by Dean Orion
Tone:
The tone of the show is both dramatic and comedic as each week Scotty blindly stumbles into the travails of a stranger’s life. The drama comes out of his efforts to help these people. The humor comes out of his "insanity," which we see from the inside out. That is, we see both the insane person wandering aimlessly, and the extraordinarily gifted person following the will of a higher power.
I like to think of it as TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL meets ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST. Or more affectionately, TOUCHED BY A LUNATIC.
As you can tell, the thing I’ve learned about my own voice over the years (and have consciously tried to develop) is that I am best suited to writing drama with little touches of humor. I’m not a comedy writer. To do comedy well, you really have to be able to write great jokes, and that’s not me. My winning combination is a well-mixed cocktail of comedy and pathos, so I always try to inject humor wherever appropriate, and especially in places where the audience least expects it.
Then there’s your cast of characters, which at this point is an absolutely essential piece of the puzzle because their motivations will determine where your story will lead. Your cast is your compass. If you truly know each and every one of these people well, you will never be lost; you will always have someone you can ask for directions along the way, which will definitely come in handy when that crisis moment inevitably hits. Here are the main characters in Scotty’s Travels:
Characters:
Dr. Jonathon Scott – Born and raised in a tough blue-collar town, it was always Scotty’s dream to make a great living while helping those in need. Presently a prominent, 35-year-old psychiatrist, it appears that he’s achieved that goal. But in his heart of hearts he knows it isn’t true. The beautiful home, the fancy cars, the country club membership—it’s all just a smoke screen for his inadequacy, a way of convincing himself that he’s done enough. So when Liberty comes along and offers him a way to reconcile these feelings, it ultimately proves an offer he can’t refuse. Now part messiah, part psychic, and part schizophrenic, Scotty is on a mission to truly heal the world—one person at a time.
Liberty – Brutally forthright, frequently sarcastic, and always witty, Liberty is the ever-present voice in Scotty’s head. Speaking with an English accent, she can be as authoritative as Margaret Thatcher or as whimsical as Mary Poppins. Scotty has no idea where she came from and, intriguingly, neither does she. Liberty is both his sidekick and his muse, his Tonto and his Obi-Wan Kenobi, albeit one that we never actually see.
George Lazarus – A well-polished, old-guard shrink in his 50s, George is Scotty’s close friend and mentor. But upon witnessing Scotty’s schizotypal behavior, George immediately turns from confidante to antagonist, insisting that Scotty undergo a psychiatric evaluation. George’s character is an ominous presence throughout the series as the search for Scotty becomes a recurring theme.
Melissa Scott – Strong, vibrant, and intelligent, Melissa is the kind of woman who could run a Fortune 500 company, but still relishes being a full-time mom. She loves her husband deeply, but when he starts to flip out she is completely at a loss. Having met Scotty in her freshman year of college, she thought she knew all his eccentricities, but she never bargained for this.
Isabel Scott – 7-year-old Isabel possesses a maturity and an intelligence that is way beyond her years. She’s both her father and her mother’s daughter, already excelling both socially and academically.
Christopher Scott – At this point, 4-year-old Christopher is 100% rough and tumble, and a startling mirror of the youthful innocent his father has, in many ways, reverted into.
Finally, there’s the story summary, which is basically a very abridged version of the next stage of the process, the outline.
Pilot Story Summary:
Following a session with a bipolar teenager, Scotty’s feelings of professional inadequacy reach a zenith. Shortly afterward, Liberty visits him for the first time. Naturally, Liberty spooks Scotty, but when she inexplicably helps him foil the kid’s attempted suicide, Scotty reconsiders the benefits of her presence and quickly warms to her.
Scotty tries to describe the miraculous experience to Melissa, but she has difficulty taking him seriously. Then, with Liberty’s encouragement, Scotty inadvertently condemns the entire psychiatric profession in a speech to a packed convention house. The exhilaration he feels from speaking his mind eclipses any apprehension he might have had about sabotaging his career. This newfound freedom then spirals further out of control as he attempts to liquidate all his financial assets and take his family on the road. Frightened by the sudden irrational behavior, Melissa turns to George Lazarus for help. Together, George and Melissa make the painful decision to submit Scotty to a compulsory psychiatric evaluation.
Faced with the specter of being institutionalized for life, Scotty enlists Liberty’s help, engineers a bold escape from the hospital, and sets out on his journey to heal the world.
One more important thing about Concept Documents before we move on . . .Generally, this is not a document that I show to anyone. It’s mostly my way of working out all the various elements and internalizing them so I’m absolutely sure I know what the forest looks like before I start working on the trees. Still, it should be thorough and complete. Unlike the Notes Document, which is essentially a napkin sketch (and a messy one at that), when the Concept Document is done, it’s a polished piece of work, usually somewhere between six and twelve pages long. This way, if at any point I do decide to share my story idea (usually with a producer or an agent), I now have a well-organized document that I can show anyone and feel comfortable doing so. The Concept Document is also important should I ever need to re-familiarize myself with the big picture.
