Screenwriting # 4 – Finding the story and peer review sites.

Writing a story is a creative endeavor. It is not about analysis. It is not about formulaic guidelines, it is about the story.

Find a great, original story and tell it well and you’ll find support for your screenplay.

I’ve said many times before, I am not against learning everything there is to know about structure – in fact I urge everyone to do so, it will make you a great story editor, a great script editor, a great dramaturge and script doctor – it will also make you a better writer, but it will not help you think up a great story.

It will help you identify if a great story idea can be turned into a great story and it will help you identify if your story idea is fit for film, TV, theatre or a short or long form novel. It will also help you with the sub categories of each – for example, in television - have I written a mini series, a serial or a series? Should the idea be played for laughs as a comedy or better to make it a drama or a cross between the two, the now popular – dramedy, (The Descendants). And there are many more decisions that knowing as much as possible about the analysis of and the structures of story will help you decide.  

But the study of structure and formula, in an academic sense often become a barrier to original ideas.

It’s a little like HR departments in large corporations using complicated and sophisticated psychological tests to identify ‘the best’ candidates to employ – ignoring almost completely if that ‘best’ person, as judged by the company credos, ethics and work culture, is truly the best person for the specific task that needs to be performed.

The same is sometimes the case with analysis and theoretical study. Examples are given and learnt about what to do and what not to do within a well structured story. Many potential storytellers allow these ideas to become arbitrary rules and then let these ‘rules’ deny the exploration of a story from the moment the idea strays from the learnt structural path. If an idea doesn’t meet the model adopted, learnt and embraced by the practitioner, they declare it dead before it’s been properly explored.

 I call it story development myopia - an inability to see beyond the nearest hurdle.

“That’s plot.”

“The set up’s too long.”

“There’s no antagonist.”

“I don’t believe the premise.”

And on and on the problems go that stop an idea from being fully explored and each one is delivered with such finality that no further discussion is had, certainly not by a new writer in the face of someone with experience delivering the fatal problem critique.

If learning about structure and form becomes a self censorship of ideas by a storyteller it limits any idea that isn’t conceived fully formed.

This is certainly the rule of thumb being used by managers, story editors, producers, readers and many others in the industry who are asked to sift through the many submitted ideas. That’s how it should be.

When you send an idea out into the world with the hope of having it produced it needs to be sound and polished, but how, as a writer, do you wade through the often muddy waters of development without adequate feedback from knowledgeable practitioners?

Only knowledgeable practitioners can truly understand the process of development, as opposed to the brutal world of accept or reject that lies at the finished end of a script being submitted.

It is absolutely correct that someone pitching an idea to be read or produced by a professional should have that idea structured to a point where it is bulletproof – but it is creative death for people to dismiss a story because it doesn’t fit a structural model at the earliest draft stage.

For a writer with a project in a development phase it becomes extremely frustrating trying to get support, input and advice to develop an idea without the damning judgment that may be detrimental to your reputation and career as a writer.

Firstly it may literally kill or deaden your creativity as damning critiques zap you of any confidence you may have had. Secondly – at least with the person or company you sent the project to, if they were expecting a polished draft and believe this early draft is the very best you can do, they may list you as a writer never to be read again.

What you need to find is a circle of trusted friends or colleagues who understand a story may be a working idea through the first few drafts. You’ll know when you’ve found these people because they’ll ask questions and make an effort to understand what the story is you’re trying to tell and they will NEVER slam insignificant or easily fixed aspects and label them as reasons you or your idea have little future, either as a project or as a writer.

Avoid these soul killers at all cost – if they are writers they are inexperienced ones. They certainly have yet to understand, or do not share the experience and frustration of development. They are pointing out all the mistakes you have made, in formatting, in text, in font selection and style because it’s what’s most easily learnt in a parrot fashion and many also find it a boost to the ego to be able to show just how much more they know about how to write and present a screenplay.

The truth is, unless you’re a producer, a teacher or some other industry professional looking for a completed polished draft to produce or to be at a producible level, these insignificant, easily fixed issues should be noted as a courtesy, without comment or judgment. Those harsher responses to presentation or structural missteps should be confined to the industry professionals.

As peer reviewers and fellow writers we should be the first to understand that ideas don’t always translate effortlessly into a well structured first draft of a screenplay. We should be commenting on the story, the characters and the logic. Did you believe it, did it entertain you, did it achieve what you gleamed from the writer as the goal of the story? Was it the story promised in the log line and the synopsis? Is there something in the idea that is worth pursuing and may not yet be realized fully – if so, how can you help the writer separate the good from the bad and remain as positive about the work as possible as they take it forward? And how can you help them reach that next, better structured draft?

 A good editor/development colleague/script doctor will do all of this - point silly format, typo, or logic mistakes out to simply bring them to your attention in case they have slipped through. Their main focus will be on helping you take your story to that next level because they understand the development process.

They may point out that your set up is currently 35 pages long and needs to be trimmed by at least 10 to 15 pages, but they should also understand that you, as a writer, may need to have written 35 or 40 or even more setup pages to discover your characters and find out what is needed and what is important for the story to come. You may have needed to over write to discover how and what it is that CAN be cut. These readers need to dig around to understand why it’s currently too long, not label you as an amateur for missing the page 15-17 inciting incident and page 22 transition into the second act. That’s simply not helpful and only proves they’ve tied themselves to the structural paradigms so tightly that their structural understanding is now leading their storytelling and not the other way around.

Cutting is easy. Creating is hard. Once you have a great story that works on every level, it is far easier to then edit it to meet the structure than it is to create a story by following the structure. Make sure you as a writer also understand the development process – which is why I say, never ever send your work out too soon. Accept that the draft you just finished, the one you are excited about and are sure is genius on every page, will be attacked by the night demons who take brilliance and turn it into crap over night. Your genius first draft is colored by your enthusiasm of just completing your story. Let it settle. Let some trusted fellow writers read it and give you feedback and be honest with yourself about what they say. Do not immediately send it out into the world to be produced - trust me, it's not ready.

Send it to the right people first – your circle of colleagues, writing buddies who you can rely on to give the feedback you need to develop your ideas. If you haven’t found these people yet then join one of the very good peer review sites – my personal choice is Talentville

But there are many others....

Zoetrope.com

Triggerstreet.com

Circalit.com

AmazonStudios.com

Once you’re on these sites, take some time to read other people’s reviews of other people’s scripts and you will very quickly see and feel the difference between someone who is concentrating on the development process of the story and someone who is scoring points by making a big song and dance about all the formatting and structural aspects that a screenplay has missed.

Once again – it’s fine to point these things out, but there are bigger issues to look at in a story sense, especially when we are dealing with early drafts on a peer review site, and simply listing as a courtesy, typos, formatting errors or structural beats that miss the ‘generally accepted’ page numbers is all that is ever needed. How a writer then decides to cut 20 pages from an act is up to them and ultimately, this is what will determine whether or not they have managed to do their story idea justice.

So find people who help you define and focus your story. Learn the craft and always get better at it – in fact, as I’ve also said before in earlier posts, learn it so well you don’t have to think about it, but will write your story to those beats automatically. That’s the level you want to finally get to as a screenwriter – then you can concentrate all your energy and talent on the story being told and making it as entertaining s possible and not be restricted or thwarted on any level by the format and structural restraints that need to be met. You will have found a storytelling Zen at this level – where your story meets the structure organically, or so it will seem. In fact, your unconscious mind, so aware and at one with the structural requirements, will order and find a way to allow your new story to develop fairly closely to the desired structures.

But don’t put too much pressure on yourself – getting to that level takes a different amount of time for every writer. Some arrive there early, some take decades. You arrive at that point when you arrive – it’s a how long is a piece of string situation – just don’t give up before you do and remember, in the meantime, the development process, supported by fellow creative’s you have come to trust and who become fans of your work, will and should also be used. As you advance the only difference will be the quality of your first draft that you send out to those people for feedback, but, I believe every script and every writer benefits from good development feedback, no matter how good or accomplished they may be.  

 

When you find your ‘circle’ of development friends/colleagues – never take them for granted, return the favor, always read and return notes for them quickly or as quickly as you’d like them to reply with notes to your manuscript and then guard them with your life, they will be the difference between your success and failure.

As to the process of developing an idea, on rare occasions, that great idea arrives fully formed and simply needs to be skillfully written and tweaked, but most often a good idea grows.

It usually arrives in your mind as a coded mess of ideas. In amongst the roses will be a huge stinking pile of manure and it takes creative minds to put up with the stench and sift through the excrement to get to the idea that’s worth saving.

 That’s a little harsh – but often, to a story generating mind, this is how tabling an idea feels. No-one else wants to touch it. And yet, you are convinced there is something worthwhile in the idea, even when no-one else does.

We persist with the idea. We keep coming back to it until we find what it is that attracts us. We can feel there’s a seed of an idea deep within. And sometimes, that seed needs the fertilizer around it to grow, before it becomes strong enough to stand alone.

People’s minds often get trapped by what they’ve learnt. It becomes like a bad improvisational partner blocking every new path taken.

The problem with today’s sophisticated study of story structure is that it doesn’t encourage or help to build strong creative story minds. The structure details a thousand reasons why an idea shouldn’t be pursued. There are very few tools to help someone with an idea that is structurally flawed but interesting. There is very little study of how you help a writer work that structurally flawed idea into a form where it can be accepted as a sound story.

