I came across a great series of narrative writing lectures with Brandon Sanderson, the best-selling fantasy and sci-fi author.
Besides being an excellent writer/storyteller, a few things make Brandon unique – he’s very entrepreneurial (creating the most-funded Kickstarter of all time for his novels), and he’s an excellent teacher. He lectures at BYU and is kind enough to put them up on his YouTube channel for all of us to enjoy for free.
I’ve been soaking them up like a sponge.
He teaches in a way that none of my writing professors taught, but in the way that I WANTED them to teach, and the way that I now teach in my own courses… he gives us TOOLS to use.
He avoids abstraction and ambiguous advice and instead offers a big toolbox of practical ideas and methods to tell better stories on the page.
This issue of Friday Film Notes is sponsored by: Milanote
Milanote has totally transformed how I prep my film projects. Its intuitive, visual interface makes it easy to brainstorm scenes, track timelines, and collaborate with my team in real time. It keeps all my creative ideas and planning in one place—I love it.
Why do writers need a toolbox?
The truth is that no 2 writers will approach work the same way – that’s why there’s so much contradictory writing advice out there in the world.
Steven King doesn’t outline his books, he discovers the plot IN the writing. That’s what gets him excited enough to churn out hundreds of books. Sanderson calls these writers “gardeners.” They cultivate the story every day, watching it grow as they write.
Others, like me (and most screenwriters), front-load their writing efforts by creating an outline first, so they know the structure of the story. He calls these writers “architects.”
Most writers live somewhere in between – because if you’re too extreme on either end you run into problems.
Too far in the gardening side and your plot may meander too far and go nowhere satisfying.
Too far in the architect side, and your characters lose their teeth and become mere puppets for your contrived plot to play out.
But by being exposed to the many different techniques and ideas writers implement to create a narrative – you can pick and choose the ones that work for YOU.
Speaking of which, let’s talk real quick about one of Sanderson’s simple frameworks that clicked with me…
Promise, Progress, Payoff
This is the basic plot framework Sanderson operates off of, simply put:
Every story starts with promises made to the reader (or viewer).
The audience then gets to enjoy the feeling of progress made in the fulfillment of that promise.
And at the end, there is a rewarding payoff of the promise AND the progress.
Let’s break it down a little more granularly.
Promises
Stories make a few promises, and it’s up to the writer to fulfill these promises.
First there’s a promise of tone.
What kind of story is this? How will I feel? Is this going to be funny? Scary? Tragic? What’s the style of the writing?
Then there’s a promise of plot.
Who is going to do what? Why does it matter? What’s in the way?
Even if we don’t yet know HOW anything is going to happen, and even if we don’t explicitly say or show what the plot is going to be, we should still be promising a basic plot early on.
For example, in Star Wars, we have a princess in space getting captured by a dark lord. Then we meet the lowly Luke Skywalker, looking up to the stars from his farm, dreaming of a bigger life up there.
Then new plot promises are made as the story progresses – Luke and co will destroy the Death Star. Luke will kill Darth Vader. They will save the galaxy from the empire. Etc.
There may just be promises of information as well – if your story takes place in a mysterious world, you’re making a promise that the way things work will make sense by the end.
Lastly, there’s the promises of the characters.
Where is this character starting out and what are they sorely missing? We’re promising that they’ll try to “fix” that part of themselves by the end of this story. Han Solo has all the trappings of a hero, but he’s a selfish jerk. There’s an implicit promise from early on that he’ll do something selfless for the greater good/his friends.
Progress
Sanderson argues that the feeling of progress is what keeps the reader turning the page.
And if there’s no meaningful progress in the promises that they are most invested in, then they lose interest and put the book down.
I agree.
Since we always have multiple promises going on, it’s important to read the temperature of your audience and try to know which promise needs to progress the most at any given point in your story. Usually, there’s one big one that is the real bread and butter for your story.
For example, in the show LOST, we all just wanted progress in information. What the hell is happening on that island? Sure, we wanted them to make progress in getting OFF the island (plot), or surviving the “others”, and all the character plots going on simultaneously… but the show got in trouble when they ignored that primary driver of interest for the audience – progress in the mystery of the island.
(This is the same way I feel about Severance by the way. What the hell is Lumon and the work that they’re all doing? When I don’t feel progress on this promise I start to get annoyed at the show, even though every episode is great.)
We want to see Luke learn to master the force with Yoda.
We want to see the Wolf of Wallstreet get more reckless and more debaucherous.
Etc.
Payoff
Payoff really is a better word than “ending” or “resolution.”
Because its what we ultimately all want by the end of a story. We want to be rewarded with something that makes us feel everything we just experienced was worth it.
Sanderson says you do this by fulfilling your promises – AND THEN SOME.
So Luke doesn’t just adventure into the stars, he becomes a hero of the entire galaxy.
But very important – for the payoff to truly be a payoff, all of the progress leading up to it must have been essential to achieve this result.
That means that even if you have setbacks in the middle of your story, where suddenly it feels like we’re NOT making progress, whatever seemed like a failure in that setback should come back and be crucial for the ultimate payoff.
That way, the audience doesn’t feel like they wasted their time following along in those setbacks, and the payoff becomes more rewarding.
So for example if the characters’ careful, painstaking planning for their big heist falls apart at the last minute because of some unforeseen obstacles – you can create a rewarding payoff by having them quickly re-arrange all of their plans to try to still get away with the heist.
But the crucial thing is all their careful planning and work (progress) isn’t wasted, it’s still used for the payoff, but in a different way than they thought.
That way we the audience are glad we got invested in all that heist planning earlier, and now we’re on the edge of our seat because we have to use those plans in ways they weren’t intended. That means more danger, more improvising, etc.
If the heist is a success despite those curveballs, what a great payoff.
Want more?
Check out Sanderson’s full lecture on Promise, Progress, and Payoff here.
Let’s make some movies,
Kent
PS – Don’t forget, doors are now open to enroll in the April session of WRAPPED in 30 Days.
Get step-by-step support to make your own crowd-pleasing short film, at any budget. Class starts April 1st.
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