The 1 most important storytelling question, Storyteller's log 1-4-2013

I seem to ask a lot of questions. But isn't that what storytellers do?

Will Luke destroy the death star?

Will Dorothy make it home?

Will the Sultan kill Scheherazde?

Will Pooh find hunny?

Will Phil wake up on Feb. 3?

Can Frollo let go of the ring?

Will Bella get her bite?

Storytellers are asking questions though out their whole story. But good storytellers will add something extra. They'll add the element of time. Not just any kind of time, but time running out. So will Luke destroy the death star before it starts destroying planets? This urgency adds excitement to the story.

Let's get back to the previous blog's question- What should a good story theory map?

We now have our X axis defined. It's time. This is also how Aristotle mapped it in his work on drama. It's call the Poetics. His book has wonderful information, but the language of his time makes it a dry, slow read. (Personal opinion)

Aristotle's Poetics

But what do we map on the Y axis? Nancy Duarte's Sparklines gave me a hint. She maps the "what is" and "what could be" along the y axis of her presentations separated by a gap.

I'm going to add a negative dimension to the map and now we'll have our two axes in positive and negative dimensions. But what does the Y axis actually plot?

Our baseline starts with "with is."  But "what could be"goes in a positive and negative direction. "What could be, "could be great. But, "what could be", could also be horrible. So the Y axis could represent a scale of + good through - bad.

What's interesting here is that it visually can show our structure of what's at stake. It shows where the character starts from what can happen if they succeed AND what can happen if they fail. 

We've now left Aristotle behind. But later, he will still have his usefulness when we add extra dimensions to our mapping.

Why would we add a negative dimension to the time axis? To point to an answer, I'll quote a movie. "Everything is illuminated in the light of the past." (Storytelling structure- Adding narrative questions along the way. I'm setting up something that will be answered later.) 

This blog started with questions. And now I'd like to return to where we started, but not where we were. (Storytelling structure- Return to where you start from but not where you were. It's now a new world.)

So I'll end today's blog with a question. What if? (Another narrative question)

What if we map the ups and downs of the characters along the Y axis as they change over X axis time?

Why do we watch movies? Storyteller's log 1-3-2013

In my last blog post of the Storyteller's log I left telling you, 12. It should have psychological depth. This will probably be a chapter to itself so I'm going to save this for the next storyteller's log...

Well, I don't know what happened but that blog post disappeared. I mean it's gone. I wrote it saved it and hit publish and now it's gone. I contacted Google but the great Google can't find it either. It's an enigma.

Anyway while they continue to search for it, I'm going to write today's blog. My first book, Directing the Story was written because I wanted to become a better director and storyboard artist. I'm thrilled that it has helped so many others. I love hearing from people, literally all over the world, that it has helped their understanding of the subject. That book began with two simple questions.

Why do we watch?

What do directors direct?

My approach is to dig into a question until I hit pay dirt. By this I mean, that I want an answer that's really an answer and not as we learned from Bateson's story- a circular definition. "Opium puts people to sleep because it contains the dormative principle." Meaning it puts people to sleep. These kinds of answers do not help me be a better director or storyteller. So now, writing a book on a new approach to story creation, I find myself back at the same questions.

Why do we watch? Listen? Read? Play? What ever the media.

Your brain is amazing. When you ask it a question it will come up with an answer. Even if it has to make one up!

Next question. This is really important. What do you want your audience to feel?

What are these stripes?

Who uses this approach to making movies? How could this possibly help?  Well, that reminds me of a story, actually two stories. The first is a story I heard that Stephen Spielberg wanted to make movies to scare his sisters. 

The second involves Alfred Hitchcock. As a young boy his father wanted to punish him for some small transgression. He sent the young Alfred to the local police station with a note. The police read the note and put Alfred in jail for five minutes. To a young impressionable child that must have felt like forever. What did Hitchcock do? He got his revenge on all of us. He wanted us all to feel suspense. And he did. 

If knowing what you want your audience to feel works for Spielberg and Hitchcock then it's good enough for me. I want to know exactly how they do it.

 Why to we leave our comfortable homes to go into a darkened room with strangers to see lights flashing on a screen?

 Well...what if, just maybe... what if the ride the audience takes mirrors the process of psychological growth?

Could that be why we watch?

My answer is yes.

Can somebody email Google and tell them they can stop looking...

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

Directing the Story- Dumb Love Storyboards

When I wrote Directing the Story: Professional Storytelling Techniques for Live Action and Animation,  I had a problem. I had all of these storytelling ideas that I wanted to demonstrate but each time I was coming up with generic examples because there was no context for the ideas. Then I thought, WHAT IF I created a storyboard for the book? That way I could demonstrate the concepts in the context of a real story so you could see how they worked. 

Luckily, I had already created some stories and I chose a story called Dumb Love which was kind of like Romeo and Juliet meets Hatfield's and McCoy's but with monsters. Having a real story made it really easy to come up with demonstration lessons and I think a more valuable learning experience.

Here's some of the storyboards from Dumb Love. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)