The Social Network - Memoir/True Story

Whenever I break down a film script to see how it works, I always start by identifying the central problems and challenges the writer faced in cracking the story code. In adapting the true story of the creation of Facebook, master screenwriter Aaron Sorkin faced at least three major challenges.

First he had to make a true story dramatic. The Memoir-True Story genre must hit the seven major story structure steps just like any other genre. But the writer doesn’t have the freedom to make up the basic story events. And events in real life rarely have the dramatic density and punch of fiction.

Sorkin’s second major challenge was that the main character is a nasty person who is guilty of massive theft and betrayal. It is a common misconception that the main character must be likable in a story. But if he is not likable, the writer’s job immediately becomes much more difficult. No one in the audience wants to identify with someone this unpleasant (though they may want this much success), or see such a person accomplish his goal. So the writer is left with a character who is at most clinically interesting to the audience, much like a strange beast in the zoo. Sorkin’s third big challenge had to do with plot. The real events of Mark Zuckerberg’s creation of Facebook form a structure that is fairly similar to the rise and fall of a rock star, a story shape that is notorious for lacking plot and for being deadly dull as a result.

To meet these challenges, Sorkin relied on the nine genre beats of the Memoir- True Story form. One of these is the Story Frame. The frame is found in a vast number of true stories because it allows the writer to solve the form’s biggest restriction, which is the anti-dramatic sequence of true events. You can’t change what happened in a true story, but with a frame you can change the order of how you tell what happened.

The frame in The Social Network is provided by the depositions in which Zuckerberg has to answer to the Winklevoss brothers and Mark’s business partner, Eduardo Saverin, for his theft. Like most frames, the depositions are the chronological endpoint of the story. They are the story equivalent of a trial, or battle, which allows Sorkin a natural funnel point toward which all events build. The frame also lets Sorkin cut out all the boring moments that are part of real life, along with the mundane but necessary steps of building a business.

With the frame, Sorkin largely overcomes the second challenge of the repellant hero, using a structural technique that is both rare and risky: Sorkin turns the hero into the opponent, and the ally, Eduardo, into the hero. Instead of trying to create sympathy for a bad guy, Sorkin changes the focus of the story to the question: will the bad guy lose the deposition and have to pay the people he cheated? Eduardo literally tells the second half of the story, making him the hero, and he gains the audience’s sympathy because he has so clearly been wronged.

I say that Sorkin largely overcomes the challenge of the repellant hero because this guy is unsalvageable. Turning him into the opponent helps, but this story frame comes with a high cost. The crosscut between the deposition and the real events has a cold, distancing effect on the audience. Sorkin might have been able to warm things up by delving deeper into Zuckerberg’s motives, which are nothing more than the schematic ones of being a nerd and wanting to climb the social class ladder. But my sense is that this was a dead end, because Zuckerberg comes across as an idiot savant whose brilliance is extreme but narrow. From the very first scene, we know this guy is hopeless.

It’s in facing the challenge of plot that Sorkin had the most difficulty and where his success was most dependent on craft. The rise-and-fall story is a very old plot form, and has the benefit of a clean line on which to hang the particular events of the story. But it makes for a lousy plot because there are almost no surprises. You really have only two story beats: the rise and the fall. Once you establish the rising line, the audience gets it. And when the hero starts to fall, everyone knows immediately where this is all headed.

Strictly speaking the real events of the creation of Facebook only give Sorkin a rise. Using the deposition frame at least gives him a fall to go with the rise, in that Zuckerberg was forced to pay quite a sum to those he cheated and he has obviously suffered a moral decline.

But Sorkin clearly knew that this structure still left him with a thin plot. In my Memoir-True Story class I talk about how to combine fiction genres with a true story to juice the plot. Sorkin’s choice was the thriller form. The thriller is a type of story in which the hero is placed under constant attack and increasing pressure as he goes after his goal. Like the story frame, this genre combination creates a vortex in which events assault the viewer at a faster and faster pace. To see how much this helps the plot, imagine telling the story of the creation of a business, even one that grew this fast, in a strictly non-fiction, chronological style.

Still the frame and the thriller genre can only go so far. Ultimately the facts of this true story and the unpleasant main character mean that The Social Network has one big flaw: there’s no way to end the story. The hero’s moral decline is indisputable early in the second half of the film. And a series of deposition scenes is a far cry from a big courtroom trial where the fight is decided in one last blaze of glory.

