Plot vs. Non-Plot

[This blog post turned out to be exceedingly long. Get some coffee.]

Our first season of STBD is a misnomer. It's only five episodes, which amounts to an hour's worth of video.

In actuality, Season One is really one short film script, subdivided into sections by necessity.

Conversely, seasons two, three and four were written on the fly. Real-life variables, including cast availability, forced us to switch things up on the move. This resulted in a fluid yet dramatically awkward approach to storytelling. The actors didn't know how the story was going to end because NONE of us knew if we'd be able to film what we needed to film, or when.

That approach has proven to be unsatisfying all around, so we've tabled it for now, in favor of working within a more tightly-plotted script. We'll still allow for situational improvisation, but we're aiming to tell a more cohesive, coherent story.

In essence, we're returning to the Subdivided Film Script theory.

From One Three Act Structure, Many

Instead of thinking in terms of "seasons," I'm thinking in terms of story arcs. Every character has his or her own trajectory, and some reach new milestones in their personal adventures faster than others. As these stories intertwine, and similarities begin to develop, the bonds of a unified series of plot points eventually coalesces into One Story.

This One Story may take three episodes or ten episodes to tell; it may even take 40. But what it actually IS, when you break it down, is one large script, subdivided by necessity into smaller, bite-sized pieces, which we'll call "episodes."

Sound analytical? It is, in a way, although it's been proven to work for thousands of years. It's the same general three-act structure used since the days of Plato, and which has driven countless works of dramatic and comedic art throughout the centuries.

It also worked pretty well in Season One, so we speak from experience.

In Defense of Plotlessness

Personally, as a writer, I'm perpetually torn between wanting to tell a story that jumps off the page and wanting to tell NO STORY AT ALL, and allowing the minutae of interactions between the characters to draw us incrementally into their world. It's the difference between Casablanca and Seinfeld, although each can incorporate elements of the other.

In a plot, something happens. Characters are affected. A statement is made.

In a non-plot, nothing happens. Characters may or may not be affected. A statement may or may not be made.

Plots are artificial simplifications of life, yet are traditionally emotionally satisfying because they can be processed.

Non-plots are stylized commentaries upon life. They are traditionally unsatisfying emotionally because they are incomplete, yet that is exactly why they hold such appeal to the audiences who appreciate them: they feel more like real life.

The STBD Challenge

Something to Be Desired was always meant to be a commentary upon real life. By that declaration, it's designed to be a non-plot.

And yet, our most successful story arc thus far was our first season, which follows Jack through a series of miniature encounters until he comes to the series' titular conclusion: "Sometimes, real life leaves a little..."

Subsequent seasons have failed to generate the same dramatic buzz, with few exceptions: The Dean and Caroline romance (which has a beginning, middle and end), the mystery of the box Dex gives Dierdre for Christmas (which has a beginning, middle and end)...

See the trend? Our audience -- most audiences -- respond most strongly to plot-driven sections of the story because those include events and realizations that people can react to and form opinions about. This is why, unless a story is defiantly anti-plot (think Russian Ark or most Godard films), even the most plotless of ventures still hangs upon a "hook" or "conceit" of some kind. Even Seinfeld: in every episode, some small interconnection of minor observations or actions compounds to create a final realization, either in a character or in the audience.

The Downside of Plot

Interestingly, "plot" can also be seen as the playground of a) a primitive audience, which needs the security of a beginning / middle / end, as the first audiences of stories presumably did, or b) an American audience. Foreign film fans will notice far less adherence to the rigors of plot in some of the most successful non-American films of all time, which begs the question: are American audiences, and therefore American storytellers, primitive in comparison to audiences of the world?

By and large, the public wants a story it can digest, learn from, agree or disagree with, but primarily it wants a story that exists within processable boundaries. It wants a story where SOMETHING HAPPENS.

That doesn't mean STBD can't wander. It doesn't mean we can't go completely off the beaten path, under the brush, across a river and into the abandoned farmhouse of plotlessness from time to time. Look around: ALL SHOWS DO IT. There's not one successful film or TV show that doesn't include the occasional "character moment," or whatever shorthand you prefer for a scene or sequence that has nothing to do with the plot.

Why not?

Because the public ALSO demands that its stories be about something that happens TO CHARACTERS IT CARES ABOUT. And if all the characters in the story are doing is relating plot-driven information and racing from one location to the next, forever subservient to the dramatic demands of the story, they cease to feel like "people" we can empathize with. They lose their free will, their individuality, their ability for us to relate to them.

IF AN AUDIENCE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT CHARACTERS, IT WON'T CARE WHAT HAPPENS TO THEM.

(This is the primary flaw you'll hear about Isaac Asimov and other "hard" science fiction writers: they're so wrapped up in WHAT'S HAPPENING, they forget to create characters the audience cares about, hoping instead that their abstract concepts -- "this could happen to mankind" -- will be enough to satisfy the dramatic needs of their stories. For the average audience member, trained to empathize with her heroes, it's not.)

Plot and STBD

So, you may be asking yourself, how does a series that has largely avoided traditional plot-driven stories intend to change its stripes without alienating its audience?

For one thing, we don't believe our audience is anti-plot. If anything, we feel they appreciate stories that result from -- and help define -- the actions of the characters themselves. As much as they may love Dierdre or Caroline or Leo, characterization doesn't happen in a vacuum; it's built by the characters' actions and reactions to one another.

As artists, we also enjoy knowing that audiences are generating opinions and reactions to our work. If we don't provide them with statements and actions to digest, they don't need to develop opinions about them. Feedback is a two-way street, and we can't expect large, vibrant discussions to be generated by plotless stories.

The cool thing, though, is HOW we intend to incorporate character and plot in the upcoming storylines... and what we feel is a pretty innovative way to include the audience in the process as well.

We'll talk more about that as we near our relaunch on March 26. For now, it's back to the plotting board...