A Conversation with Lorien McKenna

Before we all become immersed in the holidays, I want to share my illuminating conversation with Lorien McKenna who worked deep inside story development at Pixar for more than 10 years. She offers some valuable insight around how to think about and approach story structure. Lorien is now based in Los Angeles and offers story and script consulting services. So if you are looking for feedback on a completed screenplay, I highly recommend reaching out to her!

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LORIEN McKENNA is a screenwriter and story consultant. She specializes in Story and Script Development for both studios and writers, helping them find the best version of their story. Her studio experience includes 10 years at Pixar Animation Studios in Story Development (RATATOUILLE, UP, BRAVE, INSIDE OUT, THE GOOD DINSOSAUR), Paramount as a Development Producer, and REELFX Animation Studios as a Story Consultant.

In 2015, along with Meg LeFauve and Chris Whitaker, she sold and wrote a TV Comedy based on the foibles of parenthood for WBTV/NBC. She is also a mentor and judge for the Cinestory Foundation in both the TV/Digital and Feature Retreats.

Lorien has a BA in English Literature & Performing Arts and an MFA in Playwriting from St. Mary's College of California. 

Karin: Could you share a bit of your background before joining Pixar?

Lorien: So I got my MFA in playwriting at St. Mary's College and I studied with Octavio Solis; and right after school a group of us wanted to keep writing together so we formed our own little writing group. Octavio would come and run a group for us. I think we paid him $25. We had a free space in the Mission in San Francisco. As women playwrights in San Francisco in 2001 it was hard to get our work out there. You think, “I'm going to get my MFA in playwriting and the world will open up to me.” Ha-ha-ha. Right? So four of us formed a theater company called Guilty Theater and we wrote and produced our own work, which was great. And I started teaching at St. Mary's; I taught theater and Shakespeare and writing and lots of drama classes in the Bay Area, to kids and this amazing class of retired people at Parks and Rec in Pleasanton. Teaching them Hero's Journey was a mind-blowing experience. It was the best. I loved it so much. 

Why?

Because they were so willing to be students and they were so willing to be seen; their hunger to be seen was so beautiful and tragic at the same time. I think we all have that as artists. But these 70-year-old people wanted to be writers and so I would see them as writers, and they showed up and did the work, which for me is one of my baseline requirements in storytelling. You must show up and you must do the work. I'm not going to do it for you, and you cannot let other people do it for you.

And meanwhile I was working full time in San Francisco and acted in community theater plays. A woman in a play worked at Pixar and she said, “There is a job available, we need a temp.” There was an intern who only worked on Fridays and she was taking six weeks off. So they needed a temp for an intern who only worked on Fridays.

And I was like, “Excuse me but I am a 34-year-old adjunct professor at St Mary's College. I am not a temp.” But I went home and my husband said, “You better turn around and go work at Pixar” because he loves animation so much. So I was like, fine. So I worked in marketing temping and then I applied for a job. They wanted me to apply for the director's assistant position on Ratatouille. And I said, “No way, I don't want to be an assistant.” So my track at Pixar is everything they wanted me to do, I said “no” to, is what happened. I'm just like Elizabeth Bennett, the power of no. So I was the director's assistant and then I was the script supervisor on 'Up' which was my first movie, and I did 'story' on Brave, Inside Out and The Good Dinosaur.

What are you biggest takeaways from working at Pixar?

So in theater I hated rehearsal. I loved performing. I just hated doing the work of going to rehearsal but I loved being on stage. What I learned at Pixar is that it's about the work; it should be about the rehearsal. It should be about learning the craft and understanding the craft; that it's not just about the thrill of finishing and being on stage. At Pixar these movies take so long, you have to show up every day and pay attention. And at the time Pixar hired incredible people; everyone was gifted. So I was used to showing up and being like, “Oh my god you're the best.” And they're like, “Great, what do you got?” I had to elevate my game at every turn. So I always had to be learning, always had to be paying attention. 

I got my MFA but I didn't understand story structure until I started working at Pixar, because as a playwright I took workshops from Marie Irene Fornes and Cherrie Moraga... it's very like 'just write your pain, write the poetry of your feelings', which is not about story structure.

