Stories and Comparing Drive Invention

 

These days, the art of telling stories is essential for the communication of almost any purpose or content. I find continuing inspirations for the creation of stories from the field of screenwriting. Here's a snapshot of a beautiful paradise beach taken from a plane, with a house hidden in the trees. What story does it imply?

How are “important” scenes, characters and features selected as meaningful that "drive" a plot line forward...? How can we take our raw experiences and turn them into an interesting story?

I'm fascinated to explore, articulate and re-purpose the artistic motives about what makes the power of a "good story" - scene by scene. I've noticed in the shaping of a story line that what's missing is just as important as what's included. Whatever is left out becomes unnecessary, and what is selected becomes highlighted in its importance.

How did I do this? It’s been fun for me to expand my ideas from reading longer books after seeing the movies that digested stories to a much shorter experience.

One observation I gained (not obviously revealed by merely watching movies) is how movie viewers have been educated over the years to figure out what is happening in a story. Viewers are shown scenes depicting what has been determined by screen writers to be relevant to the story. Making sense of these scenes are embedded in the action of the actors, set and events – and movie music scores. Of course, this also includes indicators of time frames, foreshadowing of later events, suspense, drama, character building, etc.

This means that movie watchers are, to a great extent, completely unaware of how much work they are doing to construct the plot, events and characters as a story unfolds. 

Good storytelling never disturbs the illusion of how a viewer must continue to be tracking these elements to make sense of the illusion that is being created for their own story experience.

Of course, many of us enjoy movies. Our appetite for a good story seems to be unlimited! That's enough for most people...but for me, it wasn’t. 

THINKING SKILL TACTIC: Splitting is better than Lumping

In opposition to collecting a grouping of what is similar, I find generating differences to be the more constructively creative strategy. When it comes to creativity, comparing to reveal differences is my favorite process to generate new discoveries. By noting differences, the selected features can be designed into a model or form. Then possibly unrelated areas can be plugged in as different content - it's a way to "repurpose" the same content. Seeking differences allows former randomly related factors to become relevant as the process is explored and expanded. 

 This is a bit abstract, so let me give three examples... 

 Recipes are an obvious example. You can observe and note what makes a casserole different from a cake. Then you'd take the form of a casserole, which is some sort of grain or starch that is baked, including some sort of vegetable or meat, usually precooked and a type of topping such as a cheese or a crunchy goody. Now once you've done this describing, you can take as a form a genre of food, such as lasagna - and switch the contents to another cultural style of food - For instance, you can make a Mexican food casserole instead of an Italian one. Then you get an original creative combination that wasn't obviously apparent. 

Concerning art materials: What's are the different functions of sealing a charcoal drawing? So you can avoid smudging the drawing, giving it a finishing coat; you might want to continue to draw further on it without spoiling what you've previously drawn. Needs to disappear after drying. Can't change what you've drawn that it's sealing. Can't change the texture of the paper you're drawing on.
(There a product designed for this called "workable fixative.") Now that you have described differences and features, you can experiment to discover how certain products of hair spray will work just as well. Hair spray can be purchased for two dollars on sale as opposed to sixteen dollars for the product specifically designed as workable art fixative.

 Related to the music business - here's another example in the "music genome" of Pandora.com. 

At the start of this business, musicians working with Pandora would listen to songs and describe the characteristics of the different, unique features in each song - features such as instrumentation, style, use of harmony and rhythm and "feel" etc. Eventually, descriptive commonalities of particular songs were cross-categorized and organized into a large database – the “genome.”. As these features of music were established, these descriptions of unique characteristics were matched to other "similar" songs to generate a streamed delivery of music that Pandora called a "radio station." This was delivered as a paid and a free service containing advertising to Pandora listeners. It had many monetization possibilities: exposing listeners to new musicians they might enjoy possibly had listeners buying new music. As the business service model evolved, any user of the site could specify a type of music they enjoyed, based on a particular song, musical artist or podcast theme. With their own streaming radio station, the user design would be generated by an algorithm written by Pandora from the mix of characteristics present in any particular song's description - going far beyond any musical genre. Each user would design their own unique mixture as a "radio station," share these stations with others, etc. The user could "tune" or "shape" their station with a "thumbs up/down" interactive feature if Pandora database delivered the “wrong” songs to the stream. 

 Every business could use a story about how and why it exists.
  
Would screenwriting templates about what makes a 'good story' help you formulate your interesting story? 

How would the ability to compare to reveal differences help you to tell your story and expand your business?

Handwritten

"Asemic" by Luis Colon

I write by hand quite often. Mostly I do so because I enjoy it. In fact, I love writing that is "Asemic" - which looks as if it's writing but actually is only similar to it, as this image depicts above.

I have numerous hand-written books. Often, the first thing I do when I get a cool little blank book is to put in page numbers, leaving a few pages at the front for a "table of contents." Then as I add (random fashion, usually) to the contents of the book, I notate in the front what page and what the subject I wrote about is - so I can find it easily later on.

