Yelostudio’s Scenario Guide

Intro

In case you want to know more, read this, or else, bypass and jump to the “characters” chapter.

I am not trying to teach how to write a story. Many people, more skilled than me, have written books, essays, and are giving classes about scenarios at this very moment, while you are reading this. I am not much of a theory person. What I truly think about scenario is that anyone could write one. In fact, I think your average illiterate guy has probably a better shot at storytelling than you. If you tell him a story, he will say right away if it is boring or if he wants to know more. Our problem, us storytellers, whether we are movie makers, writers or comic books artists, is that we think too much. We have too much theories, categories and names for everything. However, we cannot go back. Once you know, you know. But when I get stuck while writing a story, which happens more or less every time I must come up with a story, I find that after all theories can help.

So this article is basically everything I consider important about storytelling. I do not pretend that I ever invented something new. It’s nothing you could not hear in any basic scenario class. But I regularly go back to the basics, and I recommend it highly to anyone, in any field, whatever the level of expertise is.

Now; for the arrogant reader who think he does not need rules, I will say this: go make artsy phatsy boring movies, stay non-understood, and die alone. Art is for the masses, or is not. Art for the elite is just an excuse for bad art. You can keep on doing it, you will be forgotten soon enough.

For the others: Those are not by any means the best, or the only, rules. They are not endorsed by anyone other than me. Those are just my own personal notes, which I personally use. They do not plan (or need for that matter) to be anything more. They have helped me, and if they can help you…Good. Just do not forget there are no rules to storytelling. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying or trying to sell you something. Snappy people will notice what I just wrote kind of contradicts with what I was saying to the arrogant reader. Well I do not really give a flying fuck.

Shorts

It is so hard to define what is a good short, or even what is a short for that matter, that I will not even try. I will only cite people more experienced than me. Who are they? You don’t care. So here are a few definitions to remember when thinking for a short story, written or visual:

Dramatic moment. That’s when idea, action and character intersect. They all must answer each other.
A short story is a moment that has a story at its heart.
Economy is everything: show, don’t tell
Singletons: Single character, single enemy, visually strong.
A short: One unique and interesting idea executed well

Character

This section helps you create your main protagonist. I advise you to answer those questions in the order given:

What does you character
- Feel
- Want
- Need
Where does your character live?
Who takes care of him/her? Who does she/he take care of?
The others: what is their position towards that character?
What is their most distinctive trait? How does it show (or does not show) in their everyday life?
What do they deny, to others or to themselves? What do they conceal?
What they are afraid of.
Write 10 things that are true about your character
Write 10 things that should or might be true about your character but aren’t
Put your character in situations:
- What does your character do when he/she’s anxious
- What does your character do when he/she’s just got good news
- What does your character do when he/she’s hiding something
- …
You are visiting your character on a typical afternoon, after work:
- What kind of furniture does him/her own?
- What sort of knick-knacks are lying around (or not lying around)?
- What is the character doing (he hasn’t noticed your entrance)
- What is he/she wearing?
What would be a critical situation for your character? What is the point at which he or she cannot deal with the situation anymore? Put him in that situation and see if he or she reacts as you thought he or she would.
Your character has to sit for ten minutes in a room alone, in front of a camera, and speak about whatever he sees fit. No word of that conversation will ever be heard but for the camera. Write that monologue.

Idea

Define it in one sentence…What will people say after watching your movie? If you had to tell to someone to go see it: “it’s the story of…(insert your sentence here). It is mildly interesting, go see it”. Don’t play artsy on me now and think “that’s conventional; I want to do stories that leave the audience puzzled”. Well, if your movie doesn’t have a clear message, then that should be your message, and then it should be a clear statement as well.

Use paradox: your main character feels infinite loneliness? Then set him in a life where he is surrounded by people all the time. Yeah I know that it seems as if this is the straight line to a Hollywood classical movie, but trust me, it is not. This is how ALL good stories are constructed. Hollywood just is not really subtle.

