What Does Your Story’s Action Mean?

When most people come up with an idea for a story, they focus on the action. By making the action as interesting and unusual as possible, they hope to attract a studio’s attention. While this is important, what’s even more crucial is defining the meaning behind all that action.

Action for the sake of action is pointless. Just watch any bad action film like “The 355”, “Borderlands”, or “Mortal Engines” to see that visual effects, explosions, and gunfire will never make an interesting story. What makes an interesting story is the hero’s reaction to the action.

Watch this trailer for an Australian film called “These Final Hours”, which depicts the end of the world when a meteor slams into the Atlantic ocean and its impact sends shock waves across the planet, wiping out all life on Earth. The last country left alive is Australia, and the movie is about how people deal with living their last final hours on Earth before the inevitable meteor shockwave wipes out Australia as well.

The idea of seeing people spend their last remaining hours on Earth is an intriguing one, but this action could go in a million directions. What makes “These Final Hours” far more interesting is that the hero has just learned that his girlfriend is pregnant and both of them know that their baby will never have a chance to live since the meteor’s shockwave will slam into Australia in a few hours.

Distraught, the hero leaves his girlfriend and wanders around the streets, witnessing people going crazy. That’s when the story focuses on its real story, which is that the hero saves a girl from getting raped by two men. Now the hero’s goal is to help this girl find her family and reunite with them.

So although “These Final Hours” seems to be about the end of the world, it’s really about one man wondering what kind of a father he would have been to his unborn child. By saving and protecting a little girl from rapists, the hero learns that he would have been a good father. After he reunites the girl with her family, she tells him there’s still time to get back with his girlfriend.

Now the hero rushes back to spend the last hour with his girlfriend, content that even though he’ll never see his unborn child grow up, he knows he would have been a good father.

Every story is really about an emotional impact that changes the hero’s life for good. Identify this emotional moment and your story will be worthwhile. Omit this emotional impact and your story will be forgettable.

In “Star Wars”, this emotional moment occurs when Luke finally trusts the Force and blows up the Death Star. In “The Shawshank Redemption”, this emotional moment occurs at the end when Red finally reunites with Andy (the hero) and they embrace on the beach. In “Little Miss Sunshine”, this emotional moment occurs when the family jumps on stage to support Olive, the hero, as she competes in the beauty pageant.

Watch any mediocre movie (“The 355”, “Borderlands”, “Mortal Engines”) and you’ll find this emotional impact on the hero sorely lacking. That’s why some movies are mediocre (or simply awful) and some movies are great and memorable.

Always look for this emotional moment in your hero because this change in your hero is really what your entire story is all about.

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