It's my distinct pleasure to welcome independent television and film writer-producer and author Stanley D. Williams, PhD, to Seekerville today! I was first introduced to Stan's excellent book, The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success, by my agent, Natasha Kern, and found his theories and instruction immensely enlightening. Stan and I have been corresponding via e-mail for several months now, so I asked him to be our guest today to explain more about The Moral Premise and how we can use it to give our stories more depth, meaning, and lasting impact. Please join me in giving Stan a warm Seekerville welcome!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since Myra Johnson invited me to post and write something that might be useful to all of you, I've had the immense pleasure of enjoying five Seeker novels, and exchanging e-mails with some of you about your writing and your perception of the moral premise. The result of that research suggests that I use this space to explain a bit more about what the moral premise is, and how it can help you write focused, engaging stories. Although, based on what I've read, you need little advice from me. Every book brought tears to my eyes.
ANYHOW . . . THROUGH TEARS OF JOY . . .
The moral premise, or more specifically, the Moral Premise Statement (MPS), is a fairly simple concept that when properly understood will help focus your writing and help what you write connect more fully with your readers.
Although my expertise is principally feature films, the theory behind the moral premise applies to all storytelling—films, novels, short shorts, news stories, and even weather forecasts. (Yes, those are stories too, with a moral purpose ("Don't go out in the rain.").
THE FORM OF THE MPS
Stories will be more powerful and connect with audiences and readers on a profound level when all of your characters' decisions, actions, and resulting consequences (psychological and physical ) focus on one set of values. By "set of values" I mean two naturally opposing motivations or moral constructs—virtue and a vice—e.g.
selflessness vs. selfishness.
Or, take the conflict constructed by
bitterness vs. forgiveness, two psychological values that generate physical consequences and thus drama. Characters with goals start off harboring bitterness and striving with each other over the attainment of said goals. As the conflict escalates, hopefully, someone will discover the opposite to bitterness and try forgiveness. Then redeeming consequences result. But understanding that
bitterness is in conflict with
forgiveness is the moral core of your story.
Of course, it's all much more complicated than that, as all stories are. But now you can create a statement that summarizes what everything in your story is
really about. For instance, your story can be about how...
Bitterness leads to destruction; but
Forgiveness leads to life.
That's a good MPS. Study its form for a moment. Notice that it has four parts:
(1) A psychological vice leads to a (2) physical curse; but
(3) A psychological virtue leads to a (4) physical blessing.
Or, even more simply:
Vice leads to bad;
Virtue leads to good.
Simple, right? It's like brain-dead stuff. But it is actually very deep and compelling when integrated into your story. To unpeel the onion, it's important to see that each line follows this generic formula:
Mental decisions lead to physical consequences.
And then recognize that you cannot have a character take some physical action without it being motivated by a value in the mind. Let me say it again, all physical CONSEQUENCES that your characters experience is based on a mental decision based on some combination of psychological VALUES.
For example you are reading this blog post, but what did you do before you began to read it? You
decided to read. That's no small matter. You used a psychological VALUE (a thirst for knowledge) to motivate your ACTION (read), and the CONSEQUENCE that naturally results (better writing).
WORKING TOGETHER
So, let's go back and examine the MPS:
Bitterness leads to destruction; but
Forgiveness leads to life.
To make this work so your story RESONATES with TRUTH at every TURN of the plot, it is REQUIRED that EVERY CHARACTER struggle with some version of the same MPS. That is, every character struggles with bitterness, and if they let it fester, that bitterness will lead them to some form of dread. If the character is supposed to be redeemed by the end of the story, the bitterness (which has resulted in some dreadful circumstances befalling the character) will morph into forgiveness (with the resulting redemptive physical blessings).
Now, on the surface that sounds pretty boring, because as wordsmiths you're thinking, "Does that mean I have to use the term
bitterness and
forgiveness every time I go about explaining what character A, then B, and then Z, went through?" No. That's why there are Synonym Finders. Actually you have two choices.
