Story Line

by Jennifer Grisanti

  We can all remember growing up and connecting with story whether we heard it, read it, or watched it on television or at the movie theaters. Story has this incredible way of engaging us and letting our imaginations go wild. It fulfills and enthralls us. It befriends us, keeps us warm, and offers us an escape. It doesn’t judge us. In fact, it does the opposite. It is just there to entertain us. It connects us to the truth of the storyteller, making us realize that we are not alone in our life experiences.

  Think of the way that story has inspired you over your lifetime. Often, story makes us feel empowered. We realize that no matter how bad things can get, we can rise above and achieve a goal. We can triumph and succeed.

  Most of the stories that have touched and inspired us over the years are derived from the truths of the storytellers. The best stories are written by the people who are not afraid to dive inside themselves and see what will surface on the page. The writers with the most courage have the greatest opportunity to connect the audience to their vision.

  The intention of Story Line: Finding Gold in Your Life Story is to help you see the true value that lies within. The book is designed to alternate between free-thinking and crafting those explorations into your writing. Each topic discussed begins with a chapter teaching you to draw truth from your life moments and is followed by a chapter discussing how you apply that truth to your story lines. Exercises and examples from both television and film are provided to help guide you. You’ll discover nuggets of information and advice throughout Story Line. Pause when you come across one, and spend a moment or two to reflect on what personal meaning is there for you.

  It is your story. It is powerful. It is eager to come out and join forces with fiction so that it can reach new heights, touch hearts, and entertain. It is worth doing the work to get there. We want to hear your voice.

  Chapter One

  WHAT IS A LOG LINE?

  HOW DO YOU LEARN TO

  IDENTIFY LOG LINES IN

  YOUR OWN LIFE?

  The good writer seems to be writing about himself, but has his eye always on that thread of the Universe which runs through himself and all things.

  ~ Catherine Drinker Bowen

  Writing is a very frightening endeavor for most people. We write to express ourselves, to emote, to relate, to understand, to make sense of, to examine, to shed, and, very often, just to be. One of the greatest goals of writing is to connect with your audience on an emotional level. To make them feel, to help them identify. How do you do this? You go inside yourself and explore your own personal well of emotion. So often in life we look for answers on the outside. Outside ourselves is where the activity is, so it’s only natural that we seek reason there. Yet, it is inside that we interpret and feel the effects of what we experience externally. To connect with others, we need to connect with ourselves. Your personal story is your gold and your true gift as a writer. The key to your success as a writer is understanding how to interpret and express your personal experiences in a universal way and learning to add fiction to your truth. However, looking inside ourselves is no easy task. It’s an obstacle most of us don’t know how to approach.

  Going within means shining a light on what is. What if others see what is really going on inside your mind and heart? Are you afraid of feeling judged? Do you worry that they won’t love you anymore or that you might feel the pain of rejection? Are you afraid of feeling unworthy? What is self-worth? Do we ever really feel it?

  What if our words hurt our family? What if our anger takes on a life of its own? Delving into our core emotional selves is definitely frightening, but if we’re totally honest, others will connect with us and our story. It is identifying our truth and having the courage to put it on the page that is our greatest challenge. Plus, often, when we put it out there, there is a sigh of relief. A weight has been lifted, and we realize that we are not alone.

  Your truth matters. Chances are that the emotions you are burying inside are what millions of others are feeling and afraid to identify with. I have analyzed story for over 20 years. I helped launch many writing careers. During this time, I noticed one common thread tying together all the writers I’ve seen gain tremendous success: They understand how to look inside themselves for answers. Their writing reflects depth, emotion, and connection. They’ve learned how to fictionalize their own personal experience, allowing it to surface in their writing through the use of theme and symbolism and drawing audiences into the stories they tell.

  As a television executive for over a decade at CBS/Paramount and Spelling Television Inc., staffing and working with writers, as well as developing story for top prime time shows, was my job. When I met with writers, I often asked about their personal stories. I did this as a way to understand how I could best market them to my executive producer so that they would have a stronger chance of getting the job. As we dived into their stories, I would often ask the question, “Have you ever written about that experience?” First, I would see doubt. Then, I’d see fear. Then, I’d watch their face light up and recognize that there was something worth exploring. Since I knew that completely autobiographical stories rarely transfer well, I taught them to draw emotion from these experiences as a way to authenticate and make their writing stand out. The results I saw were phenomenal. Suddenly, writers who hadn’t been staffed got staffed. Writers previously stalled in development were suddenly selling pilots. Writers who couldn’t find representation suddenly had many agents vying for them. The key to their success was looking inside themselves.

  My last staff job in the corporate world was VP of Current Programs at CBS/Paramount. After this, I started my own business in January of 2008. I identified a niche in the market with regards to story. I knew that what I was able to pull out of writers had value for their success. So, I started a business that purely focuses on the development of story. I figured that the best way to see results was through one-on-one consults. I give individual writers their own personal development executive to help them navigate the terrain that often accompanies a career in writing. Since I launched my company, I’ve worked with over 200 writers. The results of the one-on-one consults have been amazing. I’ve helped writers get agents and managers, get staffed, sell pilots and helped the right people to see their work creating a possibility.

