Let the Buyer Beware

A year or two ago as of the time of this writing, I was asked to present to a group of established, emerging, and would-be writers and filmmakers for Sherwood Oaks Experimental College based in Hollywood, California. It is essentially an ongoing school without walls and group I agree to speak for often, in part because of its orientation, and in part for whom I get to rub elbows with and meet whenever I do. The latter often ranges from well-established actors, writers, agents, and directors, and goes well on up to leading producers, development executives, and even heads of studios. In this particular case, sans panels and discussion groups, I was asked to follow the presentation of a woman who has become a well-known speaker on the fringe filmmaker and writer conference circuits who used to be an agent well known for recognizing and championing great material and was now a story and media consultant out in the world selling her wares to tell others how to break in and sell to Hollywood. Not surprisingly, these wisdoms were aligned with the very services she offered and the kind of bad advice I hear given over and over again at writing / story events. The audience showed the usual confusion and discomfort on their still attentive but increasingly disturbed expressions over what they could not pinpoint. Ironically, I often follow this kind of presentation, especially at larger conferences, which then makes my job easier and the value of the material offered crystal clear. It also makes the audience very grateful.

In this particular instance, she was confusing the audience and cutting well into my time, which ultimately worked out on three counts. First because it gave time for one of the attendees to take me aside in barely suppressed excitement to tell me that he had gone out and successfully optioned three feature film screenplay projects with major studios – two with Disney Studios and one with Sony Entertainment – after attending two of my recent talks for the group simply by and acting on the new perspectives and advice given. This reminded me not to assume I anything on a first meeting regarding who the new tycoons will be in taking the ball and running with it as I had not been particularly impressed with this young man before on first meeting, in spite of the way he lit up on hearing the material. The young man standing before me now was in some ways seemingly transformed. Confident. Committed. In reality, he was simply fully showing up, in part with what he had all along but did not know how to focus on or give voice to, and in part because he had fully heard what was presented before and taken charge and effective action on all the things that had been missing before he heard the previous presentations. I thanked him for his acknowledgments of the power of the material, even in small doses, and we returned to the still running and impossibly over time presentation in the other room.

I could see by the expressions on the faces of the attendees that they were still confused and perplexed by whatever she had been covering, which was easy to catch up with as most of her talk had been about hyping her credentials and implied expertise, and the remainder had been and still was about selling the same horrifyingly bad information to those listening at her feet. The problem, of course, was that what she expounded that sounded at least partially true seemed somehow flawed and what she offered up that sounded flawed seemed partially true. The confusion and angst the existing presenter created to generate clientele for her consulting services provided the perfect backdrop and audience readiness to bring home all the key ways that what she was promulgating was absolute industry sanctioned and widely believed semi-nonsense in the guise of helping them with their writing, filmmaking, and careers.

Her core message (besides hiring her) was simply this: watch the industry trades and weekly weekend box office for whatever was currently hot or recently successful, and write that. This advice was supported with a piece of truth; i.e. that on Monday mornings all over Hollywood and New York, development executives and studio heads are pouring over these results trying to second guess what characteristics or ‘elements’ made them succeed, and then asking everyone in the room if they have any projects like that in the hopper or available for immediate acquisition.  The key to breaking in as a new writer, she said, was in writing whatever was hot and avoiding writing whatever was not – her services being key to defining the difference. The problem was what sounded right and is partly true was in reality, almost completely wrong.

She managed to go on for some time to clarify how to tell what is and is not hot, and correctly pointed out that this can change overnight for any genre simply by having a hit or a miss. Cases in point, Gladiator made sword and sandal movies appealing again overnight in the eyes of development executives whose assessment of success or failure is usually tied to genre, actor, or ‘elements’ rather than soundness of story. Expensive box office bombs like “Kingdom of Heaven” put them back out of favor and thus out of business just as quickly. More on that in a moment. For now, suffice it to say, she advised against writing about those things her audience actually cared about and were drawn to writing and filmmaking for in the first place, and rounded it all out while handing out business cards by assuring all that she as a consultant had her finger on the pulse of what was hot or not, what ‘they’ would be buying or not, and how to get their work in front of them.

As she finally packed up and left, still reminding the audience of how to reach her for consultations even as she backed out the door with most of my presentation time now history, it was decided that we would break for lunch and that I would chat with them while we ate (an essential Hollywood skill of its own). This is one of the advantages of doing events for Sherwood Oaks as they are almost always set up intentionally as small and intimate gatherings.

