Agatha Christie's Cast of Characters

 Agatha Christie had a very distinctive style of storytelling.  By viewing all of her stories, a notable set of characters emerges that Christie tends to use over and over again.  These are not identified by name, but instead tend to be of the same type.  By mixing and matching from among the stable, a new cast of characters is assembled for each story.  As an example, the Housekeeper is a prominent figure that appears often in Christie murder mysteries.  This "type" is usually an older woman who plays a prominent role in a early household, often developing a close relationship with some of the children.  This makes her a very versatile character who often sees events from a different perspective, but is a figure who isn't related to the principals.

The other novel innovation is that they character types can play different roles, depending on the needs of the story.   They can be heroic, supportive, corrupt, evil, each in turn as the story demands.  To return to our example,  The Housekeeper can be a totally supportive caretaker of the abandoned child, when the mother's career takes her away from the family.  Or, she could be an abusive tyrant who oppressed the lonely child while the mother was away.  Or she could be the real mother of the infant, who couldn't afford to raise it and so gave it to the wealthy family to adopt.  Three totally different characters when written, but sharing the same basic Type in the drama.

The same "Type" of character can take on different forms, while remaining essentially the same.  For example a character can be:

reversed and play against  type, so that the doctor in one story might be portrayed as being incompetent, instead of highly skilled. Or as neurotic instead of reassuring and stable.  

Doctors are usually highly moral and sympathetic, but can be reversed to be untrustworthy and out for their own personal glory at the expense of their patients.

Of course, any of these versions of character types can be the hero or the murderer. 

 Another Christie element is having two characters who are mirrors of each other.  The most obvious is the Rake and the Rival, but you will find that same parallel in other characters as well.  Often one of them is the murderer, or the victim.  For example, two brothers - one goes off to war and is the hero while the other is the village shepherd.  One character is the garage mechanic, while the other tragically hangs himself after being wrongly accused of a murder.

1.  The Doctor.  This man is a promising/ successful doctor but with a hint that something happened in his past that cast a shadow on his present situation.  Typically intelligent, sympathetic, good in a crisis, with a developed sense of professional ethics.  Can also appear as The Nurse.  

Doctors are repositories of village information about births, illnesses, deaths, parentage and various comings and going within their records.  Doctors are sometimes called upon to give cause of death. They can be sources of tension and secrets, first because they don't wish to get their diagnosis wrong, which they invariably do when older patients are murdered and they put it down to heart failure.  Second, their records often hold the truth about things like out of wedlock births, or lost pregnancies, or terminal illnesses which might give someone a motive for murder.

In a murder set in Christie's rural countryside, the population of her cherished remote village is universally divided into a rigid class structure.  Rude mechanicals, farmers, and vagrants are in the lowest class; these are country bumpkins and uneducated, superstitious folk.  Then we have shopkeepers and servants in the second class.  Finally, there is an upper class composed of the educated, the wealthy, and the well-bred.  One of the useful things about doctors is that a doctor is one of the characters that can be relied upon to be intelligent and well educated, not given to cults and rituals, and other nonsense.  Also found in this class are vicars, and lawyers, along with any landed gentry, wealthy industrialists, movie stars, and upper ranks of the military.  In a way, Christie needs this class to make her mysteries work.

One subset of the doctor character is the Harley Street Specialist.  When a character is mentioned in reference to being seen on Harley St. it is universally bad.  You see such doctors when looking for impossible cures for obscure diseases and maladies, and particularly when one is looking for a secret illness that is likely terminal.

2.  The Energetic Young Woman.  She has history that the story will explore, but enjoys current success, possibly financially or professionally.  She is often the initial instigator of the inciting action of the plot.  One of her main charms is that she is just so full of life, so full of action and motion.  She may be "less attractive", but she "has an intelligent face, and one can tell she's capable and energetic."  Her past may be catching up with her, however, in one way or another.  She can be an accomplished artist, or musician, or dancer, but she can also be a florist or another job that Christie views as suitable for an unmarried woman.

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  This is a character who is distinctly odd and unusual.  Their behaviors may be flighty and erratic or they may perceive the world in a non-standard way.  One might describe them as batty, or absent-minded.  Sometimes they are involved with the occult (seances, astral spirits, ghosts). Other versions are beset with alcoholism, or PTSD, or true mental illness. Many around them view them with amusement, or tolerance, or even irritation and sometimes they are dismissed and inconsequential by the murderer. 

 3.5  The Cloud-headed Girl.  This is often a female figure who is portrayed as slightly odd or eccentric and is universally acknowledged to have her head in the clouds.  She will often be described that way by other characters, being "queer" or "odd", or "living in her own world."  This peculiarity is sometimes the result of an incident in her childhood, or her odd parents, or her having been raised in isolation, but she sees the world in a different way and those around her view her as a kind of oddity.  She may legitimately suffer from mental illness, or may be the only person who truly sees reality for what it is.  

The Cloud-headed girl is a subset of the Eccentric, though the former is usually younger and presented as more serene and innocent, while the older version has more direct schemes and is more assertive.

4.  The Temptrix.  This woman is motivated by using her feminine wiles to take what she wants or to steal another woman's husband, their achievements, their fame, their family, their property.  Could be rival sisters, or schoolmates.   She is a master manipulator and is typically utterly devoid of any scruples. While amoral, she isn't always the main evil of the story, and is sometimes presented with sympathy in that she's just doing what she must to get by.

