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Storytelling is all around us. Everything from the small story about the little bird you saw to writing a novel, humans crave storytelling for connection. Everyone craves someone else, and even if they don’t they crave some kind of connection because humans are naturally social beings. We tend to enjoy being in each others’ company, and if we don’t have it we either work towards it or get upset about it. Either way, connection with an animate or inanimate object.
Ever since I was a little girl, I was surrounded by movies. From those, I learned to romanticize my life; view the world through a pair of rose-colored glasses. I quickly realized that the lens through which I saw the world was extremely flawed. It was not wrong to hide behind them, but it was naive and I chose to do that when I was first exposed to the real world. Cowardly as I was, I was afraid to face my real self and how the ugly world in front of me would continue to unfold. Finally, I decided one day that it was enough and that I needed to snap out of it. I was immediately consumed with everything the world had to offer, good and bad.
In terms of storytelling, I was also surrounded by unedited versions of everything. It didn’t matter what age the material or even the conversations were around me. I watched and listened to everything, learning more than I should’ve about a year ago. Quarantine allowed me to slow down and process.
Through this process of thinking that took me forever to sort out(and that I’m still sorting out), I started to develop these small ideas in my head. At first, it was just some forms of thinking of what it would be like to be in a movie. Who would be cast in front of me, how I would play a character and how I would be appreciated. I would often and still do, act out scenes by myself to see how it would feel. Then it started developing into ideas for stories. I never really followed through with them.
You see, I wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. Elementary me did not pay attention to anything but middle school me became the perfect little soldier, although most of myself fought against it.
Remember how I loved movies? Well, books were also a big part of me, especially now the big ones, like Harry Potter and whatnot. I began to draw inspiration from multiple different authors and kept sentences boiling in the hot pot that was my head. My frustration + the ideas brewing in my head + watching movies and reading books at a young age = Starting my first story.
My first story was a short one, since I had no idea how to write dialogue. I took out my phone and wrote a half a page story about a boxing-obsessed girl in the foster system who finds her way into the home of a man whose wife died. They both form a close bond and she soon grows to admire him as a father figure. And in classic rookie writer fashion, they both died at the end. I read it once and deleted the entire thing. I was extremely embarrassed with the whole situation - really, it made me blush. I began to think how ridiculous I was for following along with this. I could never be one of the great authors.
Later, I decided to give it another shot. This time, my story was about an Indian girl whose life collides with an American boy. Very rom-comish, I know. Unfortunately, the story was very childish and somewhat weird. It was more of a hallmark movie, but with actual people of color. I showed it to one of my close friends. I was expecting a vile response from her, a quick “Delete it! EW!” Instead, she told me that she loved it and she wanted me to continue with it. I completed it and gave her the final version as her birthday gift.
Looking back, I wouldn’t have continued writing if my friend had not convinced me to keep going. Taking this as a sign, I started to over consume movies, books and TV shows. Some kind of adrenaline ran through me at high speeds. It wasn’t long until I got my new idea: a girl whose parents own a bookstore and fell in love with the typical ~brooding, hot boy~. It was originally supposed to be on the same track of love(with the show Pretty Little Liars being my only guide). However, when my friend taunted me in Spanish class about how I was writing a chick-lit, I quickly said, “No. I’m writing a murder mystery.” I came up with this whole story about a drug dealer and mysterious deaths in the town. Of course he didn’t care, but to me it became very clear that I couldn’t follow the status quo. The story did follow through on the drug dealer plotline. I didn’t understand how any of that worked, but it didn’t really mean much at the moment. That story is now a joke to me and my friends and I often like to throw it around.
After writing that story, I was drained for a while. I quickly realized that story writing wasn’t too much of my thing. I put more emphasis on television and movies. Considering every idea I ever had came to me visually in the form of a screen: my next project was a script. I had the idea brewing in my head until one day the floodgates burst open. I gave up trying to practice my social studies presentation and instead wrote 3 short scenes of a play called GREED, which was about a journalist trying to expose a corrupt businessman who kills to keep his company afloat. I had always wanted to be on the camera but it was a different feeling to be behind it. Following along with a writing contest in school, I created a schedule and executed a 6 page screenplay for a limited series. I ended up winning, and it fueled my love for scriptwriting. I didn’t know too much of what I was doing, but I did as much as I could. I started to focus upon the different aspects of myself that I was, and also different things about scriptwriting I didn’t know. Over quarantine, I started an idea about the afterlife, which I submitted to another contest. That was one of my best and most draining projects up to date. Throughout all of this, the idea of storytelling was still there. At the end of the day, all of the characters and stories I’ve created, from the one that I deleted on my phone to the full-length script I created, I take pride in the fact that I’ve been able to share them with other people. I also love how there are other stories in books and movies, etc that have shared their stories with me. They all have a course and it’s incredibly satisfying and lovely to see it run its course according to the style of the storyteller.
We are all made up of stories, albeit in infinitely different ways. It’s up to you to find out what exactly creates yours and appreciate storytelling for the cruelly beautiful art it is.
