Non-Linear Storytelling by Ken Daneyger Storytelling conventions in film and television are a mix of dramatic principles tempered by the particular characteristics of the medium amplified by the response of audiences nationally and intemationally. Technology, central in the production and distribution of film and television, has rarely been formative in the narrative shape for a particular medium. But this has changed in the past twenty years as technological change has accelerated and altered the focus from production to post-production. These changes, particularly computer applications in special effects, animation and video games, has had an impact on storytelling. Those changes, which I will call non-linear storytelling, are the subject of this chapter. Contemporary examples of what I mean by non-linear storytelling include Quentin Tarantino’s ~ Pulp Fiction (1994), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Atom Egoyan’s Exotica (1995), Terence Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1998) and Karen and Jill Sprecher’s 13 Conversations about One Thing (2002). What these films have in common is an open-ended quality that moves us away from an identification with the experience ofa single character, to the voice of the writer or writer-director, We will deal with each of these characteristics but before we do it’s important to state that non-linear storytelling, ‘was a presence prior to the development of non-linear film and video editing, As early as 1929, Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali made the non-linear film, Un Chien Andalou. That film with its fragmented narrative, its leaps into fantasy, its shock juxtapositions, its lack of narrative progression provided an excellent vehicle for Bunuel and Dali to voice their viewS on dreams, the Church, the Bourgeoisie, art, society and narrative conventions. Their stance, to sum it up, was anti-narrative, open to a variety of interpretations, depending upon the interpreter.Less open-ended for interpretation, but no less non-linear was the work of Jean-Luc Godard from 1959 to the present. Using familiar genres — the gangster film, the war film, the melodrama, the musical, Godard subverted our relationship with genre expectations as well as with the main character, in order to voice his views on war, society, capitalism and to polemicize for change. What is critical about both Bunuel and Godard is that they were subverting plot and character in the same way contemporary non-linear storytellers do. Theirs are the models for non-linear storytelling. Pethaps this is the point to define the terms that will be used in this chapter. Linear storytelling, which we will address shortly, is classic or conventional storytelling ~ a beginning, middle and end, focused upon identification with a goal-directed main character. Whatever narrative goals are established initially are resolved by the end. The linear narrative offers the viewer a closed-ended experience, satisfying and safe. The non-linear narrative is open-ended, and does not necessarily focus on a single character. Nor is it necessary for the main character to have a goal. The non-linear story emphasizes the voice of the writer or writer-director and this form invites a more active role for the viewer. The premise of central conflict or central idea is the engine of the narrative. We experience the conflict through the main character. Another way of expressing the premise is to consider two opposing choices facing the main character in the course of the narrative. The main character or protagonist is the focus of the narrative. The main character has a goal which is powerfully opposed by the antagonist (the greater the ‘opposition the more heroic the main character), by the associates of the antagonist and by the plot Plot is an extemal event, a war, a competition, a crime, an investigation that puts pressure on the goal of the main character, Genre is the story form that gives a narrative its shape. Every genre has a different shape, a different kind of struggle at its core. Voice is the particular perspective or attitude the writer or writer-director has and wants to illustrate through the narrative, Voice is often masked by story form but in particular story forms,such as the non-linear story, voice is more direct, more pronounced than in conventional forms, Finally drama is conflict, between individuals, between individuals and their society or individuals and the natural world. Conflict can also be intemal, a struggle of two opposite sides of the self, Characteristics of the Linear Narrative To understand the open-ended quality of the non-linear narrative, a useful beginning is to Jook at its opposite, the mainstream linear narrative. ‘The linear narrative represents the commercial middle of storytelling. The experimental film, the documentary, those storyforms that are at the edge of the mainstream — the docudrama, the fable, the experimental narrative and the independent film, all are closer to the non-linear narrative than they are to the linear narrative Underlying the experience of the linear narrative is the invitation for the viewer to identify with the main character. Whether the main character is a hero or a victim, the identification positions the viewer into a dream relationship that essentially renders the ‘viewer passive. In the dreamstate the viewer will not face choices but rather move from the critical moment that opens the story to the resolution that in effect closes the story. Through a rising action we experience the barriers, the challenges and the eventual positive or negative resolution. The arc is pre-determined and follows story form expectations. In this sense the linear