5.  The Young Specialist.  A botanist, a photographer, a young engineer.  Typically a young man who is technically gifted but socially awkward. Always an expert in his chosen field.  May love hopelessly from afar.  Used as a resource to supply any obscure poisons, technical gadgets, top secret plans that the plot may require.

6.  The Housekeeper.   Often devoted to the Lady of the house, or to the neglected children.  Fiercely loyal to someone, but from her position and perspective in the household can often see details that others miss.  Presented as a "salt of the earth" character, very practical and level-headed.  Can sometimes appear as The Cook, or the Butler, or The Gardener (see below).  Sometimes Russian or a Gypsy, or French;  and if so her spoken English is not fluent.

6.5.   The Maid.  With similar characteristics to the housekeeper, often realized as a subset.  Ever present in the house, she lurks behind curtains, appears at odd hours to turn down bedclothes, or freshen up the fire.  Can go anywhere without comment but sometimes gets scolded.  Typically an audience favorite.  A similar character to the Footman, the Assistant Gardener, the Stable Boy, depending on the needs of the story.

7.   The Industrialist.  Usually a wealthy older man who is the head of a business, or a engineering company developing fighter airplanes, or working on some breakthrough chemical formula, or involved in shipping and importing goods from Japan.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  Frequently, Christie writes her stories to involve court proceedings, or to do with the execution of Wills, or the researching of family trees and marriages.  Whenever this happens, she brings in this character to be a reference to the researchers.   Always very intelligent, very methodical and logical, often hindered by how much information they can divulge.

9.  The Efficient Professional.  This is usually a woman who is good in business, and is excellent in managing business affairs. Highly intelligent. Very smartly dressed but perhaps less warm or empathetic to those around her.  Excellent in conducting research, managing large databases.  A classic example is Miss Lemon. Devoted to and respected by her employer but who easily rebuffs the foolish attention of single men.  Where the Energetic Young Woman is full of creative flair and social grace, the Efficient Professional is full of practicality and attention to detail yet often content to work behind the scenes in the shadow of some larger personality.  While the EYW is effusive and often good with people, the EP is more introverted and reclusive.

10.  The Rake.  A young man who indulges one or more vices.  Often is very successful at it, but it may catch up with him eventually.  He may be a womanizer, or a gambler, or an addict but always with extreme flair and charisma.  Usually he is brilliant in other ways, or is unreasonably charming, which hides or excuses his flaws to others.  This may be a ne'er-do-well pilot, or a race car driver, or a wealthy man about town.

11. The Rival.  A young man who is in competition with the main male character.  Often not quite as successful, never did quite as well in school or on the sports field.  This sometimes makes him bitter about life. He may have a failing that he doesn't manage well, such as drugs, gambling, alcoholism, that holds him back.

12.  The Daughter.  a young girl of between 7 and 12 years old.  May age into another character after the Time Gap.  Usually the object of affection by another character (a mother or father, Nanny or Housekeeper).  May be unusually precocious and/or may die tragically and be felt as a memory or a photograph. 

13.  The Vicar.  In every village, you'll find the resident clergyman who spends his days visiting his parishioners and learning their gossip.  He is an invaluable source of information, history, and ancient artifacts. For example, he knows about all the births, marriages, deaths and those sorts of records that are kept in the church.  This is also the place where ancient objects would tend to end up, stuffed up the bell tower, or down in the basement.

14.  The Politician.  A "stuffed shirt" more concerned about himself than anyone else.  His public image and the scandal of the situation often takes precedence over personal feelings and empathy for his fellow humans.

15.  The Dubious Man from India - The Overseas Connection.  In the cosmopolitan world of Great Britain, our characters often have occasion to travel abroad. Christie loves to include characters who have connections to "exotic" or far flung outposts of the British Empire. And while what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, this is not so for former travelers who come across people they met while in India, or Kenya, or Hong Kong, or Argentina, or Singapore or on the steamship home.  Our protagonist might be running from an unfortunate past, but these dubious travelers are there to bring it all back up again.  Sometimes a blackmailer, or simply a source of information.  This character could be a retired Colonel in the army, or a Archaeologist from Egypt, or a back ally underworld figure from the streets of Bangkok, or a movie producer from Hollywood.

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife.  In many stories, a prominent husband can often be stubborn and prideful.  In these cases, a genuinely concerned wife can take her own initiative to try to make a situation better, often by consulting our resident detective.  Often not possessed of all the facts, nevertheless she feels compelled to act, seemingly motivated entirely by concern for her husband and family.She is often presented as being very caring, but her attention is not always appreciated.

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  This is the older character who is past the social niceties and practices being as unpleasant as possible to everyone around them, except possibly their favorites.  This may be because she is very old, or possibly with a lingering terminal illness but she is past caring what other people think.  For Christie, this is usually a female character, because her female characters tend to be more vividly drawn.  When the character is male, it is usually because they have far too much money and are used to always getting what they want, never having to answer to anybody.  This could be the owner of a factory who bosses everybody around or an arrogant lord of the manor who owns all the property in the village.  Frequently the victim of murder.

19.  The Social Outcast.  This is the communist or socialist or temperance zealot that has very strong beliefs and attends "meetings" and distributes pamphlets but are really just misunderstood by society and no one takes them or their ideas seriously.  Often brooding and keeps to themselves because they can't get anyone to really listen.  Bonus points if they suddenly change their philosophy when they come into money or find a lovely girlfriend.

