Premise Line

So a couple of weeks ago I was presented with a complimentary ticket to attend a workshop by John Turby on story telling. Basically, it was a lecture spanning over three days that established the fundamental elements of crafting narrative, particularly with a focus on popular film. Really, though, a lot of the teachings felt pretty universal.

How the main character always needs to have a fundamental weakness that they need to resolve, and a how everything is driven by their desire to a reach a particular goal. How they need an opponent in order to grow, and how the hero can only be as strong as the opponent. An opponent who essentially has desire for the same thing as the hero; this is ultimately what brings them together. And the best antagonist you can have is one that is intimate with the main character and is the one that best knows how to exploit their weakness. The path along the way is full of allies (that will confront the main character along the way when their motives aren't pure), false ally enemies (that will try to derail him and exploit his weakness) and false enemy allies (that will help him along and provide insight into the main opponent). The main character eventually creates a plan he needs to fulfill in order to defeat the opponent and fill his desire. How this all culminates in a battle between the two, and how the hero has a self-revelation about himself, bringing understanding about the situation and who he truly is/meant to be. If he has this revelation before the decisive moment, he rises and becomes a greater individual after attaining his desire. If this comes after... He falls to a lower state than he was at the beginning. And in either case, a new equilibrium is reached and status-quo established.

That's the gist of about 18hrs of lectures condensed into a single paragraph. And that's not even touching on other MASSIVE parts that were talked about, like dialogue and genre.



Needless to say, after being bombarded with such an incredible amount of information over a relatively tiny strip of time, my head was doing funny things. I was thinking of everything in terms of story structure and genre. Including... Myself.

And that's when I began to wonder... What story do I have to tell? What's my weakness, and who's my opponent? Sure, these are all tools for crafting a narrative, but in my overwhelmed and sleep-deprived state, I began trying to piece myself together from this new point of view. What is my desire line? What am I trying to achieve, and do I have any kind of plan? Allies? False ally enemies/enemy allies? What self-revelations have I had/will I have, and what battles are before me? Do I fall or do I rise once all is said and done?

For some reason, I really want to craft a story using this framework to explain who and where I am right now. First, because it'd be a fun exercise. Second, because I think this structure really forces me to identify and confront various aspects of who I am as a person. If nothing else, how would I boil me and my story into a premise? A premise is supposed lay out an inciting event, the main character, and final outcome. There are a million different possibilities from this. "By moving into a new province to sweep floors in a robotics business, a quiet highschool graduate stumbles onto a love of art." "After enrolling at art school, an introverted shut-in finds himself wondering the streets of New York alone." "As he works through his final year of art-school, a dedicated workaholic ultimately ends up ______."

So many stories to tell. I wonder what mine would be. I wonder what it'd be like to be someone else looking at me in my entirety and be able to sum up who I am, what part of me is unique/interesting, and boil it down into a story. I think it'd be an interesting exercise I'd like to embark on once I graduate and have more time. A written self portrait, of sorts.

That all being said... I have a new found respect for writers and their craft. It's unbelievable the amount of work that has to go into creating a story from scratch so that it hits all the "beats" of a story (there's the fancy new jargon I got from the lecture), and keep track of everything. I have no clue how I'm going to apply what I learned to my own line of work in graphic design-type-stuff. But I know that I won't be able to watch movies or watch books the same way again. And I certainly have a new lens to focus and zoom in on myself and try to decipher some sort of bigger picture. What story do I have to tell, indeed...
-Cril

Michael Giacchino - Labor of Love