The Before Picture

Awright, first things f*ckin' last…

I just saw a clip of Robert Englund, iconic in his role as Willie on the old TV show "V"…oh, and also as the
horror legend Freddy Krueger, talking about the Nightmare on Elm Street remake, and why it didn't work out. The remake of course, was the first Nightmare on Elm Street NOT featuring Robert Englund as Freddy.

Anyway, Englund was very effusive and positive about the cast of the remake, including Jackie Earle Haley who played Freddy.

The issue, he said, was that the story jumped right into a group of kids being haunted and hunted by Krueger, and plowing through the "he's killing us in our dreams!" exposition almost right away. They never showed the kids in their normal, pre-Freddy lives. The script wanted to jump right into "the good stuff".

I haven't seen that movie, but as a concept, it made a lot of sense. Before the extraordinary turn happens, showing the normal condition of the characters/world is essential.

First, we see the characters as their life is normally, before things are turned upside down in what my fellow fans of story structure out there would call "Act 2" (or maybe "the Inciting Incident").

This can be challenging for writers, especially if they hear the advice that it's a no-no to start a story with your character waking up, showering and brushing their teeth, or in prose, looking in a mirror to describe themselves to the readers. Something interesting has to happen…but now frikkin' Freddy Krueger is telling us that we need to see the normal life?

Well, yeah - Freddy's Dead…on. If things begin in the middle like that, what's supposed to happen when the Act 2 of this story hits us? This is how stories are either unrelatable, or feel like they're dragging.

The challenge is to make the "normal" condition of the character interesting/compelling before their world is turned upside down: The character has something that nags at them or haunts them, or a big problem or three to solve, or they're somehow "incomplete". This is where relatability and the audience rooting for a character comes into play.

Granted, the "normal life" of a character can sometimes be quite extraordinary or unusual - before Tony Stark becomes Iron Man, he's living a pretty wild life! Forrest Gump is a compelling character to meet, even before he takes off into Act 2…which is, maybe, I don't know…when he goes off to college and begins interacting with famous historical figures?

I think there are exceptions, but that they are, well, the exceptions! One possible exception that comes to mind is "Saw".

What do you think? Do we need to see a "before" picture for a story to work?

Have a Good One!

-Banes