đ #224 - Concern, Influence, and Control
đ #224 - Concern, Influence, and Control
What are you going to do about it? What can you do?
In The Lord of the Rings, two hobbits are tasked with an essential role in toppling Sauron: Take his ring of power to Mount Doom and toss it into the molten fires below. Itâs part of a strategy: Send your wizard and fighters in the direction of the enemy army, and send two little hobbits who can move about without being noticed on the dangerous secret mission.
And within that is an interesting model of staying focused on your area of control: Samwise Gamgee.
Backing up, Anna Katharina Schaffner outlines the concept of separating your attention and effort into a set of concentric circles: Control, Influence, and Concern:
The Stoics agreed that within our control are our thoughts, emotions, and interpretations, as well as our reactions and actions. These are the things that we should focus on and work to improve.
By contrast, they held that there are things that are clearly outside of our control. These include other peopleâs actions, feelings, and opinions of us, the weather, the economy, and random events in life. These are the things that we should not waste our energy worrying about.
The condensed version:
The largest circle is your area of concern. Itâs the full scope of things you care about.
Inside that is a smaller circle of influence. This covers the parts of your concerns you may be able to have an impact on by enlisting and directing the efforts of others.
Inside that is another smaller circle of control. This covers things that are the things you have direct control over through your own effort.
In the above clip, Sam is concerned about completing their task and destroying the ring. He tries to influence Frodo to get up and keep moving by reminding him about their home. When that fails, Sam looks to what he can control: His own physical strength, and his determination to get Frodo and the ring over this final hurdle.
This style of thinking can be helpful when structuring stories about underdogs or unlikely heroes.
For example, the whole premise behind Cool Runnings is creating the first Olympic bobsled team from Jamaica, where there is no snow. The tactics are played up for comedy in their training scenes, but they do relate to some of the ways the actual Jamaican bobsled team continues to train. For a closer look at the realty behind the film, Oscar Frost interviews Dudley âTalâ Stokes, the real bobsled driver from the team that inspired Cool Runnings. Talking about how the film captured the spirit of that first team (and some all too real moments), you can also see how the adaptation focused on where the team avoided focusing on what they lacked and kept their attention on what they could control.
That whittling down of focus? Finding what you can directly control? Itâs a process, like in Moneyball:
In the clip above, itâs not just about the direct actions of assembling a team based on a new statistical model, but influencing the players to get on board with a different way of thinking about baseball. Scriptnotes recently featured an in-depth discussion of Moneyball featuring special guest Taffy Brodesser-Akner looking at the mechanics of the film, and the way it keeps the story clear even if the viewer has a limited knowledge of the sport.
Sticking with baseball, consider 1976âs The Bad News Bears. Life is a Story breaks down how the film is about getting Coach Buttermaker away from attaching your identity and sense of value to the scoreboard (an area of concern), and focusing on how to positively influence the lives of the kids on his team:
As a direct example, look at the scene from the film where Coach Buttermaker confronts the possibility that heâs pushing the kids too hard, and that they need grace instead. They need space to learn and grow, because they arenât fully-formed adult players. In pivoting to tell the kids âDo the best you can,â heâs moving inward from his concern about the game to his concern about the players, which falls within areas he can do something about.
A protagonistâs plan to overcome their obstacles needs to be based in how they can take direct action if thereâs any hope for them to succeed. It shows their understanding of the problem, their own self-awareness, and the writerâs understanding of the character.
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In case you missed it, in last issueâs most clicked link Malmrose Projects dissects Gary Larsonâs âCow Toolsâ comic, and how it anticipated internet humor and a world âwhere meaning was secondary to content.â
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Tracy Durnell on how women blogging is always a political act.
Michael W. Crowder explains how coffee gets decaffeinated.
Rebecca Rubin on the process of finalizing a title for a film.
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