Crash course
Upcoming German drama Hundertdreizehn explores a single story through connected characters and multiple points of view. Writer Arndt Stüwe outlines the scriptwriting process and discusses his love of non-linear storytelling.
On average, how many people are directly or indirectly affected when a single person dies in an accident? According to a study conducted by the German Bundesverkehrsministerium (Federal Ministry of Transport), 113 people’s lives are impacted and forever changed by a single such incident.
That figure drove the idea behind upcoming German drama Hundertdreizehn, whose title is German for ‘one hundred and thirteen.’ The six-part series is set in the aftermath of a catastrophic traffic accident that leaves multiple people dead and explores the interconnected stories of six people indelibly linked by what happened.
When a coach veers into the opposite lane of an inner-city, multi-lane elevated highway, carving a path of destruction through oncoming traffic, a trio of investigators (played by Lia von Blarer, Robert Stadlober and David Hugo Schmitz) begin their search for the cause of the accident as the connected fate of the relatives (Anna Schudt and Patricia Aulitzky) of the bus driver (Felix Kramer) is revealed.
But each episode also focuses on the personal story of a different main character (played by Armin Rohde, Friederike Becht, Max von der Groeben, Vladimir Korneev, Cornelius Obonya, Antonia Moretti and others) affected by the accident.
The result is a multi-perspective, inter-connected view of the crash and its far-reaching consequences.
“When I developed the initial idea that a central event [in the case of Hundertdreizehn, a catastrophic traffic accident] should become the start, end and meeting point of six very different stories, I realised I had to find a new narrative approach,” writer Arndt Stüwe tells DQ. “I chose the model of a ‘radial dramaturgy,’ a circular structure in which the narrative strands only really intersect at one point – the centre of the circle, the bus accident. Accordingly, the focus of this project is not so much on multi-perspectivity, but on multi-connectivity. A single fateful moment influences six fates in very different ways and yet connects them all at one point.”
Other series have utilised a similar structure, not least the acclaimed Channel 4 drama The Gathering, which centres on a brutal attack against a young gymnast and the numerous people she comes into contact with who might have had reason for carrying out the assault.
“I adore any form of storytelling that manages to drive its stories forward in a non-linear way, to find new narrative approaches without placing the concept above the emotion, and always has the characters and their universal conflicts at its heart,” says Stüwe, who wrote the scripts for Hundertdreizehn after conceiving the idea for the series and developing it with executive producer Dirk Eggers and WDR’s Elke Kimmlinger.
Rick Ostermann directs the drama, which began filming in Vienna in June before moving to Cologne and Berlin. The series is produced by Windlight Pictures, coproduced by Satel Film and commissioned by WDR and ARD Degeto Film for ARD and ORF. ITV Studios is the distributor.
Regarding each episode as self-contained, akin to an anthology series, Stüwe was able to concentrate on composing each one using the classical three-act structure. “However, I had to link these self-contained storylines coherently in terms of content and timing with two ongoing strands [which in turn had their own story arc] without compromising on the placement of the beats of the main episodes,” he says.
To ensure the story remains consistent and coherent through differing perspectives, he focused on how the central event “affects different destinies,” rather than simply retelling what happened from multiple angles.
“Since the characters and their conflicts, worries and challenges were at the centre of each episode, I could allow myself a glimpse of the catastrophic event whenever it served the narrative and the emotions of the episodes,” he explains. “Nevertheless, I had to choose these moments, these glimpses of tragedy, carefully. Because while it was important to maximise the dramatic benefit for the individual episodes from this encounter with the catastrophe, I also had to make sure I didn’t reveal anything too soon about the mystery and cause of the unifying moment of fate, which would have destroyed the final resolution of the all-embracing question of ‘Why?’”
While the stories of the six characters are told in a non-linear style, there are two plots that do progress linearly: the investigator plot, which centres on the mystery of the bus accident, and the fate of the two families who are connected to the bus driver and have to face up to a secret that could be the cause of the catastrophe.
“Therefore, the task was to organically interlink non-linear and linear narrative strands in each episode,” Stüwe continues. “In addition to the pitfalls lurking in the chronological sequence – when does who meet whom? Who already knows what? Can character A already be at location B? – there was another problem to solve: The drama of the main characters in the episodes takes up almost all the available space due to the size of the narrated themes: guilt, forgiveness, betrayal, death and more.
“This meant there was considerably less screentime for the characters in the linear plots, which made it a real challenge to make them interesting and extraordinary. These characters also needed conflict and had to contribute to the plot, yet shouldn’t just feel functional.”
Throughout the writing process, Stüwe was able to consider the plan for the series that he outlined from the start. “Before I had written a single line of script, I already knew exactly what the beats of the episodes, but also the beats of the linear plots, had to look like,” he says. “I had created a graphic overview of all the characters, with their temporal, emotional and plot-relevant effects on all the narrative threads, which helped me not to lose track even in the back and forth of writing the script.”
Any fears he might have had of numerous script changes or struggles to make each piece of the story jigsaw fit together ultimately failed to materialise. “However, I had to make most of the changes to the linear plots, whose arc spans the entire series,” Stüwe notes. “Sometimes these characters have to receive certain information at very specific points in time from the characters in the non-linear narrative level. Making these different time levels comprehensible and organic was the biggest challenge.”
Despite any difficulties, “it’s fun. It really is,” he says of constructing Hundertdreizehn. “No other project has challenged me so much, but the narrative possibilities, the chance to take the audience on such an exciting, emotional and unusual journey, is just great. And I am very grateful that Hundertdreizehn was allowed to become reality in this form.”
Viewers can look forward to seeing the finished series in autumn 2025. Meanwhile, for other writers looking to adopt a similar storytelling approach, Stüwe says: “Don’t be afraid. Trust your characters.”
He adds: “If they are true and come from the heart, then they will lead you through all the shoals, through all the dramaturgical challenges or the phases in which you think, ‘Why did I do this to myself?’”
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tagged in: ARD, ARD Degeto Film, Arndt Stüwe, Dirk Eggers, Elke Kimmlinger, Hundertdreizehn, ITV Studios, ORF, Satel Film, WDR, Windlight Films