Starting to Write
Writing a story script about your brain injury can seem intimidating — you’re sorting through infinities of word combinations to find phrases that precisely capture the events and emotions you want to express about an life altering moment — and I can understand why that might seem nerve wracking, but this blog entry is here to suggest that doesn’t need to be scary. Here are a few ways to approach the challenge and begin writing a script about your experience.
Finding a starting point for your story can be the first challenge — where/when to begin? To answer this question, I direct you to the journal previously suggested, that timeline you may have created? Look at what’s already written and see if anything suggests a starting moment for your script. Once you know where on the timeline you want to start, you can try writing a description — a who, what, when, where of the circumstances. Where did the initial event take place? What was happening? Is there any information you feel the audience should be aware when listening to your story? Keep in mind that your story timeline is always open to change, but if you’re stuck for how to begin, answering basic setting questions can get things rolling.
Alternatively, you can find something not at the beginning of your journey but is an event you feel compelled to write about — something that easily draws images in your mind, and you want to describe those images. In my own process, this is what unintentionally worked for me — there is a story in my recovery about an angel that I had already told to friends, family and fellows survivors. After repeating the tale dozens of times, the story naturally took on a scripted quality, and I used these words as a starting point for picking the tone for my narration. This process of building the script from the words I spoke without rehearsal created a natural rhythm for my narration.
And this brings me to the next suggestion for writing — try to informally share pieces of your story and just see what words come out. I recognize it can be difficult to find a setting to do this, but if you can, seek out friends, family, or fellow survivors — people whom you can share an unrehearsed narration of an event. Don’t write a script before hand, but see what words find the story as you tell it. As you do this, pay attention to what feels most honest, or even record yourself so you can listen back and pick out what seems most interesting. Or, if you can’t find an audience, try telling the story to your phone recording app and then listening back to it. Then try telling the same story again to another person or make another recording and see if you happen to use any of the same language. In my experience, I have found that with repeated tellings, personal stories tend to take on a structure that is both natural for the teller and compelling for a listener. The script will almost certainly need some editing later on, but your instinctive voice is a great place to start.
What’s more, when you start always remember that it is only a draft. Write something down, appreciate it finishing a scene, but then if you come back in a month or two and toss it out for something different, that’s fine. Getting your ideas out onto paper is a bit like opening a damn— at first there’s only a few droplets sneaking out until the wall is lifted just enough and everything pours out faster than you can record. Know that it’s usually only after the creative waters have settled that you can return and see what’s worth keeping. A writer’s greatest tool is the power of editing, and a storytelling piece can always take changes up until the moment the words leave your lips. And one of the great parts about storytelling as an art form is that, even after the initial performance, the storyteller can always edit the script for a future performance. In my own process, my initial performance of “Who Am I, Again?” had 36 characters speaking, and while the performance went well, I realized that there were too many voices on stage and this was confusing for the audience, so returned to the script and found a way to turn a muddle of 36 voices collected in my research into the 8 characters I currently portray when I perform the story.
Which brings me to the final suggestion for this entry — never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Remember that you’re not giving a court testimony as to what happened but presenting a story that shares how you experienced the event of Brain Injury. Try to stick to what happened, but if there are some facts that need to be adjusted in order to assist the script, that’s okay. There may need to be some adjustments to so that the story is easier to follow, as in the above example of consolidating too many voices, or because there’s an indecent situation you don’t feel comfortable sharing, or an gap in the storyline that you were not able to fill with research, or for any other reason — it’s whatever feels right to you. You are creating a storytelling performance, and while you want to be honest, you also want to appeal to an audience. It could be that some slight adjustments to reality help the performance of your story. That said, don’t over-indulge in this ability to adjust reality, use it tool sparingly and only if you can’t find another way to adjust the script while sticking to the facts you know. I say that because humans tend to have an innate sense about what is an honest story, and if a story is adjusted too much, bullshit detectors tend to go off and the performance won’t be as powerful. As the storyteller, you are creating a world that other people will observe, and the more real this created world seems, the more fully an audience is able to engage with the story.
And that’s where we will leave it for now. These are a few tips I hope can help you start on your script, but on a quick closing note, please know that this is in no way a comprehensive list of tricks. In fact, I’m sure the topic of tricks and writing techniques will come up in future entries. Even more than that, I’m certain there are countless strategies I know nothing about and will never learn without your help, so please share any tricks and techniques that inspire you. My goal is to encourage the composition of storytelling scripts about TBI, and if you have any suggestions, I would love to learn more, so thank you in advance. Thank you for reading this article. I’m looking forward to your thoughts.
