So what exactly are the steps needed needed to tell compelling stories? Here is my process:
1. Story
🧶 What exactly do you want to say? Distill the message into 7 words, write them on a sticky and place it eye view of wherever you’re working. As you continue those words can change: write a new sticky. Always keep your message clear, short and written down. It is by far the easiest way to stay on track.
2. Research
📚 Any subject ALWAYS needs research, and FOOTNOTES. (Not least because if you make an error you can at least blame someone else!). The ways and method of researching and referencing vary hugely depending on the video but as a general rule:
- Make sure you’ve read/listened/watched at least three other opinions on the same subject. (Ie. how long it takes to heal from an arrow to the back, if you’re in the middle of a fantasy novel). If possible hyperlink back to those references. This not only validates your own argument but it keeps it easy for you to go back for your also helps create a community of thinkers on the same subject.
- Try and check the credibility of your sources (ie. don’t take some random blog with no followers as gospel on the subject… 👀). How established is the source? Is it Primary or secondary information? What is the motivation behind displaying said information? Is it peer-reviewed? How many people have been involved in its development (ie. a book at least has a commissioning publisher, author, editor and critic involved). Does someone put their name to their opinion? Is the site .org or .com?
- Youtube is an interesting one: personally I rate the credibility reasonably highly IF the creators are onscreen, because they are literally putting their face to the facts. (That doesn’t mean they can’t be wrong, just that they believe what they are saying). Always double check the source, and tread carefully when something is anonymous.
- If your sources come from books/magazines (ie. offline), then I recommend using Harvard referencing style. (This style is not mandatory but to me, as someone forced to used MHRA for 5 years, it makes by far the most logical sense). So, if quoting a book in the video description, your reference should be:
Author Surname, Initial, (Year), Title, Edition, Place of Publication:Publisher, page no.
Ie. Rowling, JK, (1997), Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, 2nd, London: Bloomsbury Ltd, 257.
- WRITE DOWN YOUR SOURCES AS YOU FIND THEM. Do not do like me and have to spend 5 days recombing notes to find the reference for footnote 43. Save yourself.
3. Structure
🏗 Be it video, opera, music or novels you must work out your structure now.
Depending on the medium and length of your story this can be a full script, a list of beats or bullet points: it doesn’t matter, but work out the mission, the protagonist, the struggle, the result and the reflection. Jerry Jenkins has a great blog post on story structures.
Working out the beats of the story now is the easiest way to avoid burnout, prevent writers block and enable you to keep going.
You may have heard of the great literary geniuses who forego this step and simply start “creating”. The Stephen Kings and Neil Gaiman’s of the world. Except they don’t. On David Tennant Does a Podcast, Neil Gaiman told a wonderful anecdote of really not being in the mood to write, but starting the story with the tropes of the genre, the traditional characters and villains etc, and half way through he found himself thoroughly enjoying where the pen was taking him. He reflected it was the hours he spent honing his craft before that day that had made creating the story mechanical. Practise had made this step automatic.
In improv the actors might be creating a new play that evening, but they have spent weeks developing the story structure and beats of plot in that genre beforehand. This step is a crutch: discard later should you wish, but master it now.
4. Drafting
✏️ Writing time! Give your self an hour each day dedicated to sitting at the desk. Celebrate two words, celebrate two thousand. The success is in having carved out that time in the first place, everything else is a bonus.
I recommend writing on a laptop: again some geniuses work only in pen and paper, others on typewriters. Save yourself the misery of losing the only draft.
Not all scriptwriting applications are made equal: don’t worry about that now. If yours functions then its perfectly up to the task.
Start in the middle, start at the end, dot around each day, dot around each minute. It doesn’t matter, all that counts are the words on the page. Your aim is not quality, it is quantity right now. GET IT DOWN, MAKE IT LONG.
Email yourself a copy your work each day, to ensure against any freak accidents.
5. Editing
📝 You are up to length? Congratulations! Now it’s time to make it readable.
Print out the magnum opus and give it a read with a pen in hand. The improvements will jump out immediately. Scrawl in the margins, be messy in tearing it apart.
Transfer your changes to the digital file. Rinse and repeat.
When you’re halfway happy give it to someone else to read and talk through your ideas: a family member, an accountability buddy, a friend. Hear how it reads for someone outside the project. Defend your position but be humble in accepting the advice.
Repeat again and again.
6. Bringing it to life
☀️ There comes a moment when you have to move on. Yes you could tweak x amount more, yes that sentence might be improved. But it’s time: you know it’s time. Stop procrastinating in the security of what you’ve just achieved and move on to the next mountain.
I’m going to do a few further posts about bringing an idea to life in different mediums. When I do I will link each one below. Sometimes you might be the one to develop it further, sometimes you will pass it on. Either way, the time as the scriptor, the writer, the sculptor is over. That’s fine: how exciting it is to watch this next metamorphosis!