Countdown to “The Quest”: Day 6
On Monday, July 16, a mere six days from now, you will have the opportunity to Go On Your Own Quest [GOYOQ]. If you are just now finding this conversation, you may go here for details.
I am posting a series of items this week to help prepare those of you who want to spend the next 24 weeks digging into screenwriting theory, and prepping and then writing the first draft of an original screenplay alongside the participants in “Go Into The Story: The Quest.”
Today: Story Ideas.
If you recall, one of the things I did a few weeks back during “The Quest” logline submission period was post a series of articles on Story Ideas, how to generate and critique them, and their importance to the success of a spec script in Hollywood. Links to all those articles are available in the most recent GITS post before this one.
I encourage you… check that, challenge you to review those posts and take the next eight weeks of GOYOQ, where the focus will be screenwriting theory and before we get into actual prep and page-writing, to generate a boatload of story ideas.
Why?
First, you should be in the habit of thinking of story ideas every day. Seriously. One track of your consciousness should always be switched on to think in terms of story concepts. You never know when any form of stimuli may cause you to come up with the great idea.
Remember a spec script that sold back in May called “Dear Satan” from writer Dan Ewen:
Story follows a 7-year-old girl who accidentally misspells “Santa” and instead invites Satan to bring her a toy for Christmas. The inspiration for the script came from the writer’s babysitting experience when a child in his care switched a couple of letters in Santa’s name on his yearly note to the North Pole.
“There was this cute little card, covered in candy canes and glitter,” Ewen said. “I fell in love with the idea of this note mistakenly being delivered to the Prince of Darkness and the fiery wackiness that would ensue.”
What if Dan had not had the story idea track of his consciousness switched on? What if he had simply done like most of us, “My, that’s a cute card,” then gone on with our lives. No, what Dan’s brain did was make that jump from stimuli to story: “Hey, that’s a funny idea for a spec script.” And the rest is history.
Second, as Nobel Prize winning scientist Linus Pauling says, “The best way to have a good idea is have lots of ideas.” Let’s say you generate 1,000 ideas. And 999 of them are crap. But that thousandth idea becomes the basis of a million dollar spec script. Wouldn’t you consider that to be worth the effort?
Besides I believe most writers achieve a synergy with their Creative by constantly priming that pump. It’s like you slave over story ideas for weeks, even months, then completely out of the blue, wham! You get this fantastic story concept seemingly from nowhere. But it didn’t come from nowhere. It emerged from all of that hard work you had put in conjuring up all those other story ideas.
In fact, I know of at least two writers who made the cut for the finals of “The Quest” who had been slaving away over logline after logline for weeks, then literally hours before the submission period was to shut down, boom — an idea just hit them. They submitted those loglines and that’s what put them into the round of 21 writers with a shot at “The Quest.”
Third, you may think you have a good story concept you will write for GOYOQ. Fine. Is there any reason why you shouldn’t be working up other story ideas in the chance you can come up with a better one?
One of the big lessons people appeared to have learned from “The Quest” process so far is a very basic one: That they have to be more diligent and a tougher critic about the story ideas they choose to write as a spec script. I must have received 100 emails on this very subject. Frankly that surprised me. I thought it would be self-evident that if we are writing a spec script with a goal of selling it to Hollywood, we have to be working with the best of the best story concepts.
So take a look at the story you are considering for GOYOQ and ask yourself, “Is this the best of the best? Is this a movie? Can I really imagine this opening in 3,000 theaters nationwide? Can I really envision the one-sheet? Can I really see the movie trailer?”
Starting Monday, you have 8 weeks to prepare for GOYOQ. One thing you should be doing is generating story ideas with a goal of finding one that you believe in your heart of hearts and know in your mind, this is a movie, this is great, this could be the foundation of a spec script that will create my big break in Hollywood.
Tomorrow: A few reflections on screenwriting theory to help you prepare for GOYOQ.