Steven Pressfield's Blog, page 26

The Inciting Incident #7

I wrote this in Nobody Wants to Read Your Sh*t:

I took Robert McKee’s class. It was called Screenplay Structure then. The class was three days—half of Friday and all day Saturday and Sunday. It cost $199, I think. The class was full of other aspiring screenwriters, as well as actors and actresses, studio execs and development guys and gals.

We were all desperate to find out what made a movie work.

McKee delivered.

About an hour into Friday evening’s class, he introduced the concept of the Inciting Incident.  

The Inciting Incident is the event that makes the story start.

It may come anywhere between Minute One and Minute Twenty-Five. But it must happen somewhere within Act One.

It had never occurred to me that a story needed to start.

I thought it started all by itself.

And I certainly had never realized that the writer had to consciously craft that specific moment when the story starts.

Is this stuff simply academic? Or does a writer actually use it when she’s structuring a story?

I can tell you that I, absolutely and with total conscious attention, craft an Inciting Incident using all the checkpoints I’ve learned over the years:

In the inciting incident, the hero acquires his or her intention.

The climax is embedded within the inciting incident.

The inciting incident = “the Call” in the hero’s journey template.

Here’s a link to the first five chapters of my upcoming novel of the ancient world, A Man at Arms. (I’m not trying to inflict a chore of reading on you. Skip over this if you’d like.)

I actually learned something new working on this Inciting Incident. I’ve followed the principle for years that “the hero acquires his or her intention” in the Inciting Incident. Think about Rocky when he’s picked by Apollo Creed to get a shot at the title … or Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) in The Searchers when his niece Debbie (Natalie Wood) is kidnapped by Comanches. Both heroes acquire their intention in those inciting moments.

But what I hadn’t thought about (though I certainly should have) was that the hero’s intention inevitably changes as the story progresses. In fact you could make a strong case that, if the story is going to be more complex than straight-ahead vanilla, the hero’s intention must change.

Consider the Detective or Private Eye story. The detective acquires his intention when he’s assigned to the case. “Find my missing daughter.” “Recover the stolen jewels.” “Track down the Maltese Falcon.” And the detective indeed starts out on that trail.

But inevitably things change. The private eye or homicide cop learns things he wasn’t supposed to. He uncovers secrets. By the time the story reaches its Act Two Curtain, everything the detective believed at the start has been turned on its head.

In A Man at Arms, the hero too is given an assignment. (You’ll see the moment in the first five chapters.) As I was working on this scene, I was thinking, “Yes, this is the Inciting Incident.” But …

But indeed the hero’s intention does change. It has to, or the story would remain “first-level” and the hero would be revealed to be one-dimensional. 

How the hero changes and what his intention changes to … that’s what makes the story interesting—and reveals the protagonist’s deep character. 

I learned something new working on A Man at Arms.

The hero’s intention can (and must) change as he or she progresses through the events of the narrative.

The post The Inciting Incident #7 first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Episode Forty-Five: The Sarissa’s Song

What lies beyond the Warrior Archetype?

In this episode we revisit the moment in India when Alexander the Great’s army reached the limits of its conquests and turned around for home.

Our iconic warrior, Telamon, had other plans.

“I want to learn,” he said, “what comes after being a warrior.”

The post Episode Forty-Five: The Sarissa’s Song first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Episode Forty-Four: The Soldier and the Sage

The yogis of Alexander’s India sat in silence, naked in the sun.

Yet to Telamon, our warrior philosopher, they were greater soldiers than any in Alexander’s army.

Today, we’ll examine how the Archetype of the Sage or the Mystic contains within it the virtues and strengths of the Warrior–and how Telamon perceived a chance at salvation for himself within this seeming contradiction.

The post Episode Forty-Four: The Soldier and the Sage first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Resistance and Mass Hysteria

One of the things a writer realizes when she first becomes aware of her own Resistance—her internal, diabolical pull toward self-sabotage—is that it’s a dangerous world … not just “out there,” but “in here.”

The good news, she realizes, is that if there’s Resistance (the negative), there’s also her unique genius and her one-of-a-kind gift (the positive.) 

If there were no gift, there’d be no Resistance.

She, the artist, begins to realize that she was put on this planet for a purpose—to discover who she is and to offer her gift to the world.

Realizing this, she is compelled to acknowledge that OTHERS (in fact every other) are also unique and also bring one-of-a-kind gifts.

Which brings me to our nation’s Capitol a few days ago.

Are you a “real” American?

