Page 80 Thinking

I recently learned that screenplays have a very specific formula. Each page in a screenplay represents one minute of screen time, and specific events must occur within a certain number of pages. For example, in his book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, Donald Miller explains that in a screenplay the hero needs to “save a cat” before page 30. Meaning, he has to do something noble or morally redeemable early on so that the audience is willing to root for him until the end.

Another rule of screen-writing is that the first kiss between the main male and female love interests has to occur within the first 80 pages. Again, this is designed to maintain the audience’s interest. No one wants to see a movie in which two characters pine for each other indefinitely and never actually get any fulfillment. People go to the movies to be filled with popcorn and unreasonable fantasies, not longing.

Though few of us end up making a movie based on our lives, our lives do represent a kind of story and more often than not we employ the page 80 principal, especially as it applies to romance. For example, from what I recall, by age nine a girl has to have at least one boy in her life who she thinks is gross; by age 11 a girl is supposed to have her first serious crush, and somewhere between the ages of 13 and 15 she’s supposed to have her first boyfriend.

For girls at least, your first exposure to Page 80 thinking typically takes place at something called a “slumber party,” a pre-adolescent ceremonial ritual (disguised as someone’s birthday celebration) that is designed to determine how you measure up against your friends in terms of development.

At slumber parties, all nearly-pubescent girls are required to play a series of torturous mind games, the most infamous being “truth or dare.” It was never wise to pick “dare” because you would inevitably be required to take off your clothes and streak through the living room where the hostess’s older brother was playing video games with his friends. So, the only real option was truth. Considerate people (like me) asked questions that were just personal enough to be revealing without causing significant emotional trauma. Questions like “Do you shave your armpits?” or “What’s your bra size?” were perfectly safe because no was supposed to be shaving yet and anyone wearing a cup size larger than an “A” was to be envied – not pitied.

But halfway through the game a pretty girl (who was also a borderline bully) would take things to another level. The tension would build and she would inevitably ask something like, “Do you get your period?” or “Have you ever kissed a boy?” Everyone, and I mean everyone, was required to get their period before they turned 14. If you failed at this task, you would be labeled a circus freak and sold to a company of gypsies instead of entering high school. Also, it was generally understood that the first kiss should take place some time between the 6th and the 9th grades. So, if you hadn’t kissed anybody by the time of your first slumber party, you had to at least be willing to reveal the name of the boy you wanted to kiss. Thinking about it wasn’t the same as doing it, but it was good enough for age 12.

A girl most definitely needed to have kissed someone before she finished high school, but she didn’t have to go farther than that. At least in my day, only sluts had sex while they were in high school. Sex was for college. You were supposed to have a lot of sex in collage, and you were supposed to tell everyone within a four mile radius of your dorm. Without the public venue of slumber parties, most girls talked about their sexual escapades in the bathroom where it would echo. Or, if the professor was liberal enough and the course was one of those nebulous “study of literature” classes, some people even managed to work their sex life into the occasional essay.

My deficiencies in Page 80 thinking occurred some time after my first slumber party. Sure, I wore a bra before about half of the girls in my class and I got my period before the deadline, but I consistently fell short from that point on. Despite the fact that I didn’t even kiss anyone until college, I still planned to get married by the time I was 23, have my first kid when I was 26, and have my second and final kid when I was 28. This gave me a buffer zone of about two years, thereby guaranteeing that I would have all of the big stuff accomplished by the time I turned 30 and rigor mortis set in.

But that’s the thing about life’s screenplay. People think the writer is working off of an outline and each page is already carefully planned out, but then the characters take over. New characters are introduced and the story takes on a life of its own. Now I’m 34, single, childless, and have made a serious departure from my original script.

Yet, when I think about my story, I try to cling to authors who defy formula. There are plenty of storytellers who never adhere to the Page 80 romantic principle. For example, Jane Austen’s heroines never kissed until after they were married or at least engaged, which never took place until the end of the story. Also, the characters who defy formula often spend more time saving cats than they do kissing. Consider Sally Field in Norma Rae or Places in the Heart. I don’t remember her kissing anybody in either film, but I do remember her holding up that “union” sign. And I remember her picking cotton to survive, caring for her children and rescuing some random blind man all on her own - without a husband.

Maybe I can look at my story the same way. I saved many cats ahead of schedule. I donated blood. I helped feed the poor and disenfranchised. I cared for and taught more than 800 adolescents. And my story is no where near over. Maybe what I really need is a sequel to my movie – or better yet, a miniseries. My story will become an epic. I’ll make comeback after comeback, and my audience will stick with me because this is one character they’ll want to root for until the end.