20 Master Plots (32 page)

RICK'S CAFE AMERICAINE

The story takes place in the North African city of Casablanca during World War II. Refugees from Europe choke the city as they search anxiously for exit visas to Lisbon while Nazi agents plot their capture. Some of the refugees pass their time drinking at Rick's Cafe Americaine. We don't range all over the city grabbing glimpses of the refugees and their plight; it all takes place in Rick's cafe. We get the full flavor of the backdrop of the war and its tensions without going out into the street. Rick's bar, in effect, is a microcosm of the world outside. As mentioned earlier, if you want to increase tension, limit the geographical space available to your characters. Make the setting
claustrophobic.
Block all the exits. Put the protagonist and the antagonist within arm's length of each other. By separating them across town, you dilute the tension. One of the reasons for limiting the action to Rick's bar may have been financial—it was cheaper to shoot than going on location-but the effect is what's important. You don't have to circle the globe. You can still capture the feeling of the exotic and strange without including seventeen different cities in eight different countries.

THE FIRST DRAMATIC PHASE

We meet Rick. He's definitely not the sort of person we would suspect of having any higher ideals. He's stubborn and out for himself. That makes his transition—from a person with all the morals of a slug to a person who makes a decision of real conscience — truly worth following. If your character already has high ideals, sacrifice would come easily (unless, as with Amy Kane in
High Noon
the sacrifice goes against those ideals). What makes Rick interesting is that he's so selfish, withdrawn and hard—and yet vulnerable.

Flashback: Paris. Rick is now Richard, and he's desperately in love with Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). He's so flushed with love that he wants to get married and flee Paris before the Nazis move in. But Rick doesn't notice Ilsa's hesitation, so he's stunned when he finds out that she's gone. She leaves a farewell note. Parting shot: a crushed Rick holding the note in his hand as the rain symbolically blurs the ink on Ilsa's note.

Back to scene: Rick's Cafe Americaine, 1941. We know something about his secret life. He's been badly hurt in love. We understand him a little better.

Even though Rick says, "I stick my neck out for no one," we learn otherwise during the course of the story. We learn he
's
fought against the fascists in Spain. We know he left Paris to avoid the Germans who would've been after him. Even after his bitter experience in love, Rick still hates Germans. He orders one away from his gambling tables, and in a particularly rousing scene, he orders the band to play "La Marseillaise" to drown out some Germans who are singing "Wacht am Rhein." And he helps out Ugarte (played by Peter Lorre) after he kills two Germans and steals their signed visas. Rick hides the visas for Ugarte, in spite of the danger of being caught with them. Thus we have a deeper insight into Rick's character. He
is
a man of principles, even if time and circumstances have muted them.

By setting the foundations of character, you will make believable the transition from a selfish state to a selfless state. You can't just turn a character around 180 degrees and reverse her attitudes and actions by a simple event. You must show convincingly how the character
could
get from point A to point Z. Rick claims he won't help anyone; but we also know why he says that (he's tried in the past and been hurt), and we know at least he has the
potential
to help someone. The plot question is, Who will he help? And how? What will make him change his mind and come out of his shell?

A woman, of course.

Which brings us back to being caught between a rock and a hard place. If you have established your character properly, we should understand these underlying tensions as real expressions of character, not just some gimmick you've tried to paste onto your character. To do that, we must know the character's past. That's why the flashback in
Casablanca
is so important. If you take it out, we wouldn't understand Rick's internal conflict. In a plot like this one, you can't get away with cardboard characters. They must be convincing. We must understand their motivations
for
acting. We don't know anything about Usa or her husband yet, other than what we know through Rick, so we have that to look forward to in the second dramatic phase. Why did Ilsa leave Rick in Paris? How will it affect him? How much of a grudge does he hold? He literally controls their destinies.

THE SECOND DRAMATIC PHASE

As you develop a character, keep in mind your character's motivation. People always do things for a reason, and as much as we would like to think of the world as a place in which people give for no reason other than to give, with no expectation of return, we know from personal experience this is rarely the case. (Although there is the rare exception, and stories about these people, which are often inspirational, fascinate us.) We all have our motives. Sometimes those motives are high-minded and sometimes they're not. If you have a character make a sacrifice as the pivoting point in your plot, you commit yourself to that character. That means we should understand the basic nature of the character and why she would make that kind of sacrifice. Don't pull rabbits out of your hat. Show the line of action through your character's line of thought.

In the second dramatic phase the character should be confronted with a moral dilemma that has no easy solution. Your character may try to find that easy solution at first—he may avoid doing the right thing—but eventually the truth and the choices become obvious. That doesn't mean you should be obvious, because that will make your story predictable and uninteresting. We shouldn't ever be entirely sure what your protagonist will do. There may be a real chance that he
won't
do the right thing. People do rationalize. They do find easy ways out that salve their conscience. In this plot, doing the right thing often comes at a high price.

