The Story I Want To Tell

I keep seeing these ads for writing classes:

"Tell the Story You Want to Tell"

"Writing the Memoir"

"How to Tell the Story You Were Meant to Tell"

And people flock to these seminars and workshops because they truly believe they have a story.  I have even tried to coach people on telling the story they feel they need to tell.  Because it's true: we all have a story.  Fran Lebowitz has a line in her HBO documentary, Public Speaking: "When Toni Morrison said that everyone should write their novel, she didn't mean EVERYONE."  I'm paraphrasing.  But I get it.  Everyone thinks they're a writer.  And, as I told my friend Susan yesterday as she was winning a big award, when she said she hadn't had a lot of luck in her career and that it was all hard work: "Being a good writer is the biggest stroke of luck ever."  And it's true.  As writers, we just assume that everyone has the same gift of articulation, wit, observation, and candor as we do.  But they don't.  Not by a mile. But it gives us anxiety and is the source of a lot of impatience.  I constantly am annoyed that my boyfriend isn't as clear and concise about his feelings as I am.  But he can't be.  First of all he's a musician.  Secondly, he's a civilian.  It's unfair for me to ask that of him.

But that's not really the reason I started writing this entry.  It's an intro.

When I think about the stories I'm meant to tell, I don't think about the stories themselves in terms of subject.  But I think about how I want to tell those stories.  What's the way in?  What do I want to cover?   But just as importantly is...what don't I want to say?

I'm writing a play right now.  Brand new.  And at first glance you could say that it's about advertising.  That's an easy one liner.  I'm writing a play about advertising.  The linear, story driven approach to that is that I'm going to write about the goings on at an advertising agency and how the ads get made.  Or it's going to be about a group of writers trying to work on a campaign.  In actuality, all of that is true in the story I'm writing.

Much like when one writes about lawyers or doctors or cops, you've got the workplace.  Here is what happens in the workplace.  They've got a goal: to try the case, to cure the patient or to solve the crime.  In this case, the problem to solve would be to get the campaign or to get people to buy the product.  My idea isn't about that, even though it involves a campaign and it involves selling a product.  I want to know what happens to the idea and how it gets permeated into the fabric of the culture.  That's a bigger idea.  But it's not one I'm going to get into if I write about the inner workings of the agency or if I try to write Mad Men.  And that's why I'm not writing a pilot about advertising.  That doesn't interest me.  I've been watching this show on AMC called The Pitch, which is really intriguing.  And I watched it for research.  Correction: Season One is intriguing.  Season Two is watered down and not interesting at all.

But the story I want to tell is about a utopian society and what happens when their ideas and their hopefulness for the very altruistic and well-meaning message they're telling ends up being interpreted in ways that they never intended or actually have control over.  What happens then?

And that's not a story that can just be told in a straight forward way.  It's a story that involves philosophical conversations.  It's a story that has a lot of people who are trying to be heard all at once.  It's got images and ideas and thoughts.  And those things need to breathe and resonate.  They can't just be a plot point.

Even though we're bombarded with phrases like "inciting incident" and "plot point", we need to think about if our story needs those things in such a defined way.  Yes, you want to get the action moving.  And action is important in dramatic writing.  But can those things be a little more fuzzy and a little less deliberate and defined and still be effective?  That's a great question.

I'm going to find that out hopefully as I make my way through it.