Last time you and I sat down to do this semi-regular thing we do here, I started on a topic I had no hope in hell of competently covering in six or seven hundred words, or whatever it ended up being after I tap-tap-tapped it out, took a chainsaw to it, and Krazy Glued the pieces back together into something resembling thoughts about things.
Writing your own stories-- stories that might get boarded for film or television-- that's what we were talking about.
Last time, we spoke of working from big to small and working in reverse.
This time, we're looking at applying the old saying, "Learn to walk before you run..."
Writing for an audience that's paying for the content, and presumably wants its money's worth, is hard.
So the idea I'm floating this time is to start with something less daunting.
Now, by less daunting, I don't mean less ambitious-- we should always be bringing to the table the best ideas we have available to us that day.
I just mean your very first written work doesn't have to-- and probably shouldn't-- be your opus.
But you'll apply the same structure.
At some point, you should grab yourself a book on structure. Which one probably doesn't matter-- there are many out there and they all say more or less the same thing.
A well-worn copy of Robert McKee's Story has travelled with me across Canada over the past 15 years. I recently picked up John Yorke's Into the Woods and I’m digging that one, too. Our man Sergio swears by Blake Snyder's Save the Cat.
Just pick one and study it. But I'll give you one big universal spoiler:
Story structure is infinitely reducible.
A beginning, middle, and end. A status quo disrupted by want and/or need, leading to rising conflict until an absolute breaking point is reached and said conflict is resolved, and a cooling off into the new normal. Key escalations and/or turning points along the way. You should be able to find these across any story’s total arc.
But look closer and you'll find a story also has these within each of its acts. Look closer still and you'll find an act has these within each of its scenes as well.
Within every scene of every act of every story, you should be able to spot a mini arc. A beginning, middle, and end, relative to the bigger picture.
There'll be a status quo, even if you're an hour and 15 minutes in and the status quo is, "Everything's FUBAR."
That'll be disrupted and the resulting conflict will bubble and threaten to boil over.
And before you move to the next scene, a new normal will have been established.
Over and over again.
So what if, to practice your craft, you just work at this micro level? What if the scene is the thing?
No scenes before or after this one-- it's not one of several scenes making up one of several acts for one of several stories in some grand series, but rather, the scene is the story.
A very, very short story.
I think that's probably considered a sketch. And I think that's a way worth considering when trying to get your feet wet in the world of writing for an audience.
Early on, you're going to get things wrong-- things are going to fall flat.
But if you're working in miniature, you can write the thing, board it, and share it, and you won't have spent months upon months toiling over it before figuring out it's a pancake.
You'll learn how to tell stories, fast.
And when the time comes to tackle something with a wee bit more heft-- you'll do it with a mighty full toolbox.
Cheers,
Damien