Book Review: Story Line: Finding Gold in Your Life Story

Disclaimer: I realize this review is actually less of a review and more a reflection of my own conflicted soul.

When I began reading Story Line: Finding Gold in Your Life Story by Jen Grisanti (Michael Wiese Publications), I was anticipating a peek into the secret world of Hollywood. I was also expecting to learn writing tips specifically for the inner workings of that world. And I did get both of those, but what I didn't expect was to feel incredibly torn about the processes revealed.

Grisanti essentially explores two aspects of writing in her book: structure and accessing emotion from past experiences to strengthen writing, and how those two work together.

She begins with how to develop a strong log line, "A brief description of the plot of your story that often involves an emotional hook and a hint of irony." She goes on to explain that a log line should contain the setup of who, the dilemma, action and the goal of the character. Grisanti's point is that if you start with a strong log line, which is a brief outline of your entire story, you increase the success of finishing the story the way you initially envisioned, without going off track. The log line functions as a way to structure the overall story, but it is ALSO a marketing pitch for that story when you're ready to sell it. This is where I have my first real glimpse of (and cringe from) Hollywood.

Jen Grisanti, A Person You Need to Know

So you're in your mom's basement, sitting on a fold-out chair and surrounded by thousands of abandoned scripts for TV pilots and movie ideas, smashing your head on your trusty Smith Corona typewriter and wailing about the cruelty of it all. Still reverberating in your head is the advice given to you by your parents at the last family meeting, "Give up and get a day job."

Why did things turn out this way? Why didn't Spielberg or Nolan return your calls? What can you do to remedy this cruel injustice?

Well, I'll tell you.

You can read this interview with the queen of Hollywood scriptwriting, Jen Grisanti.

You can take her advice to heart, move out of your parents house, and get to work!
  

Jen Grisanti

Hi Jen, how are you?
I'm great today. How about you?

Wonderful, thanks for asking. Let's start right off with talking about your new book that's coming out this March called Storyline: Finding Gold in Your Life Story. Without giving too much away, what kind of advice do you have for those with a story to tell?
The book is about fictionalizing your truth, so it's about writing from an authentic place. I go pretty deep into how writers can draw from their own emotional well and add fiction to it in their writing so it's not writing from an autobiographical place but writing from a place of truth and adding fiction to it.

Sort of like writing what you know but with pizazz to give it a little "wow" factor?
Exactly. Say for example you're writing a TV spec script and you're writing a Modern Family or The Good Wife, and you are looking at your own personal well of information and figuring out how do I draw from some of what I've experienced in my own life and put that into my characters and situations so that I'm coming from an authentic place? Which means your voice will come out in your writing and you'll connect with your audience.

It really is about learning how to draw from your well in order to connect with your audience.