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Some time in the late 90s I read a book that changed my life. Making Tootsie by Susan Dworkin.
Throughout the film Pollack and Hoffman had a disagreement on what they wanted to focus on.
Hoffman was interested in the hardship of the actor’s life and Pollack wanted to tell the story of, “A man who dresses up as a woman and becomes a better man.”
The moment I read those words a lightbulb went off.
I started out as an actor in theatre. I loved reading about The Group Theatre and their introduction of Stanislavsky to American students. It was from that school of thought that I had been taught the thematic spine of the piece.
Additionally, my self-education in screenwriting had taught me about a “character arc.”
But this was something different. This was something that encompassed both those things, but with a clarity and conciseness they lacked.
“A man who dresses up as a woman and becomes a better man.”
This was the essence of story.
A character has their normal life. They go through something. They transform.
This was a mission statement!
When I was younger, I was interested in military strategy. While The Art of War by Sun Tzu became popular, I was more interested in On War by Karl Von Clausewitz.
In it, Clausewitz writes about knowing what the ultimate goals of the conflict are. He observes that there is so much chaos in war, so much emotion, ego, horror and shiny things, that it is easy to forget what the actual political objectives.
This was also a theme of Perter Drucker’s writing on modern business management. Know what business you’re in.
The consistent thread here is: stay on mission.
Do not get distracted and do not divert resources to anything that does not contribute to the mission,
In our case, this is the story.