The Way of Story. Catherine Ann Jones
recognize as the house of your dreams. You know this house for it is your very Self. Take a moment and visualize your house.
The door is locked but you hold in your hand the key. Visualize the key to your house and, taking a deep breath, open the door. Enter now and stand for a moment, taking in the profound feeling that you have come Home. Then slowly yet with purpose, walk to your favorite room. Perhaps a paneled study lined with books of favorite authors. A fireplace glows providing warmth. Now walk to a large desk which overlooks the garden, and sit. After a moment, open the center drawer and take out paper and pen. See the pen that you will write with. Now look carefully at the virgin white page and honor it. Soon it will be time to write your first Soul Dialogue.
But first, I’d like you to visualize your Soul. It might be a bird or a butterfly or an animal. Or a jewel or some other precious object. What would be a metaphor for your Soul, your innermost being? See it. Experience it.
Now begin the dialogue. Visualize looking at your Soul in whatever form it has chosen. Then ask it, your Soul, this simple question: What do you want?
This will not be the only or final answer for all time, simply the one Soul gives you today, that is now, this very moment.
For the next five minutes — without undue thinking — open your eyes and begin the exercise, the Soul dialogue. Simply write the question, “What do you want?” Then taking all the time you need, listen for Soul’s reply and write it down. Write it all down. There is no right answer. There is only your answer. Please begin now.
EXERCISE: THE EMPTY SCREEN
Take a blank piece of paper and draw a large rectangle on the page. It should look like a blank movie screen before the movie starts. Place this on the wall near where you write.
Now simply watch the blank screen and see what images and story appear. Use very little effort here — just passively observe what comes up from your own unconscious mind. It may be no more than a passing image — say a white gull dipping over an ocean. Follow the bird. See what unfolds.
EXERCISE: WHAT IF . . .
Write the words “what if” followed by one or two sentences. This is the premise of a story. An example: What if a young man finds out who his father really is. Write three separate what if premises for three possible story situations.
Anyone is capable of finding a story. The plain fact is not everyone will invest the time and passion to write it down. A writer is one who writes, so make writing a priority for at least part of each day.
In the next few chapters, I will focus on the craft of story. Though craft is, of course, necessary in creating a good story, please remember that it is only a tool allowing the writer to give expression to something much deeper, something uniquely his. Craft, in order to serve the vision, will become the bridge between earth and spirit so urgently needed today.
As Amagatzu, the founder of the innovative Japanese dancedrama called Butoh, once said:
The Soul is the important thing.
Form will follow.
The aim of Butoh is to reach the essence of feeling. That is your aim, too.
Chapter 2
Seven Steps to
Story Structure
The three most vital elements in any good film are the script, the script, the script.
— Alfred Hitchcock
JEAN PAUL SARTRE once said that the freedom of Bach’s musical genius came from his tremendous discipline and technique. It is the same with good writing. Even though writing comes from within and the work begins there, as we have explored in chapter one, craft is essential. Many wonderful and inspired story ideas may have the short life of a mayfly. Monet, the impressionist painter, once remarked to his friend, the great poet, Mallarme, “I have many ideas for poems, but somehow they never seem to come out quite right.” Whereupon, Mallarme quipped, “That is because poetry is not written with ideas, but with words!”
The handicap under which most beginning writers struggle is that they don’t know how to write. I was no exception to this rule.
— P. G. Wodehouse
Story must be captured by craft. It is only through craft and discipline that you can achieve the pure freedom of creative expression. In terms of the craft of writing, three things matter: structure, structure, and structure!
In Hollywood, there is a lot of mystique and frenzy over story structure: what it is, how to nail the structure of the story, and so on. What is story structure then? Simply put, the order of your scenes — that is, the order of what your main character does. Remember Aristotle: Plot is character. It is the order of your story that becomes the structure. Professionals work from structure to dialogue and not the other way round. So, simply put, story structure is the sequence of scenes.
Before writing my first film, The Christmas Wife, I used index cards to designate each individual scene: which characters are present and what is the purpose of the scene in one or two sentences. Then I could easily re-arrange the order of scenes at will. This proved helpful when I was learning the craft of screenwriting where story structure is so important. I have noticed with students, for instance, that beginning writers often make the mistake of revealing too much too soon. It’s a little like meeting someone at a party — the less they say about themselves, the more interesting they seem. Or the other way round. As the old vaudevillians knew, always leave them asking for more. Using the index cards, you might move some exposition in scene two to the second act, thereby heightening the mystery of both character and plot. In Casablanca — the little B- movie that became a classic — the lovers’ past unravels a little bit at a time, heightening the mystery of what actually happened in Paris between Bogart and Bergman. Not knowing the whole story keeps the audience attentive, wanting more.
“The basis of a novel is a story, and a story is a narrative of events arranged in a time sequence,” says E. M. Forster, author of Howard’s End and A Room with a View.
I can’t resist sharing an anecdote about once meeting E. M. Forster. I was on my honeymoon in England with my husband, the Indian novelist Raja Rao. We were invited for tea by Mr. Forster at his bachelor digs at Kings College, Cambridge. What I remember most was Forster’s bare modesty and elegant simplicity as he prepared tea for us on a gas burner in his rooms. As we sat together, he said that many had asked him why he stopped writing after publishing only a few novels, and he had told them, “It’s very simple, really. I had nothing more to say.” It was only later that same year when, having read all five of his novels, that I realized this modest gentleman had written a veritable masterpiece, Howard’s End. Here was one who had mastered the craft of writing story.
Forster remarked once, “Plot reveals human intentions. A plot is a narrative of events. The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died and the queen died of grief is a plot. A story answers what happened next; a plot tells us why.” The why of what happens is connected with character and character motivations. It is impossible to separate plot from character. Aristotle was right.
Joseph Campbell, the mythologist, was an amazing man. I met him and his wife, Jean Erdman, in New York, and had the great fortune to spend time with them. He wrote of the hero’s journey in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Campbell outlined the structure of myth in this way: The opening stage includes the call to adventure, meeting the mentor, and the journey. Once into the adventure, the challenges involve: finding allies and guides, facing ordeals, resisting temptations, braving enemies, enduring the dark night of the soul, surviving the supreme ordeal, and achieving the goal. The concluding steps are: the return journey, resurrection, celebration, accepting a role of service, and, finally, merging two worlds.
George Lucas pays tribute to Campbell’s hero’s journey as a great influence when he wrote the Star Wars films. Many writers could do worse than adopt the myth structure as a model for creating their stories.