Why do you do what you do?
This is important to know because we can check our motives and understand our differences in approach. When we understand why we do what we do, we can respect each other while still holding onto our differences. We can know what makes our work the way it is and appreciate it, and it helps us understand our struggles and hurts along the way. I'll go first: I want to get people emotional and mental energy as fast as possible. This is why I'm so attached to Story Forms Theories and Story Core. Story Forms Theories allow me to tell my stories more concisely and more clearly; Story Core helps me to create stories that are high-quality and can really energize. From there, I can draw out my storytelling philosophy: I want to tell the highest-quality stories with as much conciseness and clarity that I can. Is this motive right or wrong? I don't think it's that simple. Maybe there's a more mature perspective, but I trust I'll get there if I'm not yet. And, though I can't think of a good perspective outside my own, I'm sure I'll hear some other fantastic perspectives from you guys. I'm planning an update to the site next month that I'll have to test pretty rigorously, but I'm hoping I can get you the best info on storytelling faster. This site unfortunately got pretty broken when I switched domains to blog.storieslc.com, a transition that I'm planning to fully make next month. If you'd like to beta-test the site, feel free to subscribe to the newsletter below! Thanks for sticking around and I wish you the best in all your storytelling endeavors! What is your storytelling philosophy?
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An understanding of Story Forms Theories isn't necessary to go through this post, but an understanding of what I mean by Interactivity is. Interactivity, as we'll be using it in this post, means "ability to change the story". Changing the volume on your TV isn't Interactivity according to this definition; making Mario jump is. If you struggle with the latter example, check out Videogames: Gameplay Is Story. When I say that something is more Interactive, I mean we can have a greater effect on the story. Interactive fiction are more Interactive than novels, for example. InteractivityWe have infinite potential levels of Interactivity, from the story being set and us unable to change it to us being able to affect everything.
If you remember, at first when we dove into Story Forms Theories I just stated that we had Interactive and Noninteractive stories. I was still developing the theories on Interactivity at the time and I wanted to cover other things first, but as you'll see below there's a lot more to Interactivity than those two levels. We're going to be using story arcs to describe the varying levels of Interactivity, so make sure to check out this post if you need to review them! Understanding the varying levels of Interactivity will help you figure out the best form for your story, and also your relationship with your audience in various forms. I've seen a lot of writers online talk about how they love making people feel a certain way. Some writers have stated that that's why they write. To those that mean they enjoy people's responses, that's great; to those that mean they enjoy controlling people's responses, that's not okay.
I used to feel that other people's feelings were my responsibility. If they felt sad after we talked, it was my fault; if they felt happy, it was my success; if they felt angry, that I had done something to make them angry. I have come to learn that that is codependence, and that our feelings are our own responsibilities. And I had applied codependency to my writing. In fact, we cannot control other's feelings. And if we aim to control others' feelings, we are going to be disappointed and feel such a heavy height when someone feels something different- when in fact if we actually could control people's responses it would be detrimental to us and our audience. I'm going to state my view here bluntly: if a story is best told in a particular form, and you're the only person who knows the way this story needs to be told, then you need to learn how to work in that particular form.
Why? Because if one of your purposes in life is to tell a story, you'll find the most fulfillment and do the most good for others by telling it the best you can. So let's get started in learning how you can determine your story's "prime form"! But I want to remind you... Stories aren't forms. They have forms. I'm saying that to tell you that if you know how to craft a story, you can learn how to tell it in different media. Are you great at crafting stories told in novels? You know how to tell a story, so you can tell stories through songs as well once you learn the strengths of songs. Are you great at crafting stories used in picture books? Then you can tell stories through movies once you learn the strengths of movies. The ability to craft good stories is relevant across all media. So let's get started! We all have gotten stuck at some point with the feeling that something is wrong with our story. So we ask questions like "what would make this story more believable? What would make it more enjoyable? Should I remove this scene from my plot?" We can ask others for their input, but what they say doesn't always settle our own feelings and can result in greater confusion or internal conflict.
