[[ THE STORY SPOT ]]

Monday, July 6, 2009

Plot vs. Story

It has occurred to me that with all this talk about story that it might be useful to clarify the differences between STORY and PLOT. After all, we casually use the terms interchangeably but they are indeed very different and that difference is everything.

It's probably easiest to begin with plot. After all, when we talk about writing, we're often focused on that thing that might happen next. That's plot. It's the what happens. A UPS driver is attacked by deranged alien globs of goo seeking to absorb human life in order to save their own species. The events of the attack make up the plot: aliens come to Earth; aliens eat hero's best friend while they nibble donuts; hero retaliates and saves the plant. Events. Actions. They are the physical happenings that get us from one end of the book or film to the other. They can be as small as a quiet break-up or as overblown as our alien friends here.

Now, to story.

Story--in my world--are the changes that happen to the person we most care about: our hero. Story happens inside rather than outside our characters. In our alien story, above, the story would be the UPS driver's metamorphosis from unsuspecting everyday shmoe to courageous world-saving hero: innocent, he enjoys a tasty snack with a pal until the aliens attack; then he hides, afraid; he's despondent as he watches everyone around him get absorbed; when his Basset Hound is eaten, he becomes angry and defiant; uncertain but determined, he cobbles together an impossible plan; he faces off with the aliens in a courageous winner-take-all last stand. The story is the change happening to the hero's inner life as a result of the external plot events forced upon him.

This is the stuff. Why are there never enough stories? Because we want to feel that transformation; we need to vicariously live that emotional struggle--whether the hero triumphs or is defeated--as part of our state of being. Stories speak to the most basic feelings, aspirations, and experiences shared by most every person alive no matter who they are or where they live. Stories illustrate what it is to be human.

Need a bit more? Look at the verbiage in the plot example: "come", "eat", "retaliate", "saves". Active, physical words. Now look at the verbiage in the story example: "innocent", "afraid", "despondent", "angry", "defiant", "courageous". Intangible, emotional words. Fundamentally understand the two and hold the key to understanding why some of the most simple and unlikely stories are loved by millions while other tremendously complex and clever ones are forgotten in a blink. This same understanding will free the timid writer from fretting over what others have written before because a writer's work--in my opinion--is not to wow audiences with mind-bending parlour tricks but to connect.

This is a much, much bigger topic than can be tackled in one brief post. For now I'll say that I believe that it is the artist's gift to be able to stand back from life to observe not only the exterior events that are happening but also the interior states that exist in the main players before, during, and after those events. It is the writer's gift to be able to translate it all into narratives that captivate audiences and allow them to live for themselves those same states of change from the comfort of their armchair or theatre seat.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Michael Hauge: "Everything I Know in 100 Words or Less"

Always a source of great writing advice and inspiration, screenwriting coach Michael Hauge offers us this short nugget of wisdom on his site (www.screenplaymastery.com) that I'm sharing with you here.

EVERYTHING I KNOW IN 100 WORDS OR LESS

Q: Can you describe some of the things writers need to think about in writing a salable story?

A: Since my entire career has been built on answering this question for writers and filmmakers, it's pretty hard to reduce it to a single answer. But the best advice that comes to mind to cover all situations is to suggest that writers ask themselves three questions about every screenplay they write:

1. What is each character desperate to achieve?

2. What makes that goal seem impossible?

3. What terrifies each character?

Writers willing to dig deep enough to answer these questions are well on their way to a commercial screenplay. For much, much more, refer to my book Writing Screenplays That Sell or my CDs Screenwriting for Hollywood or The Hero's 2 Journeys.

These seem like simple questions but I challenge each of you--new and experienced writers alike--to come up with solid, easily communicated answers for your current projects. If you can, consider yourself well on your way to creating a clear and compelling story. If you have some work to do, well, what are you waiting for?

