An unexpected surprise from Kurt Vonnegut, storyteller's log

Right when I was writing my blog post about step 7 the symbolic death, I experienced a shock. Following a string of links on the internet  I came across a major surprise from Kurt Vonnegut. This was a major story twist.

It turns out that he, Kurt Vonnegut, also suggested mapping the ups and downs of the character! Here I thought I had discovered something totally original. Talk about ironic timing! I'm writing about the symbolic death and discover my theory was already discovered. Ahhhhh! The pain, the agony!

I had never read Vonnegut's work. Reading was always difficult for me until I started reading for information.

I think I went though the 5 stages of grief. The five stages of grief are actually really good to know as a storyteller, because many times your characters will go through these stages of grief and loss. It helps make your writing more emotionally authentic.

Here's a brief description of the stages:

1. Shock and denial. We don't want to have to deal with the loss. It's not supposed to happen.
2. Anger. We have energy unleashed that we don't know what to do with. Something was taken from us and we want justice. We may seek others to blame.
3. Bargaining. What if I did this or had done that? This is about trying to be in control again. We might even try to bargain with our creator.
4. Depression. There is real sadness about the loss that we experience, but there can also be depression which is where retreat from the world.
5. Acceptance. We may never fill the emptiness created by loss, but eventually we learn to live our lives again. Hopefully, we do this with a new sense of gratitude about life.


Here's how I handled it...

 First, is shock and denial. My first thought was Nooooo! How could someone else have come up with the same idea? Well, there is a reason why he was able to discover it. He studied chemistry and anthropology and compared stories from primitive peoples. Both chemistry and anthropology are about structures. He didn't drive the Aristotle highway, he took a different path. He had a different perspective just like I did that allowed us to see differently.

Stage 2 is anger. How could he discover "my" theory? And why didn't I know about it? Who does he think he is? Oh, right, he's Kurt Vonnegut.

Stage 3 is bargaining. I'll be coming back to this one. I realized that there were significant differences between his approach and mine, and some surprises I haven't told you about, yet. I'll top him.

Stage 4 is depression. Well this lasted a day or so. I have a theory to develop. And I have deadlines at work. Maybe that's just me compensating. However, I presented my material today to a large group and it really helps people gain insight into the story writing process. I love seeing the light bulbs go on when people see it for the first time.

Stage 5 is acceptance. How else can I look at this? This was an interesting question. How could someone else come up with the same idea? Then I realized that I came up with the same approach as Kurt Vonnegut! Then it went to my head. "Great minds think alike." It was like validation that I was really onto something. And I learned somethings about my theory from his approach that I might not have otherwise.

Maybe there's something to the idea of a blessings in disguise. Maybe they're opportunities to grow.

How does this ft into my story? Death, reorganization. new obstacle, handle it at new level.

Next time we'll look at Kurt Vonnegut's mapping the ups and downs of the character...

The Animator's Eye frames

We interrupt your regularly scheduled blog, The Storyteller's Log: Storyweaving, The New Way to See Your Story Structure, to bring you this important message. In a couple of months, I'll be finishing up storyboarding on Dreamwork's The Dragons of Berk TV series. 

I had a professor of film audio at Pratt and he gave us some very important advice. He told us that if you're not working, your job for 40 hours a week is to look for work. The other thing that he told us is to ALWAYS KEEP YOUR PORTFOLIO UP TO DATE. This is especially true when you still are working. Be prepared.

So following his advice, I'm presenting frames from my animated short. They're from my book, The Animator's Eye: Adding Life to Animation with Timing, Layout, Design, Color and Sound. It's published by Focal Press. It's a silent film in the sense that there's no dialogue. It has a wonderful music score by film composer Hans Karl. J.D. Stewart provided audio production services. Bryan Cox and Chris Siemasko added the special effects for the transformation and the ending shot. My son Ryan did the film editing. 

This film was completed using TVPaint software on a 21inch Wacom Cintiq tablet. Final assembly was completed in Final Cut Pro 7. The storyboards were completed on sticky notes and scanned. ArtRage Studio Pro was used to paint the color scripts based on the storyboard images.

 Need to score? Hans Karl Music

The idea for the film evolved over many versions. The idea was to make a story that was a metaphor of the process of capturing an idea and bringing it to life. This is probably one of the most inventive uses of the classic animation exercises bring a flour sack to life. I used two of my characters that I had already created- Iggy, the impulsive pig and Scared Bunny.