A great script editor, script doctor or development analyst should be like a detective at this early stage. They should hunt out your story and, if they get the chance, ask pertinent questions to make sure they understand what it is you are trying to achieve within that story – then and only then should they work towards helping you get there with their notes.

Too many times the well schooled analyst jumps in too quickly and rips your idea apart because it has failed to fit the model they work to. Then they re-imagine the project, using your best ideas in a framework that is their story and not yours.

 If you’re still trying to grab the tail of a tale as it flashes by your mind, you shouldn’t have to give it up because some arbitrary rule says that your idea, in its current form, fails to live up to the standard as defined by script guru X in their chapter about Y. And I bet those same script gurus never intended their structural models to be met by an idea in development. Their models relate to ideas that have been through development. They deal with sound stories, debugged of logic flaws and with appropriate character motivation. Only in that state should a story be required to meet the structure – not when it’s in its earliest development stages.

Your idea may not get there. Many ideas won’t. But never dismiss something that interests you without really pushing it around and trying to find a way through. Even then, when it doesn’t work, shove it back into that drawer in your mind and occasionally, when you’re waiting for a bus or walking alone, give it another run. Never say never to an interesting idea. But equally, never be put off by the many people who will hear your initial idea and dismiss it with a seemingly well informed ‘rule’ that they are certain prohibits your idea from ever being sound.

The Story Idea

Very few people can find a story from this.

If you’re one of them don’t take it for granted. To you it seems easy – you’re a story generator. If coming up with ideas hasn’t always been easy, then maybe you’re one of the other personality types who has found a way to become a story generator. There are pros and cons in each.

(See previous post on what type of story mind are you)

As long as you have regular ideas for stories then there are other things you really should come to terms with and consider. This is where you have to be realistic about the world we live in and the mass audience you are hoping to attract with any project. The bottom line is that entertainment is a business and you have to attract a crowd to stay in business.

 You have to allow yourself to stop being politically correct, religious, ethical, moral and all the other aspects that makes us, what we like to think of as, civilized. You have to be hard-nosed and realistic about the rest of the world and take into account where a majority of film and TV viewers come from; where their attitudes sit and what they will tolerate and what they will not.

In short – you have to be able to channel a right wing shock jock and the closeted conservative hockey mom.

Why spend months or years to write up an idea and put in the amount of work needed to get it to a level where a professional reader/producer/director will read it and consider your screenplay – if the story has little or no hope of success because of elements within it that are deemed too risky to offer to a mainstream audience?

I would never say don’t write or don’t shoot for the moon – you should and you must. But if you have even two story ideas, write the most likely to be produced first; the less controversial; the less risky.

For instance – is the world ready for a Gay Rom Com? No. No mass audience will go to see a tender, funny, endearingly romantic story about two guys falling for each other. A section of the filmgoers will, the gay and more liberal minded. Even many gay and liberal minded non film goers will go and see this type of subject matter. It’s a niche film – a smaller but dedicated audience. But the larger mass market is not ready to cheer on two guys getting together.

As much as I hate this aspect of the entertainment industry – think for a moment as if you were Rush Limbaugh. And that means consider every negative, homophobic, xenophobic, sexist, elitist, religious, pro life, sexually restrictive and even racist thought that still exists in the world and ask yourself – does my story need to go there. Do I need to challenge those aspects or even comment on them?

If your story needs it, and you genuinely have something to say and are not just creating controversy for the sake of being bold and getting noticed, then do it well and I wish you all the success in helping to change and heal this world of narrow-mindedness. That’s a really important and valid goal for a creative mind to aim for. BUT – if you gain nothing from the choice except the controversy, take it out. Why alienate anyone if you gain nothing from it.

A character who calls a woman a bitch for no real reason – cut it. A teenage girl who gets pregnant and has an abortion as a subplot, when that subplot if a short film within your main film without any real affect on the main storyline, cut it. This is a risk reward type situation. Why give additional reasons, other than the many already on offer, for someone to pass on your script?  

This is one of the least talked about, but most important aspects of the industry. It is least talked about because it’s shameful. The industry – and indeed all artists, of which film creators on every level are surely included, should be trying to lead society towards greater acceptance and understanding of every aspect of our world through the stories we tell.

In the large part I think we do, but nine times out of ten, without any clout or power, a new film maker or a writer, without considerable credits to their name, will have to change and revise a script in order to get it made in line with the wants and needs of network executives who are desperately trying to ensure as large an audience as possible sees any film that gets produced.

The rock and hard place a writer gets caught between is to stand firm and never have a career, or bend to those requests and be produced. Hopefully you will eventually have enough power and prestige to be able to push ideas through, but, for a long time, at the start of your career and for many – for their entire career, having a career will entail towing the line to some degree.