With each film I worked on it just became more and more ingrained in me. At first I resisted, right? Structure is a formula. But really what I learned, and as I continue to learn more about structure... as a writer it's your contract with your audience. You're saying, “I'm going to take you on a journey, I'm going make you cry, make you laugh, I'm gonna rip your guts out, but I've got you. I'm in control. I'm going to bring you back safely.” And so that was the gift of Pixar for me. Nobody there whips out Save the Cat or Joseph Campbell. We talk about Star Wars. We reference films, we reference characters and journeys that resonate with a particular film a lot. Star Wars comes up every day. There's a Star Wars jar; if you mention it, you put a dollar in the jar. 

It's interesting because storytellers at Pixar tell those stories from their pain and their personal experience, and yet there are so many checkpoints in process and so many people who understand storytelling just so fundamentally that it just sort of naturally happens. There's a way that it just becomes part of the language. I didn't even know I was learning it until I actually did. I learned structure in such a way that was so inside the process, as I was doing it; the exercise of building these films and rebuilding them and rebuilding them and rebuilding them for years in story is what taught me what I know about structure as opposed to reading a book and trying to apply it to what I'm writing.

So would they talk about structure in terms of a character's journey?

It's all about character; it's always all about character, because you're creating the character out of nothing and then someone has to design the character and then build the puppet in the computer and then rig it, make it come alive. The Pixar movies, they're all character driven. When they say 'story is king' at Pixar that means the storytelling process and that it's rooted in character.

It gets pretty intense what goes on at Pixar in the Story department. I mean it is emotional and personal and specific to someone's story. And at the peak there's like 350 people working on that movie. So all those people are working on that one person's story. So it's really vulnerable and precious and terrifying.

Does it really come down to what's personal to one person or are there other people chiming in?

Of course other people are chiming in, but it's that singular vision. Like Pete Docter's daughter who is this goofy, charming kid who liked old 50s and 60s movies and Disneyland. Pete's exactly like that, they're passionate artist people. And then his daughter turned 12 and shut him out. And so he was like, “What's happening in her head? What happened?” And that is what Inside Out is about; it's literally a moment he had and his story. And of course all of us were parents on the film, and you know, everybody's been a kid so everybody brings something to it that magnifies it and amplifies Pete's vision. I always thought things were the most healthy at Pixar when people were able to amplify that vision; and of course that amplification can be as a challenge as long as everyone understands what that vision is. Usually the director comes up with an idea and then that's the movie that gets made, which is what I loved about theater too. And which is why Pixar felt great to me because it's collaborative and loud and messy and fun and challenging and personal. It's all the things that are about being in a play. Some of the people get to be on stage; some of the people are backstage. You know, there are people making costumes and people who are the actors and there's somebody who's written it. And you work out the kinks and it felt a lot like theater to me, which is why I loved it so much. Some of my best friends I met at Pixar because of what you go through there.

So now you're living in Los Angeles, and in addition to writing and consulting for studios, you coach screenwriters. What is your approach?

When I work with writers I'm developing the writer as much as the project because I'm interested in developing their skillset not just fixing the screenplay. That for me is really important because what I'm saying isn't groundbreaking, like “Your midpoint's in the wrong place or your third act isn't earned.” Nothing I say is new. But I think it's my connection with the writer, how I'm delivering the message and making it personal; I think that's why people want to work with me, because they can learn stuff about themselves. I mean some people are literally writing about their own personal stories and don't realize it.

Do you work primarily with screenwriters?

I have so far only worked with screenwriters, TV and feature screenplays, and I prefer for someone to show up with a script. I really like to respond to a piece of work. I read so many screenplays, I guess I'm most comfortable with that.

What about playwriting?

Playwriting, yes, I love to work with playwrights. I read a screenplay recently, and I'm like, “This is written by a playwright,” I can just tell. I love plays.

You also offer something unique called 'story hikes' where you read the work and discuss it out on the trail. How has that been going?

