Over the weekend I watched the movie Coco, one of Pixar’s most recent films.
I thoroughly enjoyed it, and it got me thinking, “Man, Pixar is really good at telling stories!” I wonder if they’ve ever talked about how they go about writing them?
All it took was a little Googling to find “Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling.”
During the last stream, we went over “Pixar’s 22 Rules of Storytelling” one by one.
Of course, there are no hard and fast “rules” to writing, and these aren’t even official rules set by Pixar, they’re just general rules of thumb that were shared by Pixar employee Emma Coats.
See all 22 rules here,
as well as our discussion of each of them!
After that, chat voted that we write some very short stories about this image:
Here’s the stories I wrote (with some help from chat):
Story #1
The horrific creature towered over the girl, protecting her from the wind. Its shaggy body, three times the height of the child, enveloped her on all sides like a stalking cave. Beside her, the girl’s rabbit stared unblinkingly ahead at the dangers that awaited them, that the winds were pushing them toward. As the breeze blew stronger, the creature brought its skin closer around the girl. She shook her head and smiled up at the creature’s corpse-like face.
“Chill out mom,” she said. “I can take care of myself, you know.”
Story #2.
I don’t know how I got caught up in this mess. I’m just a rabbit, for god’s sake. I was just sitting around, minding my own business, when that weird girl and her monster shadow came up behind me. I did my best to pretend that they weren’t there, her and that horrific pelt-wearing creature the size of an oak tree, but even when I slowly plodded away, they followed right behind me. And now, here I am, pretending like this isn’t happening, slowly moving forward with them. I guess this is my life now.
If you want to join us and help write a story by trolling in chat, or share your own writing for feedback, then we’d love to have you. We stream on Twitch every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday at 6:30pm-10:30pm (U.S. Eastern Standard Time).
And you missed the stream, you can still watch them on the YouTube channel or watch the full stream reruns.
Hope to see you next time, friend!
Scott Wilson is the author of the novel Metl: The ANGEL Weapon,
forthcoming March 2019.
Featured image: Pixar Wiki