to a resolution and generally implies a diminished role for characterization.
In short, if you use plot, the likelihood is that it will play a dominant role in
the script. There are short films, such as The Lady in Waiting (see Appendix B),
where a very modest plot is used; the New York blackout is more a plot
device than plot proper, but it is nevertheless the plot of The Lady in Waiting.
More often, however, when a plot is used it dominates the short script.
Because it does so, it bears down on the main character and his or her goal
with particular intensity. If that plot does not oppose the main character’s
goal, the script as a whole softens under the intensity of a character’s pur-
suit, with too little resistance offered to that pursuit. The result is a loss of
credibility in the character. This is true for melodrama.
It’s useful to look for a moment at the situation comedy, which is the “pos-
itive” (in photographic terms) of the melodrama. This means that elements
such as plot will be used in the opposite way to how they’re used in the
melodrama. In Matthew Huffman’s film Secret Santa, it is Christmas time.
The seven-year-old main character simply wants not to be bullied and belit-
tled by a larger classmate. That’s his goal. The plot enables him to achieve
that goal as follows: A bank robbery is carried out by six men wearing Santa
Claus outfits. One escapes, but is injured in his hurry to get away. He is
found by the seven-year-old, who believes he has found Santa Claus. He
takes him home, where the robber hides in the basement. This is the catalytic
event. In the second act, the boy befriends “Santa” and convinces him to
have words with the bully. “Santa” tells the bully to be good—or no presents
this year. The bully complies: the main character achieves his goal. (“Santa”
is caught climbing out of the basement window.). Here the plot—robbery
and its aftermath—enables the main character to achieve his goal.
Tone
Generally, the tone of the long-form melodrama is realistic. The short film
has a much greater tolerance for moving away from realism. Because of the
urgency of the character and his goal, or conversely, because of the intensity
of the plot, subjectivity and irony both have a place in the melodrama. In this

or turning point between acts. The turning point here is when the elevator
stops as a result of the power outage. Act II is dominated by the exploration
of the relationship between Miss Peach and Scarlett. From the elevator, to the
apartment, to the parting of their ways, the focus is on how Scarlett influ-
ences Miss Peach. The story is character-driven; it has little plot (the power
outage). The end is open, leaving us hopeful that Miss Peach will feel better
about herself. She remains, however, marginalized.
Graham Justice’s A Children’s Story exemplifies the Act I–Act III structure.
The main character is a six-year-old girl. The film opens with children being
very playful on a school bus. The driver tells them to settle down, not to
show each other their underwear. The driver seems to be a genuine friend to
the main character. In the following scene, a school psychologist looks into a
parallel incident, where the driver was inappropriately friendly with the
children. The act ends with the driver being arrested for molesting the main
character. In the next act, the investigation continues. We learn that the main
character has had “numerous fathers.” The community is pressing for con-
viction of the driver. This requires the testimony of the main character. As the
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psychologist tries to learn more via play therapy, the main character is fear-
ful about releasing a secret. Ultimately, though, she inadvertently reveals
that it is the mother’s current lover who has been molesting her. The script
ends with the driver freed, once again presented as a true and caring friend
to the main character.
In A Children’s Story, the discovery of the true antagonist and his conse-
quent arrest brings the story to resolution. In this sense, the long act resem-
bles Act III of a feature film.
A Case Study in Plot
Graham Justice’s A Children’s Story also provides us with an example of the

for the day. The incidents in the story are as follows: She has a vicious argu-
ment with her mother. Her mother is more attentive to her female lover than
she is to her daughter’s anxiety about menstruation. The main character
decides to move out. Her father does not realize it, but the main character is
now planning to be with him for more than the day. The main character
insists on bringing a friend along. The father insists on bringing his new
lover along. Needless to say, parenting is not the order of the day—rather,
who can be more childish, the adults or the children, is the goal.
In order to make her point about “who is the parent here,” Ayanna Elliot
uses humor and irony. If there is a consistent tone to Tough, it is irony. The
tone is effective in making her point about parenting.
Emily Weissman’s Pocketful of Stones offers a very different tone. This film
opens with the admission of the main character, in her late teens, into a hos-
pital. She has attempted suicide; a failed relationship has driven her to the
act. The story focuses on her hospital stay. Will she get better or worse? The
story ends with her more withdrawn than ever and confined to the hospital.
In between, we learn that her goal is to get out of the hospital. Although
rebellious toward authority (the nurse), she is nevertheless fairly reality
based. She develops a relationship with a young man, also a patient.
Through his influence and control, she is coaxed into self-mutilating behav-
ior, and she becomes increasingly withdrawn, then aggressive. She goes
from talking with the psychiatrist about a release plan, to behavior troubling
enough to preclude release. At the end of the story, she is worse off than she
had been at the beginning.
The tone in Pocketful of Stones is expressionistic, even nightmarish, empha-
sizing the main character’s emotional, subjective state. By doing so, Emily
Weissman puts us in her place—time is obliterated, authority figures are
monsters, the hospital is a war zone. By resorting to an exceedingly subjec-
tive tone, Emily Weissman avoids the case-study approach and takes us
inside mental illness. The result is very powerful. Here again, moving away