I did quite a few of them and they were amazing. I learned a lot because I am not an athletic person, I don't hike. I think I've been on one hike on purpose before I started story hikes. So it was sort of an interesting way that came about. I have high cholesterol and so to change my lifestyle I thought, I'll take people on story hikes and do what I do and get exercise. I kind of thought it was a silly idea, but it's actually really cool because normally in a story consult you sit across the table, you're looking at them. It's a little confrontational, right? They show up open and vulnerable to you and you critique their work which is essentially about them. I mean no matter what the work is you are talking about them as a writer and artist. 

So what's interesting about the story hikes is that you show up in your workout clothes, which is different than a regular meeting. It's great because you can talk about things and you're not looking at the person. So they're looking over there, I'm looking over here. I can be talking, they're listening. Everyone that I hike with gets emotional, some people cry, because we end up talking about complicated stuff about their writing and themselves as writers. The most profound thing I noticed, though, is when we're going uphill you're leaning forward and you're working harder and trying to talk and breathe, that's when the problems come out. That's when we're talking about what needs to be fixed, what the notes are, questions. And then on the downhill, because you have to lean back a little bit, your chest opens up and you're sort of looking up, it's when people start finding solutions. It's really interesting and it's kind of beautiful.

What advice do you often find yourself giving writers?

You know I'm a mentor at Cinestory, and on this last feature retreat, it was the final day and everybody was giving advice, and I just had this moment of like, “This is really hard. I still struggle with whether or not I'm a writer. What does it mean to be a writer?” I'm a mentor there, and I think for me it was important to share that. For me being a writer is such a vulnerable and powerful thing, I'm getting emotional right now talking about it. I think I will struggle with it always, no matter what happens.

To learn more about Lorien McKenna, visit lorienmckenna.com

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A Conversation with Lisa Manterfield

I had the lovely opportunity to chat with Lisa Manterfield this week, author of the memoir I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home, about her journey through infertility. She is a big proponent of self-publishing and offers some helpful insights that may shorten the learning curve if you're considering going that route. She is also doing a unique experiment with her fiction (a serial novel!) so read on below to find out more.

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LISA MANTERIELD is the creator of an online forum LifeWithoutBaby.com that gives a voice to women without children. Her writing has been featured in Los Angeles Times, Bicycle Times, and Romantic Homes. In her gritty, award-winning memoir, I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood, Lisa traces her spiraling route from rational 21st century woman to desperate mama-wannabe.

She examines the siren song of motherhood, the insidious lure of the fertility industry, and the repercussions of being childless in a mom-centric society. But this isn't just another infertility story with another miracle baby ending, nor is it a sad introspective of a childless woman; this is a story about love, desire, and choices and ultimately about hope. It is the story of a woman who escapes her addiction, not with a baby, but with her sanity, her marriage, and her sense-of-self intact. I'm Taking My Eggs and Going Home is a 2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards winner.

Lisa lives with her husband and cat, and divides her time between Los Angeles and Santa Rosa, California.

Karin: Where did your memoir begin?

Lisa: I had signed up for The Writer's Studio at UCLA with Barbara Abercrombie, and her husband was sick suddenly. This was a few years ago. And Amy Friedman was the replacement teacher. I just connected with her immediately. She did this exercise in class where she had us go home and write on a piece of paper, “What is the one thing that you don't want to write about?” So I went home and thought about it, and I said, “I don't want to write about infertility. I don't want to write about this... I'm living it. Not interested in writing about it.” I went in the next day to see what she was going to do with it and she didn't do anything with it. She never mentioned it again.

So that topic sort of wormed its way into my mind until I ended up writing about it. I always sort of laughed that that was one of her devious moves to get us to write about things that we “thought” we didn't want to write about, the hard stuff.

I really started writing about it as a way to deal with what I was going through. And then I kept writing and kept writing, and finally I thought, you know, there's nothing out there on this topic. There were very few books out there, but they were a lot of “how to” books or “miracle baby” endings. So I started writing more and more about it, and I realized that I had a book. I put together these funny essays and had some people read them; and I just realized I was just skimming the surface of my own story.

