Pixar and High-Impact Fiction

A lot of writers know that the people at Pixar are master storytellers. For starters, there's a list that discusses 22 Rules of Storytelling according to Pixar. They've also been mentioned previously here at Operation Awesome, and I explained on my other blog, The Writer Librarian, how Wreck-It-Ralph helped me learn about plot and character motivation. (Wreck-It-Ralph was officially "Disney," but was produced by John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar.)

And, in starting a new manuscript for the new year, I stumbled upon this video from Michael Arndt, one of Pixar's screen writers. This gem helped me work through the beginning of my story:


After watching this video, I figured out that my main character was a perfectionist, and that was the motivating factor that led into her journey. And as Michael Arndt so brilliantly points out, "the seeds of failure have to be planted in the beginning." So even though I'm only about 12,000 words in, I know exactly what happens next, and how it will affect my main character later in the story. 

It was a reminder how Pixar's storytelling has been a key element in their success. 
In reading submissions for a literary magazine, I've come across a lot of pieces that were well-written, but there was no actual story involved. Just a bunch of vignettes where nothing really happened, and the characters weren't really changed by the end. 
On the flip side, a lot of commercial fiction (particularly YA) is thought of as plot-driven only. I've definitely run into this as a YA writer in my MFA program, and luckily for me, my cohorts are supportive of what I write, and don't try to steer me in any particular direction. 
But all that aside, there's room for storytelling in all facets of fiction. Literary agent Donald Maass talked about this in his book Writing 21st Century Fiction, regarding what he called high impact fiction. "High impact comes from a combination of two factors: great stories and beautiful writing" (2). 
So, think back to other Pixar movies you've watched (or Disney movies that had obvious Pixar influence, like Wreck-it-Ralph, Meet the Robinsons, and Frozen). What kept you watching? What made the movie memorable? What seeds were planted in the beginning that showed up throughout the story?
Now think about your own current Work-in-Progress, and ask yourself the following:

• What does my character want more than anything? How will this get in his/her way?


• What are the bad choices my character will make, and how do I get the audience to root for him/her in these decisions?


• How will my characters change as a result of their journey?

Feel free to watch a Pixar movie in the meantime, if it helps. Even Pixar/Disney movies that didn't do as well are informative, because they're examples of stories that might have been lacking.
What about you--what have you learned while crafting your own stories?

Gotta Love a Little Torture

Someone once asked me what I did to amp up the conflict in my stories? What did I do to create drama, to torture my characters?

It was a great question :) It tends to be the drama, the conflict, that drives a story…and you just can’t get that if your characters get everything they want and are happy all the time.

So how do I amp up the conflict, torture my characters? Simple...I take away whatever it is that my character wants the most. I throw up as many obstacles as I can. I tease her with it and then take it away. :D I let her be happy for a few short moments and then I crush all her hopes and dreams *mwahahahaha*

Okay, so it's not always so horrible (though really, it kinda is). I am actually in the process of rewriting my very first book. Back then, I wanted to write a book where the girl got her guy, kept him throughout the book, had an adventure that was scary blah blah blah, but where there was no real internal conflict. I thought it would be fun to have my book be different than all those other books out there where characters were being tortured all the time.

Guess what? It was boooooring.


Stanley Elkin said, “I would never write about a character who is not at the end of his rope.”

This is such a great piece of advice…a person at the end of their rope has no where to go but up….but there is always the threat of crashing down…and that makes a great story. If your characters never go through any kind of conflict or “torture,” then you have a story in which nothing happens. A happy person who has everything they want, and continues to be happy with everything they want…Where is the story in that?

Ernest Hemingway, in a book of advice to writers, said that a writer should…“find what gave you emotion; what the action was that gave you excitement.”

I LOVE that quote. And it made me think, “What is it that gave me emotion? What gave me excitement?” Sure, I am happy when a character gets the guy at the end, or finds the treasure, or gets to live in the big pretty castle and lives happily ever after. But that isn’t what keeps me reading the story. What keeps me reading, what gives me goosebumps and makes my heart pound, is when the heroine cradles her dying love in her arms…when she is on the back of a thundering horse, shooting a gun over her shoulder at the villain chasing her….when she made some stupid mistake and screwed up the good thing she had going….THAT kind of stuff makes me want to turn the page.

Did the love interest really die? Will she get away? (Or will the retort of the gun knock her on her butt?…because that is always fun) :D Will she be able to fix her mistake and get the good thing going again, or has she just completely screwed up her life?

So, that is what I do to my characters. I give the reader a reason to turn the page, by giving my characters a reason to keep going, giving them something to fix, to resolve, to get over and move past. Death, pain, despair, torture, emotion, threat, danger….these all get the blood pumping, the tears pouring…and make that happy ending all the happier for the mess they had to go through to get there.

What do you do to torture your characters? How do you create your drama?