Knitting the Plot (Ellis Freeman)

WRITERS GYM

Professor: Ellis Freeman DISCLAIMER: This summary is taken from my classnotes, please be aware that I could have had misunderstood it all.

knitting the plot

the three act

structure

Structure or no structure? Pros of structure is that it's supposed to be a 'fool proof' method for smooth pace, the down side is that when forced, your story might look artificial or predictable. The best is to find a balance between planning and improvising. What you should certanly have is a time line of the sequence of events in the story (do the events expand for 6 months? 10,000 years?) and place events in that timeline. The longer your story the more structre & planning it might need in order to have a clear (and visual) idea especially of crucial events.

MIND THE MID-POINT FOR THE CLASSIC THREE ACT THEORY: https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=H6QD5Pbc50I

action or activity?

ACTIVITY: ROCKY IS RUNNIN' UP SOME STAIRS

ACTION: ROCKY IS TRAINING FOR THE FIGHT

An action is an activity that has an specific goal relevant for the story.

Activities without actions are not very interesting, the story moves towards goals the characters want to accomplish.

goals & obstacles usualy an obstacle is any event or character flaw that prevents a character to accomplish his or her goal.

Rob is in love with a girl, and wants to marry her.

Obstacle (internal) : Rob wants to be king of the north, he cannot just run away with her.

Obstacle (external): Mom already promised him to someone else.

Action: Rob gets support from allies to brake the previous deal. OBSTACLE (Event) : Rob gets betrayed by everyone .

Goals and obstacles are the clogs that move the story, without them the story stays put. But don't think to much about them, usually they will be written automaticaly by your storytelling hand, it is when you sense that the story has stopped moving that you should pick up the scalpel and check out how this fellows are doing.

equilibrium

disturbed

mal r o n ed a t n a on? w t r u o o So y ard N w d E life,

Kurt Vonnegut used to say that stories are all about equilibrium disturbed. A story is born when in the middle of apparent balance and stability some incident occurs to threat or right away distroy that balance (you know... like... WINTER!) , The story moves as balance is tried to be restored again, and then disturbed again, and so untill there is a final resolution. Another way to see how objectives & obstacles work and can be used is to have as an objective simply to go back to some sort of equilibrium.

tension Basically you are building tension when you get the audience to start making questions using what they know and don't know...

HOW ARE THEY SURVIVING? (AKA WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?)

WHY ARE THEY LOOKING AT TOM? (AKA WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?)

NY O R I IC T A M DRA ING METH

S SO W O N T NCE K S NO E AUDIE O D R E RACT A H C A THAT

AHH IS G ! NAZI DISC OING T O OVE R HE R!

finally... use the cards, Luke.

Got it all sorted out? Now is time for you to place each event (constitued mostly of actions) into a single card.

Wow! Now you can tell your story by flippin' the cards, one by one. There you can really check what works and doesn't. Even better, you can tell the story to some people you trust and see their reactions. TIP TIP: if with cards and all you kinda have problems to explain your story, then there might be some surgery to be done...

1 R2 and c3po are scaping some sapceship

2 princess leia is being threated

3 we meet luke skywalker, bored!

4

ED? K C O ST ARE U O Y NOW

ME O S NS SK O A I T T JUS ? QUES IF T A WH

WHAT, IS THE PLOT OF THE MATRIX??? BY THE WAY, YOU DO KNOW THERE SHOULD ONLY BE ONE WAY TO ARRANGE THIS CARDS, RIGHT?