As we left the room and headed for the elevator to go down to the restaurant, I gave the attendees a few moments to simmer in the confusion the ‘expert’ advice they had just been given. Their own natural instincts were trying to give form to what was wrong with what they has just heard and resisting letting go of what brought them to writing that they had just been told to dismiss and ignore., even if they could not yet put their fingers on it. As we stood waiting for the elevator, I looked around at and casually asked them if they would like to know what was wrong with what they had just heard. They all nodded yes, somewhat relieved that their sense there was something not quite right was in fact quite right, but with fear in their eyes they were about to become more confused. This happens a lot at conferences, even with great information.

We stepped on the elevator and I waited for their interest to build. “Most of what she told you, “ I finally offered, “was completely self contradictory and only partly true when it is true at all. It will leave you doomed to fail or very unhappy if you succeed if you listen to any of it.”

The elevator arrived on the lower level and we all moved on to the restaurant, the attendees were hooked and wanting to hear more. Much more. All because I had confirmed what they already knew but did not know how to formulate, the information did not fit itself nor feel right to them. All because I teased them with the hint of the fact that they already knew the answers to the questions they were not yet able to formulate. I set the hook as we stepped off the elevator by adding, “The reason you are all confused isn’t just because she gave you faulty to erroneous information, but because you are all following her lead and asking the wrong questions. The question that will satisfy your creativity and give you a career is not guessing what it is that Hollywood wants, but becoming clear and offering up what it is you uniquely have to give. The trick to success in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter, is to be able to speak to what your buying audience says or thinks it wants, while knowing how to deliver the goods and sell what it is they really need.” This is true, by the way, for everyone picking up and reading this piece.  “What ‘they’ need is nothing more nor less than great stories.”

This latter point was brought home most clearly at yet another Sherwood Oaks even in which the then head of development for Paramount Pictures, Robert Friedman, was asked point blank, “What is it you want us to bring to you?” The answer was simple. “Great stories.”  The questioner, who was looking for something a bit more precise, asked again, “Yes, but what kind of great stories?” The answer, “All kinds.” “Yes, but what are those?” the questioner asked again, clearly looking for a specific genre, topic, or formula. “Great stories. Look, you guys are the writers. Come up with it. Just tell great stories, whatever those are for you.  If you don’t know what a great story is, maybe you shouldn’t be writing.” “Okay, so there are all kinds of great stories,” the questioner added in growing exasperation. “But what is it you want us to bring to you? What is it you want to buy?” Ah, the real intended question. “We don’t know. Everyone looks for whatever seems to be selling, but the reality is development takes a very long time and we do not know what we like or what we want until we see it. Bring us great stories” “So, if we have one of these great stories, can we bring it to you? Would you read it?” “Probably not,” Mr. Friedman answered. We do not know who you are so you probably could not get it to us. “So, what is it I need as a writer then if I have one of these great stories?” Mr. Friedman then gave the best three-part answer about story and writing I ever heard. “First, you need to have a really great story, not a good or great idea, but a good to great completed and well-told story. Then you need to have faith and commitment. Most of all, you need a champion. Someone you can get to who really believes in the story and you, who has the connections and juice to get to all those people you cannot; to the right hands and people who can make something happen. Most of the time, we call these people producers.” Someone else then raised their hand and asked what the role of the producer or champion was, to which he received the next best three-part answer I have ever heard. “To protect the material. First, they need to make sure the material is ready and be able to get it out there. You need someone who is connected, is committed, and who believes.”