20.  The Shopkeeper.  A favorite is the local postmaster, who also runs a general store in the small town.  They know the comings and goings of everyone because they all shop there and we read their mail.  As such, they are tremendous sources of information, but typically are hard for the detective to interview because they are used to keeping secrets.  They also often are involved in a shady business of their own, because of their position of privilege.   

21. The Mirror.  A classic Christie element is having two characters who are mirrors of each other. These are characters who are roughly the same age, same gender and possibly social position, but choices made earlier in life have set them on wildly differing paths.  In this way, they have a number of characteristics that are parallels and opposites.  The most obvious is the Rake and the Rival, but you will find that same parallel in other characters as well.  It may be that the parallels are not immediately obvious because the characters are so different, until one goes looking for them. 

Often, one of them is the murderer, or the victim.  For example, two brothers - one goes off to war and is the hero while the other is the village shepherd.  One character is the garage mechanic, while the other tragically hangs himself after being wrongly accused of a murder.

Tropes

A. The Time Gap.  This is not a character but is a prominent and recurring element.   Its very rare to have an Agatha Christie story that does not span over at least two generations.  The entire story may be relating extended flashbacks, or we might see the protagonists as children and then as grown adults.  Typically, there is an obvious jump in time between the "child" and the "adult".  Sometime this time gap is wider and involved historical figures. 

B.  The Ominous Event.  This is some event that happened in the past, some instigating action who's ramifications have cast a pall over all those involved, often an extended family or the entire population of a village where it took place.  Because of this event, fortunes have been lost, careers have been scuttled, marriages have been broken, the road signs have been defaced.  Because of this cloud of doom, the villagers never speak of it and it must be kept a deadly secret.  Everyone knows, but nobody says anything.  Except that they talk about it constantly, behind closed doors, in the nook of the snug, when they think that outsiders can't hear them.  And emotions run deep just below the surface.

 C. The Obscure Relationship. There is one person whose history appears to be completely transparent,  but when our hero takes the time to investigate, discovers an obscure connection to someone else related to the case.  This could be a long-lost mother from before the war, or an aunt who went to live in Canada, or the young man who fell in love with the house maid when the family was living in Cairo, but then he was recalled to military service, and the family had to evacuate because of the war, and when she turned up pregnant every body suspected but no one said anything, but what they didn't know was that the maid was the concealed grand daughter of King Farouk in hiding to escape the coup.

D. The Convoluted Will.  A great uncle whose will at his death left a great fortune to one of the other cast, unbeknownst to them, but only if he died before Tuesday and she remained unmarried until her 28th birthday.  There could be an Old will and a New will.  Extra points if one or both is currently missing, possibly destroyed, and also possibly forged.  Witnesses to the signing are often crucial to the proving of the will, but alas, they have moved to Australia.

 

The Adventure of Johnny Waverly:  14.  The Politician.

 

The Hollow:  The victim, Dr. John Cristow, is clearly the Rake, plagued by his wife, his mistress, and his former mistress, and he can't keep his hands off any of them.  And yet he is also noble, researching cures for intractable diseases and admired by all.

Henrietta is the Energetic Young Woman, a successful artist and an independent woman who loves John Cristow but refuses to marry him for his own good.

Gerda Cristow, John's wife, is the Cloud-Headed Girl, a successful wife and the mother of two children, but continually beset with lack of self confidence, comic scenes of learning how to drive a car, and an obsequious devotion to her husband, whom she seems to constantly annoy.  Often, the cloud-headed girl is portrayed as amusing, but here she is tragic.

Lady Lucy Angketell is the Batty Eccentric, constantly talking too much and saying the most inappropriate and inane things at the worst times.

Sir Henry Angketell plays the role of the Scientist/Specialist, only his fascination is for guns.  As is typical, this character supplies the murder weapon.

Veronica Cray is the obvious Temptrix, a movie starlet with a history with John Cristow some 12 years ago (the Time Gap) who's not above trying to seduce him away from his wife and family. She knew John when she worked in Hollywood, California (The Overseas Connection). 

Gudgeon, the classic Butler, with deep loyalty to the family

We even get a short cameo of Doris, The Maid, who reports to the police that she saw Gudgeon carrying the revolver, gets soundly Scolded for her impertinence.

Edward is the Rival with John, in this case for Henrietta's affections, whom she dismisses as "inadequate."   Later, he finds success with Midge Hardcastle, the classic Second who is living in the shadow of the more forceful Henrietta.  Edward knew Henrietta and Midge when they were young (The Time Gap) but could only see her as "Little Midge," the scrawny girl.  Now he recognizes her for the mature young woman she has become.

Finally, Poirot is aided by the generous Inspector Grange, who values Poirot's input and brings him into the entire investigation.

Twenty Rules For Writing Detective Stories   ca. 1928.

1.  The Doctor.  

2.  The Energetic Young Woman. 

3.  The Batty Eccentric.  

3.5 The Cloud-headed Girl.  

4.  The Temptrix.  

5.  The Young Specialist.  

6.  The Housekeeper.  

6.5.   The Maid.  

7.   The Industrialist.  

8.  The Legal Mind.  

9.  The Efficient Professional.  

10.  The Rake.  

11. The Rival.  

12.  The Daughter. 

13.  The Vicar.  

14.  The Politician.  

15.  The Dubious Man from India - The Overseas Connection. 

16.  The Loving/Lonely Wife. 

18.  The Cantankerous Old Woman/ Cruel Old Man.  

19.  The Social Outcast. 

20. The Shopkeeper

21. The Mirror

Tropes

A. The Time Gap. 

B.  The Ominous Event.  

 C. The Obscure Relationship. 

D. The Convoluted Will.  

STTNG The Neutral Zone S1:E26 Close Reading

 The show opens with Captain Picard away from the ship, summoned to an emergency conference.  This is the first cycle opening with the tension of the emergency  conference and Picard away.  From the very first note, we sense that something is wrong:  What is the purpose of this emergency conference?

