DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer

Listen when you're writting multiple timelines and struggling to anchor your reader to one timeline's perspective.

Stu and Chas are joined by Mel Killingsworth to dissect interweaving timelines. Not anthology films. Not Cloud Atlas. But films where two plot lines featuring the same characters, but from different timelines, are woven together.

How do you manage stakes when you know a character’s future? What questions does this prompt in the viewer? And how the hell do you orient the reader?

To answer these questions, it will take three episodes. In this Part 1, our intrepid team (and Mel’s 42 pages of homework) tackle the 2018 film DESTROYER directed by Karen Kusama, written by Hay & Manfredi and starring Nicole Kidman.

Meanwhile, Part 2 will cover THE SOCIAL NETWORK and Part 3 will compare the 1994 Gillian Armstrong version with 2019 Greta Gerwig version of LITTLE WOMEN. Whew.

Thanks to Chris Walker for editing this episode.

As always: SPOILERS ABOUND and all copyright material used under fair use for educational purposes.

LIKE THIS EPISODE?

• Send us feedback.

Thanks to our Patrons, especially Randy, Garrett, Bjorn, Jack, Khrob and Sandra.

———

CHAPTERS

• 00:00:10 – Intro
• 00:01:46 – Interweaving Timelines?
• 00:14:54 – Destroyer & Timelines
• 00:35:28 – Indicating Timelines
• 00:39:21 – Ordering the Key Events
• 00:51:50 – Theme & Timelines
• 01:06:44 – Questions prompted by the ending
• 01:20:58 – Key Learnings & Wrap Up
• 01:37:37 – Backmatter

FILMS

• DESTROYER (2018) — (w) Matt Manfredi, Phil Hay (d) Karyn Kusama

SCRIPTS

• Study the script: DESTROYER (2018) — Matt Manfredi, Phil Hay

LINKS

• Website: A Game Designer's Analysis Of QAnon

EPISODES IN THE INTERWEAVING TIMELINES SERIES

• DZ-78: Interweaving Timelines 1 - Destroyer
• DZ-79: Interweaving Timelines 2 - The Social Network
• DZ-80: Interweaving Timelines 3 - Little Women

RELATED EPISODES

• DZ-05: Shifting audience point of view and heightened emotions
• DZ-46: Structure & Point of View

———

More Draft Zero is brought to you by our awesome Patreons.

If you enjoy the show, please leave a review on Apple Podcasts, a rating on Spotify, or a review on Podchaser.

We are @stuwillis, @mehlsbells and @chasffisher on Twitter. You can find @draft_zero and @_shotzero on Instagram and Twitter.

Full show notes at: https://draft-zero.com/2021/dz-78/