Of course Sorkin knows this. He tries to finesse it with his great skill at dialogue. In an attempt to partly redeem Zuckerberg and put final closure to the moral argument of the story, Sorkin has a female lawyer tell Zuckerberg, “You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be.” But it’s a false distinction and it fools no one. The Zuckerberg character portrayed in this film really is an asshole. And no matter how much the real Zuckerberg was forced to pay, I couldn’t help leaving the theater thinking it wasn’t nearly enough.  

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

Studio 60 has not been the big hit everyone at NBC hoped it would be. And it's taken more than a few shots, mostly from insiders who say that it's not an authentic view of a sketch comedy show. Why? Because it's not funny. And they're right; it's not funny. That could be because creator and writer Aaron Sorkin can't write funny. Or more likely it's because the show's not a comedy. It's a drama about working in a corporation, a corporation that just happens to be in the business of making culture.

Sometimes Sorkin gets too cute in his writing, typically from updating a classic story beat. He always does the beat well, but it's still a recognizable beat. And I get the feeling that he is writing so much so fast that for long stretches he just puts it on automatic and lets his considerable knowledge of story carry him along.

To see one of the reasons why Studio 60 may be having trouble with audiences, let's look at a technique that is crucial to a TV drama: the episodic desire line. In other words, what is accomplished in each episode? In a classic cop show, it's solving the crime. In a courtroom drama, it's winning the case. In a doctor show, it's saving the patient. On Studio 60 it's … Well, we know what it isn't. It's not putting on a 90-minute comedy show. So what is it?

The desire line in each episode is what gives the story its shape, and is one of the key elements of a show's DNA. You can create a show in which the desire line extends over many episodes, but you will have more difficulty holding a mass audience. So many shows provide at least one desire line that is accomplished by the end of the episode, and extend the others. Aaron Sorkin doesn't do that on Studio 60. It's not a bad thing. It's just not popular. Regardless of Studio 60's essential structure, there is a lot to like and learn from by watching it.

For example, we see a great technique in the second part of a two-part episode in which Harriet gets an award. It's the technique I call the "dialogue of equals." Good conflict dialogue should be a heavyweight fight. Punch/counter-punch. One throws a hammer blow. The other comes right back with a hammer blow of his own. Not only does each line have dramatic power, the scene builds in the sequence of the blows (lines), ending in a knockout punch.

To create a building punch/counter-punch, you have to have two equals, by which I mean two characters with an equal ability to verbally attack. If one is too strong, he or she will get in the most blows and the scene will not build. In the concluding episode of the two-parter, Matt and Harriet go at each other with ferocity. Matt is the obviously more aggressive and nastier of the two. But Harriet does not shrink back and ends up having the more powerful blows, including the lethal knockout punch.

The West Wing

Aaron Sorkin's story-telling is not about character or plot. It's about running themes through dialogue. He crafts his stories on a three- or four-part crosscut, which allows him to touch on often arcane subjects of governance without boring the audience stiff. But the stories are really an excuse to lay down long tracks of dialogue which inevitably build to an inspiring monologue on the larger thematic issue.

This kind of story-telling requires a talent in dialogue and theme, which is an unusual combination for a writer. And it is not a combination that the popular entertainment industry normally values. Which makes the presence and success of West Wing in mainstream American tv especially pleasurable.

This combination of dialogue and theme also highlights both the strengths and weaknesses of this show. The dialogue is often poetic and dense. So the language of this president and his court is language fit for a modern king. Poetic dialogue largely disappeared after Huck Finn. Dialogue became vernacular, because that was the talk of the common man. Placing his story in the office of the President allows Sorkin to push the dialogue back up the poetic scale.

But there is a price, even in this rarified atmosphere. This language often doesn't sound like real talk. Everyone seems to be an expert in every area of modern knowledge. Everyone speaks the same glib banter. And we know we will have to sit through a monologue which reminds us, yet again, how magnificent American democracy is. The President, who usually delivers these inspiring monologues, is the perfect father, strong but caring, intelligent but full of love. Which makes the President the most difficult to stomach of any character in the show.

Sorkin also has the annoying habit of spoiling the moment. He'll write a nice piece of dialogue and then push it into the fake or the sappy.

For example, in one episode the President is addressing some radio talk show hosts when he spots a Laura Schlessinger-like woman sitting amongst the crowd. Sorkin gives the President a brilliant monologue in which he shows how foolish it is to take some of the commandments in the Bible literally. Then Sorkin has the President, while still staring at the chastised woman, tell one of his aides,"That's how I beat him," referring to a conservative he defeated in a past election. In a second the President goes from enlightened teacher to smug bully.