Enjoy (Click to Enlarge)

Double O Iggy, Storyteller's Log 12-10-2012

In addition to Aristotle, the plot point theories and the hero's journey there are other approaches to try to understand how stories are put together. The structuralist school is once such approach. Today we're going to look at Umberto Eco's analysis of the James Bond movies.

Eco proposed that the characters basically serve functions in the plot, which he likened to a chess game.

Here are the chess moves of a typical James Bond movie according to Eco.

A. M moves and gives Bond his mission.

B. Villain moves and appears to Bond. Often very charming at first.

C. Bond "checks" villain. Or Villain checks Bond.

D. Woman moves and appears to Bond.

E. Bond moves to Woman.

F. Villain captures Bond. Sometimes Woman too.

G. Villain tortures Bond. This is usually frowned upon in chess.

H. Bond checkmates Villain. 

I. Bond recovers with Woman. (He will lose the woman in time for the next installment.)

Simple. 

Eco goes on to show that by sometimes repeating elements this adds variety. Thus in one Bond movie Bond might be tortured twice or maybe get two women. The character of the villain, their sidekicks, their plan for world domination, Bond's gadgets and the method of torturing Bond also help to distinguish each Bond film from another. The Austin Powers series plays with these ideas.

The other thing to note in his approach is that the elements are arranged into binary pairs such as Bond/M, Bond/Villain, Bond/Woman, Free world/Bad guys, Love/Death, Loyalty/disloyalty. A very important theme explored in the Bond films is that of domination between dominators and dominated. This is expressed in relationships between Bond and his boss, the villain, the woman, the free world and the bad guys de jour. Originally the Bond series emerged during the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. 

If you wish to read more on Eco's approach check out: The Law of Bond Richard Taulke-Johnson

The Bond films are about spying. This is perfect for cinema because it's two primitive conflict structures are peeping and chases. Can't get more fun than that. 

This is great if you ever find yourself being asked to write the next 007 movie. Is it helpful for the rest of us mere mortals? Before we answer,  next time we'll explore another structuralist  thinker and examine the pros and cons of this approach. (I'm still finishing the artwork for that blog post. Shaken but not stirred...)

What do plot points plot? Storyteller's Log 12-5-2012

 

DISCLAIMER: I am presenting parody of story writing books that I've read to make a point. While it's meant in good fun, I don't want to diminish the fact that there is great information in these books which have informed my owning thinking on the subject. My advice, read them all.

Before we get to plot points, I wish to explore plots. Here's what Apple's Dictionary has to say on the subject of plots.

plot |plät|noun1 a plan made in secret by a group of people to do something illegal or harmful: [ with infinitive ] :there's a plot to overthrow the government.2 the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.3 a small piece of ground marked out for a purpose such as building or gardening: a vegetable plot.4 a graph showing the relation between two variables.• a diagram, chart, or map.verb ( plots, plotting , plotted ) [ with obj. ]1 secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action): the two men are serving sentences for plotting a bomb campaign | [ no obj. ] : Erica has been plotting againstme all along.2 devise the sequence of events in (a play, novel, movie, or similar work).3 mark (a route or position) on a chart: he started to plot lines of ancient sites.• mark out or allocate (points) on a graph.• make (a curve) by marking out a number of such points.• illustrate by use of a graph: it is possible to plot fairly closely the rate at which recruitment of girls increased.PHRASESlose the plot informal lose one's ability to understand or cope with what is happening: many people believe that he is feeling the strain or has lost the plot.the plot thickens see thicken.
What parts of this apply to story writing? I believe they all do but in different ways. Obviously, number 2 is the most common usage of plot- the main events of a play, novel or movie. The first could be considered an example of one type of plot- a group making secret plans.
The last two, 3 and 4 are interesting for their application to story structure. What do plot points actually plot?

This is where I have problems with plot point theories of story. What do plot points plot? They've left off the last two aspects of the definition of plotting as a verb. They don't mark out points on a graph, they don't make a curve from the points and they don't illustrate anything. They don't show me my story's structure.

In the last post, we saw that Aristotle tried to make a plot by graphing time along the x axis and audience involvement along the y axis. But we also saw that this had limited usefulness, mainly as to help pacing.

"What if we plot something else?"

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, Bunny. The problem as it exists is that each of the plot point theories followed Aristotle's rut of plotting audience involvement. Each author of the plot point theories tried to differentiate themselves by how many plot points they chose and what they called each point.

