Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc [Hardcover]

Dara Marks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 2006

What is the secret to writing a great screenplay? Whether you're a beginning screenwriter or an A-list Academy Award winner, all writers struggle with the same thing: to get to the great script inside. Step by step, Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc guides you through an extraordinary new process that helps identify your thematic intention-what your story is really about-and teaches you how to turn that intention into the driving force behind all your creative choices. The result is a profound relationship between the movement of the plot and the internal development of character, which is the foundation for the transformational arc. The transformational arc is the deeper line of structure found inside the story. Knowing how to work with the arc enhances your ability to: ? Express your unique point of view ? Give meaning and urgency to the line of action ? Infuse your characters with richness, subtlety, and surprise ? Develop a powerful emotional undercurrent ? Make your stories stand out and get attention A strong transformational arc is the single most important element that makes the difference between a good screenplay and a great one. Inside Story delivers what the name implies: it's the real inside scoop on how to write a great screenplay with depth, dimension, and substance. It is a must-have for any serious screenwriter, playwright, or novelist.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: Three Mountain Press; 1ST edition (2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0978812905
• ISBN-13: 978-0978812904
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #963,010 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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53 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book on Character Transformation, February 5, 2007

By 

J. Bland - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc (Hardcover)

Unlike most books on storytelling, Marks doesn't spend most of her time rehashing and embellishing Syd Field's Screenplay, instead she turns her attention to some of the stickiest problems writers face - character growth, character flaws (because they seem to undermine rooting interest), and thematic resonance.

Part of what makes these problems sticky is that prior to Marks's theory, it was difficult to determine if these non-localized problems had been handled properly. Indeed, one didn't even know what questions to ask of the first draft.

On the other hand, it's easy to address localizable problems - is the hero committed to an external goal at the first act point, does the hero encounter escalating external obstacles in the second act, and does the hero succeed or fail in the third act's climatic battle.

As a script analyst from CAA, DreamWorks, and Fox, I've encountered hundreds of scripts with the same problem: the hero either doesn't have a clear character arc or the character arc is tangential to the climactic scene. (Writers often select an arc they can connect to the romantic subplot therefore they most often choose to have the hero move from fear of intimacy to embracing intimacy even when it's irrelevant to the thematic spine of the story.)

Though these scripts felt wonky, I was unable to diagnosis the above problem until after I'd read Marks's superlative book. Marks presents a simple test to determine if a character has a compelling arc - if the character could have engaged in the climactic battle at the beginning of the script, then the character hasn't grown or been transformed by the story's journey. In her lexicon, the character has only had a "really, really bad day at the office." This, of course, is enough if the external action is iconic and engaging (Apollo 13 - her personal whipping boy --, Predator, and Terminator) But the fact that one can craft marketable stories that don't display character transformation doesn't mean one ought to. If one does, it seems to me, it should be a conscious aesthetic decision - not technical laxity.

After reading Marks's book, one will understand how to do something remarkable - create a character that changes in front of the reader's/viewer's eyes. With this power, the writer can then decide whether a given work requires a character that transforms or would be better suited for a static character(Marks herself gives two instances where static characters are preferable -- Groundhog Day and Forrest Gump).

Marks argues each of us tend to hold onto calcified ways of being (our fatal flaw) until we decide to embrace change, moving toward the borderland - "a place where new consciousness is beginning to dawn, the place where we emerge from darkness into light." More than her insights on craft, Marks's book provides a lens through which we can view our own need/inability to change, for our characters face the same problem we face each day when we look in the mirror.

I read the following with tears in my eyes: "If we chose to rise to the challenge, then we will inevitably engage a new part of our inner being in the struggle. As a result we expand and grow toward the fullness of our true nature. However, if we run from or avoid the challenge, we will remain stuck at the same level of existence - doomed to continually re-engage the same challenges until we finally rise above them or are destroyed by them all together."

Having shown the importance of character transformation, Marks goes on to connect character flaw to thematic resonance. In the same way writers lacked a method for depicting character transformation before Marks, they also lacked a method for embodying themes in story. Thankfully, Marks provides a method (I know methods aren't sexy, but when intuition and luck fail, a method is exactly what one needs!) that connects her insights on transformation and character flaws to illustrate how writers can make their themes "material, visible, and discernible."

In short, Marks provides a breathtakingly practical approach to some of the thorniest elements of storytelling- elements that before her seemed beyond formal analysis and resistant to practical solutions. Like Aristotle's Poetics, McKee's Story, Truby's Anatomy of Story, Freeman's Creating Emotion in Games and Brian McDonald's The Golden Theme, Marks's Inside Story is indispensable.

19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars WONDERFUL Book!, March 19, 2007

By 

SIP productions, Gillie "Michelle Amor" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc (Hardcover)

I am a professional screenwriter who has written 16 scripts over the past 12 years, each with a different method. For example, one script took 4 days and another took three years and let's not even mention the whole re-writing processes. I finally realized that in order to create more quality stories effectively I needed to create a method that would work each and every time I write. Dara's amazing book revealed to me how.

While reading the book I sold my first feature script entitled "Of Boys & Men". The movie starring Angela Bassett, Robert Townsend, Victoria Rowell and Faison Love is being filmed in Chicago this month. The re-write process was arduous to say the least but once I began applying Dara's thematic structure to it, the story went from good to great. Needless to say, everyone loved the revised script including Executive Producer and Star Robert Townsend who told me he is singing my praises. My writing career is officially launched!