The advice that had been given to the Sherwood Oaks attendees now sitting around a table over lunch so often shared elsewhere was faulty at ground level for the following simple reasons. By my prior presenter’s own examples, what is hot at the moment took years to develop and got sold when it not only was not hot but was a challenge to the prevalent wisdom of what could be. The western is dead until someone produces an “Unforgiven.” Again, sword and sandal movies are dead until someone produces a “Gladiator.” Romantic comedies are presumed dead until someone produces any number of counter examples. And perceived hot or revived genres or elements are instantly pronounced dead, once again, following the poor performance of a “Kingdom of Heaven.” In terms of sheer writing time, there is no way to jump on last week’s success and generate a script from scratch to meet the rush of interest and there is an army of writers out there, many known and well established, who have the briefly desired genre or elemental material ready for review well ahead of you even if you have something like that ready. By the time you can dash something out, which will probably thus be trash, trends will have moved on and what is ‘hot’ reversed many times over. More importantly, and most especially for the new writer or filmmaker, if you ignore the stories that speak to you and thus want to speak through you, chances are quite good that you will never even find your way into or through the material you take on because you have no connection to it or feel for it. Chances are you will be perpetually stuck at the threshold or the surface of the stories you try to tell, and/or will produce work that is lifeless or anemic at best. To the extent you ever do complete work that does not matter to you or fulfill your call to story, success will be unfulfilling. Most importantly, if you do not honor those stories that call to you and want you to tell them, you will never have the connection and feel for material that allows you to master subtle and challenging crafts.

It is true that you have to pay attention to trends in some sense as they are the manifestation and gauge of probable success that is in part the self-fulfilling prophesy of those making media product. That said, they change gradually or even overnight on the basis of a good story or series of them, or they are dumbfounded by great stories and surprise successes that cannot be explained in terms of elements such as “The Full Monte,” “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” or “Juno,” all of which cost a few million dollars to make and made returns in the hundreds of millions based simply on contexts, characters, challenges, and needs that resonated with an audience that was taken along for the ride.

What EVERYONE Should Know
The Litmus Tests of Story

We oftentimes talk about story as though it is some isolated thing that exists in a vacuum, or as sets of mechanical rules and principles that lifelessly define its structure and design. In reality, all stories well told – from campfires and narrative film to documentaries and corporate mission statements – invariably are about life, are full of life, and at their realized best are living things. So what can we mean here when we talk about the litmus tests of story? Some measuring sticks for if we even have a story? Some assessment checklist for if we are telling it completely and well? Or is it something more profound in guiding us to and helping to divine and give birth to story?

Well, since good to great story is always a living thing (and in most cases something that wants to live and wants you to tell it), it is in fact all the above. It turns out that the very same simple set of questions that determines if you have the connection to any given story, character, challenge, or context to help you divine and deliver the goods, also very powerfully does all three things noted above all at once. Put simply, these questions and knowing how to use them will transform your understanding of story, your ability to assess and/or create story, and knowing how to sell it all – whether you are the source of the material or working with others to draw out and bring to life what they are after. These questions, as with story in general, are not just for writers.

So, what are these all powerful questions and how can you use them for yourself and in working with others? The answer to the both questions follows below. Try them out with others. Really listen and listen differently than you normally would and take note as you go. In most cases you have to ask them repeatedly or loop them as the answers are not easy or readily available. It is often in moving on the next when question you get stuck that you get unstuck. Moreover, each time you loop around and through again, the questions are no longer exactly the same question because what you are talking about will have changed; e.g. what you think your story is even about. The great thing about taking and recording these steps and the struggles in taking them is it provides concrete illustrations and material of what your characters struggle through themselves. It is gold.

1)     What is it you think your story is about?

Whether listening at pitch clinics, as a coach, or in conversation in general, this is always the most obvious and beginning question, in part to find out what they think the story is about but phrased in a way that begins the discussion pointing out the ways that they probably do not know.  In fact, compared to what the story is really about and wants to be, quite often people start spewing noise or give a partial idea that may be true and point to something, but is not “it.” Getting to what “it” is takes a little doing to identify the core hunger and need that is its impetus and driving power because most writers and filmmakers make the mistake of thinking the surface plot is the real story and the surface through lines are the spine. They are neither. The asking of the question, however, will succeed in either bringing out what they think the story is that may be pretty on the mark OR bring home by experience that there is something eluding them that they sense but do not know or have in hand. It points the way to whatever the core idea or connection is if you listen long enough that they probably think is the endpoint that in practice becomes the beginning point for discussion. You will find that as you move through the following questions and repeatedly comeback to this one, it will come into a different relief, depth, clarity, and power. The spine and real story or understructure will emerge and keep changing until you hit bedrock and really have “it.” At that point, the most complex stories can then be distilled to and expressed in three beats for all those you must engage to wrap their heads around and be moved by.

2)     How did that come to you and what would not and will not let go?

