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Authors: Blake Snyder
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transition, killer replicants on the loose, a human — raised by elves — who suddenly learns the truth. What we are setting up is not just a place but a dilemma. And we have to set it all up to understand where we will soon be heading.
Antithesis is the “upside-down version” of the first, and absolutely must be that. I often cite
Training Day
as an example to distinguish these worlds, for when Jake (Ethan Hawke) is given a choice at Minute 17 by Alonzo (Denzel Washington) to ”take a hit off that pipe or get out of my car,” and proactively says yes, Ethan leaves behind the world of “ethical” cops that is his Thesis world and enters its “funhouse-mirror reflection.”
Often characters re-appear in a different form in the Antithesis. Think how Dorothy, in
The Wizard of Oz
, meets funhouse-mirror versions of characters she left back in Kansas. In
Gladiator
, Russell Crowe trades noble Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris) for the moth-eaten version in the gladiator impresario played by Oliver Reed. In
Elf
, Will Ferrell leaves elves in the North Pole, whotold him he was human, for humans pretending to be elves — to get a job as an elf at a NYC department store!
Part of the reason for making the Antithesis world an odd mirror reflection of the Thesis world is a simple truth: We can leave home and go somewhere else, but our problems are always with us. In
Legally Blonde
, let's face it: Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is a sort of a pill when we meet her. Yes, she's put down for being blonde, but she kinda deserves the label. Going to Harvard forces her to change by setting her in a world where her flaws are obvious. But have no doubt, her problems haven't gone anywhere, and that's why characters from before manifest in different form — just as in life. It's like the person who says: “Everyone in Los Angeles is mean!” and decides to move to a new town, where he discovers that “Everybody is mean here, too!” Sooner or later, it will dawn on this person it's not the town that's the problem; it's something he's doing wrong that's causing “mean people” to always appear.
Again, good storytelling is so, because it reflects truth.
Often distinguishing these two worlds must be forced. I worked with a writer whose logline was: “A struggling artist fakes his death to raise the price of his work and hides out in the world of the homeless, only to discover his agent is actually trying to kill him.” (A fear I've had for years!) Problem was: The struggling artist lived in a cold-water flat, and was already broke when we start, so when he fakes his death and hides among the homeless, what's the difference? We changed it to make the Thesis world different, and make the poor artist successful and living in a penthouse! Now the change in worlds is more drastic, richer — and as a result the story is richer, too.
The third world is a combination of the two: Synthesis. What the hero had in Thesis, and added to in Antithesis, becomes “the third way” in the finale. Again citing
Training Day
, Ethan Hawke starts out as an ethical cop in Thesis, then learns a new way in the upside-down world of dirty cops. By the time Denzel Washington tries to kill Ethan by dropping him at a gang house, Ethan, metaphorically,“dies” at the hands of the gang members. In the very next scene, Ethan has a “Dark Night of the Soul” as he rides a bus around downtown L.A. and we know he can't go back to the way he was before. The old Ethan would head to the police station and tattle on Denzel: “Teacher, teacher! Denzel did a bad thing!” But Ethan is so changed by what he's learned in Act Two, he can't go back. Like our caterpillar, the old Ethan is dead. And to emerge in Act Three victorious, he has to retain his ethics, add that to what he's learned, and become a “third thing.”
These three worlds force change in a hero. We set him up, throw him in the blender, and he emerges as something brand new.
Much of the
Antithesis is the “upside-down version” of the first, and absolutely must be that. I often cite
Training Day
as an example to distinguish these worlds, for when Jake (Ethan Hawke) is given a choice at Minute 17 by Alonzo (Denzel Washington) to ”take a hit off that pipe or get out of my car,” and proactively says yes, Ethan leaves behind the world of “ethical” cops that is his Thesis world and enters its “funhouse-mirror reflection.”
Often characters re-appear in a different form in the Antithesis. Think how Dorothy, in
The Wizard of Oz
, meets funhouse-mirror versions of characters she left back in Kansas. In
Gladiator
, Russell Crowe trades noble Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris) for the moth-eaten version in the gladiator impresario played by Oliver Reed. In
Elf
, Will Ferrell leaves elves in the North Pole, whotold him he was human, for humans pretending to be elves — to get a job as an elf at a NYC department store!
Part of the reason for making the Antithesis world an odd mirror reflection of the Thesis world is a simple truth: We can leave home and go somewhere else, but our problems are always with us. In
Legally Blonde
, let's face it: Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) is a sort of a pill when we meet her. Yes, she's put down for being blonde, but she kinda deserves the label. Going to Harvard forces her to change by setting her in a world where her flaws are obvious. But have no doubt, her problems haven't gone anywhere, and that's why characters from before manifest in different form — just as in life. It's like the person who says: “Everyone in Los Angeles is mean!” and decides to move to a new town, where he discovers that “Everybody is mean here, too!” Sooner or later, it will dawn on this person it's not the town that's the problem; it's something he's doing wrong that's causing “mean people” to always appear.
Again, good storytelling is so, because it reflects truth.
Often distinguishing these two worlds must be forced. I worked with a writer whose logline was: “A struggling artist fakes his death to raise the price of his work and hides out in the world of the homeless, only to discover his agent is actually trying to kill him.” (A fear I've had for years!) Problem was: The struggling artist lived in a cold-water flat, and was already broke when we start, so when he fakes his death and hides among the homeless, what's the difference? We changed it to make the Thesis world different, and make the poor artist successful and living in a penthouse! Now the change in worlds is more drastic, richer — and as a result the story is richer, too.
The third world is a combination of the two: Synthesis. What the hero had in Thesis, and added to in Antithesis, becomes “the third way” in the finale. Again citing
Training Day
, Ethan Hawke starts out as an ethical cop in Thesis, then learns a new way in the upside-down world of dirty cops. By the time Denzel Washington tries to kill Ethan by dropping him at a gang house, Ethan, metaphorically,“dies” at the hands of the gang members. In the very next scene, Ethan has a “Dark Night of the Soul” as he rides a bus around downtown L.A. and we know he can't go back to the way he was before. The old Ethan would head to the police station and tattle on Denzel: “Teacher, teacher! Denzel did a bad thing!” But Ethan is so changed by what he's learned in Act Two, he can't go back. Like our caterpillar, the old Ethan is dead. And to emerge in Act Three victorious, he has to retain his ethics, add that to what he's learned, and become a “third thing.”
These three worlds force change in a hero. We set him up, throw him in the blender, and he emerges as something brand new.
Much of the
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