LISA & Storytelling
Hey guys and gals, DL here. Just recently I got an email asking me about the writing of Lisa and what my inspiration was. The info was for a college essay, so I figured it would be nice to actually respond to it. :P As I was writing my response I thought “hey, maybe those ding dong fans of mine would be interested in this stuff?” So for those aspiring young and old future storytellers/gamemakers out there, or just anyone interested in how I go about writing, here is my 4 key tools for writing! Also, if you’re reading this, you probably know by now that my grasp of the english language is equally to that of a 5th grader. So, if you’re brave enough and don’t mind all the chicken scratch, keep going! As far as the writing goes I really believe simplicity is the key. I followed some very basic rules of story telling, and that’s how the idea for Lisa formulated. Boringly enough, it didn’t really come from a personal experience in my life, or some life long idea. It was a product of sticking to some time tested rules. And they are: - Love: no matter what, all good stories have to have love in some way. Whether it’s good or bad intentions, character motivations must be based in love. - Primal: Piggy backing off of the first rule, a good way to check your story is to ask “would a caveman understand this?” Meaning, does the core storyline have things that appeal to our most primal instincts? Birth, death, the unknown, fear, survival, sex, love, etc. This doesn’t mean you can’t have complex ideas in your story. It just means that at it’s core, it must have something primal that keeps us caring about the story throughout. -Irony: This one is often over looked, but still important and sometimes can be cheesy. Disney esc movies are really good at this. Like: A snail that wants to be a race car driver! How ironic! In Lisa’s case it was a farther doing his best to show his daughter love, the irony is that everything he did only pushed her away farther. - Make the problem worse: Just like the title says, you have your conflict and then you just keep making it worse and worse until your conclusion. I feel this one is lacking in most modern story telling. It feels like most are playing it “safe”. Another way to phrase this is “raising the stakes”. Basically meaning, you just really want to push your characters as much as you can before they achieve there goals. It makes that finale so much sweeter, or heart wrenching depending in the direction you want to go in. So if you got a guy who wants a banana from the kitchen, but in the process he dispatched a 100 ninjas, sacrifices his children, has to divorce his wife, loses his life long dog companion, all to get this banana. You created a much more emotionally connect to this man and his banana, rather than if he was able to just get off the couch And walk to the kitchen the eat. So really those 4 things are the main driving forces behind Lisa. The rest I suppose is just my interpretation of these rules. But, the core principles are what gave everything in LISA it’s direction. Yours truly, King Ding
