Video: “The Midpoint”

Another in the excellent screenwriting series Raising the Stakes.

Jonathan W. Stokes is a screenwriter with a unique credit to his name: Five of his original screenplays have been named to the annual Black List. That alone should get your attention, but there’s also this: Over the last few years, he has produced an excellent video series called Raising the Stakes.

Recently, Jonathan released Season 3, Episode 4. In it, he explores the Midpoint of a screenplay. Movies he analyzes:

Here’s the thing: The reason I keep promoting Jonathon’s videos (here, here, here, here, here) is not only because they’re really well done, it’s also because I fundamentally agree with his take on story structure.

For instance in the video, Jonathan says of the midpoint in the movie The Karate Kid:

In The Karate Kid, Daniel spends the first half of the movie getting beaten up and running away. Finally at midpoint, he’s beaten so severely that he cannot continue to live this way… Now Daniel moves from reactive to proactive. He has a goal the All Valley Karate Championship. If they don’t show up, it’ll be open season on both Danielson and Miyagi, so Daniel has no choice. He must begin his training with Miyagi and embrace the change he’s been resisting.

I’ve been using the the same language for decades. Here is an excerpt from P. 288 of my book The Protagonist’s Journey:

One metaphor I use to dramatize the significance of the story’s midpoint is to imagine two planets: One called Disunity, the other Unity.

For the first half of the story, the Protagonist feels the “gravitational pull” of Disunity. As they move through Deconstruction, that pull becomes less and less as they distance themselves on their journey from their point of origin. After the Midpoint, the Protagonist transitions into the Unity planet’s sphere of influence and it’s that gravity (Reconstruction) which pulls the character forward to their eventual Final Struggle and the resolution of their journey.

In the video, Jonathan makes an important point. There is the Midpoint event which in effect “draws a line in the sand,” followed by the next beat — the choice the Protagonist must make: go forward or go back.

You really should check out all of Jonathan’s Raising the Stakes videos, at this point, eighteen of them. They offer an excellent foundation in grasping the essence of screenplay structure.

For more background on Jonathan W. Stokes, you can go here.

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By the way, I recently interviewed Jonathan. Look for that chat later on this summer.