The Step/Scene Outline

Every writer wants to be original, creative, and unique. So why follow silly rules and adhere to a ridged structure? Why write an outline? You just want to sit down and write. Won't rules just smother creativity? Well no actually quite the opposite. Structure fuels creativity. You can't play a game without rules and you can't have life without gravity to ground it to the planet.

The structure of a story is in five parts. There are five acts, the exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement. We start by introducing the characters, setting, theme, and the main goal of the hero. Then a problem arises and the hero pursues his goal. And in the conclusion in which the hero either fails or succeeds, and moves on with his changed life. In simple terms we first get the hero up a tree, then we throw rocks at him, and finally we get him down. These acts or parts consist of individual scenes.

What is a scene? A scene is a span of pages in which a piece of dramatic action is played out between characters in a set location. How long should a scene last? For as long as it takes to move the story forward to the next scene. You should treat each scene like a mini movie/ or novel. Each scene should have its own spine. The written scene should include the location and simply what the characters do and say. Unless information is vital to the scene don’t include it. Less is more as the old saying goes. If the story is a war then it could be said that the scene is a battle.

Just because you know the end doesn’t mean you know where you are going. This applies to any writing. Art is a series of decisions; a step outline helps you organize these decisions in order. A step outline is a list of scenes in order, with a simple headline to describe it. Always with an action verb in there somewhere, because scenes are about character actions.

Scene Outline
Scene one: Joe persuades Marl to go with him to the park.
Scene two: Joe convinces Marl to help him out with his problem.
Scene three: Doug pressures Marl to find out what’s bugging her.

Neil Gaiman's 3 Rules For Success

I recently watched a video of Neil Gaiman, famed author of the Sandman series, American Gods, and my personal favorite Coraline, give a speech to some college grads. In which he gave his three rules to success in life, business, and the arts. They are as follows: 

1. Do great work.

2. Deliver your work on time.

3. Be a pleasure to work with.

And the best part is you only have to do two out of the three. People will forgive at least one of those rules if the others are followed. People will forgive OK work if you deliver it on time and are a pleasant person to work with. It's OK to be late if your work is great and people like you. And if you happen to be a scrooge people won't mind if your work is stellar and delivered on time. 

Neil Gaiman is a wise, delightful, and charming man who likes to write about people with buttons for eyes and woman who are made of shooting stars. Read what he writes. Listen to what he has to say. The smile is just a bonus.

A link to the full speech:

http://io9.com/5911699/watch-neil-gaimans-delightful-commencement-speech-about-succeeding-in-the-arts

Dialogue... Your character said what?

Dialogue is essentially dramatic action verbalized through speech or written word that’s about a character pursuing a goal. What is good dialogue in a novel, screenplay, or comic script? Unlike in real life, dialogue in fiction is not common ordinary conversation. People don't just discuss random things in scenes. Scenes are about characters using the art of speech to achieve what they want. Great dialogue in fiction always moves the story, or plot, forward and at the same time reveals something about the character to the audience. 

Another important function of dialogue is to express real human emotions. Every time a character speaks he or she is revealing their opinions and feelings about whatever the conflict is about, revealing their beliefs and personal bias. And ultimately how they believe the world "should" be. Should is a very important word to a character. We all have our "should", our definition of how things in our lives and our tiny universe ought to operate. One need only look to politics to see evidence of this. Belief is conflict. History proves this time and time again.

Dialogue is a form of dramatic action that is said for a reason, to obtain an objective of the character. Characters should not just constantly spout throw away exposition. This is important in film and theater because actors need to have an objective in order to bring out the character that they are playing. How do I say this line? Am I angry or sad? The illustrator needs to draw the character’s body language and through objective can orchestrate the character’s movement accordingly. Would this character stance be open or closed? Should she be forceful in her walk? All questions are answered through objective.

Often the most dramatic bits of dialogue are the words not spoken but implied. Watch/read the movie/play Doubt. Now that is a work of subtly. Never once do the characters outright say the words: child molestation, yet that is what the whole story is about. A nun confronts a priest she suspects of a hideous crime. They avoid being "too on the nose" and dance around the taboo issue, thus heightening the tension. Tension is good. Being blunt relieves tension, which is also good once things reach their boiling point or climax, and you can create an explosion with all that built up pressure. Think about the 'Elephant in the Room' and the right time to mention it, because once you do it'll start stampeding.

