Over winter I binge watched Peaky Blinders. It was one of those moments, for me, when the right book or film catches your attention at the right time.
Without giving away much, in the first episode a large amount of guns are stolen, and a high ranking investigator is sent to the city to make life hell until the guns are found.
From a story’s inciting incident comes the major dramatic question, and from that there is an Obligatory Scene (as Robert McKee calls it) that will answer that question. It’s something you know that will happen. In Star Wars, you know Luke will have to fight Darth Vader from the first mention of the villain. In Jaws, you know the sheriff will come face to face with the shark. In any detective story, you know the detective and criminal will battle intelligence and grit until their final showdown. The question remains how they will get there. And that part is the story.
With that opening episode of Peaky Blinders, the stage is set for a match of wills between the cop and the criminal until the showdown at the end of the season.
But at the start of the second episode the criminal tells the cop that he has the guns.
That simple scene and short dialogue subverts the expectations. Now the question – and inferred scene – is less clear.
When you give away what you think you should be hiding, the story becomes something else.
I’d been struggling with a major plot in my novel-in-progress where a member of the clergy hears the confession of an arsonist. That scene from Peaky Blinders inspired me to bring that confession further forward.
The novel I’m writing is not a detective story. It’s a story about the clergyman’s character and what he does with the information about the arsonist. Giving away what I was trying to hide or delay changed the arc into the story I was really trying to uncover.
Sometimes the structure falls apart. You need to have things happen in a particular order. But sometimes changing it takes away the scaffolding that was just there to build the important structure. It’s worth experimenting.