Part I: Thinking Up Storylines & Characters
It’s a long way from writing one-liners to scripting novels and screenplays but anyone who writes along that continuum faces the same challenge: the creative process. Mine has evolved over time. I recently began a new screenplay about a comedic premise I’m very excited about and thought it would be fun to share how the story’s construction and creation will unfold.
In order to write a novel or screenplay I have to see the story start to finish, plus it has to be a story I feel compelled to tell. My creative preference is ensemble comedy, which I love to write for two reasons: they take skill (which makes them a challenge), and I adore the end result. To me laughter is a wonder drug. When someone is laughing, he or she temporarily forgets everything in life that may otherwise be distressing. Since it is much easier to make a reader cry than laugh, creating comedy is more difficult than drama.
In order to make a reader laugh, the story needs rich, meaty characters. Once I see the full story, my thoughts shift to how few principal characters I need to tell it. Too many are confusing. Too few limit comedic opportunity. I define each of those necessary characters and supply each with a quirk. Many of my characters are blends of people I know. Others are inventions. Each is defined fully prior before I begin writing; the final character step is naming them. The name must fit the character’s personality, role, speech habits, quirk, and persona. I love names and have pages of them in a file. I can spend a snowfall by a window thinking up names and consider it a close to perfect day. Occasionally I’ll name a character after a friend.
The only mean-spirited thing I’ve written, the surf-themed dramatic novella “The Rise and Fall of Piggy Church,” was (by design) written as a tight character study inside a very small landscape. The story is about five selfish people whose lives revolve around a pier. The pier was a venue I had visited a hundred times. I knew it intimately. The Piggy Church story was written to showcase three major emotional conflicts in the world of surfing. It wrote the characters and story to present both sides of each. I leave it to the reader to decide how he or she feels about those three issues.
More sweeping story landscapes create bigger challenges. In “12 Miles to Paradise,” a romantic comedy, I wanted a stubborn but otherwise ordinary horse to change the lives of people in three countries (the U. S., Bahamas, and New Zealand). Wider story landscapes require more geographical research, as does unfamiliar subject matter. Research is important to character development, story design, and storytelling. You cannot BS a reader, nor should you try. It’s best to write about places and subjects you know quite well. If you fake it, you’ll break it. Readers can feel authenticity. If they don’t get it, they will stop reading.
Stylistically I like to construct great characters that teach readers something through actions and storylines. If a subject is interesting to me, I assume it’s interesting to others and weave the new knowledge throughout the story. I am curious by nature and think most folks are. I like to feed curiosity. I want my readers to finish one of my stories entertained and having learned something. Readers invest two things in my work, money and time. I owe them a solid return on both and take that responsibility very seriously.
Most stories I write are constructed according to conventional three-act structure. There are good guys, bad guys, major and minor conflicts, and choices the characters must make en route to the pursuit of tangible and intangible goals. I like underdogs and like to figure out funny, creative ways underdogs can gang up against bigger opponents and win. “Jurassic Trout” is an example: A poor guy outfishes a rich guy in a one-day, winner -take-all tournament that benefits the entire town thanks to clever, creative teamwork.
I never visualize a story beginning at page one. An example is this new screenplay; the last thing I figured out was the film’s opening scene. The overarching idea was the lead character’s arc to redemption: a cheap slacker screws up everything he touches but eventually figures things out.
Once I have the overarching theme, I overlay it into three acts, and then subdivide each act into necessary scenes in order to flesh out action, story advancement, and sequence.
Regardless how you do it, be aware of your creative process and make sure to incorporate the elements necessary to write a good, tight story.
(To continue reading about this topic, go to Part 2 of 2 under The Creative Process category).