narrative experience is a safe experience where the viewer makes no choices. Satisfaction, excitement, the range of feeling depend upon identification and the predictability of the story form assures an exciting but safe arc of experience. Central to the experience of the linear narrative is that the viewer doesn’t need to exercise choice (as opposed to the non-linear narrative). The linear narrative also proceeds within established story form norms, within genres. Mainstream genres ~ melodrama, the police story, the gangster film, film noir, situation comedy, romantic comedy, the thriller, have established dramatic arcs known to the audience. For example the romantic comedy will proceed along an are of a relationship. Boy meets gitl, or girl meets boy or boy meets boy kicks off the narrative. Because thefilm is a comedy the narrative will have a positive outcome. The Farrelly Brothers’ There’s Something about Mary and Ang Lee’s The Wedding Banquet exemplify this genre. In the thriller, an ordinary person finds him/herself in extraordinary circumstances. If he doesn’t figure out who is pursuing him, he will die. The dramatic arc of the thriller is essentially a chase. Andrew Davis’s The Fugitive and Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest exemplify the thriller The dramatic are of the police story is crime-investigation-solution, The dramatic arc of the gangster film follows the rise and fall of the gangster's career. The dramatic arc of the science fiction film follows the technology vs. humanity struggle. In film noir the main character pursues or is pursued by a woman who he believes will save him (from his loneliness or his alienation) but in the end she destroys him, The audience, when it chooses a particular story form, knows how the experience will proceed, This is one of the strengths of the linear film, But as stated earlier, the key to the success of the linear film is the identification with the main character. Whether the main character is an outsider or a professional (policeman, for example), the writer will use particular strategies to enhance identification. First the main character will have @ goal which he or she will pursue with vigor. Second, if the character is potentially victimized by the antagonist, we will identify with that character. In real life none of us likes to be victimized. So too in the film experience. And so we identify with the potential victim, the main character. The writer can also deploy other strategies such as giving the main character a confessional private moment or at the other extreme, a tragic flaw (such as overabundant ambition, Macbeth, or overabundant aggression, Jake La Motta in Raging Bull). Whatever the strategy or strategies employed, the identification with the main character will carry the audience through the dramatic arc to its resolution and by doing so the experience of the viewer will be whole and pre- determined, This is both the strength and the weakness of the linear narrative for the viewer. In its predictability, there is no room for the viewer to exercise choice, to be more active or participatory, precisely the options the non-linear narrative affords the viewer.Properties of the Nor -ar Narrative To understand the properties of the non-linear film it’s best to consider them in the light of the linear narrative, We tum first to character. If the main character is goal-directed, proceeding along a dramatic arc in the linear narrative, the character or characters in the non-linear narrative may or may not have a goal, and consequently may or may not have adramatic arc. First, the issue of multiple main characters or fo frame it another way, no main characters In Anderson’s Magnolia (1998), there are eight characters whom we follow. They group into three families and include at least one additional character, a policeman, who will get involved with the daughter in one of those families. Some of the characters have a goal, young boy ostensibly wants to win a television show competition (or does he?), two dying fathers want to reunite with their alienated son or daughter, a policeman wants to do his job effectively and in a humane fashion. The other characters do not have a goal but rather find themselves in a situation where a decision must be made. About all these characters we could say they find themselves in a life crisis, disappointed in parents or not wanting to disappoint parents. This state of being is what the characters share and if there is a dramatic shape to the story, it’s to pose the question, what will each do and ‘what will be the consequences of their actions? In Atom Egoyan's Exotica (1995), a group of six characters are brought together in a place, a sex club. These characters are as despairing as Anderson’s characters, ‘Their goals however are far more submerged or absent than in the Anderson film. More apparent are the goals of the characters in Malick’s The Thin Red Line (1997). They are soldiers fighting on the American side in World War II The battle is for the istand of Guadalcanal and their goals are principally to survive; although their Colonel wants another goal, to use the outcome of the battle to achieve the promotion that has so long eluded him. Key in the consideration of character in the non-linear film is that there will be multiple characters and that they may or may not have a goal. The consequence is that we will be with the character, observing rather than identifying with a character and moving with him or her through a dramatic arcTuming to the issue of plot, there may or may not be a plot in the non-linear narrative There is a plot in The Thin Red Line, the progress of the war in the battle for Guadalcanal. What must be