How can you possibly write a compelling story that takes place in one room?
It’s not easy, but the movie “12 Angry Men” definitely makes it look easy!
During the last stream, a subscriber requested that we do a stream about “12 Angry Men and how to write group tension.”
Watch the full video here or scroll down for highlights.
- “12 Angry Men” is a story about the twelve men on the jury for an eighteen-year-old boy on trial for the murder of his father
- At the beginning, one juror stands alone against the other eleven in saying the boy is not guilty, but over the course of the story, he and then the others slowly convince the rest
- It may seem incredible that a whole story takes place in one room (boring!) with twelve characters (complicated!), who are all older white men (bland!), but it pulls it off incredibly well, and one of the big reasons is because of good group tension
The 3 Basics for Group Tension
- (1) Make sure that your characters are “trapped” together for a believable reason at the beginning
- Even if they don’t know why they’re together (like in Saw II), they still need to have a common goal (such as escaping)
- In “12 Angry Men,” the characters being together make sense because they’re a jury (which grounds the viewer because it makes sense), and their goal is to be unanimous in a verdict (which sets up conflict because they will have to argue)
- (2) Make tension increase over the course of the story by having “numbers” change
- Tension can increase by numbers going down (characters dying like in The Thing) or numbers going up (enemies increasing like in The Purge)
- In “12 Angry Men,” the number of guilty/non-guilty votes literally change as the story progresses, and each changed vote only happens from a conflict, constantly growing in tension
- The weather also changes along with the tension, starting off hot, then sweltering, then exploding into a thunderstorm
- (3) Climax your story when there is “only one left”
- Tension reaches its maximum point when there’s only “one” good guy/bad guy left
- In something like The Thing, the tension peaks when there’s only one victim left surviving, and in something like The Purge, the tension peaks when only the biggest bad guy(s) are left
- In “12 Angry Men,” the tension peaks when there is only one juror left with a guilty vote after all the others have been swayed
The Characters for Group Tension
- But the most important factor for group tension is the characters
- Every single character needs to stand on their own as a unique, interesting individual
- AND there needs to be believable conflict between them
All of the “12 Angry Men” are older white men, but their have varied personalities:
- Juror #1 – The foreman/leader, tries to keep things running smoothly
- Juror #2 – Nerdy guy who thinks he’s doing the right thing
- Juror #3 – Anger issues, issues with youth based on his own son
- Juror #4 – Smart, calm and cool, doesn’t even sweat in the heat
- Juror #5 – Grew up in slums like boy on trial
- Juror #6 – Self-proclaimed “not very smart guy” but has a good heart
- Juror #7 – Annoying, in a hurry, easily changes his vote
- Juror #8 – Original one to take stand, believe in giving boy fair chance
- Juror #9 – Old man who is sympathetic to #8
- Juror #10 – Racist older man
- Juror #11 – Immigrant who believes in American justice system
- Juror #12 – Well-off marketer, flip-flops his vote
And there is a lot of criss-crossing with relationships:
- #1 (foreman) conflicts with #3 (anger) and #7 (hurry) about voting
- #3 (anger) chums up with #4 (cool) because he gives logic to his hatred
- #5 (slum) argues with #3 (anger) and #10 (racist)
- #6 (not smart) argues with #3 (anger) when he harasses #9 (old man)
- #7 (annoying) argues with #11 (immigrant) after changing vote easily
- #10 (racist) is rejected by even #3 (anger) and #4 (cool)
- #12 (marketer) tries to sweet talk everyone, asks them their jobs
– Keep in mind, I saw this movie weeks ago, and none of the characters had any names, but I still wrote all the above from memory and remembered all of them extremely vividly thanks to their PERSONALITIES and INTERACTIONS
– Keep in mind that the more characters you have, the harder this is, generally every number beyond four gets exponentially harder (need story time, unique personality, criss-crossing interactions, etc.)
