Let me take a moment to give you a very clear, very simple example of not only good writing, but good storytelling.
The first time I watched the Pixar movie Coco, there was a point during Miguel’s opening narration where I cringed a little. It was the moment when he tells the audience his favorite Ernesto de la Cruz song is “Remember Me,” and the scene cuts to de la Cruz performing the number at an extravagant show with a whole chorus of backup singers/dancers in brightly colored skirts and fireworks going off on the sides and a moving staircase propelling him toward the very top of the stage. I cringed in this moment because it didn’t feel right. All that pomp and circumstance, plus de la Cruz so obviously playing up to the audience while singing lyrics that implied something softer and melancholic seemed more obnoxious than anything else, and my immediate thought was Really, Miguel? THIS is your favorite song?
Of course, then I watched the rest of the movie. And, of course, then it all clicked. (And, of course, I cried.) And for those of you who have never seen Coco, consider this your opportunity to skip the next paragraph if you wish to remain spoiler free.
The song didn’t feel right at the beginning of the movie because it wasn’t right. What was meant to be a lullaby sung by a young musician to his beloved daughter was tarnished—turned into a shallow, insincere performance piece—by the man who murdered him and stole his music. What I experienced at the start of the movie was an objective viewpoint of the song as de la Cruz presented it. But now I know that the extravagant presentation didn’t match the lyrics because de la Cruz had no sentimentality or connection to it whatsoever. Because to him it was just another chance to make a hit and be rich and famous. What the performance was missing was the actual context of the song—the deeper meaning and presentation that only Héctor and knowing his side of the story could—and would, inevitably—provide.
And the writers knew this from the beginning. I know they knew this from the beginning, because good storytelling requires that the characters and the story live off the page just as much as they live on it. At the start of the movie, we as the audience don’t yet know the Event-that-Happened which led to it all, but even on a subconscious level we are witnessing the effects of it—because the writers planned it that way. Because good writers know everything about their world and their characters, and subsequently they weave everything about their world and their characters into the subtext of the manuscript. The song sounds wrong because the creators went into that scene knowing it couldn’t possibly sound right coming from Ernesto de la Cruz.
The power of good writing in Coco gives us characters that are clear and three-dimensional enough for us to know who they are even off the screen; the power of good storytelling demonstrates this fact simply through their contrasting attitudes toward the same song.
The characters and the story live off the page just as much as they live on it. Simple to work with in theory, but complex in practice. And the reason why multiple drafts are so important: so you can work in details like this that help your story come alive from all angles, and not just the most obvious ones.
Night Owls, what is your favorite example of good storytelling in fiction / media? What have you, as a creator, learned from it?