The Outline
I remember the first day I arrived for orientation at the American Film Institute. There was a tremendous amount of consternation among the writers in the program because, other than the one hour per week we had as a group with our writing teacher, there really wasn’t a whole lot scheduled for us. In fact, there was nothing else scheduled for us. By contrast, the producer, director, cinematographer, and production design students had all kinds of different classes they were required to take. Finally, someone asked the question: What exactly is it we’re supposed to be doing here as writers? I’ll never forget the somewhat befuddled expression on the face of the admissions director, who was sitting at the front of the room.
“Well,” she said. “You write.”
Like everyone else, I was a very green writer at that point and thought there was some magic bullet, some secret recipe for great writing, that I would now be privy to simply because I had been accepted into film school. The truth is, there really isn’t. I would even go a step further and say that writing is one of those rare things in life that really can’t be taught. You certainly need to acquire all the tools and techniques, attend all the lectures, seminars, and classes you can that identify the common ingredients found in good storytelling; but when it comes to actually preparing the meal, you pretty much have to develop your own recipe and simply start cooking. There’s just no way around that.
This brings me back to the writer gene. Regardless of the medium in which you’re working, if you are truly one of the writer brethren, you will never be intimidated by the countless hours you will have to spend educating yourself on the craft of writing, by having to be both teacher and student, and by all the sweat and toil it will take to tell your stories well. It’ll never be easy, and nothing will test your mettle more than your next task, which is to write a good, solid outline.
The outline is the mechanism by which you assemble your story’s structure, the key element that ultimately determines the quality of your work. Story structure is an extensive topic, one that has been explored by countless other authors, so to stay within the scope of this survival guide I will concentrate on a few fundamental outlining techniques that I use to structure my stories.
First, I study other works that are close in genr
e, tone, and structure to the story I’m telling. Yeah, I know. More research! It is more research, but it’s a different kind of research than what I described earlier. This time I focus specifically on learning how other writers executed their stories—what they did well and what they did not so well—which means breaking those stories down, scene by scene, to expose the very bones of their structure.
Most of the original stories I write are speculative TV pilots and screenplays, so getting my hands on other writers’ scripts, particularly ones that have actually been produced, is very important. The same thing is true if you’re writing a novel, an interactive game, or any other type of written work. You have to study how other writers have done what you’re now trying to do, and dissect their work rather meticulously in order to learn from them.
Next, I open a document in Final Draft (the screenwriting program most screenwriters use) and start writing down all the scenes I’ve already come up with in my Notes and Concept Documents. At first, I don’t worry so much about the order of the scenes. I just try to get them down on paper, and as I engage in this process, other potential scenes inevitably begin to emerge in my mind, and usually rather quickly. Though I don't yet formally write each scene with action and dialogue, as one does when writing a script, I do use a slug line for each (for example, EXT. DINING HALL – NIGHT) and then simply describe the scene’s content as if I were explaining it to someone in conversation. Later, after I’ve compiled a fair amount of material, I start to work on the structuring (i.e., where each act breaks, and in which order the scenes belong) .
In many cases I can tune in the entire story structure in this way, composing right on my computer, until I have conceived and described all the scenes in the story—which sounds awfully easy when you write it in a sentence like that, but in reality can be incredibly difficult and take weeks to get right. Other times I will use a white board or lay index cards out on a table, each with a single scene written on it, so I can continually rearrange them like pieces of a puzzle. Creative writers of all different stripes commonly use both of these approaches.
Another technique I use, either after I’ve got the whole structure worked out or when I’m still immersed in the outlining process, is to take out my trusty yellow pad and try to write down every scene in the script using just a single line for each. As you might imagine, this is yet another challenging task. You have to come up with a lot of very nifty shorthand, using as few words as possible to describe each scene, but what you end up with is your entire story structure on about one to two pages of the pad. This allows you to skim down the page imagining the entire story very quickly, scene by scene, from beginning to end. I’ve found this to be an excellent way to root out structural deficiencies, because when you’re reading through it in fast-forward mode like this, any interruption in the natural flow of the story becomes much more glaring and apparent.
Everyone has different approaches to outlining. Some writers like to write very sparse outlines, providing just enough information to trigger the important elements of a scene in their mind when they write it later. Others like to deal with each scene in as much detail as they can up front. As you probably guessed, I’m in the second camp. I like to make tons of notes to myself right in the body of the outline and continue to flesh it out with as much background as I can. This often includes not just what is currently happening on the surface, but also the underlying thoughts, feelings, and motivations of the characters that drive each scene.
