The Place For My Writers Notes

Originally posted 1 March 2010

Writer's Digest, August 2008, pages 30 to 32, have an article by Jurgen Wolff with the title, "From Idea to Script." This subtitle explains, "Here's how to turn your promising concept into a screen-worthy script." Now, I'm not sure how many of us are working on screenplays, but it's kind of interesting reading, and probably helps whether you're working on novels, short stories, and even poetry.

Jurgen, according to the fine print, has had more than 100 TV scripts produced, along with films, books, and he has a website yourwritingcoach.com along with a blog timetowrite.blogs.com

He starts out by saying that in writing conferences, screenwriters often talk about the projects they're working on and their loglines. These are things like:

• At a campground, a young couple leaves their infant daughter alone for a few minutes and when they come back, she's disappeared.
• A man hooks up 100 helium balloons to a lawn chair and goes on an odyssey.

These are "high concept: they involve a situation that piques the curiosity." We want to know what happens! That's good. But these are situations, not stories. They promise a lot. And Jurgen points out that fairly often, novices fail to deliver because:

• they take an exciting situation in a totally predictable or familiar direction. A mentally ill woman snatched the child? It's been done. Unless you've got a surprising new insight, your audience is going to say ho-hum.
• in an effort to avoid the predictable, the novice screenwriter grafts a totally different situation onto the first one and throws away the promise of the former. When lawn chair man drops into a bank robbery, and gets kidnapped, what happened to the balloons? Don't waste your first idea.
• the writer starts a story in one genre or with one tone, and then veers into another one without laying the groundwork for such a change. Decide what genre you're writing and stick with it. A sensitive drama that suddenly becomes a thriller or vice versa... give us a hint. Foreshadow the change. Make us suspicious that the sensitive drama is going to explode on us. Or, stick with one genre.

Instead of taking a great situation and turning it into a not so great story, Jurgen suggests finding fresh angles. "The secret is to go more deeply into the aspects of the story that most interests people, but avoid taking them where they have been before." Some questions that can help you explore this:

• from whose perspective could you tell this story? Sometimes the most obvious viewpoint is not the best one. Consider all the different viewpoints you might use, and tell us this story from one that isn't common.
• at what point do you want to start this story? Changing the beginning of the story often gives us a different feeling for the story. Do you remember Columbo? Every story started with the criminal carrying out a crime -- so we, the audience, already knew who did it. The real question was how is Columbo going to outsmart this criminal? And we loved them.
• how does this situation change your protagonist? The character arc, the change that the protagonist undergoes because of experiences, is often the part that really gives depth and meaning to the situation.

A great situation is a starting point. Finding one means you're halfway there. Then use these questions and your own curiosity and insight to come up with a great story based on the possibilities of that situation.

So, there it is. Jurgen's advice -- start with a great situation, then develop it into a great story.

Your homework assignment? Take a look at the news or some other source of ideas. Pick out five possible situations for stories. Then for each one, work through Jurgen's three questions -- whose point of view works best? Where do you start the story? How does this story, this situation, change your protagonist?

And for bonus points, pick the one that you like best and write up the story.

Go ahead, write.