MOVIE QUOTES SERIES

Part 2

METHOD WRITING

Characters are complex creatures. Give them a want, a drive, a fear, and a secret. They will soon have a life of their own. — Greta Gerwig

One of my favorite writing approaches is to have an in-depth knowledge of my characters (both major and minor). I know their wants, goals, motivations, emotional drive, fears, insecurities, and history. I also know the story world and the inciting dramatic incidence.

I thrust my characters into the story world and I watch them interact with each other and the situations as they journey through their stories. Instead of becoming the storyteller, I lend myself to becoming the medium through which they tell their story.

I like to call my writing technique the method writing, where the writer lends his/her body to the characters to tell their stories. Unlike method acting, where an actor lends his/her body to a character, during my method writing, I lend my body to all the characters whose individual stories need to be told to form the central story.

My first attempt at Method writing is my collaborative work with a Nigerian-American filmmaker Akorede Alli in his first major feature film titled Ran Mi Lowo (Help Me) for his Los Angeles-based film studio, Modern-Eko Studios.

The story is about a serial killer and rapist, during my research for the script, I consumed a lot of materials on serial killers with a special focus on Ted Bundy.

During the period of the writing, for several weeks, I wore the hat of a serial killer and could not leave the “character” because getting in and out of flow will affect the consistency and quality of the work.

My girlfriend at then find it difficult to cope with my Ted Bundy-ish behavior and this led to a lot of misunderstanding which spiraled to our breaking up some months later. Looking back, I wonder what a creep I could have been during that period.

Method writing has its downside as method acting, but the beauty of the act created from it will always stand out from the crowd.

As Greta Gerwig advised, the next time you are writing, instead of trying to control your characters, allow them to tell their story through you and be the willing tool for your characters to tell their stories.

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