When I initially began using these questions to help writers and other filmmakers connect with their material (and in many ways get out of its way), the first and most fundamental question was and is the next one, “what about this matters to you?” As you will see in asking it of yourself or anyone else, you / they not only do not know the real answer, even after many drafts, you / they do not know how to get access to or give voice to it. The truth is – and all story and storytelling are about truth (whether capturing and conveying it or twisting and avoiding it) – almost everyone you ever meet, including your characters, has never had anyone ask that question and then actually listen.

People start sharing what turns out largely to be noise that may point to and/or circle what they are after, but does not hone in on and get or reveal “it.” In the interest of helping them to hone in on and inhabit the connection to the material (in part to see if there is one), it became necessary to take a step back and ask how the project or idea came to them and what would not left go. Either there is no connection and it is just something they came up with because they thought it was hot or marketable (which means they are seriously doomed), or they undergo a sudden shift in focus and energy. There being or not being a connection is a litmus test itself. As a note and for reasons we will cover in a later article, this bit of story about your story should not only be your way into your story, but the beginning point for every pitch you ever make later.

3)     What is it about this character/context/challenge/story that matters to you?

This is the most important question of all, and the most difficult to answer, both for you and for your characters in your story who will embody same need, connection, or drive. It is difficult in part because the answer lives in layers that are not immediately accessible and in part because we generally only seek explanations or motivation to explain and ask “why” questions which can only prompt explanations or “why” answers. The real resonance with and connection to a story will always be shared need and in getting out of our own way to allow that to emerge and speak.

In asking this question, really listening, and then asking it again, you will get two kinds of answers – one possibly true, but not “it” or even in line for it, and others that thread by thread make it clearer both what the threads are that take you to what really matters and what it is that is the basis from which everything else emanates and is driven. (See the article “The Call to Story” for an example. One kind of answer is saving others, sending a message, making a difference – or a discussion of themes and intended story impact. They may be accurate and true, but they are not and never can be the thing that really draws you to, connects you with, and/or that will give birth and life to your story. It is, however, what most writes and filmmakers are working with and never get beyond.

You will discover, if you listen carefully and allow for awkward silences, that emotional bubbles will rise and unexpected revelations occur that we then tend to want to engage or run with rather than remain quiet and listen to more, always repeating the question as to what it is that matters and what it is that matters to you about that. In seminar settings, attendees discover that these are very different ways of speaking and that they inherently know how to listen to and tell the difference once shown the difference.

4)     What is it about this story that matters to your main and subordinate characters and who or which one is it that takes (and thus takes us on) your journey?

As your answer to the last question comes slowly into relief, you will discover in answering this question that what matters to you, moves you, and wants to take you into and through any given story is in many ways one and the same for at least one of your main characters. What resonates for you and calls you to this story or journey from the outside will be what calls one or more of your key characters to theirs inside the story. It is the need to find your way through together that shows both what matters and how much it matters even as it breathes life into your endeavor and theirs. If there is little or nothing that concretely and viscerally matters here to you, there will be little or nothing that matters to your characters, and ultimately your audience. What matters matters, and it better be big enough to launch and sustain your story.

What you will find as the answer to the first three questions come into relief, is that what really calls you to this story and the journey of completion, transformation, or change is directly linked to what calls some character in the story to their story or journey. Literally, when you complete number three well, with its entire stack of layers, you can move that to the column for your protagonist or one of your key characters and watch it launch and form all else. When we first meet most characters in a story, there may or may not be a goal. What there is or needs to be is a need. When their world is further shifted by some incident that means their life will never be the same and requires both action and potential change, they in most cases still do not have a goal. What they have is a clarified or more starkly revealed need, and that need is the engine that drives all else – not by giving a rationale for it but by taking the story and audience into powerful layered visceral driving forces that demand completion, healing, or becoming whole. Stories require conflict to work. They are about character, context, challenge, and change.

5)     What is the transformation or change here that is possible?

Once you know what the real hungers and driving needs are at the successively deeper and ever more powerful levels that will unfold over the course of the story, you also then know what you are aiming for – which may or may not be the protagonist or main character achieving some specific goal – but does involve whatever shifts or growth they must go through to heal, complete, or make whole that thing that is driving them and that drew you to the story to begin with.  This generates the path or spine, and defines the end goals that matter. The external goals, the extent there are any, are not ends in themselves but the context for and manifestation of the successful or unsuccessful handing of the demands for healing, completion, or making whole the real driving need and what really mattered at the outset that was created and/or amplified by incident incidents.