– “12 Angry Men” was forced to use twelve characters because it’s a jury, but ideally your story will have many fewer characters
After that, chat voted that we write a story using group tension, using this prompt: a plane of business people have had it with a crying baby.
Here’s what we came up with:
First class had six seats, each practically the size of its own small plane. They were like six cubicles, which each of their occupants was very familiar with. Not that they worked in a cubicle themselves, of course not! But their dozens—or for some of them, hundreds—of employees certainly did.
Across the aisle, the passengers could see into each others’ seating areas. In the back row, one young woman decked out in earrings, necklaces, and a business blazer sharp enough to cut quarterly expenditures typed away furiously at her laptop, its spreadsheets and pie charts reflected in her glasses. The older man across from her leaned back in his own chair, resting his bald head against a freshly-unwrapped pillow, wrinkling his faded suit that was nearly as old as he was. He grabbed a bag of assorted nuts from the pocket on the wall beside him, then rolled over and held it out to the woman, shaking it enticingly.
“Hey there,” he said. “You need a snack for all that hard work you’re doing?”
She glanced over for only a second, not grinning.
“Thanks but I’ve got my own,” she said, still typing away. “And if you wouldn’t mind keeping quiet, I’d really appreciate it.”
“We’ve got ten hours on this flight,” the man said, popping an almond into his mouth and crunching it down. “Isn’t that plenty of time to do whatever you need to do?”
She grunted as if he’d just told a bad joke. “I’ll be lucky to finish this report in ten hours.”
“Well at least tell me your name, and then I promise I’ll leave you alone,” the man said. “I always like to know the names of my fellow passengers. You know, just in case of emergency.”
“Jane,” she said quickly, not adding so much as another unnecessary syllable.
“Well I’m Johnson,” the man said. “You just let me know if you change your mind about the nuts, Jane.”
She didn’t reply, and Johnson slowly turned back to face the chair in front of him. Even though he couldn’t see, sitting there was another woman not having a great time. Bundled up in a puffy jacket and scarf, she was shaking as she stared out the window, drumming her fingernails against the plastic siding. The complimentary paper barf bag was already opened and ready to be used at any time in front of her.
“You doing all right?” came a voice from across her aisle. She turned to see a middle-aged man smiling at her from his own seat. For first class, he was dressed down, wearing a Hawaiian flower-pattern shirt and a slightly-stained white t-shirt underneath. On the tray in front of him, he was pouring a small bottle of amber tequila from a bottle into a clear plastic cup.
“I’m just a little nervous,” she said, trying to smile. She didn’t even have the strength to hold it for a second and it just turned into an even more droopy frown.
“Me too,” the main said. “That’s why I always take my medicine.” He picked up the plastic cup by the lid, shook it and grinned, then downed the whole thing in one gulp, letting out a sigh of refreshment. “Ahh, takes the edge off. You want some… sorry I didn’t get your name.”
“I’m Heather,” the woman said. “And no thanks. I’d love some, but alcohol makes me sick to my stomach.” She nodded to the open bag in front of her. “I’m already having to fight the nausea enough as it is.”
The man tipped another already-filled cup to her, as if toasting her. “Have it your way, Heather. I’m Sam, by the by. Don’t worry if I stop moving during the flight. That’s just the medicine doing its work.”
Heather snorted a fake laugh, then turned back to the window. Outside the clouds looked stormy. The sky was gray, probably going to turn black soon enough. Thunder rumbling in the distance made the plane wobble, churning her stomach like a clogged toilet.
She patted her pocket, where she had a dose of her own medicine, ready to go if worse came to worst. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that.
That was when the baby started crying.
In the front row, hidden from the other four passengers, a baby started wailing as if it was being stabbed with a cattle prod. Immediately, Jane stopped typing on her laptop and perked up like an alarm went off. Heather grit her teeth, tried to ignore it, and stared out at the clouds. Sam sighed and poured himself another plastic cup.
