Story Line

by Jennifer Grisanti

  Climbing the corporate ladder was an enlightening experience. I would say moments of it I handled well. However, looking back in retrospect, it was easy to get intoxicated in the world of Hollywood and lose sight of some of what was important. I found that I wanted to keep up with the “Joneses” by having all the right clothes, taking elaborate vacations, staying at five-star resorts, going to expensive restaurants, etc. I remember being in some of the moments of success at this point in my life. The clothes would make me happy in the moment but I would quickly get over that experience. The trips helped shape me in a cultural way and it helped me to see the world, and I was grateful for the freedom to do this. However, I do remember being on some trips and wondering, as I was buying a 28 dollar club sandwich and gazing at the water in Italy, is this the best use of my money? Why does this not feel like I thought it would? I love that I could do this and my strong work ethic was what brought me to it, but was the overall experience what I thought it would be? I think part of it was the emotion behind it. With money, we can have so much on the outside, but for it to truly mean something, we need to connect with the inside.

  I remember when I got promoted to vice president at CBS/ Paramount. This was the peak of a 13-year journey from the time that I was an assistant. This was the reward for all the long hours I had put in over the years. I remember getting my office on the Paramount lot. It was in the Dressing Room building. It was Errol Flynn’s old dressing room. Thinking about the history of the lot empowered me to dream big. In the commissary, they started seating me on the patio at a table next to Sherry Lansing. I remembered when I started my career how her career was a major source of my inspiration, and here I was sitting next to her. It was surreal. I also remember wondering about all of the stories on this lot. How many dreams had come true here? I wished I could go into every one of their stories and learn about the gold they discovered along their path to success. I was also intrigued by their secrets, and what was hidden in their closets. I thought that this moment was going to be my peak of success. I was a little afraid of what I would find at the other side of this experience. They say that when you “arrive” at your goal, you have to be connected to the idea that you may go down from this point versus up.

  After my contract was not renewed at CBS/Paramount, I went into a whole new experience with success. Did my job define me? If I was not Jen Grisanti, the television executive, who was I? Since I had essentially married my job after my divorce, I had to take some inventory and figure out how to reconnect with my desire and understand what was driving me at this point in my life. As I am building my company, Jen Grisanti Consultancy Inc., I am working six to seven days a week and I am living from paycheck to paycheck, watching my company grow, but not having a lot to put away. Yet, these years of learning to live very simply and putting everything I make back into my dream have probably been my most rewarding experiences with success so far. My drive is motivated now by my desire to teach and connect with writers so that they can go on to achieve their dreams. My reward is seeing the growth happen. I’ve also started attaching a charity aspect to my business. Ten percent of the profit that I receive from my events goes to charity. Doing this has just increased my desire to succeed. I recognize that there is more to this experience. I am embracing the growth that comes with every step.

  As I evolve and complete projects, like this book, I’m loving the experience of getting deeper into my own voice, especially since this is a large part of what I am teaching to others. In retrospect, when I think about all the expensive clothes I bought and vacations that I took, I don’t judge myself. I know that this was a part of the evolution of what now really makes me happy. I am driven by knowing that you can fall or fail and you can get back up and make your life even better than it was before. I am driven to get this message out. I am empowered by the strength of the spirit and the kindness of others. I know that to find the true meaning of success I need to always be driven toward “developing from within.” This is why I made these three words the brand of my company.

  EXERCISE

  What is your journey with success? What are the emotional drives behind why you want to achieve success in your life? When you were a child and you saw how your parent or parents experienced success, what did you take away from it and how does this inspire your life today? How did your parents grow up? What did success mean in their upbringing? When you look at the stories of your friends and colleagues, what do you think drives them to reach their destinations? How has success changed in your own story? How did you view it as a child? How did you view it as a student? How do you view it now? Are the emotions behind your drives changing as you evolve as a person? Do you use this in your story lines? Think about all of this and start imagining ways to fictionalize this truth into your story.

  What is your greatest moment involving success? What was the story behind your moment? Did the experience make you feel the way that you thought it would? What was positive about the attainment? Was there anything negative? Were you disillusioned by what you thought it would bring versus what it did bring?

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHAT DRIVES YOUR CENTRAL CHARACTER TO SUCCEED?

  Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence. The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning.

