How to Become Better Storytellers by Studying Other Artists' Work
A host of filmmakers, novelists, and comic book writers from around the globe deliver short lectures about seminal art works in their creative lives
While I attended university to study literature and creative writing, the education I received there pales compared to the one I’ve gained from a lifetime devoted to independently studying the arts - an education that continues to this day and will continue until I drop dead. That said, some works of art have shaped me as a storyteller more than others. I’ve discussed some of them here at 5AM StoryTalk and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But this newsletter is also a conversation, as I like to bill it. I want to hear from other artists, my peers, about their own experiences, too. And so this November, I thought I’d mix things up by asking a bunch of them about the art that taught them the most about storytelling, or, phrased another way, the art they think can teach you the most. This is the specific question I posed to them:
You’ve just been asked by a prestigious arts institution to deliver a 90-minute lecture on a single piece of art that you feel encapsulates everything you believe about storytelling and from which others could learn all the tools necessary to become a great storyteller themselves. What film, graphic novel, novel, play, piece of fine art, or TV series would you choose? Please provide a brief summary of your lecture.
Below, you will find the rather brilliant responses I received; they’re specific, insightful, and, on a few occasions, floor me in how they made me rethink the art work being discussed. In addition to the variety of mediums these artists create in, they represent a diverse range of voices and cultural backgrounds from across the globe - including the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, the Netherlands, and Australia. Hopefully, their perspectives and experiences will be of some help to you as you navigate your own creative journeys.
HARLEY PEYTON (writer/producer, “TWIN PEAKS”)
Lecture Subject: “Twin Peaks” (1990 to 1991)
Medium: Television
Of course I’m going to choose “Twin Peaks” as the piece of art that encapsulated everything I feel about storytelling, that taught me how to tell stories differently and not-differently at the same time. The first time I saw the pilot that Mark Frost and David Lynch had created, I had already been a working writer for five or so years. But while I watched that story unfold, I could feel my own approach to writing, to storytelling, evolve, mutate, and coalesce into something different. It was that powerful for me. And I think in part because it managed a trick I’d never considered before. It took a traditional story template – the soap opera – and turned it on its head, then upside, and inside out, and so on. The collision of the familiar and the unique is not something I’d considered before. Sure, you could try to write something more suited to the marketplace, an attempt to put the square peg of your instincts into the commercial round hole. Or you could dig deeply into your most creative instincts, try to knock down the walls of the expected, and make art that no one has ever made before. (The latter is basically an impossibility for most of us including myself, but the effort itself is wholly worthwhile.) But at that point in my relatively young career, I’d never considered doing both at the same time — take traditional modes of storytelling and fill them with your own most anarchic instincts.
First, okay that’s a hell of a lot of fun. And it felt like that working on “Twin Peaks” from start to finish. But I think it’s also a way of connecting with the larger audience with surprising efficiency. The traditional elements – plot, character, whatever – are a door that opens to let the audience in. But once they pass through that door, the anarchic instincts come into play, allowing you bring the viewer/reader on a trip they did not see coming but one that will also include a familiar landmark or two along the way.
Sitting down to write a scene between Agent Cooper and Pete Martell, just to name one example, was never anything but a thrilling creative opportunity. Because the characters were forged from familiar archetypes but also something more, something weird, something hidden but also in plain sight. And navigating their particular back and forth, the way they spoke, the way they thought, the way they felt — that was a journey for the writer as much as the characters. That was an education for me. Not just the viewing of the art that Mark and David were making. But my own attempts to contribute to it.
A few things I learned. You need to understand the rules of the game before you can subvert them. You need to know when to subvert the rules and how much. And sure, sometimes you can toss the fucking rules in the nearest garbage can and write your brains loose. But only when you know those rules by heart.
There is no character not deserving of your creative respect. Hero, villain, somewhere in-between. It’s said that everybody has their reasons and I can’t think of a better thing to keep in mind when creating characters. And that’s how I came to think of Audrey Horne or Agent Cooper or Windom Earle or even Bob. And it’s certainly how I came to view the character Leland Palmer, who contained multitudes.