So although we may all cringe when we’re told that a subsidiary character need not be a down’s syndrome child, as much as we may want to portray this character in film because it’s part of our real world and as much as you may feel it adds to the sibling relationship – unless there is an imperative motivation and significant pay off that makes it necessary to have a character with those characteristics, it is likely to be removed or sores still, be the reason someone passes on your script.

So do go to these places, but be aware it will make it harder for you to make a sale. Just ask yourself right at the beginning if the choice is an imperative or a personal want. If you’re a great writer you can probably make it an imperative – well done you – but if you can’t, and you have other options, even if it means writing another story, with fewer or no controversial issues, first – you should. Why dampen a producer’s enthusiasm in your project or in you if you can avoid it.

That was actually much harder to write than I thought it would be. I really detest this aspect of the industry. It’s why actors remain closeted - because they and studios know they cannot play action heroes or leading romantic men if the general-public become aware of their sexual orientation. It’s why older women stop being sexual beings and why there are so many virginal teens on television and so few in the real world. I could go on with a thousand examples of a world audience that demands certain standards in fictional characters while allowing and overlooking the same things in the real world.

But back to story:

The things you should consider once you have an idea are:

Is it an entertaining story?

Who will it appeal to?

Who will it offend?

What sort of budget is involved?

What sort of production constraints does it have?

Is it a movie that is likely to breakthrough and be produced for a new writer?

Have there been similar movies?

Have there been similar movies recently?

Are there any similar movies in production or about to be released?

Are there any other aspects that make your idea more difficult to produce?

You need to consider all these aspects once you have your good idea. And remember I am not saying these things should stop you writing a story, but some of them should stop you writing it in certain ways, or help you to make changes at this very early stage and save yourself an extraordinary amount or work and emotional angst – and even, on some occasions these questions should dictate that you prioritize the writing of one idea over another, simply because one is easier to produce and more likely to be your breakthrough project because of that.

I cannot tell you how many writers I have come across who are writing their first screenplay and proudly declare it is part of a three or five part trilogy/franchise. There is no real resolution in the first or even the second film because it’s all explained and comes together in the final film.

Even if you are a writer/director with some credibility, have written short films or been an assistant director or other crew member for umpteen films, getting the green light for one film is an incredibly hard task. Why make your breakthrough script an epic that will change cinematic history? The idea would need to be so original and well written that it is undeniable – because the hurdle of being an unproduced writer and getting your script even read, let alone considered by a producer/director/ manager or agent is a large one.

I always ask this question of the stories I think up and work through to a script:

Would I be prepared to sell everything I had, to liquidate everything, in order to finance this idea towards being produced as a film?

That is what you are asking someone else to do; to put their money into your idea. How can you expect them to risk hard earned money if you have any doubts about doing so yourself?

All the questions above need to be considered. If your screenplay is across three continents, has helicopters, crowd scenes, if it attacks religion, focuses on contentious social issues, social issues that are in any way off putting (regardless of how politically correct this may or may not be), if it shows enough violence to get a restricted rating, is derivative of other well known films and any other negative aspect you can possibly think of, many special affects, stunts or CGI, if there are any other production issues that need to be addressed, regardless of how trivial or seemingly baseless – then, if you can adjust or write them out – you should. If you have other simpler ideas you should write the first. If the ideas you have to choose from are relatively equal in entertainment terms, why wouldn’t you prioritize the simplest ahead of the more complicated, especially if you are an unproduced first time writer?

This sounds negative – so I’ll say it again to be absolutely clear – I am not saying ditch the idea, and by all means write it if it’s the only or best idea you have. But if you have any other ideas of equal quality – go with those first?

Personally I encourage everyone to try and change the world through their art – be it writing or any other creative endeavor. But if you are trying to break through then give yourself every opportunity to establish yourself first and change the world next week.

To be cynical and a little depressing – here’s the best formula to go from being an unproduced screenwriter to being a produced screenwriter.

1/ Find a setting where 2 to four people will be confined: In a house, a cabin, a wood at night, a locked warehouse, underground tunnels, an island or desert – just nothing that requires a big build or a high rent to secure the location for production.

2/ Create a terror, the unknown is best, flashes of a thing that may or may not be supernatural or a monster/mutation of something and give it a reason to terrorize, to exact revenge, pick off slowly or try to scare away your cast.

3/ Come up with a clever reason why personal footage would be used – a hand held camera, CCTV footage, a webcam, a live web feed or other and integrate this into your footage.

4/ Create a mystery, one of two cast survived, or none and someone new is trying to uncover what happened. Make it chilling, intense, slow desperate terrorized panic with occasional uncontrolled high energy flights for survival.

5/ Ensure the basic underlying story is good, entertaining and original and have a twist that unravels all we’ve seen and explains it as something intriguing and fascinating in the final scenes.

