The other night, I had the opportunity to watch Back to the Future on Netflix, so I took it. I'm not a fan of teen scifi, or 80s films, or Chuck Berry music in particular. I was three in 1955, so it doesn't make me nostalgic. But I love that film. It's a beautifully crafted thing. I enjoyed it from start to finish. And I know why.

What can we learn from Back to the Future about how to build a classic story?

1. Plot carefully. Don't leave holes in your plot. People will notice the second time around. 'How did he get out of that situation?' 'He escaped through a hole in the plot.' Make your plot consistent and clear. It's worth the work. Ask Robert Zemeckis.
2. Do not let the plot overwhelm the story. Sure, the plot is important. But it's just an excuse for characters to be where they are. Don't keep adding twists. They insult the audience and hamper the actors.
3. Make your central character relatable and believable. In Back to the Future, every character except Marty McFly and his girlfriend is a caricature. Biff is a caricature. So are the parents, siblings, other kids at the schools, musicians, politicians, teachers…even Doc Brown is a bog-standard Mad Scientist Uncle. But Marty is realer than the others. This is necessary. Keep that in mind.
4. Have an epistemology. Einstein said a science without an epistemology is no science. This is true of a story. You don't need to state it, but you have to have a consistent universe here. No fair changing the rules in the middle of the game. Zemeckis toys with our expectations on this one: until the very end, we are teetering between a deterministic and 'many-worlds' view. It's deeply satisfying when he comes down on the side of the 'many-worlds' hypothesis.
5. Ask and answer a question. Again, you don't have to be obvious about it. But a time-travel story needs to ask and answer the question: what is required to change the past, and what are the consequences of doing that?
6. Keep the action tight, but remember to stop and smell the roses. It's a balancing act. In spite of the urgency of the time-travel experiment, Marty has time to achieve his goal of playing guitar for the school dance. Just not his school dance. The filmmakers have time to pull off musical jokes about Chuck Berry and Heavy Metal riffs. The musical showpieces put the story over the top into classic territory.

It is very easy these days to forget that the real goal of storytelling isn't to perpetrate the 'episode of the week' with all its empty sameness. If somebody's paying you to write drivel, knock yourself out. But there's little satisfaction in it beyond a paycheck. To really accomplish something in the story line, you've got to put the work in to make the story truly memorable.

Writing Right with Dmitri Archive

Dmitri Gheorgheni

08.06.20 Front Page

Back Issue Page