Dispatch From The Quest: Christian Fontenot
Over the course of the 24 weeks I am working with the writers in The Quest, each will write a weekly dispatch to share with the GITS community. There are several reasons for doing this, the main one educational: Hopefully you will learn something of value for your own understanding of the craft from the experiences of the Questers. I should also add they are a great group of people, so I expect you will enjoy getting to know them.
Today: Christian wonders about power points, bullet points, and pocket notebooks:
Do you ever have one of those weeks where you just have so much to do that you don’t do any of it and just play SimCity on your Mac until two in the morning every night? WOW! Me too!
When one has been a member of the corporate world for fifteen plus years, one will learn to think and speak in power-point-ese (also know as bullet-point-itis). I could go off on a tangent regarding beginning, middles, and end in power-point-ese, but this dispatch is about how it can also help you to perfect short bursts and sprints of stream of consciences thoughts and that the best outlet for this is a small notebook that can fit in your back pocket.
Over the last 3 months, my back pocket notebook has become a treasure trove of fun, random thoughts both for my story as well as grocery and to-do lists. This notebook is also my go to for information and ideas related to my weekly quest assignments.
This week’s assignment was to continue our outlining process by examining how our themeline traverses for the story opening to the thrilling ending. I once again pulled from the chicken scratch in my handy, dandy notebook to type up my assignment, and some sort of witchcraft also once again happened. Seeing the scribbling’s of a mad man presented in twelve-point “Cambria” font across an open MS Word document, actually revealed something cohesive and consistent. A real theme was already there, and the flow of themes from Act 1 through Act 3 was really, really on point with my character’s hero journey. Yay me!
So moral of the story, seeing the smudged pencil ramblings from my notebook categorized together on one sheet answered questions that were starting to drive me bananas.
Back to “Titan Moon Valley”. I’m thinking about building a town that specialized in garbage and churches. Wonder if my notebook has a thought on that.
I’m reminded of an old Hollywood joke. A screenwriter always kept a pad of paper and pen on his nightstand in case he came up with a good idea in the middle of night.
Sure enough, he does come up with a killer idea.
Flicks on light. Bleary eyed, scribbles down million dollar idea. Flicks off light. Goes back to sleep, secure in the knowledge he has a story concept that will transform his life.
Wakes up. Grabs up his notebook. Looks at what he scribbled down. It reads:
“Boy meets girl.”
The specifics of what he wrote are less important than this: The notebook.
Whatever you do, wherever you go, always have some sort of notebook or recording device. You never know when you will hit on a fantastic idea. Horrible to lose those to the vicissitudes of daily life.
Record them on paper or digitally. That way, you won’t forget them.
Tomorrow: Another Dispatch from The Quest.
About Christian: From Louisiana, now in Seattle. Turns off street lights with his mind. Regrets not learning the tuba — TUBAS ROCK! Storyteller. @cmfontenot.