So I took a step back and started from the beginning again, thinking, “What's the story that I want to tell?” And I still wasn't sure what the ending was going to be, so it's kind of interesting that the process of writing the story helped me to understand what my own ending needed to be. Not just the book, but the ending for my own story.

For you, what does it mean to realize that you 'have a book'?

Some people go through a life experience and go, “I want to write about this, I want to share this story” and that wasn't the way it happened for me. I have always wanted to write fiction and have been working towards how to write fiction; and at the same time writing personal essays, which is what I did at Spark, writing short narrative nonfiction. So I never really set out to write a memoir, but was gathering this material and realizing that I was probably looking for a book myself that didn't exist. There really were not resources out there. I wasn't hearing this story... “What happens when it doesn't work out for you?” Does that happen to anybody? I just felt that somebody needed to talk about it. For me, it needed to be written, and I'm really glad that I did.

Did you publish traditionally or independently?

I did it independently. I did pitch it traditionally, and that topic - even now - is pretty taboo. There are very few traditionally published books around that topic. But I knew I just needed to get it out there; so yeah, I did publish it independently. And ultimately, I think that was the best move for it.

Why?

Because it is a niche audience. I think it's a much bigger audience than people realize, but it is very niche. Part of publishing the book was starting a blog, which has actually really grown into this pretty active online community. So that's something that came out of the publishing process. That in turn led to the follow-on book which is more of a “how to” book. Sometimes you make plans of which direction your career or life is going to go, and then things just kind of evolve.

But I like the self-publishing process. I like having that control. It's a lot of work, but you have a lot of control over it. It's a lot of work, but it's kind of fun to know that you've basically produced the whole product, not just the writing aspect of it, but the whole package.

I think so much is changing in the traditional publishing world now, I think it's really hard to get a book noticed, especially for a debut author. It happens, of course it happens. But it feels like that whole world is in flux right now and there are so many people publishing independently and really doing it well. It is a lot of work and the big downside, I think, is not having that kind of support system and team behind you that can look at your book and say, “I see exactly where this fits in the market and this is how we're going to reach that audience.” So when you publish yourself, you've got to figure all that out.

But the flip side of it is, you can get your book out there. And if you're willing to the do the work, do the marketing - which you're going to have to do anyway - there's no reason for somebody not to get their work out into the world and find the readers that want it. It's kind of exciting actually.

When you went through the process, whom did you hire along the way?

I hired Jennie Nash originally as a book coach to look at the overall book and the structure of it and the flow.

After you'd written a draft?

Yes. And then once I got it to where I was happy, I hired an editor. I have a friend who is a freelance editor and she was the one who actually edited for me. And then I hired a proofreader as well. The number one thing that I wanted going the self-publishing route was to make sure that it didn't look like a self-published book. That it wasn't full of typos, that it was well laid out, that the cover looked professional. So I hired all that stuff out, which was a pretty steep learning curve for me. And there are definitely things I would have done differently, but I'm still really proud of how the book came out.

What would you have done differently in retrospect?

As far as the package, nothing. But the distribution... I decided that I would print a large quantity of books and have them delivered to my house. It wasn't a huge number, I think it was maybe 250 or 300 books on the first printing, but when that shows up on your doorstep, there's a lot of boxes. And then I ended up shipping those boxes to Amazon, so double shipping costs there. The second book I used Create Space and Ingram's Lightning Source. Through those two channels I'm able to distribute to all the major online bookstores.

The thing you don't get with self-publishing is access to major brick and mortar bookstores. So that's definitely a downside. Just being able to do bookstore events, for example. Like my local Barnes & Noble said, “Oh we'd love to have you, but your book is not in our catalogue so we can't sell your book here.” But that's changing; I think they're now including self-published authors in their catalogue. And then I did a couple of events at independent bookstores where they took books on consignment, so there's a way around that stuff.

What exactly is Create Space?

So Create Space is Amazon's print-on-demand service. You basically load the book into it and they only sell through Amazon. But they print as needed rather than doing a bulk order and then shipping it. So that's great, that takes that double shipping out of the loop. And then Lightning Source is a similar thing - they are also print on demand - so I can get print books into the online stores like Barnes & Noble but their online version. And then bookstores can order from Ingram, too.

