Scott Myers, DePaul University Professor/Screenwriter/Creator Gointothestory.blcklst(dot)com: Begin with
character, end with character, find the story in-between.
Jill Chamberlain, Screenwriter and Author of THE NUTSHELL TECHNIQUE-Crack the Secret
of Successful Screenwriting: Start with that great premise “What if this happened?”
And then ask yourself “Okay, who would be the most interesting character to put into
that dilemma?”
Film Courage: Do writers start with character or plot?
Jill Chamberlain: You know I sometimes say there are two kinds of writers, the ones who
start with character and the ones that start with plot.
I think both are valid ways.
I think however that if someone starts with character I wouldn’t tell them that they’re
wrong and that they shouldn’t.
I think that if you start with plot it’s a little easier to break story and to work
with story.
So the example I was saying with GROUNDHOG DAY, if you start with the premise is far
more interesting than the character.
What if somebody woke up and it’s the same day a second time?
That’s a great premise, right?
I want to start with that and then ask myself well who would be the most interesting character
to put in that?
What if it was somebody that was naive?
That probably wouldn’t work.
What if it’s somebody who is a jerk?
Ahh…now that helps me build the plot and character right?
So for me it works so much more naturally and it’s much more easy to work with story
to start that way.
That said I know a lot of people who start with character.
They love to explore character and for a variety of reasons.
Sometimes they came from an acting background and that is part of acting training sometimes.
They like to get inside of a character’s head.
Maybe they are doing a biographical figure and kind of have to in a way.
You are starting with the character but then you need to decide what plot moments do I
want to use to help show the character’s change and what plot moments am I going to
leave out, then you kind of are necessarily starting with character.
But generally speaking if I had to pick one of the two I would say that plot is the most
easy to manipulate and to build story around and to make sure you are creating a satisfying
story.
Start with that great premise, what if this happened and then ask yourself “Okay, now
who would be the most interesting character to put into that dilemma?”
Scott Myers: Begin with character, end with character, find the story in between.
I don’t care what paradigm people have with story structure, how you get there is critical.
So you start with your characters, that’s my take.
Again there is not one right way to do this.
I’m just saying that this is a smart way to go about it because the characters, it’s
their story.
If we’re writing a story, we are assuming that in some magical, mystical way that story
some how exists, those characters exist.
And if it’s their story, they know it better than we do and so character development is
about getting curious, it’s about asking questions, it’s about spending time with
the characters and so the typical things that we see like biographies, questionnaires, those
are great.
I call those Indirect Engagement Exercises because you are reflecting on the character,
you are thinking about the character.
As opposed to Direct Engagement Exercises.
For example, what if I have a character in mind, I am going to imagine that I am a psychiatrist,
this character is my patient and if they’re reticent to talk to me I can even go one step
further.
They have been court appointed to appear with me as a psychiatrist and they have to answer
my questions and if they don’t they will stay stuck in the situation until they do.
So you just create a situation in which what I was saying earlier just ask questions, get
curious, that was a lesson I learned when I was an Air Force brat you just ask people
questions and get them talking and so you type, you just let it go.
You can even do something that is a little bit spiritual in a way where you are going
to do either a monologue or stream of consciousness with the character.
It’s sort of like the Vulcan Mind Melt in Star Trek where you get a character in your
mind and you do some deep breathing and you get yourself so you are transitioning out
of the busy world and you’re going to be here now with this character and you set a
timer for like 15 minutes, you put your fingers on the keyboard or pen on paper and you close
your eyes and you just type.
And your mind will go “I’ve got to get groceries or the cat or whatever.”
Just let it go, you don’t get attached to it and just keep coming back this character
and you get done with this.
And so you have all of these words that you’ve typed out.
Some of them are like dialogue (like a monologue) and some of them are like a stream of consciousness.
80 percent of it may seem like gobbledygook to you (maybe 90 percent) but 20 percent or
10 percent there is something really interesting that popped out there and that is getting
in touch with the characters at a subconscious level and they start to talk to you.
I’ve seen this time and time again.
I created a prep class 10 years ago that I teach online, 6 week workshop taking the story
from concept to outline and the first four weeks are all character development.
The second week is brainstorming.
That’s all we do it brainstorming.
That’s all they do is brainstorm.
And I’ve had hundreds of people tell me that was the post eye opening experience for
them was doing that type of work.
