Story Type: Road Picture

In Hollywood movie circles, there are genres like Horror or Science Fiction, cross genres like Action-Thriller or Drama-Comedy, and sub-genres like Romantic Comedy or Mystery Thriller.

Then there are story types, a shorthand way to describe a specific narrative conceit that is almost always tied directly to the movie’s central concept. They can be found in any genre, cross genre, or sub-genre.

Knowledge about and awareness of these story types can be a boost not only to your understanding of film history and movie trends, but also as fodder for brainstorming new story concepts. Mix and match them. Invert them. Gender bend them. Genre bend them. Geo bend them.

Story types exist for a reason: Because they work. Hopefully this series will help you make them work for you.

Today: Road Picture

Road Pictures have their roots in ancient stories like The Odyssey, where the hero goes on a literal and physical journey during which they explore new places, meet new faces, and rise to met new challenges. This story type was popular in the early days of Hollywood, but really took off with the emergence of America’s love affair with the automobile. Examples include:

It Happened One Night (1934)
The Wizard of Oz 1939)
Easy Rider (1969)
Duel (1971)
Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987)
Midnight Run (1988)
Wild at Heart (1990)
Thelma and Louise (1991)
Sideways (2004)
Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

Why the allure of road pictures? Several reasons come to mind:

• The hero’s journey is an extension of and interplay with the emotional ‘journey’ (transformation) they are making in their Inner World, so an inherent synergy between plotline and themeline.
• Road pictures satisfy a viewer’s desire to travel, the psychological ‘pull of the road,’ the inner yearning to visit new places, the opportunity to present a ‘new’ face to strangers.
• Because of the travel, road pictures can be visually stimulating with different vistas and interesting characters along the way.
• One obvious plus that we might tend to overlook is road pictures generally have a compressed time frame (a day, two days, a week) which can sustain a heightened sense of pace.
• A journey by definition has a beginning and an end, generally a goal associated with that end-point, so this can create a natural ‘spine’ for the plotline.
• From a studio standpoint, the road element provides an easy marketing tool as contemporary moviegoers are quite familiar with the concept.

In some movies, like those referenced above, the road element is directly evident in the plot. There are other movies where it plays more of a background role such as Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991).

Road Pictures generally resolve in a positive way — the Protagonist achieves their goal and realizes their emotional transformation — either with the P going back home or calling a new place home. However, there are movies where the experiences of the road prove too much for the Protagonist such as Into the Wild (2007).

Have you ever written a road picture? Was it an easy story to write or difficult? And what are your favorite road pictures?

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For more articles in the Story Types series, go here.