Here for the Drama

In which I lose the struggle for the remote and have to sit through a movie of all plot and no tension, which makes me realize just how much rides on writers' abilities to bring the drama.

I have this vision of what family movie night should be.

We have the family togetherness, snuggling under blankets, festooned with pillows. We have the anticipation, the snacks. We even mostly agree on what to watch. But I have yet to realize my vision.

Here's where things go sideways: My six year old, bless his heart, does not tolerate story tension. If a character is choosing an action that my son suspects will get that character in trouble, he can't sit it out with the expectation that although things might look bleak now for our hero, surely they'll get better since we're in the kids movie zone. Instead of waiting it out in some amount of discomfort and anticipation, he lunges for the fast-forward button and skips over the decision point, searching for when the characters are back in the neutral zone.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash

I HATE this. I did not know how much I hated this until sitting next to my beloved child and seeing the movie through his eyes.

My son is essentially asking: Why are we reveling in other people's pain? How do we know that things will get better? How do I know what to expect in this movie that looks nothing like the six years of lived data I have to draw from?

I understand him. Seeing the effects of decisions can be uncomfortable. And in real life as a mini human walking through the world, each day does feel like a series of actions performed and adults doling out consequences. We often don't have enough agency to do anything about people's pain, at least not ourselves alone in our little bodies. And that's uncomfortable. My son sees this reality and asks, Why watch when we can't change anything?

This could get global and ethical real fast, but I'm going to keep this post contained to story craft.

What I realized while sitting next to him and watching him zoom further into the movie minutes is that he's skipping the parts that make a story a story.

And those parts are what I read/watch/suspend my disbelief for.

In fiction or literary memoir, writers provide flawed characters going through stuff in a way that mimics real life expectations of how relationships work. If your story has a bunch of neutral events (as though you are fast-forwarding through the drama like my son), readers lose the drive to keep reading/watching. Stories have internal engines when a character really wants something and there's some kind of obstacle preventing them from achieving that thing. Because then there's something to strive for. That character is going to keep coming at that obstacle until they get over it; and then they'll likely find the next test that's just a little bit harder.

Our latest movie night was the neutral scenes version of Inside Out 2.

The neutral version goes like this: Riley goes to hockey camp with her two best friends. They play a lot of hockey. They eat pizza. Riley doesn't win, but she stays friends with her besties.

Here's the drama version: In this film, Riley, the main character, is a recent teenager, heading into high school, where she just wants to fit in and make the hockey team, along with her two best friends. Riley's goals are clear until overnight, she gains new emotions, such as Anxiety and Ennui, and is immediately less certain about who she is at her core and whether she can even hope to be cool enough to make the high school team. She assuages her worries by telling herself that she and her friends will go through it all together until her friends reveal that they are going to a different school. Riley's emotions fight over who knows how to manage this new summer hockey camp / friends betraying Riley / drive to get in with the upperclassmen situation best, causing Riley to make a string of questionable decisions. Eventually Riley's emotions learn that they all need to work together if Riley is going to develop a strong sense of self that will serve her well in her new high school context.

Which would you choose?

When writing memoir, we can easily fall into the trap of recounting the next thing that happened in our lives because, well, it was the next thing. But if you aren't also considering whether that next thing provides an obstacle or additional information vis-a-vis your protagonist's deep desire, it might not need to be in the story.

Because at the end of the day, you're writing a story, not an entire life. And that's for the very specific reason that readers will buy into a story, but they're not here to read an entire life of this happened, then that happened. They're already living one of those.

Memoir readers are looking for protagonists dealing with real, raw, life issues, messing up, moving on, and still making a go of it. Because these stories tell us that we can do it too. We can engage with our lives. We can be flawed humans. And our problems might not be as catastrophic as a protagonist, comparatively speaking, but they might feel that way to us, and that's okay too. We can mess up, move on, and make a go of it.

I've had decades more life data than my son that allow me to tell this story and believe it.

I fully believe he'll get there someday, too. And maybe, just maybe, he might let me pick the movie and hold the remote.

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Esther Harder is an Author Accelerator certified book coach in memoir.

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MKs and TCKs: Are You Writing Your Story?

Ari Ali, the filmographer of Ben Between Africa, and I are putting together a collaborative online webinar on April 12 aimed at helping you choose which life events tell the most compelling story with a beautiful narrative arc.

For the ticket price, you get to screen Ari’s documentary about her family’s TCK journey through East Africa. You also have the opportunity to do some prewriting work based on a series of prompts I’ve curated to help you view your story from macro to micro lenses. Read more details about the event here.

We’ll meet online and share a focused session on techniques Ari and I use to tell stories full of emotion and drive. You’ll get a chance to practice those techniques and get some live feedback; most importantly, you will have invested in your story among people who intimately understand your journey as their own.

We’d love to see you there!

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Other posts where parenting conundrums and book coaching merge: