The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success [Paperback]

Stanley D Williams (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 15, 2006

The Moral Premise reveals the foundational concept at the heart of all storytelling and successful box office movies. In concrete terms it explains how you can create your own success and, in the process, entertain, delight, challenge, and uplift this generation and the ones to come.

Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions (June 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932907130
• ISBN-13: 978-1932907131
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #409,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Getting to the heart of what your script is REALLY about--, June 19, 2006

By 

Matthew Terry (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success (Paperback)

I remember this like it was yesterday: I read a letter to the editors in regards to the film "The Deer Hunter." The person wrote: "I can't understand how a film that glorifies violence and beer drinking and hunting can win Best Picture." This person was, obviously, looking at the over all story - not at what the movie was REALLY about which is a film about love and sacrifice and, literally, laying one's life down for a friend. Far more depth than "beer drinking and hunting."

What are we talking about? The "subtext" of a film. What the film is REALLY about. "The Incredibles?" What's the movie about? "It's about a family of superheroes that does battle against an evil villain and saves the world!" What's it REALLY about: It's about love, the power of family, finding your identity, making sacrifices and doing what is right against all obstacles."

In the book: "The Moral Premise" author Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D. takes the concept of subtext and creates a layer of subtext under it. It almost asks: "What's the SUBTEXT really about?" And if you come up with the answer, then you have the Moral Premise.

The Moral Premise can be described easily as saying: "Evil actions equal failure, Good actions equal success" (depending on the script you are writing). That's a poor example of what the author creates. For example, Dr. Williams's Moral Premise for "Bruce Almighty" is:

Expecting a Miracle Leads to Frustration; but
Being a Miracle Leads to Peace

By digesting a number of films, including "The Incredibles," "Bruce Almighty," "An Officer and a Gentleman" and, to a greater extent, "Braveheart" - he breaks down the Moral Premise and then shows how those films adhered to the premise as stated. It is within the process of dealing with that Moral Premise and the fact that the characters first reject, return to, and live out, that Moral Premise that not only gives the film depth but also, in turn, creates Box Office Success (see full title of the book above).

Dr. Williams goes into extreme detail when it comes to figuring out that Moral Premise and then applying it to your story taking you first through chapters describing the Moral Premise and then taking you through steps giving you a step-by-step of applying the Moral Premise to your script.

The initial chapters, with titles like: "The Moral Premise in Modern Writing Guides" and "Structure of the Moral Premise" give you a fully detailed analysis of the subject (including footnotes) and then the chapters end with exercises to give you a better understanding of what was discussed.

The step-by-step chapters encourage you to apply what you've learned with your own script. Where the previous chapters felt, in some ways, like a class room - the steps feel more like you have been let loose on the world to use the knowledge that you have learned.

I will warn you: This is a weighty book - not in terms of size - but in concept. I found myself re-reading sentences to get a better grasp on what he was saying (often times thinking in my head how to apply what I was reading to my current story - and not paying attention to what I was reading). I am still not sure that I fully have the concept - but I do see how I can use some of the tools he has given me to add more depth to my current script - to give my characters more of a purpose, more of a reality, more of a "Moral Premise."

Where I felt the book could have improved was by providing BAD examples. We know there are a lot of terrible films out there that had no box office success - how did their lack of Moral Premise add to that failure? And how could have ADDING a Moral Premise possibly pull the film out of studio killing tailspin. Is there a Moral Premise in "Catwoman?" What about "Basic Instinct II?" But then there's the rub, I bet with both "Catwoman" and "Basic Instinct II" if you looked for a Moral Premise you could probably find one - so the movies sucked by either NOT focusing on the Moral Premise or they just sucked on a whole.

Another suggestion that Dr. Williams makes is by going through your characters, figuring out the arcs and the plot points and the dramatic (or comedic) beats BEFORE you put pen to paper (or fingertips to keyboards). He suggests getting out 3x5 cards (or using a computer program) to plot these out and arrange them in a way that reinforces the Moral Premise. As helpful as this sounds - and I'm sure it is VERY helpful - most of my students want to jump right in and start writing their script and not think about these nuances and details (as important as they are). So if you want to dive right into your screenplay - go ahead - but you might need to do some backtracking.

