In workshops and consultations, one question comes up a lot: If my Midpoint is a False Defeat, should my All Is Lost be a victory? The straightforward simple answer is NO. Regardless of what your Midpoint is, the All Is Lost should always be the lowest point of your hero’s journey, physically and emotionally.
There is no victory for your hero at the All Is Lost moment. This is when your hero is farthest away from his or her goal – when any light at the end of that proverbial tunnel has been extinguished. It’s your hero’s darkest moment. That’s why the Dark Night of the Soul beat happens right after. Not a Bright Day of the Soul beat.
So, if you do have a False Defeat at Midpoint you must find ways to make your hero go even lower as you approach the All Is Lost beat. That’s why it’s called Bad Guys Close In – not Good Guys Close In. You have to make it even harder for your hero to move forward. How? It’s easy, as Blake would say. While it becomes harder for your hero to get to his or her external goal past the Midpoint, you must make sure that your emotional story is adding to your hero’s difficulties and struggles.
Remember, all good stories are about change. Transformation. Your story must force your hero to change or learn a lesson at least (more on that on another day). Your hero’s refusal to change, to reject the Theme, is how it becomes harder for your hero to get through the Bad Guys Close In beat.
How does your hero realize that “they” were not the problem, rather “I” was the problem. “I” was the biggest doofus of them all. “I” am in this crap hole because “I” didn’t want to listen to others… because “I” didn’t care what others thought… because “I” didn’t want to admit “I” made a mistake.
In Bridesmaids, which is as funny as it is wonderfully structured, Annie (Kristen Wiig) experiences a False Defeat at Midpoint when Lillian (Maya Rudolph), her best friend, tells her that she’s no longer going to be her Maid of Honor. Instead, she’s handing the job over to Helen (Rose Byrne) – Annie’s nemesis – the b***h that’s been stealing Lillian from her and acting like Lillian’s best friend.
So did Annie have a victory at All Is Lost? No! She found a way to go even lower. Annie crashed Lillian’s Parisian-themed bridal shower that Helen was hosting (and stole from Annie) and was giving away cute adorable puppies. Puppies!!! Annie and Lillian have a big fight and Lillian tells Annie, not only is she no longer part of her wedding, but she wants her out of her life as well. OUCH!!! Annie went from losing her spot in the bridal entourage to losing her best friend. That is no victory at all for Annie. It simply is a true All Is Lost. All because Annie was so stuck in her past failures and couldn’t move forward, which was exactly what her best friend’s wedding represented – moving forward with one’s life.
So if you find yourself with a False Defeat at Midpoint, that’s great. But it doesn’t mean you should have a victory at the All Is Lost. It means exactly what it sounds like. Your hero must be at his or her lowest moment in the story. Only a real All Is Lost beat allows your hero to move forward into the third act and become the hero he or she was meant to be.
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I teach screenwriting at UCLA, and, while that doesn’t make me right, I do beg to differ with Jose. I analyze Bridesmaids in detail, and I think Annie enjoys a clear “false victory” near mid-point: She has come up with what she thinks it the PERFECT bachelorette party idea: A girls weekend at a cabin in the woods — Maya’s favorite childhood place. Annie is absolutely giddy, as she happily emails the other bridesmaids. She is finally on top of things! It is a false victory, as Rose quickly steers the pack to Las Vegas. This begins Annie’s sharp decline…
I agree with Michael’s analysis in his comment above.
Additionally, to the general assertion regarding false Defeat, I think the AIL moment can easily be a false victory IF what the hero has been pursuing is, in fact wrong and, in the obtaining of it, the have actually lost all that is TRULY most important to them. The key here, in knowing when the MP false defeat and the AIL false victory pairing is appropriate is to ask yourself if your hero is pursuing the goal that he/she really should be pursuing.
Thanks, Sterling! And I agree with you. Sometimes that All Is Lost is actually a victory, but a sad, sad one!
I am not sure whether false victory or false defeat is accurate, if there is no clear winner or loser at the Mid-Point. What does seem clear is that the Hero has entered the Opponent’s world and the stakes just got ramped up and the Hero got challenged even more in his growth curve. If the Opponent gets a small victory at the Mid-Point, I don’t think that this means the Hero gets a false defeat at this point. Because as far as the Hero is concerned, his Drive for the Goal has become more focused to the point that it will become Obsessive Drive. This will result in more Narrative Drive. This will result in the Opponent then challenging the Hero even more. And so on. So there will be this point-counter-point between Hero and Opponent. As long as the Opponent is motivated to block whatever the Hero wants, and the Hero is obsessively driven to overcome whatever block is in his path, it will remain a process that is continuously leading to the Hero’s change/growth. Each “defeat,” whether it is false or true, leads to a new self-revelation on the learning curve. But the Hero has stepped into the Opponent’s world in this section of Act 2, so the Hero has to think on his feet and actively drive the narrative forward to get to his Goal by the end of Act 3. At the end of the story, the Hero may think he’s a winner, but as in The Godfather, the audience has the Self-Revelation because the Hero is now hiring people to murder while he is in church at a baptism, ordering the murder of the baby’s father. As the new Godfather, is he a winner or a loser? He thinks he’s a winner, but he has sold his soul. His wife, in that final scene, thinks he’s a loser and knows that she is a loser, if she wants to stay with him and play by his rules.
Midpoint being a false victory or a false defeat doesn’t require it be a huge “clear victory”, which I think you’re suggesting. If it’s a false victory, it’s usually a celebration (so often you see a party of some kind at mid-point), but a premature celebration, as something happens to ruin it. (Tony Stark is about to kiss a ravishing Gwenneth, when that hot blonde reporter shows up with terrible video proof that Tony’s company is selling to terrorists… what bad timing! And false defeats happen, too! But often are quickly followed by great luck! I felt that in Legally Blonde, when Elle is humiliated at that party in which she shows up in a Playboy Bunny outfit. But, when she’s out in the park licking her wounds, so to speak, she meets Luke Wilson, and he thinks she looks great!
The example that comes to mind right away is Star Trek (2009). Kirk gets kicked off the ship as a result of the Midpoint, and spends BGCI on the planet, watching Vulcan get blown up, meeting Spock Prime and Scotty, and trying to get back to the Enterprise. AIL and DNOTS are clear victories for Kirk, as he successfully challenges Spock for control of the ship and changes their course to attack Nero. Spock, not Kirk, has the emotional low point of the DNOTS, but there’s no doubt that things are set up exactly the way they should be for Act 3.