Charges are positive and negative energies that inform your story.
What does this mean?
Typically, a story will begin with a problem that's solved by the end.
This results in an overall negative to a positive charge. Or maybe things start out okay in the beginning, but quickly fall apart. This would lead to an overall positive to negative back to positive charge.
But every scene will have its own charges, too. Either things are good at the beginning of a scene and go south (from positive to negative), or things aren't working out but improve at least somewhat by the end (negative to positive).
We can also break this down further. Every interaction your character has--every conversation with another--will contain its own charges (or they should, at least). A relationship that's okay can improve after a discussion (positive to more positive), or a new understanding can be reached (negative to positive), or a fight could take place (positive to negative).
These are charges, and there are a variety of ways to format them:
negative to positive
positive to negative
negative to more negative
positive to more positive
negative to positive back to negative (or even a "lesser" negative)
positive to negative back to positive (even a "lesser" positive)
A scene featuring an angry girlfriend demanding to know where her boyfriend was the previous night who then accepts his apology is a movement from a negative charge to a positive.
A man who just left his girlfriend's house and stumbles upon an accident his best friend has been involved in is a quick positive to negative change.
A mom who asks about her kid's day and learns he got the lead role in the school play is a positive to more positive change.
You can see the dynamic and how when "things happen" the positive and negative correlation is what moves the story along and ultimately keeps us interested in it.
Again, I can't take credit for this idea--it's all Robert McKee--but this kind of analysis comes in handy if a scene or story isn't working because it's when the charges become stagnant that the plot is no longer moving in any compelling way.
(How boring would a story be if the charges were positive to more positive to more positive to more positive without anything negative ever setting the character back?)
So if you've written a scene that feels a bit boring, map out every charge that occurs. Look deeply at the actions and conversations that are taking place, and pay attention to the directions in which they shift.
To keep the wave of energy flowing through a narrative, the charges should maintain a constant movement from positive to negative and back again.
Be Brilliant!
~Katie~
