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Storytelling -- not screenwriting -- STORY -- got it?

Things are clicking together on the screenwriting front. But I should say storytelling front. The pieces are falling into place, the foundation is almost finished, and it'll be about time to begin writing the treatment and getting to the fun stuff of designing the look and feel. I have been misled greatly into the Bad Woods and am now treading down a new path that I hope leads to the Good Woods.

I have taken the Tim Ferris approach of selecting three experts (with a bonus extra) that has kept information overload to a minimum and allows much more focus and clarity on creativity and a targeted approach to writing. In the past, I have been all over the place with writing, instead of getting down to basics and seeing what works. Now I'm more like a house builder or manufacturing plant that is seeking to streamline production. A proper, disciplined method is what I've been searching for, but didn't know it.

The bad news really is -- I already know everything there is to know about screenwriting. So what could any "experts" offer a genius like me? After all I've never sold anything. Never written anything anybody thought was great. Nobody ever paid me for my work. It's obvious -- there is nothing any experts in Hollywood or filmmaking could offer a genius like me.

-- Right.

I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what. I had no choice except to turn to experienced elders, people in the know, those that have gone before and treaded the path, forging ahead so that numbskulls like me can pay good money to take the high road with an experience hunter instead of getting lost in the jungle. And so it is. Desperate men turn to desperate measures.

In my quest to find proper guides, the experts I chose were based on a need to find some way to get my ideas in to a story. There's the catch. I'm great at filling 120 pages full of perfectly formatted, eloquently written, interesting verbiage and witty dialogue in a screenplay. But that's not what we go to see movies for. We go to see stories. I didn't know what a story was. Dumb mistake number one.

Then it hit me like a porcupine tail (thanks mom). I had been writing on instinct alone and looking to idiots on the internet as good advice. After all, most advice you hear from friends, family and colleagues is "just sit down and write it" or "write three scenes a night and you'll have a script in three months." On the internet they say, "just make sure that your first ten pages are dynamite if you want to sell your script." Dumb mistake number two.

Writing on instinct feels great, because I can just write random scenes, whatever pops into my head, and then begin to find ways of putting them together to make a whole. I have written some scenes that I just feel "wow! I can't believe I wrote that, this is so cool!" But then, where to put that scene within 120 pages of script? It kept me wanting to stab my eyes out with an icepick. I was lost at sea, telling myself that land was going to come into sight any second now. Dumb mistake number three.

In the attempt to stop being a complete stupid fucking moron, I picked these guides for my journey to a script sale and directing a feature film worth something other than scratching my artistic itch.

Screenwriting Goldmine
On a whim, I bought the materials online from Screenwriting Goldmine. Philip Gladwin is a veteran writer from the UK and has developed a step by step approach of what to work on, when, and in a very specific order. This has been a godsend. The challenge for me is actually following the steps and not jumping ahead too soon until the story is hammered out. The temptation for me to go back to just writing full on scenes is huge, but I've been good and not done that near as much. A great map to follow on the journey, so far. A wonderful insight into writing scripts that sell. Unfortunately, he does not seem to be very active with his website for the last year.

STORY
Next up was my old friend Robert McKee. I first heard about him from the film "Adaptation" written by Charlie Kauffman. In the story, Robert was featured as a screenwriting guru in hollywood, brutally honest and doesn't take any crap about the importance of a great story. Kim and I watched that movie many times and made lots of fun of McKee. But this guy qualifies as an expert, so I'm all in and bought his hefty book. I was, and still am blown away by McKee's insights into life and bringing those insights into your story. There is hardly any screenwriting talked about here. It's all about story. Actual Script work comes dead last in this race.

The Writer's Journey
Drawing from all of the classic stories throughout history, this book shows a form, a shape, a mold from which to craft story that all the greats have in common. Beautifully written by Christopher Vogler, he draws on the work of Joseph Campbell, the man that revolutionized Hollywood stories in the late forties with his book "Hero with a Thousand Faces." Vogler's book is an idea generation mill. Whenever I read through it randomly, pictures pop into mind of what may work as a piece of my own story. It also offers brief glances into the structure of stories from the greatest films ever made, such as "The Wizard of Oz." A real gem.

