Give Me Something New

The latest nugget of scriptwriting wisdom goes like this, “Write something new - Something never before seen.”

I have read (or heard?) there are really only about 5 or 6 basic stories.

Because I was hung over that day in class and unable to take proper notes, I’ll make something up: Boy Meets Girl, Boy Loses Girl, Monster Eats Boy, The Dog Ate My Homework and Murder Most Foul.

If the number of basic stories is truly this limited, everything else must be derivative or a shameless re-boot.

As an example of a re-boot, I recently saw a big budget, heavy on the CGI feature loosely based on Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers set in 1625-1628. In this latest version, our handsome young heroes were flying across the English channel in Hot Air Balloon War Ships as big as a city block. I hasten to note, these hot air wonders were complete with rapid firing canons!

Is nothing sacred?

And don’t even get me started on the biblical masterpiece Noah with Russell Crowe - Is everyone in Hollywood coked to the gills?

So what’s next?

In your next attempt to write something new, erase every movie you’ve ever seen, take away the Hero’s Journey and strangle the Cat.

Ah yes, we still have the enigma, but please don’t go there. The enigma is the new storytelling panacea, the silver bullet genre. As an example I cite Lost — A collection of dangling, unfinished stories lines blog by John Hunter climaxing in a complete “What The Hey-Hey?” series ending. Sigh, there’s several years of my life I’ll never get back...

Be brave, be strong. Resist the enigma or I promise my ghost will surely come back and haunt you.

Give This A Think

With the wonders of cable TV, I was able to watch an entire season of the imaginative series Humans - Solid premise, good acting, great sets and excellent camera work. In the last episode I watched - Spoiler Alert - All the Synths were given full sentient awareness.

OK, so what happens next? How long before this series dips its paint brush into the basics 5 story lines or poops out a big budget biblical stinky like Noah and Exodus with Christian Bale?

Note: I have since found out Humans is a re-boot of Real Humans

(Äkta människor), a 2012 Swedish science fiction/drama series set in an alternative near-future version of Sweden where consumer-level humanoid robot (Humbots) workers and servants are widespread.

The Challenge

How long can any writer keep their story line fresh, new and non-derivative? How long before we see doppelgängers, Beauty and The

Beast or zombie Synths who want to suck the batteries out of their brothers and sisters?

Conclusion

Writing something new is easy to say, but hard to do. We can only pray our voice and storytelling (re-telling?) will carry us all the way to the Red Carpet and Big Money.