Thematic Turning Points

[Jijenji]

What do you guys/girls think about the relationship between theme and major turning points?

I was just reading the Iliad, in which the major theme is Wrath--specifically, Achilles's wrath (it's the first word of the story too). It occurred to me that the two major turning points in the story both pivot on this theme. Achilles is dishonored by Agammemnon, and his wrath causes him to abandon the war against Troy and pray for the Greeks' defeat. Later, the Trojan warrior Hector kills his best friend, and Achilles's wrath causes him to rejoin the war and kill Hector for revenge at the climax.

Have any of you thought about this in your writing before? Are there any screenwriting books that mention this? I've read several, but don't remember theme and act climaxes being specifically mentioned together.

 

[Joker B]

It's an inevitable part of traditional story structure. If we consider just a standard 3-act progression -- intro of players & issues, complications ensue, resolution --- the turning points and crises are what define the theme, or you don't have one.

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Bob love Mary, Mary loves Mike, Mike is a heel. (okay, first act)

Bob's life get complicated by his tax situation which causes him to move to Houston on a job, which gets him promoted and he travels the world selling armaments for a shady Saudi Arabian company before accidentally discovering a chemical byproduct that cures rabies, the value of which leads to a hotly-contentious intellectual property lawsuit. Now fabulously wealthy from the settlement, he returns to his home town to pay-off his parents' mortgage and buy up the neighboring properties to accommodate their new riding stables. (2nd act that has zilch to do with first act)

Bob proposes to Mary & they drive away happy in the back of the bus. (resolution that ignores 2nd act)

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One could possibly extract themes here by massive painful rewriting, but "true love conquers all" is probably not the right one. Instead the story just wanders pointlessly.

 

[Unknown Screenwriter]

I'm of the opinion that you really should KNOW your theme before you start writing your screenplay... At least as much as humanly possible.

You could of course write without theme but theme will find its way and once it does, it can often be a bitch to tweak the rest the of the script to fit without some major changes.

Many writers do in fact wander with their writing until they stumble upon theme... That's definitely one way to go and I've definitely gone that way before but I've also come up with the theme prior to ever writing page 1 and I find this works much better for ME.

Why?

Because it's like having a compass lead you through the story... Theme helps cut through all the garbage you're probably writing when you don't have theme. Garbage that really doesn't push the story forward but you're writing it because it seems cool.

Nothing wrong with cool but theme combined with cool works every time.

filmy