Bravo, Del Toro

The Arresting Emotional Formation of “The Shape of Water”

A guest post from Tom Benedek, screenwriter (Cocoon) and teacher.

Love story, fairy tale, social commentary, love letter to old Hollywood movies, The Shape of Water bursts with atmosphere, style, emotion. It shares elements with other films in its niche — E.T., Beauty and the Beast, Creature from the Black Lagoon, even Free Willy, but it is also unlike anything else.

Stylish, relevant, graceful, throwing off character subplots and movie references, it still maintains laser focus on the struggle of its protagonist, Eliza, as she bonds, then falls in love with an amorphous sea creature, Amphibian Man.

The structure is simple, clear.

Eliza takes on the Amphibian Man’s brutal captor. She rescues Amphibian Man, sets him free and joins him on his journey.

The subplots, delineating the life struggles of other key characters, are compelling, detailed.

Giles and Zelda — Her two close friends

Hoffstetler — A scientist

Strickland — Amphibian Man’s captor-nemesis

Each of these characters is involved in a personal struggle which is succinctly and movingly dramatized in key scenes.

The resolutions of the subplots dove-tail as pivots for the main conflict.

Each one feeds into Eliza’s single-minded love agenda.

The destinies of these other characters ultimately shape Eliza’s trajectory in the resolution.

Each situation the characters face in The Shape of Water reinforces the main conflict.

The pivots of these subplots are components of the resolution of the love story between Eliza and Amphibian Man.

Strickland’s desperation to recapture Amphibian Man is driven by the career threat placed on him by the General.

Zelda refuses to obey her husband, places Eliza’s crisis above her marriage.

Giles is rejected in work and in love. These losses lead him to realize how important Eliza is in his life.

Hoffstetler chooses the well-being of Amphibian man — the path of the true scientist over allegiance to his homeland, his work as a spy.

Eliza’s experience of love and fulfillment with the Amphibian Man catalyzes her choice to go to the sea with him.

The Shape of Water evokes the social and political life of 1950s America. The Cold War, marginalization of all kinds: racism, homophobia, ableism, the exercise of white male privilege. In the workplace, the antagonist sexually harasses the protagonist as he plots to destroy the love of her life.

These subplots were mined by the writers for story movement. They are planted, nourished with story and character detail, given space to root and thrive in the plot and in the story’s thematic consciousness. They are crucial to the main conflict — the love story between Eliza and the Amphibian Man.

Meanwhile, the lives of Giles, Zelda, Hoffstetler and Strickland are profoundly impacted by Eliza’s situation and actions.

I encourage you to make these kinds of connections between your secondary characters and the main conflict. Explore the possibilities. You will be rewarded.

Takeaways

Dig in to all your characters. Who have you placed on the page surrounding your protagonist?

What’s their story? Pull on a thread in their current life and spin the story.

Explore ways for them to influence the main conflict, trigger an unexpected pivot in the plot.

Substantiate their internal character stories and offer them an opportunity to change, grow, accomplish something.

Mine the location, time period of your story for things particular to that place and time that influence the lives of all your characters

Upcoming online workshops with Tom Benedek at Screenwritingmasterclass.com:

Pages I: Writing The First Draft starts March 12.

Pages I workshop will provide you with a clear and straightforward method to get you from FADE IN to FADE OUT.

You will strengthen your writing practice with a character-driven structural approach which you can utilize with future projects in any genre or story-telling medium.

If you’ve already completed a first draft, take it to the next level and get it submission-ready in my ten-week rewrite workshop Pages II: Rewriting Your Script, starting March 26.

Also, please consider joining me in my upcoming one-week Craft Class where we’ll focus on perfecting The First 15 pages which begins on March 26.