said is that in the linear film plot would work against the goal of the main character, Since there are multiple main characters or no single character to follow, the plot use is muted. For the Colonel, the progress of the battle is, opportunity rather than a threat, Many soldiers are indifferent to the progress of the battle. For one soldier who finds a tearful, terrified enemy in a village, the progress of that battle reminds him of his own sorrow and pain (he is empathic and sumprised rather than experiencing victory and power). Because of the multiple and varied responses to the progress of the battle, plot is compromised as a dramatic device and consequently it's relegated to background rather than to the powerful narrative tool it is in the linear war film, (See Apocalypse Now or Paths of Glory). Similarly the fact that there are multiple main characters in Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust blunts the impact of the plot, the momentous day when a portion of the family will migrate from an island off of South Carolina to the mainland, principally the industrial midwest of the United States. Tarantino's Pulp Fiction offers a variation on the use of plot. There is plot in all three stories, each having to do with the professional activities of the main characters — killing off threats to the economic well being of the gang and its aftermath. The middle story poses a difference. In the story a boxer fails to throw a fight and both benefits and may suffer the consequences, the question is will he get away with it? Here plot operates as it does in a linear narrative and it is quite effective, In the two stories that flank it, however, plot proceeds as background, as it does in the other non-linear films described Having described the use of plot in non-linear film, I should add that in many non-linear films, Egoyan’s Exotica and Anderson’s Magnolia, the plot element is so remote as to be de facto non-existent, At best it functions as background, more often not even that. Mostcritical is that the use of plot in the non-linear film rarely proceeds as it does in the linear film. It’s simply not a vital narrative device. ‘The greatest consequence of this use of plot is to flatten the dramatic arc of the non-linear film. A war film changes from a progression from the beginning of a battle to its end, to a series of situations that may or may not be directly linked to the progress of the battle. The sense of time, so central to the progression in a linear war film (think of Dr. Strangelove.) is totally different from the progression in The Thin Red Line Chronological time is no longer critical. The same can be said for cause and effect There is a randomness to the experience of the non-linear film. As a result there is no dramatic arc. In its stead, we have a series of scenes or situations that are explored. The organization of those scenes will not necessarily be progressively linked. Consequently our involvement will come from character rather than plot, from the intensity of the individual scene rather than the organization of progressive scenes. This puts much more emphasis on exploration than on exposition, on feeling and mood rather than upon extemal events. The absence of the dramatic arc has far-reaching consequences for the writing of the non-linear film, an issue we will focus upon in the latter part of this chapter. For now it poses this question, If there is no dramatic arc, what is the organizing principle or, to use a writing term that is more familiar, What is the structure of the non- linear film? The first noticeable quality of the structure of the non-linear film is its elusiveness. It doesn’t look like the clear structure of the linear film. But there is in spite of this a structure. That structure may be more shaping device than structure. The structure of Pulp Fiction might even be considered a counter-structure. The same characters appear in the three stories but Tarantino has altered their chronology. Like a clock we come back to the beginning every twenty-four hours. In Tarantino’s story we come back to the beginning at its end (and go past that beginning hour!) Within the clock counter- structure, the three stories will proceed out of sequence but because there are common characters, the members of Marcellus’ gang, a boxer who betrays Marcellus and thensaves Marcellus” ass, literally, Marcellus’ wife. The link to Marcellus is the inner circle of structure in Pulp Fiction. The shaping device or loose structural device in Malick’s The Thin Red Line is the battle for Guadalcanal. There is lip service to chronology but Malick chooses incidents and emphases that have little to do with that progression, Within this larger structure, the focus on a single platoon helps provide the inner shape Malick will work with, The shaping device in Dash’s Daughters of the Dust also references chronology, the day of migration for the Peazant family to leave Ebo Landing, an island off of South Carolina. Even Anderson in Magnolia pays lip service to chronology. Two fathers are dying and they want to reconcile with their alienated children. Time is as present a shaping device in these two stories as it is in the stories of the aging child star and the contemporary child “star” making his reputation in a TV quiz show. The inner core issue for all of these characters, however, does not relate to time. It is their common condition ~ despair, ennui, a condition that does not relate to time, but rather to inner life. Place rather than time becomes the shaping event in Egoyan’s Exotica, The sex club is the meeting place for the characters but it is their inner state, each in crisis for a lost relationship or an impossible