It might seem to be an odd place to start a conversation about writing — a book published in 1923 by philosopher Martin Buber — but the more I write, the more I become convinced of the value of Buber’s ideas to the creative process.
In his book “I and Thou,” Buber explores the concept of life as “encounter.” Much of human experience is based upon the “I – It” paradigm, where we objectify the ‘other,’ even people. In Buber’s view, the more authentic and direct human experience is what he calls “Ich – Du” (I – You), where there is an implicit mutuality in the relationship, and hence, the opportunity for genuine encounter.
I was reminded of Buber in a recent screenwriting course I taught online, as the class was discussing how to lift a story up off the page and make it come ‘alive.’
What if instead of thinking of story as “It,” we approached story as “You?”
What if story is already ‘alive’ with living, breathing elements — plot, characters, themes, dialogue?
What if the writer encounters story as part of a mutual “I – You” relationship, where we give life to story and story gives life to the creative process?
In the prep-writing phase – brainstorming, plotting, character development, outline, etc – we devote so much time to handling story as an object, an “It.” If nothing else, Buber’s ideas serve as a helpful counterbalance to remind us that if our end point is to create a story that does lift up off the page and come to ‘life’ in the experience of the reader, once we type FADE IN, we do well to encounter story as “You.”
For more on Martin Buber, you can go here, here, and here.
[Originally posted 5/17/08]
Amnon Buchbinder, in his book The Way of the Screenwriter, insists that each story is a living thing that already exists in the universe.
I'm coming to think of the story and the script that results from it almost as an explosion of energy.
I'm in the 3rd term of the professional screenwriting program at UCLA and we're writing a script from scratch, literally from the barest of premises, in 10 weeks.
Compared to the script we wrote over the previous two terms (20 weeks), which I'd even outlined for many months before, this script is dying on the table. I literally didn't have enough energy built up to birth this baby. It needed gestation. It needed to decide when it was ready to be born. It needed to HAVE to be written, instead of me having to write it, if that makes sense.
And now, on page 80, it's a battle of wills. I have to write this thing or I don't get my grade. I imagine if I ever get so lucky as to write for a living, this will be the norm, not the exception, this having to produce from a dead stop. But it's not easy. Have to discover how to build the energy necessary to write a story from little to no prep.
It's late.