Developing Story Ideas, 3rd Edition

Developing Story Ideas, 3rd EditionThe Power and Purpose of StorytellingBy Michael Rabiger 218 Pages The vast majority of screenplay and writing books that focus on story development have little to say about the initial concept that inspired the piece. Developing Story Ideas: The Power and Purpose of Storytelling, Third Edition provides writers with ideational tools and resources to generate a wide variety of stories in a broad range of forms. Celebrated filmmaker and author Michael Rabiger demonstrates how to observe situations and themes in the writer’s own life experience, and use these as the basis for original storytelling.　This new edition has been updated with chapters on adaptation, improvisation, and cast collaboration’s roles in story construction, as well as a companion website featuring further projects, class assignments, instructor resources, and more.    Gain the practical tools and resources　 you need to spark your creativity and generate a wide variety of stories in a broad range of forms, including screenplays, documentaries, novels, short stories, and plays.     Through hands-on, step-by-step exercises and group and individual assignments, learn to use situations and themes from your own life experience, dreams, myth, and the news as the basis for character-driven storytelling; harness methods of screenplay format, dialogue, plot structure, and character development that will allow your stories to reach their fullest potentialTable of ContentsPart IOVERVIEWChapter 1: This Book, Its Goals, and Getting StartedYou and Your ResourcesWhy We Work in Outline FormIdeation and OriginalityIdentifying with the Main CharacterJump-Starting the ImaginationThe AssignmentsConcerning the Writing SamplesHaving FunThis Book’s Layout and GoalsGetting StartedThe game called CLOSATChapter 2: You and the Creative ProcessThe Journey of the SelfWanting to Tell StoriesSelf-Exposure and Giving SupportWhat is Therapy and What Is Art?What Stories MeanTheme and VariationJust Do ItOutline and ExpansionCollaborationPart IISELF-EXAMINATION, OBSERVATION,AND IMPROVISATION ASSIGNMENTSChapter 3: Artistic IdentityDisplacementAssignment 3-1: Survey of Yourself and Your Authorial GoalsAssignment 3-2: Presenting Yourself and Your Storytelling GoalsAssignment 3-3 Listening and ReactingGoing FartherChapter 4: Introductions and Playing "CLOSAT"ImprovisingMaintaining FocusPitchingIf You are Working AloneAssignment 4-1: Five-Minute Self-Introduction.Assignment 4-2: Play the CLOSAT game.Assignment 4-3: Develop your Own Pitching Guidelines.General discussionChapter 5: Autobiography and InfluencesAssignment 5-1: Autobiographical SurveyAssignment 5-2: Presenting your influences.Chapter 6: Observing from LifeAssignment 6-1: CLOSAT preparatory work and the writer’s journalAssignment 6-2: CLOSAT with 2 characters, 1 location and 1 ObjectAssignment 6-3: CLOSAT with 3 Characters, 2 objects, an act and a themeGoing FartherAssignment 6-4: CLOSAT Variations for a Group/ClassThe Power of Imagery.Going FartherPart IIIUSING THE TOOLS OF DRAMAChapter 7: Developing Your Characters and the Dramatist’s ToolkitChecklist for Developing Your CharactersThe Tools of the DramatistTools #1–4, Four HatsTool #5, the QuestionnaireTool #6, the Diving MaskTool #7, the Key (the Dramatic Premise)Tool #8, the Pressure Meter (Detects and Measures Conflict)Tool #9, the Stopwatch (Represents Time Progressing)Tool #10, the Cake Slice (Separates Drama into its Components)Tool #11, the Set of Boxes (Representing the Three-Act Structure.)Tool #12, the Telescope (Finding Point of View)Chapter 8: Analyzing a SceneUsing tool #5, the QuestionnaireUsing tool #6, the Diving Mask.Using tool #7, the Key (finding a dramatic premise)Using tool #8, the Pressure Meter (Detects and Measures Conflict)Using tool #9, the Stopwatch (Represents Time Progressing)An Analogy for DramaUsing tool # 10, the Cake-Slice (Separating Drama into its Components)Assignment 8-1: Character and DestinyAssignment 8-2: Volition and Point of ViewAssignment 8-3: Acting on volition.Assignment 8-4: Scene Divisions for "The Fisherman’s Wife."The Fisherman’s WifeChapter 9: Assessing a Complete WorkUsing tool #11, the Set of BoxesThe Three-Act Structure.Character Driven versus Plot Driven DramaUsing tool #8, the Pressure Meter Again (Sources of Pressure, Identifying Genre)Drawing a Dramatic Arc for a Whole WorkDrama and Point of ViewAssignment 9-1: Dividing "Little Red Riding Hood" into Scenes and Acts.Assignment 9-2 Character Types and Story Meanings.Going FartherChapter 10: Testing a Story Idea and Deciding Point of ViewExploring a Story’s EffectivenessStory Effectiveness QuestionnaireExploring a Story’s Meaning and PurposeStory Editing Tools in SummaryAssignment 10-1: Impressions and Feedback.Assignment 10-2: Critical Communication.Part IV:CREATIVE WRITING ASSIGNMENTSChapter 11: A Tale from ChildhoodOn DiscussionAssignment 11-1: An Event from ChildhoodAssignment 11-1: An Event from ChildhoodAssignment 11-3 Developing a childhood film or photo scene.Example 1 (Vilka Tzouras)Example 2 (Alex