In point of fact, in most stories, the characters do not even have a goal at the outset and, even after whatever events that change and challenge their lives in a way they will never be the same again arise, great movies usually involve the characters having to discern what really matters to them, what they really need to do, and what they must chose between and leave behind. What is notable about this is that it gives you an organic endpoint that tells you what you must build to and earn that will give an infinitely more complete, compelling, and believable arc for your character and story. It is what will give you the spine that defines everything else.

The surface story is just the visible unfolding of this journey. It is the context of this journey. It is not a separate journey. In knowing the need that launches a story on one end of the journey and this completion or transformational point at the other (where it hits its climax and resolution), you also discover you can move around creatively out of sequence as the sandbox is demarcated in a larger emerging map. At any given moment, you know (and can know) what is really going on because you know where you came from and where you are really going. You also thus do not need to try to illustrate that from the top down (bad writing and acting), but can let it tell you how it would show up and where it both want and need to go. This is also to say you can work backwards from the endpoint when you need to as whatever is needed to get you there has to show up somewhere in the course and spine of the story or your audience will not buy the punch line. You will not have earned it.

What is most noteworthy here, aside from the power of writing this way to begin with, is that whatever you think the endpoint or transformation is as you begin and keep repeating these questions for ever greater clarity will keep moving forward as only a step or stage to something more complete or transformational that you – like your character – cannot see at the outset. The more you keep looping these questions, mapping your story, and finding your way through, the farther you can see and understand where it is you need to go and what it will take. Most stories fail because they are only the initial set up stretched out and turned into a hundred and twenty pages.

6)     What will you and your character have to go through to get there?

This brings us to the real story living within and living under the surface story revealing it. Chances are, your characters do not know quite what they are after and as they discover it, they are slowly challenged to discover and face what they must learn, do, and leave behind to do it. This is the place where most writers fall down because they do not address any of this at these layers at all, or are floundering and getting glimpses piecemeal. More often, this is where our own self-protective and/or fearful blocks come into play as this process starts defining the things we do not want to know and the places we do not want to go – as characters in a story or the gods giving them life to them to take our own vicarious journeys. This will require several things of you as writer and story god. One is going through those very feelings, needs, and journey that called you to the story to begin with but that you probably do not know how to access and inhabit or do. Secondly, you will have to move beyond the wish fulfillment version of the story which was probably the more immediate and fantasy draw to the story (again, see The Call to Story for an example). Thirdly, you are going to have to step into the shoes of the other characters in a way that is sympathetic to their needs and drives that may require you as the author and your surrogate as a character to let go of your wish fulfillment version of them or your actions toward them.

7)     Can you go where you need to go to tap and give expression to all this?

One of the guiding principles of this article and all the material it is derived from is the principle that there is almost nothing more powerful than the right question at the right time. Unfolding stories are in many ways unfolding revelations and/or clarifications of layers of injury, loss, or need connected to matching revelations and/or clarifications of the question of what it is that matters, is at stake, and must be done. Because the call and arcs of the story are invariably expressions of your own wants and needs transposed, the only other thing more powerful than the right question is the ability to go where you need to go to find and live the answer. All story and storytelling are about grounding and expressing the driving need, sometimes step by step, and seeing our way through to whatever it is we need to discover, do, and leave behind.

Oftentimes you will hit a point at which you do not know what comes next because you have skipped steps that would get there, have not lived it yet, find yourself lost betwixt or between on stage and the next, and/or have hit one of those moments in which you simply are not ready to go where you need to go or know what you need to know to continue. This latter moment is the only real manifestation of writers block (as opposed to writers blank) and should always be honored. It should also be recorded as it is as much your character’s journey as it is your own.

These questions taken together along with knowing how to really listen and use them will tell you if it all has the juice to come to life, expression, and a sale. More than that, they immediately and clearly stake out the territory of your entire story and mark its life, drive, and its full and complete component arcs. They show the way to sounding depths you did not know were possible and for telling stories from the bottom up and giving birth to characters from the inside out. They mean you will set out and start your work knowing what it is about and where it wants to go rather than getting lost or stuck at the surface, floundering, and hoping to figure out what it is all about. If you have no connection to a story they will tell you, or in some cases guide you to finding one. If you do have a connection to a story, whether as writer, director, actor, or producer, they will take you directly to it and show you how to do the same with all your collaborative partners in the tandem creative and commercial processes that are required to take any project from concept to completion and successful distribution.

