Make it Primal...

[Heliotrope]

Hey everyone!

This is a fantastic writing resource that I am subscribed too (it's free! Do it!) yes it is a screen writing resources, but his insight into getting into the emotional aspect of character development is (IMO) bar none.

Eric Bork wrote "Band of Brothers" among a bunch of other stuff. You can sign up for his emails, which are fantastic. His ten key principals (also free) totally worth signing up for.

But if you just want some fun reading, here is his website:

Not About the Work - flying wrestler

 

[pmmg]

I was thinking about this a little in the thread about tension before it got shunted off into another thread.... Though I am not sure I would use the term making it primal. I think this article goes to something I was trying to say, which was to make the story about the stuff that become the things that shape the characters.

I was thinking of the walking dead, actually. I was watching and enjoying the show, but for some reason, when the group got mixed up with Nagan and they ended the season with them all captured, I actually found I did not much care any more, and I did not come back for the next season. I think the part that got me, or rather lost me, was the events prior, where the characters once again lost their safe spot and a bunch of characters, such as Rick's new love interest (don’t remember her name), got zombie eaten off.

Well, fighting zombies and lots of gun shots and things falling apart makes for a lot of action, and even suspense which should add tension, but it was just that they killed off everything I was caring about....again. And I just don’t feel it in me to follow on to the next place or the next relationship which will come to amount to nothing. For me, the tension I was caring about was taken away, and I did not care who they fought next. I wanted to see how the relationships were working out, and that mostly abruptly ended. So where was the tension that kept me watching really? It was not in the action, it was in following the characters and wanting to see them sort through many of the issues that were developing over time with other characters. Would this one love that one, would they be accepted, would they find a home, would they make it work...all that.

I've not seen 'I Tonya', but now I want to. But I agree, I suppose, I want to follow characters. I know little Garion is going to fight Tolak at the end of the series, but I want to see what happens between him and C'nedra. That was more interesting to me than whole great conflict of the novel.

This article seems to saying something along those lines. Sure, the goal of winning gold is what is going on, but the story is really about what is going on with the characters and what is shaping them and causing them to move and grow. I too am a bit more interested in that as well. I hope I have captured it in my own writing.

 

[Heliotrope]

Yeah, I gave up on the Walking Dead after two seasons for the same reason. There is only so much "run for your lives" I can handle before I start looking for something more meaningful. Walking Dead just wasn't paying out my time investment in anything "human" or meaningful anymore.

 

[Svrtnsse]

It's a bit late over here, and I'm a bit tired, but the title of the thread, "Make It Primal..." is something that was mentioned a lot in Save the Cat, by that guy who wrote that book about writing. It felt like a pretty good kind of advice.