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For me, that works wonders, cause it doesn't happen most of the time. Way too many cookie cutter characters and stories, these days.
I love quirky and interesting and flawed characters. The reason you don't see them on the screen much anymore is not so much that writers don't know how to create them it is they don't know how to integrate them.
This actually kind of swings back to outlining. The first cut of a movie almost always runs long. The first thing that goes are the scenes that writers add to strengthen their characters. Baltis' description of adding material to make the character super special when you get stuck writing your story is how a lot of scripts are put together. If you're doing an outline and a scene only exists to have your lead talk about a childhood trauma while bass fishing then cut it. You have to work a little harder and be a little better in the crafting if you want to deliver a more complex character.
The agent thing pulled things a little off track but I was trying to come up with an example. What you're asking has more to do with pitching than outlining.
Agents like to ask new writers, new referrals, new USC grads the "story" question. It's a weeding out question. If someone starts rattling off "there's this guy and he's on vacation in Scotland and he finds this magic sword..." the agent pretty much is going to know what is on the page.
If on the other hand you name your characters, set up conflicts, give a visual comparison "it's La Nouvelle Vague meets the Disney Channel", etc. you've set yourself up to give an agent questions to ask. And then you have to have the "story" to fall back on.
I understand what Lakewood is saying. There's a difference between plot and story. Plot is very causal and there are trazillions of the same plots. For example:
Dweeby boy falls for popular girl and sets out to win her love.
The story is of how Dweeby gets Miss popular and that is what's interesting. It is the story that is the interrelation of character with circumstance in a way that is true and logical according to the character/s in any given script of this type. Plot is just: this happens because that happened.
To answer the question posed in this thread:
I try and write outlines, but I always find myself changing things. It's a blessing and a curse. The best thing to do is to keep working and listen to some of the best writers out there. Maybe some of their tips will work, maybe not, but try everything once.
I personally believe that writing outlines is a good thing, but remember that they're not an unbreakable law. If you find yourself veering away from your outline, ask yourself why. Maybe there's something wrong that is causing this. Like you like to break laws.
Isn't trying to write a script without an outline, a little like Manchester Utd trying to play Arsenal tomorrow without tactics?
Andrew
Hello Andew,
You know what? I really like the line under your avatar picture. It made me think about outlines and blueprints and life you know. How come we aren't given outlines for life? How come as parents we say, "Our kids didn't come with instruction manuals?"
I think there's a nugget of understanding between life and a well written script.
Even with an outline or an instruction manual, stuff just happens- things we didn't expect. But the trick is to make the stuff that seems like the stuff that just happens, stuff that outta happen.
An outline should serve as a kind of "must have" list as George and Jeff pointed out early in the thread. The "must haves" help you determine what is important and when you want them to appear.
Plot is just the bones. Beginning, middle and end. A guy goes into the woods and gets eaten by a bear. Story is all the who, what, when, where and how you use to get the guy into the woods and the bear in the mood to eat him. Or do whatever else bears do in the woods.
To me you guys are saying the exact same thing. Your describing the mechanics of plot and labeling it 'story'.
To me, the story is both theme and the outcome.
If someone asked me what 'ordinary people' is about(ie the story), I'd say "It's about a man making a decision of choosing to protect his son from his wife". The theme and the outcome. Plot is simply the "and then" aspect of it.
No...the story is the unique characters and interations of the characters. It's the exact events that occur within the basic plot.
If you're describing the "story", you'll want to use the characters' names and the exact locales, and actions of said characters.
If you're describing the plot, you'll be much less exact and give an overview, so to speak, without giving any exact information.
Sorry, but this makes no sence to me. Every character, written well, ought to be unique, or at any rate, identifiable. Still, that's not a story. People are not stories. I'm communicating/relating with you on a web forum. We're not a story.
The outcome of a situation and the lesson involved is the story.
Jammin, you're missing the point here. You really are.
Look up plot on google and you'll obvioulsy see many different links. But delve into them and you'll find that plot is a basic idea...it's not a detailed and exact thing...it doesn't involve certain characters or events. It's the basic premise of the scipt or movie.
I think it was followers of Shakespeare that said he came up with all 7 of the basic plots in a literary sense. Others tend to disagree and have come up with their own ideas of how many actual plots there really are. From what I've read, they tend to range from 1 (obviously, some A-Hole who is trying to drive every idea into a single, basic element) to 69 (again, a bit on the other side of the extreme).
Story involves each individual scripts characters and action. Jason Voorhees attacks Camp Pendelton and systemattically wipes out the complex.
Plot involves the general, and less exact idea. A crazed killer attacks a military base.
Now, my example of the plot is too detailed, actually, and wouldn't fall into anyone's concept of the possible actual plots available in a literary sense, but hopefuly, you see where I'm going here.
Doesn't that make sense? What are you missing here, or what are we being unclear about?
I've never heard of the phrase "plotting along", so it means nothing to me.
I am not referring to a logline. I'm trying to explain what plot vs. story is. Same thing that Lakewood and Baltis said. I think this whole thing started with an example that Lake used...something about an agent or the like asking recent USC grads a question to see if they really understood what the difference between the 2 are.
Do my examples not make sense to you? Why are you arguing over this? I don't get it.
If an author writes, "The king died and then the queen died," there is no plot for a story. But by writing, "The king died and then the queen died of grief," the writer has provided a plot line for a story.
A plot is a causal sequence of events, the "why" for the things that happen in the story. The plot draws the reader into the character's lives and helps the reader understand the choices that the characters make.
A plot's structure is the way in which the story elements are arranged. Writers vary structure depending on the needs of the story. For example, in a mystery, the author will withhold plot exposition until later in the story. In William Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily" it is only at the end of the story that we learn what Miss Emily has been up to all those years while locked away in her Southern mansion.
Narrative tradition calls for developing stories with particular pieces--plot elements--in place.
1. Exposition is the information needed to understand a story.
2. Complication is the catalyst that begins the major conflict.
3. Climax is the turning point in the story that occurs when characters try to resolve the complication.
4. Resolution is the set of events that bring the story to a close.
It's not always a straight line from the beginning to the end of a short story. In Ernest Hemingway's story "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber," the action shifts from past to present. This shifting of time is the way we learn what happened and why, and it keeps us interested in the story. But good stories always have all the plot elements in them.
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