I have books about interesting finds and links (yes, I do really hand-write the links along with explanations about what they are so if they become obsolete I can find them later on - sometimes I paste in pictures and other relevant information in case the links get taken away.)

I have books of lists and processes done after learning Edward de Bono thinking skills and suggestions from Barbara Sher. Some of these are about my own individuation - such as how I come across to strangers at first impression so I can choose how to use common misunderstandings that strangers assume about me. I have made various sorts of "Bucket Lists" for various reasons and purposes, (such as movies and books I might want t to check out - or books I get from the library that I might want to check out again.) Some of these hand-written books of mine are written out in multi-colored pens, so the ideas are classified with color coding. I make lists of people I met incidentally and why I connected with them. I have lists of people I met online and how we came to mean something to each other. I have lists of people I ran into on Periscope.tv and what I enjoyed about them, with their user names and how to get in touch later through other platforms.

I made lists of figures of speech, lists of interesting scrabble words and what they mean, collections of strange facts about plants or fruit or places. I made lists about where to find things I might want to locate that I've "hidden in a good spot" from myself; I even have a hard copy of my passwords that I keep updated so I don't repeat the old ones.

Since I was a teenager, I have volumes of pretty much all of my "major decisions." These mostly contain the questions I asked myself when I was thinking about what to do next with my life. Strange how these questions are often cyclical or perennial. How often these questions get exactly the same answers (after consulting the I Ching) is even more of a coincidence, especially when these questions are duplicated DECADES apart! So over time, I have evolved what I could call a "Decision Journal." 

I read fast, so often I'll read a book at my "regular fast" speed, then go back and annotate and study it the second or third time through it, reading it a few times. I have outlines of books that I thought had information for me that was so important that they deserved to be studied. I wanted to be able to use the book's contents for a tool in the course of my life - books on dialogue skills, on negotiation skills, on communication skills. For that purpose, certain titles I bought needed outlining, practice and revisiting. Other handwritten books of collected study notes I've been inspired to write sometimes came from library books or books I borrowed from other people that I had to return. I found studying books by writing notes by hand was a way to put into practice tips another other good ideas that I wanted to really LEARN that was embedded within the contents of books. 

I have made handwritten books of song lyrics; books that annotate what's inside of long sound files when I recorded practice sessions where song lyrics first happened, accidentally from complete inspiration. I have notes about how to make clay ocarinas by hand from scratch that an old roommate used to do who was able to...step-by-step telling me exactly how to do it.

I have books of my own poetry, (which doesn't happen that often! But some I even illustrated.) 

I have books of dreams that lingered after waking, (but those are pretty sloppy in appearance.) 

I wrote out in various collected little books project outlines I thought I might want to do but haven't gotten around to doing yet -just in case I do want to do them sometimes in the future. 

I have lists of items I might want to make out of clay that I put thought into designing in original ways if I ever get the access to a kiln...the same involving the use of a 3D printer! (mostly replacement pieces of plastic that I can't get any other way.) 

I have lists of things to buy if I ever get enough money for them; (currently on that list is an electric fold-up bike.) 

I have lists of places I'd like to donate to if I ever have so much money that I might wonder what to do with it.

I have hand-written books like screen-writing for a video series presentation(s) about concepts related to Alexander Technique. (just am finishing one up on "Judgment.") 

 Perhaps I might get around to typing these promising handwritten words into the computer later and correct for "time of arrival" as I do the other editing challenges that make them easier to understand - since people cannot read my mind. Using the computer, I complete these ideas I wrote out by hand; but I often use handwriting to extend their ideas in situations where I don't have a computer or keyboard at the moment I get new related ideas.

I have books handwritten notes in many books about things I'm learning, such as expressions in Spanish and juicy words to learn to beat my friends who enjoy playing Scrabble. 

I have hand written books with notes from counseling sessions, random classes, (such as the one on the differences between wills & "living trusts, (even though I don't have enough to "fund" a trust. But my friend does, and now I can speak intelligently with her about that.) 

I collect strange health facts perhaps related to someone I know who needs help on their subject. 

I have hand-written notes from lectures I attended on odd subjects such as Neuroscience experiments or countries I've never heard of previously, just in case I might want to go there and revisit the information someday.

Sometimes it's just faster to use a pen or pencil to illustrate what you're designing rather than trying to use words to describe shapes, relationships, colors, relative volumes, what seemed funny or ironic to me... In fact, my favorite pen to use is one that can be erased like a pencil - but makes a great line that can be easily copied on a photocopier.

Plus, I have drawing books of things, images that I just wanted to hang out and draw because they happened to be there in front of me. Many of those are performers on stage, (because performers don't object to being looked at long enough to draw them. Being stared at by an artist tends to make strangers feel uncomfortable, because most people don't put together that I'm looking at them because I'm an artist and are actively drawing them.)

Yes, I write by hand quite often. If writing by hand makes you smarter...I'M A GENIUS by now!!

But who will care when I kick the bucket?

(All these handwritten books will undoubtedly end up in the trash...)