Constraints
IN THIS LESSON
The Logic That Gives Your Story a Foundation to Build Upon
Imagine an astronaut stuck in the vacuum of outer space. They’re disconnected from any spaceship, just floating on their own. With nothing to push off of, they’re stuck. They have no way to move, and nothing to move toward. Sometimes starting a story feels this way. You have a completely empty canvas with endless possibilities, but also nothing to build on top of.
Constraints can serve as a foundation for your story to build upon, and keeps the story logical. As humans we like rules. Rules help us to understand the universe around us and gives us something to work off of. We need to understand how to interact with the world around us, in order to survive and succeed. This is why games need rules and logic. A game is only a game because it has a foundation of logical boundaries and objectives. Without that, you’re just passing time.
Close The Box
When developing a story, you have endless possibilities. That can often be more daunting than inspiring. Fan-fiction is so much easier to write than coming up with something completely new. There’s a whole universe of characters, logic, rules, and setting that you can build upon.
Sometimes inspiration strikes and you know exactly what you want. Other times, you’re assigned a project and have no idea what you’re going to do.
A helpful tactic to reigning in the infinite endlessness of possibilities is to “close the box”. Set boundaries, limitations, and confine yourself. This is especially helpful in performing arts. Unlike a novel, you have to do something after write the story. Whether that means performing on a stage, filming, or recording something. It can be super helpful to start the process by understanding what your limitations are. Which actors are available, where you can perform/film/record, is there is a time frame that you need to work within, etc. Those limitations serve as a launching point for creativity. It goes from infinite possibilities to “what can we do with these actors, in this space, over this amount of time?”. Creativity thrives when faced with a challenge to overcome.
Now you’ve got something to work with. You’ve set boundaries and limitations. You know what is and isn’t possible. This is where creativity thrives.
Sometimes the ideas just flow out your mind, and sometimes your stuck trying to think of what you want to do. “Closing the box” can be a great way to break out of your writer’s block. Give your creativity four walls to bounce off of. You don’t have to stick to the limitations as your ideas develop, but it can be a great starting point.
Control the Narrative
One of the most effective ways to control your narrative is make up your own rules. You have the power to bend reality at your will. Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, and Superheroes are all completely made up, and people love stories about them. Most of these aren’t even possible and defy science. What they all do, is follow logic. There are clear cut logic and rules for each of these. The extra fun part is that writers have the power to change the rules. Each fictional universe has slightly different rules for Vampires, but each universe stays true to their rules. Same goes for Zombies and Werewolves. Superheroes have been around long enough that comic book writers have had fun with changing the rules for their characters to try something new. You have the authority to make up a completely fictional universe for your characters to exist in. Your story is limited by the constraints that it exists within, but you as a storyteller have no limit on what those constraints can be.
This doesn’t just apply to “beyond reality” fiction. If you want to keep your Protagonist in one room for the entire story, you can do that. You can make up whatever reason you want, just so long as it makes logical sense. Your Protagonist could enter a competition. You decide what the rules of the competition are. Your Protagonist gets a new job, you decide what their responsibilities are. You decide what limitations each character in your story has, you decide the rules and logic of the location they are in. This is all under your control.
You can decide what story you want to tell, then create constraints that make your story work. Think about something like Toy Story. The main characters of the story are toys that are secretly sentient. They live their own lives when no one is watching, but drop the floor as inanimate objects the second they are spotted by a human person. The way this works is very specific. The storytellers could have created any explanation for how these toys operate, but chose specific rules of engagement. They decided that these toys can spring to life whenever they want, but choose to fall flat when around people to keep their secret.
This creates an unspoken rule across all toys that should not be broken but could be broken. The standard mode of operation brews a constraint that the Toys are bound to. This creates a unique opportunity for the Toys to go on secret journeys without ever letting any human person know about it. The core story of Toy Story works because of this. At the end of the story, the toys choose to spring to life in front of the Antagonist Sid. This freaks Sid out and teaches him a lesson. The storytellers wanted that ending for their story, so they created world rules that allow that ending to work.
-
Add a short summary or a list of helpful resources here.