There needs to be a sense of mystery in your characters words. People around us are always holding back, out right lying, and omitting the whole truth. Everyone has secrets. We wear different masks in different social situations, hiding our true selves from others. Don't force feed your audience. Most aren't stupid, giving up too much too soon can leave them bored and worst of all annoyed. There is no greater sin in fiction than being boring.

Telling Stories with Symbols vol. 2

Now let's talk about storyboards. “Storyboarding is the process of producing sketches of the shots, or panels, of a script.” (Steven Katz) In film the final result looks similar like rough comic book version of what the movie will look like, usually without the speech bubbles as dialogue is written traditionally below the panel as not to throw off the composition of the shot. This action of storyboarding helps the film maker think about how the final product is going to look on screen, which makes the often difficult task of shooting on set faster. Pictures have a way of communicating better and more clearly than mere words alone, and these pictures will enable the camera crew to position their cameras into the right spot to frame up the shot. The lightning crew will know where to position lights, producers will be able to foresee problems that may come up along the way, and the art department will know which parts of the location are going to be in shot and so on. Even the actors can benefit from seeing a rough visualization of what their acting space will be. Comic artists can also benefit from using a rough storyboard, as the overall placement of each panel on the page and how they are composed greatly effects the over all mood, pacing, and how the reader actually reads each individual comic page. Basically storyboarding is the “working out of narrative and visual problems on paper” (Steven Katz).  

            
“Storyboards convey two kinds of information: a description of the physical environment of the sequence (set design/location) and a description of the spatial quality of a sequence (staging, camera angle, lens and the movement of any elements in the shot).” (Steven Katz) In other words a filmmaker or comic artist must deal with two main things: pictorial design, the film or comic’s environment, and sequential issues, the continuity of each shot, when making the storyboard. Often relationships between shots and panels are an implication or inference. For example, we see a long shot of a man walking to a door and this shot is followed by an extreme close up of a hand turning a door knob. The human brain fills the gap between the shots and connects meaning and narrative to them. The hand must be the hand of the man in the last shot, our brain tells us, and we logically fit them together into the story without any other exterior influence. The magic behind film and comics comes when the human brain adds the missing connection, and thus creates a story.

Ultimately it comes down to what the viewer knows and when, every shot gives the audience new information or does the opposite, withholds it. Take three shots: A woman walking in a park, her looking through the bushes, and a shot of her husband making out with another woman. The sequence we just saw, the audience identifies with the woman because they see information, the husband cheating, when she does. Rearrange the shots in a different way: the shot of the cheating husband first, the woman walking, and her looking through the bushes. Now instead of surprise the audience is given a sense of suspense as we know information before the woman does and anticipate the inevitable outcome of her finding out. Using cut outs of shots, the film maker can create different feelings and moods from a piece just by rearranging any set of sequence of shots.

“The pictorial aspect of a shot or panel is designed to give a sense of place as each shot tells the reader or viewer where the story takes place.” (Alexander Mackenorick) Elements within each shot can trigger feelings, memories, and even all five of the senses from the audience and the storyteller should take care of what he or she puts into the little boxes. Above all else there are no backgrounds in comics and film, only environments that characters and actors interact within.

The true power of story telling with symbols comes when image meets word to form connects neither could realize separately. Once the storyboard and script is complete, the storyteller can begin to piece together the final relationship between the symbols. One of the benefits of using words, spoken language on film, is the ability to compress time and move the story at a faster pace, and free up pictures by pulling the whole weight of the story. We can read or hear a monologue about a man’s past, and can pretty much show any farm from any angle, and the idea becomes the same. At same time picture specific sequences can function without any words at all for as long as necessary, look at silent films for proof. “These wordless panels can provoke a sense of direct experience and immediacy which is sometimes best left alone.” (McCloud Making Comics 134) Words and images can be combined to form new connections in the viewers mind, whether working together to tell the story or completely interdependent of each other leaving the audience to assess the meaning, or simply be used to soften transitions between shots. Often comics use word balloons to give a character a voice and sound effect words to give the world a concrete feeling, but the means is the same: “Capturing and making visible the element of sound” (McCloud Making Comics 142) Film and comics are at their best when words and pictures combine seamlessly to the overall narrative structure, because they are both different sides of the same coin.