This gives you a low budget horror film and if you can couple that with an original, entertaining story and some fascinating, thought provoking and unexpected twists, you’re almost guaranteed to get some bites from producers looking for a film to make on a shoestring.

After all, producers and directors face exactly the same problems as writers in their journey to get a produced credit to their name – so offer up something that has a chance of being noticed and is easily and affordably produced and it will be a match made in heaven for all three, producer, director and writer. 

Next: The Beat Map

Screenwriting – The Personality of a Writer and Peer Reviews.

A very good friend of mine, someone regarded as one of my country’s best casting agents, once told me the first thing she had to overcome was her own personal taste. If she didn’t do this every role would be played by hot young surfer dude with sun bleached blond hair and a muscular, sleek, swimmer’s body. 

Amen to that!

Another friend, who is working internationally as a hair and make-up artist on photo shoots and catwalk fashion shows casually remarked that many woman struggle as hair and make-up artists because they can’t break out of their own personal routines and processes. To make it as a really good hair and make-up artist a woman has the disadvantage of needing to unlearn their personal hair and make-up choices and make sure they find what is needed and works best for the individual model’s face.

The same principle is true with writing.

I’m talking about writing fiction, be it prose or scripted. The most important step for any writer is to know your own personal tastes. This is important for two reasons. Firstly our view of the world is skewed by our personality, outlook on life and how we analyse and decipher the world we’re part of. This is all done from our perspective and through whatever tunnel visions we have, from personality, background, education, role models, personal taste and many other idiosyncratic influences.

The key words for a writer are empathy and understanding. You have to be able to take yourself out of your reality and truly empathise and feel what it must be like to be someone else. To do this is hard because on some level you will fight against so many inbuilt preprogrammed tendencies and, sometimes, without knowing it, subtly editorialise an issue or, even worse, show bias that you consider to be a fair and unbiased portrayal of something or someone.

This has been well covered by many great writers and teachers and I think it’s fairly well established in creative circles that knowing yourself well is vital so I won’t bang on about it. In short, know your own demons – your strengths and weaknesses and in writing - love your characters. They’re the main phrases that cover this well trodden ground.

The aspects of knowing your own personality I have never heard talked about deals with personality types of story creators. This is a major part of the bag of tools you bring to the table to create, review, analyse and edit work. It’s who you are when you first sit down to draft the treatment for your story idea. It’s so engrained that every story you have ever told anyone; to family and friends, an account of an event being recalled, all will use the same personality traits that I’m talking of – the same ingrained styles of generating story - and we don’t all share these traits equally.

As a television writer I’ve been lucky enough to run the story table of five different shows over a fourteen year period. This has covered around 500 hours of produced drama. I usually had four to five writers around that table to bounce ideas off and generate weekly episodes. At first I would get rid of people who drove me crazy and keep the ones who thought the same as me. If I could have cloned myself I would have. I got by, but I quickly learnt this was hurting both me and the show.

Every bad idea I had, or the team had, was amplified and found out down the track. For the first few years I scrambled to rewrite and explain why I’d allowed such a monumental problem to slip through. I believe I was lucky to keep my job. Fortunately I had a couple of cast members who were coming of age, great actors with big fan followings. Two from separate shows have gone on to become very successful in US shows (House/True Blood) and they saved me by keeping ratings steady while I worked out a better way to make sure my team’s stories were not disenfranchising viewers.

This disenfranchising happens when a viewer screams at a logic or continuity flaw or any other of a thousand things that make people see red and stop them buying into and enjoying the story.

The breakthrough came when I realised people have a ‘storytelling type’. Some 'types' have more advantages than disadvantages and some generate consistently better stories than others, but to restrict a range of personality types in the story creation process and exclude others delivers stories that don’t resonate with the most viewers possible. It produces storylines that lie limp over time because they generate a level of familiarity or sameness. When that happens, regardless of how wonderful your stories may be, how well structured and plotted, you will lose ratings.

Having run shows for over a decade I got to look at what was happening with the ratings on a weekly basis over a long period of time. I personally knew what stories were strong and where I’d fudged logic or something else to make sure a story on the other side of that ‘fudge’ was reached and told – and the results were fascinating and clear.

Regardless of how good a story was, if people didn’t believe your path to get to it, they wouldn’t buy into that story.

The ratio was about 4:1. Four good shows gain a point in ratings - (0.1). One bad show loses a point in ratings. Just to stay even with where you are you need three good shows to one dodgy one, two and two and you’re not going to get another season – or at least not one you’ll be working on.

The answer was to stop trying to find people who thought like me and go out of my way to find people who thought differently. If I could convince them my stories were sound then I knew the audience would buy into them as well.

There were four writer’s personality types I was able to identify fairly readily once I started looking for them. There are certainly subsets within each group, crossovers and often dual personalities where a few lucky people have more than one trait – but almost everyone will have a primary group they fit into if you know what it is you’re looking for.

