Improve Your Writing by Watching “Jaws”
Jaws is known as “Father of the Summer Blockbuster.” It was the first film to make $100 million. Released on June 20, 1975 and directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws — as written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb — offers a specific lesson for writers of all kinds:
Work toward economy in narrative and dialogue.
If for some terrible reason you have not seen Jaws, it’s about a New York cop taking a job in a small beach town when a monster man-eating shark begins feasting on the locals and threatening the summer tourist season, which is town’s primary economic engine.
Police Chief Martin Brody, father of two boys and happily married to Ellen, came to Amity Island from New York City where he was a city police officer. A dangerous job, to be sure. Almost from the beginning, the family seems to wonder if beach life is really all it’s cracked up to be, and Brody’s at odds with the city council and just about everyone else over this minor little shark issue.
About halfway through the film, Brody’s oldest son has just been brought to the hospital to be treated for shock after seeing a fisherman eaten by the titular character. In the hospital, Brody hands over his sleeping youngest son to his wife, saying, “Why don’t you take him home.”
Half-hopefully, half-joking, Ellen Brody replies, “New York?”
“No,” Brody says, unsmiling. “Home here.”
What’s so great about this minor — almost throwaway — exchange of dialogue is its economy. Hold on; we’re coming back to this.
Jaws is not about Brody wanting to return to New York, or about the trouble his family is having fitting in with this new community. But those things do exist in the story, and brings an added layer of conflict beyond the hungry shark: Being the New Guy in town.
Being the new guy offers a whole new set of obstacles for the main character. Have you noticed how many of your favorite stories are about a character out of her normal environment? That’s not an accident. For example, if the Brodys were from Amity, then Ellen’s reaction to first meeting the surly shark-hunter Quint wouldn’t have the impact it does; the grizzled fisherman scares her, and makes her all the more scared for her husband who’s going out with Quint and a nerdy scientist to capture or kill a great white. Her fear ramps up our fear.
This fish-out-of-water arc (ha! punny!) is not the primary concern of Jaws, but it’s a great base layer to build this excellent story upon. Being The New Guy makes things harder for the protagonist and it helps move the story along. Again, if Brody was an Amity native, his fights with the town council over closing the beaches (an argument he loses and which leads directly to the near-death of his son) wouldn’t be nearly so incendiary and thus would be much less thrilling overall as the fear over the shark’s rampage grows.
The tension on land is real and dynamic (and as Mrs. Kitner can tell you, has real-world life-or-death consequences…).
This film influenced my own writing in many ways. For example, in my novel Sick (The Breakfast Club meets The Walking Dead, set in an American public high school drama department), I chose to have the protagonist not be a “drama kid” despite the bulk of the book being set almost exclusively in that drama department. Why? So the readers — most of whom would not be drama kids — could experience the setting and tropes of a high school drama department through similar eyes.
They learn things at the same time my protagonist does.
Jaws uses the same approach. Having Brody be a new guy in town lets us as the audience learn about Amity, and about sharks, at the same pace as the protagonist. Jaws as told from Quint’s point of view would be, I daresay, incomprehensible or boring. If Jaws was told by him, we’d either be horribly confused by his fisherman’s lifestyle and lingo, or bored silly because the story would have to keep stopping to fill us in on backstory, life and politics in small town Amity, etc. etc.
Since Brody is the character we’re following, we learn things at the same rate he does, so the backstory, exposition, science, and so on has an immediacy to us that doesn’t slow down the story.
Now back to the hospital:
When Brody says to Ellen, “No. Home here,” what we’re seeing is Brody turning a corner. In this economical little husband-wife moment, the writers and director let us know that Brody is in this for the long haul. That damn shark nearly killed his boy. The smart thing to do is move back to New York. But Brody’s had it; this is war now. We’re not running away, honey. Amity’s our home now, and I swear by all that’s holy that I’m gonna make this shark pay for what he did to my son, to that young girl, to that little boy, and I’m not letting it happen to anyone else.
He says all that in three words.
In your writing, aim for that kind of economy. Ellen and Brody could have had a big fight scene wherein she argues that the family all go back to the Big Apple. And that would have been…fine.
But not good. Good is this quick, simple exchange that cements for us Brody’s position and goal for the remainder of the story.
Shark image photo by David Clode on Unsplash
