I’m writing a reality TV comedy at the moment, so I’ve been watching a lot of reality TV lately. One series I can highly recommend is “BLACK/WHITE” (2006).

But the series itself isn’t really why I’m writing this post. I’m writing because I wanted to share something that one of the characters said. In explaining how her traumatic upbringing had helped her poetry, a young girl said “before you can have a story, you have to have a storm”.

I’d never heard that before. I just love it in terms of the need for a writer to have lived before they can write effectively. But I also love it in narrative terms. Before our scripts can have a story, they have to have a storm. Rain javelins on your characters. Give them a storm so they may have a story.

If we thought of inciting incidents or first act turning points as storms, then maybe we’d be more apt up to the ante. Anyway, that’s all. Just a thought-worthy quote from a noteworthy TV series.

Black family goes whiteface. White family goes blackface.