Stan Williams does an outstanding job of cutting through what you think your screenplay is about and getting to the heart of what your screenplay is REALLY about. A must read for any screenwriter.

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Important Book for Screenwriters, May 26, 2008

By 

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

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success (Paperback)

In THE MORAL PREMISE, Stanley Williams analyzes numerous contemporary films, creating an admirable companion to the analyses of stage plays in Lajos Egri's classic, THE ART OF DRAMATIC WRITING.

Williams explains the concept of moral premise first "academically" and later "practically": "Every one of the physical obstacles that the protagonist confronts is rooted in a single psychological, spiritual, or emotional obstacle....That single psychological obstacle is summed up by the Moral Premise--a statement of truth about the protagonist's psychological predicament."

The moral premise "is comprised of four parts: a virtue, a vice, desirable consequences (success), and undesirable consequences (defeat). These four parts can be used to create a statement that describes precisely what a movie is really about, on both physical and psychological levels. This is the formal structure of a Moral Premise: [Vice] leads to defeat, but [Virtue] leads to success" (p 60).

Throughout the book, Williams presents the moral premise as the subtext underlying numerous films such as:
* "BRAVEHEART: Compromise of liberty leads to tyranny, but dying for liberty leads to freedom";
* "AN OFFICER AND A GENTELMAN: Deceiving ourselves and others leads to despair and death, but truthfulness to ourselves and others leads to hope and life";
* "DIE HARD: Covetous hatred leads to death and destruction, but sacrificial love leads to life and celebration."

Do all films follow or even have a moral premise? No. Williams' contention is that the ones that win box office success do. Not convinced? Williams presents a formidable-looking mathematical equation (p. 164) from "Narrative Argument Validity and Film Popularity," his 600-page Ph. D. dissertation. Not to worry, he isn't just an academic. The bio-note on the book's jacket says "he's an internationally award-winning film-maker, writer, and instructor. During the past 30 years, he has produced, written, directed, shot, or edited over 400 projects."

The practical part explains eight steps to outline your screenplay.

1. Determine the controlling virtue.
2. Determine the controlling vice.
3. Determine the moral premise.
4. Determine the movie's genre.
5. Determine the protagonist's physical goal.
6. Determine the protagonist's physical obstacles.
7. Determine the major dramatic beats.
8. Sequence the dramatic beats.

This lucid book merits top priority on the aspiring screenwriter's study list.

-- C J Singh

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In one word: WOW!, May 22, 2007

By 

ESP (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue & Vice for Box Office Success (Paperback)

I read an interview with Stanley Williams wherein he claimed his concept of a moral premise would provide a more dynamic story for both screen AND fiction writers. Game as I am for a lesson in how to improve my writing, I purchased THE MORAL PREMISE and afforded it the opportunity to wow me.

The result? WOW!

This book is fantastic. THE MORAL PREMISE doesn't advocate a religious or moral lifestyle for the writer who would apply the ideas therein. What it does push, however, is the idea that the truly great stories have at its core a moral premise, a statement that amounts to nothing more than a conflict of two opposing values. It can be as simple as, "Bigotry leads to injustice, but equality leads to justice." You then structure your story around this one premise, with every character playing to either end of the spectrum. The end result is a bigger sense of purpose instilled in your story that will move your audience in ways that most books/movies don't accomplish.

That's just the nutshell version of the technique; trust me when I say it's much more layered. And yet, it's not difficult to grasp or execute; I've already applied it to my stories with phenomenal results. Williams does front load the book with theory, as most writing books do, but his theory proves to be riveting as he constantly fuses it with practical application. Probably more important is that he backs up his findings by analyzing a ton of movies. In this way, you learn that much quicker how to correctly incorporate a moral premise into your story. I give THE MORAL PREMISE 10 stars, and highly recommend it if you want to take your story to the next level.