This week on Buffy and the Art of Story: Teacher's Pet, Season 1, Episode 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

The episode focuses on point-of-view, tone, and all the major plot points from opening conflict to the climax. 

As always, the discussion is spoiler-free, except at the end (with plenty of warning).

Story Elements in Teacher's Pet

In this podcast episode we'll look at how Buffy handles:

Viewpoint Characters in a Xander-centric episode

Opening Conflict

Story Spark (a/k/a Inciting Incident)

The first major plot turn

The story mid-point

The three-quarter twist

The climax

Falling Action

Highlights from the Buffy Season 1 DVD commentaries by Joss Whedon are also discussed.

For more on the 5-point story structure the podcast covers, you can check out Super Simple Story Structure: A Quick Guide To Plotting And Writing Your Novel.

The 7 Season Plan

Buffy and the Art of Story plans to cover every episode of Buffy in order and spoiler-free -- except at the end so I can talk about foreshadowing, but I'll give you plenty of warning.

Down the road there'll be a Patreon account where you'll be able to get a free story structure template. As a patron, you'll also get access to bonus episodes.

Those episodes will include Buffy-adjacent stories (such as key Angel episodes). Also films or TV episodes that are intriguing from a story, theme, or character perspective.

Requests will be welcome.

Next Up: Never Kill A Boy On The First Date, S1 E5

Episode Transcript for Teacher's Pet

Hello, and welcome, or welcome back, to Buffy and the Art of Story. I am Lisa M. Lilly, author of suspense, mysteries, and supernatural thrillers and founder of WritingAsASecondCareer.com. If you love Buffy the Vampire Slayer and you love creating stories or just taking them apart to see how they work, you're in the right place.

This week we're talking about Episode Four of Season One: Teacher’s Pet.

Teacher's Pet is a standalone episode, so we'll cover all the plot points and turns. Plus, we'll talk about point of view, and prologue.

The discussion will be spoiler-free, except at the very end, and I'll give you plenty of warning.

Okay, let's dive into the Hellmouth.

The Prologue of Teacher's Pet 

We start with a prologue -- a woman is screaming, a vampire's attacking, Buffy seems really nervous. Already this scene just doesn't feel right. And I love that about it. Because although all those things could be happening in Buffy -- and this is only Episode 4 -- we already have a sense that the way Buffy is acting just doesn't feel like her.

Then we have that confirmed when Xander says, “May I cut in?” and he slays the vampires.

So we are in Xander's fantasy -- could be a dream -- but we find out it's a daydream. Because it ends with Buffy saying, “You're drooling.” We cut to the science class where she is really saying, “You're drooling.”

What Is A Prologue?

This is a prologue because it could be lifted out from the main plot without hurting anything because it really is giving us backstory.

But it does something key, which is to tell us that at least some of this episode will be from Xander's point of view. And that is -- it's not that we haven't seen scenes before that Buffy is not in. Sometimes we've seen scenes with side characters or with the villain, particularly the Master. But they haven't been specifically from the emotional point of view of another key character who is on Buffy’s side, at least not to this extent.

Is Xander the Protagonist of Teacher's Pet?

So I can see a reason to have this prologue. It is setting up Xander's internal conflict, which was hinted at earlier. There are his feelings for Buffy, and his feelings that he is not quite a man.

Earlier, he linked that to not being able to fight vampires. But we're going to see -- well, I shouldn't say ‘but’ -- we see that in this fantasy his feeling that impressing Buffy, being a man,