Let's look at some of these theories. (Without naming names)

One has five points.

Another one has nine points.

One might have twelve.

Why not go for fifteen?

Why stop there?

Help, I can't stop!

It's all going dark...

There is even one version that has 120 points, one for each page!

But how big is a plot point? They don't say. Does it matter? Do they come in different colors?

How to you get from one plot point to another? Jump? Careful Bunny. 

This is my problem with the plot point theories. They don't clearly show how they relate to one another.    They are too abstract to show a relationship between them. So this still leaves me lost in Act Two. How can I see if something belongs in it or not?

One theorist suggests that the plot point are like a suspension bridge taking you from the beginning to the ending. Again, like Aristotle who told us that stories have a beginning, middle and end, this is someone with a keen sense of the obvious but not really helpful to me as a writer.

There's one theory that suggests arranging them strung out on a clothes line. Interesting metaphor but it still doesn't differentiate the difference between the socks and underwear from the shirts. That reminds me, I have to go do my wash.

Lost in the story- Storyteller's log star date 11-26-2012

Lost in the story. What does that mean? If your audience is lost in your story, that is a great thing. It means that they are totally engrossed in the imaginary worlds that you've created. This is exactly what you want. 

You also don't need to suspend your disbelief. I've never gone into a movie theatre and yelled out, "Stop the projector!, I forgot to suspend my disbelief." I wouldn't even know how to begin to suspend my disbelief, do you? When I'm "lost in the story" the only way I come out is if the director does something stupid to bump me out of it, like a jump cut, or if I have to go to the bathroom. 

But there is another sense of being lost in the story, when you're writing a story and don't know what to do to fix it. This is a horrible kind of being lost in the story. Unfortunately, its very common. Every movie I've every worked on our whole crew has been lost in the story at times. For those of you who work in animation you know how often we'll do act one over an over and over and over. And then when we finally get to act three we realize we have to redo act one again to fit with act three. We all longed for the day when we could just put the whole movie up as fast as possible and then critique it. There's a reason for this that we'll learn along the way.

Is this destiny?

I know when I work on my own stories I get lost in the story. What do I do next? Where do I go? Does this even work? Should I add another character, a car chase, a song? Well, one of the places I went was to map my way was screenwriting books. I've read thousands of them. (Well, maybe a hundred, maybe twenty) but it feels like thousands. Each one has made me a better writer and storyteller. Each one has it's own unique take on storytelling that has something valuable to offer. And each one shares certain assumptions, some dating back as far as Aristotle.

Well, I had an intuition that there had to be a better way. I went down many dead ends but also learned insights along the way. I read stuff no animator would read. Survey question: How many of you have read, Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind? What can I say, I'm weird that way.

As I promised, at my Creative Talent Network Animation Expo presentation, I'm going to share with you the writing process of my next book on my new theory of story. My students helped improve my first two books. I would love your input and feedback. Don't be shy.

So join, Iggy, the impulsive pig, Scared Bunny and me as we search for the untold secrets of storytelling.

You really didn't think I'd tell you it all the secrets in the first blog did you? What kind of storyteller would I be if I did that. Scheherazade knew the secret of storytelling is story delaying. Leave your audience with a cliff hanger.

That way they'll stick around to see what happens.

Iggy's Incredibly Easy Way to Write a Story

Well, the  CTN Animation Expo was amazing. I finally got to meet my Focal Press publishers of the Animator's Eye and Directing the Story. They were wonderful. I hope you checked out some of their awesome animation titles.

This is why I've be swamped. I presented my new revolutionary VISUAL approach to story structure at CTN. 340 image slides told the story, explained film examples and showed the audience how they can do it. There was consensus that everyone would like to see the development of the theory posted here in my blog as I create it. 

I self-published a book on Amazon.com to present with the workshop. It stars Iggy, the impulsive pig and Scared Bunny, two characters from my Focal Press book the Animator's Eye. It's an introduction to the story process in three parts. First, is the story of Iggy, the impulsive pig, who tries to make it big in Hollywood leaving behind his best friend, Scared Bunny. See what Iggy learns and then read an overview of the process and finally learn how to do it yourself in a step by step demonstration.

It's called- Iggy's Incredibly Easy Way to Write a Story.
Amazon link: Iggy's Incredibly Easy Way to Write a Story