LINEARITY AS A CONCEPT
Within the general understanding of linear storytelling exists a glaring issue that shatters its very nature. What linear means to you in your story will invariably mean something else to another. In other words, if we measure linear storytelling only by our perception of our plot, we'll subject ourselves to negotiating that perception with others' perceptions for the foreseeable future, even through filming and editing.
While nothing is inherently wrong with this, it does make us question how handy the seemingly handy tool of linear storytelling is. Why would we want to force ourselves into such a negotiation when it will cost us valuable time? Is there another way to agree upon the course of our story, especially when filmmaking requires many people to agree on it?
Imagine for a moment coming home from a Hawaii vacation. You're likely to have people who will ask you about it. Imagine telling them the whole story in exact linear detail—"I woke up at 5 a.m. to catch my Lyft. It took about 30 minutes to get to the airport. I went through security, and I ate breakfast. I waited for my plane for an hour..."
While you'd be accurate, you'd be boring, thus inevitably leaving room for error. If you were to transmute the story above into a screenplay, every detail would come under the magnifying glass of adding stakes—"Maybe, instead, you woke up late. Maybe you missed your flight!" In this way, how can we ever keep our story moving "linearly?" What does such even mean if there is a forever question of "How can we make this more dramatized?" When such a question exists, as it must in story, we will forever find ourselves up against the challenge either within ourselves or in conversation with others of "But that's not how it goes!"
When we adopt the notion of Linearity as a Concept, something new opens up for us as storytellers. In concept, a linear story progresses from one stage to another in a single series of sequential steps. It is unbent. That's much simpler. That's something quickly agreed upon. It has nothing to do with how it goes for you vs. how it goes for others. It has solely to do with unbentness. For example, while it may seem impossible for a character to die yet come back to life in Linearity, such is a classic story trope. Death to resurrection only needs to be unbent in its narrative process.
The point here is to consider the Concept of Linearity in terms of its lack of curves or angles as opposed to its opposite, non-linearity, which has such. As you expand, contract, and revise your drafts per the feedback you receive, if you are a Linear Storyteller or endeavoring to be, consider how you're addressing such feedback in a way that moves without narratively bending. No matter the difficulty of the note, consider the fastest way to its resolution or implementation is a straight line—
Let's say a producer or financier reads your drama screenplay and says, "I like this, but it needs to be a horror film." This could seem complicated—like building a tower you believe to be straight only to get a broader view and see it is leaning. It could seem impossible to address—an impasse. "I can't change my story from drama to horror!" But what happens if you ask yourself, "What is the straight line between my story now and my story in the context of the horror genre?"
Is this solution too simple? It's this simplicity that makes it workable. We more often dive immediately into the minutia of our stories in search of individual ways to turn something from this to that—from dramatic to horrific. But, again, each of these particular moments will come up against the inevitable question, "But is it scary enough?"
Let's instead return to the metaphor of seeing our screenplay as a leaning tower we believed to be straight when viewed up close. What if this tower was supposed to lean? What if it's in this leaning that it could collapse into its most horrific of shapes? That would be progress from one stage of that tower to another. That would be a sequence unbent—even sensical. Perhaps it wasn't a matter of trying to be linear but allowing Linearity to happen. Perhaps your story was always a horror at its heart—you needed only to allow a sequential collapse to reveal such a heart.