THE STORY SPOT

Author Christina Baker Kline (Bird in Hand, The Way Life Should Be) did us the great favour of transcribing a recent interview with director James Cameron (Avatar, Titanic) in which he offers storytelling wisdom that is simple but oh so true:

It’s always about the characters and about how those characters express something that the audience is feeling.  So it has to have some universality to it, having to do with relationships, whether it’s male-female, parent-child, whatever it is. And then you have to take them on a journey. And then you have to make it excruciating somehow.

Like that? Sounds so simple, no? Need a hand getting started? Try this: Is Your Hero Sympathetic and What the Heck Does That Mean?

And by the way, you can catch up on Ms. Kline’s latest right here on THE STORY SPOT: she’s now part of our Literati (updated live as bloggers post–if you don’t see her now, try again later.) Click through to read more and subscribe.

Read “The Essential Elements of Storytelling … according to James Cameron” on Christina Baker Kline’s blog, “A Writing Life”
Watch James Cameron interviewed by Charlie Rose

This visual jamboree CAN improve your stories –via UNK

Pop over to The Unknown Screenwriter for an impassioned plea to screenwriters to dig deep down and unearth their emotional cahones. UNK is p.o.’d at the state of filmmaking today and I say, “here, here!”

What are you afraid of? Maybe YOU don’t know how to feel. That would certainly explain why YOU don’t make me feel… Anything. You’re so caught up in creating some GAG that you forgot to make me feel anything about your story… Your characters. Your screenplay. [...] Did you FORGET? Did you get so caught up in creating some kind of WHAMMO every ten pages that you forgot to elicit some kind of emotion from me?

Read the rest at The Unknown Screenwriter then come back here to find out what to do about it.

“You Don’t Make Me Feel” at the Unknown Screenwriter
“Creating Emotion. There IS a Better Way” right here on The Story Spot.

The sometimes brusque Flannery O’Connor is quoted as having said that you cannot create emotion by using emotion. More precisely, from Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose:

The fiction writer has to realize that he can’t create compassion with compassion, or emotion with emotion, or thought with thought. He has to provide all these things with a body; he has to create a world with weight and extension. [...] The reason is usually that the student is wholly interested in his thoughts and his emotions and not in his dramatic action.

For writers of all forms, this is a point not to be overlooked. Practically, it means that we may want to rethink a character–let’s call her Mia–uttering the words, “Gee, Larry, I’m just so terrifically sad” if we actually want the audience/reader to feel Mia’s sadness. The same goes for the narrator, I’d say, unless used very, very carefully. We’ve all read an intensely personal blog post or watched a film where this happens, haven’t we? Our most likely response was in opposition to the author’s intent; perhaps disbelief. Or perhaps we laughed. Ouch.

Read on »

Identifying your hero’s tragic flaw is likely to be the most powerful first step you can take when creating or rewriting a story. Why? Let The Unknown Screenwriter (UNK, to y’all) fill you in:

A Protagonist’s tragic flaw is actually more like his or her ego defense mechanism. In the beginning of the story and through approximately the third quarter of a story, the Protagonist continually relies on this tragic flaw to get as far as he or she has gotten. Up to this point however, whether they are aware of the flaw or not, they think they need it to get through the day. Consciously or unconsciously…

Read the rest at The Unknown Screenwriter…

Find the fatal flaw early and you’re likely to have an easier time creating the world and events of your story as everything must, in some real way, thread back to your character’s turn away from her starting point. It’s another useful tidbit from UNK for those of you who already know everything there is to know about story as well as for those of you who don’t (um, that would be me).

Related posts here:
Hamartia and the Self by Meldenius
Is Your Hero Sympathetic, and What the Heck Does That Mean?
Focus on the Protagonist

As you probably already know, one gesture from a character can communicate more in an instant that anything they might say in a paragraph of diagloue.

Here is a nice little case-in-point. Behold the music video for “First Day of My Life” by Bright Eyes. Notice the many, many ways these people are conveying their love without uttering a single word (a nose on a shoulder, stroking a forehead).

G’head. Mute it, even. I dare you.

Bright Eyes’ “First Day Of My Life” from their 2005 album “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” via YouTube and Twitter friend Danmacgregor.