Have your character play for big stakes. Otherwise you won't capture the interest of the reader. You don't have to go overboard and have life as we know it hang in the balance, but you should focus the stakes at a level that is meaningful both for your protagonist and for the other characters nearby. Trivial events and trivial people usually make for trivial stories. Certainly the fate of at least one person should hang in the balance. That fate may be literal in the sense that it's a life-or-death proposition, or it may be figurative in the sense of your protagonist's self-esteem or any psychological change that will affect him in the future.

Sacrifice usually entails a clash between what Freud called the id and the superego. In a caricatured way, the id stands for that part of the personality that wants to do what it wants to do; it's selfish and always puts itself first. Popular depictions of the id usually show it as a devil perched on your shoulder. The superego is the other side of the psyche. It's the part of us that knows the right thing to do. It's the angel sitting on your other shoulder. And you're the poor character in the middle with a voice in one ear saying, "do this, do this," and a voice in the other ear saying, "don't do that, it's not right." Somehow, whether we're guided by one voice or the other, we do make a decision about how to act. The character that makes a true sacrifice is guided by the superego, because the whole idea of sacrifice is to give up something about yourself. In a story about sacrifice, that something should come at a substantial cost. Maybe it's personal safety, maybe it's love, maybe it's life itself. Sacrifice entails our higher selves, so it's a good place to show the human spirit at its best. Even outwardly selfish, greedy and hurtful people sometimes become saints when it comes down to that all-or-nothing moment, when either you put yourself or others first. Self-preservation is a strong impulse in all of us, and sacrifice goes against that instinct.

These are powerful forces at play. In stories about sacrifice, we usually see a character who seems totally incapable of any kind of meaningful sacrifice make that sacrifice when the chips are down. The story gives us confidence in the essential rightness of people.

THE THIRD DRAMATIC PHASE

The idea of sacrifice is to give up something in return for accomplishing a higher ideal. We attain a higher state of being when we put others before ourselves. This plot has the ability to show people at their best.

But, as I already pointed out, the meaningful sacrifice is the costly sacrifice. If the sacrifice is made at leisure and at no real expense to the giver, it is of less value than the sacrifice made at great personal cost. For a millionaire to write a check to a charity for a thousand dollars is no great sacrifice (it's probably not a sacrifice at all, since it's tax deductible). But for a poor person to give everything he owns to help someone else is a much greater sacrifice.

Sacrifice shouldn't be judged only in financial terms. More important are the sacrifices people make of their lives. We consider giving your life the greatest sacrifice of all if it's given for the sake of your country or your family. There are hundreds of other sacrifices a person can make, material and spiritual.

As you develop your third dramatic phase, focus on the payment your character must make to make his sacrifice. Most stories about sacrifice build up to this point: It is the moment of truth for your character. Will he or won't he do the best thing? (Sacrifice often means doing more than the right thing, it means doing the "best" thing.) In this phase you should concentrate on two major aspects:

• the actual sacrifice of your character and how it affects him.

• the effect of the sacrifice on the other characters.

As readers, we're as interested in the effect of the sacrifice as in the sacrifice itself. We want to know if the protagonist's action has had the result he intended it to have. And if not, why?

As you might expect, the third dramatic act tends to be emotional. Watch how you develop the emotions of your characters; avoid being sentimental or melodramatic. Don't exaggerate the emotions of your characters and don't exaggerate the act of the sacrifice. It is far better to underplay those scenes than overplay them.

You might also want to avoid trying to make a saint out of your character. Just because she makes a sacrifice doesn't guarantee admission into Heaven's Hall of Fame. Let the reader determine the value of the sacrifice. If you're clear in your writing and your character's intent, the reader will reach the decision you want her to reach.

CHECKLIST

As you develop this plot, keep the following points in mind:

1. The sacrifice should come at a great personal cost; your protagonist is playing for high stakes, either physical or mental.

2. Your protagonist should undergo a major transformation during the course of the story, moving from a lower moral state to a higher one.

3. Make the events force your protagonist's decision.

4. Make sure you lay an adequate foundation of character so the reader understands his progress on the path to making sacrifice.

5. Remember that all events should be a reflection of your main character. They test and develop character.

6. Make clear the motivation of your protagonist so the reader understands why he would make that kind of sacrifice.

7. Show the line of action through the line of your character's thought.

8. Have a strong moral dilemma at the center of your story.

W
e are in constant search to find out who we are. The questions of "Who am I?" and "Why am I here?" ring endlessly in the ear of humanity. Philosophers have filled volumes considering the question; the answer seems as slippery as soap.

Various thinkers have various answers for us to choose from, as if we were reading a giant menu in a
celestial restaurant.
Arguments ricochet through the air around us, but none seems entirely satisfactory.

While philosophers tackle the question in abstract terms, writers try to tackle it concretely, by using characters who seem real in situations that seem real. That is part of the great appeal of literature: It tries to translate the meaning of life.

In one sense this plot is closely related to the riddle plot because life is, in a sense, a riddle that begs to be solved. But this plot dedicates itself more to the pursuit of learning about the self than uncovering an assassination conspiracy or figuring out the mystery of the pyramids.