Telling Stories:
the Art of Iain McCaig

Act Three: On Storytelling

by Iain McCaig


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"The Cratchit family"
© Iain McCaig
     It's another supremely beautiful day in northern California. I'm sitting in front of the computer, staring into the eyes of a red eagle kite that came to me all the way from somewhere near Komodo Island. I've been asked to talk about storytelling. Stories. I've been telling stories for years, with paint, with words, with film and video cameras and pixels on computer screens. Yet what do I know? Nothing, really. I can't explain storytelling the way teachers explain math or history. When I draw, or write, or envision a film, I try to switch off and not think too much. To explain what I'm doing when I create would be like waking up while still dreaming. Dreams. We are all storytellers night after night, for even the most inartistic of us can still dream like masters. Every night we construct fully-formed, beautifully rendered and animated people speaking lines as naturally as if they were real flesh and blood. Why is it harder for us to create when awake? This question amazes me, yet I have the same problem.

     I've been drawing a lot longer than I've been writing. When I set out to tell stories in pictures, I have rules and proportions and color schemes to fall back on, to keep my conscious mind occupied while the unconscious part of me is busy creating. Drawing, for me, is like standing in a large tunnel while a bright light passes through it. My job is to stay far to the side and let the light shine through unobstructed. Every once in a while I'm tempted to peek out of the tunnel to see what's going on out there, but every time I do, I cast a big shadow onto the drawing and invariably fuck it up. I'm also tempted to look back the other way to see where the light is coming from, but I don't. I'm afraid I'll scare it off and it won't come back again. Superstition plays a large role in my working methods. I name my pencils, retiring particular old ones to a pencil graveyard with honors and distinctions. The colors on my palette I know better than my friends; I know which ones get along and which hog the conversations. Do all artists act like this?

     In writing, the rules of structure and plot take the place of proportions and color schemes. Recently, I've been working on screenplays and finding that, like sonnets, they have a traditional form and rules that must be danced within. Structure, of course, keeps your head occupied while your better part is busy creating magic . . . but I'm green still as a wordsmith, so I'll pretend (when I bend those rules) that it's just that I haven't learned the discipline yet. According to the rules, I must keep my mentor figures separate from my heroes and villains, and plot points must be clothespegged on the script line properly or there will be hell to pay. Except, you know, storytelling seems to me a simpler process than that. Two men are walking down the road. One man turns to the other and says . . . Well, I have no idea what he says, but you were waiting to find out, weren't you? It's as easy as that, I think. Write what you want to find out about. Write what you want to hear. Write . . . oh shit, here's the teacher again to rap my knuckles and make me conform. Yes, yes, sorry. Of course. Twenty times. Character is plot. Plot is character. Act one ends on page thirty, and the hero's bridges are burnt and I hope to god that he's met the mentor character by now.

     I'm exaggerating. One can draw randomly on a piece of paper, or write in a stream-of-consciousness manner, and eventually a pattern or shape will emerge. I think we're programmed that way -- to form patterns. To look for order. Chaos abounds, so we attempt to resist with all our traditions and structures and rules. All fine and good. But I know perfectly well that there are other ways of telling stories.

"Galdalf" © Iain McCaig
"Galdalf"
© Iain McCaig
     Once upon a time, in the land of blank, there lived a beautiful whoever. More than anything else in the world, she wanted to blank blank blank, but could not, for she was too something and besides, there was a terrifying monster-beast-thing in the way. Then the day came when she had a near-life-altering experience and decided she could wait no longer, so, throwing caution to the wind, she embarked on her perilous journey . . .

     There. Worked for hundreds of years. Still does. We can be wild and crazy within the form, just as we can use a structured composition of concentric circles set off by a diagonal tangent and reasonably expect a dynamic image. The one time I appreciate rules is when I'm lost in the swamp, when I'm sinking in a quagmire of plots or pigments and need a way out. Here's one that works: Tinting all your colors with one of the others always makes your colors harmonize. Here's another: If a story is boring, bring on a man with a gun. And the most important of all: Don't bore 'em. A crime actually, punishable by that horrible dull look in the eyes, a slackness in visage and the tell-tale foot, paddling up and down as though it would be airborne. Want to learn to tell stories? Watch their faces. If they fall sleep, you must make a loud noise. If their eyes twinkle, unveil slowly, one garment at a time, and if they laugh, praise Allah silently for at least ten seconds before prattling on. Rewriting is a playground of left-brain activities. Pearls of wisdom fill book after book on "How to Do It." Yet I can't help thinking that the best advice on how to do it is to do it. Doing teaches you. Ursula K. Le Guin once said that a writer needs only two things: a dictionary and a rudimentary grasp of grammar. We all tell stories: tall tales, white lies, the dreams we had, the skeleton in our closets, and the confessions we blush and relish with our best friends. We're all storytellers, creating and re-creating the story of our lives. Only some of us can't stop telling stories, and so become artists and writers.

     Enough, already. My eyes are glazing, the beautiful California day beckons. There is, finally, only one sacred rule for storytellers: Follow the muse. Mine's half out the door already. In search of stories, white lies, pithy anecdotes, tall tales and marvelous dreams. Who am I to say no when the muse is calling? We have stories to tell.

The End


Copyright © 1999 by Iain McCaig

You can see two more sketches by Iain McCaig on our Borderland page.



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