Each of them hoped that the crying would stop immediately, but it kept going. And going. And going. The baby seemed to ignore all laws of thermodynamics, constantly increasing in intensity. Its head-piercing scream drilling its way into each of their brains.
Jane groaned and shut the lid to her laptop, looking around for anything she could use to stop the horrible noise. She pressed the button to summon a flight attendant, who quickly responded to her call. The uniformed woman shuffled over to Jane’s seat, squatted down next to her, and quietly informed her that she would check on the child.
Sam and Heather both watched eagerly as the stewardess stepped up to the front and spoke to probably the parents of the belligerent child. It was impossible to hear what anyone said over the baby’s screams, but when they were done, and the flight attendant went back to Jane, all she could do was shrug and supply her with some complimentary earplugs.
“I can’t believe this,” Jane said, just loudly enough for Johnson to hear across the aisle from her. He was still lying down, hands crossed over his stomach, not looking bothered by the child.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
Jane got up from her seat and squatted down next to his. Even with her right next to him, it was still hard to hear her. “I can’t concentrate on my work with that child yelling its lungs out. We need to do something about it.”
Johnson shrugged. “I mean, you already called the stewardess. There’s not much else we can do, right?”
From in front of Johnson, Heather peeked back, her face red like it was about to pop from being so tightly bound in her jacket and scarf.
“Maybe if we say something to the parents, then that will get the baby to shut up,” she said. “The stewardess is just the boss. No one likes their boss. We’re their coworkers, their equals. Nothing like a little shame to get something done.”
Jane and Johnson stared at her, and Johnson couldn’t help but chuckle.
“You’re comparing this plane to a workplace hierarchy?” he asked her.
“I’m just suggesting a way to get things done,” Heather said. “Flying for ten hours is bad enough. It’s going to be absolute hell if we have to endure that the whole time.”
Between Heather and Jane, another face popped up. Sam walked over, this time with a plastic cup of red wine, sipping at it with an eager grin.
“Ooh, what’s going on here?” he asked. “Are we forming a little baby-hating club?”
Johnson put out his hands and finally sat up. “No baby-hating from me.”
“Listen,” Jane said, eyeing the other three through her glasses, clearly eager to get them back to starting at spreadsheets. “If all four of us go over there, we can shame the parents into shutting up the kid. Or maybe get them to go back into coach.”
Jane nodded to the doors behind them that led to the lower class seating. There wasn’t so much as a peep coming from the other side of the thick, closed doors. At the very least, the baby going behind there would turn its volume way down.
“So are we doing this?” Jane asked everyone. “Are we going together?”
“I think we’re all adults here,” Johnson said, starting to feel as though he didn’t like his fellow passengers as much as he had initially thought. “We can deal with a crying baby for a little while.”
“I can’t,” Heather said, rubbing her forehead. “It’s giving me a migraine.”
“Neither can I,” Sam said, taking the final swig of his wine cup. “I always pass out on these flight. But with that kid yelling, my blood is going to be boiling too hard for the alcohol to settle in.”
“So what do you say, Johnson?” Jane askeds, turning to him. “Is it going to be all of us against the parents or not?”
Johnson looked between his fellow passengers, feeling sick to his stomach.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “Listen, I don’t know about you all, but I’m sitting here because I had to make a lot of sacrifices. Family was one of them. You know what I would give to have a baby of my own screaming on the plane? I’d give it all up, just for that. And the fact that you can’t see that, if I’m being frank, makes me a little sick. So goodbye.”
With that, Johnson stood up from his seat, opened the door to coach, and then slipped inside of it, the door shutting behind him. Just as he did, thunder struck outside, lighting up the blackening sky and shaking the plane. The baby wailed louder still. Jane, Heather and Sam all exchanged glances.
“Can he do that?” Sam asked.
“Well there didn’t seem to be many passengers for coach today,” Heather said. “I only counted forty. So there’s probably a lot of empty seats.”
