Jun 9, 2024
Concept Overview:
The gap in progression is a narrative technique where the protagonist’s actions lead to unforeseen antagonistic forces, creating a gap between their expectations and reality. This forces the protagonist to adapt and take more significant risks, leading to further complications and conflicts.
Stages of the Gap:
- Initial Action and Antagonism: The protagonist’s first action triggers antagonistic forces, creating an initial gap between what they anticipated and what occurs.
- Adaptation and Increased Risk: The protagonist takes a second, riskier action based on revised expectations. This action provokes more antagonism, widening the gap further.
- Progressive Actions and Risks: The protagonist continues adapting, taking progressively riskier actions. Each action leads to greater conflict and higher stakes.
- Ultimate Confrontation: The narrative culminates in a final, climactic action where the protagonist faces the highest risk and the most significant challenge.
True Action vs. Mere Activity:
True action involves significant physical, vocal, or mental movements that open gaps and create change, unlike mere activity, which results in little to no change.
Moment-to-Moment Reality:
The gap between expectation and result highlights the difference between dramatic and prosaic reality, creating powerful, life-altering moments that reveal deep truths.
Internal and External Work:
The narrative must reflect the protagonist’s internal journey and how it drives external actions and risks, ensuring the story resonates on both emotional and practical levels.
Writing from the Inside Out
Emotional Truth:
Creating revealing human reactions requires writers to get inside their characters, feeling their emotions and experiences. This prevents emotional clichés and ensures authenticity.
Character Immersion:
Writers must imagine themselves in the characters’ circumstances, asking, “If I were this character, what would I do?” This approach helps evoke honest, character-specific emotions that resonate with the audience.
Creating Within the Gap:
To progress a scene, writers must move out of the character’s subjective point of view and objectively examine the action, asking, “What is the opposite of that?” This approach uncovers hidden, unexpected truths and creates dynamic scenes.
Fine Writing Emphasizes Reactions:
Effective storytelling focuses on the reactions to actions rather than the actions themselves. This approach builds suspense and deepens character development, as seen in the example from “Chinatown.”
Substance and Energy of Story:
The energy of a story lies in the gaps between expectation and result. The audience empathizes with the character’s journey through these gaps, experiencing the emotional highs and lows.
Empathy and Engagement:
As the character pours more energy into overcoming challenges, the audience, in empathy with the character, feels the same surges of energy, enhancing the emotional impact of the story.