We said at the beginning of this article that this material is not just for writers, just as understanding the real life creation story (let alone translation to the stage or screen) is not just for writers. In the next article to follow, “The Collaborative Art, Craft, and Commerce of Story,” we will address the balance between the very private and necessarily collaborative processes of story and project development, and how the respective practical needs and potential contributions of all the myriad collaborators involved can be radically transformed with a common language and fully integrated living model of story. We will then move on to how to package and sell all this (and build a career) in, “It’s All About Story: Ten Points to the Perfect Pitch.” We will then return in the next following article to the developmental order of things in discussing, “Characters With Voices – Characters Who Write Themselves.” Keep coming back. Keep creating. Keep mastering craft.

The Call to Story

By Patrick A. Horton, PhD / The Story Coach
Copyright Write Brothers Inc., / screenplay.com

We most likely have never met and probably never will, yet there are a number of powerful and equally empowering things I can tell you about yourself right now related to almost everything you think, feel, and ever will do in your entire life – simply because you are here reading and continuing to read these words. This is because your presence here speaks to the truth of what brings you to story and is your most essential drive, compass, and key to it… Your Call to Story.

The simple fact that you are here (and still reading) means you have a call to story in the largest sense and are trying to respond to it and give it heed. And that my friend – those two things together – means you are among the chosen in life, all the worlds of story, and the media industry you seek to find your place in.

The question is not whether or not this is true, but whether and how you will use this powerful drive, compass, and key to divine, define, and deliver the goods in your life, story, work and career – and in the industry eagerly waiting to tap it all. In all likelihood, this force of nature that is trying to speak to and through you at this very moment – this living force that connects you or fails to connect you to stories, contexts, characters, and challenges – is always trying to fulfill itself and guide you to discoveries of expression you can initially only vaguely sense. Unfortunately, what is just as likely and even more predictable is that it is largely falling on inattentive or deaf ears because you do not fully know how to hear it, tap it, or make use of its power. It is not only possible to show you that this is true and how in minutes, at some level you already know it.

So, what is this personal call to story that can so powerfully inform and transform everything and what makes it so all-powerful? More to the point, what does it have to do with the call to story of your characters, let alone your connection to a story for that matter?

The first part of the answer to that comes in part from knowing the ways that life and art do not just imitate each other but are eternally, intimately, and inextricably interconnected. The second part of the answer comes in knowing how to alternately draw on one to draw out the other. The short answer to all the above is to understand that, whatever it is that speaks to you the in the characters, context, or challenges of a particular story or premise is itself a kind of call to story with a small ‘c’ that in all likelihood calls to you because it resonates with something in your life that is conflicted, unfinished, or unresolved. It is your need to step into that setting and scenario and find your way through that is the call to story for that particular project for you with a capital ‘C.’

The stories or projects that most grab you will not let go will never be the ones you already have worked through or figured out, but the ones that speak to whatever you need to work through or figure out that is alive for you at the moment – generally something bubbling up from the past, often something challengingly going on in the present. Your call to story – that unfulfilled need for a sense of meaning, direction, purpose, and place and innate drive for completion, healing, and becoming whole – is always the engine and center of gravity to everything you do. Its power and clarity of presence in any specific endeavor absolutely defines the power, clarity, and quality of your results.

I once heard Steven Zailliand say of his work as writer-director on “Searching for Bobbie Fisher” that the attraction to the movie and the work itself was never about chess or even champions, it was about a relationship between father and son – a relationship and challenge that was very much alive for him at the time in real life with all the challenges and unknowns that presents a parent. Asked if he could to the movie now, he said no. I’m not living that now. Which is to say, it no longer called to him.

Winnie Holzman put it as well as I have ever heard when she spoke in a presentation for Humanitas some years ago. When asked how she was drawn to and approached a story or project, her answer was, “When I look at any story, situation, or character and think to myself, that matters to me, I always think –‘I can do that’. Then I invariably then get lost, and it is the finding my way back out that always turns out to be the story. As it turns out, one or more of the characters’ journey is somehow always part of mine, and my journey always turns out to be some part of theirs.”

