Crossing the Threshold

There is no turning back.

Sooner or later—and, in the case of a well-crafted blockbuster-style movie, right at the end of Act One (or around twenty-five to twenty-seven pages into the script)—the protagonist must commit whole-heartedly to the adventure. This might be a quest to save the world, a burgeoning romance, or even a dance competition. The goal must be real and it must be tangible. By tangible, I mean that whatever the protagonist is seeking, everyone in the audience should be able to agree about what it looks like for her to accomplish and achieve (or fail to achieve) that goal. Perhaps the missing treasure is returned to the chest, or the national championship is won or, even, the bomb is defused.

What the protagonist is after, in movie lingo, is referred to as the “broomstick,” in homage to the great WIZARD OF OZ (1939), or the “MacGuffin,” a term popularized by Alfred Hitchcock and possibly inspired by his screenwriter friend Angus MacPhail. Hitchcock explained how this device works in a lecture at Columbia University in 1939: “We have a name in the studio and we call it the MacGuffin. It is the mechanical element that usually crops up in any story. In crook stories it is almost always the necklace, and in spy stories it is most always the papers.” So, thinking of what Hitchcock said here, whatever it might be, the MacGuffin is the main driving force of the movie—or at the very least it appears to be by the end of Act One. Deliver the plans to Alderaan; save Elizabeth from pirates; win the cheerleading competition. There are as many possible MacGuffins as there are stories to tell. 

The MacGuffin is equally relevant in stories about inner transformation. That said, an inner transformation is exceedingly hard to depict on screen. It’s far simpler for your protagonist to make decisions that are the result of an inner transformation, so as to accomplish (or fail to accomplish) a tangible goal. In striving to accomplish the goal, the obstacles thrown in the protagonist’s path, the decisions she must make and the actions she performs on screen, make the inner transformation clear to the audience. Again, we’re back to our number one rule: Show, don’t tell. Think about SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (2012), a story of intense inner conflicts and transformations. The MacGuffin is a dance competition, for which the stakes are raised by the bet.

It’s insufficient for your protagonist to claim she has changed; she needs a tangible goal to pursue, and pursuing that very goal makes the character transformation possible. The pursuit pushes and stretches the protagonist to the point that transformation is inevitable.

The first act break occurs when the protagonist makes a commitment to pursue the perceived goal and crosses over from the ordinary world to the extraordinary world. (Christopher Vogler has great thoughts about this transition, which he calls the “threshold,” in his Writer's Journey.)

Of course, there doesn’t necessarily come a point in the narrative that the protagonist achieves the goal. If she does, she’ll probably reach it in an unexpected way. Or perhaps she achieves that goal just to find out an even greater one is at stake. In PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (2003), Will Turner sets out to save Elizabeth and find out the identity of his father. The subsequent quest to return the gold coin to the chest is uncovered while Will is already on his original journey. In other words, Will sets out to accomplish one goal. In the process of pursuing it, he uncovers another overarching goal. In Writing Screenplays That Sell, Michael Hauge considers this process of uncovering the true goal to be one of the most important elements in building your story. I think he’s right.

One of Michael’s favorite examples of this process at work—and one of my faves, too—is SHREK (2001). Shrek’s swamp is invaded by fairy creatures and he sets out to visit Lord Farquaad to have them removed. It’s in the process of completing this initial quest that Shrek uncovers his true quest: to save the princess (with whom he falls in love) and protect her at all cost from Farquaad, who sent him off to seek her in the first place.
      

Thus, the protagonist may commit to a goal only to discover later that what she is really after—the MacGuffin or broomstick—is something else altogether.

It’s also important to note that, in order to cross over from Act One into Act Two, the protagonist cannot simply be carried along by the unfolding events. Obi-Wan cannot drag Luke to Alderaan. Instead, Luke uncovers the death of his family and makes the decision, alone, to follow Obi-Wan and enter the extraordinary world. In a similar vein, Snow White cannot be swept out of the castle drains and over the ledge in SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN (2012). She holds herself on the ledge, hesitates, looks back, and makes the proactive decision to jump. And in THE PATRIOT, Benjamin Martin witnesses the murder of his middle son, who dies in his arms. Reminiscent of William Wallace in BRAVEHEART, Benjamin goes into a calculated frenzy of revenge. He runs upstairs, claims his talisman (the mysterious tomahawk), and sets out to massacre the British to free his eldest son. As in the other examples we have seen, Benjamin responds proactively to the events and circumstances by making a decision to enter the conflict.

In principle, then, crossing over always demands a decisive act of commitment. This holds true even if later on the protagonist is likely to discover that she has committed to something greater than she could possibly have realized at the end of Act One.

© SJ Murray, 2018