Even minor Book Publishers or Hollywood players receive thousands of unsolicited books or screenplays a year. Why would they take yours seriously? You need a way to get past the readers and gatekeepers so that someone with juice will take an hour out of his or her busy schedule to read your heartfelt effort. Your book or screenplay has to look professional and read professional. It needs to be tailored to the expectations and genre expertise of specific publisher, producers or studios. This is why you should read The Story of The Story
The Story of The Story is a book about storytelling that has little new to offer. It has something old to offer, something that had been venerable, something that had been in the blood of bards through the ages, something that most writers of Hollywood’s “golden age” understood innately, something that remains critical, and something precious that, I can’t help feeling, is being lost. This book attempts to liberate storytellers from the tyranny of mechanical, snakes-and-ladders, plot-driven rejiggering of what has been successfully told before, and to get at what’s important. My intention is to infect writers with that bug. The rest of the book is about the easy stuff, the methodology. The Story Of The Story is neither a primer nor a manual. The book is not meant for people who approach the task of fiction writing with the mindset of engineers, programmers, or salespeople. It is meant for storytellers with the audacity to try to get at the essential questions about life. It is meant for artists.
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WHY YOU SHOULD READ THIS BOOK Why do you need to read this book? Because this book provides insight most others do not. They mostly function as how-to manuals, which is not enough. You have as much chance of telling a great story just by reading a manual, as you do of flying a jumbo jet, just by reading its manual. This book homes in on the ‘why’ of storytelling. It does function as a how-to manual, but this one is more concerned with ‘purpose’. Another term for the purpose of a tale is its theme. Theme is where a story gains a soul. Theme is why a tale needs telling. It’s the only justification. You need to understand that, or you will write yourself into a dead end. Quite simply, if a tale needs telling, there is reason, there is a purpose, there is a theme, or a number of related themes. There will be an internal logic that emerges out of that understanding. Once you comprehend the internal logic, the storytelling mechanics seem intuitive. The story reveals itself organically, almost as if you are channeling it. Characters seem to speak on their own. Writing a story feels like taking dictation. That only happens at what I would call the “quantum atomic level of storytelling”, where the force that binds all the story elements together co-exists with the force that propels a tale in a direction that moves audiences – not only emotionally, but toward actually understanding life. We call that wisdom. This book helps you access that level. This gets us back to the thorny and contentious issue concerning the purpose of storytelling. You may be one of those hardnosed writers who view themselves as pragmatists just looking to trade a tale for money, but it doesn’t matter. The purpose of storytelling is not to entertain and to sell tickets. That is just a desirable byproduct of a tale well told. It explains nothing about why someone would pay ten bucks to watch a movie or buy a novel.
What is compelling about stories? They do this: Stories help audiences and readers make sense out of their lives. It matters not what the genre is: romance, thriller, science-fiction, fantasy, mystery, all serve to mine human experience for meaning and value. The truth is that humans hunger for that kind of fundamental understanding of “purpose”. You can add that to the dwindling list of the basic differences between homo sapiens and all other critters. Manuals delineate the storytelling mechanics, which are important, but storytellers are more magicians than mechanics. Theirs is the art of controlled revelation of nothing less than the meaning of life, not all of it but some of it. These magi cast the spells that seduce the audience into suspending its disbelief in fictional characters and plots. They are aided by the audience’s eagerness to suspend disbelief. There is much to learn about casting these spells, even if some of it is reducible to formulaic plug-in modules. Yet even the Hollywood hack who buys storytelling modules off the shelf needs to learn the logic behind it all to be any good. For it does all make sense. It all works together. Once you know the internal logic of storytelling, the formulas are just not very important. If it is expedient to follow the conventions of editors and producers, do it. You can still deliver meaning to your readership or audience. In fact, you must. Because that is the sacred trust of the storytelling magi. So, you might as well get at it.
FOR INSIGHT AND SCRIPT SOLUTIONS
He can help you:
Translate ideas into words, words into story, story into script.
Identify story themes and make your story much stronger.
Write ‘muscular’ believable dialogue.
Flesh out characters and structure plot.
Make a script funnier, more exciting, and more entertaining.
Meet and exceed the expectations of producers.
Get your script sold or made into a movie.
Mr. K's FREE PRESCRIPTIONS
Throw away the formulas. Learn and apply the principles.
The success of a movie usually comes from the tension between what we see happening in a scene and what the characters are saying. Never say with dialogue that which can be said with the camera.
The engine that drives a story is its underlying theme or themes. For example, the theme of ‘Little Red Riding hood’ is, if you are too naïve for this world you will be eaten by wolves. Know and define your themes. Eliminate that which is not ‘on theme’. What is left is the ‘story spine’.
The purpose of plot is to test the mettle of character. The first act introduces characters and circumstances. In second act the protagonists are tested by the antagonists. The third act is the results of the tests. This is your ‘story arc’. Cut out all that is not on ‘arc’ as it weakens your story.