The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Is the story limited to compatible subgenres, without mixing metaphors?

As with genre, subgenres can be defined by subject matter (time travel), point of view (satire), source material (docudrama), etc. Stories aren’t strictly marketed by subgenre (subgenres never got their own sections at Blockbuster), but there are usually a lot of clues from the book cover, poster, trailer, or tagline to let you know which one you’ve got. Audiences don’t limit their buying habits quite as strictly by subgenre, (most time travel fans also like space operas, and most fans of romantic comedies also like coming-of-age stories), but everybody has their preferences, which incline them more toward one than another. 

Combining subgenres can be tricky. As with genres, you can mix one or two if you do it right from the beginning, but you can’t switch back and forth at will, and you can’t have it all. Here are just some of the subgenres for major genres:

• Comedy: romantic comedy, comedy of manners, farce, spoof, satire, dramedy, coming-of-age 
• Drama: melodrama, soap opera, character study, slice of life, biopic, docudrama, ensemble, romance, coming-of-age 
• Thriller: noir, procedural, contained, detective, police, spy, revenge, manhunt 
• Horror: grindhouse, slasher, sexualized monster, gruesome monster, transformation, psychological, black comedy, zombie 
• Action: superhero, historical adventure, superspy, supercop, martial arts 
• Science Fiction: dystopian, space opera, space exploration, robot, one step beyond, alien invasion, time travel 
• Fantasy: fairy tale, magical realism, sword and sorcery, medieval, crossover into fantasy world 
• Western: spaghetti, elegiac, modern day, cattle drive, lawless town, frontier, revenge 
• War: biopic, black comedy, men on a mission, heist, docudrama, front lines, coming-of-age 

You can find at least one story that has combined every possible pairing of these subgenres, but some work a lot better than others. It doesn’t make much sense to do a zombie-romance movie (though they have tried it), but it doesn’t make sense to do a zombie-slasher movie, either, since they tap into different fear centers in our brains.

One problem is, as with combined genres, you run into mixed metaphors. It would be ridiculous if, in the middle of Terminator 6, a wizard showed up or a vampire or a singing cowboy, but it would be almost as bad if an alien invasion occurred. That’s a different subgenre, and, most important, a different metaphor, so what would it all mean?

Indeed, there have been several attempts to do World War II-zombie movies or western-zombie movies with no commercial success. As a writer, these are very tempting: “I can’t believe nobody has done this before! It writes itself! And everybody who hears about it says it sounds so cool!” But nobody is ever going to say, “Those two subgenres have different built-in metaphors, so that would be meaningless.” Instead they’ll just watch it and say, “Eh, this isn’t as cool as I thought it was going to be, though I don’t know why.” Or, more likely, they won’t watch it, because the advance word has been so lukewarm.

Each subgenre imposes some subtler restrictions as well. Let’s look at high school movies that are representative of each comedy subgenre:

• Romantic comedy: Sixteen Candles 
• Comedy of manners: Clueless 
• Farce: American Pie 
• Spoof: Not Another Teen Movie 
• Satire: Election 
• Coming-of-age: Gregory’s Girl 
• Dramedy: Fast Times at Ridgemont High 

These movies are all funny, and they have similar settings and characters, but it would be hard to move any scene from one to another. It would be jarring for Fast Times at Ridgemont High to have a scene that spoofs another movie, just as it wouldn’t work for Not Another Teen Movie to have a sensitively observed moment of truth.

Another reason to stick to one subgenre is point of view. The audience sympathizes with Alicia Silverstone in Clueless, but they also look down on her as a tone-deaf exemplar of a certain type. The comedy of manners is a rather unique subgenre in that it allows the audience to have that sort of limited identification yet still root for the hero. On the other hand, they fully identify with Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles, who is on their level. Once you’ve chosen one of those two perspectives, it would be too jarring to jump back and forth between them.

