Steven Universe: Telling More With Less

When someone sits down to write an extended work like a novel, large webcomic, or television series, the first problem that may become very quickly apparent is that it is a massive undertaking as far as preplanning goes. I have had a story brewing very slowly over the past couple years with an incredible friend of mine and I am amazed that, even now, we run into problems and issues that need resolving with our characters and world before we can keep moving forward.  This having been said, however, there is a particular writing philosophy that has influenced me tremendously that I wanted to share with everyone that I learned from simply watching “Steven Universe.”  Some authors may feel the desire or even an absolute need to get incredibly detailed and intricate with their narrative, which is absolutely fine. I’ve had it proven to me, however, that when done correctly, a good story can be told with a rather simplistic plot.

 

A few years ago when Steven Universe started, Holly (my previously mentioned friend/writing partner) and I sat down to watch the series together and stuck with it from the beginning because it seemed to have a lot of promise from the very start. The dialogue was organic, the animation and backgrounds were unique and gorgeous, but perhaps most importantly, the story was absolutely slathered in intrigue. This is largely what kept us talking about the show and coming back each week for another episode.  When one thinks about a show with “intrigue” though, it’s probably not unreasonable to think of intricate or even complicated live-action shows in primetime slots.  Steven Universe, however, is somewhat of an outlier.  The writing trick that the crew behind SU employ is that of taking a little bit, and stretching it out into a lot.

The key philosophy that seems to drive the methods and narrative structures used by the writing team for SU is actually pretty simple.  They introduce their world, characters, and details about both extremely slowly to the audience as to maximize the value of each major reveal.  Questions as simple as “what are the Crystal Gems” and “where are they from” were not answered until the show was fairly deep into its first season.  Even by the end of the show’s spectacular season one finale, audiences had only surface knowledge of the conflict and overall story that the show would go on to gradually reveal over the lifespan of the series. Without spoiling anything, I will say that the overall story of Steven Universe (as much as we know so far at least) could probably be summed up in about two sentences or less. The pacing, though, is what makes Steven Universe stand out from the crowd as a show with truly great suspense and intrigue.

To put this into practice for yourself, you have to start small. Imagine, if you will, a tiny circle. Inside that circle is the absolute most basic elements of a story or a world that you want to create. This tiny little circle contains as little information for the reader/viewer as the names of the main cast, where they are, a rough idea of what they do on a daily basis, and some sort of conflict. This is essentially exactly how Steven Universe began its adventure through its story. Very, very slowly over time, this circle begins to expand outward as it gradually brings in answers to questions.  The main antagonist is revealed, then shown to be a grunt as opposed to this new antagonist a few episodes later who even she is revealed to be of lesser importance than the next villain in true anime-inspired cartoon goodness. We eventually start hitting key moments such as “why are the Crystal Gems here” and “how does fusion work.” The more time that passes, the more elements of the world is revealed, and yet the story remains compact and simple.  Sheer excellence in pacing is what made Steven Universe so good for a first time viewing.

So then it is with that having been said that I encourage any other writers out there to take a note from this and consider using this strategy a bit for yourself if you find yourself at a brick wall. Perhaps you already have your entire story written and you don’t even realize it. You just have to simply stretch it out a bit and make those big reveals as important and exciting as you possibly can.