Story Line

by Jennifer Grisanti

  If you’re having trouble wrapping your head around backstory, consider this: Think about the climax of your favorite movie. Everything that led up to the moment of climax is essentially backstory. If you were to start a new story beginning with your character’s “all is lost” moment from your old story, you would use bits and pieces of their journey to the climax of your old story to make us care for your character in your new story.

  When considering the backstory of your central character, think of everything that may have happened in his or her life that preceded the catalyst that begins your story. How can you use this to reveal character within your story? Think of ways that it can be reflected in lines of dialogue or in action or visuals. Without even a single word being spoken, we can tell a lot by seeing the way characters react. A perfect example of this is a scene from The Hurt Locker that I described in an earlier chapter. When we see Will James in the cereal aisle of a grocery story with a multitude of choices in front of him, we see a complete disconnection with this part of his life. He can easily choose which wire to cut to dismantle an IED but he has much more difficulty deciding which box of cereal to pick for his family. This gives us an idea of what is behind his addiction to the rush. It solidifies the words that were said at the beginning of the film, “War is a drug.” Will is comfortable taking risks and completing a mission. He is not comfortable with the emotional side of his life. How many of us can relate to this? It is universal.

  The movie 500 Days of Summer is unique because we actually get to see the backstory unfold. The film begins halfway into the 500-day story and we get to see the lead character’s reaction to his breakup with Summer. Then, the film jumps back and forth in time, and we see exactly what led up to this moment. We know why the characters are reacting the way they are because we actually get to see the backstory play out. This story is structured in a unique and clever way. You should watch it and really pay attention to how the backstory unfolds in the present; it elevates the emotion of the overall story.

  Many people choose to use flashbacks to reveal backstory. Some executives consider flashbacks a “lazy” way to tell story. I do find it fascinating that they were hugely popular for a very long time with shows like Ally McBeal. Then, development executives started turning away from them. Yet, they have come back in many current successful series. When they’re done well, like in Lost, Damages, and Dexter, we see that flashbacks are one way to reveal backstory. I do encourage you to first think about how you can reveal backstory in the present moment versus having to flashback. I think that many flashbacks are not done well and this is why an aversion to them has developed. Using flashbacks takes you out of the heat of the moment, so if you do reveal backstory this way, make sure that you choose moments in the backstory that deepen what is happening in the present moment.

  The best way to master backstory is to study how the revelation of backstory is executed on shows that you feel work really well. When you watch TV shows and movies and read novels, start paying attention to how the characters’ backstories are revealed. When you feel it’s been done in a way that really works for the story, take note, and soon you will begin to see how to integrate backstory into your writing.

  The backstory gives us a sense of what drives your central character to achieve his or her goal. In serialized television shows like Dexter, Damages, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, and Big Love, start watching how things that happen in earlier episodes influence goals and dilemmas in later episodes. These series do an exquisite job of expressing how what happens in the past affects the present. I encourage you to watch a whole season of one of these shows over a weekend. Really recognize how they structure story to reveal character from previous episodes in later episodes. Think about how you can do this with your own story. Imagine that you’ve had several episodes before your episode. Think about what may have happened in previous episodes that led your character to react the way he does in the present. Then, think of creative ways that you can reveal this in the heat of the moment that will help us connect with your character even more.

  In Dexter, the backstory is pivotal because everything that happened in Dexter’s childhood and upbringing informs us as to why he behaves the way that he does in the present. It helps us connect with Dexter’s darkness because we see firsthand what formed it. Dexter also uses flash forwards to give us a sense of Dexter’s fears as to how his backstory could influence his future choices. The series puts a human face on a character that most of us would have no idea how to relate to, but, because his backstory is explored so effectively, we see his darkness in a similar way as we see our own.

  In Lost (Bad Robot), the writers do a beautiful job of weaving in a series of past moments that lead up to the present moment and help us to connect with and better understand why the characters behave in the way that they do. I recall being mesmerized by the emotional impact this added when the series started. They began by recreating a few moments that led up to the present. Then, they evolved the backstories of each character. Many of the shows that have done this have elevated the intellectual level of story on television overall.

  As I mentioned earlier, you can do this by starting to observe your own life and the lives of those around you and connecting all the moments that lead us to behave the way that we do. Think about how you react to rejection. Is your reaction usually based just on what happens in the present moment? Or, is your reaction based on the fact that this is a reminder of all the other times you’ve been rejected? There is a common saying, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be married?” I remember hearing this line and seeing the truth behind it as it applied to my own marriage. Very often, when we have arguments in our relationships, it has very little to do with the heat of the moment. More than likely, there was a series of disappointments or misunderstandings that lead us to the final breaking point. Look into these moments. These are your gold in writing.