relationship, that gives the urgency and emotional depth to Egoyan’s film. Place is also the outer skin for Karen and Jill Sprecher’s 13 Conversations about One Thing. Contemporary ultra-urban New York is the setting and as in the case of the Egoyan film, the inner emptiness or dissatisfaction of the characters is the common thread that gathers together its characters into a narrative, Place is helpful but not enough for Ang Lee in The Ice Storm (1997). He uses time, the four days around Thanksgiving, 1973 and he uses family, specifically two families, husband, wife and two children, neighbors in an upper middle class Connecticut suburb. Tod Solondz follows the same structural choices in Happiness (1998), principally following a family ~ three generations, and adds a patient of the son-in-law psychiatrist in that family. New York-New Jersey-Florida is the geographical setting, the time contemporary. The inner structure for each of these stories is principally the voice of Leeand Solondz. For Lee, he is interested and empathic about the unhappiness of his characters. Solondz, on the other hand, is more interested in skewering his characters with his unhappiness about their unhappiness. The loosest structure of all is to thematically affiliate different stories. Milcho Manchevski tells three stories about Macedonia (during the period of the Bosnian War and the consequent parallel tensions between the Albanian Muslims and Christians of Macedonia, ‘The outer structure is similar to Pulp Fiction — the idea of a twenty-four hour clock, Within that three stories will proceed out of chronology, but the last will end as the first story began and so we have the feeling of coming full circle, the twenty-four hour effect. Within that outer structure three independent stories will unfold, each story with its own intemal integrity and progression. Two will be love stories where two unlikely partners will come together to help one another and each will end with the death of one of the two. They will die because they transgressed religious boundaries. They tried to save a Christian or a Mustim and one of their own co-religionists kills them for crossing that boundary. ‘The middle story which takes place in London has a couple going to a restaurant where she will tell her husband she is leaving him. An argument among staff and former staff (Macedonian, possibly Muslim) ensues and the result is a shooting in which the innocent British husband is killed. The wife is now free due to random Balkan violence transferred to London. Here it is the theme ~ racial hatred destroys love — that binds these three stories. Theme rather than character provides the inner structure for Before the Rain An idea is also the shaping device for Francois Girard’s 32 Short Films about Glen Gould (1994), The idea that genius is an eccentric, brilliant, resistant-to-structural-definition quality is captured by presenting his life as a loose chronology of episodes each of which differs from the other. A half-dozen are documentary, at least three are animated and the rest are dramatized episodes that differ fom one another. It’s reminiscent of an MTV approach to a life ~ thirty-two self-contained episodes.10 A more conventional approach but no less non-linear is taken by Girard in his next film, The Red Violin (1998). An object, a violin, is followed from its creation to its current status. Various tales in Italy, Austria, England, China, Canada, about its owners or those who want to own the violin, share neither tone nor idea, The only common thread is the violin itself Because there is no deeper conceit, the film is less interesting, but it remains a non-linear narrative told along a loose chronology. The MTV notion is also a presence in The Red Violin. Taking up the MTV idea and applying it to structure, Oliver Stone has contributed his, non-linear narrative, Natural Bom Killers (1994). Here the outer structure is the career of two serial killers, Mickey and Mallory. The inner structure is a series of scenes all proposing the notion that there is a link between media manipulation and killing on the scale of a Mickey and Mallory. Are they the product of the media or is their career arc encouraged by the media or both? Stone links each MTV episode of the film to this idea Whether the structure is loose or layered, it is critical to note the difference from the linear three-Act structure, from critical moment to resolution. ‘The non-linear film may be organized in two Acts or without act breaks. More often it has numerous story lines which are integrated into movements or into brief MTV style short films loosely linked into the larger film. Again key here is how very different the structure of the non-linear film when compared to the linear film. The last property of the non-linear film that needs to be addressed is the tone. Tone generally proceeds along story form expectations. The Westem tends to be pastoral and poetic. The War film tends to be realistic. The Thriller and the Melodrama tend to be realistic. The Horror film tends to be expressionistic, over the top. The tone adds to the credibility of the experience of the film. Tone in the non-linear film tends to be less predictable. It can even vary within a story. What drives the tone is the writer's intentions and voice. Consequently the tone of Anderson’s Magnolia is in tum fabulous, then realistic and toward the end, when an intense storm yields a downpouring of frogs, it again becomes fabulous. Is Anderson using the melodrama or the fable as his storyHW form? Whichever it is, the non-linear narrative is the metagenre that embraces the work. Similarly Terence Malick uses a poetic meditative form rather than realism in his war film, The