I'm curious to hear more about what you're doing now... It sounds like you're circling back to fiction in an interesting way?

Yeah, I have circled back and am publishing a serial novel online, A Strange Companion. I'm doing it on my website and I'm also doing it on Wattpad which is a bit of an experiment; I'm not sure how that's going yet. I'm posting a chapter a week of my novel.

What have you learned so far?

I have learned to listen to my wise friends who told me to make sure I have six fully completed chapters before I start posting, because I'm finding myself at the moment running headfirst against my deadline. But I haven't missed a deadline yet!

So the flip side is that having that deadline is making sure that I get to my desk and I get my writing done. I really just wanted to get my fiction out there, and this is a novel that I've written and rewritten and pitched and rewritten... many, many, many times. And then said, “You know what, this book is going nowhere. I'm going to put it under my bed and forget about it and move on to the next one.” So when I finished a second book, which I'm now currently pitching to agents, I have this book under the bed and say, “I really love this story, I want to get it out there.” And looking if there's a way to start building a readership for fiction and decided, you know, I'm just going to start putting this out there and do it as a serial novel. I know the story. I'm going to make a really clean outline so I know where I'm going, and then write, edit and publish a chapter every week. It's definitely gotten me working on this book again which I probably would have just abandoned. There's an instant gratification factor of putting chapters out there and having people respond to them. It's a little bit nerve-wracking; as you know, even as you get to later drafts of a book, things change and sometimes you need to go backward before you can move forward. But once something's been published that's much harder to do. I would say overall it's been a really good experience. It's been really fun, which sometimes writing can stop being fun when you're trying to get towards a finished product and you're going through, particularly, that revision process. For me the fun part is the new, shiny first draft; you get to your fifth or sixth revision and at some point it stops being fun.

Do you intend to go back and revisit any of it, or is it just going to be whatever has been posted?

At some point I will put it together and publish it as a complete book, but whether I will just put the chapters together and clean it up and publish it, or put it together and take another bigger look and make more significant revisions, I'm not sure yet. But at some point I will put it together and make it available in another format.

Some people really like the serial format where they look forward to a new chapter coming every week. But a couple people said, you know, I like the story but I'm going to wait until it's done because I don't like having to wait a week. I want to binge read the story.

Where did you get this idea from? Do you read other serial novels?

I do not actually. Again, talking about the changes in publishing and that there are so many ways to get your work out there in the world; I'd come across Wattpad, which is a writing and publishing app. It's this whole community of writers and it's more teen writers and young adult stories for the most part, where people really are publishing first drafts online and then getting feedback. It's a really active community... just seeing other writers putting their first few chapters of their novels up there, or publishing novellas or short stories that are spin offs from their published novels. So I've been snooping around, and thought, you know, this is a really good way to get this book out there without me having to commit to doing a complete revision before I do anything with it.

How did you go about building an audience for yourself?

Well, that's partly the reason that I did it actually, is to start building that audience for my fiction. Because it's really hard to build an audience when you don't have anything for them to read as far as fiction. Even though there's some crossover between the fiction and nonfiction, it's still largely a different audience. You know, we get hammered all the way that “you must build a platform, you must build a platform.” And I think it's really hard to do that when you don't have anything to tell people about. So that was one of the reasons that I decided to do this as well, to actually use it to start building a readership so that when the next book comes out, I'll already have a built-in readership.

I'm still on the fence on whether Wattpad is the right place for this, but I'm continuing to publish. What I've done is reach out to people that I already know - so friends, social media, using Facebook, and also then telling my nonfiction, “Hey, if any of you enjoy fiction this is what I'm doing.” It's definitely a slow growth, but it's an ongoing slow growth. It's an experiment. I'm not sure yet if it's going to be a successful experiment; I think it is. But it's serving several purposes and one of those is to start growing an audience and let people know that, “Hey, I write fiction as well.”

How do you access it and what chapter are you on now?

So this week was chapter 15 and that's about the midpoint of the novel; so yeah, the 15 chapters are all posted on my website. And then if you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you get a notification every week when the new chapter comes out.