Of course an incredibly rare few, the geniuses – and they do exist, have all the traits equally. I’ve met a few and I happily wave to them as they whiz on by me up the career ladder. I don’t know how they manage to reconcile the various traits because they seem to naturally rip and tear and work against each other. But maybe that’s why geniuses are geniuses at work and famously impossible to date.

Personality Alpha – The Leader. A decision maker. A person with a strong sense of story who is able to understand and see others points of view and make the best decision for the story. Never dismisses a good story for any reason other than a fatal flaw in that story. (Flaw can be – production issues, entertainment, character, logic, premis, social issue, censorship, theme, mirror of a story done before, as well as a thousand other more subtle issues.)

A lot of the ‘Leader’s’ character is naturally imbued, but regardless of what comes naturally, everyone can get there over time and can come from any group, gaining experience and understanding of the storytelling process along the way. The key to making this group is to continually learn, develop and improve. A leader is able to make decisions above their own ego. (Ego being the most fatal flaw and the undoing of most who get to this position. This manifests as a need to show how great they are at the expense of others – everyone else’s ideas stink; says no to a good ideas from others quickly and with little thought. They may even have the exact same ‘original’ idea themselves later. A problem ego will end up being unsupported by the team and will justify their failure as a conspiracy against them from within the ranks. (Often being promoted too soon leads to this scenario, some learn, some don’t))

In short, a successful leader is the mayor of story town – able, without bias, to make consistently good/right decisions about story and structure, from all suggestions on offer, regardless of where or who they come from and willing to share or even forgo credit in favour of another.

Personality Beta – The Story Generator. The story generator is a creative whirlwind. Never upset that a good idea is denied, because they have five more waiting. They can re-imagine and adapt any idea to any situation; molding, finessing, reversing and distorting their original idea to fit any new circumstance. They are often so adept at doing this they can dress the same idea up in different clothes and sneak it through on a second, third or fourth attempt.

Any character, any situation, any curve ball that comes up in plotting will lead to new ideas that are sound and range on the most part from useable to very good. They are often loud, funny, fast, disruptive, often undisciplined in areas that don’t matter to the story telling process. They may zone out if discussion bogs down. Not highly strung, appears not to care, a good case study for ADHD.

Personality Gamma – The Logic Police. Uggghhhhh! I hate them! They drive me crazy. They generate very little useable story and when they do it needs to be stripped back of distracting and confusing detail. They are especially annoying when the story idea is in an area of their expertise and they can’t re-imagine anything. “A lawyer’s office would not have a legal secretary at the receptionist’s desk by the main door.” Ughhh! Shut up already!

By far THE MOST IMPORTANT/VALUABLE member of any story team.

This is the person who will talk most often when an idea is tabled and they will bring up multiple reasons to derail the idea. They will keep continuity and logic straight and they usually have a rigidly, but encyclopedic mind. If they have a problem then you can bet 25% of the population will have that same problem, another 25% will notice it but let it slide.

This is the first person you will promote to be an editor. They will also be the person who gets most upset because their ideas will be dismissed more than any other person on the story team. They often get dropped off the back of a story and can’t understand what the story is, because they can’t get passed the fact the legal secretary is still at the reception desk in the lawyer’s office.

The logic police member needs to be protected and their worth, which can’t be overstated, needs to be constantly reinforced. This person makes a fantastic editor, but often gets frustrated at not advancing further. They will only break out of being an editor when they come to terms with, own up to and understand what it means to be a member of their anal retentive gang.

Personality Delta – The Nutter. Outwardly we could be looking at anything from burning chakra sticks and nursing crystals to a person obsessed with gaining insight into a world that has lost its moral compass; a vegan, hemp wearing tree hugger; or a tightly buttoned up conservative that goes home to a concrete bunker with provisions to outlast the apocalypse. (Maybe I’m exaggerating – but they are generally considered to be a little odd)

Inwardly this person will sit and distract themselves by any means, hardly paying attention and contributing maybe 10% as much as the next lowest contributor. And most of their suggestions will be met with an awkward silence, where others try desperately not to be rude by stating the obvious – that the idea is bizarrely inept.

But every now and again one of the Nutter’s suggestions will shake the room and reshape the show. An idea will be dropped that is so monumentally left of field, so breathtaking in its audacity that it will be talked of in years to come as a defining moment of the show. The ‘Nutter’ won’t have much idea how to make it work, nor do they really care if it does – their job’s done – having that insanely brilliant original idea.

  

I’ve tried to make these descriptions as entertaining as possible, but all of us essentially fit into one of the three types; Generator, Logic Police, or Nutter, at least when we begin our writer’s journey and as I said above, many people overlap – perhaps you could look at it as having a primary and a secondary category, but only a very lucky few don’t fit primarily into a single group.

