May the 8th Loop With You

1st Drafts, Story Circles, and returning back to where we started when writing.

Ahoy Mythopoeians!

Time moves inextricably forward, and we find ourselves a little over a week into May. Where did the time go? On the creative front, I’ve been slogging through the first very rough draft of Glow #10, laying the groundwork for the issue while still wrestling with how to bring all of the storylines together.

I often feel like writing is an impossibly difficult task, taking into account the need, wants, and actions of dozens of characters in a way that has to feel justified and satisfying. Then again, if we look at it from purely the external, they are very simple: we bring characters together, only to tear them apart from another, and then repeat. The constraints of narrative demand that eventually our forces converge, or are eventually separated.

One of my favorite lines in all of fiction is the opening of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms:

“The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. Thus it has ever been.”

Nonetheless, it doesn’t help much when you’re in the middle of it! Usually for first drafts I try to remind myself that it’s OK to be bad, to prioritize completion rather than perfection, and to write copious notes to myself ruminating on where things are going, why, and what’s stopping them from going together.

I’ve found in my years writing story that it is a peculiar thing. Often we find ourselves, in the end, where we were in the beginning. The same idea, the same beat, only somehow better - now motivated, refined, and polished smoothly within an understanding of the characters, world, and motivations. Is the process then more for the writer than the audience?

I recently watched the above video, exploring where screenwriter Michael Arndt’s draft of Star Wars: Episode VII could have gone - what would eventually become The Force Awakens. Michael Arndt is the writer of Little Miss Sunshine and Toy Story 3 - one of the most brilliant living screenwriters today.

But, as Kathleen Kennedy puts it in the Star Wars video: “[Michael Arndt] usually needs about two to three years to immerse himself and then actually create a screenplay..”

Arndt was working off of George Lucas’ outline for Episodes VII-IX. Say what you will about George, but he’s always been a savant at narrative structure. Star Wars I-VI rhyme brilliantly, if nothing else.

Anyway, that makes me wonder what could have been? I think what Arndt would have produced would adhere very closely to George’s original outlines, with fully realized, dynamic characters with their own wants, desires, needs. Except, to get there, Arndt would have needed to stew in Star Wars for a long time.

Ah, what could have been. All’s that is to say if you are writing and you are feeling stuck or frustrated, keep going! The mountain is difficult to climb, but always worth it once you get to the top.

(I say as if to remind myself. Again, this blog is probably nothing more than me trying motivate myself to write more - which means mostly pumping myself up by pretending I’m pumping others up. You got this!)

Ray