First off I'm a huge fan Of Pixar and I love their films. And recently a viral post was published outlining power points for Pixar's story telling. I think Ed has some interesting points, on the masters of story telling.
#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.
A
character that is not doing something theatrically will bore the
audience. ?Trying? is another word for what actors know as ?playing an
action?. The rest of the equation is: ?Play an action in pursuit of an
(provable) objective while overcoming an obstacle.?
#2: You gotta keep in mind what?s interesting to you as an audience, not what?s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.
Storytelling is all about
communicating with the audience. The audience is an essential
participant, not an optional one. An actor requires an audience in
order to act. Acting is not something you do by yourself at home,
right?
#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won?t see what the story is actually about til you?re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
?Trying? for theme? Theme should
be the reason you tell a story in the first place. A story without a
point to it is just weird. Theme is not something you discover at the
end, after which you rewrite the script to support it. Your theme comes
first. The story supports the theme, not the other way around.
#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
This is an extremely clever formulation. Filling in the blanks is the tough part though.
#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You?ll feel like you?re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
Truly great artists in every field habitually practice simplicity. It is in fact a hallmark of artistic maturity.
#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
This is a roundabout way of saying
that there should be conflict (obstacle) for a character. Ms. Coats
makes it sound like a game of some sort, but it is actually essential. A
scene is a negotiation. If you write a scene that does not contain a
negotiation, it cannot be fixed. Tear it up and start over.
#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
The ending is the point of the
story, don?t you think? If you don?t know how your story ends, then you
don't have a theme, and you don?t have a story to write.
#8: Finish your story, let go even if it?s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
I read somewhere that Sylvester
Stallone set out to write x-number of scripts, good bad or godawful.
The goal was simply to complete them, from Fade In to Fade Out. ?Rocky?
was completed-script number thirteen.
#9: When you?re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN?T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
When you are stuck, a more
effective strategy would be to go for a walk, get an ice cream cone,
play catch with your kid. Creativity is not something you ignite with
force, as in writing lists of what would ?not? happen next in a story.
That strikes me as an unproductive waste of time.
#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you?ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
I've got an even better idea: Watch ?The Iron Giant?. If you don?t like that story and understand why
you like it, you may very possibly be in the wrong racket. (Hint: like
"Monsters Incorporated", "The Iron Giant" is extremely shamanistic.)
#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you?ll never share it with anyone.
Yup. Ever read a book entitled ?Writing Down the Bones?? Good stuff. Keep your fingers moving.
#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th ? get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
It is always a great temptation to
lazily follow the road most traveled or copy the formula that worked in
the previous movie. Stories and characters that are predictable are a
big bore. Here is a good tip: Listen to your character, collaborate
with him. You lead for a while, and then let him lead for a while, and
the journey will be much more exciting.
#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it?s poison to the audience.
Nobody wants to pay to watch a
movie featuring bland characters that behave blandly, regardless of how
cleverly they might be designed. Cute is insufficient, even for Pixar.
#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What?s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That?s the heart of it.
This should be rule #1, and it is
the rule most violated by the major animation studios these days. The
quest for mega-ton box office grosses is a cynical motivation for
storytelling.
#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
Stanislavsky called this "the magic if". Really, all it means is that you need to empathize with the character you are creating.
#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don?t succeed? Stack the odds against.
The wonderful thing about
Shakespeare?s plays is the high stakes. If the boy doesn?t get the
girl, France will fall! A story worth telling is inherently going to
have Shakespearean stakes.
#17: No work is ever wasted. If it?s not working, let go and move on ? it?ll come back around to be useful later.
As was the case with rule #9, if
it?s not working, take a break. Make love with your partner; go outside
and prune the rose bushes, take a swim. Creativity works like that.
It cannot be forced. It must be allowed.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." (Heraclitus) Knowing yourself is a process, not a goal that can ever be completed.
#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
Coincidence is, for any story
purpose, cheap currency. The most talented writers do not rely on
coincidence after the first couple of pages.
#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d?you rearrange them into what you DO like?
I wonder how this would apply to
?Mars Needs Moms? or ?The Bee Movie?, projects that arguably should
never have been green-lighted in the first place. In general, I think
more can be learned by analyzing bad movies than admiring good ones.
#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can?t just write ?cool?. What would make YOU act that way?
If a writer cannot personally identify with his characters, it is inevitable that he will create stereotypes of zero complexity.
#22: What?s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.
Why is this rule 22? Along with rule 14, it belongs at the top of the list, not the bottom.
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