Quantum Storytelling

You can try it on your own by starting at the bottom of a blank page and writing the end of your story/act/scene and working backwards. To read the rest of this post skip to the bottom of the post and work your way upwards:

• …because you’ve probably encountered plotting blocks and could benefit from reverse cause-effect plotting yourself!
• …because we get naturally blocked when we have to think of something on the spot.
• …because it might be the nature of the brain to be more inventive when thinking of reasons for why something came to pass than it is to spontaneously generate a sequence of events in order.
• …because I’ve tried working forwards and for some reason I always draw a blank that way.
• …because thinking of causes, working backwards from an effect forces your brain to connect the dots.
• I’ve been using the reverse cause-effect plotting method suggested in Writing A Great Movie, and it works quite well.

Those of you struggling with your work in progress, I do not hesitate to recommend Jeff Kitchen’s book Writing a Great Movie. I believe if I had read this book long ago, I would not have had as many problems trying to wrangle my stories.

One of the strongest techniques in the book is using the reverse cause-effect to breakdown your acts, sequences, and scenes into clearly established plot points. The process is not unlike the TV story development advice to write your act-outs first, although Jeff Kitchen’s method is a bit more comprehensive. The book has many different techniques with examples, and at times functions much like a workbook to help you develop stories quickly and save time by avoiding unnecessary rewrites.

I can say with confidence it is safe to drop other screenwriting books and pick this one up. You won’t regret it.

Here is my Frankenstein attempt at merging McKee’s STORY, Writer’s Journey by Vogler, Mahler’s Script-Beat Calculator, and Blake Snyder’s Beat Sheet. As if that weren’t enough, I tried to shove some TV ‘act-outs’ into film format (turning points) every 12 minutes to give some dramatic TV-styled payoffs.

This may be total insanity, but I had to try something. Believe it or not the goal in all of this is to get structure OUT OF THE WAY so I can spend more time focusing on ideas, conflicts, characters, etc. Set it and forget it! I’d be curious to get some feedback on this from those of you familiar with some of the common structures. Is this useful? Too complex? Is the 12-minute TV drama dosage too contrived for film?

Check it out and let me know.