“Whatever,” Jane said. “He can go. But we’re still three. Let’s go tell those parents to stop being disrespectful.”
Heather nodded in agreement, and both of them turned to Sam to see what he would say. But before he got a word out, he smiled a bubbly grin, then slowly fell down backward onto the aisle floor, passed out. Heather and Jane stared at him, then looked at each other.
“Well I guess the crying wasn’t such a distraction for him after all,” Heather said, thankful she hadn’t sampled any of his medicine.
Jane shook her head. “This is ridiculous. I didn’t pay an extra thousand dollars just so I would have to endure a human muffler for ten hours.”
“Actually,” Heather said, “mufflers are supposed to make cars less noisy, not more noisy.”
Jane swipes the air in front of her. “Whatever! Do I have your help or not? Let’s end this already!”
Heather thought about it for a moment, thinking of the confrontation she would have to have with the baby’s parents. They would be looking at her, judging her, wondering how someone like her ever got to a position to fly in first class. They’d think she was some daddy’s girl, promoted because she whined and begged him at home. They’d tell all their friends about her, even if it wasn’t true, and then the rumors might spread and come back to her and then everyone would be whispering behind her back. She doesn’t deserve it. She’s an imposter. She’s just a daddy’s girl.
“No,” Heather accidentally said to herself out loud. Jane looked at her, shocked.
“No?” she asked. “Seriously?”
“No!” Heather said. “I mean—”
“Whatever,” Jane said, waving away Heather. “I’m done with this. I’ll deal with no leg space and chatty poor people for a few hours if it means I can actually get work done.”
Jane stomped away from Heather, yanked her laptop from her seat, then disappeared back into coach, same as Johnson.
Heather was all alone. The baby’s screams were worse than ever now. Outside, thunder boomed so loud from the storm that the plane shook harder than Heather’s shivering arms.
Screams. Screams. Screams! The baby’s wails wrapped around her, inside and out, choking her to death. This was a poison that she couldn’t just throw up. This was something that had to be dealt with personally. It was her worst fear come to life.
Heather slipped her fingers inside her pocket and pulled out her pack of medicine. It was what she always brought on planes in case of emergency. A pill. One little pill that could end it all in case the plane decide to malfunction and plummet toward the ground. That was one thing Heather couldn’t bear. The thought of slamming into the ocean, the plane slowly filling with water, trapped and helpless as everyone screamed screamed screamed!
But there was another way out from this one. She didn’t need to take the emergency exit pill. She could give it to the baby. A present. A gift. A baby shower. Then all would be quiet and she could enjoy the flight in her usual miserable peace.
Clasping the wrapped pill on one sweaty hand, Heather marched down the aisle, toward the front, where the demon was howling. She reached the end, figuring that she could end it with just one swift hand movement.
Heather stepped in front of the seat. Ready to go. Fingers, mouth, done. No more screaming.
“Oh, hello there,” said the woman sitting in the seat. She was cradling the crying baby in her arms. “I’m sorry about little Billy right here. But hopefully he’ll be done soon.”
“How about we treat you to whatever you want off the menu?” asked the man across from her, probably the baby’s father. “Just as a small thank you for putting up with it.”
Heather didn’t know what to do. She just stared back and forth at the man and woman, then slowly backed away, slipping the escape capsule back into her pocket.
Without another word, Heather slipped into her seat, collapsing in a heap of hard breathing and sweat beneath her scarf and jacket. She looked outside. The thunderstorm had started to go away. A little bit of sunshine peeked through the clouds.
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe, for all Heather knew, the flight was almost over anyway. Just a few more minutes, perhaps until they arrived.
A voice came over the loudspeaker.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Now that the storm has passed, we will begin takeoff procedure soon. Please return to your seats and fasten your seatbelts.”
The flight hadn’t even begun yet. Heather started screaming at the top of her lungs.
Be sure to check out the video for more info and a dramatic reading!
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Hope to see you next time, friend!