Storytelling for Lawyers (11 page)

Spence then looks into the future and sees the “time of infamy” as “worse than the days of slavery” when “the government held hands with these giants, and played footsie.”
⁸⁰
He describes it as “a sad time, the era between '70 and '79—they called it the Cimarron Syndrome.”
⁸¹
By projecting forward into time, Spence visualizes the alternative resolution to the story if Kerr-McGee is not stopped, and he now assumes Silkwood's prophetic role himself. Then Spence suggests answers to riddles the jury must solve in its deliberations. The first riddle: who was Karen Silkwood? Answer: she was “a brave, ordinary woman who did care. And she risked her life, and she lost it.”
⁸²
Then he suggests an answer to the second part of this riddle, of what she was trying to tell the world: “And she had something to tell the world, and she tried to tell the world. What was it that Karen Silkwood had to tell the world?”
⁸³
Answer:

I think she would say, “Brothers and sisters.…” I don't think she would say ladies and gentlemen. I think she would say, “Brothers and sisters, they were just eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds. They didn't understand. There wasn't any training. They kept the danger a secret. They covered it with word games and number games.” And she would say: “Friends, it has to stop here today, here in Oklahoma City today.”
⁸⁴

Spence intuitively understands that there is nothing more to say, no place left to go with his story. His work is complete: “I've still got half an hour, and I'm not going to use it.”
⁸⁵
Spence uses an oral formulary, a stock anecdote that empowers the jury to write the final ending to the story—preferably a big Hollywood “up” ending—and to impose a coda upon the tale; it is “a simple
story, about a wise old man—and a smart-aleck young boy who wanted to show up the wise old man for a fool”:
⁸⁶

The boy's plan was this: he found a little bird in the forest and captured the little bird. And he had the idea he would go to the wise old man with the bird in his hand and say, “Wise old man, what have I got in my hand?” And the old man would say, “Well you have a bird my son.” And he would say, “Wise old man, is the bird alive, or is it dead?” And the old man knew if he said, “It is dead” the little boy would open his hand and the bird would fly away. Or if he said, “It is alive,” then the boy would take the bird in his hand and crunch it and crunch it, and crunch the life out of it, and then open his hand and say, “See, it
is
dead.” And so the boy went up to the wise old man and he said, “Wise old man, what do I have in my hand?” And the old man said, “Why it is a bird my son.” He said, “Wise old man, is it alive, or is it dead?” And the wise old man said, “The bird is in your hands, my son.”

Thank you very much. It has been my pleasure, my God-given pleasure, to be a part of your lives. I mean that.

Thank you, Your Honor.
⁸⁷

As observed initially, beginnings and endings are deeply interconnected; beginnings must be carefully selected and developed in anticipation of the ending at the other end of the trajectory of plot.
⁸⁸
The ending—the point of a story—gives the plot closure and meaning. This is especially so in law stories, like Spence's
Silkwood
, where the plot drives forward toward an implicit and unstated final ending. This ending must be all but inevitable to the jury, ever the more so because the final resolution is left for the jury to impose on the case outside the presence of the storyteller—an ultimate thumbs up or thumbs down, declaring which storyteller will emerge successfully from storytelling combat in the courtroom.

For example, in Spence's heroic melodrama, the true ending that Spence proposes is not the death of the protagonist Silkwood but rather her resurrection and redemption. The heroic jury is compelled to compensate Silkwood's family, punish Kerr-McGee, save the community, and subjugate the evil corporation by declaring that the heroic protagonist did not die in vain. It is here,
outside the courtroom, where the jury finally solves Spence's three mythic riddles, slays the evil beast of Kerr-McGee, and provides justice with a satisfying narrative outcome and closure to the tale. Teachers of storytelling like John Gardner advise young writers—and this advice is affirmed by narrative theorists including Peter Brooks—that stories, especially stories with the hard and predictable trajectories such as genre-based melodramas, are best constructed backward, knowing exactly what the desired ending is and then developing the story line by working backward from the ending.
⁸⁹
Thus, beginnings typically foreshadow all that will occur afterward, often suggesting how the story will end, although the ending is not explicit and may not be apparent in a jury trial until the moment when the jury provides the ending and imposes a final coda of meaning on the tale.

The beginning is crucial for another reason; it typically provides a narrative “hook” that engages and captures the imagination of the listener or reader, and it shapes and defines the world of all that transpires afterward. This “hook” also compels the audience to ask the storytellers the question “what happens next?” in initiating the trajectory of a plot.

Spence's complex argument in
Silkwood
opens slowly. There are many false, yet purposeful, starts before he arrives at the story. But Spence speaks to a captive audience that has already listened to the testimony and the presentation of evidence at trial over many weeks. He has been given four hours for his initial and rebuttal arguments. He can afford to be patient, to take his time before he finally arrives at the beginning. Likewise, he can simply reference evidence and fragments of testimony to evoke the fullness of imagery, characters, and scenes, drawing implicitly on the jury's recollections of the materials presented during the past eleven weeks of the trial. Thus, he can be economical in his re-presentation of the narrative particulars; he does not have to revisit every detail, although it is crucial to sequence the narrative events into a plot that takes into account all the evidence and defendant's counterstories. And Spence must, of course, be meticulous, truthful, and comprehensive. He must be—or appear to be—completely ethical and fair-minded to maintain credibility with the jury, or he risks losing everything.

