Show, don't tell - lessons from Mad Max: Fury Road Part 1

Before I begin, allow me to apologize for all the fangirling that's about to occur. Mad Max: Fury Road is the action movie I've been waiting for more than twenty years, ever since I saw Sarah Connor defeat T1000 using one hand and a shotgun. But it's also undoubtedly a magnificent example of storytelling without a whole lot of telling. (Also, please note that this post will contain ALL the spoilers. If you mind spoilers, go see the movie before reading this post.)

This is quickly growing into a pet peeve of mine: people keep saying that nothing really happens in MMFR. There's a lot of explosions and exciting action, but nothing really happens. And I'm here to say once and for all, the people claiming that nothing really happens in Mad Max: Fury Road are wrong.

I can see where the misconception arises. At the very most, the script is maybe ten pages long. And that's if Max's grunting is included. There's almost no exposition and very little happens that is just told to us.

That's where MMFR differs significantly from pretty much every action movie out there. Most movies explicitly state EVERYthing. McGuffin character suffered trauma? Let's make her recount and simultaneously show the explicit rape scene from her past that makes her unidentifiable from a sexy lamp. The main character is defined by the losses he's suffered? Let's start the movie by showing the horrific murder of his wife and - almost always - son.

Fury Road doesn't do that. The titular Max (who's not really the main character but we'll get to that in a bit) is entirely defined by his losses to the point where he's hardly even human anymore. At the start of the movie he can hardly even form words. His story is very much a twisted version of The Jungle Book. Max has traveled the wilderness for years where everything is violent and everyone he meets wants to kill him. He has a severe case of PTSD that keeps triggering him to the point where he's starting to lose the ability to keep himself alive. None of this is explicitly stated. The only thing that even approaches Max telling anyone about his past is the monologue in the beginning (which is also at least half of his lines in the movie).

My name is Max. My world is fire. And blood. Once, I was a cop; a road warrior searching for a righteous cause. As the world fell, each of us in our own way was broken. It was hard to know who was more crazy. Me... or everyone else.
Here they come again. Worming their way into the black matter of my brain. I told myself... they cannot touch me. They are long dead.
I am the one who runs from both the living and the dead. Hunted by scavengers. Haunted by those I could not protect. So I exist in this Wasteland. A man reduced to a single instinct: survive.

So Max's transformation in the end of MMFR is fairly significant. He's made a life out of the hypermasculine pursuit of cars and violence but in the end he takes on the traditionally feminine role of giving life. The moment is made even more significant if you happen to know that it is the first moment in all four movies where he tells anyone his name. But again, none of this is really anything that is explicitly told to us. We see Max wasting War Boys by the dozen, we see the moments he gets triggered, his inability to interact with Furiosa and the Wives. We see him finally give out his name and his blood, both willingly because he recognizes how much the people around him need Furiosa.

Speaking of, Furiosa goes through a very similar arc. Where Max is Mowgli however, Furiosa is most definitely a hyperviolent Pinocchio. In the beginning she is defined by her quest for vengeance. Sure, explicitly she says she's looking for redemption, but that's not really true. She takes the wives, not because she wants to help them or because she even really believes that freeing them will do her soul any good. She takes them because taking them is the thing that will hurt Immortan Joe the most. They are, after all, his most prized possessions. In the beginning, she is one of those possessions too. She is a tool of Immortan Joe's power and though she becomes a tool of revenge, even going out to look for it, what she finds is her humanity. When she climbs up on Immortan Joe's hood, she is once more a real girl.

Nux and the Wives all have their own plot arcs, even though they are not by any means primary characters. The Wives especially are the very definition of a McGuffin but uniquely for not only action movies, but most movies none of them could be replaced by a sexy lamp. They are in the world and by their actions effect change. And despite the fact that they've obviously lived in captivity and faced all kinds of abuse at the hands of Immortan Joe. But instead of divorcing the viewer from the Wives by explicitly making them into victims, Miller decided to show their abuse through their urgency of getting away from everything Immortan Joe. When the Wives first meet Max, for all they know, he's a danger to them. But more important than setting up defensive positions for possible attack from him is to get rid of the Evil chastity belts, by any means necessary.

I could basically pull apart the whole movie, going through it moment by moment to tell you all the plot points that were communicated through showing alone but at this point I'm going to trust you get the point. In part 2 (July 27th) we'll start thinking about how to apply Mad Max into your own writing. Meanwhile:

homework!
Go see Mad Max: Fury Road. Even if you've already seen it, go see it again and focus especially on what are the things you know or think you know about the plot and the characters and how you know those things. Focus especially on the character's body language and how it effects the scenes they are in.

