How to: Storytelling

Choices, choices, choices...

Fri, 23 Apr 2010 15:51:06 +0200

This article will deal with interactive storytelling, as in games, so I can’t promise much food for thought unless you are in that line of work. To narrow it down I will try to go to what I consider the heart of the problem with modern narrative interaction.

There seems to be two schools of storytellers within the game industry, only one is really explored in commercial games and the other being restricted to smaller projects. The first one being the straightforward linear plot-driven model. This is just about every game you ever played which claims to provide a story. It doesn’t matter what form of interaction is involved, you get a nice dish of “movie”-story served, no matter if you are pixel-hunting or shooting stuff.

The second school likes open worlds without limits or at least very few. This shouldn’t be confused with open world/playground games such as Grand Theft Auto or Saboteur, they belong in the category above. No, this school aim for an organic development of story as if playing games when you were a kid. Not a bad idea, think of the possibilities of a limitless world, where the story goes where you take it!
This is where I check out because a game without boundaries, if such a game where actually possible to make, they seem to be a bit lacking in their limitlessness right now, it would by definition have no structure to present a good drama.

I would like to avoid derailing into details about the “schools”. What it boils down to is who controls the story, the creators or the player. In the linear plot format we get nothing to say about anything. That’s not true, sometimes we get to choose the gun to kill Nazis with, but bear with me. Good drama, but no real story interaction.
In the second school we get to decide everything, who to be, what to do, what to engage in. Chaotic drama, could be great, could be awful – full story responsibility and therefor limited to the ability of the player.

In my opinion the existing commercial format is weak in the sense that it doesn't utilize player interaction in the way it could. The second, the more hypothetical format, is weak in the sense that it doesn’t utilize what we know about conventional storytelling; structure, rhythm, pacing, baiting, hooking, and simply the fantasy of great writers.
We need to find a middle road.

I’ve been playing role-playing games, as in full nerd pen-and-paper, for about twenty years and have probably constructed and played hundreds of adventures in different settings. Except for tremendous ideas, character and plot-wise, there is only one thing which is interesting – choices.

Choices is the only way to build interesting interaction with story. And by choices I mean letting the player say; “we should go here now” and that it actually matters somehow!
Most story-based games tend to feign this power, but never live up to it. For awhile it was popular to let the player choose an ending for instance. I don’t know why that had to go away. It’s a tremendous feeling for a player getting to chose what happens and it can be done quite cheaply if it is placed at the end.

Computer role-playing games are often satisfying in the sense that you get to choose between two fighting camps or that you can choose what way to approach a problem. The sad part is that it rarely has an impact on the game itself. That’s the magic word - Impact! It’s a good feeling knowing that you made a change in the world and that you’re not simply passing by. This isn’t the same as saving the world in your everyday shooter, the impact after a choice has been made, is much greater than completing a given task.

The power of choices also extends to player activity, granting the player a sense of power and responsibility. If I choose to save the bad guy who actually seemed pretty decent, I’m going to wonder until the game ends at least, if I made the right choice.
From responsibility and power we automatically foster a sense of importance and a will to achieve certain things. We suddenly have an active player in the place of a passive on-looker.

Confused yet? Good.

What I suggest is keeping the structure and design of conventional storytelling, but adding choices and let the story branch slightly accordingly. There are a few games which seems to follow this philosophy like Fahrenheit or Facade for that matter, but they are simply too subtle. If you are about to hand over real story responsibility to the player you need to warn them when the “choice” is coming and how to take each path.
A fluent story really isn’t that interesting if it simply goes about its business without anyone knowing. At the end of the game the player must be able to see what did what and be able to enjoy his triumphs and squirm at his faults. Don’t take this too literally. The point is giving the player enough information to understand when he is in charge and that he is affecting the plot.

So, why not have choices all the time. Because the player needs to feel relaxed enough to explore. Exploration is probably the most powerful/active will the player posses and setting him in a world where everything he does has dire consequences immobilizes him by concern. It’s like running around a store selling mirrors, it discourages exploration, because you will eventually ruin something. Most likely something expensive.
Secondly, it would cost a gaming company millions upon millions of dollars to enable such a complex game. Unless you find a way to generate cause and effect whereupon you will find yourself in a soulless wasteland of generic drama.