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES, it combines a very atypical coming-of-age story (in that the man coming of age is 40) with the rising genre of “bro-comedy”
Alien	YES, the creature feature, the haunted house movie and the “ten little Indians” thriller.
An Education	YES. The period coming-of-age story.
The Babadook	YES. Possession/grief
Blazing Saddles	YES. On the Western side, it’s a classic “frontier marshall” / railroad scheme.  On the comedy side, it’s a combination of spoof and satire, which is very hard to pull off (Brooks wouldn’t master it again after “Young Frankenstein”) but it works beautifully.
Blue Velvet	YES. the voyeur, crooked small-town movie.
The Bourne Identity	YES.  The CIA dirty tricks conspiracy movie.
Bridesmaids	YES. The wedding comedy.
Casablanca	YES. the World War 2 resistance movie
Chinatown	YES. Detective, period piece.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  Undercover fed.
Do the Right Thing	YES. “Urban”, the day-in-the-life-of-a-city genre.
The Farewell	YES. Big-lie family gathering
The Fighter	YES. Boxing, addiction, romance, family drama
Frozen	YES. The princess-marriage plot and the magical curse tale.
The Fugitive	YES. Manhunt and whodunit
Get Out	YES. The “Get out of that house, you idiot!” sub-genre
Groundhog Day	NO. It keeps jumping sub-genres: romantic comedy, black comedy, religious parable, etc. It’s extremely ambitious, and pulls it off.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Boot camp / coming-of-age
In a Lonely Place	YES. the Hollywood movie.
Iron Man	YES. Super-hero and terrorism-thriller, mixed well.
Lady Bird	YES. No sub-genres.
Raising Arizona	YES. A minor sub-genre of noir that the Coens revived from, the fictional film that mimics the absurdities of true-crime stories at their strangest.
Rushmore	YES. No subgenres.
Selma	YES. Civil rights.
The Shining	YES. haunted house, “Gaslight”-type story, and ax murderer.
Sideways	YES. Also somewhat awkwardly: the bachelor party movie / the food-porn movie (wine-porn in this version)
The Silence of the Lambs	YES. Serial killer, FBI
Star Wars	YES. Space opera, sword and sorcery.
Sunset Boulevard	YES. It’s an odd mix of elements, noir, haunted house (the wheezing organ), etc., but it works.

The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Is the story limited to one genre (or multiple, merged genres) introduced from the beginning?

Let’s leap back into the shoes of that long-lost Blockbuster Video clerk of yesteryear. He has been ordered to sort every single videotape by genre so people who want that type of movie will find it. As a writer, you must put yourself in that same position. To find your audience, you must choose a pre-established genre for your story. 

But be careful, because each genre comes with a large set of expectations.

Most genres lend themselves to certain pre-established thematic dilemmas: westerns tend to be about individualism versus societal needs, science fiction is often about innovation versus tradition, comedies are about fun versus responsibility, and dramas pit two incompatible adult responsibilities against each other.

Genres also establish how the characters will be expected to act. In most genres, we expect the behavior of the characters to reflect human nature, but there are exceptions. Nobody in the real world has ever said, “A serial killer is obsessed with me, so I’ll kill him myself without going to the cops,” but it happens all the time in thrillers. At the end of the movie version of Strangers on a Train, it’s ridiculous for Guy to go after Bruno himself, except for the fact that thriller fans would be disappointed if he didn’t.

Mixing genres can be done, but there’s always a danger that you’ll mix or lose the metaphor, as we discovered before.

Choosing to write in a certain genre is always a trade-off: you agree to write within certain pre-established expectations, and in return you get a preselected audience that has accepted your inherent promise that you’ll provide what they crave. It’s a great power that comes with great responsibility.

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES, the romantic comedy / sex-comedy
Alien	YES. It consistently and successfully combines sci-fi and horror.
An Education	YES. The romantic melodrama.
The Babadook	YES. Horror/drama
Blazing Saddles	YES. Western/Comedy.
Blue Velvet	YES. It’s a Hitchcockian/erotic thriller throughout, albeit it an odd one.
The Bourne Identity	YES. It’s straight up spy, with a little more romance than usual.
Bridesmaids	YES. Raunchy comedy
Casablanca	YES. Somewhat, a short-lived genre: the international-intrigue-romance
Chinatown	YES. Noir.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  Mafia
Do the Right Thing	YES. Comedy-drama, mixed throughout.
The Farewell	YES. Dramedy
The Fighter	YES. It combines four: Sports, biopic, drama, merged throughout
Frozen	YES. The fairy tale
The Fugitive	YES. Action/thriller
Get Out	YES. Horror and social satire merged from the beginning.
Groundhog Day	Sort of: It’s a romantic comedy until it becomes a sci-fi / metaphysical comedy 18 minutes in. That’s a little late, but the two are well-blended from that point on.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Action-Comedy / Heroic Fantasy
In a Lonely Place	NO. it’s halfway between film noir and neo-gothic romance and doesn’t quite satisfy either.
Iron Man	YES. Consistently mixes action and conspiracy.
Lady Bird	YES. A straight-up coming of age tale.
Raising Arizona	YES. The small-time-crook black-comedy
Rushmore	YES. The coming of age movie
Selma	YES. Historical drama.
The Shining	YES. classic straight-up horror.
Sideways	YES. Combines male-bonding comedy / romantic drama, which is a somewhat awkward combination, but it’s maintained and it works.
The Silence of the Lambs	YES. Thriller
Star Wars	YES. Combines sci-fi and fantasy throughout
Sunset Boulevard	YES. gothic melodrama mixed with Hollywood satire.