  I also teach seminars. It was during one of these seminars that I came up with the concept of getting writers to write an exercise that I call a Log Line for Your Life. What is a log line? Wikipedia’s definition is, “A log line is a brief summary of a television program or movie, often providing both a synopsis of the program’s plot, and an emotional ‘hook’ to stimulate interest.” I tell writers to write their log lines by thinking about the setup of who, dilemma, action, and goal. You want to establish empathy for your central character, present the dilemma and the action that is taken, and the goal. Strong log lines often have irony in them. A perfect example is the log line from the feature, Pretty Woman (Touchstone Pictures, 1990): “A cutthroat businessman who wants to remain detached needs an escort for some social engagements, and hires a beautiful prostitute he meets…only to fall in love.”

  Personal log lines involve taking moments in your life and phrasing them in a way that makes a story. You can take a theme in your life or a life moment, add some fiction to it, and formulate an idea. A log line that reflects a moment in my life is, “A new bride who lives in a fairy tale fantasy falls through a rabbit hole and when she awakens, finds herself President of Cheated On Anonymous.” A second log line that reflects a pivotal moment in my life is, “When a work-obsessed corporate executive experiences a fall from grace, she is forced to turn her plan B into her plan A and discovers that her plan B was her plan A all along.” Writing a log line is a way of detaching from your story and looking at it from an objective viewpoint. By going into your own life experiences, extracting your truth and learning how to frame it into a log line, you will strengthen your awareness of how to organize story and this will help you to write stronger l
og lines for your scripts.

  You can start thinking about log lines in your life by thinking of universal life moments that you’ve experienced. By “universal life moment,” I mean moments in your life when your world was turned upside down and your sense of reality, as you knew it, shifted. Throughout this book, I will teach you how to dive into these moments and fictionalize them, writing log lines that reflect your universal life moments and helping you build and elevate the fictional stories that you are working on. When you write what you know, you write from an authentic place. Having the courage and the insight to do this will elevate your writing and connect you with your audience.

  The beauty of this exercise is that it will help you relate with people in a new way. One group I did it with said that they’ve been sitting next to people for years in their guild and they had no idea that these stories were under the surface. They suddenly saw people in a new light. This is the gift of story. When you go inside and uncover what is there, you will be surprised by the depth it adds to the way that you write and how this depth will connect you with your audience. You will feel a passion that maybe you haven’t felt before, because when you write what you know, you write from your truth. When you write from your truth, you identify your voice. Your voice is what will set you apart from other writers.

  At this point in my career, I’ve probably read over 3,000 scripts. The ones that really stand out to me are those that have mastered the use of theme and symbolism. This is the icing on the cake of story for me. Theme and symbolism can often be drawn from our universal life moments.

  For example, just before my marriage ended, a necklace that my husband had given me broke. I remember this very vividly because the necklace breaking was a symbol of things to come. I’ve had many signs like this in my life. While these symbolic moments may be painful, they also present an opportunity to add depth to the stories you tell. If you have experienced true moments, chances are that countless others have as well, and finding a way to use these moments in your writing will connect your audience to your story.

  If you draw from moments of truth in your life, you will write your themes and symbolism from a stronger place. Current movies that have utilized theme and symbolism well and are likely drawn from the true life experiences of the storytellers are: Star Trek (Paramount, 2009), with the theme of “logic versus emotion,” Frost/Nixon (Universal Pictures, 2008), with the theme and symbolism behind exploring recovery after a fall from grace, and The Lives of Others (Arte, 2006), the German film that won the best foreign film in 2007, explores loyalty in depth. Avatar (20th Century-Fox Film, 2009) explores the theme of freedom and symbolizes it through the use and paralyzation of the central character’s legs.

  The final and probably most important part of story that I like to reflect on in reading your log line and your writing is the goal and dilemma faced by your lead character. In simple terms, what does your central character want? This covers the goal. If you want to go further and strengthen your story even more, develop the dilemma part of the goal. Jeffrey Kitchen covers this incredibly well in his book Writing a Great Movie: Key Tools for Successful Screenwriting. He writes, “Dilemma may be defined as a situation with a choice to be made in which neither alternative is acceptable.” If your goal is crystal clear, stemming from a dilemma or leading into a dilemma, your story has a much greater chance of working.

  Feature-wise, strong examples of this are found in Avatar. We know that the lead character Jake (Sam Worthington) wants the use of his legs back as an external goal. The dilemma he faces is that if he does what the antagonist wants him to do, he will get his legs back; however, in doing this, he will have to betray his love interest. The strength and clarity of this dilemma heightens the emotional stakes tremendously. Internally, he wants to fill his brother’s shoes and earn his place, being held in higher esteem. This self-worth is taught to him through his love interest Nitiri (Zoe Saldana) and the character Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver).