So, is this it? Off course not. You can still mess things up by bad game design. For instance, if you get to choose between killing the bear in the cave or the lion in the jungle, you are still forced to do the same task, but with different make-up. As I said, the path chosen must matter to the story.

This is pretty much as brief as I can be on the subject and I’d like to apologize for making this article so game oriented.

Fake Languages - A Tutorial

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 08:49:03 +0100

If you lean towards the more adventurous and fantastic stories there will sometimes be a need for a fake language. Tolkien famously created “real” languages for Lord of the Rings and Klingon has been under development since pretty much the start of Star Trek. These examples are quite complex and not at all what I’m aiming for with this article.
If you want to make a “real” language, study linguistics and take a few years off to work on it.
No, for this piece I am going to assume that you, like me, have better things to do, but still need something which sounds right and convincing. Let’s face it, no matter if you are James Cameron making Na’vi, not a lot of people will check up on the intricate rules of your language. Most people will be perfectly happy with trusting you it makes sense.
So, why go to any effort at all? Well, if you listen to sentences which an actor just made up it is bound to sound inconsistent or like they are just making up words that doesn’t exist. You need to make it sound like there is order in your mumbo-jumbo.

1. Limit Sounds

Assuming you know english you have an alphabet to work with. If you feel particularly hardcore you can do this with a phonetic chart, but it really isn’t necessary. Take your alphabet and start off by removing between 5 - 10 letters. Make sure to keep at least one vowel. The letters you have removed are now BANNED from you language. Those sounds are not available and will sound foreign to your “user” and if they are faced by such sounds they should have some trouble pronouncing them.

1. Favor Sounds

You guessed it. Pick 5 - 10 of the remaining letters and favor them. In english Z or X isn’t as popular as A or S. Mimic this by choosing a bunch of letters which are to appear more than often. The fewer letters you choose to favor the more characteristic your language will sound, unless you choose one which will then make it quite absurd.
Now when you make up words, use at least one of your favored letters.

This is already a good start and you could call it quits now and start typing your made up language. However, if you come this far why not go a little further.

1. Rules

You can expand your language by applying rules which will make your language sound more predictable and real. This could be anything, but for your own sake keep it simple. You could for instance say; verbs always take the form of three letters attached to the noun. Whoa! Take it down a step, we don’t want to go Tolkien on this one.
Try smaller and more flexible stuff. For instance, the letter F is always followed by an L. That could be an interesting limitation. Or try connecting all letters this way. Almost all sounds in Japanese, for westerners at least, are treated as two letters forged together, one consonant and vowel, like Ka or Li. What does this mean? That there won’t be a word that ends in an L or K. The world Talk would become Talika. See? The L isn’t allowed to stand on it’s own not even within the word and K will end with its “a”.
That makes it quite interesting. You can make this construct bigger. Maybe everything is made up from three letter constructs. And just maybe the letter combination ASK doesn’t exist, but all the letters are prominent in the language otherwise!
I think I made my point. Rules can be fun, keep them simple, you actually want your listener/reader to pick up on the structure of your oh-so-well-planned language. This will give the impression of order and in turn meaning.

1. Common Words

This is what most people jump to right away, which is a really bad idea, since it will not follow your language’s character. If you completed the steps above you will now be able to create words which fit perfectly into your language. You should be pleased to know that you can get along with pretty much 500 words or so. So get to it and write those words!
Just kidding, how awful would that be. Pick out maybe twenty or so words which are really common and you think your characters should be using and create them. The obvious word is “Is” (to be). “Hello” is a good one. “Me” or “I” and “You”. Now you might be thinking “Sky” is a good one, or colors. But, try to look ahead into you usage of the language and figure out if they really will be talking about Birds or Cutlery while battling the evil Gnorfs in a dark cave.

After this you are pretty much set. Just make up words as you need them. You can go back to the Rules part and go all Tolkien on your language if you want, but don’t overdo it. No one will ever know if you put an hour into this, five weeks, or ten years.

Archetypes: The Foundation of Character

Fri, 4 Sep 2009 01:29:54 +0200

A great tool when creating characters are archetypes. We all know them and most of us live under the impression that they are terrible. I say you know them, but you might not know the terminology. In the press these are often referred to as stereotypes, which is not altogether false, but it is unfair because it denotes the phenomena as something simple or even worse racist. It’s true you can fall into that trap, but if you posses a little sense you should be able to avoid your characters being perceived as something despicable.

