National Graphic Novel Writing Month, Day #5: Whose Story Is It, Anyway?
Editor’s note: We were all ready to discuss who you should be focusing on in your graphic novel, and then we remembered that John Ostrander, writer of GrimJack, Munden’s Bar, Star Wars: Legacy and Suicide Squad, had already answered the question for us a while back. So we’re reprinting his piece from October 25, 2007.
In any given story, one of the primary questions that must be
answered by the writer is – whose story is it? For example – in any
Batman/Joker story, we assume that the story is going to be about
Batman. He is the title character, after all. However, the story can be
about the Joker – taken from his perspective, with the Joker as the
protagonist and the Batman as his antagonist. A protagonist, after all,
is not always a hero.
Sometimes, when I’m having problems with a story, I’ll go back to that
simple, basic question – whose story is it? The answer sometimes
surprises me. When I was writing my historical western for DC, The Kents,
I assumed for a long time that the story was about Nate Kent, who was
the direct ancestor of Pa Kent, Clark’s adoptive father. It was only
when I was deep into the story that it occurred to me that the story was
actually about Nate’s younger brother Jeb, who takes a wrong road,
shoots his brother in the back at one point, becomes an outlaw, and
eventually has to make things right.
The story may not always be about a person. When I wrote Gotham Nights,
the focus of the story was the city itself, and the city was comprised
not only of its buildings and roadways but, more importantly, the people
who lived there, of whom I tried to give a cross-sampling. Batman was a
part of all that because he is a part of Gotham City but the miniseries
didn’t focus on him. It was Gotham City’s story.
All this becomes possible or even relevant when you have a
well-developed cast of supporting characters. The main purpose of any
supporting cast, be it a book or movie or TV show, is to bring out
different aspects of the main character who is the protagonist of the
story. We all act slightly differently according to whom we’re with. For
example, how you act with your sweetheart would be inappropriate with
your mother. You tell your friends things that you might not want to
share with your family, your siblings have the dirt on you that you’d
just as soon was not shared with everyone, and your parents not only
know how to push your buttons, they installed the wiring. We’re always
the same person but different people bring out different aspects of us.
The secret to creating a good supporting cast is that you have to know
as much about them as you know about your main characters. They have to
have stories of their own to tell; we’re just not choosing to tell them
at this particular time. One of the best examples I know of this dictum
currently is the TV series The Office.
If you don’t know the series, it’s based on a BBC series created by
Ricky Gervais. The American version is set in the Scranton, PA, a
regional office of fictional paper manufacturer Dunder-Mifflin. Steve
Carell plays the lead role of office manager Michael Scott, the
terrifically funny and somewhat creepy Rainn Wilson plays assistant to
the manager Dwight Schrute (he is not, as people keep reminding him,
assistant manager), and the main romantic pairing is played by Jenna
Fischer, who is receptionist Pam Beasley and John Krasinski, who plays
Jim Halpert.
The rest of the cast is also superb and, in a brilliant move by the
producers, they’ve been allowed to develop their roles from background
figures into fully fleshed characters. Everyone who watches the show has
their favorites. Brian Baumgartner’s Kevin Malone is a fan favorite.
Angela Kinsey’s tightly wound ice queen Angela Martin is another and her
romance with Dwight has been a fearful one –the two might have
offspring and that would be a bad thing for the world. Ed Helms joined
the cast after the first season playing Andy Bernard – both he and Steve
Carell are graduates of The Daily Show and have apparently
little or no sense of shame. There are others – one of my own faves is
Leslie David Baker who plays salesman Stanley Hudson. Stanley is moving
towards retirement and just doesn’t give a damn about Michael or the
other idiots in the office – an attitude Baker probably learned while
working in various Chicago City Departments before going to Hollywood.
Suffice it to say the entire cast is brilliant.