Those are my three experts that I have latched onto in the hope that their experience and knowledge will lead a clear path into storytelling.

Oh yes, what about my bonus extra? It's not a book, does not add to information overload, is a great daily reminder that you're a story writer and offers good story structure, character and situational ideas to apply to your own stories...

The 510+ Stage Hero's Journey
It's a long title. I was super skeptical, there's not much of a track record with this one I could find. But Kal Bashir, the guy that puts this expensive information out also has a free daily tip through email. The tips are short, relevant, and directly applicable to screenwriting and story development. I love it. I may buy his materials some day, but haven't wanted to spend the cash since I'm broke. Could it be a big mistake not purchasing? Perhaps. I really like what this guy brings to the table, and so I certainly would like to add it to my arsenal in the future. But I have my big three, and I'm sticking to them.

Will these experts make any difference in the quest to create a story worth filming? Producers spending millions of dollars on? That people will be falling over themselves to pay $15 bucks to actually watch? Who knows? The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. We'll wait and see, but I truly believe that with the help of these men that have put their knowledge and expertise out there to hopefully help a clueless writer like me, maybe a classic story can come out of it.

As Egon Spengler put it "There's definitely a very slim chance that we'll survive."

Writing Process

So, there's books and guides to tell you how to write a screenplay. The thing about a script is it's a wrangle with snakes. Everything seems to be slithering everywhere, slippery and not easy to grab hold of the little bastards.

I've rewritten the first act story and structure about ten times, I feel it's beginning to get clear and make sense and that a possible story is emerging. But there's always a nagging doubt, is this going to be any good? What is good? Would I know good when I see it on the page? I know, I know. Screenwriting is a mystery, an adventure, finding the ark and opening it, hoping there isn't only dust inside for your reward.

Of course, I can't tell you what the story is unless you meet me in a secret location and sign an NDA. You know i'm joking, because I'm a writer who has never sold anything, never written anything that's worth anything to anybody, and there are no guarantees that this script is going to be anything different. But you may tell it to someone else who may write a great script who may give it to a great producer who may hire a great director who makes a terrible movie that only makes one million domestic and fifty million overseas. I'd be pissed off, too.

The only thing that is in my favor is I have a mentor, a guide, a plan, a structure that will help get this script into the form of a real story that some producer, someplace in time will want to help me make.

Perhaps I'm venting. I'll go tap into the courageousness of the heroes that have been before us and kill these fucking snakes.

Great storytelling books

The Writer's Journey - Christopher Vogler
Story - Robert McKee

They both are great guides to storytelling. They don't replace the work of putting together a great story into a screenplay, but the breakdowns of what goes into making a story compelling are all there.

Also of note: apparently, I'm late to the party.

Structure

I'm on a quest. A mission. A purpose - find the structure behind a screenplay. Not just any screenplay, but great screenplays that make great movies. All the analysis and people that have researched scripts talk about the structure behind the story, the step by step journey of the character that makes a compelling, interesting, fascinating journey that we are willing to go along for the ride.

It really hit me last week, that writing a feature length script without a guide, a roadmap, is screenplay suicide. Now certainly, there are very strange movies that have been made, the oddballs that you watch and go "what the fuck is happening here?" and those movies get made. That's just not my style. I like things to be right, and just winging it and putting random scenes in a script won't get the job done. I want to know that I've just written a great fucking story that's going to make a great fucking movie. So that's where story structure has come into it.

It's been said if you're going to build a house, better have a plan. And that plan is the structure that holds the details of the house. If you want a house that looks mediterranean, or dutch, or southwest, those are themes built ON TOP of structure - not the structure itself. You can take any old house and redecorate it to look like a beach house in Brazil. The STRUCTURE of the interior just needs to be stable and hold up the details. That's how I'm looking at a script. Get the structure built, then it can be all the sci-fi, action, romance, adventure or drama movie you want.