A PASSION DENIED
Let's look Julie Lessman's A PASSION DENIED, the story about a young lady who's convinced that the slightly older John Brady is her future husband; but John cannot allow his love for Lizzie to be expressed for fear of losing control of his passions because of his questionable past.
If you've read this, the third book in The Daughters of Boston series, you'll recognize that some of Julie's characters deal with bitterness. Patrick, the father of the O'Conner clan, becomes bitter when he discovers that his wife of 25 years did not love him on their wedding day. It's a good example of TSTL (Too Stupid to Live)... but he does. But while he's dealing with his bitterness toward Marcy he's headed for destruction in many ways, some of which Julie articulates, and some of which she might have added. What's evident in the story is Patrick's health fades (he spends over a month sleeping on a couch at his work rather than in his bed with Marcy). His family also begins to disintegrate as the love and honesty that has kept the family together is severely drained by Patrick's dishonesty about not sleeping at home. What Julie doesn't describe, but would be evident if this MPS were applied to all aspects of Patrick's life, would be that his business and the relationships with customers and employees similarly suffers the consequences of his bitterness.
Thus, in this particular subplot, we'd see how the natural law of sowing bitterness and forgiveness reaps opposite consequences. Now, Julie does not have to use the term "bitterness" or even "forgiveness" in describing Patrick's application of the two values. She has two options. First, she can simply describe what he does and what happens. Cause and effect. It's the simple formula that popular movies use. If you show the consequences of decisions and actions thoroughly, very little didactic explanation is necessary; and audiences like figuring things out on their own.
Second, when there is need to make clear what the story is about, Julie can open her synonym finder and for "forgiveness" come up with words like "absolve," "pardon," "exonerate," "mercy," "grace," ...etc.
Likewise, each of the other characters must also deal with bitterness, but on different levels and in different situations. John is bitter toward his stepmother for her immoral behavior, Michael is bitter with John for refusing to sign estate papers, Marcy is bitter with Patrick for not being home more, and Lizzie is bitter with John for not expressing his passion for her. When Julie goes to express this malaise of bitterness, she's likely to use various synonyms for the various characters and their different situations. John holds onto a resentment for Lucille, Michael is angry toward John, Marcy is short-tempered, and Lizzie is... is... well, all a-tizzy.
ALTERNATE MORAL PREMISE STATEMENTS
Now, Julie's novel is explicitly about passion, and so she also has the option of coming up with an alternate MPS that says the same thing as the former, but with different terms. One thing that Patrick was doing, in his bitterness, was denying Marcy his sexual passion. But he was also denying his commonplace passion for all the other things in his family's life that he loves. Thus, we might construct a different version of the MPS that works more universally:
Denying God's gifts of passion in our lives leads to separation and dread; but
Embracing God's gifts of passion in our live leads to community and vitality.
Now, I do not advocate creating different MPS for each character, because different terms do have subtle differences in meaning. What you'll discover, however, is that as you write you'll find different ways to express the same conflict of values and their consequences. As soon as you discover one expression that seems universal to all the characters in your story, latch on to it, and toss the other ones away.
PASSING IT AROUND
Using this last MPS we see that it should apply to each of the other characters, not just to Patrick. John Brady denies God's gift of passion (e.g. Lizzie) and his life is one isolated affair, Michael Brady denies God's gift of passion (for God) and is left with separation from Lizzie, John, and Helena. Lizzie doesn't directly deny God's passion for her life (John) but she does deny God's passion for patience and obedience, and that deals her so many twists and turns that I was surprised there wasn't an epilogue explaining why, at story's end, Lizzie wasn’t in a mental ward for emotionally whiplashed heroines.
On the opposite side of the moral premise we have a virtue that leads to redemption, wholeness, happiness, and life. We see Marcy and Patrick forgive the mistakes of each other, embrace each other (God's gifts of passion) and embrace, again, their role as role models for their friends and family. Lizzie finally gets the hang of pursing God's passion, even going to a seminary where she "seduces" John Brady, and there John repents of his pride (a version of denying God's passion for humility) and they finally end up together.
