- So let's talk about why and how stories engage
because it's a really important thing to think about
when you're working on a non-fiction project.
Of course, we always think about the characters
in a drama or a comedy in fiction but really
we have some similar issues to tackle
when we're writing non-fiction scripts.
One of the things I like to think about
is what non-fiction has in common with fiction,
and the first thing is compelling characters.
So you have to really think about
the characters that you're developing and
why they might be important to the audience.
Another thing that fiction and non-fiction stories
have in common is a story arc that draws us in
as viewers and we're going to dive deep
into that a little bit later in the class
and talk about building a narrative arc.
And also another thing that all stories have in common
is there has to be some reason why we care about this story.
I think sometimes when we're working in
the non-fiction space we might have a client
or an executive producer give us a list of bullet points
that all have to be incorporated into a script,
and that's not really a reason to care about a story.
So when we start the process of writing
we have to step back and think about
how we're going to engage the audience.
Where non-fiction differs is that we might have
to accomplish something with our video,
so we might need to motivate the audience
to do something, we might want them
to buy a product or a service, we might
want them to learn about a particular issue,
we might want them to sign up for an event,
join an organization or renew their membership,
or we might want them to get
involved with a cause or donate money.
Those are all actions that we want them to take
so non-fiction has kind of a little more heavy
lifting to do in some cases than fiction stories.
Another thing that non-fiction usually tries
to accomplish is some form of education.
We might want to change how people
are doing some process, whether that's in
an office or a manufacturing environment
or out in the military in the field.
We might want to improve efficiency
in a process, we might want to train
new recruits or we might want to change
how people are doing something,
so all of these things are very important
in terms of understanding what we're trying
to accomplish with the production.
Another thing that we have to think about
when we're writing for non-fiction
is that we're dealing with real people
so particularly in interview-driven productions,
we can't always make them be as perfect
as we'd like, where if you're writing something
where a real person has to deliver something
direct to camera like I'm doing here today,
you know, I'm not a professional host,
I'm a scriptwriter so when working with a real person,
it might be a little bit different and the way
you script for them is going to be different
than how you would do it for a professional.
We can't predict what's going to happen
so we can script ideas and we're going
to talk about how to do that in a way
that makes sense for you and is a good process,
but you always have to realize the unexpected
might happen and so you may have to have
a little bit more of a Plan B in your script
than you would if you were writing a fiction story.
So I guess what I want to say here
is that we plan for the journey and
we find out what happens along the way.