In my previous efforts at writing, I could feel that I just didn't know what I was doing. Where is the story? What are the characters up to? What the hell should I write here, now, at this point in the story?

Syd Field. Everyone has read his book, or was told to read his book if you're in screenwriting. I loved reading and see the beginning structures of a movie script, but it only took me so far. First act, second act, third act. Great there's three parts to write, but I've got 25 scenes in Act I, 58 in Act II, and 19 in Act III. What the hell should happen in those scenes? My dillema.

I have some books that supposedly crack the code and have a structure to create a script on. I'll report back when I find some answers and what the results are. I've been doing some research this week, and I feel the beginnings of seeing the matrix and what a script can be if you know the secret.

If anybody has intimate secret society knowledge of these scriptwriting secrets, email me.

Screenwriting

I'm working on my second full-length feature script. The first was Voir Dire, which I banged my head against for a couple of years. It was a learning experience and getting committed to finishing a script that I started. I rewrote it about six times, it's been in development for so long, many people have offered opinions and suggestions to make a good script better. Even now, Kim is rearranging and adding some extra touches of her own before it gets sent out to Hollywood.

Now, the new story I'm drafting is a radically different idea, as all of my story ideas tend to be. Kim and I were talking last night, and the funny thing about writing is -- letting the story come out.  It's inside, but I'm always wanting to second guess and challenge it. If it's easy to write - there must be something wrong - it can't be good if the scenes just spill out on the page without all the struggle and debate of "is this really any good?" Kim tells me that a partial script I wrote years ago is really great, but I tell her that I wrote it over a weekend, it can't be any good. That's the benefit of allowing other people to read stuff. Get feedback and see if it's going anywhere. So I'll be experimenting with just letting the images come into my head and writing the scenes. I'm always up for trying new things, and easier is better than difficult -- but is it any good? Perhaps that's not for me to decide.

It's been fun to write some of the smaller short stories, like "All I Ever Hear Is Crabcakes!" That script was written in a couple of hours and then put on the shelf. When Kim and I were looking for a story to create for the Trail Dance Film Festival short film competition, Lexi kept asking when we were going to make that movie. After all, she's the star, it's her story, and she wants to be famous.

So, we dusted off the script, Kim rewrote it and got it into a few pages. We went and shot it, and after getting in the cutting room, I realized there was no way in hell it was going to fit into one-minute. Yet, through the magic of editing, I ruthlessly cut out every second that didn't have a purpose in telling the story, and managed to squeeze it into 60 seconds. It turned out to be very cute and funny. The kids all did great and it's satisfying to see a story come to life and watch other people enjoy it.

You can check Crabcakes out at the Trail Dance Film Festival website. They are having a competition - go vote for it (yes, you have to!)  Click the link HERE.

For me, screenwriting is such an internal affair. When I wrote Contactee, it was the first story I crafted with the intention to direct. It was subject matter I knew about in depth, but I still struggled with the writing. It took a couple of months to get 20 pages written. Contactee turned out well and is doing good at the local festivals and will be playing at Trail Dance in January.

I would like to expand Contactee into a feature story and the concept Kim and I came up with is different in it's scope and much more tragic. If I get the chance to write it, the exploration into that world again will be an interesting journey. I love UFO's and the paranormal, and that's something I always want reflected in the stories I tell. The fantastic tales.

No Lie Films

The new website is up and running for our production company. No Lie Films. Our aim is to push the cinematic and storytelling limits here in Oklahoma to create great products for clients, either commercial, promotional, or music video. We're also developing feature film projects. We've got some fantastic stories coming along and great scripts.
Kimberly Noe is Producing projects while I am directing and we've been assembling a fantastic team of talent that loves what they do.
You can also visit our Facebook page! Check it out.
www.noliefilms.com