Bridging fissures in the creative foundation with storyscaping

Storyscaping - building the tonal environment for a story - can be the first step for writing. It’s where we can let our thoughts become free, unfettered wanderers on the creative landscape. It allows us to paint a holistic picture of what the story may feel like without worrying about the particulars.

The process is more important than the progress and the questions are more revealing than the answers. The goal for storyscaping is to develop very general ideas from feelings and to write based on those. It isn’t about the words or the structure. It’s about the tone and creative direction. We need to focus on the general direction of the story idea without focusing on the words.

A great tool to encourage this kind of thinking is music. I believe in the power of music to inspire great thought. Music influences our souls in the right way. It provides perspective in the moment and emotions to stimulate fresh thought and intention. It’s so cheesy to think of music as a soundtrack for life, in the same way it is used for film and television. I believe it can serve that purpose though.

Thinking is the Writer’s Curse

When we come up with stories, we generally create a tonal landscape first. Basically we define how the story will feel. The environment, characters and interactions use it as a jumping off point. Most of us don’t consciously decide how a story will feel. But whether we choose it consciously or not, the creative landscape is defined before the rules for the story are created.One of the biggest problems at this early stage is the tendency to think too much. We get lost in details that shouldn’t be focused on before there is a solid tonal foundation for each setting. It’s the curse of the creative - the ability to see and consider the possibilities almost as immediately as the idea appears.

Getting bogged down in the details of the creative direction can make us cross it off before it is fleshed out. This is generally a problem because a good direction may not be good until it is given time to develop. In my next post, I’ll try to talk about what the goal should be for storyscaping and one method to find the way there. I did not invent the word ’storyscape’, by the way.

Write the sin away

I have sinned and I seek redemption in writing. Truth be told, my lie is like a stained white sheet after a busy evening. Though my intentions were good when the words spilled from my lips, the results of the not-so-white lie do more harm than good to me. I set the snare and I must now step into it.

Creature Concept: Worms are good

Here is a bit of inspiration for a worm-like creature I plan to use in a show I’m developing called Aleria. I stumbled on it awhile back and now will use it.

Gordian worms live inside crickets for long periods, feeding on the cricket’s diet. Once fully grown, they inject chemicals into the cricket’s brain brainwashing it and forcing it to kill itself by jumping into the water. Once in the water, the worm wriggles out of the writhing body and swims off in search of a mate.

Big Screen Writing on a Shoe String Budget

Write in Limitations

We’ve already got limitations as independent filmmakers - understatement of the decade. But too often we get so caught up in all the cool stuff that can be done cheaply; we forget that we’re shooting a film to tell a story, not the other way around. Everything is inherently story-driven, yet project limitations are often not fully considered until AFTER the script is written. So let’s think about how we can turn our limitations into boons by writing them into the script.

GET EVERYONE’S INPUT EARLY AND OFTEN
What was it that we all learned in film school? What you don’t prepare for in pre-production, you pay for in production. What you don’t prepare for in production, you pay for in post. So let’s have all key crewmembers sit in with the writer, producer and director during pre-production to brainstorm how to work limitations into the story. It will pay handsomely for everyone - not just writers - to think creatively about the limitations that are intrinsic to a project.
!Tip: Consider using Edward De Bono’s “Six Thinking Hats” method of brainstorming to leverage everyone’s knowledge

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS
I don’t have money to shoot in Australia, to hire top-notch graphics specialists, to block off Times Square, or to hire hundreds of extras. Budgetary limitations can actually help shape the story. The key for the writer is to ask the right questions involving those limitations with the characters. The worst thing you can do is to throw in a location just because it’s convenient. That kind of behavior smacks of a producer doing the writing and of a crew that’s too anxious to get into production (for those writer/producers out there - I don’t mean you!).

WRITE LOCALLY
If you’re still coming up with the story concept, consider using your local area to generate ideas. It will eliminate a lot of hassle right away! It will also make for a more natural story since you know the area so well. Make a list of ten to fifteen places within two hours of your house and spend some time at each location with a notebook writing whatever moves you. I know at least of few you have a moleskin buried under a thick layer of dust. Brush it off and enjoy some time out being sensitive.