  Television-wise, Breaking Bad (Sony Pictures Television), Big Love (Playtone Productions), and Mad Men (AMC), do beautiful jobs of exemplifying with clarity what the central characters want and the dilemmas that they face. In Breaking Bad, there is a great overall series dilemma faced by Walt (played by Bryan Cranston). After being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he realizes that when he dies, his family will be left with nothing. So, since he’s a chemistry teacher, he comes up with the idea of dealing meth. The two sides of his dilemma are, first, if he deals meth, he risks getting caught and going to jail, but he will have money to leave his wife and their handicapped son; second, if he doesn’t make meth, he will have very little to leave his family and will die feeling like he didn’t provide enough for them. The series explores both sides of this dilemma. A prevalent dilemma leading to a strong goal or stemming from a strong goal elevates the strength of your story. If this goal, resulting from the dilemma or leading to the dilemma, is blurred, your story will suffer, but if your goal is clear, your story will be stronger.

  I find that many writers have difficulty defining their character’s goal because most people are not totally clear on what they want in their own lives. So, if you don’t know with clarity what you want, how do you write it? By finding clarity in your own life, you will find clarity in your writing. Doing this involves “Developing from Within,” a phrase I’ve adopted as my brand. I believe that the stronger you are inside, the stronger you are on the page.

  We will explore universal life moments, theme, symbolism and goals and dilemmas in depth in this book because they are elements that go into defining the log lines for your life. By defining your life log lines, you will bring yourself personal clarity and enhance and elevate your writing, increasing your chances of a long career as a successful working writer. However, the first step is looking inside yourself and embracing your own story.

  Chapter Two

  CREATE UNIVERSAL MOMENTS IN YOUR STORY LINES

  Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.

  ~ William Wordsworth

  As a way to help writers reach inside themselves, I ask them to identify a few universal life moments. A “universal life moment” occurs when your world is in turmoil and your sense of reality, as you know it, shifts. Often times, this is an “all is lost” moment. Your life has changed. You are put in a position of choice. You can take action, or you can choose to stay where you are, but either way, your reality will never be the same again.

  In my seminars, I ask writers to think about these moments in their lives and share one with the class. This is a scary request. More than likely, what we felt during these moments was dark, and it takes true courage to approach the unknown scariness that is our own darkness. Yet, on the other side of darkness, we often find light. So, if we can begin to embrace our darkness by understanding that light will eventually follow, it may help our fear subside.

  Digging into our personal unknown allows us to experience a myriad of emotions and fears, and this is the core worth of the experience. When we react, we often feel we are reacting to an external event, yet, very often it is not the event at all that we are upset about, but rather the emotions that it stirs up inside of us. The event usually symbolizes a greater secret or pain. The event often forces us to uncover something that we swept under the rug and deal with our demons before we can move forward.

  One of my most memorable universal life moments occurred when I attended the wedding of a childhood friend shortly after my own divorce. After you’ve been through a divorce, weddings tend to take on a whole new meaning. You start to doubt the ceremony. A part of you wants to jump up and shout, “Don’t do it! If it doesn’t work, your heart will be shattered!” However, you compose yourself, restrict the crazy scenarios you’re imagining to the confines of your mind, and try to enjoy the ceremony, truly hoping for the best. Well, this particular wedding was back home in Whittier, California, the small suburb of Los Angeles where I had grown up. I was raised in a picturesque neigh
borhood called Friendly Hills, and as I looked around at the other wedding guests, I saw many of the supposedly happy couples that had been part of the Friendly Hills community when I was a child. These were the couples that had helped construct my conception of marriage. After experiencing my own divorce so shortly after my wedding, I found myself on a quest for answers. As I inquired about each couple, many of them no longer together, but all of whom I had assumed to have a strong marriage, my mother enlightened me to some of the truth behind the facade. It wasn’t what I had imagined it to be. Each of these couples had their own issues, their own struggles, their own darkness. The perfect picture of marriage that I had held onto so tightly as a child was shattering into a million pieces. It wasn’t real. I had crafted a fantasy in my mind and heart, and now a new truth was revealed, shifting my reality as I knew it.

  This moment linked to other moments during my career as a television executive. One of the popular “spec scripts” being submitted during my divorce was Ally McBeal (20th Century-Fox, 1997). I recall reading 50 of these specs that season and constantly finding myself at the point of tears because it felt like there were so many people who understood my pain. I wasn’t isolated. In my writer meetings, after I’d share my story as a way to get writers to define and feel comfortable sharing their own, I’d hear story after story about cheating spouses. A part of me didn’t want to admit that this truth was part of my experience too. I realized that when I got divorced, I became a reluctant member of a new club. In a moment, I was forced to grow up and let go of the fairy tale. I was left wondering when I would be able to paint a new picture of a life that was realistic and not based on fantasy.