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Today's talk comes from Pastor Ben Stewart.

Well, if you ever want to write a story about a hero, or if you just like reading or watching

movies about stories of heroes, you start to pick up that there's key beats in the journey

that you need to hit. Critical moments that a protagonist has to move through. There's the obvious call to adventure

and accepting of the invitation, and then the training of the mentor and the trials and tests,

and then of course there's always a big climactic moment in the third act. But there's also

a critical moment before that that often we have trouble naming or even identifying, but

when we think about it, we know it's there. And different authors call it different things. Often it's referred to as the dark

moment. The moment in the protagonist's story when everything goes wrong and all hope is lost.

Lord of the Rings. Frodo's best friend Sam is gone and he realized

Ghalm betrayed him and so he's in a cave in the dark and a foreign land alone and he's scared.

Braveheart. William Wallace is betrayed by Robert the Bruce and his army is wrecked and he falls to

his knees in despair. I think the dream is

over. Tachala is pitched off the waterfall. The best guy we know, we just lost him and chaos now

reigns. Han Solo's been encased in carbonite. C3POsashed, and Luke's lightsaber hand just got ripped off

invaders' daddy. And they ended the movie at the dark moment.

Bane breaks your back, Batman, and throws you down a well. Can you rise again?

Thanos snaps his finger, and you've got to watch your best friends turn to dust.

Robert McGee, who wrote the book Story, which is about the classic architecture of a story, called this moment the crisis.

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