I really enjoy the blog “Go Into the Story” by Scott Myers. He has an entire series of posts applying Aristotle’s Poetics to screenwriting which is fascinating and insightful.
Scott writes,
Plot goes directly back to character. Each character, and in particular the protagonist, has a destiny. What they do derives from the probability of the choices they make. What happens then is tied to the necessity of those choices. It’s what I call the narrative imperative and I believe that aligns nicely with Aristotle’s articulation.
From a screenwriting perspective, here is something interesting. Just recently, I posted this: All the Things That Are Wrong With Your Screenplay in One Handy Infographic, this from a professional reader who calculated certain problems common to 300 scripts s/he covered for some major Hollywood studios. Notice how many of the issues relate to probability and necessity:
* The character logic is muddy
* The ending is completely anti-climatic
* The script suffers from arbitrary complexity
* The script goes off the rails in the third act
* The script’s questions are left unanswered
* The story is a string of unrelated vignettes
* The plot unravels through convenience/contrivance
* The script is totally confused
* The ending is a case of deus ex machina
Every single one of these problems could be resolved if a writer dug deeply into their characters (especially the protagonist), determining what their Disunity is, what their Core Essence is, what their Unity is, all of which informs the very nature of the physical journey and psychological journey comprising the substance of the narrative. It is a writer’s understanding of those dynamics which feeds both probability and necessity in terms of character action and, therefore, the plot.
Interesting, too, the script reader’s use of the word “unravels” which has a negative connotation in contrast to Aristotle which I take to mean “unspools” or “plays out,” the natural chronology of events and in a well-constructed story.
Bottom line, when we craft a story, that’s what we want: a narrative that flows organically and by necessity.
Photo by Brooks Leibee on Unsplash