Breaking Story
I have a writer friend who shared how he could spend six months "breaking story" and still not necessarily have it.
Normal. I said. I spent years breaking story on an original script which I finally wrote three years after I thought of it. There is no time limit to the process, no sundial to track the brightness of the imagination. Every story is unique, and has unique demands. Some will come quickly and form completely, some won't ever form at all. Why?
I suspect it has to do with some things I've learned along the way.
And what I have learned is this:
To break story completely you need three things. But to summarize, you need your:
1) Big Idea
2) Bottle to catch that lighting
3) The Weather
all that means is
1) The Premise
2) The story framework
3) The character who journeys through your story
And by weather I mean the inner landscape of your hero. Are there storms? Blue skies? Rain and thunderclouds in your hero’s mind? What is their emotional reality? Outgoing? Timid? Courageous? Cowardly? Whipsmart? Convinced they’re stupid? Over Confident? Self hating? This defines how they will approach any action in your story. And as you can imagine, every one of the adjectives above will approach a problem differently.
|
All three of these things can be charted out in various ways to help give you clarity, I won’t put all the boring details here.
In fact if you sign up for my newsletter I’ll send you a free eBook with these three in detail.
But all three are crucial and can’t be shrugged off. Assuming you have the first two under control, the third is the most important. The old adage in screenwriting in Hollywood is ‘It’s not the what, it’s the who.” That still holds true today.
We care about the people in the story, not just the clever dilemma you’ve hammered them into. Who is trying to move forwards? What change do they have to make to do so? What situation forces them against their better nature? That is the heart of good storytelling.
Why? Because it mirrors our own lives.
At every step of our lives we’ve had to engage in the world and enter situations we were uncomfortable with. We were forced to learn as we go. We’ve done it so many times we don’t think about it anymore.
It starts in grade school through the shift to middle and high school. The shift from high school to college or the work place. Then first job, first date, each social gathering of new people. You get used to a situation, make friends, learn the authority then - bam - new rules - new friends - different authority. It continues through your twenties until new complexities arise; families, children’s schools, workplace challenges and advancements or loss. It’s always new, and you’re always unprepared.
Speaking to 1000 people professionally or just filling the car up at a deserted gas station at night can fill people with anxiety equally, if you know their characters. And both are legitimate.
As we learn how a character experiences difficulties - we learn know who they are. And then we’re with them.
Show the audience an emotional place we have all touched. That’s how you connect a character with your reader/viewer. Once you’ve done that - we are on the journey with you.