I watched a script reading recently that really illustrated the need for an emotional journey in a play. I believe you can make a satisfying film without one, but for a play, emotional arcs are required.
Peter Craig, novelist and screenwriter, says this: “Per Aristotle, while we may still think of a story having three acts — Beginning, Middle, End — at a psychological level in the narrative Internal World, there is a four-act structure at work.”
Writer and teacher Scott Myers puts it this way:
“In the Themeline, that’s where we can track the Protagonist’s psychological metamorphosis, what in Hollywood is commonly referred to as their arc. In most movies, that arc is a positive one and can be looked at in four movements:
Disunity — — — — Deconstruction — — — — Reconstruction — — — — Unity
At the story’s beginning, the Protagonist is living in their ordinary world, a place they have inhabited for some time, what writers refer to as ‘backstory.’ The Protagonist has developed habits and attitudes, they have a personal history and their own distinctive world view, but from a writer’s perspective and in almost all cases, the story would not be worth telling were it not for this simple fact: the Protagonist is going to change, they need to change. Hence, movement — psychological, emotional, spiritual — is implied in a story from the very beginning.
Sometimes the Protagonist is conscious of their desire for change, other times, they are unaware of it. However in almost every story, the Protagonist starts off in a state of Disunity: they are living their life one way, when they should be living it differently. Their overall journey is from an inauthentic existence to an authentic one.
Something happens which propels the Protagonist out of the ordinary world, thrusting them into what Joseph Campbell calls the “world of adventure.” At first, the Protagonist is a stranger in a strange land — new faces, places, rules. They try using the methods they have learned in the ordinary world, but they find their old ways don’t cut it in this new environment, the flow of events going against them, putting the Protagonist on their heels. The onslaught of events batters the Protagonist, physically, psychologically, or both, and causes them to start abandoning their old ways of being, coping mechanisms, and learned behaviors. Although this may be experienced as a negative, the effect of these events allows the Protagonist to get in touch with their authentic nature which has been lying dormant in the character’s unconscious. We call this movement Deconstruction.
Something significant happens around the story’s midpoint (Transition) where the Protagonist finally sets aside their old behaviors, relying more and more on what they are discovering within their Self. As they do, they usually release a heretofore untapped reservoir of innate power, previously repressed in their old way of living. Events happen which test them and give the Protagonist opportunities to practice using their newfound power and knowledge. As a result, the flow shifts, not so much events against the Protagonist causing them to react, but rather the Protagonist becoming proactive. We call this movement Reconstruction.
A story usually culminates in a big test to determine if what the Protagonist has learned along the way has taken hold or not. If the Protagonist succeeds in this Final Struggle, typically against a Nemesis, they do so in large part because of the merging of the their want and need, resulting in their end state: Unity.“
The play that was read had its plotline intact and ready to go, but its four-act internal structure was missing.