The moral premise of a story is a single sentence statement describing the lesson of the story as it reflects on real life. As such it can serve as a bridge between the worlds within the story inhabited and our world.
While a moral premise won't guarantee a movie will be free from other faults it does raise the bar and may compensate for other problems. With other things being equal stories with a moral premise will engender greater emotional impact than ones that lack it.
A Story Premise
Jaws, Star Wars, War of the Wolds, Mission Impossible are all organized about what is called the high concept embodied in their title. Other successful movies are organized around less succinct story premises.
In terms of shaping a story the Story Premise Pattern is the most important pattern. Almost any text or seminar on screenwriting will outline the merits of refining the the story premise. Several forms of the story premise exist but the ultimate form it is a single sentence statement relating who the the main character in pursuit of an outer desire effects an irrevocable change in his world at the moment of the stories climax.
From this a good writer can quickly derive, the main character's flaw, the form of his arc; the antagonist and the form of conflict between their respective points of view; the value under change, the moral premise; contrasting themes for subplots and roles for secondary characters. In other words the story premise serves as an organizing force in the story's continuum. One of the best practices for writers at any stage in their career or story is to cast any story question with respect to the premise.
Moral Premise
Casablanca, Chinatown, Thelma and Louise, Brokeback Mountain, Apocalypto, No Country For Old Men -- you either love them or hate them but it's unlikely you were unmoved by their subject and almost impossible you could avoid the debates they sparked as they were first expeienced by the general puublic. This shared experience is the hallmark of top notch screenwriting.
Few have heard about the moral premise. Yet in one sense it will have an even greater impact on your story, because it can shape how your story will be perceived by audiences. It can change a movie from an evening's entertainment to a statement which force viewers to challenge their attitudes and spark debate in the complacency of coffeehouses, classrooms and newspapers across the nation.
to be consulted and revised hour's entertainment and or in terms of have all the It is the most important patterns when it comes to shaping perceptions of what the story teaches us about life. I had once heard this idea described cynically as the factor which determines if people will discuss the story on their way through the car park.
So while a story premise may give the story interest and a forms the skeleton of a good structure, a moral premise may increase our personal stakes in the subject matter, increase emotional involvement and help the storyteller actually make a statement.
Yet how does that relate to the One of the most important screen writing pattern
What is The Moral Premise?
The can be a difficult question to answer because with the exception of the fables of Aesopus the moral premise is usually hidden within the movie's subtext or lacking altogether.
The moral premise of a story is a single sentence statement describing the lesson of the story as it reflects on real life. And as such it should be viewed as the emotional bridge between the world of story and the real world. The moral premise cannot guarantee that the movie will be a success. Yet when all other things are equal a story with a moral premise will always have greater emotional impact over one that does not.
How Premises Come Together
How can these two patterns be used in collaboration? In Story Robert McKee described one method. He pointed out that the value under categorical change in the story will be determined in the third act climax. He then went on to rephrase the story premise in such a way that it states how the protagonist is involved in caring out this change.
Thing Fall Apart , the Center Cannot Hold
Both premise patterns may go awry and sour the story in a very serious way.
Problems of story premise are discussed in almost any book on screenwriting. The Moral premise raises three problems.
- A story may lack a moral premise, it may be inconsistent, weak or somehow unsuited to the story premise. With this fault the story can only succeed as a highly entertaining B-movies or it can fail miserably. It can never become a timeless masterpiece.
- Secondly the moral premise may be overstated. This is a greater crime because it shows that while the writer's heart is in the right place he has failed to do his job. This is completely opposite of being confused or uncertain of the moral premise. The only way that to settle things in the end is if the writer knows where he is going. It is even possible to conclude ironically and let the viewers debate the ultimate moral of the story. The moral statement works best as a subtext to the story
- Too many premises. Like with the story premise adding more assumptions reduces its strength. This can be avoided by following McKee's recommendation to combine both statements into a single statement.
A story's premise is best established early, the moral premise is best kept undetermined until the final climax. This is done using irony and conflict to increase the stakes as the story unfolds. A protagonist who faces difficult dilemmas ironic situations and increasing conflict will keep the viewers interested while allowing the writer to keep the moral premise under wraps.
Film-Noir is notorious in keeping the viewers interested and uncertain if the protagonist can succeed despite tricks traps character flaws and a femme fatal. Comics, science fiction, fantasy and Gothic vampire stories are notorious in their conventions of stating their moral premises at the start and this is much more likely to turns viewers away than an inability to suspend disbelief.
