There’s an exercise I sometimes get people to do in writing classes, to do with status. It’s inspired by a scene in Fargo, in which protagonist William H. Macy goes to visit criminals to ask them to kidnap his wife, a course of action he’s sure will set things to rights but which of course has the opposite effect.

Things start badly when Macy turns up an hour late, which has made the bad guys annoyed, a point that they come back to much to Macy’s chagrin. It also transpires that the kidnappers want a $40,000 upfront payment, which Macy’s character hadn’t bargained for. On top of which, they’re — reasonably enough — confused about why he’d want his own wife kidnapped.

Each of the beats in the scene contributes to the overall sense that Macy is out of his depth. The fact that he does a lot of umming and aahing is a further indicator of his bewilderment. All of this occurs, by the way, in the context of Macy being in a liminal zone. That is, space that his character is not familiar with, which he does not know the rules for. His actions here will determine much of consequence — and it’s no surprise that having fluffed things this early on, they only get worse when the kidnapping actually commences.

Anyway, I use that scene to get people to look at what constitutes status, and then to demonstrate that understanding by having them reverse the situation. That is, have Macy be the high status character, and the kidnappers low. It can happen all kinds of ways. If the kidnappers are broke, then the offer of work puts them on the back foot. If the client has the power to blackmail the kidnappers into committing the crime, then once again s/he has greater status. Size tends to be a clear indicator, at least in some contexts: a big bruiser of a doorman clearly controls the entrance to a nighclub in a way that Charles Hawtrey would find it hard to.

There are more subtle signifiers too. If you go to someone else’s place, as host they have higher status — unless you bring with you the attitude you have in your own larger more expensive residence. Clothes traditionally indicate status in some circumstances — hence judges wearing wigs, and graduating students hiring mortar boards. And language is important: if asking for a favour, you’re probably best off beseeching the person with the authority to confer it rather than telling them what to do.

All these facets of status are considered and weighed up when we interact with people, and are therefore useful to take on board when writing a scene. At the moment I’m writing a few sample pages of script for a play I want to be commissioned, and have spent some time considering the respective statuses of the three characters.

The protagonist begins with high status as he has something — a highly marketable true story — that a publishing agent wants. But at the same time, the publishing agent has the ability to say yes or no to that story, which gives her considerable power: she has the keys to the kingdom. And her assistant, new to the job, apparently has low status — but for reasons central to the plot ultimately has the highest status of all the characters.

Working that dynamic out helps me decide how to play the story. Who has the opening gambit, how it might be responded to, and countered, and so on. And then how the whole situation changes when the agent’s assistant reveals her hand. Status alone doesn’t determine what unfolds, but it’s a key tool in keeping track of what’s going on for each of the characters — and that goes for any story you’re working on.