Episode 44: Putting the Secrets of Story Into Action with Torrey Maldonado

The Secrets of Story Podcast · Episode 44: Putting the Secrets of Story Into Action with Torrey Maldonado

In this episode, we welcome acclaimed novelist Torrey Maldonado to talk about how he put my advice into action for his books for young people (much to James’s chagrin)

The Expanded Ultimate Story Checklist: Is there one gut-punch scene where the subtext falls away and the characters really lay into each other?

A producer was giving me a long list of notes on a script, and then he tacked onto the end, as if it were self-explanatory, “Oh, yeah, and make sure you add one of those scenes that an actress will demand before she agrees to play the part.” Huh? What scenes? “You know, one of those scenes where she takes a stand and then breaks down and cries.” Um, okay … I dutifully added such a scene. 

Only months later did I really start to understand why. The American Horror Story pilot got a very mixed reaction, but one thing all the reviews had in common was a puzzlement that Connie Britton was willing to do such a cheesy show right after her acclaimed five-year stint on Friday Night Lights.

Watching the pilot, I wondered that, too, until I got to the gut-punch scene. Britton and husband, Dylan McDermott, have been ignoring their marriage problems throughout the episode, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, they finally let each other have it, and I finally understood that note. This one scene is so strong it would have lured anybody into the role.

If a story is all text and no subtext, it’ll suck. On the other hand, if the subtext never erupts to the surface, that can be just as bad. Once and only once, let the emotions come roaring out without a filter. Let your characters hit each other with everything they have and tear each other apart. Again, the trick is to first roll the rock uphill as long as you can. The more scenes you have of sublimated emotion and indirect conflict, the more tension you will build. Stars like Connie Britton understand the power of those sublimated scenes, too, and they love to play them. But once they’ve created all that potential energy, they’ll want to release it.

Yes, you should have as few direct confrontations as possible and let your characters trick and trap each other instead. But eventually all the tricks and traps are for naught, and the characters have no choice but to rip into each other directly. When all else fails, let them go for the gut punch.

Rulebook Casefile: The Ultimate Gutpunch in The Fighter

In “Little Women”, Louisa May Alcott has one of my favorite lines in literature: “Being good would be easy if we could do it all at once.”

Dicky in The Fighter wants to become a good person, and he “turns a new leaf” almost every day of his life, but it never takes. The pain of his failures overtakes him and he once again seeks out crack because of the relief it brings: “You feel like everything is ahead of you.” After all, he was once the “Pride of Lowell”, the scrappy young fighter who knocked down Sugar Ray Leonard, and then he lost it all. His troughs are all the more painful because his peak was so high. Any modest success he achieves now will only be mockery of his past glory, so why try?

It’s not that Dicky doesn’t have people who love him: He has friends and family who demand that he do better and snap out of his addiction, but it never works. Then he meets Charlene.

Dicky has returned from prison, determined to become Micky’s trainer again, but Charlene and Micky’s new handlers forbid it. At first Micky sides with them, then changes his mind and lets Dicky back in the ring (causing Charlene to storm out), then changes his mind again and kicks Dicky out after all. Dicky realizes that he must reach out to Charlene and work things out. He hates her, but he knows Micky needs her.

