Beyond the Frame

I wrote about Knowing Your Characters and Knowing Yourself a few months ago.  My writing since then has revolved around these tenants:

• If you’re writing the character you probably have something in common with them.
• We, as human beings, are more alike than we are different.

- as well as an adherence to motivating the script from one simple source: what interests me about this place and this character?  

A story motivated from plot is a shallow well.  Plot is a device.  Plot is a function of story but it is not the story.  The story is the character and the world they live in.

As I round out the third Act and think about what has to happen to provide the sense of resolution, I think about the central attributes of the central character and her world:

• She is a hispanic woman, divorced, mother of particularly difficult teenage boy.
• She is a complex balance of contradictions - a waning Catholic, career-oriented with an awful job and a good person ready to do bad things.
• It takes place during a particularly harsh winter in recession-riddled Chicago.

Whenever I’m unsure of what’s next, I come back here.

~ü