This is one of the reasons trying to sell a pitch, idea, or a log line before you have seen a story through is dangerous and a trap. In the beginning of working on almost any story, you cannot see much if any further than the character or characters you are most linked to can see in the beginning of that story – which is both why you are drawn to it and why you are not ready to tell the whole story. It is personal the want and need to see where it goes that is your call to that particular story. It is the shared want and need with one or more of the characters that literally will define and map out the entire story because they are invariably the reflection and embodiment of your needs and journey. It is that larger need, drive, and self-balancing purpose that moves you to do your work and art to begin with that can powerfully define and inform it, and they are the first things almost everyone leaves behind or throws away as soon as they try to figure out what they think Hollywood wants to buy.

Great stories are never solely about someone who has some goal they must pursue in conflict with some external and internal obstacles. Great stories are about the need to be healed, heard, complete, and whole and the shifts and changes it takes to get there. The particular setting or challenge is just the context. The surface plots are just the visible manifestation of this journey. Without that kind of connection, clarity, and resonance that comes of knowing your draw to a project, you either hit the wall trying to sculpt air, or get stuck scratching at the surface because you have no feel for it, nothing to draw from, and nothing to tell you where it wants and needs to go. It is very rare that creative professionals ever really suffer from writer’s block. What they most commonly suffer from is writer’s blank. No connection. No material. No feel.

This all begins to hint at the next article in this series and the heart of the workshops and seminars this all comes from, “The Litmus Tests of Story.” As it turns out, by using a few select questions and knowing how to listen differently, the very questions that help you divine your connection with and call to any story are also the questions that will tell you if the latter exists AND guide you to bringing story, characters, and contexts into powerful vibrant relief and life. It really is like watching magic. For now, let me give you one of my favorite examples in working with a quite dedicated and gifted writer-producer. Her name is Lisa Cole. The project’s name is, “My Name is Sue.”

Lisa came into one of my seminars, walked up as I was preparing to start, and said, “We have the same agent. He said I should work with you. I am here to see what you do.” By the first break she decided we should meet later. I asked her if she wanted to “fix” a script or see what it wanted to be. She said that was a good question. I let her know I avoid fixing scripts and that a condition of meeting was to agree that where the existing script conflicted with the potential script, I would only be interested in the latter.

We met at her house, along with her husband who is not only a documentary filmmaker of some accomplishment, but more recently was involved with one getting great accolades at the just completed Sundance. I began with the usual deceptively simple question. What do you think your story is about? She said she had optioned a life story about a woman in northern California who became involved in intervening with children living in homes with crystal meth cooking and using parents who then found herself taking on the system to get them immediate individual help and then to change the system that did not care overall. Good enough.

What is the problem? It just lies there. Then, the big question that guides or fails to guide all else. What about this woman and this story matter to you? (Play with that. You will find it is a question that when applied to almost anything, people cannot readily answer. They will give you noise.)

In Lisa’s case, she gave the expected kind of answers. The woman was heroic. She herself wanted to make a difference. She thought it was a great and inspiring role model for women. All true, and when it comes to what matters and your call to story, not it. Besides, as the saying goes, if you want to deliver a message, send a telegram.

She floundered as people always do. It is part or the reason for recording sessions. The floundering itself is gold as it is the same kind of challenge and floundering your character will go through. I let her founder a bit, then used the first of two trick questions I learned that give people a beginning visceral connection and thread to what they cannot drum up directly and asked, “What difference would it make to you or anyone else if you did not do this project?”  Her eyes got big, emotions she could not quite put a finger on welled up and she said with an urgency that surprised her, then no one would help these kids. In repeating the same questions, she got more frustrated because she knew there was something welling up that wanted to inform it all and she was not sure how to get to it. The challenge, of course, was to let it get to and through her.

I then asked her the second of the trick questions that generally brings the real connection to material into relief (and is the beginning point to any pitch you will ever make). I asked her how the project came to her and what took hold and would not let go. She shifted, remembering the excitement of that first moment of spark and connection, and said, “Easy. I came across an article with a picture of her.” I asked if she had it and she said yes. As she came back into the room staring at the picture, it was clear that whatever called her to that woman and project wanted to come out, and she looked a little afraid. I asked her the original question again. “What was it about that woman, that story, and THAT picture that matters to you? What was it that took hold and would not let go?” She immediately took a breath and started crying, her husband watching, not sure what to make of it but getting it was important. “I don’t know,” she answered. “Yes you do,” I said.