Thin Red Line. This variation in tone enables Malick to consider issues of life and death, permanence and impermanence, and the general issue of values in this war film. Critical here is that tone does not operate within story expectations as it does so often in the linear narrative. Consequently the non-linear film is more malleable to the voice of the writer or writer and director. Genres of Non-Linear Storytelling Not every story form lends itself to a non-linear treatment, Particular story forms ~ the fable, the experimental narrative, the docudrama, the melodrama, each is quite adaptable to non-linear form. For the more conventional story forms, the imposition of voice fights the natural tendencies of the form toward identification with a main character as well as the traditional use of plot. Malick’s The Thin Red Line is a good example of a war film molded by the voice of Terence Malick to become a non-linear meditation on the philosophical questions that arise from our war~ What is life? What is the natural order in the universe? What is the meaning of death? The experience of the linear Saving Private Ryan made by Steven Spielberg in the same year as Malick’s film illustrates how far Malick wants to move the experience of The Thin Red Line. The same can be said of Stone's treatment of Natural Bom Killers. Instead of the linear rise and fall gangster film, Stone prefers meditation on the influence of media in the criminal’s career. An additional issue is whether everyone, including the gangsters, is a victim of the media, the antagonist in Stone’s film, Here again voice subverts genre expectations. It is far more effective for the writer to choose a story form that does not rely on character identification or alternately that highlights voice. By doing so, the non-linear structure is less opposed. We begin with the fable. Elsewhere I have called the moral fable hyperdrama.’ What is key here is that it is the moral of the fable that binds the story, Forrest Gump, a linear treatment, is a fable that * P. Cooper and K. Daneyger, Writing the Short Film, 2"'Edition, Focal Press. 199612 states that even the intellectually limited can be vital contributors to their societies. A less linear fable would be John Boorman’s Excalibur. Here the moral of the tale is that man is too human (and therefore his weakness prevails) and that humanity undermines his idealism. What needs to be added beyond the lack of a single main character is that the fable has an exaggerated amount of plot (as compared to conventional films) and that the tone of the film can vary from one part to another. Additionally character becomes a vehicle for the narrative without inviting us to identify with the characters. Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (2000) is a good example here. The moral is that excessive narcissism is identify with the husband or the destructive of relationships and of society. We don't wife who are the central characters of the film, The docudrama is the second story form that facilitates a non-linear treatment, As in the case of the fable, the voice of the writer is central in unifying the narrative. Consequently there needn’t be a main character. Watkins’ Culloden (1965) is a good example here. (So too his War Game). ‘There is no main character in Culloden, Only the last battle on British soil serves as a shaping device. It has a beginning, middle and end, the middle being the battle itself. The off-screen narrator, Watkins himself, gives shape to the narrative (as well as his point of view about the British), The cinema verité style is applied to interview participants on both sides, and across the ranks, Watkins’ narration blends the emotional line with the information line for optimal editorial impact. Beyond the style elements (which are central) the story form is marked by an abundance of plot (more plot than in most plot-driven story forms). The tone is realism. That tone does not vary as it does in the fable. The reason is a simple one. The credibility that comes from cinema verité is central to the sense that this narrative not only happened but that it is important, It has gravitas. This is critical to give weight to the point of view of the vaiter-director. If it looks real, the implication is that the director is sharing his observations on an event or person that is critical to our life, The look of a television documentary lends the narrative the power of the medium, its immediacy as well as its relevance,13 It’s not necessary for the genre to be non-linear, The same filmmaker’s Edvard Munch (1977) is @ linear docudrama (although Watkins plays with the past-present elements of Munch’s life throughout the narrative. My point here is because of its approach to character, it emphasis on plot and its heightened sense of voice, the docudrama is a story form that more readily adapts to the non-linear approach. Consequently it can be very useful to the writer looking to adopt a non-linear shape to his or her story. ‘The experimental narrative on the other hand lends itself far more easily to a non-linear approach, With its emphasis on style over content, characterization (and consequently the potential for identification) is more simple, rather flat. Good examples of experimental narrative would be Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (1999) and Wong Kar- ‘Wai's In the Mood for Love (2000). ‘Tykwer's film looks at a plot-driven approach. A man calls his girlfriend to rescue him (with money) in twenty minutes. The rescue effort, indeed the whole plot, is repeated three times, each time changing the time frame, once forward, the next time retarding the time by a few moments. Tykwer is less interested in the fate