The beginning of your story is like the foundation of a building. It must be strong enough to support the rest of your structure or the whole thing will collapse.
The first of the 27 Essential Principles of Story is DROP THE HAMMER. By this we mean that that you introduce your hero and then radically alter their life. You set up a hammer. And drop it. Your goal is to make your audience/reader want to go on the ride.
So, with this in mind, let’s look at the beginning of The Godfather.
Dropping the Hammer
Vito Corleone is the head of a powerful family, the Corleones. They are a family in the traditional sense and a crime family. He is essentially a king.
The hammer comes down when a mobster, Virgil “The Turk” Sollozzo, with ties to rival crime families, makes Vito an offer. He’ll cut Vito and the Corleones in a major drug deal if Vito will use the politicians and cops he “keeps in his pocket” to protect the operation. It’s virtually guaranteed to make millions.
The problem is Vito considers drugs a “dirty” business. He runs gambling and prostitution operations, but considers these victimless crimes. Drugs are different – they destroy people’s lives, including children. And besides this, Vito fears drugs will cause his political connections to turn on him. So he respectfully declines the offer.
The hammer that comes down on Vito is caused by his eldest son, Santino. During the meeting, Santino (“Sonny”) opens his fat mouth and inadvertently signals to Sollozzo that he wants to take the deal. Vito instantly realizes what this means. The other families will now try to have him whacked so that Sonny will take over and do the deal.
So, the Storytellers constructed an event that radically alters the hero’s life. A king, or Godfather, faces an existential threat to his power. This provokes a question: will the king lose his kingdom?
So, this threat from Sollozzo brings down the hammer on reality as Vito knows it. Try to think of any single event you can imagine that could have a greater impact on this man at this time. It’s not a little problem, not a medium-level problem. It’s an existential threat.
Setting up the Hammer
Now let’s work backwards to see how the writers set up the hammer.
Everything that happens prior to this moment is carefully selected to make your audience care. This is everything. The degree that your audience/reader becomes invested in your hero is the degree to which they enjoy your story.
Before the hammer drops, we spend an afternoon with the Godfather. His daughter is getting married on the family’s sprawling estate. It’s a Sicilian tradition for the father of the bride to grant any favor asked of him on the day of his daughter’s wedding. So Vito conducts business in his darkened office, while people feast and dance outside.
Here are some things that make us care about Vito:
- The role is played by Marlon Brando, arguably the most charismatic, handsome leading man in Hollywood history.
- Vito helps a man avenge the rape of his daughter and does it with a sense of justice.
- A cat curls up in his lap and clearly adores him.
- Hundreds of dedicated family members attend the wedding which is a truly joyful event where people clearly feel comfortable expressing themselves fully. Children run wild through the house. There’s a massive feast, music, dancing and tradition.
- Even his toughest hit man, Luca Brazzi, not only adores him but fears him.
- The Godfather is happily married to his wife of many years and is loyal to her. He often reminds his sons, especially his adulterous eldest, Sonny, that “a man who doesn’t spend time with his family can never be a real man.”
- The Don expresses a strong world view – that family is everything.
- He carries himself with a world-weariness that suggests the effort he’s put into running his empire has taken a toll.
- Though a criminal, he dreams of taking his family into reputable businesses.
- Refuses to take a family photo without his beloved youngest son, Michael, a Marine just back from WWII.
- Adopted one of his son’s, Tom Hagen, after Sonny found him in the street. But out of respect for the boy’s dead father, let the boy keep his own name.
- His Godson is Johnny Fontane, a character based on Frank Sinatra. Vito is not only powerful enough to have built his career, he naively fails to see that Johnny has arrived not just out of love but because he needs a favor. Yet, when he sees Johnny burst into tears because he failed to get part, Vito slaps the shit out of him and mocks him for crying. In other words, Vito is emotionally complex. He’s fully human.
That’s just a small sample of all that the Storytellers did to make audiences fall in love with the Godfather. He’s kind, strong, handsome, funny, loving, tough, just, powerful, naive, sensitive and compassionate.
Though far from perfect- he’s a criminal and a killer – he’s an archetype of the father we all, on some level, wish we had. He’s the ultimate provider. And it strikes a primal nerve to see such a man’s power threatened. When the Storytellers present a question – Will Vito survive this threat to his power? – we care deeply about the answer.
So, the question for you is who is your story about? And exactly what do you do to make your readers/audience not just care, but become fully invested in your hero? Aim high. Set up and drop a wicked hammer. Make everything that your hero does before the hammer drops count. Here’s a link to the opening scene of The Godfather. Watch it carefully, line by line, and note the totality of Vito’s personality and how he lures you in.
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