Initially, he reestablishes his interactive or “dialogic” relationship with the jury, building his own credibility and his caring about and respect for the jurors and, also, reemphasizing the singularity and profound importance of this case: “It's the longest case in Oklahoma history, they tell me. And … this is probably the most important case, as well.… [A]nd it's the most important case of my career.… And, I have a sense that I have spent a lifetime, fifty years, to be exact, preparing somehow for this moment with you.”
⁹⁰
This is Spence's hyperbolic version of the standard lawyer's warm-up, or “proem,”
that Spence has incorporated into numerous closing arguments. Yet it seems spontaneous and sincere; rhetorically, Spence's credibility is crucial. Likewise, he endeavors to engage the jury “dialogically.” Spence then frames his story in terms of his legal theory of the case (the “lion gets away” and strict liability) and characterizes the defendant's theory and evidentiary counterstory (the analogy of “the mud springs”). The law is transformed alchemically into narrative. Finally, Spence delivers an initial narrative “hook” and develops the “setup” for the melodramatic confrontation that follows. He begins a highly stylized and self-consciously literary pronouncement, signaling the start of the story: “It was a time of infamy, and a time of deceit, corporate dishonesty. A time when men used men like disposable commodities—like so much expendable property.”
⁹¹

Here, in contrast to the idyllic depictions of the anterior steady state in
Jaws
and
High Noon
, the trouble has already arrived onstage; it is already a dark and troubled time. The evil corporation has already taken over Crescent, and the survival of the community is at risk. The story is clearly not just about Silkwood and compensation for her injuries; far larger values are at stake.

Structurally, the beginning defines the outer boundaries of the narrative frame within which the ending must be achieved. The trajectory of the plot later returns specifically to this dark and foreboding place (an anterior steady state) when Spence reveals his nightmare vision for the future if the jury does not intervene on Silkwood's behalf. The initial foreboding simultaneously suggests an alternative, preferable, and irresistible “up” ending for the melodrama—a transformed steady state where the community has been liberated from the forces of antagonism and Silkwood's prophetic warning finally heeded; justice (literally the value of justice) will prevail and “law and order” will be restored in the Wild West.

But where is Silkwood in these initial paragraphs? She is not cast onstage initially. Spence first personifies the villain and the forces of antagonism of the dark, powerful, and sinister corporate giant Kerr-McGee; he brings it alive, giving it powers of thought, intentionality, and language: “well, I guarantee that corporation does not speak ‘South,' it doesn't speak ‘Okie,' it doesn't speak ‘Western,' it doesn't speak ‘New York.' … It speaks one language universally. It speaks the language of money.”
⁹²

Finally, in the third portion of Spence's initial setup, protagonist Karen Silkwood, the prophet, is cast onstage to finally confront the evil villain, The Beast Kerr-McGee:

Who is Karen Silkwood? Who was she? … I say she was a prophet, an ordinary woman who cared, and could understand, doesn't have to be
anything other than an ordinary woman who cared and understood in order to be a prophet.… [A]nd she prophesied it this way.… She says this to you, ladies and gentlemen: ‘Something has to be done.'”
⁹³

This completes the beginning or setup. Now the action begins.

Let's compare Spence's gradual setup with several more economical and compressed beginnings or openings (two from literature and one from the movies) and observe how these openings all achieve similar objectives in dissimilar ways. In “Beginning,” a chapter in a primer for young writers, the novelist, critic, and teacher David Lodge identifies several illustrations of strong literary openings: the first from Jane Austen's
Emma
and the second from Ford Madox Ford's
The Good Soldier
:
⁹⁴

[From
Emma]

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her.

She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father, and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caress, and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen … little short of a mother in affection.…

… The real evils indeed of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened [to] alloy her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.
⁹⁵

[From
The Good Soldier]

This is the saddest story I have ever heard. We had known the Ashburnhams for nine seasons of the town of Nauheim with an extreme intimacy—or, rather, with an acquaintanceship as loose and easy and yet as close as a good glove's with your hand. My wife and I knew Captain and Mrs. Ashburnham as well as it was possible to know anybody, and yet, in another sense, we knew nothing at all about them. This is, I believe, a state of things only possible with English people of whom, till today, when I sit down to puzzle out what I know
of this sad affair, I knew nothing whatever. Six months ago I had never been to England, and, certainly, I had never sounded the depths of an English heart. I had known the shallows.
⁹⁶

Lodge describes the beginning of
Emma
as “classical: lucid, measured, objective, with ironic implication concealed beneath the elegant velvet glove of the style. How subtly the first sentence sets up the heroine for a fall. This is to be the reverse of the Cinderella story, the triumph of an undervalued heroine.… Emma is a Princess who must be humbled before she finds true happiness.”
⁹⁷
The opening clues the reader in to the steady state of lazy luxury that has existed for two decades (akin to the steady state of decay and corruption that exists in
Silkwood
) and, also, that this steady state is due for a reversal (or why would it be mentioned?). The opening is of a
maturation
or
coming of age
plot.
⁹⁸
Typically, in Hollywood parlance, this is either an
education plot
(if the story ends well, with Emma's character changing after learning from her experience) or a
disillusionment plot
(if the story ends badly, with Emma's fall from grace).
⁹⁹
Lodge identifies the meticulous word choice and allusions that, before the end of the first sentence, prefigure all that will take place thereafter:

“Handsome” (rather than conventionally pretty or beautiful—a hint of masculine will-to-power, perhaps in that androgynous epithet), “clever” (an ambiguous term for intelligence, sometimes applied derogatively, as in “too clever for her own good”) and “rich,” with all its biblical and proverbial associations of the moral dangers of wealth: these three adjectives, so elegantly combined … encapsulate the deceptiveness of Emma's “seeming” contentment. Having lived “nearly twenty-one years in the world with very little to distress or vex her,” she is due for a rude awakening.
¹⁰⁰