Telling Stories with Symbols vol. 1

Since the first time our ancestors learned the art of speech, or complex verbal language, we have told stories. Through these stories, often told around simple campfires among small tribes of people, we have past down our heritage, our culture, our traditions, and our beliefs. Stories in a way have been our marks on this world, our footprints left in the mud, tiny pieces of ourselves that we entrust to the next generation in hopes to gain some sort of sense of immortality. Fast forward 100 thousand years or so, and you’ll see the same thing. Though we’ve now traded the campfires for movie theaters, comic stands, bookstores, and TV sets; but all and all things haven’t changed much, humans still enjoy a good old fashion, well told story. Though the mediums have grown broader and our technology has advanced, the storyteller still wants only two things from their audiences: to understand what they have to tell them and care enough to stick around till the end.

Today storytellers use different tools to capture an audience, but the process still remains the same, the juxtaposition of symbols in such a way as to create a connection in the human brain. But how can we utilize this connection in our minds and the minds of others to tell our stories? How do we combine words and images, symbols, to successfully tell meaningful stories? And finally what is the very structure of a story to begin with? To better answer these questions we must dive into the realm of modern story telling mediums that combine images and words, we must dive into the realm of comics, prose, animation, and film. Over the course of this blog I hope to answer these questions.

So let's start a bit with comics:

Comics are the medium that is most famous for blending the imaginary line of pictures and words. Turn the pages of almost any comic book and you’ll see words working together with pictures to create something neither could alone. They give the world inside the pages life, give a voice to the characters, capture the essence of sound with sound effects, and create a sense of seamlessness. “Comics is a medium of fragments – a piece of text here, a cropped picture there – but when it works, your readers will combine those fragments as they read and experience your story as a continuous whole.” (McCloud, Making Comics 129)

Comics can trace their origins all the way back to the ancient walls of the Egyptians and so can the fist written language. In a way comics, or hieroglyphs, is the first recorded form of storytelling. Yet for centuries images and the written word have remained separate and rarely mixed. Often ignorant scholars write off comics as a lesser art form, and glorify more traditional media like novels. Like most things in life, as Scott McCloud proves in his famous book Understanding Comics, these imaginary lines of separation are nothing more than an illusion. Take the word cat for an example. It is merely three separate symbols, letters as we call them, combining to inform our brain of what sound and animal they represent. Draw a picture of a bunny and you get the same thing, an abstract representation of the creature known as a rabbit. Everything we draw and write is a symbol, language, but it is how we combine them to communicate with the audience or reader is when the real magic begins.

The Spine

The spine is the setup or backbone of the dramatic story, and therefore the most important first step a writer must take before sitting down and typing away their first draft. Without the spine, one risks veering off track and writing themselves into a corner. The essence to successful dramatic writing is making the big structural decisions first and staying with them as you write. Don’t go off on a wild goose chase. Decide what the story is going be about and stay with that. Make the most important decisions first and the small ones later, like a pyramid going from the ground up. Without a strong solid foundation the house will fall. So start off right and avoid the sand.

 
The spine consists of the hook, hero, goal, central question, and central conflict. 

The hook is what gets your audience out of they’re couches and into bookstores and movie theaters to spend money on your product, sometimes it can be a theme or genre that interests the audience or your premise. 

The hero or protagonist is usually the main character and whom the story is centered around. There can be multiple protagonists in a book, but only one main character at any one given moment/scene in the story. (Unless there is none, like in Animal Farm, which is allegory territory) Dividing up ensemble casts and their points of view into individual chapters is a great technique to keep the focus of the story and drive dramatic tension.

The goal is what the hero must attain or overcome in order to achieve the outcome they desire or believe will make them happy. Get the girl, slay the villain, or win the big game and so on.  The hero does not have to succeed in achieving his goal.

The central question is what the audience is asking themselves while reading and ultimately what keeps them on their couches up late at night to find the answer. Will he find the cure in time? Will she defuse the bomb? Will he ever confess his feelings to her? 

The central conflict is usually between the hero and the main villain/antagonist or it can be between two lovers or friends or partners, in any case it’s the main “battle” between the hero and anyone keeping him from his goal. 

Doing a spine helps you find out what your story is about and more importantly what it's not about. Storytelling after all is just a series of decisions on what to include and what to exclude. Can you find each part of the spine in your story? 

Spine

Hook:

Hero:

Goal:

Central Question:

Central Conflict:

Greetings & Mission Statement

The purpose of this blog is to dive deeper into what makes a great story, deeper than most blogs go. Art is a series of decisions and storytelling is no different. I'd like to help you make those decisions. 


I, like many other fans and writers of stories, obsess over improving my craft. Hopefully through this blog I can learn some and teach some. So sit down and sip some herbal tea because I'd love to share my obsessions with you. (And of course shamelessly promote myself along the way :P)