movement. So they, too, express a quality of movement that could be compared to physical movement.

In great works of art, we see a depth of feeling and ideas that create a harmony of movement to the destination the storyteller has chosen, the story's fulfillment as expressed in the ending.

Though story may give the illusion of real life, it's just that: An illusion.

In summary --

We can look at movement as a single man running a race in isolation, and simply concentrate on that man and his physical and emotional movement.

That would be a simple story, in the most basic ancient meaning of story.

We can scale up from there.

Every element we add to the story, though, must serve its purpose in creating the overall purpose of the story.

Thus, every type of story movement in its varied forms, plot, dialogue, conflict, revelation, is intimately connected to every other form of movement in the story.

It cannot be otherwise.

To be otherwise, is to break the story-like illusion of fulfillment.

At that moment, when the movement of the story is broken, one doesn't have a harmony of colors that form a picture, or colors and movement and sounds that form a film story. One simply has a collection of different things that don't form a coherent whole.

The inexperienced storyteller, of course, always feels the movement of their story within themselves. Because of that strength of vision, they can impose on those disparate parts an apparent unity of movement that moves to an apparent destination, with an apparent fulfillment of the story.

But that storyteller cannot impose his or her state of feeling/thought/sense impression on anyone else. So if what they present as a story is not what they create by their words or the film images and the movement they suggest, it's not a story to those they are attempting to engage into their story world. Because of our own innate ability to create worlds within ourselves, we know a false world when one is presented to us, and one that is true.

All of this is why an understanding of movement is a foundation of storytelling.

©1995 Bill Johnson