Everything I Ever Needed to Know about Writing,

I learned from The Mummy.

In the weeks following the national convention, I found myself seated on my sofa, barely recovered from my post-conference, knowledge ‘hangover,’ watching rented movies I’d seen several times before. I was about halfway through a bowl of popcorn and just starting to appreciate how good Brendan Frasier looks covered in a fine film of dust when it hit me. Everything -- well, nearly everything -- I’d learned at the conference was right there in the movie.

I don’t mean to imply that The Mummy is a classic, though it is certainly enjoyable. But watching The Mummy allowed me to piece together some of the concepts I’d either recently learned or recently heard reiterated.

Newly enlightened, I’d like to talk about foreshadowing and goal/motivation/conflict. More importantly, I want to talk about how both concepts work together.

Foreshadowing

First off, let’s talk about why our readers read our books. If you think it’s because their lives are filled with fun and excitement and they just want to escape into our stories for a moment of peace and quiet, you’re wrong. That’s why people listen to new age music. That’s not why people read our books.

People read books -- and go to movies -- because their lives are stressful and they want the catharsis of watching as characters they love experience danger and come out okay. The characters can be at physical risk, emotional risk, or simply at risk of not getting what they want .... but they must be at risk.

Furthermore, the audience wants to see the danger coming from a mile away and relish it as it approaches. The audience wants to wallow in impending danger. Foreshadowing allows that.

The Mummy uses foreshadowing to build suspense from the moment the movie starts. As the movie’s ‘prologue’ comes to an end, the voice over tells us that should Imhotep (the antagonist and the titular Mummy) ever be released from his sarcophagus “he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesh eater with the strength of ages, power over the sands and the glory of invincibility.”

Let’s face it, with a warning like that, there’s no one in the audience thinking, “Well, thank goodness that’s never going to happen!” Instead, we’re probably all thinking “Ooh, that sounds bad! That sounds dangerous! I wonder who he’s going to kill?”

Just in case there’s anyone in the audience who didn’t get the message right off, the movie is filled with characters who issue warnings like, “Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Hamonaptra [the fabled city of the dead]. No one’s ever found it. Most have never returned.” And just in case that’s not enough, there’s a band of creepy, tattooed fellows called the Magi, who skulk around dressed all in black, ambushing the heros at every turn and saying things like, “Leave this place or die.”

There’s even a curse that reads:

He [Imhotep] will kill all who open this chest and assimilate their organs and fluids and in so doing, he will regenerate and no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth.

The foreshadowing escalates throughout the movie, becoming more and more specific. By the time the mummy actually does rise and begin sucking the life force from his victims, the audience knows exactly what to expect. We know he’s going to be a plague upon mankind. We know he’ll be a ‘flesh eater’. We’re even pretty darn certain he’s going to start with the four guys who opened the chest and were foolish enough to walk off with his sacred canopic jars.

We’ve spent the first half of the movie anticipating the moment he wakes up and now we’ll spend the second half anticipating the nasty things we were told about. That’s what foreshadowing does. It allows the audience to anticipate.

Think back to your prom, to the first time you saw your favorite band in concert, to your last big vacation. Chances are, in each of those cases, the anticipation you felt in the days and weeks beforehand was just as much fun as the big event itself. The same is true for fiction. Anticipation really is half the fun. So let the audience have fun. Let them enjoy waiting for disaster.

Which leads me to my second point ...

Goal, Motivation, and Conflict

Let me begin by saying that if you don’t already feel like you have a working understanding of Goal, Motivation and Conflict, I highly recommend Debra Dixon’s definitive book on the subject.

But maybe you’re like me -- you’ve got a handle on the theory, but you’re not sure you really know how to subtly intertwine GMC into you story.

Well, that’s your problem right there. You don’t need to be subtle about GMC. You don’t need to be sparing either. The audience needs to know what’s at stake for your characters. They need to know what your characters want and why they want it. If you don’t let your audience know what’s at stake, the audience won’t get to enjoy anticipating everything that could go wrong.

In the Mummy, we know what Evelyn wants right from the beginning. She wants to be a Bembridge Scholar. Her application has been rejected again, because she doesn’t have enough experience in the field. So we also know that she wants field experience and adventure, because she thinks that will help her achieve her main goal. Of course, what she really wants is recognition. She wants to live up to the legacy of her parents who were both great Egyptologists.

Keep in mind, a character’s goal and motivation will change and evolve as the story progresses. When we first meet Rick O’Connell, his only goal is to stay alive. Once Evelyn saves his life, his goal changes. Because he’s an honorable man (which another character tells us right off -- “His word is his word.”), he wants to protect the woman who saved his life. As he grows to love Evelyn, his motivation changes, but his goal (to protect Evelyn) stays the same.

If you have a heroine who wants adventure and a hero who wants to protect her, you’ve got the start of an interesting story. You’ve the got the seed of conflict between them, but for an action/adventure movie you’re going to need more. That’s where the other characters come into play.

It’s not enough to have a good GMC for two characters in the story. You need GMC for all of them. That’s what gives you conflict. (Remember the C in GMC?) Characters who have opposing goals come into conflict with each other. And conflict is the key to interesting fiction.

