Pixar storywriting tips movie#
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Writing “what you know” fills a story with your unique style, personality, and experiences.

You’ve probably heard the storytelling cliche: “write what you know.” This isn’t poor advice. For instance, if you’re writing about Vampires, you might ask things like: Do vampires have a specific blood type they prefer? What does that preference say about their personality? What if there was a vampire who hated the taste of blood? Step 3: Look Beyond What You Know Simply list everything that comes to mind when you think of a subject.

Pixar storywriting tips free#

If you’re having trouble linking ideas, try free association. Others require more creativity to connect.

Pixar storywriting tips movie#

Docter says for a movie like Monsters Inc., that involves scary creatures, he knew he’d have to deal with themes like fear and anxiety. Find ways to stretch it out and connect it with other subjects. It may be a theme you’d like to explore, a funny bit you want to perform, or a specific experience you wish to share. If you’ve completed step 1, you’re now armed with an idea to work with. Find one you’ll be eager to work on for the long haul. You don’t know what they’ll grow into until you take the time to develop them. Remember, at this stage, your ideas are still seedlings. Instead of chasing the elusive “perfect idea”, look for one that excites you.

Pixar storywriting tips full#

“Finding ideas is like digging for buried treasure: you might find a coin or two on the top, but usually the chest full of doubloons is buried deeper.”ĭuring this process, it’s tempting to apply labels like “good” or “bad” to your ideas. You often need to produce many crummy ones to find one you like. An intriguing idea rarely comes on your first go around. To tell a captivating story, you need an idea or ideas if we’re being more accurate. Everything from childhood fables like the Tortoise and The Hare to cinematic epics like The Godfather begins as ideas in their creator’s heads. Ideas like this are the seeds from which stories grow. The film Toy Story became Pixar’s first mega-hit, but it started as a simple idea: What if toys came alive when you stopped playing with them? Here are their 7 steps for discovering a story, and some tips to use them on your own work. Pete and Pixar may have a team of talented animators and writers at their disposal, but anyone can copy their creative process. With Pete himself directing many of their most celebrated movies: Monsters Inc, Up, Inside Out, and most recently Soul. Over the past few decades, they’ve enjoyed a near flawless track record. This is a process Pixar has mastered as good as any in the business. When Pixar hired him at 21, he learned what looked like a flash of inspiration was a painstaking process. So yeah, the linked ebook is a good start, but it is by no means the end-all, be-all analysis for novel writers.How are stories made? Pixar’s Pete Docter - the director of such Pixar hits as Monsters, Inc., Up, and Inside Out, says a “story isn’t made, it’s discovered.”Īs a young animator, Docter believed Walt Disney woke up with fully formed stories in his head. Instead, the linked author spends the bulk of his time saying 'Don't load looks with too much expression.' The whole 'Show, don't tell' maxim was built entirely to remind authors 'It may be fun to tell about your world, but the reader wants to be shown it.' Infodumps are fun as hell to write, I'm writing one right now, but again, not very fun for the audience to read. They need a reason to root for the person, they need to understand what's at stake if the person loses, and they need to have a reason to be invested. Most audience members won't appreciate that in written form. As an author, you know who the character is, what's at stake, and want to see them out run explosions, dodge bullets, and be generally awesome.

It's fun to write, not fun to read.Īnother is just starting with a burst of action without any characterization. That's not fun as a reader because while as an author, you get to 'see' the conversation, reactions, and hear the tone in your head as you're writing, the audience gets none of that. It may be fun to write aaron sorkinesque witty dialog, nothing but witty dialog, and dialog from start to finish. They want to read about characters overcoming conflicts, or at least trying (which is another rule).

Pixar storywriting tips series#

For example, rule 2 - What's fun for the author may not be fun for the audience is a warning against writing things that are fun to write but aren't story.įor example, 'Write your best day ever.' may be fun to you since you either get to relive or imagine awesome things happening to you, but the audience doesn't want to read about a series of awesome things happening to a character. While this is a good resource, it also feels pretty incomplete.