–I’m writing a novel.
–Awesome. What’s it about?
–Well, a guy is having trouble adjusting to marriage. Things happen to remind him of his matrimonial misery. We get inside his head and learn who he is, intimately, the fact that he’s an ardent Obama supporter, and he’s obsessed with the Boston Celtics and he has a job at the local animal shelter because he loves dogs. Oh, and he plays rec league basketball and there’s a conflict brewing between him and another player on the team, and they have shout fights all the time. At church, his pastor needs help puttng on a teen cookout, so he volunteers to grill the steaks. This makes him want to go back to chef’s school, where he flunked out of 5 years ago–
–But…oh, you know. What’s it really REALLY about?
–Aren’t you listening? It’s about this guy He’s an everyman. He’s got problems we can all relate to.
–Well, hey man, I’ve got problems. Is there any reason why I should spend 300 pages relating to his?
No, there isn’t. Because this writer hasn’t yet decided what his story is about. Is it about a man who can’t stand having his freedom restricted? Or a man who can’t control his anger? Or a man too immature to be anything but a loner?
A common complaint of novelists in mid-draft is: “Any one of three or four things can happen at this point. My character could go away to college, or get his girlfriend pregnant, or have a car accident, or find a job he loves. How do I know which one to choose?” It’s a genuine problem. Until you can articulate what your story is about, random chance is as good a reason as any for the next thing to happen, and the next…and that doesn’t make for much of a story.
Screenwriters are under far greater pressure than novelists to put story issues into high relief because movies move through real time. They’re wire acts demanding a high level awareness and control on the writer’s part.
For this reason, movies provide good clear examples of storytelling. In The Bucket List, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman are terminal cancer patients who have to share a hostpital room. At first, their personalities clash, but they become friends quickly. Almost too quickly, I thought: lots of possible conflict left untouched there.
But soon I realized that wasn’t what the story was about. The writer had decided the story was down the line, AFTER they’ve become friends, as conflicts that emerge from the series of adventures they undertake together, living out their last days in a quest for fulfillment. It wasn’t about the initial bonding process. But note how having made that decision, Justin Zackham, the writer knew exactly how little time the “getting to know you” part should get, and exactly where, along the story’s timeline, to place it. When you’re confident of what’s happening and why, even questions of emphasis that seem otherwise arbitrary answer themselves.
In your rough draft, there’s no need to rush into story decisions. Some novelists use their first drafts to find their story. John Irving will write 100, 150 pages of draft, allowing character, situation, and event to pull him along, not knowing yet what it’s about.
Here’s my rule of thumb for hunting theme: make the early part of your first draft a leisurely ramble into as-yet unfamiliar territory. No need to rush. No premature story decisions, but keep your eyes peeled for the thematic Big Game, the simple one-sentence answer to the question “what’s it about?” and recognize it when it emerges.
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