Given Circumstances

Given Circumstances is a term developed by Constantin Stanislavski, the famous Russian actor and director from Moscow.  

Since Stanislavski was from Russia, that is probably the main reason he does not get the recognition he deserves, especially as relations with Russia suffered during the cold war era. Since most people alive today may not have heard of him, the 'new' writer guide books that have been printed over the years usually copy Stanislavski's work in various forms, with the so-called new writers taking credit for ideas from before their time ... Plagiarism is alive and well!

Most people seem to think the work Stanislavski did for live theater does not apply to motion pictures, but when you consider the camera as being the audience, then  yes, his work does apply even today. After all, living and breathing human beings are expected to watch the film or video recorded by the camera in theaters around the world, as well as in their private residences.

When studios conduct live audience response studies, or watch audience responses during test screenings of new movies, they are acknowledging that films are indeed a live audience medium, very much in line with Stanislavski's ideas.

One important concept Stanislavski developed is known as given circumstances, which in simple terms means things happen in a story because the writer says they can happen.

Stop and think about this. This is really important stuff here. Most writers are so bound by everyday thinking and logic that it spills over into their writing and they ignore the creative possibilities given circumstances has to offer. They think, "That could never happen in real life," meaning the story goes no where, and the writer spends lots of time trying to write themselves out of a corner, and an otherwise good script is destined for the rejection pile, or tossed in the trash when the estate sale is over.

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As I was saying, without good use of concepts like given circumstances, an otherwise good story goes nowhere, and an otherwise good script gets rejected, meaning the writer wasted a lot of time for nothing. Another unsold script left to sit on your bookshelf. Don't let this happen to your script. Let us evaluate your script today!

Symptoms of scripts lacking given circumstances include: 

Stories take longer than expected. Act I and Act II take way too long, because the story won't 'take off'. Writers spend too much time explaining things instead of just telling the story, which makes the reader bored, usually resulting in quick rejection. With huge piles of scripts filling the daily mail, if your script does not pass the quick reading test, it is quickly rejected.

Scenes drag on ... and on. If the whole story takes too long, it is usually because each individual scene in the story takes longer as well. Scenes going on for several pages with the characters trying to explain things is not good, unless they are having a juicy argument, or some really good reason for the extra time.

This is why given circumstances are such an important concept for writers to understand, and use in their writing. If your character is expecting an important phone call, you have the phone ring when you need it to ring, beep or chirp in the story.  Just watch any police or detective show, and you will see this method used all of the time. When a detective needs an important clue, the phone will ring just in time, with an informant calling about, or bringing some 'just in time' evidence or information that blows the case wide open, and moves the story along, which makes the show better and more exciting to watch. 

Of course, given circumstances can also be carried too far, and back-fire as well. back in the 1950's several TV game shows had to be canceled when producers rigged some of the shows to make sure popular players won the shows to help boost ratings. This was known as the Quiz Show Scandals