By Larry Brooks

The film Arrival, starring Amy Adams as an off-the-charts brilliant but melancholy linguist with military intelligence chops, was released to theaters this weekend to stellar reviews and decent a box office.

Why, as novelists, should we care?

To state the obvious, we are storytellers. Which means we have a soft spot for good stories, period. That and the fact that critics actually liked it better than audiences is telling (93 to 82 percent on Rotten Tomatoes)… this is one smart story with strings that don’t necessarily all tie up nicely at the end.

It is my contention (one of many) that as authors working deeply in genre-driven storytelling (as opposed to, say, Goldfinch or something by Jonathan Franzen, both of which/whom are scary wonderful, but not exactly ideal models for what we’re up to), we can learn a lot about storytelling from quality films in our chosen genre.

Especially when it bends the laws of story physics and lives to play another day.

The Arrival is a virtual buffet of learning in this regard.

The film is technically science fiction (very cool hovering alien spaceships occupied by creatures that look like a cross between an octopus and a circus elephant), but so much more. Before we dig in here, check out the trailer, which certainly doesn’t model the precise linear structure of the film, while absolutely selling it as a conceptual proposition.

Great stories often show up that way in trailers. Sell the concept, close the deal with the premise.

While risking bumping up against a spoiler here, let me say that the ending is a polarizing proposition.

You’ll either love it, or be confused to an extent you can’t quite recommend it. A writer’s ending, rather than from the desk of some Hollywood suit. It’s truly trippy, to say the least, and while in retrospect is cleverly and abundantly foreshadowed (within the trailer, as well), I dare say you won’t see it coming. And when it lands in your lap it’ll stir what may perhaps be a deeply buried agenda as a writer—to speculate on the true nature of things in our world. Indeed, in our universe.

While there is indeed a bona fide genre out there called speculative fiction, closer thought reveals that almost all fiction is speculative in nature, which sort of blurs the lines on the playing field of whatever genre we are working within.

This being one of the things this film models for us.

Two other key aspects of craft are modeled in the film, as well.

First: the power of a killer concept.

This film is nothing if not off-the-charts conceptual (a visual feast, at that), while remaining one of the more character-driven and achingly emotional films you’ll ever see in this or any other genre.

So I guess just mashed two facets of craft together (precisely what the film itself does)… encouraging us to think big where concept is concerned… while showing us how deeply characterized a high concept story can and should be.

The other—you knew I’d land on this one—is story structure.

The trailer is nearly all about the concept, while foreshadowing the rest of the premise as an afterthought (because, as you know, it’s not a story until something goes wrong… or as Jim Bell quoted to us not long ago, until someone shows up with a gun).

But unlike some trailers (all of which, by the way, almost without exception, show The First Plot Point of the story somewhere within; trailers become one of the fastest tools writers can use to cement their understanding of this essential story milestone), the moment when something goes wrong doesn’t show until the 2:02 mark.

Literally, that’s when someone with a gun shows up.

In this story, though, it happens at the midpoint of the movie, not the First Plot Point. And yet, it colors within the lines of both in terms of the principles that define them.

This is liberating while perhaps slightly fogging for writers who have learned the FPP as the moment when something goes wrong, thus launching the hero down the core dramatic tunnel of the story (everything prior to that moment being a setup for it).

In Arrival, fully half the movie is a setup for what turns out to be the Key Inciting Incident… which again is, quite literally in a normal sense, when something goes wrong. At the midpoint, in this story. Watch the trailer again, and note how everything changes at the 2:02 mark. The setup, as conceptual and compelling as it is, suddenly becomes dramatic, because everyone is now in danger. Before that, they were only worried about being in danger.

The core dramatic story (when bad guys come into play) starts right there… when the guns show up.

Just to be clear, the film does deliver a true and accurately placed First Plot Point (also in the trailer, at the 1:02 mark) following the first-quartile setup narrative. This is when Amy and her crew actually venture into the spaceship for the first time.

Everything is different from that point on—the narrative shifts into a new, more dramatic context—which is the purest mission of that particular story milestone (the FPP).

Except, in this case, the FPP simply escalates the tension without introducing the core dramatic element of the story (which is usually an expectation of the FPP… just not in this film). That contextual shift (danger danger danger) happens at the midpoint, when (spoiler warning, that is in the trailer, very clearly so, in fact) the military steps in and tries to hijack Amy’s higher purpose and turn the whole thing into an existential global emergency.

Here’s the great news for structure cynics and advocates alike:

The whole storytelling enchilada remains a flexible, author-driven proposition.

Yes, you still should seek to change and escalate your story with a First Plot Point that lands somewhere before yet near the first qaurtile turn (page count or running time, same standard for both)…

… but you don’t necessary need to clarify the presence of an antagonist (hint at it, at least, yes, absolutely). You can continue to escalate tension and foreshadowing until the midpoint, relying (as this film does) on the power of your evolving concept.

Then bring out the guns.

The midpoint, used this way, would be absolutely the last exit ramp for the story to take that requisite turn into more focused dramatic lane, via the introduction of the core dramatic arc (antagonist/conflict-driven; in this story, there is virtually no conflict in play at all for our hero until the midpoint, other than a paranoid military handler and, of course, those twelve massive scone-like spaceships literally hanging around).

My hope is that this alone—trailer and explanation—helps expand your grasp of story structure at the level of principle. Seeing it in play is always the best way to wrap you head around it…

… so here you go. Head to multiplex with notepad and timer in hand. Because The Arrival is a story clinic that just might blow your writerly mind as it expands it.

*****

Click HERE for information about my soon-to-be released “hardcore training for serious authors.” Freebie and discounts, too.