Given more time, we could take each of the other characters and explore how they do and don't reflect the positive and negative sides of the moral premise statement, to give the reader a satisfying and true experience. In your writing, where you can't figure out how the main moral decisions that define the turning points in your story fit together, it's time to change your story so they do.
THE GOOD OF SUFFERING
Now, some of you may be sharp enough to ask, how do you wrangle a MPS when the story is about the importance of suffering? My answer is that your characters need to reflect the reality of life if they are to connect with readers, and suffering often occurs to real people even when they make morally good decisions all the time. Yet, when bad things happen to good people it may seem to negate the Moral Premise concept. But the moral premise is not karma. For example, a karma understanding of Jesus' life and death would suggest that Jesus, to be murdered like he was, did something really bad. But a correct understanding of reality tells us that his passion and death resulted in an ultimate good, for all people, in all time, and all places. So, his goodness, had an eternally good outcome. In like manner, any of your characters suffer something bad, which brings ultimate good. A MPS form that works for such situations is:
Doing what is right, though it leads to immediate death, brings ultimate freedom; but
Doing what is wrong, though it leads to immediate life, brings ultimate slavery.
Another example: The MPS for the movie BRAVEHEART, where William Wallace's courage and sacrificial leadership led to his death, can be stated like this:
Compromise of liberty leads to tyranny; but
Dying for liberty leads to freedom.
The one thing you can never do with the MPS (and have it work for you) is to have it say something that is not, in reality, true. Only TRUE moral premise statements lead to success.
THEMES vs. PREMISES
One of the things many writers do (and several of you have told me this) is to focus on a theme of what you're writing, by printing it on an index card and taping it over your computer screen. But a theme is only going to solve 25% of your problems. What you need is the 100% solution.
Let me explain by looking at Cheryl Wyatt's A SOLDIER'S PROMISE. Here we have the story of Amber, a private school teacher, her young student Bradley who is dying from leukemia, and a U.S. Air Force pararescue jumper, Joel, who literally drops into their lives. Because of what appears to be different value systems, the relationship Amber and Joel both seek is in doubt (at least for 200 pages, although this IS a romance, and there's not a chance they won't end up together).
The THEME of A SOLDIER'S PROMISE could be expressed in any one of these four ways.
a. Timidity Meets Stubbornness
b. The Isolation of Love
c. Sacrifice of Self
d. The Demands of Relationship
But tacking one of those onto the edge of your computer screen may ultimately result in writer's block. Why? Because a theme alone does not answer the basic story structure questions. For instance, using just ONE of those themes does not answer:
a. What happens when timidity meets stubbornness?
b. Under what circumstances does love isolate?
c. What good does it do to sacrifice oneself for any cause?
d. What are the demands of a relationship?
But look what happens when we take those themes and put them into a cohesive moral premise statement? Here are two versions of the same story:
Commitment without compromise leads to isolation; but
Commitment with compromise leads to relationship.
And...
Timidity or stubbornness leads to isolation; but
Sacrifice and love leads to relationship.
Or, you might combine them:
Commitment without compromise (due to timidity or stubbornness) leads to isolation; but
Commitment with compromise (because of sacrifice and love) leads to relationship.
Now, you have answers to those writer’s-block type of questions and you know what inner struggles of values your characters are struggling with, and what the results are going to be when they give into to one value or the other:
a. What happens when timidity meets stubbornness? The characters experience some form of isolation or separation.
b. Under what circumstances does love isolate? When the characters refuse to compromise on their goals for the sake of the other.
c. What good does it do to sacrifice oneself for any cause? It leads to relationships with like-minded individuals.
d. What are the demands of relationships? That the people involved compromise as part of the commitment process. It's what true love does.