Story

Beginning-middle-end: if you can’t define them clearly, you are going the wrong way. If you have no ending, then this must be your ending, it must be a strong statement and must be treated as such.

Lower down your expectations. If you are trying to make an original story, one that has never been done before, stop. Humans have been around for far too long. There is simply no way you are going to tell a new story. Your way of telling it will be new, or at least so we hope. So don’t get stuck on the false idea you want to create something completely new.

Find why you are writing this. What is your own personal motivation? There always is a reason. Find it; it will do you good also.

Divide you main story in many sub-stories, as many as you see fit. Three is a minimum. Then work on each section as an independent part, while of course retaining a very strong cause-to-effect between them.

Use the unseen. Dramatization happens in what is on screen and in what is off-screen. You cannot follow every second of every character. You must cut out stuff. Don’t let it be just waste. Use what cannot be shown: your characters are getting dressed to go to the restaurant. The audience expects them to get there. Make her arrive alone. What happened?

Rhythm is all. Be sure you alternate respiration in your action. And since you have to have those respirations, might as well use them efficiently to tell something.

Advices

Hello and Goodbye. Think well about your starting and your ending images. Know from where you are going and where you are going to. Make the beginning and the end answer each other. And always remember they will have an impact on the reader/audience, so might as well control that impact.

Be fun. Boredom is a storyteller’s greatest enemy. No, I do not care that you have a superb concept. No, I do not care if what you are doing is ‘artistic’. No, I do not care that there is some context I should consider. If you cannot make your stories entertaining, work more. If you don’t want to make your stories entertaining, then don’t tell stories. Find another job. Coroner might be an interesting choice.

Give false hints. Make the viewer guess wrong about what is going to happen next.

Do not reveal your Mac Guffin at the end. Whatever you do, it is not going to meet the expectations of your audience. Reveal it at two thirds and keep the story going.

Make every element pertinent. If something is there just to be there, then it should not be there. Remove it. Now of course it depends on how much time you have to work on all elements. But in an ideal world, where you have one thousand years to write your scenario, everything should answer to everything. The lighting, the camera angle, the colors, the action, the words, everything should be pointing at the same thing: the point of your scene, which itself points to the point of your movie.

Be careful with flashbacks. They are often a good sign of a badly constructed scenario. If you want to use it, it must not answer anything directly, or everything becomes dull and shallow. It is of utmost priority that you try to find an alternative.

Exercises

Those are not mere exercises for the fun of it. They will help you bringing your story further.

Change the point of view. If you are having an omniscient point of view, try to take one of the main characters’ points of view.

Change the tone. Imagine your story has been accepted by a producer, but he requires you to turn it into a horror movie/thriller/love story. After cursing the producer, what would you do?

Is the drive clear enough? Make the main protagonist shout the problematic, can he do it? Who in the story can? Someone in your story can. If really no one can, cheat a bit.

Write each important event of your story on a card. Play with the cards, shuffle them, try different orders. Try removing one and see what impact it has on the overall story. If none, you are in trouble.

Back up a few years, or move ahead a few years. What are the characters doing? (In other words, what place does this story have in the bigger story of their lives?)

Pile up the seconds. As Godard (whom I do not respect any more than my fellow student, but the expression is nice) used to say: when a movie is good, the seconds pile up. Everything must work together to the final goal. Hitchcock used to say each element is like the wheel of a train. They are all connected, they all lift and carry the story. Make sure your story has a flow. Do not use anything because it is ‘cool’ or because Mr Big Author did it, or because it is a rule written in this article or elsewhere. Do only what makes sense. Become dumb, stop rationalizing.

Sources

There were many more than those listed below, but those might, in my opinion, help people reading this get further. If you think I took something from you and you are angry because I did not credit you, well, fuck your ego, you can go cover the sea with slabs. These rules exist since Aristophanes and if you think you added even a pinch of anything to them, you have serious issues.