The characters will tell you the story, so pay attention. The soap opera format demands that. “Twin Peaks” was a story with a central mystery, of course. But the characters are what drove the narrative on a weekly basis. Their stories became the larger story. And that goes back to wants, needs, all of it. But I’ve always felt that a character-first approach best suits the needs of television and movie storytelling. High concept or not, what draws us in, what draws us deeply, are the characters and their choices and their hopes and their failures and their dreams.
Every story needs to make sense on its own terms. “Twin Peaks” adhered to that. There were times when the narrative proceeded in moderately expected fashion. And there is satisfaction in that for creator and viewer alike. But there were also times when the story charged right off the rails without warning. And there is satisfaction, not to mention exhiliration, in that. Great or good art - and I believe “Twin Peaks” was great art, good art, bad art, and wonderful art, frequently at the same time – will find ways to marry the characters to their context, to build roads for them to travel, to build narratives for them to explore.
Sometimes that’s about weird little town in the Northwest that was both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time that also changed television forever (I genuinely believe that).
Harley is a U.S.-based screenwriter. He was a co-EP on my TV series, “Dracula”, and you can read more about our experiences together here.
LIZ W. GARCIA (writer-director, SPACE CADET)
Lecture Subject: Thelma & Louise (1991)
Medium: Film
Artists: Written by Callie Khouri; directed by Ridley Scott
Thelma & Louise is a work of genius that I'd argue is more relevant now in the wake of this disastrous election than ever. Ridley Scott is, I believe, our sexiest director, followed closely by his late brother. As in, Ridley knows what's sexy, who's sexy and where's sexy. In Thelma & Louise, everyone is sexy, and the sexiest thing of all is freedom. Scott, to borrow a tiresome phrase from the election, understood the assignment in executing the awe-inspiring brilliance in Callie Khouri's script.
What makes a good story? Transformation. How does transformation happen? A hero forges ahead in pursuit of a goal and along the way encounters obstacles that change them. What makes a great story? A hero transformation that, in a cogent but surprising fashion, reflects a universal struggle. That is Thelma & Louise. Our titular heroines go on a literal journey that, by the end of Act 1, transforms from a vacay road trip to a run from the law after the women kill a man who's raping Thelma. On their way to Mexico, the women are repeatedly wronged by men (the obstacles) which forces them to take greater risks in order to survive, and the risk-taking creates necessary transformation. The change is reflected in their behavior (Thelma takes up smoking and defies her husband), their costuming (hair down, sleeves removed, faces streaked with dirt) and in the filmmaking (heroines are set against stark landscapes, iconic and large-looming as cowboys). At one point, the cop who is our heroines' enemy encounters a Black cyclist; rather than help the cop, the cyclist laughs and leaves him in jeopardy. If Khouri's larger point isn't already clear, that interaction makes it plain: Thelma and Louise and the Black cyclist all live in a system that's rigged against them and enforced by police and white men.
Sound familiar? Sound like America?
A great dramatic story must take its premise to the absolute limit. The premise of Thelma & Louise is that in seeking a weekend of freedom, two women are forced into the true pursuit of freedom; it's not enough to escape the overbearing husband for the weekend, women must escape the entire patriarchal system. There is only one possible structurally and thematically sound ending for this premise: our trapped women escape the system and find full bodily autonomy. But how? The only way. There is no true freedom for women and minorities living in a capitalist patriarchy. (That's the truth and it takes a brilliant writer to show us a crushing, damning truth in the context of a thrilling, sexy, road trip thriller.) The only freedom is in opting out. And so they do, hands clasped, pedal to the metal, in full-throated consent.
Liz is a U.S.-based filmmaker. You can read my artist-on-artist conversation with her here.
DAVID A. GOODMAN (showrunner, “HYSTERIA!”)
Lecture Subject: “The Twilight Zone” (1959 to 1964)
Medium: Television
Artist: Various; created by Rod Serling
Though there are a lot of answers to this, I think I would choose “The Twilight Zone”. I think my lecture would have two sections.