Archetypes are classic characters which are readily used to tell stories. They come with prepackaged sensibilities, traits, and personalities. This isn’t some cynic modern construction for lazy storytellers. It’s an age old tradition enabling storytellers to get their point across. There are a few archetypes from modern storytelling, but they can usually be tracked back to the 16th century and the time of Commedia dell'arte. The most popular archetype is probably the Hero, the arthurian knight in shining armor with good intentions. If we use this archetype there is nothing that says he needs a white steed or a fine magic sword. The important part about the hero is how he acts, what he wants and what he cares about. We don’t need to ask ourselves what the hero would do about a woman trapped in a burning house. He would drop everything he had going to go fetch that lady.
Another example is the Stupid Dad. It can be found in just about any family sitcom. We don’t need to have seen the show before to know that he will have some funny quirks. He will definitely be childish and simple in taste. Family sitcoms in general are full with archetypes. What should we get to complete the family? How about an intelligent wife who can roll her eyes at her husband, but still is able to see the good in him. And some kids perhaps. How about a vain, dumb, good looking, popular teenage daughter or a precocious kid who is wise beyond its years.

I’m not trying to sound cynical or bitter. I find the use of archetypes really useful. If you think about it. How much time do you need to invest to “get” a new show, especially sitcoms. Probably less than five minutes. I’m not against originality. But you have to admit it’s quite powerful.

Ok. I hear you. You don’t want to churn out the same characters we’ve seen over and over again. I’m sorry to say that you will have a pretty difficult time to invent completely new characters. What you should put your effort into is how to make the old ones work for you. An archetype is only really bad when it is completely without flavor. Most of the time the actor should be able to take care of that part, but you should of course feel free to spice them up on your side.

Probably the best reason to know what archetypes your characters are is that you will have an easier time to keep them apart and make them important. Let’s say we are writing a story about a group of soldiers doing covert operations. They are all soldiers, how should we keep them apart? The fact that Harry was married before and that Tom had a father who was a baker isn’t going to do much. After a while they are going to start sounding like each other. Now if Harry was the Hero and Tom was a Strong Silent Guy we could immediately see them working together. If we throw in Dick and give him a Thief/Pick-pocket archetype we almost have a story already. The audience knows who’s who. They won’t mix them up. And even better they will be able to predict the steps they take and find them logical.
You can keep painting with the big brush an do the cliches, give Tom the heaviest weapon, let Dick be a sharpshooter and Harry gives the rousing speech before the big push.

The point is to paint your characters into corners. You don’t want them to step on each other’s toes. If you have guy who is the Driver, the go-to guy when you need to be driven somewhere including the awesome stunts and breathtaking speeds. We don’t really need another one. In fact, if we do put in another guy with the same ability we have made them both severely less interesting. As long as they both exist in the same group (they could be rivals) their ability will be devaluated and won’t be held in as high regard anymore. If everyone have superpowers they won’t really be super now will they. As I keep promoting, we need the contrast to make anything interesting. The Driver is only interesting if he can do something which no one else can. This goes for all characters. They need to own a particular part of the story and the world so they can have a purpose and so we can have a place to put them.

Writing What You Know

Tue, 1 Sep 2009 01:19:08 +0200

There is an awful writing tip being perpetuated by most creative writing teachers I’ve encountered. The tip is; write what you know. This is a bad idea for a couple of reasons. First of all, what you know is probably not that interesting. I’m not putting your experience down and I’m sure there is an awesome piece of literature lurking within your childhood. Many writers start out by doing exactly that, a piece about their background, a self-portrait which is never repeated with success. It’s not necessarily bad, but it does leave you sort of dry for your next piece. The thing isn’t just that you will run out of stuff to write about. It’s that the things you know well will have a tendency to become overly complex or a bunch of navel-gazing. It’s not that interesting to read a four page description of your favorite hang-out or the intricate workings of an actual engine made for trains. I shouldn’t say it’s impossible to make it interesting, but pretty close, so better not take any chances. Of course you can’t help writing about things you know well at times, but don’t be surprised if you end up rewriting it over and over again to make it bearable to read.