The b-plot is announced in the same moment.  The ship has happened upon a capsule of Earth origin.  If left to its own devices it will eventually be destroyed, but Data wants to investigate while the ship waits for the captain.  So a second cycle of tension is begun: What is the story of the capsule?

Onboard the capsule, Worf and Data find life capsules, many have stopped working but some still contain viable humans.  The cycle continues by answering one question:  this is some kind of mini-ark ship.  But it introduces the obvious question, why are the occupants on board?  And further, What should we do with them?   We can't leave them to eventually be destroyed, Data concludes, and he brings them back to the Enterprise.

Picard returns to the ship and intends to depart immediately.  Whatever happened at the emergency conference, it has prompted decisive action.  The captains new heading will take the ship into the Neutral Zone, further heightening the tension.  Picard calls for an immediate conference, ratcheting the tension even further.

Picard doesn't wait to disclose his news to the staff.  Several outposts and star bases have gone silent along the border to the neutral zone, and the Romulans are the obvious suspects.  The stated assumption is that the Romulans are spoiling for a fight, eager to test their military capabilities against the Federation.

In a way, this is the end of the first cycle.  The first tension was,  What was the purpose of the meeting.  And now we have an answer.  We went from an uneasy waiting to getting under weigh.  The first cycle is complete  using the first story beat: Outposts along the neutral zone have gone silent.   Now the second cycle begins:  What will we find at the neutral zone?

Back on the B-plot, Crusher calls Picard to sick bay to discuss the three capsule survivors.  They were frozen after they died, having succumbed to terminal illnesses, but Crusher was able to revive and cure them. Picard is annoyed, first because he knew nothing about them, and second because he is distracted by the coming conflict in the neutral zone.  He, Data, and Dr. Crusher discuss the morality of bringing them onboard.  They wake up the first survivor, who seems normal, but when she catches sight of Worf, she is overwhelmed and passes out again.

The first B-cycle has completed.  We know what's in the capsule, and we've brought the survivors back to life.  Now the second cycle begins:  what to do with them and who is responsible for them?  The story beat is "Thawed out survivors."  They have a lot of things to adapt to in the 24th century

While Picard bows out and leaves the problem of the survivors to others, Riker, Crusher, and Data attempt to explain the situation to the people who are nearly 400 years displaced in time.  We hear their stories, and learn that they are normal people who left behind normal, if colorful, lives.  PIcard sows the seed of further tension with an ominous warning, "Keep them out of my way."

The tension is heightened as we wonder how we are going to deal with these fish-out-of-water characters.  

Back on the bridge, Deanna gives us explication about the current Romulan state.  They are fascinated with humans and are likely to be "counter-punchers".  Back in the lounge, the survivors are busy being colorful, but are beginning to insist on meeting the Captain.

We see that the B-plot is heading for a collision with the A-plot, since Picard is busy right now preparing for an impending conflict.  Data re-states the problem, "What are we to do with them?"  This is the classic comedic break in the action.

Picard is discussing possibilities with his staff when he is interrupted by one of the survivors.  He has a long discussion with them and their feelings of frustration and isolation.  He shows patience and instead of doing anything authoritarian, he sends Counselor Troi in to deal with them.  One of the survivors is a mother and she is thinking about her children.  We get a more personal and more sympathetic view of the survivors situation.

Realistically, while we have increased the tension by making the survivors more relatable, we haven't changed the circumstances of their situation.  We add several internal cycles for each of the survivors, giving them small mini-arcs.  The mother wants to find her family, The financier realizes that he has no power left in this new time, and the singer just wants to pick up partying.  One of our questions is, which of these will actually be able to pick up their lives and carry on.

Back at the A-plot, the Enterprise has reached the first outpost, which they find to be totally destroyed.  It wasn't attacked by conventional weapons, according to Worf.  It is as if it has been "scooped off the face of the planet".  Picard orders them to continue to the second outpost.

The same question hangs over us:  What is happening at the neutral zone?  We've learned a few things but the tension is only increased.

On the bridge, they begin to pick up signals that the Romulans are in the area.  Meanwhile, the financier finds his way to the bridge and disturbs the crew just as the Romulans de-cloak and appear before them.  It quickly becomes clear that the Romulans were not responsible for the destruction of Federation Outposts, having lost colonies of their own.  During the tense exchange with the condescending Romulan captain, Picard urges them to not start off their relationship with misapprehensions, to which the Romulans respond with an ominous, "Your presence is not wanted. Do you understand my meaning, Captain? We are back.".  The episode ends with this hanging in the air, while we transfer the survivors to another ship bound for Earth.

The challenge here is that the central question we've been working on - What happened in the neutral zone - remains unresolved.  This is now a 2-parter, except that there is no second episode.  This is the season finale, and the next  episode after the summer hiatus doesn't address the neutral zone problem at all.  The ending feels unsatisfying.

