Session 1.6 - Steal From the Best

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THE GOAL: Borrow great ideas and characters from your favorite stories and use YES AND to make them your own.
Time commitment: 20 minutes

Art is theft, so let's figure out where you're stealing from and make it as intentional and useful as possible.

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Improv Game: My Movie

Players make up movie titles from a pair of letters (M and L could become: Mario's Legacy, Milk Leopards or Marriages of Landed Gentry), giving a brief description of what the movie is about (often using other movies or stories as a point of comparison).

For example:
• Mario's Legacy - Super Mario Brothers meets *Hook* when a grown up version of Mario (who doesn't remember he's a video game character) has to return to the Mushroom Kingdom and get the old team back together to save Princess Peach.
• Milk Leopards - An animated movie in the style of *Madagascar* that follows a trio of abandoned albino leopard cubs on their journey home.
• Marriages of Landed Gentry - *Pride and Prejudice* in America! The youngest daughter of a British not-quite-noble family that got stuck in America after the revolution has to navigate love, marriage, and anti-British sentiment in New York City in 1801.

Improv Drill: Make up 3 movie titles and short descriptions (bonus points for name-checking existing movies or books). Your letters are S & D.

Go fast! This is a drill. Practice letting go of needing these to be good.

Writing Goal: Use YES AND to mine inspiration from existing stories

When pitching a movie or book, writers will often reference other works that have a similar tone/genre/feel to communicate what their story is like.
*Akata Witch* is *Harry Potter* in Nigeria
*The Girl With All the Gifts* is *The Secret Garden* meets *28 Days Later*
*The Day of the Jackal* is a French history textbook spiced up James Bond-style

Answer the following questions about what your story is like and what you could steal (plot points, characters, set pieces, locations, emotional moments—everything is up for grabs). Then use Yes And to make it your own.

Writing Exercise 1: What is a book or movie that lives in the same genre as your story? What are one or two things you are absolutely stealing from it?

(cont.) Yes, and... how are you making it unique to your story?

(cont.) Yes, and... what else is different?

Writing Exercise 2: What is another book or movie with a similar main character to yours? What are a couple traits you love about that character that you can borrow?

(cont.) Yes, and... how can you make those character traits specific to your hero and their situation?

(cont.) Yes, and... if this is true about your character, what else is true?

Writing Exercise 3: What is a book or movie that makes you feel something that you would like to make your reader feel? How does the author make you feel that way?

Yes, and... how could you make something like that happen in your story?

Yes, and... if that happens, then what else would happen?

Writing Exercise 4: What is a favorite book or movie that is targeting the same audience as your story? What do you love and want to steal from it?

(cont.) Yes, and... how exactly would that work in your story?

(cont.) Yes, and...if that's true, then what else is true?

Writing Exercise 4: Pitch your book as X meets Y (*The Secret Garden* meets *28 Days Later*). Or as X but with a unique spin on the idea (*Harry Potter* but in Nigeria).

Beta Tester feedback (optional)

If you have any thoughts or feedback at all about this process, please drop them here! Enthusiasm, complaints, criticisms and suggestions are all encouraged!

A copy of your responses will be emailed to the address you provided.

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