Unless you are documenting something and need to stay factual, there is really no reason why you can’t just make things up. You made up the plot didn’t you? If you make it seem plausible within your diegesis (big word for your world) you can have your cars run on water or fairy-dust. That’s just it, isn’t it? You need to make it look good, it needs to adhere to some sense of logic, namely the rules of your universe. Without getting into how to create a good diegesis, because that would be another article, all you should take from this paragraph I guess is; make it look good or simply stay within the most basic rules of physics and you should be alright.

The other reason why you should write about other things is that it forces you to do some research and that’s never a bad idea. You often get new great ideas which can make your piece even more interesting. And the things you learn are often the most superficial things which are the things which are perfect to add in a story without making it too technical.

A good trick to write about anything without investing precious time into research is to simply switch the focus of the story. A good comparison is Star Trek versus Star Wars. It is obvious that the guys behind Star Trek at least spend some time trying to make it “realistic”. When a piece of technology is presented they will happily tell you how the thing is supposed to work and it will sound plausible to most even those with some interest in physics. Star Wars on the other hand does no such thing. Technology, when approached at all, are described from a very human perspective. It sounds almost like it’s magic or something incredibly simple as a wagon or a mill. Nobody explains how hyperspace works or why lightsabers doesn’t cut through each other. It doesn’t matter. Because Star Wars isn’t about that. Star Trek is about the future and the world they live in and how it effect the little person. Star Wars is about people and how their way of being effects the universe. Star Wars could as well take place in medieval times, you’d simply exchange some technology and your on your way. The point of that little rant is that you can have have your story approach any subject, simply don’t make it about that subject. If you don’t you can easily ignore the technical stuff.

No matter if you know your stuff or not you will always find someone who are willing to whine about your shortcomings. I find myself incredible annoyed by some details that I don’t find particularly well portrayed, but that’s only if I happen to know too much about the subject being treated. Reasonable people will simply buy it. Simply tell your story and make sure you know enough to make it look good.

Resources: Planing & Execution

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:37:57 +0200

While planning a project it is good to think of the resources available. This doesn’t mean that you should sit down with the numbers and plan everything in minute detail. You should simply have a rough idea of what is possible under your circumstances. As a writer it is easy to think that they will fix it somehow – whatever it is you throw at them. Them of course are the poor schmucks who end up with trying to make your words into something tangible. In smaller projects this is key. If the production team runs into something which is “out of budget” so to speak it may very well sink the entire project. Even worse they will kill themselves making a poor version of what you conceived. It is better to have something simple done excellent than something difficult adequate.

Remember that by resources I don’t simply mean money. It could be man-hours, technology, artistic quality, ingenuity, and so on. You may think it’s difficult to know the value of your resources. As stated before your don’t have to know, just estimate and low-ball it to be on the safe side. When you are writing a scene simply imagine if you think it is conceivable that it could be done well.

But I’m writing a screenplay – how could I know who will produce it? This is of course quite difficult. Often you don’t really know who the director will be, the actors, or how much money the studio will throw at it. This could possibly sound cynical, but decide or realize what kind of screenplay you are writing. Are you writing a small or a big movie. Try thinking like a studio. Movies are products and they are successful if they make their money back and then some. Funny enough there is a pretty clear pattern; comedies and dramas are made cheap, while action and adventure movies are made expensive. It’s not that difficult to realize why. Comedies and dramas are often fueled by actors, while action is fueled by, well, explosions and stunts.
What does this mean? It means that you should try to meet the studio’s expectation. They of course want to cut costs while producing small movies. If you have already thought of this while writing it should increase you chance of getting further with your script, becasue it will look “easy” to produce. For instance you might disregard that little fun idea you had about a drama i zero-G environment and cut the cost by putting it in a coffee shop.
I should mention that this could go the other way if you are doing an action movie. The studio might not appreciate you cutting explosive scenes to save them money. They might not want to do an half-assed action for 80 million dollars if they could make a totally awesome one for 90.

Simply know what you are writing for. Position yourself in favor for the project. Some of you might think this is infringing on your magnificent artistic mind that you should be free to do what you wish. I can’t deny you that, but consider working within your means because I can promise you the restrictions will only open up more and perhaps better ideas. Ideas that are forged specifically for the convenience of the production.