Some individuals, it seems, are unaware of their own Resistance. They’re unconscious of it. It works on them nonetheless. The result, in political terms, is that they can be convinced by external persuaders that their brothers and sisters are NOT unique and bear no special gift for the community. 

In nationalist terms, such individuals may come to the conclusion that they are the “real” Americans … and that others are not.

They may come to believe that they can press their knee on George Floyd’s neck until he can no longer breathe. Because, on some deep level, they believe that they are “real” Americans and that George Floyd is not. Therefore George Floyd deserves no protection of the law, no respect as an individual, and, in the crunch, no right to live.

Beyond that, such individuals may be convinced that they, being “real” Americans, are entitled to have their votes counted, whereas others are not real Americans and thus may be disenfranchised, no matter what the facts say.

This line of thinking first appeared (or at least achieved wide notoriety) when a certain individual declared that the United States’ first African-American president was not a “real” American, whereas he (this individual) was.

Resistance. This force will eat your guts if you’re oblivious to it. It will kill you like cancer and make you commit acts that, seen in the light of reflection, you would be ashamed of and appalled by.

Are you “special?” Are you “real?” Then everyone else is too.

Where do you get the nerve to decide that your vote counts and mine doesn’t?

You get it by being blind to the forces inside you.

Wake up! Face your own self and find the gift you were put on this Earth to deliver. You’ve got one, I promise you.

Put down that DON’T TREAD ON ME flag and look in the mirror.

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Episode Forty-Three: The Naked Wise Men

“I have conquered the need to conquer the world” means “I have defeated the dark side of the Warrior Archetype within me.”

Is this possible?

In today’s episode, we’ll examine the true historical encounter in India between Alexander and the yogis of that era–called by the Macedonians gymnosophists–the “Naked Wise Men.”

The post Episode Forty-Three: The Naked Wise Men first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Episode Forty-Two: A Servant of Strife

Some protest war.

Others, like Telamon, embrace it even as they hate it.

“All things are born in strife, and all end in strife.”

But is that an answer?

Telamon himself rejects it at the same time he espouses it.

What lies beyond the Warrior Archetype?

Can we get there?

How?

The post Episode Forty-Two: A Servant of Strife first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Resistance and Dreams #2

Picking up from last week, the dream described in that post has helped a little. But I’m still being hammered by self-doubt about this new book. 

The dream below came a few days later:

Not mine, but close.

I was in an open-sided, roofed shelter, somewhere back East. My van had gotten a diagnosis from a mechanic: some serious issue like a transmission (the van was in storage, as if in NY). I knew that as soon as we put the van into the shop, far more serious issues would come to light and I would have to basically rebuild the whole vehicle. This meant (in the dream) that I would have to go back to work full-time to pay for it. This was the phrase I heard and used in the dream, “go back to work full time.” Somehow the dream then cut to a river canyon like a small Grand Canyon with steep rock walls and a river running below, strongly, out of eyeline. The purpose of this location in the dream (somehow I realized this) was to show me classic cuts from three iconic movies (not real movies, just movies in the dream) to inspire me somehow. I think I saw the first two, though not the third. Both had Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, in their later years, as actors in Westerns. The river itself was decidedly “Western.” In one cut, Stewart delivered some line to John Wayne to the effect of,  “Only one person can pull this off …and that’s you.” In the dream this read indeed like a classic movie line, like “Make my day.” I noted particularly, watching John Wayne, that he was soaking wet from the river and dirty, his clothes, his hair. I thought, Wow, they are really committed to making this movie seem real. The suffering is depicted with tremendous authenticity, like in “The Revenant.”

In analyzing a dream, I use Robert Johnson’s technique from his book, Inner Work. Dr. Johnson is a renowned Jungian therapist. One of the principles he employs is to write down all the associations you have with a particular character or image in the dream. Even if you have twenty of these, one will “click,” he says. This will give you an idea of what that image means for you (even if it might mean something completely different for someone else).

My ’65 Chevy van is a recurring image in my dreams. In real life, it was the vehicle I lived in during the period that I’d call my “hero’s journey”—when I was broke and on the road, running away from writing. In dreams, my van seems to represent the wellspring of creativity for me. It’s the “pure” time, the deep struggle. 

Water in my dreams almost always represents creative flow. A river, a gushing spring … those are always good. 