The resolution of the B-plot is equally flimsy.  To answer to the question we've been repeating throughout the episode ( What will we do with the survivors), we simply say, "They'll be fine."   The way this tension is resolved is not responsive to the beats laid down (the mother finds a distant relative, the financier has no money, the country singer "will be just fine.")  And again, this is the season finale of the first season.  For a show that needs to bring audiences back next season, this resolution is particularly weak.

This is a recurring problem with TNG.  There was an awareness that they needed to include family oriented content to keep primarily female viewers interested, and for the most part they were successful.  The colorful secondary characters were there to engage all facets of the audience.  The weakness of this approach is that the two plots were almost entirely unrelated to each other, and neither plot was adequately resolved.  The B-plot had no real tension, with nothing at stake.  The survivors were always going to be shipped back to Earth, and nothing they did could alter that fate.  Indeed, that was presented as the best possible outcome for them anyway.  As a result, their dialogue was meaningless, and their scenes felt staged and phony.  

The other glaring problem with the survivors' story is that it is insufferably preachy, a problem all of Star Trek is prone to.  We take these three refugees from 21st C Earth and then laugh at them mercilessly.  Riker gets in the first dig, "Well, from what I’ve seen of our guests, there’s not much to redeem them. It makes one wonder how our species survived the twenty-first century.”  One is too greedy, overcome with a lust for power.  The next is too hedonistic, to the point where it drove him to liver failure.  The third is too tied to her family, an outdated concept in the enlightened future. 

And we're convinced that none of them really deserve this second chance they've been given.  None of them have a justifiable reason for this exceptional measure they've taken. They're all kind of absurd, actually, and the crew are totally justified for not taking them seriously.  Why didn't you just leave them, Data? Picard asks at one point. Among a crew of over a thousand, no one could be found to take care of them, listen to their obvious discomfort and begin to help them re-orient to their new situation.  In fact, Deanna gets special brownie points for reaching out to help the Mother. 

For all of that, it still had interesting elements.  For example, reviving the Romulans as a traditional antagonist was an interesting move for the series as a whole and this show introduced their menacing ship design and showed a few Romulans, with their characteristic haughty condescension, in an initial interaction.  We also get a few examples of Picard's character, as he shows restraint, both to the survivors and to the provocative Romulans. The writing of individual scenes was entertaining.  The vignettes of the Mother finding meaning in her extended family, and of the tense meeting with the Romulans were fun as stand alone short stories.  The character of the country playboy was vivid, if a little shallow.  But assembling these individual elements into a larger story was poorly supported and the overall storyline failed to deliver.

Its only at the end that you realize that the story had no resolution of either of the central conflicts.  It had no discernible theme across either of its plots.  The result is a weak story with an unsatisfying ending that leaves audiences questioning, with an uneasy feeling. The Romulan plot was substantial enough that it could have stood on its own, given more time and effort to develop the plot.  And the survivors story would have been interesting, interwoven with a less chilling story - about the Ferengi, for example.  Throwing the two together is what seemed ill advised.

 

 

What is a Good Story?

 

 

You need to be constatly striving to learn the theory and to understand What is it that makes a great story great? 

But isn't a good story entirely subjective?  Doesn't it vary from reader to reader, from audience to audience?  The answer is that while the preferences of each reader can vary widely, there remain both objective and subjective criteria that are characteristic of well written stories.  A well crafted story is likely to result in a great story, while a story that ignores any literary criticism can still be loved by a particular audience while remaining poorly written.

Let's start with our definition of a story.  A story takes a character and places it in a setting, from which a conflict arises, which develops and then resolves.  A story uses arcs and themes to convey a message.

Note right away that there are two parts to this definition of story, the structure and the purpose. First, there is the structure of the story, which consists of identifiable elements, all of which need to be present for a complete story to emerge.  Leave out any of these elements, and the story falls apart. Without each of these elements you have something less than a story; you may have a narrative or vignette or character study, you may call it "an account of events," but you don't actually have a story any more.  

Try to create a story without a character, or without resolution of the conflict and you will see how weak and unsatisfying the resulting writing becomes.  The obverse is often true as well.  Analyze a movie that you found disappointing and you'll often discover that one of these foundational elements was poorly developed or left out entirely.

Second, a story is something that is designed and crafted to convey meaning.  It is not simply a retelling of a series of events.  Instead, you have something that was designed to communicate an idea and leave the audience with a sense of completeness or satisfaction. A story is a construction of elements, brought together in a conscious way so that they relate to one another and work together to deliver the meaning to the audience.

A satisfying story doesn't have to have a happy ending.  Stories can be about the tragedy of loss, the futility of war, the oppression of tyranny, but if these are the meanings behind the story they must be included with intentionality.

A story is built.  It is not the result of happenstance.  The job of the author is to shape and mold each of these elements to serve a particular purpose and convey the meaning that the author intends. And more specifically, to take each of the elements and relate them to each of the other elements so that the work together to communicate.

Plot:  the sequence of events and elements that lead the audience through the story.  Does not have to be chronological if the story contains flashbacks.  An event is something that happens.  An element refers to feelings, emotional states.

Audience Satisfaction

The objective of a story is to convey meaning to an audience in such a way that they feel satisfied with the outcome.  Many things contribute to creating that feeling, but repeatedly when critics talk about their overall impressions they use specific phrases.  They may say, the ending didn't feel supported, didn't feel justified, didn't feel earned.  They talk about laying the groundwork for later developments, or talk about set-ups and payoffs.  Conversely, they may complain that things happened "out of the blue" or felt like a "deux ex machina" because support for later developments was not put in place early.  

