A few months ago, I announced that I had written a short story for a children's anthology. It is my first short story that I have ever gotten published, so for me, it's quite exciting. However, I never mentioned how I came up with the story.
At the Minnesota Writing Conference, I signed up for a critique session of my first 10 pages with Madeline Smoot at CBAY Books. At the end of the awesome session, she mentioned that she does anthologies every so often. She had a few requirements, mostly based on the idea of monsters in hiding. It sounded like a cool idea, but I didn't have anything at the time. Plus, I was really focused on my work-in-progress novel. It was maybe a week or two after I got back from the Minnesota Writing Conference that I started to think about the anthology. Then, one day I was just surfing around Twitter and I saw a post about Khan Academy's collaboration with Pixar called, "Pixar in a Box."
Pixar in a Box is a class that goes behind-the-scenes to show how Pixar creatives go about creating animated movies. Much of the free course covers animation, since Pixar is an animation studio, but they have one relatively large section on the art of storytelling.
I went through a few sections to see how they went about creating stories. Throughout the videos and activities, I often saw references to the movie, Monster's Inc. I remember as a kid watching it in the theaters and how scared Mike and Sulley were of little Boo. It got me thinking about monsters and children in stories, and how they interact with one another.
Once I hit the video, "What if...," the story immediately hit me.
I wanted to see monsters in a different light. I wanted to focus more on children's acceptance of monsters, communication differences, and development of a relationship.
While writing, I kept reminding myself of some major elements of Disney's formula.
At first glance, a majority would think Pixar stories followed the tried and true method of the Hero's Journey. In some cases, this is true. However, Pixar's approach is unique. The major elements that I find are quintessential to a great Pixar film are focused on three main areas:
- Emotion
- Dreams
- Real Life
Emotion - Connecting to the Characters
Emotion, in any story, is necessary to gain the audience's attention and investment. Emotion is in every story, but Pixar makes it unique. A few years ago, Emma Coats, a Pixar story artist, posted some Pixar story basics to Twitter. The one that kept hitting me was:
"If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations."
This was the approach I took to not only developing the main character, but the monster as well. My hope is people draw on their own experiences when reading the story and connect with the characters in their own way.
Dreams - Asking the "What If... "questions
When looking at a story, especially in realms of science fiction and fantasy, dreaming is required. A great way to get started is asking a "What If..." question. Sanjay Patel, Animator/Storyboard Artist, explains what a "What If..." question does:
"It shuts down the logic part of your brain and lets you engage in the dream part of your brain and somehow it opens up the doors to imagination."
- Sanjay Patel, Animator/Storyboard Artist
Making stories based off this type of question is powerful to not only get started, but to keep the momentum once you get stuck. It helps to create a bounce board of ideas to developing a story.
For my story, the "What If..." question I asked was, "What if monsters couldn't speak?"
I encourage others to use this technique when writing stories.
Real Life - Write what you know
What connects the previous two areas together, and creates a great story, is the real world. Peter Doctor, director of Monster's Inc, Up, and Inside Out, said it best when talking about the old saying, "Write what you know":
"Well, what that actually means is, yeah, go ahead and write about monsters and explosions and car chases, but put something into it that talks about your own life."
In fantasy, it's easy to replicate similar tropes and ideas that have come before, even on accident. Putting some real life into a story, I feel, not only makes it easier to avoid, but make the story feel genuine. It helps an audience connect with the characters and make the dream like circumstances of the story seem honest.
It also makes the story uniquely your own.
That is how my short story came to be and how I used Pixar's formula. I took elements that relied on adding emotion and honesty as the drivers for a fantasy story, basing it in the real world.
There is no right or wrong way to do it. You might be doing it right now with a story you are writing. The way I did it may be different for you, or it may be the same. Either way, the best part of Pixar's formula is there really isn't one. They are just being honest, writing about life, in a way we can all relate to.
That's how storytelling is meant to be.
-J.J.