David Mamet is a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright, movie director, novelist and essayist and a brilliant (but often potty mouthed) guy who has written extensively on what makes stories work.
David Mamet by Kim DeMarco for the New Yorker Magazine
This is a famous memo that he wrote when he was in charge if a TV show called The Unit (since cancelled.) As journalists, we’re not writing fiction but there is a fair amount of great stuff in this memo that makes sense for non-fiction visual storytellers.
This one (among many) really struck me because the heart and soul of this class is telling the story in images, in visuals (Hence Visual Storytelling for the Web as the title.)
REMEMBER YOU ARE WRITING FOR A VISUAL MEDIUM. MOST TELEVISION WRITING, OURS INCLUDED, SOUNDS LIKE RADIO. THE CAMERA CAN DO THE EXPLAINING FOR YOU. LET IT. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERS DOING -*LITERALLY*. WHAT ARE THEY HANDLING, WHAT ARE THEY READING. WHAT ARE THEY WATCHING ON TELEVISION, WHAT ARE THEY SEEING.
IF YOU PRETEND THE CHARACTERS CANT SPEAK, AND WRITE A SILENT MOVIE, YOU WILL BE WRITING GREAT DRAMA.
IF YOU DEPRIVE YOURSELF OF THE CRUTCH OF NARRATION, EXPOSITION,INDEED, OF SPEECH. YOU WILL BE FORGED TO WORK IN ANEW MEDIUM – TELLING THE STORY IN PICTURE
