This week, I will submit a draft of an outline for a children's book. I'm excited about this project because it will be used by child life therapists and hospital staff to help kids understand their hospital stay.
While it's a children's book, not a screenplay, storytelling techniques I've learned while studying screenwriting and while writing screenplays are shaping how the story is told.
One of the most important things I learned while taking classes in USC's Master of Professional Writing (MPW) program is that it's all about the story. Dr. James Ragan, the MPW director at the time, invited guest speakers who had written plays and screenplays and novels. Dr. Ragan wanted his students to realize that they could succeed in more than one genre, and he introduced us to writers who had.
"An original screenplay has no value," we learned. But if a play has created buzz with sold-out performances; if a short story creates interest and controversy, then the content begins to have value and there's a better chance that the screenplay that tells the story will be sold and made into a movie.
I was pretty scared of Dr. Ragan at first, until I heard him tell a story. He had just moved to California when, after a performance of a play he had written, he was approached by people from the movie industry. "We want to purchase your property," they said. "I don't want to sell my house," he replied. "I just moved here." They then explained that they were interested in having him adapt his play into a screenplay. After telling the story, Dr. Ragan encouraged the class to say yes to unexpected offers and opportunities, even if we didn't feel ready.
It's interesting to me where inspiration, life-changing inspiration, can take place. It was at the end of my time in the Master of Professional Writing program when I went into the student lounge during a break to see if I had any mail.
One of my favorite professors was meeting with a student about his thesis, a full-length publishable novel. The student had mentioned to me that he had spent more than a year researching his topic, and was nowhere near being finished (this is a challenge for many writers; there's so much information out there, when is it OK to stop?). He didn't feel ready to begin writing, and had started because he needed to meet the deadline in order to graduation.
The professor, his thesis advisor, was discussing a passage in his manuscript with him. "That's a pretty amazing thing for a human being to do," she said.
I never did find out what the passage described. But in those 30 seconds I discovered one of the top things that has impacted my writing. Good dramatic writing is not about listing facts and data; facts and data make good Wikipedia entries. As writers, our heroes and antagonists want something. They make choices, and when these choices are "pretty incredible things for a human being to do," making them rise beyond what they thought or dreamed they could do, those are the moments that create dramatic storytelling.
In the car a couple of days ago I heard a critic's closing remarks as he reviewed a documentary on the radio. "The director," he said, "is very good at understanding the dramatic points of the story." Within a documentary about a person's life, a time period that spans decades, thousands of facts are available. The magic happens when the storyteller understands the points when the person made choices that changed the course of his life.
For the writer, capturing and revealing these moments is the art of storytelling. As he worked with me, Irvin Kershner spent many hours trying to make me realize this; I know he would be pleased to see that I finally understand.
NOTE: These entries are inspired by the final assignment for "The Business of Writing for Screen and Television," a School of Cinematic Arts' course taught by Frank Wuliger. Hoping to help his students become working screenwriters, he asked us to create a personal, five-year road map into the industry.