of the character than he is in the notion of how time influences events. Jn the Mood for Love follows the course of a love affair from 1962-68 in Hong Kong Although we focus on the man and the woman, the scenes themselves imply rather than mark the progress of a relationship that eventually will end. Consequently we never quite know where we are in the relationship. Nor is there plot here to energize the narrative. ‘We never get to know either character, we are left with the surfaces. It's as if Wong Kar- ‘Wai is implying the deep aloneness of each of these characters Whether plot-driven as in Run Lola Run or character-driven as In the Mood for Love, the experimental narrative can use tone freely to help illustrate the voice of the writer. The story form also lends itself to an MTV approach that energizes individual scenes and heightens mood. The last metagenre that is useful for non-linear storytelling is the melodrama. Although essentially a realistic story form, melodrama is malleable to issues of the day and to a14 particular kind of struggle — the powerless person looking to claim power from the power structure. Whether this applies to a minority character, a woman in a man’s world, a child in an adult world, the notion of an outsider trying to get in captures the core struggle of the melodrama Exotica, Magnolia, Happiness, The Ice Storm, each is primarily a melodrama, although Happiness begins to edge toward satire. Unlike docudrama and the fable, plot plays less of a role in the melodrama. The emphasis is on character and an interior struggle. For the writer this poses a challenge to the non-linear structure, Melodrama is a story form that relies on identification, Consequently to enhance voice the writer must subvert identification if the non-linear approach is to work, The multiple characters is a help here. But itis in the area of voice that the greatest impact can be yielded. The stronger the voice, the less the audience will seek out or need identification with the character. Consequently in a film like Magnolia, Anderson will push us away from his characters and also strengthen his voice (our attitude toward the Tom Cruise character is a case in point). Ang Lee on the other hand takes us closer to his characters. He loves them and we begin to as well. Consequently his voice is more subtle. To enable us to reach a balance he will allow the character to move out of emotional realism and into caricature and then back to emotional realism. His approach to the Kevin Kline and Sigoumey Weaver characters is a case in point. He never does this with the children or the Joan Allen character. ‘These are different directorial approaches but essentially melodrama can be very flexible to a linear or non-linear approach. What is critical here is to use the approach to character and the approach to voice as offsetting tools. By doing so the non-linear approach can be preserved, even in the melodrama, a story form that so easily serves the linear approach. Issues for the Non-Linear Screenplay 1 Character The issue of writing a story where the character may or may not have a goal immediately raises the issue of energy. In the linear film, the goal of the15 main character clashes with the goal of the antagonist. The plot additionally provides opposition to the goal of the main character. Conflict, and implicitly energy, abound, which in tum engages the viewer. If the goal of the main character or multiple characters in the non-linear narrative is absent, where does the needed energy come from? Or to put it another way, audiences want to be involved with a story, Energy is attractive as well as involving, That energy has to be present in a narrative, all stories, linear or non-linear. Goals simply make the creation of that involving energy easier. Take away the goals and the job of creating the needed energy becomes harder but nevertheless critical. So where and how does the non-linear storyteller create energy? In order to address this issue it’s best to focus on the scene rather than the narrative as a whole. First, the writer should be aware that energy can be created by positioning a character in a conflictual scene. The opening scene in Happiness has a young couple, clearly romantic in intention, perhaps a proposal is in the offing. Instead, one character breaks off the relationship with the other, He could ook at this scene in another way by saying that the two characters in the scene have opposing intentions — one of them wants to cement the relationship, the other wants to end it, Similarly if we look at scene in Magnolia, the Tom Cruise character, a salesperson-guru for hypermasculinity, is being interviewed by a black female joumalist. He begins the scene changing his clothing (provocative), a sexual tease. Shortly after the interview begins, she accuses him of making up (and distorting) his past. She is calling him a liar, He is looking for yet another seduction and she is looking for an exposé, a good story. A second strategy to create energy is to use dialogue in an unexpected way. Here Pulp Fiction provides a good example. Two hitmen are going to kill someone for non-payment for drugs. What they talk about is eating, foot massages, habits of the French. What they don’t talk about is the job. Their gossip is a surprise and acts as a counterpoint to their intentions and consequently it creates tension and energy. Anderson uses dialogue precisely in the same way16 in Magnolia, The words, the pace of delivery, both will add to the emotionality and consequently the energy level of the scene. ‘The Suitability of Plot ‘As mentioned earlier, plot may or may not be used in the non-linear story. When it is used, itis often background, as it