How Travel Makes You a Better Writer

I love to travel. I don't get to do it near as often as I'd like but part of that is because I like big long trips that take me somewhere as different from home as possible. I want to meet people who see the world from varied perspectives. I want to understand what it's like to live in situations where life isn't so easy and not everything is a mouse-click away.

How does this improve my writing? First, it gives me things to write about. A few years ago my boyfriend and I went to China for six weeks. We had a Lonely Planet guidebook in one hand and a crappy phrase book in the other. We had a great time and brought back tons of stories. You can bet that little snippets of those adventures work their way into my stories when I need to add a little spice. The more experiences you have, the more you have to authoritatively write about; though for fiction you might have to twist the truth a little to suit your tale. I'll tell you a little secret about getting great travel stories. Most of the coolest stuff happens in between seeing the big sights. Stay off of tours, take local transport, eat like the locals and don't worry about whether you speak the language or not; you don't need it.

Another thing travel does, if you go in with an open heart and an open mind, is it lets you see how other people live. This is one of the reasons I don't take tours – I would miss too much. People will share their lives with you if you let them. They will show you what's important to them and what they're most proud of. Sometimes it their town, sometimes their business or maybe it's the braided bracelet their daughter made for them. Regardless, you will gain insight. This not only broadens your perspective, but it will help you create rounded characters with more realistic motivations.

If you travel to places where you don't speak the language (or very little of it) you will become a better communicator. In China, my boyfriend and I had a number of conversations where no comprehensible language was exchanged but meanings were entirely clear. There were the old guys playing Chinese chess in the hutong area of Beijing that invited us over to watch. With no words, one guy made it clear that he thought my bf's gut was my fault because I was such a good cook. Another time, at a monastery on top of a mountain, a group of young monks asked my boyfriend if his hiking stick was a walking aid or if it was for seeing. Again, no words. And in a pizza place in Yangshuo we found out a kitten's name translated as 'Fathead' because, well, for obvious reasons. All of these conversations happened using sign language, gesture and intonation. For as much as we writers like to use words, sometimes there are better ways. Once you realize this, you might find your characters interacting through more than just dialog.

Travel gives you a lot more fodder for creating great settings. Visiting a local African market is far more visceral than seeing one on a travel show. Being in a town that only has dirt roads after a rain and experiencing what it smells and sounds like. Heck, the first time you go somewhere and the street is filled with the smells of exhaust, grilling food, camel dung and the local spice market all at the same time I promise it'll be an experience you'll never forget. Likewise, the first time you swim in water that's so clear you can see twenty or more feet to the bottom can be amazing. In writing you want to appeal to all of the senses. Having been there for real allows you to draw upon that and lay it out on the page. And the best thing is you can take bits and pieces of all your different experiences and mix them together to create your fictional world. The more you travel, the more pieces you have.

I'm going to end with my top five travel tips for maximizing your fun.

1) Don't let fear stop you. Most places are far safer than their warnings. I live in LA and if I listened to the travel warnings about this place, I should be terrified. Sure, you might want to avoid places that have open hostilities, but other than that, most of the globe is safe enough. And I say this as a woman who often travels solo.

2) You'll always be a visitor, but try to do things on the local level. Eat street food or at small, non-touristy restaurants, take buses and motos and tro-tros. Talk to people - the ones that show you around, that drive you somewhere, or serve you food. Talk to shopkeepers and butchers and wood carvers. Share with them as much as they share with you. You will be richer for it.

3) Don't be an Ugly American (whether you're from the States, or not). Do not get upset when things are different from home or not as fancy or perfect or they take a little longer. You've come to their country to experience it, so do that. Don't expect anywhere else to be like home. Don't put unreasonable expectations on a place that has different resources.

4) Keep your sense of humor. When you travel things will go wrong. If you accept that from the beginning you'll be a lot better off. When you face adversity with laughter, or a smile, it shows good character and that resonates through all cultures. People will be more open to helping if you're good natured about the difficulty.

5) Try as many new things as you can. Don't turn down experiences because you're scared, or tired. When will you be here again? Go for it. Just do it. Put in whatever motivating phrase you need here. Sometimes you'll need to listen to that little voice that keeps you safe but push yourself out of your comfort zone. Of course you'll have some regrets about things you miss for decent reasons, but try to keep those to a minimum.

One more thing – write everything down. Whether you keep a travel journal, send e-mails to friends and family or blog on your trip, keep a record so you don't forget all those great little stories you're going to accumulate.

Happy Travels!