All of these concepts are referencing the idea that a story is not a random series of events, but a carefully constructed narrative in which each of the elements must be related to every other element.  Later developments in the story must be placed on a supporting foundation that was written into the story earlier.  With out this supporting foundation, the story loses its feeling of cause and effect. At best, this feels like the world the author has created is inconsistent and unreliable, which means that the audience can't relate to it closely.  In a world of random cosmic magic, it's hard to know which events in the plot are a challenge, or a conflict, or even a win or loss.

A story consists of events and elements that are all interrelated.  The pieces of the story appear to fit together, appear to be building toward a logical and reasonable outcome. We say that early elements support later events.  Writers use tools like foreshadowing and development to create relationships between story elements.  Is there competition between characters, camaraderie, or antagonism?  If that becomes a plot element later in the story, it must be introduced earlier for it to have any meaning.  Audiences place greater weight on elements that are supported in the narrative, that are set up early and paid off later.

ST:TNG 1 Symbiosis S1:E22

 Synopsis

The Enterprise is in a star system to observe a particularly active star when they receive a garbled distress signal from a cargo ship in a decaying orbit.  While Picard struggles to communicate with the captain of the vessel, Riker and Lt Yar attempt an emergency beam out of the crew.  They are surprised that instead of beaming to safety, the crew sends their cargo across first before eventually beaming over themselves.  Within seconds, the wounded vessel is destroyed in the atmosphere.

Along with the crew, there were also two passengers.  These are merchants involved in a trade involving the contents of the lost cargo ship and several metal cylinders that the crew transported to the Enterprise.  The cylinders contain a medicine that is necessary to treat a plague that is raging on the freighter's homeworld of Onara. The merchants are immune to the plague and come from another world, Breka, who supply the medicine in exchange for the necessities of life manufactured by the Onarans.  With the loss of the goods on the freighter neither side is willing to yield their rights to the medicine in the cylinders.

When one of the freighter's crew begins to display advanced symptoms of the plague, Dr. Crusher  discovers that the Onarans do not suffer from the plague but from withdrawal symptoms from a narcotic dependency.  The substance in the cylinders is not medicine but a heroin-like drug.  The Brekans are keeping the Oharans hooked on drugs, under the guise of supplying them with medicine.

Crusher is outraged at this discover and urges Picard to intervene, but the Captain invokes the Prime Directive and says he is forbidden from interfering.  The Brekans, however, have a problem.  If they don't keep the Onarans supplied with the drug, they will eventually work through their withdrawal symptoms and will end up no longer addicted to it.  Because of this, they suddenly change their minds and agree to provide the current drug shipment for free, thus tipping their hand to the fact that they knew about this predatory arrangement all along.  

At the end, Picard decides to deliver the drug to the Onarans but refuses to help them replace their destroyed freighter, ensuring that the trade between the two worlds will eventually break down and the drug addiction will be revealed and dispelled.

Analysis

There are three major problems with this episode, and the primary is one of pacing.  The first act, setting up the problem and bringing the squabbling merchants on board, takes entirely too long and consumes over a third of the run time.  This is something we should have achieved in the first 5 minutes of the show and a sense of urgency here would have set the tone for the entire episode. 

The freighter is breaking up in the atmosphere, while Picard and Riker are seemingly having a laugh at the competency of the freighter's crew.  We go back and forth trying to establish communication through the solar interference while hoping to make the audience feel the tension of an imminent catastrophe.  But the audience cannot feel a tension that the Enterprise crew does not display.  As it was, the lack of focus seemed to have cost two lives from the freighter's crew and made Picard to appear callous.

It's hard to exaggerate how inane the writing of this scene is.  Worf is very clear that the distressed freighter has mere minutes before it will be destroyed, and Picard is consumed with rolling his eyes, "Well, finally we're getting somewhere..."  With seconds to live, they are proposing to beam over a major engine component that the stricken crew are supposed to install and align, a clearly impossible task in the time available.  

They make a feeble stab at using the tractor beam, with the inevitable "Too much interference..." as the response.  No heroic efforts, no ingenious plan from Geordi or Data.  Just a shrug of the shoulders and a smirk from Captain Picard, who wastes more time with snide remarks, "How long have you been captain?"  Let that sink in a moment.  Picard actually spends time insulting the imperiled crew mere moments before they die, with a grin and a nudge to Riker standing beside him, all the while exhibiting incompetence of his own,  blaming it on sunspot activity. 

The storytelling here creates a disconnect between what the writers would like to convey, and the message that the audience is receiving.  The building blocks of story are cycles of tension and resolution.  The tension here appears to be the imminent danger to the freighter.  The resolution of the arc happens when we get the crew off the ship before it explodes.  So we actually resolve a different tension, the danger to the lives of the crew.  By deflecting this arc, the writer creates confusion: Were the heroes successful or not?  Since the ship exploded and we killed two crewmen, it seems that the heroes were not successful, which should create a reaction of its own; either dismay or regret, apologies or resolve to do better next time.  Instead, the writers completely ignore what just happened and move on, seeming to place the blame on the odd choices of the rescued crew.