I think that feeling your way through writing a story can work to a point. But it takes an awfully long time, we can't always find the solution we feel we want, and we may feel differently later. Emotions are our responses to things, and it's much more difficult to process our emotions if we can't figure out what we're responding to. Thus, it's important to understand the basics of how stories work. So often we get so focused on finding the solution that we don't stop to wonder why our story currently feels wrong (not just what feels wrong) and why any imagined solutions would make it feel right or better. If we know what a story is, what it's supposed to be, we can figure out better why our story "just doesn't feel 'right'". I hope this post will help you figure out what it is that you're responding to in your struggles, and you will become a much more confident and skilled writer as a result. Here are the 4 things every writer should know: So before we get started, if you're not familiar with Story Forms Theories check out this post. Otherwise you'll get lost, and getting lost sucks.
Recently I wrote a musical (a little before I started developing Story Forms Theories), and I ran into some problems. Namely: 1. A lot of musicals' songs feel redundant to what's going on. I didn't want to be redundant! In my mind, the songs should always carry on the story in some way. 2. I needed to learn about songwriting for a musical. What does a song do in the musical? Why the heck do we even have songs in musicals?! Do we have a legitimate reason?!?! This all with my first musical ever (it's all right, it worked out). I'd written songs. I'd written skits. Both of which, I gotta say, I did pretty good at. But combining the two? What the heck were writers thinking?! I've been very busy and I'm kind of out of it, but this post has been most at the forefront of my mind and I'd determined to post once a week; I apologize if it's confusing at all. I'll be trimming down to a post a month so I can better prepare posts, at least for the time being; my busy-ness has jumped a lot over the last couple of weeks.
You've probably heard that your story shouldn't have unnecessary content. For instance, we've probably all seen comic relief characters who do nothing to propel the plot. They're annoying, obviously just filler, and distracting. We'd be happier without them. But beyond unnecessary characters, sometimes stories have unnecessary scenes. Sometimes characters have conversations that are totally unrelated to the plot; they should be removed. That conversation, though endearing, doesn't tell the story about how they save the world. Right? It's easy to say these things. I don't think that anybody would argue that unnecessary content should be removed from a story. But what is unnecessary content? One scene doesn't seem to do anything for the story, but it feels very meaningful because we see another side of a character. Another scene shows a character struggling to make the right choice, but that's telling us about the character, not the story. One character says a bunch of funny jokes that help us relate to them and love them, but the jokes don't really propel the story. In order to determine what is necessary and unnecessary to the story, we have to first determine what the plot is. And that is a hard with how people generally think of stories. Last updated 3/16/15.
(Not to be confused with Free Software for Storytellers, which also includes some coding packages.) I've generally wanted to try making as many materials in my stories as possible. That said, sometimes you've got a tight deadline or even just need a good temporary placeholder. Sometimes stock just plain makes things easier or your story a little better. Sometimes you do find that perfect picture that'll fill that need and you couldn't get yourself. I've loosened up a lot in this department, and have seen how much stock stuff can really help your progress. Sure, stock's not a replacement for custom-made and I'm against using it as a crutch- but it's useful. This list contains items that you can use in your storytelling like music, photographs, 3D models, and so on. Some of them may require attribution, but all are free! Generally, you also aren't allowed to use the item in a standalone manner. Check the rights before using, but don't be afraid to look around on these sites either! None of these have watermarks or other things to prevent professional usage either (as far as I'm aware, I'm checking for that). However, if attribution is required, make sure you provide attribution- to not is breaching of the copyright! These are listed in alphabetical order by category. As before, ^ means I give my personal recommendation from ample experience. Remember the one rule for believable storytelling?
Follow the story universe's rules. It sounds simple, but it is certainly not. It's a long and hard task, getting everything in the story where you want it so that the characters do what they need to for the story to progress and the story progresses as it needs to so the characters develop well. In considering all of that, it's easy to forget what's outside of your story. People honestly have some good reasons to think cartoon style is for kids- if they don't understand it.
The various reasons I've heard for this phenomena have merit, but I'm going to get to the core of why people believe this and help you show unbelievers that cartoons aren't just for kids with Story Forms Theories (if you'd like to review Story Forms Theories, check out this post, but you should be able to get through this post fine). If you're one of the people who think cartoons are just for kids- read on! |
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