Recently, I wrote about The Story Modern (Western) Screenwriters can Tell. I realized that the modern story can be put even more succinctly: the main character decides whether he’s going to be completely worthless or only mostly worthless.

Usually the thing which precipitates this crises is that the main character wants to be completely worthless, but the plot makes it such that if he is as completely worthless as he wants to be, many people will die (or at least suffer). In the end, we find out if he’s willing to go beyond himself to alleviate their suffering in the way that only he can do.

This has nothing to do with heroism, but it is mistakable for heroism by people who primarily think in terms of story beats (i.e. of plot points broken down by scene, the way that screenwriters do when writing or editing stories). Real heroism is not about whether someone will do the minimum necessary, but whether he will go beyond what is necessary. At its core, heroism is about generosity. That’s why it moves us so much—it’s about being a true image of God.

I suspect that it’s not a coincidence that modern writing is primarily concerned with how imperfectly the main character will be an image of hell.