Again the characters exist if you act on that belief and we reach out to them and get them
talking to us.
Those are great examples of character development.
What can happen out of that is if you identify a protagonist and their state of disunity
where they are disconnected from their authentic nature and that can inform (if you know what
the disunity state is) that can inform where the unity state is.
And so now they are not going to just jump there.
Then you are going to say “Okay so these plot elements and the characters with whom
they intersect they are going to deconstruct their whole ways of being because they don’t
work out here in the new world but in the process of that they are going to uncover
their need (their needs are going to start to emerge).
This is very Jungian, Jung talks about this, he says “When an inner situation is not
made conscious, (and he’s talking about conflict, inner conflict) it happens outside
as fate.”
I don’t know if it’s in the real world but that is the protagonist’s story.
The protagonist starts off in a state of disunity and what happens is informed by that, there
is a synergy between them, it’s not just these random events.
It’s like these characters that they intersect with and the events that they go through,
that’s going to provide the basis of their transformation.
And so their disunity gets deconstructed.
Now this stuff starts to come out in the light of consciousness (their need) and now they
move into reconstruction.
Now they are moving into their new mode of being and eventually toward unity.
So you can take that raw material that you get with your characters and you can see how
it starts to shape the nature of the plot, the story structure and it’s not just plugging
this in (this has to happen on page 25 the break into Act 2).
No…you are doing it in a much more organic fashion with your characters letting them
inform you what the structure will be.
The final value of that is you’re writing multilayer richly textured characters who
actors want to play.
So character development to me is like everything and it’s absolutely critical.
Matthew Kalil, Screenwriter/Author/Instructor: For me plot and the analysis of plot can be
a real source of people getting stuck in their writing because they feel they need to have
a plot that works before they write.
Now if you just write without a plot you can also end up down a dark hole of loose ends
that lead nowhere and just write the rest of your life without having any structure
but I find plot and the analysis of plot a good place to be once you’ve written something
but for me plot arises out of characters in a space doing something and that creates the
plot.
The characters themselves are almost…it’s like this whole separation of character and
plot is not actually real when you are creating it or watching it.
Character and plot are intrinsically linked, we separate them in order to analyze and maybe
in the re-write write our stories better but I do find that if you focus on plot and drop
characters it can result in stories that are…that feel a bit empty and it can result in stories
that everyone has written before.
What I find really funny about these books on plot and some very good books are written
on plot and I point to them in my book.
I don’t talk about plot at all in my book [The Three Wells of Screenwriting].
What I find really funny about books on plot is they will say “These seven beats need
to be in a story.
They don’t have to be there in that order.
They don’t all have to be there.”
And I’m like what do you mean they don’t have to be there?
I don’t know if you’ve read closely but there is almost a disclaimer that they don’t
have to be in that order and they don’t have to necessarily all be there.
And I’m like “Well what are you really trying to say?”
So I’m slightly suspicious of generating your idea writing from plot first.
I think it can be really useful in the rewrite, it’s definitely really useful in the story
edit.
I use it all the time when I’m trying to help writers strengthen their stories.
But actually the best little plot that I’ve ever heard, the best quote on plot is not
even about plot it’s from that book on filmmaking that I mentioned earlier by Alexander Mackendrick
[On Filmmaking: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director].
He says “The only thing you need to know, what is happening now in story, should not
be as exciting or interesting as what may or may not happen later.”
What is happening now should not be as exciting or interesting as what may or may not happen
later.
So something is happening later and it’s drawing the story forward and it’s that
thing that is happening later that you need to put in your plot somewhere.
So you need to know that something is going to happen, you need to set it up so that something
is going to pay off and it will drive the story forward and that will keep people watching.
I like that because it’s kind of an escapist…it’s not really about plot but it’s kind of linked
to structure in some way.
So yes I am not anti-plot, as a matter of fact I am pro-plot when it comes to analysis
of the story and trying to make it stronger because I do believe you have to take a sledgehammer
to your story once you’ve written it and hit it and if it breaks something is wrong
with the structure and you need to make it work.
Professor Richard Walter, Author and UCLA Screenwriting Program Chair: Character is
story as I’ve said before.
What is a character other than what she does and what she says.
I have a friend who is a TV writer and he has a writing partner (they call him) and
they collaborate.
And somebody said “Oh…so you guys work together.