is in the first and last stories in Pulp Fiction. In the fable and in the docudrama, however, plot is indispensable and vital, Plot can generate the energy that is not present in the characters. And plot is found in greater amounts in these two story forms. If a fable is the form being used (as in Tykwer’s A Princess and the Warrior, 2001) there may be different plots affiliated with particular characters. In Kusterica’s Underground (1995) the entire post-war history of Yugoslavia provides the plot. Retuming to the Tykwer film ~ a truck accident brings two characters together, one as victim, the other as rescuer. Later a bank robbery plot reverses the roles ~ the character who was the victim in the first plot becomes a rescuer and the character who was the rescuer becomes the victim, Each plot serves a different purpose. In and of themselves the plots seem almost arbitrary but Tykwer brings them to bear on each of the characters. What to realize about plot is that it is deployed very differently in the non- Jinear film than it is in the linear film. The Importance of Voice What has been implied so far is that the non-linear story has strengths (inviting more audience participation) and weaknesses (posing barriers to involvement), The key issue that can strengthen the experience of the non-linear story is the active presence of the voice of the writer. Voice not only supplants character as the key to the story experience, it also provides the writer the kind of flexibility that can liberate the writer. Again the opposite illustrates the possibilities. In the linear narrative the writer must conform to first the issue of identification with the main character and7 second a structural approach that keeps us with the character Having kept us with the character, the opportunity to share the views of the writer become muted, indirect, contained. What is so critical about the non-linear story is that its subversion of structure and character enables voice to be pronounced, clear and important. As mentioned earlier the intention of Terence Malick in The Thin Red Line is to create a meditation on the value of life and the meaning of death and consequently scenes are constructed not on the progression of the battle, rather to emphasize the life and death views of Malick. In Jill and Karen Sprecher's 13 Conversations about One Thing, the random stories of a half-dozen New Yorkers link modestly but thematically. Each story is a tale of dissatisfaction and urban angst. Voice unifies and makes urgent the four stories that are told, In the non- linear story voice is central. Writers do use story forms that enable voice but are not restricted to those story forms, The Sprecher film is a melodrama as is Wong Kar-Wai's In_the Mood for Love. Kusterica’s Underground is a fable, as is ‘Tykwer’s The Princess and the Warrior. The fable is far more malleable to voice than is the melodrama, 4, The Importance of the MTV Style The MTY style focuses upon the scene and treats it as if it were a distinct separate film. The emphasis is also on feeling rather than exposition. Again the benefit is intensity. Given the looseness of the non-linear film and its shift away volvement in the from character, the MTY style can generate the kind of intens: linear thriller, for example, The consequence of using the MTV approach is isible in vastly different films — Stone’s Natural Born Killers, Benigni’s Life is Beautiful and Solodnz's Happiness. In each case this attitude toward the scene can help the writer overcome the less involving narrative strategies of the non- linear narrative.” *For a more dotailed look at the MTV Style see K. Danoyger, The Technique on Film and Video Editing. 3" Edition, Focal Press., 200218 Contentious Areas in the Non-Linear Story Because the non-linear story so often has altemative narrative goals, there are issues that writers don’t often need to address, If the writer is conscious of these problems they can work to counter them, The most obvious problem of the non-linear story is that it is less involving than the linear story. Writers of non-linear video games provide choice for the player in order to encourage that involvement. Others go overboard on plot. Still others populate their stories with outrageous characters. All are taken up with the need to involve viewers in a story form that by its nature does not actively invite involvement, Whatever the strategy, it is critical for the writer to concem himself with the problem of involvement. The attendant problem is boredom, Here writers look to plot, exaggeration and over the top dialogue to avoid boredom. Certainly it worked in Pulp Fiction , but those who have tried to imitate Pulp Fiction have not been as fortunate. The novelty of being first benefited Tarantino’s film but has not helped his imitators. The deeper solution to boredom is to involve us either with your voice or to be different from the prevailing stories and approaches to a story. This is the reason Alan Ball was successful with American Beauty. It was different. Writers, especially writers of non-linear stories, need the edge of novelty. Finally writers have to acknowledge that the MT'V impulse and the non-linear story have yielded an emphasis on sensation (short term) over feeling (the story as awhole). Deeply felt narratives have come to be regarded as old-fashioned (read linear) whereas non-linear stories are rife with sensation via plot, dialogue or19 tonal change. The issue for the non-linear writer is to try to overcome these problems endemic to the non-linear story — to find creative solutions that generate energy and creative difference to highlight the voice of the writer and to make unique the experience of the audience.