  ~ Denis Waitley

  What drives your central character should be clear in your writing. Knowing what drives him/her helps us to better understand and connect with him/her. When you’re thinking about your character’s motivations, consider his backstory and emotional stakes. In backstory, you get a sense of what happened in the past that contributes to what is driving your character now. What have they lost or gone through in the past that connects to the present and adds even more momentum to achieving the goal? Setting up the emotional stakes will help you find your gold. What is the worst that will happen if they don’t achieve their goal? What does he or she have to lose? These questions will help you find what is driving your character to succeed. Some common drives are security, providing for family, covering a past secret, faith, love, fear, adrenaline, greed, validation, purpose, worth, pride, and the list goes on.

  When thinking about the drives for your central characters, go into your drives that you came up with in Chapter 18. With your story, fictionalize some of what drives you in your own life to achieve a goal. Look at your own backstory and connect with what happened in your past that leads to what drives you in the present. Did you grow up poor? If so, what do you carry with you from that experience? Money might be a drive or maybe it’s the desire for security. You may be driven by the hunger to have a life different than what you experienced growing up. If you came from humble beginnings, you might have a much stronger will to succeed because of the emotions that you connect with the worst thing that could happen if you don’t. I’ve talked to some people who have found tremendous success. I remember asking one executive who was at the top of his game when he was happiest in his career. He said that he was the happiest when he just started because he was poor and he was motivated. He had a red Fiero and a suitcase in the back. This was fascinating to me. I knew that he probably lived very lavishly yet his happiness was connected with the beginning of the dream, before the achievement of the goal.

  If you were brought up with a lot of money, you may be driven to recreate what you knew or to prove to your parents that you are capable of achieving what they did. Or, if you grew up with a ton of money and were raised more by your nanny, you will have emotions attached to this experience that may increase or decrease your drive to succeed. To you, tremendous success may be associated with the burden of absent parents. Since this emotion is negative, you may not be inspired to recreate the experience that you had growing up. Or, you might fear that you will never reach the height of what your parents did, so you don’t even try. You may be afraid to make more than your parents did because you have emotions attached to this. These are the types of momen
ts that you want to look into in your own life and fictionalize into the drives of your characters.

  We all experience highs and lows in different parts of our journey. There is so much to learn and draw from in these experiences. When we fail, we are often driven to find success again or redefine what we thought success was in the first place. Our failures connect us with others. They humanize our life experience and give us texture. Knowing that we can start at the bottom and work our way to the top through determination, perseverance, and faith is the beauty of life experience.

  In your story lines, you want to start your central character or characters in a place where we empathize with their circumstances. Your catalyst and/or dilemma could be something that turns your central character’s life upside down. As a result of this circumstance, your central character desires to get life back in balance. They can be driven by the desire to get back to what was, or along the journey they can discover that “what was” needs to change. Getting back into balance may mean shifting in a new direction as a result of a moment of crisis. Starting your central character or characters in a low place gives us a reason to root for their success in your story.

  Another part of your story where the drive needs to be clearly defined is your “all is lost” moment. In both television and film, whatever happens in your “all is lost” moment—which is the moment when your central character or characters are as far away from the goal as possible—needs to trigger your characters to pursue their goal with full force. In hitting the bottom, they recognize that they can get to where they want to be. So, take the time to really understand your character and your story and what will drive your character to achieve the goal.

  We all love stories of tremendous triumph. Consider Rocky (Chartoff Winkler Productions, 1976) written by Sylvester Stallone. Many of us had a very emotional response to that movie. We saw where he was and how he started. We knew that he had to overcome so much in order to get to where he wanted to go. We saw that as his love with Adrian grew and blossomed, so did his will to believe in himself and his desire to win in the ring. We saw the transformation through his ability to get over his obstacles and prove that he could be at the top. We cheered for his victory. We did this because this story represented the possibility in each one of us. We all connected with being beaten down. When you fall, you have the choice of being the victim or rising above your circumstances and getting life back in balance.

  In the movie Pretty Woman, many of us experienced very strong emotions to the idea behind this fairy tale. You could go from being a prostitute to being loved by a wealthy man. Even if your life was not what you thought it would be, and people treated you terribly because of the place that you were in, something could happen that could turn it all around. The story inspired the feeling that love can be a very powerful driving force to motivate your characters to succeed. Love can be the fuel for your journey. I encourage you to look at this movie again with a writer’s eye. Recognize the universal truths it explores and figure out how to replicate it in a modern story that could elicit the same type of emotional experience. As a viewer, I keep waiting for the modern version of Pretty Woman or When Harry Met Sally. I want to re-experience some of what I felt in these movies.

  In the movie I Love You, Man, Peter Klaven (Paul Rudd) is driven to have a guy friend so that he can have a best man and feel more connected to his bride. The irony being that the guy he befriends could have the opposite effect on his future. It is through this journey that we discover how difficult it is for men to connect with men since they are socialized to hide their feelings. There is a lot of humor to get out of this. At the core of it, the drive to feel connected and to have and be a friend is a beautiful motivator to succeed.

