Kinetic Writer

I had an idea for a story this morning that started with character details, and I started writing some notes about the central theme: a friendship that develops between two characters. I didn’t worry about how it would begin or any of the location details.

Within a half page, I had a general outline of the meat of the story in paragraph form. No dialogue, though I know that when I sit down to write it that dialogue will play a very important role. By ignoring the dialogue and channeling the emotions behind the story, I came up with the final scene that I think would be a powerful ending. Within seconds of visualizing the ending of the story, I knew that I also had a beginning - a mirror image of the final scene but with distinct twist that would emphasize the development of the friendship.

Not all stories need to come full circle to feel complete, but in this case I’m confident that it will be the right decision. Coming full circle. That’s a concept that I was able to grasp with the help of long-form improvisational comedy in college, when I watched and participated in Harolds and other derivatives of long-form improv as part of Miami University’s troupe, the Tower Players.

In fact, there’s a strong correlation between writing a story and performing improv: they both require open-minded creative thought,  spontananeity, and the ability to arrange disjointed pieces of information together in a way that will connect audiences to the scene, story, or joke. Obviously they also have their differences, such as introverted/extroverted expression of art and the infinite/prohibited capacity for editing. I’d like to re-read Truth in Comedy, a pioneering book about improv comedy, and see what I could learn from that in terms of basic storytelling.

Circling back to the original topic… The process of finding a beginning after writing (or visualizing) the end is different for me. Most of my writing ideas start with the beginning and falter at conclusion-time. The initial inspiration for a story is much easier to flesh out than the ending because, if you’re a responsible writer/avid reader/film buff, you know that an inadequate ending can ruin an entire story.  “Happily Ever After” endings rarely satisfy and are usually a big, gag-a-riffic cop-out. (Are you surprised to discover that I can’t stand most romantic comedies?) That’s not to say that a story has to have a tragic ending or an overpowering moral… the ending just depends on the story.

Well, talking about the different types of endings a story can have is perhaps good fodder for a future blog post (and that’s what I like to call a cliffhanger ending).

P.S. In my (somewhat unbiased) opinion, the best improv comedy in the world can be found in Chicago. Yes, there’s The Second City, but I’m a bigger fan of the unscripted talent at Improv Olympic and The Playground Theater. Man, I wish I still lived within driving distance of Chicago!

This entry was posted on Monday, July 14th, 2008 at 2:29 pm and is filed under brainstorms & ideas, resources, story elements. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.