Antagony - Villains & Virus

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 14:50:08 +0200

There are many words people use to describe the opponent in a story. Villain is popular, so is Bad Guy. But these words run thin and will eventually pigeonhole you when trying to figure out your story. I like the word Antagonist, many think this is a big and pompous word for Bad Guy, but I’m here to tell you they are wrong. Antagonist is roughly translated as opposition or competitor, like in a race. It is essentially what stops the Protagonist (Hero) from achieving whatever it is he wants to do. I’ll probably get into this in another article, but note that stopping the antagonist itself is never the goal of the hero. Batman doesn’t stop the Joker because he wants to stop him. He does so to save Gotham City or to achieve a better sense of self-esteem (I’m not here to judge).

Because antagonist is such a broad term it comes in handy when writing any kind of story. It could be the Joker, a virus, an earthquake or a fear of heights. Can you make a story without an antagonist? Please don’t. But don’t worry as you probably gather by now, you don’t have to flesh out a character to fill that position it can be just about anything.

What is the difference between just any obstacle and the antagonist? The antagonist is the main problem. An obstacle could be any little set back which could be related to the antagonist but doesn’t need to. The difference is that when the antagonist is bested, it’s a clear road to the finish line for our hero.

So we established that we are talking about our hero’s main problem. It’s the thing he needs to conquer to “win”, to accomplish what he is actually interested in. There is no simple answer how to make a good antagonist. The only thing I can say is that you should care about it/him/her. And I mean you as a writer. Chances are if you do, so will the audience. The most interesting and the ones who opens up the most complex variation of feelings are the antagonists which we can recognize as an agent of a different opinion. Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for a good disaster movie, but the only thing we are able to take from such an antagonist is the fickle nature of death or the horror of a crime left unexplained. Still good stuff, but not the ultimate version in my opinion. The most powerful - storywise - is as said an agent of different opinion. What that means is basically that you create another hero, but different and who has an ambition which will hinder the real hero to “win”. This is really difficult to pull off since it will no doubt end in misery for one or the other. If we as the public can’t decide which one we think should “win” we are in for some serious drama. But I sense I’m drifting into a future article about character design. Back to the issue.

I feel I should add a note about how a fear of heights could be an antagonist. Let’s say we are writing a tear jerking drama about a man living in LA who’s father is dying in New York. The man never flies and wouldn’t consider it. The story evolves as he weighs his options and through his love for his father eventually ends up on the plane. He bests his fear and is able to say farewell to his father. You see? Even drama have an antagonist.

But if you go for a human (sentient) antagonist as most people do especially in games. Make them interesting. Make them believable. I can't stress this enough. I like to say; evil is never you. What I mean by that is that no one wakes up in the morning thinking that they are evil and let’s do some evil things. Even if you are making a murderer who kills children you need to figure out why he does so. Even worse you should consider letting us, the audience know why. Abusive parents, demonic possession? Anything, just make us care a little about the person and in turn the story.

The Hollywood Formula and Why It Works

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:11:37 +0200

Hollywood takes a lot of flak for being strict and only supporting a formulaic way of storytelling. I tend to let those remarks slide. They usually only adhere from a sense of rebellion and doesn’t really have any arguments against the actual formula. I think the reason why people complain about the formula is because they have no idea what the formula is, they seem to think it’s a form of Mad Libs exercises at the major film studios. Complaining about the formula is more of a short of hand for complaining about the rehashed and unimaginative products released than the exercise itself. This attitude is however very bad when I’m supposed to work with others who shun the formula only because it is connected to Hollywood. Whereupon I’m forced to explain what it really is and why you should stick to it.

The formula in short is a three act structure. People who claim to know it (like me) likes to attach more rules to it, but really this should be avoided because it is often then it approaches Mad Libs.

Why three acts? I want five, no seven or eighteen! Yes, you can have how many acts as you want, but it usually looses its meaning after a while and simply becomes chapters like in a book. The difference is that an act shouldn’t just mean a change of scenery or a change of pace. An act is a great chunk of story that serves a certain purpose. The thing with the three act structure is that you have a beginning, a middle and an end. That is it. That is the magnificent Hollywood formula.

Really? Well, no. There is some more. The point of it is mostly to fix the sizes of the acts. In Hollywood the first act is the first 25% of the movie, the second act is the following 50%, and the third is the remaining 25%. Calm down I can hear your groaning from here. To appreciate this you must know what the purpose of the acts are.

ACT 1: The first act should establish the characters and make an exposé of their everyday life. Don’t take this to literally. The point is to let the audience to get to know the characters they are watching and engage them emotionally and intellectually. By the end of the first act we should know them and care for them. At the very end of the first act we flip everything on its head.

