Plot and character

Hi, this is Steve Barnes back again with another episode of Life Writing Live. I just got finished with like a 90 minute conversation with producers. They're trying to take one of Tananarive's novels and put it on the screen. We've been working with them for a couple years now. And, you know, it's not that the. That the conversations are not fun and that they're not invigorating. It's that I'm balancing about six other writing projects and this new business all at the same time. And so I have to be able to clear my head, but at the same time be able to enter into these worlds, often without a lot of preparation. The question is, how do you do that? And the only way I can stay sane in this is by keeping each project in a separate drawer, or as Al Gore said, in a locked box. That enables me to look at these things and to play games with these and at the same time not have it bleed into the other projects. It's much the same way that a chess grandmaster can play multiple chess games at one time. That basically he's not holding all the chess games in his head at one time. What he's doing is he can look at the board and tell by the position what needs to happen next, what the previous moves were. Don't matter that much. What matters is he understands that. Now, how do you do this with something as complex as a story? And I do this by having two patterns, by looking at just a couple of things that apply to a given story. The plot and the character. Now, I was just on a page panel where there was a discussion. You know, it's an old discussion. What's more important, you know, plot or character? And, you know, Aristotle came out and said plot was more important. But I think it's a trick question. The truth is that there are two versions of the same thing. That a character is only expressed by what they do, not by what they think by what they do. And a plot of a story is nothing more than what a given character does in a given situation. You could have the exact same situation. You know, if there's a bank robbery and Dirty Harry is standing in line, then we know that this scene is going to play out a particular way. If there's the same bank robbery and Rodney Dangerfield is standing in line with his girlfriend, we know that it's going to be a completely different story. So plot and character are inextricably intertwined. But if you have a model for what plot is that matches your view of the world and a model for what character is that matches your sense of human psychology. Psychology. Then you can relate the things that you're doing in your story to what you believe about life. I mean, you're the only person you're ever really going to know. If you don't know you, you're certainly not going to know characters. And you should have some philosophy of this is the way the world is put together. This is what I think life is. This is what I think the world is. This is why I think that society is as it is and it should match your view of who you are and from your perspective, the way the world is. So it's not that I expect people to accept my points of view on this or accept my philosophical positions on these things. It's that I think that you should have a philosophy about what is it that human beings are and what is it that the world is. I mean, it is said that there are only two things to write about. What are human beings and what is the world that they inhabit? What is man, that thou art mindful of him, what is true and who am I? As the only two philosophical questions, the world, us. Develop a point of view on that and understand that there is a way in which any story is an argumentation. You're saying something, you're saying this is what human beings are, or you're saying this is what the world is. And then you are presenting your argument in the course of your story. If you would like to know what my point of view on what the world is, probably the best statement I made was the lecture that I gave on sociobiology and world building. And you can get that as an hour and 15 minute lecture free of charge at www.storyshamanpro.com. www.storyshamanpro.Com Again, if you enjoyed this talk and you enjoy talks like this, but especially if you enjoyed this one, don't just like it, share it. The more shares we get. We will use that to guide what the subject of the next workshop, the next little mini workshop is going to be. Once again, this is Steve Barnes with Life Writing Live. I hope that you're having a wonderful, wonderful day and hope to see you soon. Good writing and be healthy and happy and make somebody smile today. Take care. Bye bye.