Chinese Medicine

A long time friend of mine is a rather well known actor who lives in Edinburgh. During the long cold winter months in Scotland, he's working hard writing a screenplay. He checked in recently to discuss his struggle to find a suitable ending for his story. I suggested that if his ending is not working, he might go back and re-think his beginning. Usually problems with the former are due to problems with the latter.

Storytelling is downright holistic. The narrative spiral is a continuum that must be in balance for it to work well. I say "spiral" rather than "circle" because while good stories bring a completion and a sort of return, it is a return at a higher level- something is gained or learned, however bitter that lesson might be.

As a result of this, story structure is something resembling Chinese medicine. If you hurt over here, it's likely the cause is over there. While we usually go to the doctor to fix the hurt, it may be that the hurt is heralding some other hidden problem. In other words, the pain is an ally to more important discoveries.

I will run through some of the these basic "pain points" in a later post.