So you don't have to sign up to Wattpad necessarily?

No. That's part of my experiment to see what kind of readership that generates. But my main focus is publishing it on my website.

In terms of process, what have you found serves you well in doing your work?

As far as having a process, mornings are my writing time and I'm very protective of it. They do get nibbled into of course, because that's life; but I really try to be protective of the morning. What I've discovered about the way I work is that I need to play first. I need to take my idea and play with it, whether that's writing exercises or writing nonsense or writing a lot of stuff that might never make it into a book. For me I need an outline, structure is really crucial before you go into that fully formed first draft. But I need to play around and figure out what it is that I want to write about first. And then put a stake in the ground and say, “Okay, this is the story, this is what I'm going to write.”

I know some writers who are up and at their desk at 7, and 7 to 10 is their writing time. But I need a little bit more flexibility in there. But I do try to get there every day and do something, at least touch the work, even if words don't end up on the page.

To learn more about Lisa Manterfield, visit lisamanterfield.com

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A Conversation with Lisa Cron

I recently chatted with Lisa Cron about her most recent book, Story Genius, a detailed guide for writing a compelling novel. I have known Lisa for a long time and largely attribute my deep understanding of 'story' to our many conversations over breakfast at our favorite diner 'Rae's' in Santa Monica. And I continue to learn from her!

In this interview I was particularly struck by her insights around how traditional writing is typically taught - as early as kindergarten - leaning on 'technique' over 'story'. Perhaps my ears perked up because I have a four-year-old daughter. Even so, it makes me reflect on my own foundation and evolution, and the ways I've had to unravel and re-learn, thanks to people like Lisa who has made teaching 'Story' her life's work.

So I hope you'll take a moment to glean some Cron wisdom...

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LISA CRON has worked as a literary agent, a TV producer, and a story consultant for Warner Brothers, the William Morris Agency, and many others. She is a frequent speaker at writers' conferences, and a story coach for writers, educators, and journalists. She teaches in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts MFA in Visual Narrative Program, and is the author of Wired for Story. She splits her time between Santa Monica, California, and New York City.

In her book Story Genius, Lisa takes you step by step, through the creation of a novel from the first glimmer of an idea, to a complete multi-layered blueprint--including fully realized scenes-- that evolves into a first draft with the authority, command and richness of a sixth or seventh draft. It follows on the heels of her first breakout book, Wired for Story, which offers a revolutionary look at story as the brain experiences it.

Karin: You call yourself a “Story Coach” versus a “Writing Coach,” why is that?

Lisa: When people hear the word “writing” they think, “How do you write? What's your technique?” and that comes at it from such the wrong place. Because story begets writing, not the other way around.

That's why people who know me well, when I'm working with someone, and I go, “Well, you're a really good writer,” they know I'm about to tell them something awful. That's not a compliment.

What is “You're a really good writer” code for?

For me, it's code for: you can write a sentence, you can write a generic scene, you can use words but what you're using them for isn't there. It's not about writing; it's about story. The power comes from the story not the writing. It's story first. That's what ends up giving power to any words. The problem is that writers think that the words have to be there first. It keeps them from getting into the starting gate, let alone out of it, because everything has to be beautifully written from the get-go. And if you don't know what you're talking about or writing about or what the story is, what are you using those words for?

Why do we have it all wrong?

I spent the past two years in this small school district in New Jersey that was K through 8. They wanted to figure out how could they incorporate story into how they teach writing. I've always said that writing is taught wrong everywhere. Originally in my head I was thinking post-secondary. And I got there and I went, “Oh no, it's starts in Kindergarten. I see exactly where the problem is.”

Kids in second grade are taught “theme.” What does that even mean? It doesn't mean anything. I tell adults not to use that word; it's a horrible word. You don't say, “What's my theme?” You say, “What's my point?”

It's taught in terms of technique. It's taught in terms of using beautiful, flowery language. It's taught in terms of mastering how to write a sentence.