  In The Hurt Locker, I would say each central character is driven by something different. All three have the same goal: complete the rotation while dismantling as many IEDs as possible and staying alive. But, they have their own personal drives within each story line. Will James is driven by the adrenaline and his desire to keep up with his own record and dismantle as many IEDs as possible. He is driven by the rush of war and a desire to prove his worth. The sense of accomplishment with each victory serves as a drug in his life. He is also driven by the idea that he feels more comfortable at war than he does on the emotional side of his life. I think this is a universal drive and one that countless people struggle with, as “war” could be a metaphor for work or anything that distracts us from dealing with our emotions. The character of Sanborn is driven by his desire to keep his leader and his unit safe. He is the protector. We see him lose one leader under his guidance at the beginning of the film. This loss drives him to know that he has to figure out a way to work with the new leader so that he can maintain his men’s safety. James tests his drive at every turn. Owen is driven by his fear of death. He thinks that he will die and has justified his fear that it will be in the line of duty. He sees that James could be the cause of his death because of his wild ways and fearless tactics that in one sense bring safety to others, but in another sense cause more danger to his own unit. Owen is driven by the idea that he really does not want to die. Since he sees his leader die and then his psychiatrist die, it fuels his fear but actually drives him to learn how to succeed while living.

  In the movie Up in the Air, Ryan is driven by the desire to keep his life in the air because of his belief that “moving is living.” By not being “grounded,” he thinks that he can prolong what he feels being “grounded” or “committed” or “attached” represents: the beginning of the end. His drive to hold on to his lifestyle as he knows it drives him to do everything in his power to keep it. His philosophy is tested along the way. Through the journey of the story, we see him go from his drive to remain “detached” to seeing the possibility in feeling “attached” or “committed.” He is also driven to have ten million frequent flier miles. He succeeds in not being “grounded” and in achieving the ten million frequent flier miles but he loses the one thing that maybe challenged his drive in the first place: his girlfriend Alex. This film did a great job of showing how growth can change what drives us to succeed.

  There is currently some tremendous television writing that explores the drives of the central characters in depth. When your central characters are driven by the desire to cover a secret, it adds a whole new dimension to your story. It adds the idea of the possibility of their world closing in on them while they are driven to keep the secret so that they can keep achieving their goals.

  In The Good Wife, Alicia is driven by getting her life and her children’s life back into balance after her husband’s scandal lands him in jail. Her drive is the desire to protect and provide for her family. She achieves this by returning to her career as an attorney, a role she left when she decided to be a mother and wife first. Her drive is universal and one that really connects with the audience. It brings us into the world of what drives you after such a fall to move forward in life and put things back in balance.

  In Dexter, flashbacks let us see how Dexter experienced the death of his mother. Then we see how his drive to kill serial killers was put into play when he lived with his father. He learned the art of eradicating the criminals who threatened the safety of innocent people. He justified his actions because he knew that by doing this, he was helping others avoid experiencing the loss that he did. Even though he does a very bad thing, he does it for the betterment of others. It is interesting to see how what drives him changes when love enters his life. His struggle to keep his secret becomes heightened to protect his own family.

  In Breaking Bad, Walt is driven by the idea that he wants to have something to leave his family when he dies from his terminal illness. Providing financial security for those that he loves is a driving force behind his actions. The irony again is that he’s doing a bad thing, by making and distributing meth, but it is for the support of his family. When you have an overall arc that is a strong drive for the series, it heightens and elevates the effect of story.
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br />   EXERCISE

  In your story lines, do you clearly understand what is driving your central characters? When you watch television and go to the movies, be cognizant of what is driving the character. Think about the drives that inspire you the most. Think about what has driven you the most in your own life that you feel like other people will connect with, and fictionalize it into your story. Go inside and take inventory of your own development and think about the times in your life when you hit rock bottom. What drove you to get back on track?

  Think of the pinnacles you’ve reached in your life. Consider both professional and personal. What was driving you to reach your destination? What was the worst that could happen if you didn’t reach it? Think about what you wanted to achieve. This is the external goal. Then, think about why you wanted to achieve it. This is your internal goal. By having a stronger understanding of what drives you in life, you will better understand the drives behind your characters.

  PART FOUR

  Goal

  Chapter Twenty

  DID YOU ACHIEVE YOUR LIFE GOAL? IF SO, WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? IF NOT, WHAT DOES THIS FEEL LIKE?

  Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.