As a development in this arc, we introduce a second tension.  The imperiled crew doesn't appear to be very competent, or particularly concerned for their own safety.  Why do they seem to make these non-sensical choices?   The resolution here is that we discover 1.) they are suffering from the plague, and 2.) they are actually behaving as drug addicts.  The trouble this cycle creates, is that the story never goes back and connects the initial irrational behavior with the narcotic addiction.  Dr. Crusher would have been ideal to make this connection, but she wasn't present on the bridge to observe the crew's communication. 

The audience can make the connection on their own in hindsight, but the initial confusion that this created in the opening scenes is never resolved and the audience is left with the ongoing feeling that Picard is an unfeeling jerk.  This becomes a problem later when Picard has to defend the prime directive, and the audience continues to think he's an unfeeling jerk.

The middle section of the episode was entirely static and at times felt almost boring.  We established the basic premise:  that the cargo ownership is in dispute, and that one side needs the medicine desperately.  And after 20 minutes, we are in exactly the same place, with no movement on either side, and the captain having done nothing.  We move locations from the transporter room to the sick bay to the bridge to the observation lounge to the guest quarters, but nothing essential has changed. We continue to replay the initial scene where we squabble over the cargo.

The development and resolution happens in the final 10 minutes of the episode and there was no reason why it couldn't have happened 35 minutes earlier.  There's an interesting moment when the anguished Onarans stun Riker with their personal electrical charge.  This could have been a pivotal moment where we see the desperation of the addicts and we come to terms with how their society is suffering. This could have been a catalyst for some kind of insight on the part of the Captain or any of the players.  Instead, it passes without incident.  Picard simply talks them down.  It actually proves the opposite of what the writers intended.  Instead of showing the hopelessness of the Onaran's dire situation, it functionally showed that their situation wasn't that bad after all.

The Prime Directive

The third issue with the episode is that this was intended to be a major discussion of the Prime Directive.  From the perspective of Picard, this was a clear case of non-interference that the Prime Directive demanded.  And this was the opportunity, created by the show, to demonstrate how it worked, and the underlying truth to it.  The problem here is that the writers couldn't present a really convincing argument.

There are two phases to the treatment in this episode.  The first was to define exactly what the prime directive is.  The second phase delves deeper into why the prime directive is such a good idea

 Picard offers us two statements of the premise:

 "It is not our mission to impose Federation or Earth values on any others in the Galaxy."

"I am bound by the rules of the United Federation of Planets, which order me not to interfere with other worlds, other cultures.  If I were to tell them any of this, I would violate that Prime Directive."

This was the clearest articulation of the Prime Directive that we ever get in Star Trek.  Humanity is not mandated to cruise the galaxy imposing their will on other cultures because of their superior technology. It prevents them from being a "bunch of meddling do-gooders" as Q would later remark. From a storytelling perspective, this can be a useful device because it presents an internal source of conflict or tension.  As writers, we can use this to cause secondary conflict, between bridge officers for example, or between Picard and his superiors.  It represents a serious change to the basic Walk The Earth model that Star Trek uses.  On the other hand, the crew of the Enterprise very often IS a bunch of meddling do-gooders as evidenced in show after show.

This definition is so broad that we find ourselves in violation any number of times. Interfering in other cultures, and imposing Earth values on others in the galaxy, "seeking out new life and new civilizations," is what they do in almost every episode. Later, to address this contradiction, we soften the issue by narrowing the focus to "pre-warp civilizations",

How do you  define "less developed", for example?  And what constitutes intereference?  To some, simply appearing in orbit would represent an interference of some kind.  And with how nosy the human explorers are, this rule has been violated any number of times.  For example, the planet Bajor from DS9 would appear to be less developed and yet the Federation doesn't have any problem jumping in to that conflict.

The second phase of this discussion is to try to defend the prime directive as being a good idea. Like Hercules, we travel the galaxy seeking new knowledge, but the actual heart of the stories clearly revolves around fixing things, understanding conflicts and moderating them. 

Beverly Crusher showed that this story was a clear example of one species exploiting another.  This was an example of Parasitism, not Symbiosis, as the episode title claimed. Picard was only able to walk away from this situation because he foresaw that it would correct itself in the near future when the Onarans shipping capabilities failed.  But if that were not the case, would Picard be forced to leave them in this clearly oppressive situation, by the prime directive?  For a show about overcoming adversity, this would not be a satisfactory storytelling model.

If we were to find this situation on the streets of Los Angeles in a cop show, we would absolutely feel that correcting the situation would be the honorable thing to do.  Yet here it is presented as more honorable to leave the exploited in their torment.  The writers set up this situation to fully discuss the ramifications of their choices, but when the time came, Picard was more dismissive of Beverly's arguments than meeting them with a well developed philosophy of his own.  This could have been a Measure of a Man moment in season 1.  Instead, it left the audience ambivalent and dissatisfied.

"Beverly, the Prime Directive is not just a set of rules.  It is a philosophy, and a very correct one.  History has proved again and again that whenever Mankind interferes with a less developed civilization, no matter how well-intentioned that interference may be, the results are invariably disastrous."

Star Trek: TNG S1: E16 Too Short a Season

 One "style" of episode from The Next Generation is one that focuses not on the adventure, but on a particular character.  Too Short a Season is one such episode, where the focus is not on what is happening on the planet but instead on the aged Starfleet negotiator Mark Jamison.  The challenge of these episodes is that their success rides on that single character. But a prominent difficulty is that the story that is happening with the character often overshadows the apparent A plot of the away mission.  Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens here.

