Jeremiah Tolbert

It’s my per­sonal opin­ion that some of the absolute best sto­ry­tellers on the planet today work for Pixar. Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant is eas­ily my favorite tra­di­tion­ally ani­mated film. And now, I think Up, the lat­est Pixar mas­ter­piece, has man­aged to top all the films that came before it.

I’m rarely as touched and thrilled by an expe­ri­ence as I am by watch­ing their movies.

1. Writing doesn’t have to be YA, or for Adults. It can be both.

   The book world may have sto­ries divided down lines based on age and level of matu­rity, but the line between enter­tain­ment for adults and enter­tain­ment for younger chil­dren has never been as blurred as it has been by Pixar’s films. It’s indis­putable that their films are pop­u­lar with chil­dren. The sheer vol­ume of Nemo mer­chan­dise I see to this day backs up that asser­tion. At the aquar­ium, no kid could see the fish from that film with­out shout­ing out their names. “Look mommy, Dory!” I lis­tend to vari­a­tions of this for two hours.

   I think Pixar is the very model of fam­ily entertainment–films that can be enjoyed by every­one. And the more I think about it, the more I real­ize that much of chil­dren or YA lit­er­a­ture is the same way. There’s a kind of sub­con­cious stigma for adults read­ing YA fic­tion in my expe­ri­ence. I saw this often when Harry Potter was pop­u­lar. Some could not get past the idea that “Harry Potter is for kids.” It’s not. It’s for peo­ple who enjoy sto­ries. Just like Pixar’s films. I have a lot of respect for some­one who can tell a story so broadly appeal­ing, and per­son­ally, I want to learn how to do it too.

2. Don’t Be Afraid to Put Heavy Stuff in a Light-​​Hearted Story

   This les­son has never been dri­ven home so well as by Up. The pro­tag­o­nist is a wid­ower, and we spend the first 20 min­utes get­ting to know his free-​​spirited wife. We see their lives pass before our eyes, and when she passes, we feel it deeply. I had a hard time keep­ing my eyes dry, I admit it.

   Funny with­out bite is like a fluffy cake. It lacks sub­stance and grav­ity. The under­tones cre­ated by the loss of a loved one, absen­tee fathers, and lifes not lived, those are the things that take an enjoy­able story from being fun but for­get­table to being great and unfor­get­table. Make us laugh. Make us cry. Make us laugh and cry in the same breath. If Pixar can do it, we can do it in our sto­ries and nov­els too.

3. A character’s first inter­ac­tions can often tell you every­thing you need to know about them.

   In Wall-​​E, the first inter­ac­tions with another crea­ture we see are between the robot and a cock­roach. Does Wall-​​E smash the bug, dis­gusted? Of course not. He befriends it. The essence of his char­ac­ter is revealed in that sim­ple scene, and we fall for him.

   Pixar’s char­ac­ters appear­ances often reflect their per­son­al­ity, some­thing that can­not so eas­ily be done in fic­tion itself. But it’s not just their appear­ance. Watch each one of the films. In a few brief moments, we learn that Marlin will do any­thing for Nemo, that Woody is a leader and likes help­ing other toys, that Mr. Incredible is a bit full of him­self and dis­mis­sive of oth­ers, but loves his wife, and then, his fam­ily, very much, and that Remy loves food. Often, the cen­tral con­flict of the story arises from this char­ac­ter­i­za­tion as well. Wall-​​E needs to love some­one, and fol­lows EVE into space itself. Woody butts heads with Buzz. Mr. Incredible makes his own arch-​​nemesis because of his rude­ness. And so on.

4. The work is found in the process of rewrit­ing. Also, write for yourself.

   In this inter­view with some of Pixar’s writ­ers, a cou­ple of com­ments really struck home with me, align­ing with things I had noticed from watch­ing the Behind-​​the-​​Scenes extras on their DVDs. Pixar doesn’t do focus groups. They write what they love. And they rewrite and rewrite until they get it the way they want. The story often changes dra­mat­i­cally in the course of revi­sions. Sometimes, we get obsessed with our first drafts, and our hopes rise or sink with the rel­a­tive suc­cess of it. I am par­tic­u­larly guilty of giv­ing up on sto­ries when the first draft doesn’t turn out as well as I imag­ined it.

5. Amazing char­ac­ters can be born from the sim­plest of ideas.

   The gen­e­sis of the pro­tag­o­nist Walter in Up was a sim­ple sketch of a grumpy old man hold­ing a bal­loon. “Grumpy old man” is a hoary stereo­type, but stereo­types in and of them­selves aren’t wrong. It’s stop­ping with a stereo­type is a mis­take. From that sim­ple sketch, Pixar build a fully real­ized and appeal­ing char­ac­ter. They took some­one and made him both unpleas­ant and lov­able at the same time.

   Russell, seen right, is designed as a char­ac­ter to coun­ter­point every­thing about Walter. He’s round where Walter is angles. He’s kind and inno­cent and youth­ful. The con­tra­dic­tion of the essence of these two char­ac­ters gen­er­ates much of the humor and the con­flict to drive the story.