The latest edition of the Steve Ogden Braincast is up online. In this episode, “Delaying Tactics”, I talk about my story process and why I believe too much preproduction is a delaying tactic that can prevent you from creating Your Thing. Music by Tim Larkin.
Yet another interesting podcast of yours.
Overall, I do agree with you on all points. Especially the “question asking VS answering them” thing. I hate serials which go this way. As for villains driving the narration, sure, this is utterly boring. You know, these sorts of stories when you cannot wait for them to end, just to be freed of the whole thing
I also call tend to think of the Character Bible compulsion, as a “Tolkien D&D” syndrome.
The only thing I’d like to add, but I’m positive this was all implied in what you said, is : if rule n°1 is “do they need to know?”, rule n°2, in my book, is “you don’t know, as you’re writing, if they will need to”. Complicated plots are boring, complex ones are enthralling. And more often than not, one finds out about the “real” plot while writing.
I tend to work this way : I let the details flow in, mostly the unwanted/insignificant ones, while the first draft unravel itself. Then, I cut through the crap, once I know I do have my story. And usually, I remove around one third of the first draft, which becomes the basis for the second draft.
On the book I’m writing right now, I found my story after having drafted 150 000 words. I then stopped, reworked this first draft and ended keeping no more than 50 000, and just as reference material. This is the worst crap/cool ration I’ve ever reached, but I guess it was required.
Cheers Steve, and good luck for the PRINT !
Good points, all, Pierre. I admit I don’t give as much thought to the fact that as I write, I don’t always know how much the audience needs to know.
Heya Og!
i just found out that u have a braincast realted to Moon Town so this was my first episode to hear. It was very interesting, i like the startup with the lounge music and the brain to brain stuff:)
Thanks for sharing your approach on how you go about the story and character creation in terms of content. I usually have a hard time to think of any story or background for jokes or important themes, i could draw simple stuff or make a graphic with blender or something, however i usually lose track of what i actually was about to do and get lost among the detailing of stuff wich isnt important at all. Your ideas on how to lay out the initial plot focussing on some main line and extrapolating stuff along these seem very reasonable for me.
The part of preproduction was something that i completely agree with, tho i only tackled small things about animation/ animated short stuff i kinda got lost among details and storyboarding and usually lost all the initial enthusiam i had when starting off from scratch.
So those guidelines on how to let things evolve and not to pin down every single aspect of characters or the universe that u working on, hopefully will work for me too:)
I guess i should focus more on stuff with pen and paper to make up my things, rather than relying on a comp to make something uninteresting look good.
Cool Braincast I’m impressed by the fact that it seems you record this in your car (I’m guessing) and still can focus on subjects and everyday stuff like going home/ to work at the same time!
Cheers !