Hackberry Hollow

A three-day weekend well spent.

The part of the project we take the most seriously is the story. Sure, we all know that “story is king,” and even the writers who make some of our least favorite movies say the same thing. If chanting “story is king” doesn’t make a better story then what does?

Lots of work, and giving yourself the time to work.

The above illustration, although quite dramatic, only represents maybe 5% of what the writing process looks like. A more realistic depiction would show Adam and myself staring off into space thinking, interrogating our story and characters to make sure everything makes sense, banging our heads against the wall as we discuss solutions to difficult problems, and going off on the unavoidable tangents. That’s where the real work is done.

So, sorry I didn’t do a more realistic depiction showing ourselves writing, although on second thought banging our heads against the wall would have been quite dramatic. What you are looking at above is that golden moment when we finally figured something out and we are both furiously typing on our keyboards trying to get it all out so we can tackle the next problem.

Yes. The amount of time spent on a story is a large determining factor of if the story is successful or not, but there’s a little more to it than that. Adam an I pay very close attention to people’s process to see how it affects the final product (again, chanting “story is king” doesn’t change behavior), and because of what we’ve learned we are determined to get the script for all 5 volumes done soon so people can start to read it and give us feedback. This has already been extremely helpful with the few people we currently have as our test audience, and that test audience is going to expand soon.

That’s why we are in the middle of a writing sprint.

I suppose the best way to show that story is king is to treat it like a king. Give it most of your attention. Interrogate it constantly. Chop it to bits and…actually that analogy fell apart pretty quick, didn’t it.