The Magical Stranger narrative proceeds as follows:

We are introduced to a protagonist (hopefully) with a problem; be it their relationship, their work, or their addiction, their lives are full of struggle and conflict. The character then sets about on their day.

The narrative at this point can go a few ways: either the character hears of the magical stranger and goes looking for them, the character stumbles upon the magical stranger, or the magical stranger intervenes at a low point in the character’s life.

The magical stranger is invariably a member of some minority group; black, homosexual, transvestite etc. At the very least they are of the opposite gender of the protagonist. Being of a minority group somehow grants them magical powers of insight into the invariably white, straight protagonist’s life.

The magical stranger then utters some perfect bit of wisdom to the protagonist, who then marches off into a not so unfriendly world, ready and able to triumph over their difficulties in the third act.

Aside from its questionable exoticizing of “the other,” these films are generally unsatisfying for a number of reasons:

The first is, quite simply, it’s a deus ex machina. We watch movies to see how protagonists solve their problems, not to see how they are solved for them. It rings false in the audience’s ears: we’ve all been given great pieces of advice and ignored them because we had to learn the lessons for ourselves. Why now does the protagonist get to skip all of the difficulties implied in human growth?

The answer is often that the filmmaker doesn’t know how to solve or address the protagonists’ problems themselves. The Magical Stranger thus serves both as a story crutch and a psychological one.

We all yearn for the existence of a god who can grant us divine insight; a parental figure or mentor who will point us on the right path. The problem is these people don’t exist, and even if they do, we often resist their insights until they are proven to us by our own experience. This is what we resist when watching these short films, as well we should; it’s an adolescent fantasy. From a structural perspective, the mentor rarely appears at the climax of a film. There’s a saying that the end of act 2 is where good mentors go to die: they do so because the protagonist needs to face and overcome their problems alone. That’s what’s dramatically satisfying. Obi Wan can pop back at the end for a beer, but he’s not going to hold Luke’s lightsaber for him.

So the next time you’re writing a film and a Jamacian guy comes in to give your protagonist a bit of “jah,” or a a Buddhist monk shows up in a cafe just when your character’s about to kill herself, ask yourself; “Is the Magical Stranger really going to help my story? Is it going to engage my audience through a truthful statement about the world? Or is it going to get me out of this problem and come off vaguely unsatisfying at the same time?”

I say these things with love; I once wrote a short where the magical stranger was, you guessed it, an IKEA sign. After many furrowed brows and polite compliments I slowly learned my lesson. I should have gone for the Jamacian.

*These notes apply to melodramatic films interested in viewer identification with characters and a realistic treatment. I believe that the majority of short films strive for this effect, which turns an audience member from a passive viewer to an active participant in the film.

1. Unclear Point of View

Whose story is it? Short films generally follow one character’s journey and it’s important that we know who that person is as soon as possible. Lead with your protagonist and introduce their problem before moving around into secondary characters. The protagonist is our entry point into the world of the story, so lead with them unless you’re going for a specific effect.

2. Lack of Unity

This is about beginning, middle and end. Every piece of a short film should have significance for all the others. Each narrative thread should wind its way towards a surprising and inevitable climax and resolution. The source of conflict at the beginning of the film needs to be organically addressed through the actions of the protagonist and the events of the plot.

Student films often have too much exposition or too little. What do we need to know about your character, his world and the relationships in that world before the inciting incident occurs? Show only what’s necessary, which is most often what is about to change.

3. Lack of Conflict

Conflict creates interest in an audience, because conflict implies resolution. Through conflict we create expectations about how that conflict will resolve itself. We see that the story is driving towards a surprising and inevitable conclusion.

4. A Passive Protagonist

A passive protagonist has no goal, and takes no action to achieve it. If there is no goal, there is no expectation of an outcome to that goal, and a film becomes interminable. In a recent post on John August’s blog he posted his favorite definition of a protagonist: The protagonist is the character that suffers the most. To this I would add that the character suffers in order to achieve something he wants. If a character just suffers, the audience will often remain disengaged.

5. Too Many Characters/Locations

There is not a lot of time in short films to introduce characters. Often times a new set of characters is introduced for every scene in a film. A secondary character needs to have a specific and organic purpose in the film that makes sense for the entire film. A writer should not need to introduce multiple sets of characters multiple times in a short film; use the characters you have, and have a few as possible. All of these rules apply for locations as well. Aristotle’s unity of action, place and time are especially valuable for the short filmmaker. Rarely do great short films cover more than a day, a few locations and a single storyline. Most that do end up requiring narration.

6. Ambiguous/Vague

Many student writers are into open endings and ambiguity in their scripts. One teacher here gives a caveat; ambiguity is when there are two equally attractive or unattractive options for the protagonist. The opposite of this is vagueness, where the audience doesn’t understand what’s going on. Many open ended endings are not really open ended; the correct choice is obvious to the protagonist and the audience, though the filmmaker wants them to feel something else. Ambiguity is about making two possible options equally attractive for the protagonist and thus for the audience.

7. No Theme

Some stories are very clear, fun rides that don’t require deep resonating themes. Student films tend to stray toward dramas. Dramas generally have a point of view about the world, known as the theme. A theme is an assertive and arguable statement about the world that gives a larger richness and meaning to a story. Most films should have them.

8. Unnecessarily Long

Any scene that does not further the story needs to be cut. Long musical sequences, scenes without conflict, scenes with the same conflict over and over, can all be cut out. Every piece of action of the protagonist gives the audience new information about the story. Subplots that are not essential to the main conflict should be excised. A short film is not a feature, though many students end up trying to pack a feature into a short.

9. No Character Arc

Characters generally change as a consequence of their actions in a film. In short films the changes don’t have to be dramatic, but they should be there. If a character hasn’t changed, for the positive or negative, what’s the point of the story?

10. The Director Gets in the Way of the Story

This is a directorial problem, but you can always see in short films where the director fell in love with the camera because the story wasn’t working. Film is about storytelling, and the style of the film is ideally in service of the story. Don’t dolly because it’s pretty; dolly because it reveals information to the audience in a manner appropriate to your story. This problem is also related to why films are unnecessarily long; a director fell in love with a style that is not in service of the story, or spent a lot of money on equipment that doesn’t serve the story. They keep scenes in the film because they remember how expensive or difficult they were to get. A good director is concerned with communing with her audience, not with a dolly shot or crane move. On DUMPS they call this the “Look at me, I’m a director!” shot.

On the whole these problems deal with the three patron saints of good writing: Clarity, Specificity and Unity. Every writer should strive for these three at all times, god knows I do.

There is another excellent sample of problems in student shorts on filmmaker.com’s “Directing Unsuccessful Motion Picture Shorts.” It’s a highly entertaining read.