If this still doesn’t seem like enough conflict for an action/adventure movie, well you’re right. That’s because I haven’t even gotten started on the villain. That’s right, your villain does need his/her own GMC. In fact, second only to protagonist’s, your antagonist’s GMC is one of the most important in the story.

Of course, in The Mummy, the antagonist is, you guessed it, the mummy, Imhotep. Because his GMC is as important as Evelyn’s, it’s stated just as clearly, maybe even more clearly. He wants to resurrect Anck-Su-Namun. Why? Because he loves her and wants to be with her. Everything he does in the story, all the flesh eating, all the sand storming, all the plaguing of mankind, he does not because he’s evil, but because he’s trying to achieve his goal. He’s trying to resurrect the woman he loves. Gosh, if he wasn’t releasing hoards of locust, you’d almost feel sorry for the guy.

All the things the mummy is willing to do to reach his goal create conflict for Evelyn and O’Connell. It’s important to note that as soon as Evelyn realizes that she’s the one who woke this “unholy flesh eater” her goal changes. Suddenly, her goal is to find a way to kill or incapacitate Imhotep, because there are things Evelyn isn’t willing to do to achieve her initial goal. She sets aside her goal of becoming a Bembridge scholar in favor of trying to save the world.

Her new goal (save the world) is in conflict with Imhotep’s goal (resurrect Anck-Su-Namun). Since Imhotep is going to use Evelyn as a human sacrifice to resurrect Anck-Su-Namun, he is also in conflict with O’Connell. And there you have it -- characters the audience cares about in conflict with each other. Instant story.

It’s crucial to remember that the audience needs to know what the characters’ goals are. Once the audience knows a character’s goal and motivation, they can usually see the conflict coming from a mile away. Which, of course, is your goal.

Never make the mistake of thinking that because you don’t write Suspense, you don’t need to have suspense in your romance. The Mummy is certainly a suspenseful movie. The sweeping music, dim lighting, and creepy fellows skulking around dressed in black all add to that suspense. But the true suspense in the movie comes from wondering how the characters are going to reach their goals. That’s equally true in a romance novel.

You also want to make sure that you deliver exactly what you foreshadowed. Foreshadowing is all about letting the audience know exactly what the worst case scenario is for the characters. At the climax of movie, we’re not worried about whether or not someone will accidently bring him back to life. We’re not worried about whether or not he’ll manage to regenerate. At that point, we’re worried that he’ll manage to sacrifice Evelyn and he’ll become all-powerful in the process.

If, in your romance novel, the heroine’s goal for ten years has been to hide the existence of her child from hero, then the worst case scenario is going to be that the hero find out about the child they created together. You need to state the heroine’s goal, you need to foreshadow the conflict (the worst case scenario), and you need to deliver the pay-off.

Don’t cheat the audience out of the thrill of seeing all their worst fears come to fruition. That’s what they enjoy. Your story is only as good as your character’s GMC and your protagonists are only as strong as the antagonist they overcome.

Remember, GMC and foreshadowing work hand in hand. You use your characters’ goals and motivations to foreshadow the conflict. Without foreshadowing you have no suspense. And suspense makes great fiction. 

Thebes -- city of the living vs. Hamunaptra -- city of the deadAnna -- three lines and we know her goal & motivation --

“ You must go! Save yourself!” “Only you can resurect me!” and “My body is no longer his temple!”“You shall live again! I will resurect you!”

For his love, Imhotep dared the God’s anger.The Hum Die -- the worst of all anciet curse. One so horrible it had never before been bestoyed.

He was to remain sealed inside his sarcophagus. The undead for all of enterinity. The Magi would never allow him to be released, for he would arise a walking disease, a plague upon mankind, an unholy flesheater with the strenght of ages, power over the sands and the glory of invincibility.

O’Connell -- in ten seconds we know everything we need to know about him. His commander runs away, his second in command runs away, he stays. five guns.

“ Give me frogs, flies, locust. Anything but you. Compared to you, the other plagues were a joy!”

“ My whole life, I’ve never found anything, Evie. Please tell me I’ve found something.”

“ Many men have wasted their lives in the foolish pursuit of Ham. No one’s ever found it. Most have never returned.”

“ In a word. Evil.”We see the Mai Jai approaching in the little boat, then we get a nice calm scene on the barge, then we see the foot prints.

“ See that girl over there? She saved my neck.”

“ Look for bugs. I hate bugs.” “What do you mean bugs? I hate bugs!”

“ We will shed no more blood today. But you must leave. Leave this place or die. You have one day.”

“ I may not be an explorer or an adventurer treasure seeker or a gun fighter, Mr. O’Connell. But I am proud of what I am... I am a librian.”

“ Death will come on swift wings to whosoever opens this chest.... There is one, the undead, who if brought back to life, is bound by sacred law to consumate this curse.... He will kill all who open this chest and assimlate their organs and fluids and in so doing, he will regenerate and no longer be the undead, but a plague upon this earth.”

“ They never used it because they feared it so. It’s writen that if a victim of the Hom-Dai should ever arise, he would bring with him the ten plagues of Egypt.’

“ Know this. This creature is the bringer of death. He will never eat. He will never sleep. He will stop.”

“ I’m the last of the royal airforce still stationed out here. All the other laddies died in the sky. ... I just wished I could have chucked it in with the others and gone down in the flame and glory.”