I'll give you a great example. I worked with this great literacy coach at the school, and she told me before I got there, “I just want to let you know what you're up against.” About a year or two before I got there - I can't remember if it was a third or fourth grade class - but there was a little girl who came up to her and she'd written about the time when her parents sat her down and told her they were getting a divorce. And so she's reading a piece and she's holding back the tears trying not to cry. And the literacy coach said, “This is so beautiful, this is so amazing. Let's go show it to your teacher.” And so the teacher read it and the first words out of her mouth were, “Um, you missed a couple of transition words here.”

That's the problem.

Besides the fact that it's taught in terms of different techniques and pretty, flowery language - flowery language is very much applauded - they get these prompts that are things like, “Jane was walking on the beach, and she found a bottle with a message in it. Write a story about what happened...” Or “Joe woke up and heard some noise in the backyard and looked outside and there was a castle in his backyard. He decided to go in and explore. Write a story about what happened...”

Prompts are always like that. It's just a big weird thing that happened. But there's no story in that, why would that matter? I don't know.

The problem is, writers are taught the technique of how to write: here's how to write a sentence, here's how to write a paragraph. But when it comes to actually writing a story, they're not taught anything. And the thing is, ultimate and complete freedom is not liberating. It's paralyzing. Because how do you know what matters and what doesn't? What's the point? You're just standing there knowing nothing.

So I said, here's what a story is: it's character, problem, struggle, solution. They didn't know that a story is about how somebody changes. They didn't know that a story was about an internal struggle. They didn't know any of that. For them a story is just what happens. Adults hear it, too. “Okay, here's what a story is: it has a beginning, middle and end.” Show me something that doesn't have a beginning, middle and end. I mean, what does that even mean? Again, it means nothing.

People don't teach story. Writing is taught as if you learn how to write somehow a story is going to appear by itself. You get good with words, you develop your voice, which is bullshit anyway, and then somehow you're going to write forward and a story is going to appear; and if it doesn't, it means you don't have any talent. That's what kills me.

When people say things like, “I have a love of language,” I'm like what the hell does that mean? Language is nothing; language is an empty vessel. Language is a means of communicating something. How can you be good with language if you don't know what you're communicating? That comes first. Then you have the language with which to express it. Story first, writing second.

I think the key thing that is missing - the seminal mistake - is this belief when you start writing, you start writing on page one and you go forward to the end. When actually all stories begin 'in media res' - meaning in the middle of the thing - meaning that there is just as much of it before as after, and that there are certain very specific things in developing story that you need to do before you get to page one. Which is not in any way, shape or form “pre-writing” but everything that you develop “before” is actually in the novel itself; in fact, the most foundational layer of it and on every single page.

Are you talking about the relevant backstory?

I hate the term “backstory.” Backstory is story. My favorite quote that I've been using is Faulkner who said, “The past isn't dead, it isn't even past.” In other words, when the character steps on the page, they bring that with them, that's how they got to where they are.

It's the lens through which the protagonist - and really every character - sees everything. It's how they evaluate everything. It's how you evaluate stuff; it's how I evaluate stuff. There is no general reality out there. We make sense of everything, and everything gets meaning, based on what our past experience has taught us what those things mean. So if you send someone onto the page without knowing that, in a story specific sense, it's like pushing them on to the page with amnesia.

Tell us about your new book Story Genius...

Story Genius takes you step by step, from that first glimmer of an idea that sparks you, all the way through a method as to how to dig down and how to really get that first draft on to the page -- and what you need to know and how to do it. It's literally 100% prescriptive: here's what to do, here's the next thing to do, here's the questions to ask, here's the test to put your ideas through, here's what you're looking for.

If I could burn every copy of The Hero's Journey and every story structure book out there, I would make the biggest bonfire ever. I think any story structure method is awful and I'll tell you why.

They're like plotters; they start with the external story. They go, “This has to happen at this page, that has to happen over here”; they're looking at external structure. Story structure is a byproduct of a story well told. The plot is not what the story is about. The story is about how the story is affecting the protagonist and the plot is created to force the protagonist to go through a very specific internal change that they needed to make before the plot ever was even conceived of.