  I recall reading a spec script for The Sopranos written by Rob Wright. It stood out because of the way he wove the backstory into the present story lines. The script started with a big moment in the present where we see Tony having a violent reaction to a business situation. Then, it takes us back to a moment in Tony’s childhood when he was caught masturbating. In this moment, he was terribly humiliated. Clearly, it scarred him. Seeing and understanding this moment elevated and strengthened his present day dilemma. It was this moment that led up to a series of other moments allowing us to understand why he was behaving the way that he was in the present. This theme was also woven into the other story lines. It was one of the most memorable specs that I read in my career. When I gave it to the showrunner of Charmed, Brad Kern, for staffing, he was also very impressed. In fact, between the script and the meeting, he hired Rob Wright in the room. This is rare. It shows that if you write from your core and your truth and then fictionalize it in your story, you will emotionally affect your audience. The writer understood how to take a universal life moment that occurred in the backstory and use it to help us understand Tony’s present goal/dilemma. This isn’t easy to do, but if you can learn to master this, your scripts will rise to the top of the stacks.

  EXERCISE

  In earlier chapters, you were asked to think about goals and dilemmas that you faced in your life. Now, I want you to think about your backstory, the series of events that led up to your goals and dilemmas. Think about the TV series Lost and how it weaves in moments of backstory that affect present decisions. What are the moments leading to your pivotal life decisions? This will help you when you think about the backstory of the characters in your writing. Also, think about how you can reveal this backstory in the present through dialogue versus having to go back in time through flashbacks. An example from this chapter is the development of Ryan’s character in Up in the Air. By hearing his line, “The slower we move, the faster we die,” and his V.O., “Last year I spent 322 days on the road, which means that I had to spend 43 miserable days at home,” we tap into his backstory. Clearly he
has negative feelings about being at home. We know this without having to understand the exact moments that led to the creation of this philosophy. How can you explain your backstory through a similar method and transform it into your story lines?

  PART THREE

  Action

  Chapter Ten

  HOW DID YOUR LIFE DILEMMAS UNFOLD? WHAT WAS THE SEQUENCE OF EVENTS? DID THEY INFLUENCE YOUR GOALS?

  Drama, instead of telling us the whole of a man’s life, must place him in such a situation, tie such a knot, that when it is untied, the whole man is visible.

  ~ Leo Tolstoy

  The next few chapters are about exploring the sequence of events in our lives that leads up to our goal and dilemmas and what actions we take as a result. You’ve heard the saying, “Art imitates life.” Well, this is all too true. When we analyze the movies and TV episodes we see and the books we read, we often recognize events from the lives of people we know. It is truly amazing to see how many of us go through such similar life experiences. The events leading up to the climax of the story might be totally different, but the final moment and the emotions that surface from it are often shared by the audience in many different ways. This is the beauty and the power of story. Sometimes story allows us a unique view of situations, circumstances, and emotional experiences we may never know, but other times it comforts us by portraying a truth we understand all too well. In a broadcast not long after the real life events in the scandal involving the adultery of Senator John Edwards, 20/20 told the story of Edwards’ unraveling political career through the eyes of his aide, Andrew Young.

  As I watched, I was uncomfortable that Young was airing the dirty laundry of a man he once admired, but still enthralled by the series of events that led up to his betrayal. To turn on a mentor in the way that Young did, there had to be a pivotal point of no return. I was curious as to what dilemma set up his goal.

  During the 20/20 interview, I found the turning point for Young was when Edwards asked Young to lie and say that he was the father of John Edward’s mistresses’ child. Andrew Young is married with kids. The dilemma he faced was that he could obey his boss, but this meant hurting his wife and kids. I wondered how someone could ever ask someone else to sacrifice so much for his own self-preservation? What could possibly lead a person to believe that this would be okay? Does he somehow convince himself that this is for the betterment of others? Is he so entrenched in his own fear of loss that he has no regard for how he’s affecting another person’s life? This is when my own perspective of the interview shifted. When the interview started, a part of me was disappointed that Young would turn on Edwards like this and make a goal of exposing him. But, after hearing Young’s story, I was disappointed in Edwards for being so selfish.

  A log line for this story could be, “An idealistic Presidential candidate’s aide lies to cover the truth and finds himself caught in a dilemma between continuing the lie to protect his mentor or telling the truth to protect himself.” When you see stories like this on the news, think about how you can fictionalize pivotal life moments like Young’s breaking point. This is a great way to come up with story. When something like this is in the public eye, there is a curiosity that forms in the public consciousness. As a storyteller, this is a prime opportunity for you to nab a moment of truth and fictionalize it.