The tension of this story line is provided by the one-man show of Jamison and his pursuit of eternal youth coupled with arrogance.  And this proves to be a far less interesting story than Governor Carnass and the hostages.  We talk about Jamison's wife, Anne, and the power struggle between himself and Captain Picard, but this all takes place within the conference rooms and corridors of the ship. What opened with the promise of a fully realized adventure, became a character study of someone who offered very little in redeeming features.  

A character-focused story like this relies on the appeal of the protagonist.  The audience needs to identify with the main figure, understand the internal struggle that drove them to make their unique choices, even to admire them in some ways.  But Jamison wasn't particularly charming or witty or noticeably skilled.  He just came across as faintly unpleasant.  And we could see him heading for a fall as some kind of resolution.

Jamison had a side plot where he had obtained a counter-aging treatment that was making him young again.  Ordinarily, such a revolution would have been hailed as a great development, if it had been devised by the medical staff on board.  But in this episode, it was presented entirely as a negative, and we were made to look down on Jamison for wanting this. And this brings us to the secondary difficulty of this episode:  TNG likes to present moral quandaries to the audience and invite us to work through them, but this story failed to adequately articulate what the moral quandary was about.  It didn't give us anything to think about; it didn't clearly define where the moral dilemma was.

Jamison was getting old and had developed a disease of old age that limited him physically.  Because of this, he sought out a dangerous treatment to reverse the aging process.  He began the treatment and it was remarkably effective, though not without problems.  While a bold move, nothing is presented as illegal or unethical.  There's a faint overtone of things that "man was not meant to know" but the show never develops this theme at all.  Dr Crusher discovers his condition through her unique busibody-ness, but can't really articulate why her nosiness was justified.

So far, there isn't really anything notably controversial in this story premise, so we had to add layers of complexity.  First, he made this move without consulting his wife, and so she felt ignored and minimized.  That suggests that the real struggle was in his relationship, but "helping Mark save his marriage" isn't exactly riveting science fiction.  While we are deeply sympathetic with Anne, we don't really feel like Mark should remain confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his shortened life so that Anne can enjoy her much anticipated retirement. "Why didn't he ask me?"  "Why didn't he tell me?" are questions that echo throughout the ships crew (Deanna, Beverly, Anne, Picard) but we never present a valid reason why each of these people should pry into the medical details of Mark's private life.

At this point in the show, the writers seem to realize that they haven't really developed an adequate conflict.  Because of this, we add on some shady negotiating tactics that Mark reveals to Picard from 40 years ago.  Instead of a pure verbal negotiation, Mark offered weapons to both sides in order to get them to release hostages.  The planet then devolved into 40 years of civil war which cost the residents millions of lives.  As Picard himself points out, the planet's civil war was not the fault of one Starfleet negotiator, and Jamison could not have known that the fractious planet would be unable to resolve their conflict.  He did not cause the strife between warring factions.  But his plan was not entirely ethical and so he was guilty of hiding its true nature from Starfleet for all these years.  The show notes several times that Mark Jamison has had a long and successful career as one of Starfleet's top negotiators, who has risen to the rank of admiral on the strength of his diplomatic success and judgment.  But the episode wants us to feel shocked and betrayed when we learn that it hasn't all been the result of singing campfire songs.

Next Jamison plans to lead a strike team on an away mission to liberate the hostages by force.  This ill conceived plan is in some way an attempt by Mark to make up for his poor judgement in the past.   This sortie is so short lived and pointless that it has no lasting impact on the story.  Jamison remembers the tunnels beneath the city, but they have been sealed in places and alarms set to alert the military, so the raid is soon pinned down and hastily beams back to the Enterprise.  Again, it was unclear why the writers included this scene.  It was obvious that Jamison didn't know of modern developments on a planet he had last been to 40 years ago.  In addition, he was unwilling to take advice from Data or Worf as to the changing situation on the ground.  Was it his hubris that drove him to think he had it all under control?  If his growing hubris was the emerging problem of the end of the episode, what was its cause?

At the resolution, Jamison's body couldn't handle the age-reversing treatment and eventually it killed him, but not before he was able to  convince the evil Carnass to release the hostages.  The moral lesson delivered by Picard in the denouement, was about age:  "The quest for youth, number one. So futile."  Apparently, that was Jamison's big problem.  "Age and wisdom have their graces, too."  Fine, but age had nothing to do with Jamison's diplomatic mistake in arming the fractious planet, which seemed to be the actual conflict of the show that needed resolution.

IN the end, that was the greatest shortcoming of the episode.  The intrepid crew of the Enterprise actually did very little to resolve the conflict points of the story.  Instead, they were bystanders and observers of the drama created by Jamison and Carnass.  And, in fact, Jamison himself did nothing that actually resolved the conflict either.  He did plenty to complicate things and lead us on red-herrings like the tunnel raid, and cause distress for his lovely wife Anne.  But in terms of resolving the tension with Carnass, he actually did nothing but dying painfully which served to ameliorate Carnass' thirst for  revenge.  

And Carnass, the evil antagonist, received nothing in the way of correction, despite his deception and illegal imprisonment of the Starfleet diplomatic team.  The guilty were not punished, the past wrongs were not restored, and those on the planet who were left to mourn were not given a glimpse of their goal at the end of the fight.  We seemed to leave the planet in as much chaos as when we found it, glad to wash our hands of the whole messy affair and, like Picard, happy to break orbit for any other destination.