Quantum Storytelling

When I first started writing, everything I saw around me looked like a roadblock to just getting the thing done.

One of the biggest roadblocks was that I didn’t just want to write randomly and “follow the muse” so to speak. I didn’t want write stories that only I would enjoy, and others would find difficult to engage or understand.

I’ve always felt that storytelling is a very social form of creativity in that your audience needs to buy into your story in order to accept it, and if they can’t buy into it, then they won’t be buying, period.

Read more

Dexter…

Can’t get enough. I figured out why it’s so addictive. I’m almost to the end of season 2 and they haven’t tread the same ground yet. I asked myself, “How did they do that?”

It didn’t take me long.

Dexter’s relationship with every other character on the show changes not just with each season, but often from episode to episode. Nothing stays the same. Whether it’s his girlfriend Rita, or the other crazy women in his life. The people he works with, his colleagues, and even those out to get him. Each episode brings a new dynamic. A shift in the conflicts & alliances.

If I could discern any one principle the writers follow in the show, it’s that change is inevitable — nothing stays the same.

I don’t know about you, but I’m taking notes.

Been going through my story making it work in script form and what I’m finding is I may have to rewrite the novel portion. Rather than be the disappointing kind of realization, it’s an exciting one. From now on I’ll write the script version first.

Upon recently telling a friend this, he asked a great question; Doesn’t culling it down in script form reduce the amount of material you have to work with prematurely?

With the process I use, the answer is no. If culling the story down to its essentials and focusing on the most visual, action, and conflict based material is what it takes to create a good script, well — to me that also creates a great story. If the novel is lacking those things then novel needs to change. Novel or not, I always generate more at the outset, and end up pulling back later on to focus only on the most important stuff.

And think about it this way; It’s easy to expand, harder to contract. I’m growing to love the idea that a novel version can include my own camera directions and focus on detail — I get to play the director, not just the writer. A novel may also feature “deleted scenes,” making it the version with extras vs. something radically different in a fundamental way.

For these reasons, a script seems like a better blueprint than a novel for being more story-focused. What do you think?