One of the most important steps to growing as a writer is to own up to and admit which of these prime personalities we are and which of the advantages associated with the other personalities we lack.

Everyone wants to be a story generator because it seems the most positive. But in my experience, on its own, it is the least likely of any group to succeed. Usually it leads to frustration because everyone sees the potential, but the execution stops any firm offer coming. The ideas are great but unruly and the temptation is to bounce from great idea to great idea without ever truly mastering and polishing one. The story generator loves the creation, but isn’t as keen on the hard work needed to take that great idea to a level where it can be produced or published.

The Nutter has the same problem, although their great ideas can occasionally be so great they’ll find a friend in a producer/agent/manager who is so taken by the concept they’ll take them on and either mentor or partner them up to get that astonishing idea to a state where it can be shopped around.

The best category to be is my nemesis. Yes – I’m looking at you vile Logic police. My writing didn’t go anywhere until I recognised that and like the relative who annoys you in so many ways, the reason I hated the logic police was because they were usually right and I was wrong.

Their eagerness to sacrifice a great idea at the very start of the process simply because their logic sensor told them it didn’t work was so frustrating to me. I would set out to prove them wrong and spend huge amounts of time writing and rewriting the idea until I proved it did work. This happened about one in ten times. The other nine times I wasted countless hours, even days on ideas I couldn’t get to work for the very reason the logic police warned me of way back when the idea was first tabled.

Logic Police are not just the protectors of logic by the way. They are grammar Nazis, formatting storm troopers, punctuation para military and the syntax SS. Oh – and that font isn’t standard, nor is the binding, so you should go and re-do it please, or I won’t read it!

The reason journalists make successful fiction writers is because for two to ten years, every day, they write 1500 words on a topic usually handed to them and then corrected by an editor with no time or patience for any of the thousand misuses of English the common writer uses daily. Spelling, facts, expressions, punctuation, syntax crimes and storytelling structure bear traps all need to be mastered by any successful working journalist and the same is true for any working writer.

Now the ‘logic police’ personality finds learning these things easy and they heap scorn on anyone who ‘boldly goes’ to the land of the split infinitive. Many, like myself, take years to learn half of what a competent journalist has had pounded into them during their cadetship and in my case, I am still learning and teaching myself to be a better practitioner.

I began as a playwright dealing in dialogue and story structure. I am a story generator personality and not proud of it. If I could choose I would be a member of the logic police. Maybe it’s a case of distant fields – who knows? But I’ve wasted many years on projects that people ‘loved’ in concept, but not in execution. I am sure there are just as many logic cops out there who are desperate for the ideas they need to make use of perfect grammar and syntax.

As I said at the beginning – most of us have aspects of more than one of these groups in us naturally, but the way to get ahead is to learn the aspects we don’t have and then do whatever you need to do to make them part of your personality and part of your work.

In order to lead a story team I was forced to not only recognise these personality types but embrace them. I had a huge amount to learn and learn quickly because it’s an extraordinary moment when you realise the other personality types are not in the wrong and spoiling your ideas, but coming from a totally different mindset and one that’s equally valid to your own and often more so.

That’s the moment when my career turned a corner and I started to look at every idea differently. It makes a difference what genre a story is in. What medium you choose. How you express action and subtext and whether or not in a big law firm you choose to have a receptionist and not a legal secretary by the main door. Once you’ve learnt why it’s important you can make a judgement call about what small flaws in logic you can allow for the sake of a great story and  get rid of the clangers that cause really big problems. That’s when you’ll start to get some sort of consensus in the reviews of your work.

There’s nothing worse than having one review declaring you’ve written a masterpiece and nine others that use your script to line a bird cage.

I was lucky enough to work for a long time without a break and got the chance to work with many remarkable and talented story tellers across the range of personality types. Even so, I recognise I have a lot left to learn. Both from those who see logic and continuity so clearly and are able to reproduce the technical aspects of writing so effortlessly and from those unhinged minds able to come up with stories, characters or structures that are outside the box and often change a genre or the way we look at storytelling.

It’s a fascinating journey. If I ever get to a point where I feel I am no longer getting better – then I will probably call it quits. Fortunately or unfortunately for me (I’m not sure which) I have a long, long way still to go.

A final thought, and probably the reason for this post in the first place. Being a writer of fiction; be it prose or scripts is a difficult career choice. Just completing a project is beyond most, but mastering all the elements; structure, character, subtext, turning points, theme, a driving entertaining story that suits and compliments the chosen genre and many other aspects, makes it near impossible.

My first agent, now sadly passed away, had a wonderful way of dealing with the many people who, discovering who he was and what he did, would tell him they had a great idea for a novel/film/play. He would react with great enthusiasm and say, “Then you should write it and the moment it’s finished send it to me and I’ll read it.” Over a forty year career he could recall five people out of hundreds who had actually followed through and sent him something.