The first section would be the craft of the show itself. Rod Serling and the other writers told a wide range of stories, the writing (for the most part) was never heavy handed, and while some segments are dated, many have stood the test of time, and the drama is often stark and disturbing. (The episode “It’s a Good Life”, for example, is uniquely plotted and still an incredibly terrifying indictment of bad parenting.) The writers, actors and directors all turned in exceptional work, and the writers in particular created stories that always had something to say beyond just plot. This was a show with a purpose, it captured the alienation of the individual in modern society, but never took its eye off the ball of entertaining the audience, audaciously mixing genres of science fiction, western, mystery, war and family drama. I watch it and marvel about the efficiency of its storytelling, building each episode around one idea, with a clear road map of where it’s going, and with real personal jeopardy for the characters involved. And almost always with a satisfying twist at the end; that twist was never the purpose, it served the story that the creators wanted to tell. Because of the genius of Serling et al, there are moments from that show that are still part of our pop culture language.
The second section would be about how the show came to be, because it is also still relevant: Serling was frustrated by network sensors, so he used the framework of science-fiction to tell challenging stories. It’s an important lesson I’ve learned in my own career that you need to both be as creative as possible and accept the limitations of the system that you’re working in. After years of working in television, Serling understood that, and his approach to his work as showrunner allowed him to create something important, memorable, and entertaining.
David is a U.S.-based screenwriter, author, and comic book writer. He’s also a former president of the Writers Guild of America.
NICOLE TAYLOR (creator/showrunner, “ONE DAY”)
Lecture Subject: Margaret (2011)
Medium: Film
Artist: Written and directed by Kenneth Lonergan
I’d choose Kenneth Lonergan’s film Margaret. Not sure how far I’d get in a 90 min lecture though. You know when a piece of art so totally overwhelms you, gets so close to the human experience that you can’t stand outside and describe? You’re kind of dumbstruck by it but also can’t stop talking about it. Well, that’s Margaret. But the lecture, if I was forced to give it, would be about character and how that film demonstrates better than any other how you can render complexity of character on the screen, how you can turn people inside out. That’s what I’m after in my own work more than anything else - getting what’s inside out, putting people’s interior lives on screen - and watching and rewatching Margaret is a call to arms always. The characters of Lisa Cohen, her mum, the neighbor - played by Anna Paquin, J. Smith Cameron and Jeanne Berlin - are as close to real people as I’ve ever seen onscreen. The difference between watching “characters” and actual humans is enormous. So, the lecture would be about that.
Nicole is a U.K.-based screenwriter.
JOY C. MITCHELL (screenwriter/executive story editor, “BRIDGERTON”)
Lecture Subject: Saga (2012 to present)
Medium: Comic book
Artist: Created by and Fiona Staples
The first time I read Saga I couldn’t put it down. I know the word “page-turner” gets thrown around a lot, but a friend lent me a copy of Volume 1 some twelve years ago and I’ve been compelled to keep reading each issue that’s been released ever since. Now, why does Saga remain a must-read series all these years later?
Well, I ardently love series that are able to blend tones and genres, as these are my favorite type of series to write. Saga juggles multiple tones with ease. The right mix of humor, drama, action, adventure and romance somehow makes the series feel more authentic. Granted, this is a graphic novel series about two star-crossed young lovers and their child fleeing a galactic war in space. But much can be learned from a long-running sci-fi story that spins what could be just another Romeo and Juliet-flavored tale into a heart-wrenching family drama, an emotionally driven (and sexy) love story, and a tale about parenting a young child outside of the oppressive political confines of the world they live in. And Brian K. Vaughan deftly does all of this without it feeling heavy-handed.
In Saga, the side characters are just as rich and unique as the main characters. The way they are woven in and out of the main storyline, popping in and out as they hunt down the fugitive leads, while also going on their own adventures keeps you on your toes as you read. With each page of gorgeously rendered illustrations, you remain deeply invested in not just the world that’s been created or the story that’s being told, but every character in it. And Lying Cat (an assassin’s sidekick cat who calls out when someone is lying) has to be one of the most simple, yet disruptive storytelling devices I’ve ever encountered. Not to mention every issue ends on a cliffhanger so juicy you’re left salivating for the next issue to appear on stands. I can’t think of a graphic novel with better world building, intriguing character development, hilarious dialogue, gorgeous visual art, and heartbreaking yet propulsive story turns than Saga.
Joy is a U.K.-based screenwriter.