The 4 “M’s” of the Moral Premise
Every story has a moral premise, it’s the beating heart of the story. While the physical journey of the protagonist is what happens to the character, the moral premise is about what happens on the character’s inner journey. Here’s a quick way of figuring out the moral premise of your story.
The 4 M’s
It takes 4 “M’s” to work out the moral premise, they are Morality, Malignance, Maturation and Misfortune. The first two are the choices the protagonist has to choose between. Morality being a good or just choice while malignance being the bad or injust choice. Usually the protagonist chooses the good choice but not always, as Michael in The Godfather, for example, chooses the malignant path. This of course leads to the other 2 “M’s”, Maturation and Misfortune, these are the effects of the choice.
Putting it Together
So now we have the choice the protagonist has made, if the protagonist chooses Morality it will lead his character to maturation and he will grow and be a better person. If he follows the malignant path, it will lead him to misfortune. Back to the Godfather, Michael chooses the malignant path and becomes the next Don by the end of the film, the very thing he did not want at the beginning of the film.
While this is a great resource for writers, it works equally as well for directors interpreting the script. Sometimes the director sees something else in the script other than what the writer intended. So, there you have it, your moral premise in an easy to put together nutshell.
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