Moritz (2001) writes about the two schools of thought regarding themes in scripts. One school of thought says that you should have a clear theme before writing a script and another school of thought says you can find it later. Moritz takes that latter position. He says that having a theme before can actually get in the way of "the framing of a specific story..." (p. 25). It can stifle creativity he says "by being intent on checking that every bit of what you put down conforms to the line of argument in your premise" (p. 25, my emphasis). However, is this workable advice for an E-E researcher? An E-E researcher begins with the argument that is being made, right?
Moritz seems to say in a good story, you'll discover the truth of your story, the theme as you work through your story.
Moritz suggests: "it's far more important to find out the way a story is going to go rather than worry too much about what it means" (p. 25).
This is a blog about my teaching, research and service with some occasional personal comments thrown in.
These are my notes on a variety of topics. If you want to follow my blog posts on a specific topic, then see the Table of Contents in the right-hand column. While I try to work in the realm of facts, logic and moral absolutes, if there are any opinions expressed here, they are my own. -WilliamHartPhD
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Moritz on Theme in Scriptwriting
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