A powerful plot
The difference between rational argument and narrative is like the difference between IPCC reports and the story of Greta Thunberg. For all their importance, IPCC reports lack the compelling power of narratives. Narratives ‘translate’ the issues into dramatic ‘story events’, which the story’s characters influence and respond to. These story events occur in settings, and are built around a plot.
Conventionally, a plot features a ‘beginning, middle, and end’.
It can also be understood as comprising:
- an orientation (time, setting, characters, and their situation),
- a complication (an obstacle that needs to be overcome),
- an evaluation (why this matters, or ‘the moral of the story’), often expressed in a critical event which is the real point of the narrative; and
- a resolution (outcome). Note: many climate stories place us in the middle of the narrative, with the resolution dependant on the action that we take now.
(For how this structure can be applied, see the example of the Pacific Warriors below and the school strike movement.
McKee on story events: ‘every scene must turn’
For screenwriting educator Robert McKee, (1999/ 2010) plot is comprised of ‘story events’:
A story event creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value [e.g. alive/dead; love/hate; freedom/slavery] and achieved through conflict… producing emotion in characters and audience alike. Event choices… must be composed, and ‘to compose’ in story means much the same thing it does in music. What to include? To exclude? To put before and after what?…
If the value-charged condition of the character’s life stays unchanged from one end of a scene to another, nothing meaningful happens. The scene has activity: talking about this, doing that, but nothing changes in value… If a scene is not a true event, cut it. If the scene is only there for exposition, it needs more justification. Every scene must turn (pp. 33-36, emphasis added).
McKee adds:
Your goal must be a good story well told… The craft [of story composition] is neither mechanics nor gimmicks. It is the concert of techniques by which we create a conspiracy of interest between ourselves and the audience. [It] is the sum total of all means used to draw the audience into deep involvement, to hold that involvement, and ultimately to reward it with a moving and meaningful experience (pp. 21-22).
For any narrative developed by the climate movement, this suggests that it is important to consider how the plot transforms occurrences, such as bushfires, storms or campaign initiatives, into a sequence of meaningful story events that belong to a larger whole, spanning orientation, complication and resolution, and conveying a strong evaluation.
A powerful story features an unfolding sequence of dramatic scenes and characters who experience significant conflicts and challenges, thus striking emotional chords in audiences, and gaining and maintaining their interest.
Issues for climate movement narratives
These points raise a number of questions.
If an event (e.g. a bushfire, the actions of a company or politician, a protest) is understood as a scene within a narrative,
- what is the broader ‘plot’, starting with what ‘orientation’, affected by what ‘complication’, and moving towards what resolution?
- what ‘moral of the story’ shapes the story’s outcome?
- what critical event or defining moment brings this ‘moral’ into focus?
- what is the role of antagonists and protagonists in the story?
- how can powerful tensions between protagonists and antagonists be portrayed without falling into ‘thin and predictable’ melodrama?
- what is added when a story is ‘enacted’ as political theatre– combining stories and images into a ‘story that we can see’?
- what series of scenes is the story based around, and what happens in the lives of the characters to make each scene ‘turn’?
Without the story elements described by people like McKee, people may not be ’on the edge of their seats’, waiting to find out what happens next. Expectations that have been developed in a story’s ‘orientation’ may lose momentum if scenes fail to ‘turn’. If key story elements are missing or weak, a message may not prompt people to get up out of their seats to play their own part in the story.
The difference here is between naming the coal industry, for example, as ‘villainous’, and an unfolding series of events that audiences experience as a compelling story, which shows the industry to be playing the role of villain; and which uses plot, character and story events to intensify this impression.
One way to assess the power of a climate change narrative might be to ask: how compelling would it be as a feature film?
One way to assess the power of a climate change narrative might be to ask: how compelling would it would be as a feature film?
From narrative to theatre
- If campaign actions are seen as ‘scenes’ within a political drama, what makes the drama compelling?
- How do different elements of political theatre make for a richer and more powerful drama?
For a case study, see the comparison of ‘Selma’ and ‘Newcastle’.
Example of story structure: the Pacific Climate Warriors in Newcastle
The work of the Pacific Climate Warriors illustrates a rich story, enacted as political theatre.
| Plot elements | Key themes and ‘story events’ | Notes |
| Orientation | Pacific Islands face the threat of climate change | This is one version of an orientation, depending on how the story is told. |
| In Australia, the Abbott government strongly supports coal mining. Its regressive stance on climate change stands out internationally | ||
| Complication | Internationally and within Australia, existing processes and policies prove unequal to the challenge of addressing climate change | In the period of disillusionment following the Copenhagen climate summit at the end of 2009, the climate assesses new directions. |
| Resolution 1 | 350 Pacific launches the Pacific Climate Warriors as a new network of campaigners. | See Pacific Climate Warriors Journey and Koreti Tiumalu on the origins of this initiative in 2012. |
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The Pacific Climate Warriors gain support from local communities and build their network Pacific Islanders develop the idea of challenging coal exports at their source through a blockade of Newcastle harbour. |
Canoe-building workshops with traditional leaders. Training and preparation events (Talamuna, 2014; 350, 2014). Launch of Ta Reo Vanuatu by senior political figures in Vanuatu (Island Reach, 2014; Willie, 2014). |
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| The Pacific Climate Warriors arrive in Australia amid reports that oceans in the southern hemisphere were warming faster than expected, and that residents of Torres Strait may become Australia’s first climate refugees. |
Setting: Newcastle was selected given its status as the world’s largest coal port (Port of Newcastle, 2014) King tides occur in Majuro, Marshall Islands, immediately before the Pacific Warriors blockade in Newcastle. |
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| The Newcastle blockade |
Arrival in Australia Engagement with Pacific and Indigenous communities Preparation for the blockade The events of the blockade |
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| Resolution 2 | The ongoing work of the Pacific Climate Warriors | See The ‘cascade’ of events generated by the Pacific Warriors’ blockade |
| Resolution 3 | The unfinished task of addressing the issues introduced in the Orientation | In this sense the ‘resolution’ of the story remains incomplete and is left to the future. |
| Evaluation / the ‘moral of the story’ |
Arianne Kassman, Pacific Warrior from PNG: ‘Addressing climate change must be our moral choice’. Koreti Tiumalu described the Warriors’ work in terms of challenging ‘the moral license of the fossil fuel industry’ 350 Pacific: ‘If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage’. |
A campaign you could make a feature film of
It is easy to imagine the unfolding drama of the Pacific Warriors as a film.
The story will have different resonance for different audiences:
- For audiences within the Pacific and within the climate movement, or for people who attend public forums with the Warriors, the full drama of the Pacific Warriors is a story with recognisable characters and scenes that ‘turn’ powerfully.
- For broad Australian audiences, the Pacific Warriors’ narrative reaches the media, however so far on a broad scale, it is yet to develop characters whose experiences audiences follow as the story unfolds, comparable, for example, to Greta Thunberg, John Lewis or Behrouz Boochani.
Notes
1 For perspectives from the author of this framework, see this work by Labov.