Finding The Story

The first step in writing a script -- in writing anything, really -- is to come up with an idea. Now some people like to sit in a chair looking at the cursor on their computer screen until something comes to them but this approach has never really worked for me. I hate that blinking cursor, I always feel like it's mocking me. Personally, whenever I'm starting a new script the first thing I like to do is determine my influences. Thus begins the seemingly endless process of casting about for any and all pieces of art that I think might inspire me to come up with something. I rent lots of movies, listen to lots of songs, and read lots of books. In the case of "The Reunion" I wanted to look at lots of different webisode series.

I began perusing YouTube. I looked at professional creations and amateur ones. Some of the series with high production values turned out to have lousy stories, and some of the series that had obviously been shot in some guy's basement in Indiana had fantastic narratives and compelling characters. In the end I decided that what mattered to me most was not great lighting or fantastic cinematography, but snappy dialogue and fun, investing characters. So, my series had to be story/character driven rather than visually driven.

Another common problem I noticed was that many series got bogged down beneath the weight of their own elaborate narratives. Their were too many characters to focus on and as a result the viewer never got enough time with any one of them. So my story had to be restricted to 4 or 5 main characters tops.

I also didn't want to waste any time going over extensive back stories. Whenever I encountered a series in which the characters were meeting for the first time, I invariably found that the first few episodes were wasted with tedious exposition as the characters got to know each other. It made sense for the purpose of the story, but that didn't make it any more interesting for the viewer. So, my story had to be composed of characters who came into the narrative already knowing one another; that way I wouldn't have to waste any time showing how they meet and become acquainted.

To my way of thinking, the only story that could take all these factors into account was one about a group of siblings. The characters would come into it having known each other for their entire lives, their wouldn't have to be many of them, and it would open up some great topics (family dysfunction, sibling rivalry, latent anger) that would provide really interesting dialogue. Plus, being very close with my own brother means that I often like to write stories that revolve around siblings. It's the one bit of my own life that I can't help injecting into my writing.

The only remaining question was how to bring these siblings together. I considered having them all meet up to attend a funeral but I couldn't figure out the logistics of it. A funeral would require a coffin and more importantly, someone to lie inside of it. A dead body would mean damaged, emotionally unstable characters. Plus, a death is not always the greatest fodder for humor. So, I decided to pit my characters against one another by having them attend a weekend-long family reunion. In my mind I imagined this reunion as the only time during the year when these siblings saw each other for any extended period of time; it would be the perfect setting for bringing out all their little idiosyncrasies and annoying habits. Plus, I had very fond memories of my own experiences attending family reunions as a child, and it was something I hadn't really written about before. So, a reunion it was.