With those answers you are ready to plot out the conflict and the sort of decisions that will result in bringing this couple to the altar.
OTHER EXAMPLES
In Mary Connealy's western romantic comedy PETTICOAT RANCH, it's 1867 in Mosqueros, Texas, and Sophie and her daughters are hiding out in an old cabin in the brush from the outlaws that killed her husband, Cliff, and took their ranch. One rainy night they rescue a man who runs his horse into the ravine. The man is Cliff's unknown (good) twin brother, Clay, who has come to rescue Sophie and the girls. But of course, this is a romance, so before we "let" the man rescue the girls (or pretend to), the girls have to first rescue the man (or we're led to believe they did). (Yep, this here is a man writing?)
A good moral premise for PETTICOAT RANCH, which applies to even the minor characters is:
Seeking revenge leads to destitution; but
Seeking justice leads to satisfaction
Revenge is seeking to control others for our personal twisted understanding of satisfaction. If you're familiar with this story, you'll notice that this moral premise theme is applied to each character. Cliff sought revenge on Sophie for not birthing him a boy...even though we now know it was HIS gene's fault. Clay is hounded and hoodwinked by the womenfolk when he seeks to silence them for what he mistakenly thinks will give him peace. Adam battles the revenge he feels towards Judd and the gang, but by suppressing it he's able to help bring about justice. Sophie's thoughts of revenge probably led her into the bush and using foul-smelling disguises, a form of destitution. But with Clay's help she argues herself back to the justice theme. And Judd, the epitome of revenge, leads himself and his gang to destitution, at least to the degree allowed by Christian romance. I wanted a bit more justice, frankly, my dear.
MOMENTS OF GRACE
In
The Moral Premise, I write about the importance of MOMENTS OF GRACE (MOG), the midpoint in a character's arc where they change their motivations from that of the vice side of the MPS to the virtuous side. The moment is brought about by the trials pushed upon the character by their nemesis. (c.f. James 1 about how trails make us stronger.) For the protagonist the Moment of Grace is usually in the middle of the story. For other characters, it can appear anywhere, even in the story's climax.
Revisiting PETTICOAT RANCH for a moment, Sophie and her new husband, Clay, are at each other's throats. Clay wants to take care of Sophie and the girls (Mandy, Beth, Sally and Laura) but Sophie has done just fine (almost) without Clay's help and it's a little hard for Sophie to give up her independence. She's still feeling revenge for the past years, and she's really not ready to give in to a man, fully. Until, that is, Judd's gang tries to kill her and Clay by taking potshots at them while they work on their ranch. At that moment Sophie starts to change.
In Ruth Logan Herne's WINTER'S END Kayla Doherty, R.N., is a hospice nurse who braves the cold, harsh winter of upper New York State to care for Pete DeHollander, a dying man in his old, drab, but well-kept farmhouse. Years before WINTER'S END begins, Mrs. DeHollander, tired of farm life and marriage, left the family for the big city, leaving Pete to raise Marc and kid sister, Jess, an active 4H'er. During Kayla's visits to the homestead, Marc becomes Kayla's bittersweet love interest. He knows how to run the farm and the feed store and guide Jess in her animal husbandry projects, but one of the things that separate him from Kayla is Marc's lack of Christian faith.
The story's MPS can be stated like this:
Bitterness toward those that hurt us leads to confusion and separation; but
Forgiveness of those that hurt us leads to purpose and attachment.
In the center of the story Jess' horse, "Grace," gives birth to a filly, that Jess names "Glory." It's an emotional moment as Marc leads Jess to the barn to see the foal for the first time. Marc thinks Jess will name the foal "Sweetheart," but Jess says, "Not now that I've seen her." (Jess) eyed Grace for a moment, then turned Marc's way. "She'll be Glory...the beginnings of my breeding program. Grace and Glory." Ruth then writes:
The names stopped Marc's progress. His throat tightened at the look on Jess' face, her belief in all things holy.
