How to Lift the Story Values to Rocket Audience Emotion

There are countless books, articles, videos, and classes about screenwriting. You will learn endless theories about plot points, save the cat beats, inciting incidents, structure, writer’s voice, formatting, and so on and on. But most of the discussion of screenwriting focuses on mechanics not values. And mechanics -- such as how to structure acts, scenes, and climaxes -- are only half the story of how to write fiction. Values is the forgotten child of storytelling.

Values

What do I mean by values?

I mean the life supporting ideas underlying the conflicts and events of a story. For example, take the hit Israeli television show Fauda. Its stories are generally well-constructed action suspense conflicts. For instance, season four features the intense drama and danger of a massive missile attack on Israel. This threat is compounded when one of the top Israeli spy masters is captured by the Palestinian terrorists behind the missile plot. That is good action conflict, but so what? What are the important values in the story that are being dramatized? They include moral strength, loyalty, honesty, overcoming loss, betrayal, and failing love.

Or consider Saving Mr. Banks. The values dramatized in this feature film include free will and choices, psychological damage in childhood, and failed dreams.

The values in Fauda and Saving Mr. Banks are high and compelling ones. Such values make a story much more interesting because they connect with audiences and cause deeper emotions in them.

Contrast stories that are layered with important value conflicts with many modern films that rely on violence, special effects, and swearing, for example, for drama. This list could go on, but I fell asleep.

Actionable Takeaway

Modern stories way too often need to deepen the values they dramatize on screen.

One key way for creatives to achieve this -- while not lessening their work re the mechanics of a story -- is to ask themselves three key questions regarding values:

1) Are the values motivating the characters and at stake universal?

2) Are the values in the story important?

3) Are the values underpinning the characters and conflicts personal?

Universal values are those that most if not all humans desire. These include self-esteem, survival, and love, for example.

The importance of a value is contextual. For example, oxygen is a universal value for all humans, but generally it’s not an urgent or dramatic need. But place a man in a bathysphere at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean with his oxygen is running out and…

And by personal I mean a value that is crucial to a person’s own individual life and context. Some examples of personal values could be a student wanting to get A’s at school so she can get that dream publishing job; an ugly man wanting to get his nose fixed so that woman will look at him; or a mother wanting finance for her beloved son’s cancer operation.

Note that values can be physical and psychological. Good health, and high self-esteem, for instance.

I understand that values are a personal thing to each of us and that every storyteller should be free to express themselves and create stories as they wish, but not all values are equal. In life nor in story. A story with weak values in conflict and at stake is not very compelling. Those stories that are most resonant and popular are generally those that dramatize the deepest values.

Asking and answering the three questions cited above, can help creatives write more compelling stories that can reach a wider and more emotionally satisfied audience. That is, help to create bigger box office. Values should not be the hidden stepchild of great storytelling. They should be its most loved child. Great writers not only know the mechanics of writing, but they also dramatize the most important values. And that is how they deeply involve and excite us.

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Scott McConnell is a story consultant who helps his clients find the key values of their story and to develop its best mechanics.

  “Scott McConnell is an excellent Script Editor.” Snorri Þórisson, CEO Pegasus Pictures