Dispatch from The Quest: Jordan Earls
Last week as we did here on GITS, the Quest writers focused on the first week of Prep. Today’s dispatch: Jordan Earls describes engaging her story’s Protagonist:
Last week was the first of prep. After eight weeks of Core pumping me up like steroids to a gym rat, I was antsy to dive into my story. The first assignment: protagonist character treatment. I decided to take my protagonist to therapy. With my self-given Ph.D in psychology, I thought that would be the best method of discovering what makes her tick.
That therapy session went on for hours and confirmed my suspicions that I may have schizo-tendencies. I sat there with a tape recorder, asking her questions and listening to her respond. Of course, listening to her respond was her voice emanating from within me. That’s right, I was pretty much having a conversation with myself.
As my luck would have it, one of my roommates walked in and asked, “You realize I’m home, right?” It was awkward.
After clumsily pointing out that I’m not as crazy as I looked, I went on. For another two hours. Then, I transcribed the entire conversation. Then, I turned it into a forty question interview. Then, from there I developed the treatment.
Before, I guess my perception of “diving into my story” would be more like snorkeling. During this process, however, I found myself in a full on James Cameron-styled deep sea exploration. It was overwhelming. For the sake of not deluding myself with grandeur, I’m sure being seven miles under the ocean is a little more overwhelming than my experience… But shit, before TQ I thought I knew my characters like Santana knows a guitar. To put it lightly, I was wrong. Boy, was I wrong.
After that character treatment, I felt like my protagonist was a childhood friend. Like I’ve known her all my life. If my paranoia of being schizophrenic turns out not to be a paranoia, maybe I have known her all my life.
It just further proves: there’s no such thing as immersing yourself too deeply in your craft. You can always go deeper. If James Cameron dove seven miles under the sea, I’m guessing I’ve only gotten maybe a couple miles into my story. Five more to go, and I’m plunging head first. So far, what I’ve appreciated most about this experience is that my life now revolves around screenwriting.
When I’m at home, I’m reading lectures or screenplays or writing. When I’m at work, I’m thinking about writing and sneaking away to make notes about ideas I have. When I’m with friends, I’m annoying them shitless by incessantly turning the conversation to screenwriting. I live and breathe screenwriting. If I could eat screenwriting, I would, but I’m not sure that would exactly taste like crème brûlée.
So, I guess the conclusion of my rambling is this: During prep, I hope all of you following along are immersing yourselves as well. If you don’t have claustrophobia, every further foot we go down is even more exciting than the last. And, once again, I have to thank Scott Myers for hosting this deep sea exploration. Deep story exploration?
Immerse yourself in your story. That’s what prep-writing is fundamentally about: forcing you to move out of this universe and go into that universe where experience that place, and engage those characters. Interview. Biographies. Monologues. Whatever you need to do in prep, immerse yourself in your story.
Monday: Another dispatch from The Quest.
About Jordan: Portland based writer. Connoisseur of film with an affinity for Nolan, Boyle and Jackson. Twitter: @jordanpaige00.
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