So you do the character and he does the story?”
As if you could do that separately?
Characters don’t exist outside of stories, they exist only inside of stories.
Again they are like Hamlet, they are what they do and what they say so you can’t…when
people talk about a character driven movie, they just mean a good movie.
Let me just point out to you how many movies and plays and great classics is just the name
of the protagonist of the main character.
For example Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar.
How about we go back to the Greeks: Medea, Oedipus.
Look at the great movies, THE GODFATHER, CITIZEN KANE.
It’s not always that way but more often than not it’s the name of the character
that is often the name of the movie (the name of the protagonist) and I only mention it
in this context because I am trying to indicate to you you can’t separate story and character.
Which is more important?
That’s like asking somebody “What is more important to you, your heart or your lungs?”
Sometimes in the law they refer to separately to plot and something they call sequence of
events.
But to me plot is the sequence of events.
Plot, sequence of events, story - these are synonyms at least in lay terms.
And it’s the most important thing and the heart is the most difficult and elusive thing
to achieve is a good story.
I could paint for you a world of a wacky-crazy, kind of a character and there are workshops
that actually do this.
You just invent characters about what kind of tree she would be if she were a tree and
what kind of candy bar she would eat if she ate a candy bar.
And people feel all kind of…as they create these things but it’s nonsense.
I think it’s actually anti-useful because it suggests that characters exists outside
of stories what I want to hear is when students pitch their stories in my class they are orally
telling the story to me and the eight writers around the table including themselves.
What I want to hear is what do we see and what do we hear.
I don’t want to hear that “Harry enters, he had a job years ago and he never got along
with his mother.
He’s the kind of guy that…”
Please!
Just tell me…I mean how is the audience sitting in the movie theater going to get
that.
They are going to get that from what they see and what they hear.
Nobody is going to be sitting next to them whispering in their ear “Let me tell you
about this part and what I was trying to do here.”
So that is what I want to see in the class from the writer “We see this, we hear that.”
That’s what readers for agents and production companies want to see on the page “We see
this, we hear that.”
That’s all there is and everything else has to come out of that.
Peter Desberg, Author [NOW THAT’S FUNNY], Screenwriter and Psychologist: So finally
in answer to your question.
Jeffrey Davis, Author [NOW THAT’S FUNNY], Screenwriter, Loyola Marymount Professor:
Yes, I knew we’d get there eventually.
Film Courage: I’m patient.
Peter Desberg: If you gave us a premise we would eagerly take a shot at it knowing that
where we started would not be the place where it ended.
And it was particularly fascinating in the book [NOW THAT’S FUNNY!
The Art and Craft of Writing Comedy] where we had teams working where they would just
start riffing and the other would pick it up and they would go back and then the other
would go back and they would just go back and forth.
Jeffrey Davis: Or they would change it, they would say we don’t know anything about mothers
and daughters but fathers and sons we know a lot about so let’s make it a father and
son.
In one case (my favorite interview) the grandparents are just lightly mentioned in the premise
and Lou Schneider made it a story more about the grandparents and the mother than the daughter.
The daughter kind of got lost in it.
So that’s the other thing is I think that the book does something that I’ve never
seen a book do before.
It replicates (not because of us, because of the writers), it replicates what a writers
room would be like because a writer’s room you come in, you might have the arc of the
season, you might have those things, but you need episodes along that line and they’ll
pitch an idea and somebody will go “That’s not going to work.”
Or “We did that three years ago,” or blah, blah, blah whatever it is.
But ideas come in the room and as Peter said they are not the same at the end as when they
started.
Peter Desberg: Now I’m going to take us back to your question.
When Jeffrey and I were starting we took a slightly academic view one day and said “What’s
your prediction about the approach they’re going to take?
Are they going to go more for story or are they going to go more for character?”
And we found out the answer is neither, they went for conflict.
So if you were to give us a premise to develop, the very first step we would take is “Okay
whatever the premise is, where do we get conflict out of it?”
If there are two characters involved, how can we make them but heads to do something
because everything would come out of that.
Scott Myers: Again, there is not one right way to do this.
I’m just saying that this I think is a smart way to go about it because the characters,
it’s their story.
Jill Chamberlain: You know I sometimes say that there are two kinds of writers.
The ones that start with character and the ones that start with plot.
I think that both are valid ways.