Monday, June 22, 2009

Writers Can serve.gov Too

This morning, the Obama Administration launched www.serve.gov its program to encourage and support each of us to contribute to the health of our local communities. Here are a few ways in which we literary types might share our wealth:

There's a search engine powered by ALL FOR GOOD to help you find activities in your area. Or maybe you want to create something of your own. Just because the art of the word comes easy to us doesn't mean it does to others. Reading and writing shaped your lives. Let's give someone else a shot at the same good fortune.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Jay Walker's Library of Human Imagination And You

We writers are imagineers. We are seers. We create emotional experiences for tomorrow's readers, viewers, and listeners through our stories today. Inventor Jay Walker is the curator of the Library of Human Imagination. The private library is his personal monument to human ingenuity -- without which we writers would be lost. It is, without doubt, glorious.

This TED talk offers not only an interesting bit of history about the printed book but also Walker's take on creativity:

So how do we create? [...We] create by surrounding ourselves with stimuli, with human achievement, with history, with the things that drive us and make us human. The passionate discovery, the bones of dinosaurs long gone, the maps of space that we’ve experienced, and ultimately the hallways that stimulate our mind and our imagination.

And though Walker speaks about the TED conference in general, below, his words can be applied to each of us as we create new stories every day:

[It] is all about patterns in the clouds. It’s all about connections. It’s all about seeing things that everybody else has seen before but thinking about them in ways that nobody has thought of them before. And that’s really what discovery and imagination is all about.

Jay Walker's Library of Human Imagination on TED.com
Browse the Artifacts of Geek History in Jay Walker's Library on Wired.com

Friday, June 5, 2009

Creating emotion. There is a better way.

The sometimes brusque Flannery O'Connor is quoted as having said that you cannot create emotion by using emotion. More precisely, from Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose:

The fiction writer has to realize that he can’t create compassion with compassion, or emotion with emotion, or thought with thought. He has to provide all these things with a body; he has to create a world with weight and extension. [...] The reason is usually that the student is wholly interested in his thoughts and his emotions and not in his dramatic action.

For writers of all forms, this is a point not to be overlooked. Practically, it means that we may want to rethink a character--let's call her Mia--uttering the words, "Gee, Larry, I'm just so terrifically sad" if we actually want the audience/reader to feel Mia's sadness. The same goes for the narrator, I'd say, unless used very, very carefully. We've all read an intensely personal blog post or watched a film where this happens, haven't we? Our most likely response was in opposition to the author's intent; perhaps disbelief. Or perhaps we laughed. Ouch.

So how better to convey Mia's state of woe? We can elicit true emotion through our stories by painting an accurate picture of circumstance to which our readers may relate. That means getting detailed with what is influencing the character at that moment of heightened emotion. Practically, it means getting selective about what they are they seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. It's basic, I know, but it's basic for a reason: it works. Selectivity is key. Get inside. Block out the extraneous. Convey the meaningful.

For example *spoiler ahead*, in the film Seven Pounds, Will Smith's character, Ben Thomas is so woefully despondent over his role in his wife's death that he embarks upon a mission to save as many lives as possible through the sacrifice of his own. The film opens with his 911 call moments before his suicide. The rest of the film unfolds the events of his self-sacrifice. The reasons for his actions are withheld from the audience, only doled out as needed to keep the intrigue rolling. By the end, we have lived his pain, fallen in love, and come to fully understand *and feel* the reasoning behind that call from the beginning of the film. Only through circumstance did we feel emotion. That call holds vastly different weight at the end of the story--after we have shared experience with Ben--that it does at the beginning--when he's vocalizing his intent to take his own life.

As always, this is equally applicable to stories told on the screen as it is to those told on the page. If you're writing memoir, you may have to step even further back from your own history to be able to draw your readers in. In short, I believe that our audiences need to be able to relate to our characters' internal lives through shared emotional experience. A reader may never have rolled a car and as a result, seven people lost their lives, but they have given of themselves in some way, large or small, so that another person might benefit. The emotion translates even if the practical situation does not.

So that's it. Check your writing for instances of characters blatantly declaring their emotional state and see if you can find a more powerful way to woo your audience to where you'd like them to be.

Good writing everyone!