The primary focus of the ‘personality groups’ I’ve defined are very different and each aportion different weight or importance in the success of a written story. They are all right, but certain components have greater weight at different times in the assessment process.

Publishers, agents, managers and producers receive thousands of submissions a year. Some get into the tens of thousands. You can tell a really good writer’s agent/producer/manager – because they have expensive looking websites with no possible way to contact anyone.

A second tier allows submissions only through referral. Then there are some that have general submission but only in narrow areas, genre, medium etc. Some have even started taking submissions on very strict and narrow time parameters – Monday 11am to 4pm.

At this stage an assigned reader or assistant is looking for any reason to dismiss a writer or story as not ready. This is where the perfect formatting, spelling, grammar, syntax and structure become literally a life and death component. Get it perfect, your baby lives; get it wrong it dies at page three – possibly sooner.

Once you get past the formatting stage, then the story, characters and themes must carry the day and stand out to such an extent that your submission is better than anything they have on offer from anyone else, including seasoned writers with established fan bases.

So what’s more important? I wouldn’t mind betting that many a story that proves itself at a later date to be a winner was binned due to presentation issues when it was first submitted. Equally, many fine writers who have perfectly presented stories stumble when the content fails to deliver intensity and emotion.

I have noticed recently, especially on peer review sites that have sprung up across the net, that the logic police have moved in and anyone not passing their exacting tests gets thrown to the bottom of the pile very quickly. That’s a good lesson. But these sites are incredibly useful for work in progress and often, as enthusiastic writers wanting our stories to be released and read by anyone, we rush a story out to get feedback, knowing there are flaws. This is where you can see the writers who have learnt who they are and taught themselves how to look beyond their own personal annoyances and see a piece as a whole.

I’m not saying the logic police shouldn’t be obeyed. They should. The criticism of the big five is equally valid and needs to be fixed – but be aware of a peer reviewer who dismisses an entire project because your technical presentation is off. Again, their comments on the subject of presentation are very valid, but a rigid logic cop will be unable to concentrate on any aspect of your project because they are being driven crazy by what they consider sinful ineptitude as a writer. They haven’t yet learnt to note these problems and then move on to review what else you have to offer.

I’m all for Peer Review sites for what they are: a place to workshop ideas, stories, characters and help a writer find and improve all aspects towards completing the story they are trying to tell. But everyone should remember that element of ego in all of us to ‘show our wares’ – to show what we know to those who know less. These sites often bring this out in spades in a very unhelpful, negative way.

Try asking a third year medical student about a malady you’re suffering from and they’ll have you lined up with three possible terminal causes before they even consider you may be suffering from a simple bruise. The same is true in a peer review. If they feel you’ve written a poor script because it’s poorly formatted, thank them for the lesson, make the appropriate corrections and move on. Someone will eventually review the story you’ve told and not the presentation of it.     

Sometimes at the end of a post I wonder whether to post or not. Just like some of the things I’ve listed – the whole idea of posting my own theories on any number of things seems very self indulgent. But then another part of me thinks if something I’ve said or experienced helps someone else and gets them to that next step as a writer then that’s a good thing. So many people have helped me along my way, so why not post and let the haters hate.

Good luck to the many others, thousands, tens of thousands, on the same journey as me! 

Scott Norton Taylor - Inner City - Ebook for Kindle, Epub Sony, Palm or online!

Reviews: From Amazon

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome read May 27, 2013

By Anna Brouillard

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book was so intriguing I hardly put it down. Wonderfully written it does not linger on any 

one event nor does it speed through scenes making it a poor read. The characters were well 

thought out and the inner turmoils they all face are far from dull.

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular April 5, 2013

By Jack

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

The book was simply amazing it had action romance and just enough drama to make me happy 

one of the best books I have ever read

From Barnes and Noble - Nook Books:

Posted December 1, 2012

 Great read.

A story filled with with love, hate, violence, peace and so much more. 538 pages of wondering what will happen 

next. A FULL story from start to finish. Thanks to the author for sharing a great work with the readers.

Posted July 8, 2012

 Couldn't put it down...

For this to have been a free book, it was wonderful. The author keeps you on the edge of your seat. I couldn't 

put this down. I think this would make a great movie!

Posted April 20, 2012

 Amazing

Perfectly written with great detail it was thought provoking and asked the fundemental question of would you 

stick up for what you believed was right even if you would be killed for doing so.

Posted April 5, 2012

 This book is AWESOME! it keeps you wanting to read the entire ti

This book is AWESOME! it keeps you wanting to read the entire time. It tells of 2 worlds, and both are 

extremely unique. One of the best books I've ever read!

READ IT YOURSELF - INNER CITY