Preparing for Jobs Expo

Taking a break from our enthralling stroll down cinematic lane, I would like to talk to you today about an upcoming live event. The StoryPower team – myself and my co-founder Stephen included – will be appearing at the upcoming Jobs Expo Event in Galway. Taking place at the Galmont Hotel on Saturday, September 13^th, we shall be giving talks to the general assembly about storytelling and the intricacies of career guidance. We will also be available throughout the day (admission is free) to provide one to one mentorship at the careers advice clinic. To give you a short preview of the talk I shall be delivering, my focus will be on discussing the importance of process.

It is my firm belief that the sanctity of process is the core element that unites industries, professions and vocations as varied and widespread as medicine, law, engineering, cooking and the creative arts.

If you want your soufflé to rise – be that in a metaphorical or material sense – you best stick to the recipe written down, measurements involved and steps in the process outlined. Now, that is not to say that innovation and left field thinking do not belong in the realm of process. But to quote an old mentor of mine, never be constrained by rules and steadfast laws. In tandem with this, only a fool would ignore battle-tested and long proven principles.

Principles is a magical word in this regard, if you want to know how to strip down and rebuild an engine, a peer-reviewed manual outlining the steps involved is an essential tool in your armoury. And yet, in the automotive world, there is a long and esteemed list of mavericks and rebels who pushed the capabilities of the motor car into areas no one thought possible. The same applies to music, medicine, aeronautics and a thousand other fields and disciplines.

The common denominator in all of these cases?

Students who had studied and mastered their craft – standing on the shoulders of those great thinkers and innovators who had come before them.

Those same students would then wield their mastery of said principles, only to offer something fresh and dynamic to the process with their own individual ingenuity and imaginations.

This is how process moves us forward.

And what is process? If we were to define it simply.

It is a series of steps or actions, carried out in a logical sequence or order to deliver the required result.

The blueprint.

The recipe.

The map that leads us to the buried treasure.

In the world of storytelling – and throughout my twenty-six years of experience as a writer, producer and editor, I have seen and witnessed the benefits of a strict adherence to process, along with the catastrophic results that arise from the casual dismissal of it as a vital component in rendering a quality product.

Another old saying, from a mentor of mine, now springs to mind.

We are free to sail north, south, east or west. But…we cannot sail north AND south at the same time!

Process LOVES the symphony orchestra.

Process rolls its eyes at live free form jazz explorations (or prog-rock workouts, that last the entire side of an old vinyl LP!).

It may sound stuffy and boring and alarmingly conformist. But once again, in my long experience working with young writers, I have witnessed how nothing bored or turned them off more than some dusty old hack (like meself) banging on about the important principles of process. But over time, as they ignored these golden nuggets of advice and scurried back to me with stories and scripts that were ALL OVER THE PLACE because they had determined to ‘feel it out’ and ‘see where the story took them,’ and inevitably ended up in a dizzying corner or bleak narrative cul-Del-sac as a result, they would open their minds to the rare possibility that…this old fogey MAY WELL be onto something.

The Power of Process… Hope to see you all in Galway on the 13^th.