I wish to conclude with a reminder that Fellini preferred to manifest his moral statements on Fascism or his protest of the Church covertly and to state them more overtly later on. He pointed out that people should feel your statement before they start to think about it. The idea of keeping the moral premise less obvious has an additional advantage of offering broader appeal as more subtle statements can mean different things to different people.
Advanced Techniques
Syndicate the Moral Premise in your Subplots
One of the things that invariably seems to happen during writing is the need for subplots. These are structural episodes or bifurcation in the time lines which are weaved into the main plot-line. I discuss these in detail in my book so I will only mention on important oversight. Most writers who are unaware of the Moral Premise will not know how to make the most of these subplots. Robert McKee gives great advice on showing a contrasting point of view for the same theme. This is sound advice can be rephrase as follows: Use subplot to dramatize the flip side of the moral premise.
Illustration from Apocalypto
Apocalypto is a modern masterpiece. It would have gotten far greater recognition if the director had not made so many enemies with his radical Passion of Christ and then exacerbated the situation by filming outside the star system, and writing the dialogue in Mayan. Clearly the movie was influenced by Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, Apocalypto reduces the story building it around an extended foot chase sequence.
The MP: Fear feeds failure while Courage consummates success.
The main plot line is the time line of panther paw. Subplots are the refugees and the dream, the episode of captivity, the time line of his wife's and child in the cave. Each in turn takes the moral premise from another direction.
Symbolism and Metaphor
An important means of sublimating messages into the story is done using symbolic systems. Again I discuss this pattern in great detail in my book so I will only mention another common oversight. Again I refer to McKee's whom advices to develop symbolic systems organic to the story and avoid generic cliches. While he illustrates using the Deer Hunter he does not spell out what he means by organic.
One way to go if you use the hero's journey paradigm is to work with the archetypes.
Another method is to look how best to illustrate the MP.
Illustration from Apocalypto
Apocalypto's symbolism speak volumes on deeper interpretations of the MP. When thoroughly examined these can lay to rest some claims that the movie involves a view of western superiority over the Mayan Culture. In the final analysis the message is to take heed of the dangers of ecological shortsightedness which threaten our own future. This message echos the high concept for Jared M. Diamond's 2005 bookCollapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive.
Water a commonly used symbolic system is used several times.
- The river separates the normal world of the rain-forest from the special world of the empire. It keeps the surviving children of the tribe in their ordinary world.
- Drought within the empire shows short-sightedness and corruption.
- The waterfall is a trail of courage and a gateway to freedom.
- The quicksand tests determination and rewards with a disguise.
- Rain in the pit threatening life and aiding birth.
Animals are used in several places in the movie though their symbolic role is less obvious but there is no room for coincidence with such a finely crafted story. Luckily we are given keys to help us figure these more abstruse symbolic systems.
Using the myth of man we can associate most of the animals with archetypes from their role.
- Animals in the myth - Our key
- The Tapir (The easy prey)
- The Baboon (The Oracle ?? )
- The Jaguar and cub (Top of the food chain - the Fearless)
- The Snake (The guardian)
- The Toad (Trickster)
To this list we can add with the modern interpretation. We ought to know that eventually the Maya abandoned all their cities and their decedents lived as tribes in the rain forest. We have the myth describing the flaw in man and there is the second key - the quote at the start on corruption of an empire from within before it can falls to an external foe. It contrast the healthy and aesthetic self-sufficient jungle tribe with the sick and decadent city empire.
- Tribal Men - men content in a way of life which preserves the environment.
- The Father and Medicine man - the tribe's moral center.
- Refugees - outsiders whose environment is destroyed by the empire
- The Man Hunters - men who know both the city and the jungle and should know better...
- The City's Poor - ignorant consumers blinded by idols of money
- The City's Elite - leaders who survive by appeasing the masses
- The Spaniards - the barbarians at the gate.
Besides these there major systems the movie is rife with isolated symbols and metaphors. There is the dream with it's warning - the good side of fear. The message of the father's death about embracing change with courage. The the walking dead oracle with her message from the spirit world. The eclipse which symbolizes death the greatest unknown. There are the mounds of the dead which signify a passage through the world of the dead in the return home.
The actual death of the antagonist's son mirroring the impending death of the protagonist's son and wife. The mounds of the dead.