‘You can have both.’ McKee: Story

Another wonderfully inspiring and informing weekend is over. Thursday-Saturday I attended Robert McKee’s Story seminar, and it wasn’t only a lesson on how to write a good story – the 75-year-old had a few life lessons to pass on too!

It was a lot more intense than I first thought to sit through 10 hours of lectures three days in a row – but oh-so worth it. I met a lot of interesting and lovely people that I hope I can keep in touch with, and learn even more from in the future, as well as the many insights and tricks of the trade I learnt from McKee himself.

I also got to enjoy the sun in Regent’s Park an early morning before the seminar.

I’m not going to attempt to recap or reformulate anything McKee talked about, when it comes to story, or writing a screenplay. I won’t be able to sum it up, or say much about it, in any way that’ll be particularly useful. What I can do, however, is tell you to go buy his book or attend the seminar yourself! I’d absolutely recommend both, for any writer who’d like to know more about storytelling. And I would also like to write a little about one of these life lessons that McKee was kind enough to share with his audience on Saturday:

I didn’t understand much at first when McKee started talking about ‘the ultimate contradiction in life – the human dilemma’. McKee said that it is a question about how you can keep who you are constant and unchanging, when you have to constantly change and adapt to survive. He used the terms ‘inner life’ and ‘outer life’ to describe the two – who you are on the inside, and how you have to change as a result of the pressures of the outer world. He discussed this in relation to the film Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942), and the character Rick, who in the end chooses what he realises is best for both his inner and outer life. He has love, as a constant inside, but also chooses what is best for his survival, politically and morally. He lets go of the woman he loves, physically, which lets him grow as a moral human being.

Rick realised, in the end, that ‘Love is not conditional on the presence of the beloved. Love transcends romance. When love is real, the beloved is always present.’ What Robert McKee then said to his audience, was that we too, can have both: ‘A full inner life, and a fulfilling outer life.’

And I really hope he is right.

Until next time x

 

‘What happens next?’: The engine of a story.

Wow. What a weekend. My notebook is full of useful tips, and my brain is full of new ideas and inspiration!

“The Power of Storytelling Journalism”, an intensive conference with lectures and talks from some of the best narrative journalists in the world: Tom French and Mark Kramer. These two were the biggest names, but I also learnt a lot from some of the Norwegian journalists, and the photographer/visual storyteller Melanie Burford. All of these were absolutely lovely people, too! As I said my notebook is full, and although I’d love to share all my new knowledge with you, I don’t think I’m in any way capable of passing it on as well as the speakers at the conference. I have however picked out a few of the things I wrote down, on the first few pages, and I’ll try to explain as well as I can.

Mark Kramer and Tom French in discussion.

Melanie Burford talking about voice and visual storytelling.

A focus in Tom French’s talk was that no matter the story, it should make the reader wonder ‘what happens next?’ The question of what happens next is the engine that drives the story, whether it be factual or fictional. French even made the connection to Maslow’s hierarchy of basic human needs (things such as food, shelter, sex) but saying that he forgot to add one thing: the need to know what happens next.

‘The day you stop caring about what happens next is when you’re ready to die.’ – Tom French

In order to write such a story, you need a brilliant idea. A good idea, no matter how well you execute it, can be no better than that – good, maybe just average. But a brilliant idea, even if you can’t manage to execute it as brilliantly, will still be good, and maybe even great.

A good idea has to be specific – you can’t simply cover a topic. Look for a situation that makes you wonder what will happen next. And, you also need characters unfolding with the story. What is important about the characters in your stories, is that they have to be flawed. Nobody will empathise with a perfect person – most readers despise those who seem to have everything in order. So you need to find someone who is imperfect, and willing to share this.

‘Imperfection is where character is revealed.’ – Mark Kramer

Lastly, something has to happen. Action is what is interesting.

It was also nice to spend some time in my beautiful hometown Bergen.

And I think that’s where I’ll stop for now. I could go on for quite a while to try and explain all the stuff I’ve learnt, but I think the chances are you’ll be bored rather than inspired. To get the rush of new ideas and motivation, like I felt it, you simply had to be there. Next weekend I’m off to Robert McKee’s Story seminar, and will hopefully feel even better prepared to take on a writing challenge or two over the summer.

Until then x

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aiming away from the amateur

Hey all, and happy holidays!

I have to tell you about some of the Christmas presents I got this year, because I got the probably best gift an aspiring screenwriter can get.

I got Robert McKee’s Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the principles of Screenwriting, signed. That’s pretty good in itself, but, I also got a ticket to his seminar in London in May 2016! I’m thrilled, and fairly sure the seminar will benefit me tremendously. Before the seminar I’m going to reread Story (more than once, be sure!) and take in as much I can about screenwriting, as I think the more knowledge and enthusiasm you’ve got, the more that seminar will pay off. Knowing I’m going it feels like an extra kick, a reminder I have to work for what I want. The last months, since giving temporarily up on my screenplay, I’ve been a little down. I haven’t worked on anything new. Mostly, I haven’t had the time for it, but I’ve also not been prioritising it. Now I’ll both make time and prioritise.

I’ve started one of the other books I got; Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art: Winning the Inner Creative Battle (also signed, by both him and McKee who’s written the foreword), and it made me feel less bad about giving up on that screenplay. Like I wrote here on the blog, I was going to finish it in a month, and I was  super enthusiastic about what I thought was a great plan. Since then I’ve learnt I wasn’t prepared enough, and also that I was being overambitious. What Pressfield writes about confirmed this for me. He emphasises that the professional is patient, and I’ve merely been an amateur.

“Resistance outwits the amateur with the oldest trick in the book: It uses his own enthusiasm against him. Resistance gets us to plunge into a project with an overambitious and unrealistic timetable for it’s completion. It knows we can’t sustain that level of intensity. We will hit the wall. We will crash.” (Pressfield, 2002, 75.)

This is exactly what I did, and I was ashamed about it. But now I know I just have to become a little more professional, and a little more determined, and I’ll make it. As soon as I’ve got the essays I need to write over Christmas out of the way, I’ll have another look at that screenplay. And I’ll finish it.

Until next time x

Stuck in the middle of Act II

Yep. I’m stuck. Don’t get me wrong – I’ll work my way through it, I won’t stop. But the last few days I’ve been meddling around at about page 60 of my screenplay, not knowing precisely what to do. As you can see from the picture above, I’ve got a sticky-note system up on my wall, with plot points, scenes and other things to include in my screenplay. But you can also see that only half of it is really colourful. The first half. I’m not quite sure what to do about that last half of it.

To stay on my schedule I should be close to page 80 today, but still I’m stuck on just over 60. It’s frustrating, because I know so very well where I want my screenplay to go, but it still doesn’t work. My initial plan doesn’t seem to be the right one. So today I’ve decided I need to sit back, look through what I’ve got, and where I must go from there in order to end up where I want to be. I have to rearrange my plot points. Kick some characters out, some conflicts, and add something new. I might have to remove an element to my story, a sub-plot, that I really liked planning and writing. It hurts a bit, it’s annoying, but I’ve got do to what’s necessary in order to complete this screenplay. I’m determined to make it work one way or another.

So that’s my bad excuse for not writing much on the blog lately, and also why I’m only writing about my screenplay. It’s pretty much the only thing I’ve got on my mind lately, just like in the quote Syd Field picked for his chapter on finding the Mid-Point (again in picture above) – this ‘crisis’ is affecting my whole life. I’m sure as soon as I get rid of this middle-point headache I’ll have something more interesting to share.

Please bear with me until next time x