Meillier)Example 3 (Chris Darner)Example 4 (Amanda McCormick)DiscussionOn memoryGoing FartherChapter 12: Family StoryAssignment 12-1: A Story Told in Your FamilyAssignment 12-2 Family Story as Comic StripAssignment 12-3 The Untold StoryDiscussionExample 1 (Margaret Harris)Example 2 (Amanda McCormick)Example 3 (Peter Riley)Going FartherChapter 13: A Myth, Legend, or Folktale RetoldInterpreting Oral TalesAdaptation ProblemsAssignment 13-1 Free Choice of Tale.Assignment 13-2 MythAssignment 13-3 LegendAssignment 13-4 FolktaleDiscussionExample #1: The Legend of Pretty Boy Floyd Retold (Michael Hanttula)Example #2 (Tatsuya Guillermo Ohno)Example #3: Sisyphus Cries Dixie: A Modern Story (Michelle Arnove)DiscussionGoing FartherChapter 14: Dream StoryAssignment 14-1: Writing up a DreamAssignment 14-2: Surreal NarrativeAssignment 14-3: Linking Dreams into One NarrativeAssignment 14-4 Dream and MythDiscussionDream Sequence #1 (Chris Darner)Dream Sequence #2 (Michael Hanttula)Dream Sequence #3 (Cynthia Merwarth)Going FartherChapter 15: Adapting a Short Story Evaluating a Story for Adaptation to the ScreenAssignment 15-1: Short Story AnalysisAssignment 15-2: Adaptation IssuesAssignment 15-3: Dramatic BreakdownDiscussionExample 1: "An Encounter," from Dubliners, by James Joyce (Peter Riley)Example 2, "Le Diner de Cons," by Francis Veber (Louis Leterrier)OverviewGoing FartherChapter 16: Ten-Minute, News Inspired StoryMaking a Working HypothesisAssignment 16-1: A picture and its consequences.Assignment 16-2: Reality TV show.Assignment 16-3: Docudrama.Assignment 16-4: Based on a Real Story...Assignment 16-5: Behind the FaçadeAssignment 16-6: This Far, and No FartherAssignment 16-7: Analyze Four News Items.Assignment 16-8: Develop Interpersonal DifferenceDiscussionGoing FartherChapter 17: A Documentary SubjectAssignment 17-1: A Documentary SubjectAssignment 17-2: Simple Voice-Over Personal FilmAssignment 17-3: Simple Voice-Over Historical FilmDocumentary Subject (Angela Galyean)Going FartherChapter 18: Thirty-Minute Original FictionAssignment 18-1: Treatment for an Original Thirty-Minute Fiction Piece.Assignment 18-2: An Original 30-minute Fiction Piece Inspired by an Image.Assignment 18-3: An Original 30-minute Fiction Piece Inspired by CLOSAT Cards.Assignment 18-3: An Original 30-minute Fiction Piece Inspired by CLOSAT Cards.Example #1: Thirty-Minute Original Fiction Idea (Michael Hanttula)Example #2: "Eggs Benedict" (Michelle Arnove)On ComedyGoing FartherChapter 19: Feature FilmAssignment 19-1: Idea for a Feature Film (Featuring Two Points of View)Example: Feature Film Idea (Paul Flanagan)On The Writing Process and Receiving CriticismGoing FartherPart VCOLLABORATIVE STORY DEVELOPMENTChapter 20: Wholly Improvised (Scenes and story construction in the vein of Cassavetes, Fassbinder, Linklater)Chapter 21: Screenplay generated from Improvisation (Screenplay generated from a core of ideas, cast collaboration and improvisations, then best material transcribed and shaped into a screenplay, in the vein of Bergman, Leigh)Part VTHE EMERGING WRITERChapter 22: Revisiting Your Artistic IdentityYour Creative DirectionAssignment 20-1: Revisiting your Artistic Identity.Assignment 20-2: Say Where You’d Like to Go.Assignment 20-3: Ideas and Ambitions.Assignment 20-4 Setting a Personal Agenda.Discussion and RetrospectivePart VI:EXPANDING YOUR WORK INTO ITS FINAL FORMChapter 23: Story-Editing Your OutlineStructural OptionsTransitionsStream of ConsciousnessTroubleshootingYielding to the Dramatic ConventionsChapter 24: Expanding Your OutlineWriting for the ScreenStandard Screenplay FormatCamera and Editing DirectionsSound and Music DirectionsDocumentary Film ProposalPlaysStandard Playwriting FormatNovel or Short Story FormatBiographyMichael Rabiger　began in the cutting rooms of England’s Pinewood and Shepperton Studios, became an editor and BBC director of documentaries, and then specialized for many years in the US as a production and aesthetics educator. At Columbia College Chicago he was co-founder, then chair of the Film/Video Department, and established the Michael Rabiger Center for Documentary. He has directed or edited more than 35 films, given workshops in many countries, and led a multinational European workshop for CILECT. Additionally, he won the International Documentary Association's Scholarship and Preservation Award, served as a Fulbright Specialist in South Africa, and is an honorary professor at the University of Buenos Aires. He is the author of Directing the Documentary, and the co-author of Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics, both published by Focal Press and available in multiple languages.Reviews    "Whenever a book’s lifespan makes it through several editions, you know that it must be doing something right...Now in it’s third edition, Michael Rabiger’s Developing Story Ideas serves an area of creative development which is normally not addressed in most storytelling/screenwriting manuals; how to come up with an idea for a story in the first place."    --Jonny Elwyn, freelance film editor and creator of jonnyelwyn.co.uk