Weeks 12-14: The Gap
The Skinny
Last week I was sick and made no progress, so I've adjusted my plan: an extra week of plotting, a lost week of writing.
I have been reading Story by Robert McKee. The book is for screenwriters, but McKee successfully identifies the main ingredient of most stories of all forms, which he calls "the Gap."
Expectation Versus Reality
The film 500 Days of Summer contains a sequence that is a lesson in poignancy. In the sequence, the screen is cut in half, one side labeled "Expectations," the other, "Reality." The audience watches as Tom, the main character, moves through both his fantasies of how an evening will go and the reality of what actually happens to him. In his vision of what might be, a stranger raises a glass to him as he enters a party. In reality, no one looks up as he walks into the room. Compared to events in his fantasies, things in "Reality" go worse and worse for Tom until something happens that shakes him so much that the "Expectations" side of the screen slides away, disappears, and all that is left is reality, a reality that Tom cannot bear at that.
This sequence has what Robert McKee would call The Gap. It has multiple Gaps. McKee writes that each of us is essentially conservative in the first action that we take in pursuing a goal. A story exists when that first, conservative step fails when even though we fully expected to succeed, and we are left with a Gap between our expected outcome and current position. To bridge the Gap we must take a risk, do something out of the ordinary. Only then do we achieve our objective.
So if I want to meet my favorite band backstage, but I don't have backstage passes, my first instinct may be to talk to the bouncer and see if he'll let me backstage. He won't. I shouldn't be too surprised.
Now let's say I want to meet my favorite band backstage, and I don't have passes, but my brother knows the bouncer and is certain that we'll get through. He talks about it all night. "Mark's a good guy." Then when we approach Mark, he won't let us in.
The second scenario has all the elements of The Gap. I expected my minimal efforts to get backstage would succeed. Now, to meet the band, I may need to crawl through the air vents. Or sneak onto the tour bus.
In 500 Days of Summer, when Tom makes a joke at his own expense that doesn't land, a Gap has opened. At the end when Tom feels stung, exposed, vulnerable, because his hopes and plans and expectations are trashed by what reality offers him, a Gap has opened. We know the feeling, we commiserate, and we can't help but watch.