• Dicky: I ain’t got no use for you either, but my brother loves you, and you can’t just run away because of me, he don’t deserve that, alright? So I will quit, if you want me to quit.
• Charlene: You’re full of shit.
• Dicky: Swear to god, I will quit if it means you come back, but I want you to think about something. Micky has a chance to do something I never did, and in my time I never had.
• Charlene: Oh yeah: “My big chance was with Sugar Ray Leonard!  I’m so great!  I’m the pride of fucking Lowell! Oh yeah, I fought Sugar Ray Leonard!” I heard it.
• Dicky: I’m here to make things right.
• Charlene: Okay, let’s make things right. Number one: you didn’t knock down Sugar Ray Leonard. He tripped.

Then she just looks at him.  Boom. Gutpunch. Dicky’s manic energy deflates. He flounders, and tries to gutpunch her back, but he soon acquiesces, implicitly accepting her terms. 

He thinks that offering to quit (and thereby acknowledging that Micky needs her more than him) is the ultimate abasement, and so that’ll win her over. But she has another abasement in mind. It’s not enough to take away his present position, she sees that she has to take away his past position as well. He can’t help if he keeps pretending that he’s passing the mantle on to his brother. He can only help if he admits that it was never his.

This, at long last, is what Dicky needs to hear. He can stop trying to live up to his glory days because they never existed. He’s just who he is, that’s all he’s ever been, that’s all he’ll ever be, and that’s all he needs to be. He loses his past and gains a future. This is the best kind of gutpunch: brutal, incisive, and absolutely necessary.

P.S. This also backs up another old post:

• The few times that someone has told me what my problem was and actually hit the nail on the head, they were people who hated my guts and never wanted to see me again. In each case, I wasn’t happy to hear it, and I tended to let them know it. Only later did I sheepishly realize that they had actually told me something I needed to hear.

The 40 Year Old Virgin	YES, a few.
Alien	YES, literally, with Ripley and Ash.
An Education	YES. A sequence of them: Her teacher finally lays into her, she finally lays into her parents, headmistress devastates her.
The Babadook	YES. the finale. “You don’t know how many times I wish it was you, not him, that died.”
Blazing Saddles	NO. Nobody is confronted about their flaws.  No masks ever fall away.
Blue Velvet	Yes and no: the subtext falls away when Dorothy shows up at Jeffrey’s house, but Jeffrey and Sandy still don’t have it out openly.
The Bourne Identity	YES. when Bourne and Conklin finally confront each other.
Bridesmaids	YES. Very much so, at the shower.
Casablanca	YES. the night scene in Rick’s apartment.
Chinatown	YES. One of the most famous.
Donnie Brasco	YES.  literally, when he hits his wife.
Do the Right Thing	YES. There are several, but that is explained by the heat making everybody irritable.  It’s clear that there wouldn’t normally be this many confrontations.
The Farewell	YES. Sort of with her uncle.
The Fighter	YES. a few.  When Charlene says she won’t let Dicky back in Micky’s corner unless he says that Sugar Ray tripped, that’s a hell of a gutpunch.  Also when Micky says “I thought you were my mother too.”
Frozen	YES. When Anna confronts Elsa in the ice palace.
The Fugitive	YES. Not really with Gerard, but yes when Kimble finally confronts Nichols (who responds by literally punching him in the gut).
Get Out	YES. Quite literally.
Groundhog Day	YES. The end of the date sequence for her, the I’m a god scene for him.
How to Train Your Dragon	YES. Lots, actually: the last two scenes with father and son, two scenes with Astrid.
In a Lonely Place	YES. the final confrontation.
Iron Man	YES. Late at night with Tony and Pepper.
Lady Bird	YES. Several.
Raising Arizona	YES. they discuss splitting up.
Rushmore	YES. the scene where Cross finally lets him down harshly.
Selma	YES. The tape scene, certainly.  Johnson and King, on the other hand, never really lay into each other.
The Shining	YES. Pretty much, when Wendy finds the pages.  But even then, she’s able to let him have it with the bat, but still not verbally.
Sideways	YES. Miles has one as Maya is dumping him, and Jack has one after the ostrich attack.
The Silence of the Lambs	YES. the big “Lambs” scene.
Star Wars	YES. Somewhat, when Luke and Leia confront Han.
Sunset Boulevard	YES. two in a row, when Joe confronts Betty and then Norma.