What drives story?

What drives a story? Or, who drives a story? The screenwriter? The director? Or, the writer and director working together as is often the case? The important answer is, it is always the idea that comes first, which in turn, drives the story. There are many approaches to screenwriting offered by well-regarded teachers that put an emphasis on story far too soon. Cart before the horse. And worse, they go to structure, before tackling any of the preceding steps that lead up to story. 

So here I’m talking about the IDEA. A starting point.

An idea can evolve from seeing a person being hit by a bus or something as benign as a dried leaf on a windowsill. A flash, as though lightening strikes, and soon after there is a rush to write as thoughts spew from the faucet of your imagination. At other times, what I call the trigger, can lay dormant somewhere between your subconscious and your conscious, for days, weeks, even months, before a secondary trigger turns the faucet on again, and words begin to flow. The two most important elements to this early stage of the process are, to have an imagination that is open to stimulus, and, to have a notebook handy so that either way, you never lose the original trigger. Writers new to screenwriting invariably mistake the trigger for the idea. The trigger is just an incident or an observation. To inch towards story that trigger has to be developed into an idea first. The Idea is the broad strokes of a possible story.

So let’s push this baby along. 

As an example let’s take the case of the person hit by a bus. To develop that trigger into an idea, your imagination needs to come up with some sense of who this person is. A woman or a man in his or her late forties? OK. Moving forward. When we next see the person they are in a wheelchair in an unemployment office. So far the idea emerging could be that of a family suddenly facing enormous financial challenges as a result of the disability of the primary breadwinner. Good start. So now we can add a bit of color. Let’s say the main character is charming and well liked by many in the unemployment office and who all try to help pull the family through this hard moment. Ah ha but all can’t be sweetness and light! So. What if we add a mean spirited supervisor. Someone who at every turn takes pleasure in asserting his/her power by introducing roadblocks at every step. A word of caution: don’t labor over anything. It may not all come to you in one go. Don’t worry. Work in small spontaneous chunks that flow rather than overthink it and run the risk of getting bogged down with too much detail. Trust yourself and commit to the choices you make.

Now here you have multiple choices as to which way this idea can go. It can evolve into a very personal story about the family. Or, the focus could be more on the characters in the unemployment office surviving the daily grind of bureaucracy. In that case maybe the supervisor might become your main character. It is important to know that your idea is a point of entry, it is not written in stone, and that your work will keep evolving. But you need to commit to a rough idea to evolve from.

For now lets go with the personal story line: a family struggling through misfortune and financial strain. The two main characters being the parent in the wheelchair and now we can open it up by adding a seventeen-year old son or daughter. 

The wheels are turning! The son/daughter, while watching and experiencing the deadening effects of bureaucracy, is fired up and motivated to change the system. Telling the family (and this could be a stirring scene) that he/she has decided on political science as a major when starting college next year. 

That was fun, right? And remember we’re still only at the idea stage. Our idea has evolved nicely into a parent’s misfortune and his/her families’ struggles, all leading to the eldest child maturing into a determined young person, on their way to college with aspirations to a political future. The end can be a dynamic and inspiring graduation speech and yes, the parent is maybe still in the wheelchair but beaming ear to ear. A bit gooey but you’ve got your IDEA. It is also perfectly valid to say I don’t know yet how it ends As you work with all the subsequent steps an end will reveal itself.

Remember to stay open to changes and shifts. This is just your first step and you still have many more to take. Enjoy the unfolding and avoid getting locked in.

All this came from the few minutes you spent waiting for a bus. Amazing. Life is full of goodies. Not to let the fizz out of the bottle but there is one more thing: the secret to being a writer is writing. What I’m saying is, don’t just think it, write- it - down, the idea, as - it - evolves. Writing is like a muscle, use it or lose it.

IDEA. You need to free associate, to let all the possibilities dance around and suggest combinations and outcomes. Like a hand in a card game. It is a process. Take it from me you will save a lot of time by approaching your writing…your garden of delights…as a process. Most beginning writers start on page one and just keep writing what comes next, what comes next, what comes next, only to end up with a long muddle of excess, followed by draft after draft. Simply put, a waste of time. So why waste time? Give yourself the gift of process. 

I’ll leave you with this: to be a good writer…think like a kid but work like a grown up. 

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Thank you and see you next time!