I have now created a method, my method, to be used EVERY time I develop a new story using Inside Story techniques and am actually revisiting all my completed works to improve them as well. Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc changed my life and my writing in the process. Thank you Ms. Marks!

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INSIDE STORY: A TRANSFORMING BOOK, April 27, 2008

By 

C. J. Singh (Berkeley, California, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Inside Story: The Power of the Transformational Arc (Hardcover)

[The oddity "by Dara, Ph.D. Marks" above was generated by the amazon review system, not me]

"INSIDE STORY: The Power of the Transformational Arc" by Dara Marks, Ph.D., is unique. I know of no other craft book that has as much power to transform the storyteller's craft-knowledge as well as the storyteller's self-knowledge.

Dara Marks introduces the transformational arc of character as "the challenge to grow and evolve as we face the trials in our life. ... In the film industry and in the literary disciplines, this concept is widely used to indicate the need for interaction or interrelatedness between plot and character development. ... It is a second line of structure that is wrapped within the structure of the plot. It is, quite literally, the story that is found inside story" (p 6).

The book comprises two parts, five chapters each: "Laying a Strong Foundation" and "Building the Arc of Character." The book's highlights, chapter by chapter, are as follows.

1. In the Beginning: The Word. "Story is not the passive experience we perceive it to be. Instead, it is as essential an activator of our internal development as any experience we have in real life" (p 18). Well, some stories more than others. The author extols "Star Wars," "Goodfellas," "Tootsie," and for a negative example cites "Apollo 13."

2. Plot: Lights, Camera, Action! "It is the theme that makes our writing meaningful. It opens up the story's inner value system, so that writers can make conscious connection with what the story really wants to communicate to them and through them" (p 27). "Whereas the plot carries the line of action, the subplot(s) carry the emotional and thematic content" (p 34).

3. Character: Getting to the Heart of the Matter. "The protagonist is the character who not only carries the external goal of the plot, but also the internal goals in the subplots" (p 61).

4. Theme: Defining Intention. "The actions of the protagonist serve the function of expressing the theme" (p 74). "Theme is based on what a writer believes and believes in. This is the writer's unique voice, distinctive point of view, and, above all, what is personally valued" (p 75). Although Dara Marks doesn't use the terms premise (Lajos Egri, Syd Field) or the moral premise (Stanley Williams), that's what she means by her term "thematic point of view."

5. Fatal Flaw: Bringing Characters to Life. "The fatal flaw is a struggle within a character to maintain a survival system long after it has outlived its usefulness" (p 114). "Identifying the fatal flaw instantly clarifies for the writer what the internal journey of the character will be" (p 116).

6. Inside Structure: Swimming in the Deep End. "There are three primary plotlines in a story: a plot and two subplots. In the film industry, the plot is referred to as the 'A' story" (p 158). The 'B' story is the subplot "where the internal conflict is developed" (p 160). The 'C' story is the subplot where "the relationship conflict" is developed (p 162).

7. Act I: Fade In. "Utilize the first twenty pages of your script to clearly set up the conflict in all three storylines" (p 192). At page 25 of the script introduce a turning point, "an escalation of the conflict that turns the story in a new and unexpected direction, substantially raising the stakes for the protagonist" (p 200).

8. Act II -- Part One: What Goes Up. "As things continue to worsen and become more frustrating, the ego strength of the protagonist will begin to break down. This is part of the essential function of exhaustion: Where there is a breakdown, there is potential for something new to break through" (p 232). "At the midpoint of the 'A' story something happens that shifts the external action out of resistance and points the protagonist toward resolving the conflict of the plot" (p 235).

9. Act II - Part Two: Must Come Down. At page 75 of the script, introduce the second turning point. "Think of the second turning point or death experience as the moment when the protagonist feels he or she has lost everything --especially all the gifts that came with the internal shift of consciousness at the midpoint" (p 264).

10. Act III: Down and Dirty. "If the second turning point is going to effectively push the protagonist toward a transformational experience before reaching the climax, then it is critical that the third act be the biggest challenge yet" (p 285). Finally, comes "the place in a story where the protagonist will be pushed to surrender those aspects of him- or herself that don't work anymore" (p 287). "This leads to a decision by the protagonist that is the pivotal event of the entire story. I refer to this as the transformational moment, because this is where the protagonist decides his or her own fate" (p 295).

Epilogue: "Great stories never really end; they take up residence inside us and live on in our thoughts, conversations, fantasies, and dreams. They are also a powerful influence over our beliefs, values, opinions, and perceptions" (p 325). Agreed hundred percent.

The book lacks a bibliography. The acknowledgments page begins with gratitude expressed to "my mentor, Dr. Linda Seger." But what about Syd Field's pioneering book "Screenplay," which popularized the paradigm of three acts with two plot points and a mid-point? (Linda Seger's "The Art of Adaptation" does list Syd Field's books, so that's indirect acknowledgment, I suppose.)

INSIDE STORY cites seventy-five films in all. The second chapter introduces three films, to be analyzed as case studies in the light of concepts explained in each subsequent chapter. The case-study films are "Romancing the Stone," a romantic comedy; "Lethal Weapon," an action thriller; and "Ordinary People," a character-driven story. Additionally, the book presents detailed analyses of twenty-seven films and briefly comments on forty-five more.

I would have liked to see at least a few international films discussed such as Satyajit Ray's "Devi" or Mira Nair's "Monsoon Wedding."

Five shiny stars to this book.

-- C J Singh