Provocation, little more.
Why?? Why…..why….why do we have to write more about these things?
BECAUSE
All researchers delve into the invisible world where the origins of everything are and is, especially people.
In the film/screenwriting world the invisible things screenwriters work with and look for are the humane emotions, the mind, intellect, soul, ego, conscience, our spirit. They are the precursor to the action which always reveals the inward
Emotions allow us to feel.
“Feelings are everything, the connector of humanity.” Our goal is to create characters our audience can, identify, sympathies, like and hopefully, love. (Feelings)
Provocation is one of the algorithms we run our characters and story through.
Algorithm. If I’m not feeling it? “My audience isn’t gonna feel it.”
As the writer I am the first line of defense. I’m on high alert with bare knuckled honesty!
I REPEAT
” If you ain’t, “feeling it,” neither will they!
Our research is development, discussions, “what if?” We experiment; what about this scene as apposed to that one? Then observing our own emotional responses.
Side note; Be honest as to how and what you are feeling. Learn to use the excess or deficiency to best navigate the development of character and story-line.
Be able to know intimately your characters but not so close that they fool you. As writers we are lovers and observers. That’s the sweet-spot.
The psych, the mind, the ego, motivation, hence……..PROVOCATION, the cattle prod. The needle, the match that ignites our humane experience.
Working with the invisible things to alter or create the visible, “a motion picture.”
The research reveals breaking down a story and its characters to the invisible, the emotions always show up in the action. The, actions and re-actions. The dialogues.
We all want to deliver our story the way we see and feel it.
HOW DO WE DO THAT?
PROVOCATION. When understood how we’re going to use certain provocations in our characters that will evoke provocations from others including us. This is storytelling
“Evoking through Provoking.”
The, “this and that” or, “if this, than that.” has unlimited variations as to shaping the characters and the story-line. It’s really quite amazing when we apply the science of the technical’s in story-development. It allows us to extract the best of our humane experiences to shape our characters and our story.
In closing.
Think of Provocation as a, “Steering wheel,” an “accelerator,” “brakes,” a “rear-view mirror.” The “hidden power that drives our stories and characters.”