Story guru, lecturer, consultant and screenwriter Bobette Buster did a lecture during the Do Lectures last September where she talks about elements that participate in creating the pattern to great storytelling.
It’s an organic presentation that gives a lot of different food to think, instead of the usual list of 5/6 bullet points.
But here are some of the ideas Buster shared that grabbed my attention:
- The Audience wants to cherish a character’s journey, identify with them and take them into our lives.
- People want to be taken to a world they would otherwise never have experienced and they want to see the extraordinary out of the ordinary. ( See Slumdog Millionaire, David Copperfield.)
- The greatest stories are all about characters resisting loving themselves
- Ultimately all stories are about watching someone becoming fully alive or a living dead.
All along, Buster emphasized a key concept in developing a character to give him/her a powerful and relatable journey. I tried to assemble the pieces although I would recommend to listen to the whole talk to get a better and broader understanding:
- Write about ‘The Dark Night of the Soul‘ : Follow a character in its darkest time, when he learns how to walk through the woods alone and what it is, and where does he discovers the courage to win his life. The choice we make is the choice we resist that will set us free. In cinema we have to magnify and expand the moment the character resists his greatest fear, and show the key moment; when the character takes a baby step to act upon his fear and thrives.
Below you can listen to Buster’s full talk, enjoy:
Thanks to Storyshots
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