Film Courage: What are things you see most beginning writers get wrong with writing an
outline?
Alan Watt, Author, Screenwriter and Founder of L.A. Writers’ Lab: Plot.
So many writers think that writing an outline is figuring out their plot.
There’s something very satisfying about coming up with the plot.
They are like Oh here…I’ve got it!But here is the problem, again Einstein says you
can’t solve a problem at the same level of consciousness that created the problem.
Every story begins with a dramatic problem.
And what happens is (ever writer has had this experience) you get really excited by your
premise and you start writing it and you get halfway through and then you get stuck and
then you are trying to make these characters interesting but you feel like they are pieces
on a chest board that you are trying to move around.
And so it’s important to understand that story structure is not about plotting.
Story structure is about the DNA of your protagonist’s transformation.
So what you really want to do is you want to start to be curious about your protagonist’s
dilemma because when you really understand the nature of their struggle, nature of their
dilemma, it becomes the source of your story and it starts to pay off in silver dollars.
It starts to give you all sorts of ideas, images and scenarios that are going to become
your plot.
So here is what I would suggest, if you want to come up with a great outline, the first
thing we do in the 90-day novel and the 90-day screenplay is we spend one week imagining
the world of the story and doing absolutely no outlining, because what happens is I would
say our idea of the story is never the whole story, if you start to outline your idea of
your story you are going to get stuck, it’s going to become kind of a superficial thing.
But if you allow yourself to lose yourself in your characters relating to other characters,
they are going to surprise you.
They are going to be alive.
They are going to start doing things that you might not have been imagined had you forced
them into your prescribed outline.
So that’s the first step is imagine the world of your story, allow your characters
to be relating to each other in ways without imposing any structure in the outline whatsoever.
Now that you’ve got all of this raw material you start to see how they are relating.
Let me give you an example, you would never if you were writing IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE,
what does he want?
He wants to leave Bedford Falls in order to have a wonderful life.
The mid-point of that is where Mr. Potter offers Jimmy Stewart a job.
That would never…it you are outlining your story that has nothing to do with what Jimmy
Stewart wants.
Mr. Potter is the devil, he’s the enemy.
Why would he ever offer him a job, that wouldn’t make any sense.
But if you are imagining the world of the story you come up with the mid-point structure
questions which is how is your protagonist experience temptation.
It might occur to you that the devil would tempt him with a big job offer.
That’s where I feel like how I teach story structure is different.
I’ve been told it’s different than everybody and it’s because there is no plotting at
all.
There are these structure questions, they are experiential questions.
We are exploring your protagonist’s experience at key stages in the journey.
I hesitate to say “the hero’s journey” because then people get the fixed idea “Oh!
You are teaching The Hero’s Journey.”
No, I’m actually not.
I’m teaching is that story structure is an immutable paradigm for a spiritual transformation
and that there are key stages that one goes through including the reluctance at the end
of the first act, the false hope (which we just talked about) and now we’re talking
about the mid-point, temptation.
And then suffering toward the end of the second act and then finally surrender at the end
of the second act.
These are all experiences, reluctance, false hope, temptation, suffering, surrender.
They have nothing to do with plotting (and we’re not talking about reversal).
Film Courage: As someone already figuring out the ending in that before they are figuring
this outline you said think about it for a week.
Think about the crux of the story, what is it really about.
Are they also figuring out the ending or is it revealed sometimes after you do the outline?
Al: Both…it can get revealed after you do the outline.
I don’t like the word figuring out because I don’t think we figure anything out.
But I have an exercise that I give my students to experience the end and it’s a two-part
exercise.
I say imagine your protagonist transformed at the end of the story.
How is your protagonist relating differently to other characters at the end of the story?
How are they relating differently than they were at the beginning and what do they understand
that they didn’t understand at the beginning?
Do that everyday, do that for 10 minutes every day.
And you start to plant a flag for your protagonist at the end of the story.
You start to experience your protagonist at the end of the story.
Character suggests plot.
When you start to experience your character relating differently to these other characters,
plot naturally emerges.
But you are not figuring anything out.
If you try to figure it out you are going to get stuck.
And then the second thing you want to do is you want to imagine the climax of your story
remember that we want our protagonist to be active through the whole story.
You want to have an active protagonist.
And the challenge for writers is that we tend to be sort of passive observers.
We are always watching what is going on.
And so when we sort of put ourselves into the protagonist’s situation, sometimes the
protagonist can be the least interesting character in the.
So you want to find a way to make them active.
The structure questions are always going to make your protagonist active.
At the climax you want to think about the difficult choice your protagonist makes between
what he or she wants and what they need.
It’s a different choice so that’s an action.
I’m making a choice so your protagonist has to take an action between what they want
and what they need.
So think in terms of let’s say I want justice but I believe that when I get revenge justice
will be done.
So what I want is actually revenge, I want them to pay.
And what I need is to have compassion, okay.
So in other words the end of the story (the climax of the story) is we are going to reframe
out relationship with the theme (i.e., justice) and so I’m going to put my protagonist in
a situation where he can make a difficult choice between what he wants (revenge) and
what he needs (is compassion).
In other words if it’s not a difficult choice he would have made the choice in act one but
it has to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be (sometimes we call it the battle scene
- the climax of the story) but it doesn’t have to be an external battle, it can
be an internal battle that gets dramatized.
If you think about Holly Hunter in BROADCAST NEWS, the battle scene is her staring at a
plane ticket on a bench at the airport because William Hurt says “Here’s the ticket.”
What she wants is for there to be integrity in broadcast journalism.
But what she needs is to have integrity so when William Hurt crosses the line and fakes
a tear in this interview she’s furious.
And she wants him to take responsibility for it so that she can go off to this exotic island
for a week and frolic with him.
But he’s not going to.
And so she is forced to make a difficult choice within herself.
Am I going to get on the plane with William Hurt or am I going to get back in the cab.
And so that’s the battle scene but it’s still active.
She makes the choice of getting back into the cab.
So you want to find a way for your protagonist to make a difficult choice between what they
want which is always outside of themselves (i.e., William Hurt) and what they need which
is always within (I’m going to do the right thing).