And she stared at the picture, again, and just let it talk to her, it came to her and she very quietly said, “I was one of those kids. I mean, not one of them, but… I thought how wonderful it would have been for someone big and powerful like her to show up. No one showed up.”  “What else?” I asked. “I guess I wanted to be big and powerful too.” She was intermittently crying more now, much to the test of trust for her husband, but since I was quite comfortable and she was amazingly present, he decided he would be okay too. In part because he saw magic emerging for someone he loved.

“What else?” I asked. ”I guess I kind of wanted to be that big and powerful person… to be big and powerful?” She was semi-stuck again, but almost there. “To do what?” I asked. (Note I did not ask ‘why’). Deep breath. “To save myself?” I just shrugged because the part of her that knew what she did not yet know she knew was about to really speak.  She stared at the picture of this woman entering a home of abused children, and her eyes once again and the second shoe dropped. “Oh, my, God, she was one of these kids too.” Almost there. The facts of the story, which were always laid out quite well, now had a different connection. A different resonance. A different life. It was in Lisa’s courageous stepping into what called to her to that story as a human being and a storyteller that it now showed its full promise and wanted to come to life. We went for gold.

“So, in some ways she is you too.” “What do you mean,” she asked. The thing that gives life to this story is all she wanted was to be part of the police units that dealt with this. Being part of that unit was supposed to be part of her leaving that past behind. When she was confronted with the horrors of what these kids live through and how no one cares, she could not turn her back them but just as desperately absolutely did not want to go back there. That’s the story. How did she do that and what did it take to get there and pony up to become their champion? What did she have to come to terms with to be there for them?” In ways we do not have the space to address here, all of this spoke to Lisa’s life and journey as an artist and healer – for herself and for others. She totally got it in ways she understood she would only partially consciously know, and realized that being in that space gave her everything she needed to bring the story fully to life and give it it’s real center of gravity. She said, “Yeah, I get it.” And all I said was “Is any or all of that in the story.” She smiled, wiping tears in that powerful emotional territory most writers will not visit, full of every emotion possible, including revelation and grieving, possibility and hope. And she answered, “It is now.” All she did was listen to and honor her real call to story, in relation to that particular story, in relation to her role as writer, and in relation to the real reason any of us ever does all of this - in relation to herself and her life journey. She honored her call to story and it honored her with the journey of adventure, creativity, and healing it wanted to take her on.

I should add before ending here that at the time I never saw the script at that juncture. I was interested in helping to be midwife for what gave life to the story she was after and that wanted her to tell it, not in fixing what was on the page. I heard from our mutual agent a couple of weeks later who said, “I don’t know what you did with her but this story jumps off the page. It’s the same story, but it is just alive.” She had already captured the facts of the story and much of what people were doing, what she needed to embrace and give expression and feel for was what was moving them in the doing, and the ways the doing moved them. For that she had to know and honor what brought her to the story and the ways she had to get out of her own way.

It is your own history that brings you to this point in your life and work, and your own needs for integration and authenticity that will keep you going. Together, they connect you to material and invariably not only show you the way, but make the seemingly simplest of stories become mythic and sometimes epic. It is that combination of all those things in life and your present that you need to make sense of and find your way through in combination with your own personal internal gyroscope or compass that creates your own personal call to story, and that will give you or connect you with endless and wonderfully powerful stories that you will then be able to tell with resonance and power, and thus be ever so much more likely to be able to sell.

I hope we meet again in the articles to follow or the workshops and seminars that bring them fully to life. In the mean time, keep writing and be sure to listen to and answer your call. It will give you your power. It will give you your voice. It will help you engage and move an audience. And in case you are wondering, Lisa’s script has won major awards, and had a succession of amazing attachments – and is still on its long but loving journey of development.

The Life of Story

	Patrick A. Horton / The Story Coach Presentations | Full Day & Weekend Seminars | Blogs & Articles Online No matter what your role as a creative professional or a professional creator, everything you do is a manifestation of story and storytelling. Divine your vision. Define your voice. Discover the Power of Story. For more information about Patrick Horton, click here.