In other words, I continue to tune in the story, again, resisting the temptation to start turning it into a formal script for as long as possible, until it reaches the point that it’s so well worked out and bloated with information that the only thing left to do is flesh out the action and write the dialogue.
SURVIVAL GUIDE SUMMARY
5. Tuning In the Radio
Things to Remember:
•All original stories exist in a perfect state as thought forms that are separate from you. Listen and tune them in like a radio signal.
•Begin with research. This is the soundest foundation you can set for your process.
•By taking the time to build a foundation of research, crisis moments are less likely to occur.
•Be a passive channel of information while you research, taking lots of notes without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow without judgment.
•Transcribe your notes at the end of your research period. Creating this Notes Document allows you to kick off your project without ever having to stare at a blank page.
•Create a Concept Document from your Notes Document. Avoid the temptation to rush into the outline or the first draft.
•Structure your story by writing the scenes on index cards or a whiteboard so you can view them as separate moments, rearranging them as necessary.
•Begin your outline by writing down all the scenes you have so far. Get all your ideas on the table without worrying about getting the story right. Your process will naturally fill in the blanks.
•Describe the scenes in your outline without actually writing them. Your outline is a road map, not the final product.
•Note deeper character motivations and other important story points in your outline. The deeper you dig, the more material you will have to work with.
•Once you’ve figured out most of your story structure, write all the scenes down on one or two pages of a legal pad, using one line for each scene, then skim the story to see if it flows.
Questions to Ask Yourself:
•What is the backdrop of your story and how can you learn more about it?
•Which websites will tell you more about your story’s larger world and help you develop important details about your characters? Identify and print relevant materials. Bookmark the sites for future reference.
•Which books are available that will educate you about your story’s world and its characters?
•Do you know anyone who is an expert in a field that will help you tell your story? If so, arrange to interview them and record their answers.
•How would you describe your story to someone in just a sentence or two? (Logline)
•What are you trying to say with this story? (Theme)
•What does the voice of the piece sound like? (Tone)
•Who inhabits this world? What are their backgrounds, flaws, hopes, and dreams? What compels them to do what they do? (Characters)
•What is your basic story? (Story Summary)
•What previously published or produced works are close in genre, tone, and structure to your story? Make a list, then study and breakdown those works.
6. This Draft’s for You
Hallelujah! It’s time to start writing. This is where all the hard work and patience in the beginning of the process finally pays off. Now that you’ve taken the time to research the subject of your story, clearly articulated what you want to say, and fully understand who your characters are, you can really begin to play and have fun within the world you’ve created. Even more importantly, because you’ve constructed an outline that’s so rich in detail and depth that it’s essentially a rough draft, you also don’t have to worry that the whole damn thing will fall apart. In other words, you’ve successfully tuned in the radio and conceived this idea, this “child of your mind.” Now its cells are starting to multiply!
To me, this is the most sacred part of the writing process, which is why I believe it’s critical that you don’t tell anyone—not a single soul—about this child that you’re now carrying. Why?
Because this draft’s for you.
Think about it. If you are essentially this story’s “mother,” if you’re the one who’s going to be charged with nurturing it, with protecting it, with being the best possible vessel you can be for it (for God-only-knows how many months or years), then damn it, why should you share it now, when it’s so rife with possibilities and endless potential? What’s the hurry? Why not take this opportunity to savor it a little bit before you expose it to the
harsh, cruel world?
Like any expectant mother, you know it’s going to be tough. You know there are going to be mornings when you don’t feel so well, afternoons when you’re going to pass out for no apparent reason, and days when you’re tempted with strange cravings and inspirations. But you should also know that it’s going to be okay, that all these things are simply part of the ride. Besides, there’s no turning back now even if you wanted to, right? You’re pregnant. Embrace it.
This is the juice of being a writer. This is as good as it gets, right here in the thick of this first draft. You’ve got to be fully conscious of this moment and know that this is what you do it for. You don’t do it just to show off the finished product or to be recognized as some great genius or to get paid a lot of money. All of those things are nice, and I wish every writer in the world that kind of success, but at the end of the day that’s not what writing is really about.
It’s about the doing of it. That’s the only part of it that’s truly meaningful—the actual act of writing.
If you have the writer gene you know exactly what I’m talking about here, even if you won’t (or can’t) bring yourself to admit it. As writers, we’re so full of passion and ambition. We have so much to say to the world, so many things we want to express, that we sometimes get caught up in this grand notion that the next script is the one; the next book is the one; the next great whatever is the one. But the truth is, it’s the little moments of pleasure you receive along the way, the little successes that make it all worthwhile—writing a breakthrough scene or fixing a problematic line of dialogue or realizing that cutting a character will strengthen the whole piece, even when it’s a character you’re in love with. Especially when it’s a character you’re in love with.