The #1 Rule To Writing A Crime Story - Jennifer Dornbush

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Jennifer Dornbush is a screenwriter, author, speaker, consultant, and forensic science specialist. Jennifer grew up around the forensic world as the daughter of a medical examiner whose office was located in her home.
She has been teaching and script consulting since 1997 and regularly leads seminars and workshops on screenwriting basics, writing for Hollywood, crime fiction, forensics, death investigation, and the creative life.
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[@filmcourage]

What do you like about this video?

[@katylee1914]

I like this specialized teaching on telling stories with specific areas of expertise. (Like crime, legal, medical, forensic, etc) more like this would be great

[@ryanhowell4492]

It's inspiring

[@tomknoll796]

The thing I'm learning in my writing - and this seems be a lot of what she is talking about - is that while there are indeed certain key aspects to story that are crucial if one wants to be successful in the telling, it is necessary for the actual story to reveal itself which is to say you need to embrace the not-knowing. I recently came across a TED talk by John Dufresne in which he says something like this: The writer knows that every story is a failure. But she also knows that the writer is the one who is not stopped or phased by failure. And that makes her fearless. You begin, not knowing where you are going to end up, but trusting in your imagination and the writing process to get you there, you write about what you don’t understand. What you don’t know is more important than what you know because that is what engages your sense of wonder - and that will be reflected in the story.

[@tomlewis4748]

"I let the protagonist tell me."
A few years ago, that would have made little sense to me. Now, it makes perfect sense. JD also seems to support the concept of the story direction coming from somewhere else other than one's conscious awareness and decision-making process, which I agree with wholeheartedly. Where the story goes often can be something we have much less control of than we'd like to imagine, and end up a complete surprise to us.
I've drawn a conclusion. It may not be the correct conclusion, but this is not something that has a clear answer or one that can be proven or disproven. Be skeptical at your pleasure.
I believe all creating of story comes from the unconscious. It feels like our conscious mind is 'who' is in charge of creating the story, but I don't think that's what happens. I think our unconscious somehow imparts the story elements to our conscious awareness, and then our conscious awareness just assumes ownership, as if it had done the creating all on its own.
What makes that not simple is that our unconscious does not have a language. It can't present the ideas to our conscious awareness using words. Only feelings. Inklings. And it is very hard to listen to our unconscious and understand consciously what it's saying to us. It acts more like a muse, imparting the ideas implicitly rather than explicitly. And it isn't often instantaneous, either. It leaves the words to us.
So to me, it feels like if I (or my unconscious guides me to) come up with a character, and I get to know that character really intimately, and I inhabit them and try to imagine myself as being that person, that character will literally tell me what they would say in dialogue, and where the story will go. They write it for me.
That feels kind of magical, but I think what that actually represents is my unconscious doing an end run around the barrier between my unconscious mind and my conscious awareness. That somehow creates a conduit where the elements of the story can make the trip from unconscious to awareness, through that character, and it seems to work bc it gets my own ego out of the way.
Who really knows? Is that crazy? Or does it just sound crazy? I think a lot of writers would agree that this is a real process that does indeed work like this. There are times when it feels like 'automatic writing', as if some external sentience is feeding me the story elements and I'm just typing them down like a court reporter. But now I believe my unconscious is where that is likely coming from. Gotta tip my hat to my unconscious mind.

[@Bax365]

Well said.

[@ryanhowell4492]

I love it. I'm currently working on the script

[@AdaKitten]

This is how I tell stories too! So great to hear! ♥

[@Darkstar15001]

🎉

[@grantgreyguda]

👍 👍

[@sAv_Doll]

There are two writers: you and your protagonist.