Читать книгу The Writer's Advantage - Laurie Scheer - Страница 7

by

Christopher Vogler

I like a book that agrees with me. I like it when the author says what I believe, only in better words and with more convincing evidence. I also like a book that tells me things I didn’t know, or that identifies patterns I hadn’t fully understood before. The Writer’s Advantage does both. In its pages I found confirmation of things I’ve observed and suspected about the way entertainment is made, and I also found lucid explanations of what is happening in the rapidly changing media universe. In fact, I really had little idea what that universe, currently called “transmedia,” might actually be. Now I think I do, thanks to the author’s clarity and depth of informed knowledge on the subject. Further, the author’s intention is to provide you with practical techniques for avoiding the current plague of repetitive, predictable, bombastic, and mindlessly overproduced sequels and remakes. She can even guide you beyond that, to create something totally new for a totally new storytelling environment.

This book has changed my consciousness about the present moment in the history of story-based entertainment. I was aware something was different. Who could fail to notice that stories in conventional Hollywood movies and network television have become more derivative and unwilling to take risks, while entertainment made for cable and many new outlets seems fresher and more authentic? However, the author pinpoints the exact moment in time when that began to happen, using a technique of analysis very similar to my own, which is to look at culture trends with an awareness of chronology and context. In other words, examine the evolution of an idea, a literary property, a story technique or a genre year by year, tracing that development from its earliest beginnings, and closely observing how it altered because of audience reactions and everything else that was going on in the ever-changing jet stream of culture. Know the field you are studying in depth, taking into account all the other developments in the surrounding field of entertainment and society. She offers this approach, part of “The Writer’s Advantage,” as a practical tool for making your work an exciting and novel expansion of worn-out genres, or perhaps even for creating entirely new forms of entertainment.

The author is a seasoned observer of the story development machinery, and correctly points out its flaws and weaknesses. One of these is what she calls a “fanboy” tendency in screenwriters, directors, and story executives. Too often, those controlling media these days were raised upon works of recent years that were already derivative of literature and movies of the past. Fanboys and fangirls create works that are purposely derivative, based on superficial knowledge and understanding of the genres in which they dare to tread. When I was a development executive, I used to call these lazy-minded professionals “skimmers” and “magpies.” They loved to dabble in genres, or loot and pillage from classic works of literature and cinema to create slapdash remakes, but like magpies they were attracted only to the shiniest and most superficial aspects of the genres and works, ignoring or completely missing the glowing radioactive essence of those beloved forms. All they could bring to the classic designs was greater volume, more extreme violence or outrageous episodes, cruder language, hokier and more unrealistic behavior. And often they seemed to deliberately stomp on the true hearts of these genres, subverting them or belittling the very things that made them charming and magical in the first place. Fortunately, the author offers realistic remedies for this fanboy tendency, by urging writers to develop much deeper and broader understanding of the genres in which they hope to make a contribution.

In these pages I read with approval the author’s critique of what has been called “Chaos Cinema,” movies in which there is a high proportion of visually confusing destruction and violence, typically the entire last quarter or third of the experience. As the author says it, “Unintelligible sensory overload abides in this arena.” The signal-to-noise ratio is set so that there is a lot of noise and very little signal; i.e., very little emotional content or advancement of the grand design of the story. So often these days the actual story seems to stop, parked on a siding somewhere, while the filmmakers indulge themselves in an orgy of flying metal, in which what little dialogue there may be is impossible to understand, and I am not entirely sure if what just spun across the screen is the torn-off wheel of a machine or the hero’s severed head. To me the unintelligibility is a great crime against the economy and clarity of cinema. I stand here with Lord Raglan, the English aristocrat who wrote a definitive study of heroes in legend and folklore. One of his rules was: “Everything that is said and done upon the stage must be intelligible to the audience.”

While using rational tools of analysis, the author never loses sight of a quality she calls “wonderment,” an essential element in her view for creating unique new expressions in modern media. Too often in place of true wonderment we find an effort to overwhelm the viewer with digitally-rendered eye candy, with special effects that are no longer special. Simple magic is sometimes the best. Little illusions performed right on the stage, or the small enchantment of an actor creating a word picture or an emotional breakthrough, can still outweigh the impact of an 89-million-dollar post-production budget.

Among the many gems of wisdom found here, gleaned from a career of close observation and hard-won experience, is the author’s insistence that it’s a long game, writing for media and working with genres. Sometimes, when you get rejected because your idea seems untimely, it’s just because you’re ahead of your time. Projects don’t always find their ideal moment in history right away, and may need to be stored away somewhere, carefully, until the time-waves of the zeitgeist coincide to make that project feel fresh and new or simply perfect for that moment in the culture. I can attest that many times I’ve seen story concepts shouted down or laughed out of the room because they seemed hopelessly out-of-date, only to find them returning a decade or so later as if they had just been minted to answer a need of the moment. Of course, like old fashions hanging in your closet, they may have to be re-tailored a bit or reconceived to emphasize the qualities that have been missing from the media environment.

One of the author’s most useful contributions may be pinpointing the effect she calls “fragmentation” — the breaking up of audiences and means of delivering the story experience. Where not so long ago there were a few media outlets dispensing movies, TV shows, and books to a general audience at regular intervals, there is now a shattered landscape in which increasingly balkanized shards of audience consume fragments of entertainment almost randomly. She sees this as a challenge and an opportunity, rather than as a problem, and encourages genre writers to assume a position of mastery, knowing their chosen field of storytelling in great depth and breadth, understanding its history and evolution in view of chronology and context. Instead of getting lost in the web of random connections, she counsels genre writers to remember the tools that have always served storytellers well — linear thinking as well as awareness of cycles and webs, careful analysis as well as fanboy enthusiasm, and genuine understanding of the essential heart that beats in every genre. She points to a high road for genre-loving writers, in which they can not only participate in the forms they admire, but also make fresh contributions that no one has ever imagined, and even spin out completely new genres and styles that others will have the fun of exploring and expanding one day. Enter her world with a sense of wonderment, and you will be rewarded.

Christopher Vogler is author of The Writer’s Journey, co-author of Memo From the Story Department, and a former Fox development executive.