ACT 2: Wow, what the hell happened?! We entered the second act and everything is different. How do we know this? Because the first act told us what life is like, now everything is different. The characters are out of their comfort zone and all the cool things you thought of happens. The thing that makes this act interesting is simply the contrast between the first and the second act. If you look at a disaster movie the second act most likely begins when the shit hits the fan. This is when the aliens appear in the sky or the big wave overturns the ship. Note that this event is usually foreshadowed in the very beginning with a teaser shot. The shark might have killed someone in the opening scene, but it’s not until act two begins he starts chewing on the entire cast.
Act two is the bigger part of your story and may include many twist and turns, but it is the struggle with was presented at the start of act two/end of act one that is being dealt with.

ACT 3: The difference between the second and the third act isn’t as apparent. The third act is the ending of the movie. Again don’t take this too literally. The ending scene is not the third act. The third act is most likely almost a half an hour and unless you are doing one hell of a long fight you will have to come up with some more stuff.
Usually this is done as something is revealed to be something else or just more or worse. What?! Yes, exactly.
Some people like talking about the change between the second and the third act as raising the stakes. That is the threat that was going to kill X people is actually threatening the whole world! Try not to be as blunt as that since it rarely has the effect you are after. You want to get the feeling that something turned for the worse or that a new angle was suddenly thrown into the story. Typical events that ends act two/starts act three is; a loved one is kidnapped, the hero fails to beat the bad guy even after excessive ordeal, or a traitor is revealed.
The story then keeps going in a a higher gear until you run into the actual ending scenes and we are done.

That is pretty much it. Then why is this good and what do I want you to make of it? The good thing about it is simply that the structure is made to make a few good steps of contrast. And as stated in the beginning of the article it is pretty much only a beginning, a middle, and an end.
If it is so basic, then why follow it at all?
Because it is a good reminder of how to set up your story and how to place your information within the movie. Act one is used for presentation, act two is used for the actual story, and the third is when you run towards the finish line and wrap it up.
The second reason why you should use this structure is that it gives you just that; structure. While writing it is good to know when you are being long or short. When you should add material and when you should remove stuff. This formula easily let you calculate this.
The third reason is that it gives you a reminder to mind your contrast. As I argued in another article; contrast is drama. It is what makes your work exciting.

So to sum it up even more. The formula is merely a way to portion story neatly. The Hollywood formula tells you how to space the information within your story without disproportion.

The Storyteller and the Other Guy

Fri, 7 Aug 2009 00:06:41 +0200

It’s a sad realization when you discover that you are not creating an experience, but a fragile blueprint of one. We like to think that what we tell is what is received. In a perfect world maybe, but sadly no. The truth is that, whatever media you work with, you will have to deal with people experiencing it. This is of course not all bad. Most of us like when people can enjoy our work. The problem is that not everyone gets it. The reason is that they can’t see what an amazing auteur you are, they are obviously not equipped with the proper intellect to appreciate your grandeur. Is the irony coming through yet? Great. Then let’s continue.
Sure sometimes people won’t “get it”, but mostly it’s because they themselves complete the work you have done.
Let me rephrase to clarify; the audience completes your work as they experience it. This isn’t that hard to grasp. We have all seen a movie while being in a bad mood. Was it good for you? Most likely not. You watch (experience) the work of others and completes it as it filters into your brain. As you break down the story and the characters in your mind they will be discolored by your mood. Fortunately many people realize when a bad mood spoiled a movie and decide to perhaps give it another try. The really difficult filters in your mind is culture, prejudice, preconceptions and peer reviews. The last one is as difficult as the mood. By peer reviews I mean the audience having preconceptions from being fed emotional information about the quality of the experience and not the content. This simply means that if your friends tells you that a movie is really awful, chances are that you will have a similar experience or at least be prone to find faults. Unless of course you are already convinced that you and your friends’ taste differ. Then the result would go the other way.
But I digress, the point I wanted to make is simply that influence, such as peer review and mood, is difficult to avoid.

