What is "the Controlling Question"?

My previous blog concerned the curse of “Nearly There” in which I outlined the frustrations of feeling like you are almost within grasp of a career in writing, and questions whether what I am feeling is just another false dawn.  I’ve been there before, after all, as – I suspect – have many, many writers out there.

Of course, what “nearly there” actually means is that you are closer than you have ever been to your FIRST paid writing job, and doesn’t actually guarantee a CAREER.

No, for a long time I thought that as soon as I get my size 10 wedged precariously In-The-Door, I’ll be beating producers and studios away with a bullwhip.  But in recent years, I’ve grown more realistic.  One assignment is not a career.   The script which I hope will land me an agent, I’ve been working on it for over a year.  Should that pilot get picked up and green-lit tomorrow, or should using it as a sample get me a gig on Doctors or Waterloo Road, will I have a whole year to write another episode?  Unlikely. 

Of course, I’d hopefully be writing full time instead of an hour or two per day, but again that is not guaranteed.  And I would still have to be wearing my very best writing head EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

So, were I to snare that elusive first paid job, I have to ask: what keeps me focused?  What will give me that edge to actually forge a career out of that teeny-tiny gap in the front door?

The answer, I think, is most obvious in documentary-making, and – often – what is lacking from many-an over-long movie (often rom-coms, but not exclusively).

The controlling question.

What will happen next?

How will they achieve that? 

In documentaries, it’s obvious from the introduction.

"Here, we will explore the affects of logging on this Hulu-Hulu tribe." 

So the audience should, hopefully, be asking, Yes, how DOES logging affect these people?

That is your arch question.  Setting it up from the start. 

Likewise, fiction needs that same over-arching question.

Will Indy get to the Ark before the Nazis?

Will John McClane stop the terrorists/robbers?

Will ET get home?

Will the contract killer resolve his personal crisis at the high school reunion?

Will the Avengers manage to protect the Earth from an alien invasion?

Will the Doctor prevent the Daleks from taking over the universe?

Will the CSI team unravel the clues and catch the killer?

Will the grumpy newsreader live up to his ideals and produce an excellent news show instead of a bland one?

These are all the big plot-points that drive a movie or TV show from the off.  The questions that must be answered toward the end of the story, the question that - if not answered satisfactorily - will leave your audience cold.  And annoyed.  Answer it well, and they love you for it. 

But everyone knows this, right?  Setup, complication, resolution. 

However, the over-arching controlling question is just one aspect.   What about the little ones? 

In the logging documentary, you may get introduced to an environmentalist or a tribal leader.  They'll talk about the tribe.  The controlling question here is, who are these people?  If the audience isn't asking themselves this, you've probably failed.  You are setting up the characters.  Then the logging company, some background, with the audience asking, Who are they?  Why do they do this? 

When Luke Skywalker buys the droids, at a "farm" in the desert, we are asking, Who is he?  We get glimpses of who he is, what his background is.  He wants to go to "the academy" to become a pilot.  In a conversation with Uncle Owen it is revealed Luke's father was a pilot, so we are asking, Who is Luke's father?  Later, we learn his father fought in the clone wars, so we wonder, What are the clone wars?  Although we never really get a firm answer to that until George Lucas decides to rip out the heart of every person who grew up watching Star Wars, we get enough hints from the universe in which Star Wars is set.  Mainly from Obi Wan Kenobi: "Your father was killed by a jedi named Darth Vadar, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil…"  

Wow, Who is Darth Vadar?

These questions - usually subconscious but important in the mind of the viewer - are what keep us interested in the story, even when there is little in the way of action.  But when the action starts, to prevent it becoming boring, we must throw these questions/answers at the viewer pretty quickly.

A classic action sequence is Indy assaulting the truck holding the Ark in Raiders. 

Q: How is he going to get on there from his horse?

A: Blimey, Charlie, he's jumped!

Q: Okay, he's on the truck, what now?

A: He's attacking the driver in the cab.

Q: He's shot!  Oh, shit, how can he win this fight?

A: He can't, he's been thrown out of the windscreen.

Q: Phew, he's holding onto the Mercedes badge on the front.  What will he do now?

A: The badge bends and breaks.  Oh no!

Q: OMG! He's under the truck, how on Earth will he escape?  OMG² he's losing his grip!  How will he…?

A: Of course, the whip!  He hangs onto the truck using his bullwhip.

Q: Uh-oh, he's hanging off the back getting battered to shreds.  Now what?

A: He pulls himself up using pure brute force and strength of will. 

Q: He'd wounded.  How can he get control of this truck?

A: By fighting dirty. 

So rather than just a random bunch of action beats - a shot, a return fire, a bit of a run, more shooting - each action beat brings its own question because each action beat is original and perilous in and of itself.  That's why this is a classic scene. 

Note also, though, that the sequence itself, although made up of lots of smaller questions, has its own arch-question: will Indy rescue the Ark?  Or "aim", "obstruction", "resolution".  But whatever way you look at it, it ties in with the original over-arching question of  Will Indy get to the Ark before the Nazis?

In talkie-talkie scenes, too, the controlling question must be front and centre.  What does that person want?  What is stopping them from getting it? 

Excellent examples can be found in the work of Aaron Sorkin and Quentin Tarrantino.  See how the power shifts every three or four sentences.  See how new questions emerge. 

The opening of Inglorious Basterds, for me, is one of the best openings of recent years, if not one of the best outright scenes.  The German officer enters the farmer’s house, and the menace just builds and builds and builds, until a frightening moment of dramatic irony, and all the way through the audience is asking itself:

Why would the German think the farmer is hiding Jews?

What would happen if the farmer really IS hiding Jews?

Is the German going to kill the farmer regardless?

What will happen to the farmer’s daughters?

OMG! There are Jews under the floorboard.  Will the farmer sell them out?

Will the German kill the Jews? 

What will happen to the farmer now? 

Will the German kill him or keep his word?

And so on.  And through many scenes in that film.  Okay, the film itself is no masterpiece, but many of those scenes – where Shosanna meets with Captain Landa in the restaurant in which Landa attempts to probe her about who she is, and in the bar where the British soldiers are being probed by a Gestapo officer - we just KNOW something isn’t right, and all the way through there is this thrust and parry between the goodies and the baddies.

One question answered, with another ready to take its place.

Witness also those scenes in A Few Good Men between Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson; the twists and turns within each conversation are stunning.  

So that, to me, is the way we keep the audience entertained, how we stop them from changing the channel or blogging that your movie is boring.  Keep throwing questions at them, keep them guessing, keep them interested. 

Should I get to produce something at a professional level, this is what should remain front and centre in my mind, perhaps on a note pinned in plain sight: 

WHAT IS THE CONTROLLING QUESTION?