Hi and Happy Introduce Yourself Weekend,
I have been a member of Stage 32 for over 10 years and writing for film since 2009, when I was asked to write, direct and produce a short film. The film was called “One” and we made it for £10,000; shooting on location at a mansion house near Bristol (UK). It was my first laurel, for the 168 Film Festival in Glendale California. It was an absurdist dark comedy about marriage, set in an ‘insane asylum’, just after World War One (in the days when wars had numbers!)
Over the years I have learned my craft and I thought I’d share some of the wisdom (other varieties of wisdom are available), of which you can agree or disagree with; that’s fine.
So here goes,
Storytelling is about emotional resonance and without that resonance you do not have an audience.
Storytelling is not about finely-crafted architecture, wherein archways become predictable story arcs.
If our aim is to bore people to death, follow the architectural path.
If your aim is to enthral and emote, then learn what moves people, what draws them into a story and won’t let them go.
Logic cannot replace magic and as storytellers, we deal in magic.
Logic relies on rules, magic on casting spells.
Logical stories are heartless and emotionless.
Magical stories are evocative, provocative and entrancing.
The hero’s journey is a quest, it is not a search for answers, but for the right questions to ask. (See my post on Parsifal and the Holy Grail - https://www.stage32.com/lounge/screenwriting/Parsifal-and-the-Holy-Grail...
We are dealers in mysteries and not certainties.
Story dictates structure, not the other way around.
To paraphrase David Fincher: The characters who interest me most, are the ones who refuse to change, despite all the evidence around them.
May your words be like spells and not equations.
As my mate Will Shakespeare would write:
Geoff Hall - “Exeunt”
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Hi, Geoff Hall. Happy Introduce Yourself Weekend! Great points! "To paraphrase David Fincher: The characters who interest me most, are the ones who refuse to change, despite all the evidence around them." All of the protagonists in my scripts change, but I have some script ideas that I can't figure out. Maybe having the protagonists stay the same is the key. Thanks.
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Logic cannot replace magic. Love this. Always so great to see you, Geoff Hall!
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Maurice Vaughan maybe the character is screaming out to you that they don’t want to change! ;-)
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Sam Sokolow hello Sam! It’s great to hear from you. How are you doing? I hope you and your family are all well.
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They might, Geoff Hall. I've been interested in trying the flat character arc.
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Hello Sam!
Love this — especially the distinction between architecture and resonance.
I’ve definitely felt that on set and in the edit. You can build something structurally “correct,” and it still feels lifeless, and then a tiny imperfect moment — a look that lingers a beat too long, a reaction that wasn’t in the script — suddenly carries more truth than the entire outline.
Your line about stories being a search for the right questions really landed. The projects that stay with me are rarely the ones that answered everything; they’re the ones that left a feeling I kept unpacking afterwards.
Always nice hearing thoughts from someone who’s been walking the path this long.
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Beautifully said Geoff Hall! Good to see and hear from you friend!
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Leonardo Ramirez thanks Leonardo. It’s been a while since I left the Moderator team and haven’t felt in a position to contribute much.
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Lindsay Thompson thanks Lindsay, it’s been a long hard road, but I’m still finding the inspiration to write. It’s such a thrill to craft stories in this age.
Yes, the films that work with emotional resonance are the ones that stay with us, and yes answers sometimes can be a turn off, as everything seems resolved, tied off with a lovely bow and there’s no reason to return to it. BUT, if we keep asking questions as writers then people will respond and connect with us for the long run.
Thanks again for your encouragement.
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Who you are is a contribution in itself Geoff Hall. And you are highly regarded more than you know.
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Hi, Geoff Hall. I´ve been working on the contrast between magic and logic and it isn´t easy at all. Still, a writer's imagination is endless and I believe there is always a way through :)
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Maria Caeiro I think new writers are taught the ‘rules’ Maria, but not how to weave stories through their imagination. Rules are architectural, the imagination is organic. How do you let a story grow organically? You let the story and characters instruct you. And that generally isn’t taught to new writers.
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Yes, Geoff Hall, I was taught the architectural rules, When it comes to imagination, I let the characters guide me. They get into my mind, tell me what they feel, and very often I write with the emotion of the moment. Because of that, unexpected twists sometimes happen in the story, and I have to adjust the outline.
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Thanks for this enchanting boost, Geoff Hall, absorbing the inspiration! Always great to see you here; your perspectives make all of us think a little deeper.
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THE Geoff Hall. Brought your fastball with this one, G.
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Richard "RB" Botto haha, RB. I needed that. Just wait for me to pitch the curve ball.
I hope you are well and thriving. G
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Dwayne Williams 2 thank you, Dwayne. I was sat at my desk with a notebook in front of me and thought, “what do I actually THINK about the writing process”. And so I started to write and found this forming on the page. Thanks again, Dwayne. I hope you are working on an exciting project and feeling inspired.
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Maria Caeiro that’s it in a nutshell, Maria. May you be inspired to write great things.
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Maria Caeiro logic and magic. Yes, the writer’s imagination can cope with this. I find that meditation helps opens the doors of the imagination, but also so does listening to Coltrane, Tyner and Miles Davis!
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Leonardo Ramirez oh, thank you Leonardo. I have missed this community, more than you know.
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You've been missed Geoff Hall. Glad you're back.
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This is such a beautifully Geoff Hall way to put it. What really resonates with me in what you shared is the tension between structure and spellcasting. That said, I don’t see magic and logic as enemies. I see logic as the scaffolding that allows magic to land safely. The audience has to trust the world before they’ll surrender to its mystery. The trick is hiding the scaffolding so all they feel is the spell.
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Ashley Renée Smith thank you, Ash. I think for me the problem lays with a very extensive focus on structure and logic without much, if any, on the alchemy of wonder and mystery. Maybe because in a course on screenwriting, that would be hard to matriculate? We have a tendency to want 'talent' to create cookie-cutter scripts and lose sight of the magic of original or authentic work.
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Geoff, this is beautiful—"story dictates structure, not the other way around" should be on every writer's wall. That emotional magic is what makes a script haunt you. With your experience, I'd suggest checking out the Open Writing Assignments (OWAs) in the Writers' Room—execs are actively seeking seasoned voices. When you start a new idea, do you chase a question or let a single image haunt you first?
Sam Rivera Hi Sam, and thank you for your response. I have just rejoined the Writer’s Room after a few weeks of technical glitches. I had to setup another account on Stage32.com and this reply is from the older account. I’m hoping that someone will see my incredible talent (there goes that coughing fit again) and want to talk with me!
How are you doing?