Other filters such as culture, prejudice, and other preconceptions can be used to calibrate your audience’s experience. They are still a big mess, but they are also very useful as it allows work with stereotypes and references that can augment your storytelling at relatively cheap “cost”. But more of this in another article.
The problems that remain with filters can be summed up pretty easily; different people will get different experiences from the same movie (art piece, game, etc). Well, thank you captain obvious! Calm down. Don’t leave thinking that everyone is different and there is nothing like objective quality. That’s is not at all what I’m getting at. Actually I’m arguing for the use of some strategy to streamline the experience for the audience.

This isn’t exactly groundbreaking stuff. It’s the reason why we have target audiences or target groups. If you are not familiar with this concept it simply means that you steer your work to please a certain group that shares common interest. For instance, men in their thirties could be a target audience, or New Yorkers. The idea is simply to fill your work with things that your particular audience can relate to. Who do you want to target? Your friends? The world?

Be careful when figuring out your target audience (let’s pretend you haven’t been told by your producer). If you make it too small you will most likely make the box office cry. Your work will be so difficult to follow by outsiders that it will be discarded as introvert and self-indulgent by critics.
If you make your target audience to wide. It will come off so bland that none will be really able to connect to the experience. A movie made for everyone is made for none.

Obvious answer, keep your target audience medium sized? Yes and no. You actually want to maximize your audience, but you do want to keep the feeling of having made it for a small audience. You want the audience members to feel like the movie was made for each and one of them.
I therefore like to layer things. Write a story which is easy to follow by everyone. Then expand it with layers of complexity and flavor which is unnecessary to grasp or engage in to appreciate the movie, but gives the impression that the movie could be about that layer as well as the story. The layers doesn’t need to be as obvious or easy to see as the story. If you introduce details concerning a specific audience, they will make sense of something that you hadn’t even thought of. This is why all the rambling above is about how the audience complete your work.

Take Die Hard for instance. It’s about a guy stopping a bunch of robbers. That is the story. Huge target audience, but without flavor. A layer could be that the guy is a police detective or a divorced family man. Suddenly cops, married men, heartbroken people, can relate in a way others can’t. If we add that the robbers are german terrorists, we suddenly have people reading in a political side, international affairs. The layers together tells a story about a regular joe ending up “saving the world” from germans perhaps a parallel to the second World War.

Working in layers let you expand flavor by exploring side tracks while keeping your story easy to follow and open for the great masses.

The Drama Palette

Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:17:06 +0100

What is drama? The question might be confusing to some of you. Many would say it’s a genre among others such as thriller, action and so on. But in this case I would like to use drama as a word for what fuels excitement, that which make the consumer of a piece of art stick around till the end. Anyone who have taken a class in storytelling will now think of conflict. Again this isn’t wrong. Your teacher didn’t lie.
What should be considered is what conflict implies. Many translate this into a constant flow of disagreement or even physical fighting. It’s an easy way to make it work. But it easily becomes boring even though you are fueling the piece like a mad man. Watching characters fight verbally or physically quickly saturates that particular form of drama and leads to disinterest. This is because of low action contrast, but it stems from the lack of variation of drama. You see taking the same route makes your work uninteresting.
To better illustrate my point. Imagine watching a movie where the characters constantly fight verbally. How would you feel – engaged? Try annoyed. If the people you are supposed to root for completely misses the point of the other speaker or keep talking to someone that does so, you would turn it off. And you probably have. How many times have you seen scenes upon scenes where the characters fight over some simple misunderstanding and think, “Just tell him about the damn thing already!”. That reaction might make you think that the excitement worked. Yes, you are right, but at what price. Such a reaction might lower the viewers opinion of who they are rooting for or even the film itself.
Ok, so no silly disagreements. Let’s stick to the physical stuff? Please don’t. A movie with only physical action would be the equivalent of watching a chase scene for two hours. It might be exciting for a few minutes, but it quickly becomes saturated, meaning it turns into a new status quo. So we need more types of drama to spice things up? Exactly.
To further understand drama and conflict we must take a step back and have look at what sparks our interest. The answer is dissonance. If that word means nothing to you, it is the opposite of harmony. It is something that isn’t completely “making sense” with everything around us. If you were in a blue room and there was a red spot on the wall, the red spot would create dissonance or interest. Storytelling is often about creating dissonance and later turn it into harmony. Consider the blue room being our movie and that the red spot would be a type of drama such as verbal or physical fights. If we have a few red spots it would be interesting, because we would like to see them resolved (painted blue, to follow the metaphor). But if we fill the blue room with too much red, to much of the same type of drama, the room would essentially be red and therefor loose its excitement. If we lived in a world with only action, calm would be so much more interesting. If you now imagine the room being blue with red dots neatly spread around, not overpowering in any way, we probably have pretty good movie on our hand. But as I said, the color red only represents one for of drama. Let’s say red is physical action, while yellow is verbal action (exciting dialogue) and we now paint room. It would result in an even better movie. Now imagine walking from our blue, yellow and red room into the Sistine Chapel, with Michelangelo’s amazing painted ceiling. Now that’s a movie! (yes, I’m still working the metaphor)
Alright, so how do we do the other colors? By working with our entire palette. When telling stories we have a bunch of ways to convey excitement, we can find drama not only in words but in music, in clothes, in the set, in acting. Every little thing you have at your disposal can be used as drama as long as it creates dissonance, that is anything that sticks out or disrupts the status quo of your world. Keep in mind that all drama isn’t good, it might get in your face if everything about your work screams in a cluster of dissonance. The point of the article is not to make you overdo the drama, but for you to consider alternatives when telling your stories. Use your palette wisely.

Intentions & Target Words

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:12:37 +0100

Why should I care about storytelling? If you are in anyway connected to the movie or game industry you should not only care about it, but make it your primary objective. Storytelling, in contrast to story, isn't just about plot and dialogue, it's about intention. All creative work should be built on a bedrock of intentions of invoking a particular reaction or feeling from the consumer. This usually comes in the form of "I want to tell this amazing story" or "I'm gonna make a game with this amazing concept I just thought of". This is a good start, but only half the work. It might be good enough to keep yourself going, but to make your project manageable (especially if you are working with others), you need to figure out what the end product will convey. Not what it will be, what it will convey. Instead of thinking of cool things that your product will include, think of what the consumer will experience. Why? Because cool ideas are a dime a dozen, everyone has ideas, only a true storyteller can form ideas that fit the greater machinery. It might be the most awesome idea ever, but still be completely inappropriate in the wrong product. The scene from Star Wars were Luke trusts his feelings and guides the proton torpedos into the ventilation shaft, blowing up the Death Star is truly spectacular. But would it fit into Schindlers List just as well? If your answer is yes, I wish you all the luck with your career change.
Learn to separate cool ideas from your project's intent and later on try to work them in if all possible. You may realize that the details in your original idea becomes less important as you go along. Intentions are about nailing down a few non-changeable notions about your product, that simply isn't up for discussion.
Therefor, what are my intentions? Supposing I have "an amazing story to tell" a bit of thought might tell me that I'm trying to tell a tear-jerking drama about loss of a friend or a thrilling action about gangsters in L.A. And if you're making a game and all you have is a interactive concept, you might realize that you are trying to convey the complex balance of exhilaration and angst when base jumping without a parachute.
Most people who had an idea about games or films usually retorts; "but I have a much larger idea, I have plenty of stuff planned already, I don't want to limit myself".
Calm down champ, there will be plenty of time for that later and you are certainly not limiting yourself, not in a bad way at least. This other content you're talking about is "cool ideas" and should be separated as stated above from you intent.
The thing is, by boiling your idea down to a few target words, you are helping yourself to work out the details that lies ahead. When you have your intent clear you will have a much easier time to check what works and what doesn't. You see when you have an idea, a lot of things usually attach itself to it, because you get excited to develop your magnificent magnum opus. These things are often dead weight and usually falls victim to the rule of "kill your darlings". I guess I'll talk more about that in another article. Now is not the right time.
Don't get me wrong, you are allowed to explore different intentions of an idea through sketching, writing, musical composition or whatever you may prefer. But make sure to do all that before involving others. Nobody starts out making a comedy and ends up making a horror film. Nobody starts out making a puzzle game and ends up with a Resident Evil. Again, if this happens to you, good luck with your next career.
Figure out what your intentions are in pre-production. Then when you have to tell the Art Director, the composer, the writer, the designers, what you want you can just lay down the target words of your intentions and they will know what to work towards. Feel free to build upon your foundation, but be sure to remove new intentions before getting rid of the older ones. Think of all your intentions as a tower, when removing the fundament the tower will fall. Why? Because those target words, those intentions, will be used by everyone in the project and essentially imbue all content produced. If you remove or change your intentions then all that content will have to be redone or completely stick out and ruin your work.