AT LEAST REMEMBER THIS
The cardinal mistake independent filmmakers make is writing for a big budget, then trying make up for the unrealistic writing during production and post. So don’t sweat the lack of major effects, aliens, talking animals, multiple exploding buildings, or faeries. People want a great story where actions, circumstances and interactions all ‘make sense’ with their environment. Focus on creating stories that feel natural, are believable and communicate something you feel strongly about. If that means miniature faeries that grow human-size in a matter of seconds on screen, well, I hope you have a high placed friend. If you do, hook me up yo.

!Tip: Read up on Constantine Stanslavski and Lee Strasburg’s - Method Acting - for great ways to discover answers to the four W’s (who, what, when, why, and how).

The Case for Hermitage

New York City is one of the few places in the world that you can be around people twenty-four hours a day and still be lonelier than ever. Loneliness comes, in part, from losing touch with your spirit in an all to busy life. The desperation for personal connection can kill creative intensity and inquisitive thought. On the other hand, constant contact with friends and family can similarly kill creativity because there is never any time to indulge in it.

The root problem for both of these scenarios is a lack of quality alone time. My solution is an age-old remedy for writer’s block - hermitage.

Picture snow-covered pine tops rising just above a rolly-polly horizon. For a distraction from the quiet, a five-minute car ride brings a small but bustling town of retirees, semi-hermits, quiet tourists and younger locals onto the set. But you’re really here for the wood-burning hot tub and the cabin with plenty of space to write.

Welcome to Lake Placid, New York and the McKinnon’s cabin.

I’ve stayed at the cabin and will swear by my personal honor that it is an ideal solution for a week or even a weekend away. The owners of the cabin - the McKinnon’s - are the perfect hosts and they won’t do you wrong. So what are you waiting for? Give it a shot.

Email the McKinnon’s to find out more.

It’s a Rainy Night in Georgia

“In my career I’ve found that ‘thinking outside the box’ works better if I know what’s ‘inside the box.’ In music (as in life) we need to understand our pertinent history - and moving on is so much easier once we know where we’ve been.”

- Starbucks cup
Dave Grusin
Award-winning composer and jazz musician

What a great public service Starbucks does by putting quotes on their cups. I’m not sure whether I agree with what I just wrote but I know that I like that quote.

I love to read. Actually I usually listen to audiobooks (thanks Audible). Some of the best thinking I’ve done has come during or after reading books like Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, Homer’s Odyssey, Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and or Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. There are timeless ideas here that modern writers often dismiss or even disdain.

I spend time understanding classic pieces because their ideas are time-tested and hold fundamental truths about human nature which are always relevant. Many readers today don’t remember these books, therefore the ideas I adapt from them aren’t stale at all. In fact, I am often recognized as a unique thinker merely for repeating what has already been said. The beauty of great stories is that they never really get old. Shhhh…if you don’t tell, then I won’t either.

Getting in bed with my characters

Empathy plays a major role in method writing. My job as a writer is to first understand the way my characters feel and how they react to circumstances before I write anything. Rather than forcing specific attributes on my characters, I attempt to allow them to take a more natural path in development. Not only can this result in the most perfect combination of attributes for each character, it also ensures that all the pieces for that character fit together in a logical, believable way.

Sense Memory is an exercise in which I choose one specifically defined experience - emotional or physical - to recreate from my own experience. Then I channel the feelings from that experience into the context of my story, scene and character. Here’s how I do it:

1. Choose a scene or character for the exercise. Only one.
2. Identify the problem that the character/scene is facing. You can also focus on a problem with your story arc as a whole.
3. Pick a very specific place, person, or object from your personal life (i.e. extreme cold, bedroom, ex-girlfriend, homeroom…etc)
4. Close your eyes (unless you’re really experienced) and stop thinking about all else except that one experience
5. Recreate the environment - however basic or crazy - one object at a time by asking questions of yourself. For example, what does it smell like, how heavy is it, what is it’s texture?
6. Once you are immersed in the feelings associated with the environment you’ve created and you can’t think of anything but the moment, you channel it into the scene or character we defined at the beginning
7. Allow the environment to morph in your imagination, one object at a time or all at once but don’t lose yourself or the emotions you’ve conjured. Stay connected to the feelings.
8. You are suddenly with the character in its own context. Force yourself to deal with the purpose of the scene and begin writing everything that happens in first person. React as yourself or as you watch the character reacting.

Sense memory is a core tool for the method actor. I’ve adapted the basic theory behind it for writing. If you say blasphemy, I say sure. It helps me write, though.

DISCLAIMER: If you permanently damage your psychological state as a result of this rather care-free exploitation of sense memory, please don’t blame it on storyrules.