Directing, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 10

STORY DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIES

 

While creating a story, the writer alternates between generating story materials and editing them in pursuit of character development and plot unity. In the generating mode, give free rein to inspiration and write organically and disconnectedly as ideas, scenes, characters, and situations appear in your imagination. This is letting the work help to create itself.

Then, once the blitz of a generating phase is over, you begin editing; that is, you review and analyze what you have produced to develop it. Like a manic potter who produces flawed and surplus goods among the useful, there comes a time when production must be halted to allow someone to organize, classify, tidy up, and throw out the junk. Here ...