  They say that art imitates life. Well, in an episode of Big Love that aired while all this was going on, politics again appear to be treacherous. In this episode, when Bill, played by Bill Paxton, is about to announce his candidacy and he finds out that his opponent speculates he practices polygamy, he asks his colleague Don to lie and say that he is actually the polygamist. This is what story does. It takes us into real life scenarios and fictionalizes and dramatizes them in a way to bring us into the experience. In the series, we saw the moments that led up to this dilemma before a choice was made about how to deal with it. If you start looking at your own life and the lives of those around you, you will begin to see patterns and sequences of events that lead up to certain behaviors.

  Think about the pivotal life moments you’ve gone through. What actions did you take in each situation that lead to its climax? What are the moments that you tap into as a sequence that leads up to the dilemma? It is in these situations that we begin to see patterns of our own behavior and how we bring certain things into our lives. When people experience big moments like the loss of a job, an addiction that may lead to a tragedy, the betrayal of a loved one, or any type of major life transition, there is always a sequence of events that led up to it. Start looking in your story and the stories you soak in from television, movies, and those around you and think about story in terms of a sequence of events. When you look at Greek mythology, you see a sequence that leads up to the ultimate tragedy. There is usually a catalyst and then often a series of bad decisions and obstacles that lead to the dilemma. We think this just happens in story, but this often happens in real life as well.

  When I think of all of the high-powered people going through monumental life moments and losing it all, right on the verge of it coming together, it reminds me of the Greek tragedies. It sometimes feels like we are on this predestined path where we are supposed to experience our falls, understand the purpose behind them, get back up, and move to the next stage: redemption. This is if you are the saboteur of your own destiny. On another episode of 20/20, they did a story on political wives and all the women who have had to deal with cheating spouses and men going public with their indiscretions. As I listened, I was captivated by the story of Jenny Sanford, the ex-wife of Mark Sanford, governor of South Carolina. She detailed life with Sanford, who seemed like a tightfisted jerk long before he bolted for a tryst with his Argentinean lover, while saying that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. As I listened to how Jenny’s husband betrayed her with his affair and constantly publicly referred to his mistress as his “soul mate,” it broke my heart. I watched the video of Mark Sanford speaking. As I mentioned earlier, stories like this make me think about the Greek tragedies and how when someone is on top of their game, they often do something that brings their rise to an end. Jenny showed tremendous courage by sharing her story. They have four boys. I’m intrigued to know how the boys interpret the actions of their father. Clearly, since it is such a public story, it will be a well-known part of their past. How do boys grow past the sins of their father? Maybe, one of them will become a writer and we will see this experience reflected in his story lines.

  In looking at your story, some of the tales might not be anything that dramatic or big compared to the stories of others. However, they are your stories. No one experiences them like you. No one feels the exact emotions that you do as you go through each life moment. The beauty is that you look at the core of the emotion behind these events and you fictionalize this passion into a sequence of moments in your story. Escalating stakes is a huge part of telling a strong story. So, when you think of the escalating moments in your own life, consider how you can fictionalize them and heighten the stakes even more. You might start with what you think is a small sequence of events leading up to your climax or turning point and make it much grander than it was in life but have the same authenticity of feeling behind the action. Being able to do this creates powerful and memorable story.

  I was watching an episode of High School Reunion (Next Entertainment) recently. The premise of this reality show is universal. I ask myself the question, do we ever grow past the labels and/or stereotypes that we were branded with in high school? What is it like being reunited for a week 20 years later? For many, it’s like sharing a week with your old wounds. Anyway, there was a couple that appeared on this show as a surprise to one of the people who was staying in the house. This couple had also attended high school with this group. They had been married for 16 years. They clearly served as a rock for many of the housemates. Their relationship was an inspiration to everyone there. One of their children has a disability. Listening to the big baseball player father go into the moments
where his daughter was crying in his arms because of the ignorance shown to her by other kids at her school was heart-wrenching. My eyes welled with tears. I wanted to understand my own emotional reaction, so I went deeper within myself to examine this feeling. We want to protect our children. We all know what it is like to feel isolated. So, when stories like this come up, it makes us angry and hurt for the present day situation but it also takes us back to times when we experienced pain in a similar way.

  What points happen in our lives that push us into a corner and force us to take action? What boundaries are crossed that lead to a turning point where you know that there is no going back? The experience of emotion is a phenomenon to me. Why do so many of us often sabotage things when we are at the height of possibility? Do we fear their going away, so we do the worst thing possible to attract our greatest fear? I often think we all suffer from varying degrees of low self-esteem, no matter how high we climb. The higher we get on the ladder, the more we have to lose with the fall. Knowing these extremes causes some people to climb higher and others not to climb at all. This is the human experience. It is these variations in action and consequence that build strong story lines.