My interpretation: I have not, in real life, been working full-time on GOVT CHEESE. I’ve been stealing snatches of time, an hour here and there. The result is my van (the soul source of my creativity) is revealing mechanical issues and is going to reveal more. Something is wrong. I have to fix it. This could mean the way I’m doing the book, the POV, the tone of voice, the narrative device. That could be what needs to be addressed. I don’t think it’s the actual “vehicle” itself, i.e. the source of creativity. The river with the fast-flowing water shows there is creative impetus to hand. Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne represent archetypal “sages” that have meaning for me, even if they don’t for young people today. They are modeling for me, in cinematic form, what I need to aspire to in GOVT CHEESE. Classic, old school stuff, whatever that means. Bottom line: I am being called to move to the Sage Archetype and accept this without reservation. This will “rebuild” the vehicle.

I need to “go back to work full-time” on GOVT CHEESE.

This dream helps a lot. I’m still racked with irresolution, but my confidence is growing. I am getting closer to really committing to this book.

The post Resistance and Dreams #2 first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Episode Forty-One: The Universal Soldier

Are warriors the same in all centuries, in all nations?

I believe they are.

Because the Warrior Archetype is universal and indelible.

In today’s episode we’ll dig deeper into the character of Telamon, the Universal Soldier personified.

He asks, of himself, the questions that warriors have asked for millennia.

Am I a brute only?

Can I slay others and not in some way slay myself?

To whom can I confide, except my brothers?

The post Episode Forty-One: The Universal Soldier first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Episode Forty: The Archetypal Soldier

In this episode, we’ll go beyond the virtuous Spartans and the preeminent Alexander to a figure more like our own conflicted selves–my recurring fictional character, Telamon of Arcadia.

Telamon is the embodiment of the Warrior Archetype … unkillable, supreme in combat … but self-aware, self-questioning, self-tormented.

His ordeal is that he must answer, for himself and by himself, the questions the Spartans and Alexander could not.

The post Episode Forty: The Archetypal Soldier first appeared on Steven Pressfield.

Resistance and Dreams

I’m starting a new book and Resistance is beating the hell out of me.

The book is nonfiction. Autobiographical. Here’s the form Resistance is taking. It’s telling me (the voice in my head, that is), “What are you, crazy? Do you imagine anybody is gonna be interested in these lame-ass stories from your life? They are so ordinary! YOU are so ordinary. Readers are going to laugh you off the page. Whatever credibility you’ve built up over the years will go straight into the toilet. Stop right now before you totally humiliate yourself!”

I wish I could hear that voice and say, “Ah, that’s Resistance! I’ll simply dismiss it.” But I’m terrified that the voice is true.

Worse, I’m having a helluva time even conceiving the book in my mind. I haven’t been able to do a Foolscap. I can’t find a three-act structure. I’m not even sure what to include in this damn thing.

If it weren’t for encouragement from my girlfriend Diana, I would totally dump this project. Despite her belief in it, I’m racked with indecisiveness and irresolution.

I’m about 100 pages in, which is at least SOMETHING. But the form the writing is taking is spaghetti-against-the-wall. I’m just snatching unrelated episodes out of the air. I have no idea what goes where … or even if there’s any order at all.

In the midst of this, I had the following dream (verbatim from my notes-to-myself):

[Note: GOVERNMENT CHEESE is the title of the book.]

Somehow I got into my possession a diary/journal of Hemingway’s that he had used during the writing of a novel. No specific one from real-life, just one in the dream. The journal was in the form of hand-drawn maps with no text. Each map (there was a big pile of them) represented one day’s writing. The concept was that Hemingway was driving across country east to west and each day’s travel represented one day’s writing. Except the maps were ridiculously vague. No place names, no road numerals, no river names, nothing. I studied the pages one at a time trying to figure out what state/city/road they represented. I assumed Hem was starting from Boston or Maine (not sure why I assumed this, it just made sense in the dream) so I’d look at a map page and ask myself, “Is this Massachusetts? Is this Connecticut?” But I couldn’t tell. Farther west, I asked myself, “Is this body of water the Hudson? Is this Lake Champlain?” It was impossible to tell.

[Here there are notes of my associations with each image in the dream. Too long and idiosyncratic/personal to include here.]

My analysis/conclusion: the dream is trying to tell me to keep the faith re the crazy way GOVT CHEESE is unspooling. If we think of writing the book as a trip east to west across the United States, each day I’m lost. My maps don’t tell me where I am. Middle of book? End? Totally lost? But don’t worry, says the dream. Hemingway did it this way and it worked for him. 

I’m still racked with self-doubt over this project, but this dream certainly helps. I had another one a few days later. I’ll report that next week.

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