Those books will take very successful, well-known movies or novels and they'll break them down based on this theory. And the thing is, you already know that movie. You already know that novel. So the internal story, the thing that is really giving it meaning, you already internalized. So when you look at the external stuff, you think, “Oh I'll just make the external stuff and that internal stuff just shows up.” And it isn't true.

Story structure builds things from the outside in; story is built from the inside out.

Can you talk more about re-defining theme as “What's your point?”

All stories make a point on the first page and everything goes to that point. The point is how the character changes internally, that 'aha' moment at the end. It's kind of like that dithery friend who's going on and on and on... and you're smiling... and what you're trying to do is not shake them by the shoulders and go, “Why are you telling me this? What's the point?” If you don't know what the point is, then you can't write a story that tells it. You have to know.

It comes down to - and it's surprisingly deep - why does this matter to you?

I use that phrase a lot, “Why does this matter?” It's a much more relatable way of talking about it than “theme.”

Well, “theme” is scary because it's general. And when people think of theme, they think of that thing that hovers over. The thing is, the story is in the specific.

But I've noticed that it can take time to uncover and really get to - at least for memoir - the deeper, underlying truth of the experience and why it matters and what the actual change is that you're writing about. So what do you suggest?

Everybody enters wanting something really badly, something that they've wanted for a really long time, not something that they want once the plot kicks in. You've got to figure out what that is.

Their “misbelief” is what's keeping them from getting this thing that they want. I would never use the term 'fatal flaw' because it sounds so finger-waggy. It sounds so pejorative. And I would never use the term “wound” because it turns the protagonist into a victim. But it's a misbelief. Once you know that, you ask yourself, “Where did that come from?” It came in childhood, almost always; and I would guess that's definitely true with memoir writers. It defines how the character sees the world.

A misbelief is something that happens in a difficult situation that saves the character from something really bad happening. And in that moment it's true; but it's actually not so. So characters believe this misbelief; they feel like they are super lucky to have learned this early in life. And it drives their life. Once you've identified that and written it in scene form, when it kicks in you can start to trace it through story specific events that led the character to what's going to happen to the character on page one.

I'll give you an example I use all the time. I even have it in the book. Did we talk about the movie “Protagonist” ever? It's a great one; it's a documentary.

So in this movie “Protagonist,” there are four men telling their stories. One of them is this guy Mark Pierpont and he's gay. He grew up in a fundamentalist Christian enclave. It doesn't sound like they were in a cult - it wasn't David Koresh or anything - just very fundamentalist. He felt very loved and felt very close to his mom. But he, I guess like all of us, felt like he was different. He didn't quite get 'why' but it didn't matter. And then one day at school - he was 11 or 12 - someone came up to him and said, “God hates faggots.” And he went, “What's a faggot?” He went to the dictionary and looked up the word; and that became the defining moment in his life. If what I want most is love and connection, but if I have that, God isn't going to love me? Therefore, I can't be gay.

And he lived his life based on that. He got married to a woman!

When did he have to confront that misbelief?

The thing is, in a story the character is confronting it in every scene. In every single scene they've got to make a tough decision, and the story is what they have to struggle with to make that decision.

As I recall, I think the moment of truth was when he became one of those guys who was counseling other guys that they could not be gay. He was counseling someone who so deeply reminded him of himself that he couldn't do it. And he became the great guy - flamboyant with a capital “F” - that he was always meant to be. But you watch him buck it his whole life.

The “point” you're making is that 'aha' moment, what it takes to change someone on that level. And now the character can solve or not, depending on what kind of novel or memoir you're writing, that external plot problem.

A story is one single problem that grows, escalates and complicates.

Story Genius is not a formula. I never go into any kind of formula. I just go into, “This is what a story is and these are the things you need to know about your character and what's happening in order to then tell a compelling story.” There's no formula to it at all. Just, “This is what you need to get to, and those other methods won't get you there.”

Look at E.L. Doctorow who said, “Writing a novel is like driving a car in the dark, you can only see as far as your headlights but you can make it all the way there.” No you can't. If you have a natural sense of story, then maybe, but the rest of us are driving off a cliff. And that doesn't mean you're a better writer.

To learn more about Lisa Cron, visit wiredforstory.com

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