The concept that makes the show work is that it is entirely shot from
the point of view of documentarians who are filming this branch office
of Dunder-Mifflin. As creator Gervais said (in an interview that I saw),
all the characters are aware they are being filmed at all times and
behave accordingly. Michael Scott, for example, is in many ways an
idiot, socially oblivious, self-centered to an appalling degree but he
is always trying to present himself as a good guy, smart, and a
well-loved boss. The anonymous and never seen documentary film crew is
itself a character in the story just as Gotham City is in the Batman
stories. The fact that the characters know that their behavior is being
watched must and does by its very nature change their behavior.
Each and every character in that office believes that the documentary is
about them. Each character has enough story in them that it could be.
It’s something that’s true for all of us – as Shakespeare said, we in
our lives play many parts. Each of us are – or certainly should be – the
lead characters in the stories of our own lives. (If not, then you
have serious self-image problems.) We are the protagonists in our lives;
our narrative is about us. Many people come in and out of that
narrative – antagonists, supporting characters, romantic characters, bit
part characters, people in crowds.
However, I realized fairly early in my life that, while I was the
protagonist in my own story, in someone else’s I might be the
antagonist, the villain, a support character, or maybe I was just
walking through, giving background texture or noise. Other narratives
were going on constantly around me besides my own; I had only to pivot
focus to hear them or see them. You can do the same – how many different
stories are you a major or minor part of every day?
In freshman year of high school, I went to Quigley Seminary North which
was located just north of Chicago’s Loop. I took the elevated train back
and forth to school every day and, during the winter months, would
frequently come home after dark. If I was sitting next to the window, I
could stare out and look at the apartment houses that faced – sometimes
abutted – the tracks. The windows might be lit and the shades not yet
pulled down and I might see a moment of another life – another narrative
– being flashed through that window. For that moment, they had part of
my attention, were a part of my life. At the same time, I realized that,
in their narrative, I was just another train passing by. Just noise. It
all depends on where you choose to focus – on whose story you’re
telling.
I’ve seen a couple arguing in the street by a car. For a moment, their
narrative bursts in on mine. Sometimes I’ll see a face or a posture that
grabs my eye as I pass. I never question as to why my eye is drawn; I
see, I register what I’ve seen, I tuck it away. I’ve glimpsed a part of
someone else’s narrative. I don’t know the context but it doesn’t
matter; I’m a writer. I can create a narrative around what I see. It’s a
rock thrown into a still pool; the rock is the moment I see, the pool
is my imagination. It creates ripples, which are the beginning of
narrative. I toss in other rocks – other things I’ve seen and remember,
or the “what ifs?” that could occur – and the ripples cross one another
and sometimes a story forms itself.
On The Office, the main story is the Scranton branch office of
Dunder-Mifflin. The only link that these disparate people have binding
them together is the place where they work. Not even the job itself
joins them because they have different jobs within the office. It’s the
location. The separate story lines are all threads being woven together
for the documentary that is being made. The event of the filming creates
the series. That’s the narrative focus.
As a writer, I’m fascinated. The characters within the story are aware
that the story is being told and, to a greater or lesser degree, try to
control that narrative. The show is achingly human and also achingly
funny. Maybe painfully funny is a better description. Michael Scott,
Carell’s character, is cringe-inducing; sometimes you feel a humiliation
for him that he is too self-absorbed to feel. The only narrative of
which Michael Scott is aware is his own. He appears oblivious to the
fact that the other people serve any other function than as support
characters in his story. We as the audience are aware of it and of his
social tone-deafness even if he is not.
Jim and Pam’s ongoing up and down romantic relationship – felt and
denied, proclaimed and refused, currently together – has functioned as
an über story, something that connects the show throughout the seasons.
It’s a major component to the series and about which the fans care a
great deal.
It is not, however, the story – the office, as it is being filmed, is
the main story. Like the people I glimpsed from the subway, we get
snippets of the lives of those who work there and, for a moment, they
are part of our lives, our narrative, even though we are not and will
never be part of theirs.
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