A Story is a Promise Blog

Well told stories are created with scenes that heighten a story’s impact. One method of writing potent scenes is to start with an understanding of the moment of greatest impact, that revelation, line of dialogue, or action at the heart of a scene that defines a character, that defines a story through some action. When I work with writers, I ask them to find that moment and write about it in the clearest, most direct way. Then write what supports that moment, sets it up, that allows time for an audience to fully take it in. I call this writing from the inside out. When writers start with what is external -- what a character looks like, a description of action or environment -- they risk starting or ending a scene at a moment of no or low tension. When every scene starts with this type of introduction or ending, it creates a sense of the writer needing time to get to the point, then time to leave it behind. While that’s fine when writing a first draft, it creates a problem when those ...

I recently re-watched Fringe, a television series. In one episode, I noticed a very striking technique being used. In the episode, one character feels out of place. The plot of the episode is that he's helping hunt down a character doing evil in the cause of -- fitting in. When the main character questions the character and finds out more about his motives, everything the murderous character says about doing whatever it takes to fit in, the dialogue has a subtext and a level of deeper emotions because the viewer is aware of the main character's issues. One aspect of powerful storytelling is making what a main character feels accessible to an audience. Struggling writers are often so immersed in introducing a character, getting across their background, their history, their surroundings, creating a picture of their relationships, everything really except what an audience often craves from a story, something that suggests an author can help readers/viewers go on a journey to a ...

In this YouTube video, the poet Jay Rothbell Sheckley reads many of her poems. Jay is an accomplished performance artist, published author, and adovocate for the homeless.

Daniel Handler (and Lemony Snicket) Novelist and story writer for both children and adults When Salli says this is the interview that kept her laughing most, you can count on the fact that you're in for a good time watching this clever chat with our 47th writer. And, not only that, this is a 2-fer: one interview with two remarkable writers (although it should be said that Lemony Snicket only shows up for brief, whimsical moments during this film). Handler is a writer. A prolific writer. And in this interview he explains why: he never learned how to do anything else besides write books, stories, movies, poems and musicals. Writing and telling stories is the thing he loves to do most, and in this animated and spirited interview you'll see him share some of his insights, as well as tell a few zappers that Lemony Snicket would likely share if Lemony Snicket had been there. Handler was first published after our daughters were in high school, so we didn't get to read...

In the July 2014 issue of Discovery Magazine (Hold That Thought, p 30-33), scientist Elizabeth Phelps, a past president of the Association for Psychological Science and a psychologist at New York University, is interviewed about memory. She speaks in the article that recalling memories shows activation in two parts of the brain. Recalling details about 'physical locations and layouts' activates the posterior parahipocampus. When we recall the feelings associated with memories, 'we see more amygdala involvement.' In tests, Phelps found that 'we're set up to capture time and place.' That makes it easier to recall such details, an evolutionary advantage. When I work with struggling authors, I often find a focus on those details and much less a focus on the feelings of characters. I believe the way our brain functions makes it easier for new writers to come up with those details. Such a focus risks becoming tedious, however, reducing a story to a series of ...

Maleficent , a new film starring Angelina Jolie , has a wonderful opening and a wonderful close, but the middle seriously sags. Why that happens speaks to a problem with story structure. The film opens with Jolie as a mythical creature and a young girl who watches over and protects the Moor, where other creatures like pixies roam. Humans occupy a nearby kingdom. Each mostly keep to their realm until a young man enters the Moor to steal a jewel and is caught by Jolie. They become friends, grow up together, and she falls in love with him. When the nearby king fails in an attack on the Moor, the young man uses Jolie's love for him to take her wings and get himself appointed king. This sets up a central question, will she get revenge? She curses the new king's daughter so that when she reaches 16, she will fall into a deep sleep that can only be woken from a kiss of true love. In this middle section, Maleficent watches over the girl, whom she clearly and deeply loves. As th...

My starting point for exploring story structure was a class taught by a literary agent at the time, David Morgan, who had studied with Lajos Egri (The Art of Dramatic Writing!). Egri taught that a story has a premise, character+conflict=resolution. But my background in science fiction had shown me that some stories don't have human characters, or characters at all. In science fiction, some characters embody ideas, not human emotions in conflict. And in literary fiction, some stories also have characters who embody ideas (Camus' The Plague, how middle-class people deal with impending death). I decided a premise would be a dramatic issue, movement, and the movement of that issue to fulfillment. Later I found it easier for students to think of a story's core dramatic issue as its promise, and that a storyteller could begin a story with the introduction of its promise and moving it toward its fulfillment. The science fiction film Under the Skin , starring Scarlett Joha...

When you watch a film like Sleepless in Seattle , you know Ryan and Hanks will find and love each other. Just as easily, in six months they could go through the world's ugliest divorce. There's nothing in the film that really conveys they have intimate feelings for each other. Other Hollywood films might get the main characters into bed but they end up in the same place, two actors pretending to be in love because that's what they are being paid to do. Then along comes Only Lovers Left Alive , a film by Jim Jarmusch. To get this out of the way, I love his films, and the way they ask me to think and experience what I see on the screen. What Lovers also conveys through its two main characters is what an intimate relationship between two loving, sexual adults looks like. Watching the film I believed these two characters love each other. I don't often see this in films, partly I suspect because there aren't many actresses of the caliber of Tilda Swinton. The last...