Her strength tweaked a memory of a boy who believed in God, in heaven and hell. Gifts of the Spirit. For a moment he couldn't say anything, then he took a step back, approving. "Nice combination, Jess."
A smile lit her face, her eyes on the mother-foal duo. "Yes. It is."
Now, I like very much how this is written. The layered meaning of the new birth of the foal and the words spoken between Marc and Jess, parallel the rekindling of new birth in Marc's heart, and the budding of "true" romance between Marc and Kayla. This is the moment of grace for Marc, and it's not accidental that the horse's name is Grace, or that accepting grace can usher one into glory, in this life and the next. And that is the turning point for Marc, and thus a major turning point for the whole story. Nice job, Ruth.
So, writers, please understand the critical importance of a Moment of Grace in all your characters. At
moralpremise.blogspot.com I explain many other MOG's, both for the good guys and the villains.
LEFT BRAIN VS RIGHT
This whole approach to writing, using the moral premise as the cornerstone of your story's structure, sounds a little left-brained. And it is. Unfortunately. I think most creative people are right-brained. And if you try to write using your left brain (as I often do) you may end up with something that is technically flawless, but doesn't resonate with vitality. That is a problem with using the moral premise too literally and following it legalistically.
In Myra Johnson's AUTUMN RAINS, Valerie Bishop is the widow of Tom, a man who, while walking across a street to mail a letter to an incarcerated friend, Gus, is hit by a car driven by criminals who are evading police. The "accident" puts the criminals on the run and one of them grabs a pregnant Valerie as hostage and then pushes her away into an obstruction that causes a miscarriage. Valerie, suffering psychologically with the wound of her double loss, imprisons herself in her brother's home, caring for the house and her brother's family. Until Healy Furgeson, an ex-con, shows up to live above the garage.
The moral premise for AUTUMN RAINS can be stated like this:
Trusting in your own wisdom and knowledge leads to a dreadful imprisonment; but
Trusting in God's wisdom and knowledge leads to a pleasant freedom.
When I wrote to Myra and told her what I thought the MPS was for the book and what Valerie's Moment of Grace was, Myra disclaimed any awareness of either. But the book solidly contains both. Myra wrote:
...not to say I don't put a lot of thought into scenes, characters, and plots, but honestly, I don't know the details of what's going to happen until I'm immersed in the writing. Later I will look back at a completed ms. and wonder where in the world some of that stuff came from! For me, it's the most fun part of being a writer--the journey of discovery!
Myra is very typical of good writers. In chapter 4 of
The Moral Premise I describe the "natural processes" of how stories come to Hollywood writers—Trial and Revision, Instinct & Osmosis, Naturally, Talent, and Perseverance & Perspiration.
As Myra suggested in another part of the email, good writing isn't so much about following formulas, but about allowing the Holy Spirit to inspire us and to keep before us the Truth about which the story is really about.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D. is an independent television and film writer-producer and author of The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success. He is also a story consultant to Hollywood, workshop leader, and speaker. He can be contacted through his book's website, moralpremise.com or his movie blog moralpremise.blogspot.com~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Stan has offered to stop in as time permits and answer any questions you may have about The Moral Premise, so let's get the discussion flowing! Also, leave your e-mail address to be entered in a drawing for a copy of Stan's book. Once you've grasped this amazing concept, your fiction will never be the same!
We’ve talked in Seekerville before about theme and Moral Premise (see links below to a few of those posts). These are the “big truths” your story portrays. As Dr. Stanley Williams states in his book The Moral Premise: Harnessing Virtue and Vice for Box Office Success,
Ranch foreman Jacob Collins has had designs on Vera Mae Beasley since he first realized the differences between boys and girls. Then Vera left to study fashion design in Philadelphia, and Jacob had all but given up hope of sharing a future with her. Now she's back in Texas, mourning the loss of her family to yellow fever and closing out the family business. Helping Vera heal offers Jacob a second chance at winning her heart, and he's not about to let it slip away.
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