As the old saying goes, everyone in the world has one good story to tell. That story is their own experience as a human being. It is both as unique as a fingerprint (because nobody has ever lived exactly your life) and universal (because aspects of your human experiences are universally understandable to other human beings, i.e. the reader/audience).
The wonderful thing about drawing from your own life is you know the storytelling plays. For example, a lot of the work of story involves constructing the narrative in such a way that the pieces click together, everything is clear and makes sense. But when it comes to autobiography all of that work has already been done by reality. The narrative clicks because everything actually happened. The only job now is telling it in a clear and entertaining manner.
This isn’t to say the next script should be your bio-pic. It can be if that floats your boat. But if the idea is to just kill writer’s block and get the juices flowing, you need only to write scenes. Tell me a story about a funny thing that happened to you that one time.
Give me a few pages about what happened yesterday. Or pull a scene that has some dramatic juice: the day you proposed; the day you graduated high school; the last time you spoke to your father while he was still alive; the time you found out you were going to be a parent; the day your car broke down and your phone was dead and you didn’t know what to do. Anything.
All of these scenes and pages and stories are right there waiting to be brought into the world by the only person in the entire world who can: you.
And they don’t need to be the sole focus of the story. Even in a script that involves fantastic elements like aliens and super-spies and ghosts and robots and dinosaurs and saving the world, the only reason the audience is going to care about that stuff is if they are encountered by characters who are identifiable human beings. And the best way to ground characters and story is with business that you can offer – possibly from your own life.
There is such a thing as an indie drama that’s a slice-of-life story. But we can find pitchable concept, as well. Say you’re an accountant, and you thinking nobody would want to make a movie about watching you run numbers, right? But then we say… hey, what if the numbers tell our accountant that the company is up to something shady? What does the accountant do? Now we have a pitch for a thriller. Now we have a story to tell.
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The longer version… The standard length of screenplays used to be 120-ppg. It has been a long time since that has been the case; decades, in fact. It isn’t against the law or anything to write a 120-ppg screenplay, but we have to ask if there is a 90-ppg version of the same story to be told.
If the project is something like an adaptation of a novel, it’s fine to go long. But if we’re looking at a spec script, then it’s best to lean toward a faster read. Some genres (action, comedy, horror) tend toward the shorter end of the spectrum. A 90-ppg horror spec is right on the money. A 135-ppg horror spec could probably use trims before it goes out the door.
In terms of the actual writing itself, older-school screenwriting used to be much more dense and detailed. And again, it’s fine to get dense if the situation warrants; and established writer working on something they intend to direct themselves can be as dense as whatever.
But when it specifically comes to a spec script, it’s better to aim for an efficient approach that works to do more with less, breaks on action, maximizes neutral space, and writes down the page. Keep paragraphs slender, and look for ways to turn a paragraph into a line, a line into a word. We want to keep those pages turning. A 90-ish-ppg spec that can be read in under an hour is the bullseye.
Brevity also applies to the marketing of the script itself. I’ve known writers who claimed to be absolutely incapable of writing a logline for their script. How is it possible, they’d say, to reflect all of the storylines and characters and concepts and themes into a single sentence? Well – it is possible.
One basic logline formula is “TITLE is a genre/paradigm about a protagonist who gets into X situation, only to have Y unexpected thing happen so they have to do Z.”
So by way of example: “DIE HARD is an action-thriller about a cop to flies to LA to attend a corporate Christmas party with his estranged wife, but when terrorists take over the building he has to take them on by himself to stop them.”
Even the above is a little loose, but you get the idea. Note that while it’s kind of a long sentence, it’s still a sentence. I’ve seen “loglines” that are log-paragraphs. It’s called a logline for a reason: it’s a short, punchy pitch that gives an idea of what movie is about. It isn’t meant to be a short synopsis.
Screenwriting works best when it reflects the cinematic medium it’s describing. In film, one powerful image tells the audience more, and affects them more deeply, than pages of talky-talk expositional dialogue. That’s what we’re looking for on the page: short, clear, strong lines that paint powerful images in the reader’s mind.
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It’s one thing if the script actually is an adaptation of a novel. But note that, even in that situation, the key word is adaptation. Not only is the story rendered in screenplay format, but very often adapting the novel to the script means finding the “movie version” of the narrative. Doing so usually means losing and/or combining characters, dropping out sub-plots, and simplifying the A-story. The script is adapting the novel, not just re-telling it.
Now look at the spec script that reads like an adaptation of a novel that doesn’t exist; it has all of the burdens, but none of the focus that would give us the “movie version” of the story. But that’s antithetical to the form. A script is the blueprint for a movie. A script is telling a story, though by its very nature it should be, needs to be telling the movie version. Otherwise, we have to ask: Why is this a script, at all? Why isn’t this story being told in a novel? Or if we want to remain within the visual realm – a pilot and/or mini-series?
The movie version is the version that can be well-told within the standard runtime of a feature film, about 90-120 minutes or so. Within that frame, it’s better to find one core idea that can then be thoroughly explored, and one core character who can be thoroughly developed. We can tell a story in a movie with one character, built around one narrative idea.
That is the most basic need. Anything less, and we’re looking at a weird, static, experimental arthouse film; it’s technically “cinema” if it’s shot with a camera and projected for an audience. But it isn’t cinematic storytelling, i.e. the main thing we’re selling when someone buys a movie ticket for almost any film that requires a screenplay.
However, anything more than a single character and single narrative idea has to demand its inclusion; it must be absolutely necessary. Anything that is necessary to the story is story. Anything that is not necessary to the story is not story, so we have to ask why it’s in the “story.”
And to tell the movie version, we need to find the reason why this story is being told via the cinematic medium. Cinema’s strength lies with the moving image. Thus, a story that is told via cinema should draw most from the moving image. That is: a story that involves movement, action, motion. A story that is not primarily motivated by the moving image is not drawing on the cinematic medium.
If you have a story that would be better served by a novel, write the novel. Write the script only if the story is best told as a movie.
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When the reader first opens the screenplay, they are starting from zero. A fresh slate; a human being who knows nothing except they are ready to be razzle-dazzled by a new script that they hope will carry them off of a magical cinematic adventure… and maybe lay the track for a movie that gets produced and makes everyone some money.
If that first page blows the reader away, they’re tearing into the script, and ready to forgive bumps or flaws. But if the first page slips, then it’s like a runner who trips over the starting line. The reader thinks “Uh-oh,” and carries that perception into the rest of the script.
That “Uh-oh” might be turned around; perhaps, maybe. But keep in mind that this is an industry in which, for the most part, people only read if they have to, and read only as much as they must. If that page one stumbles, there is a non-zero chance the reader just says “Nah” and dreams up a reason to pass and that’s it. Done.
Let’s avoid that. Here are a few common “Uh-oh” slips…
Page number. That simple little number can be the first clue a script is in trouble. For example, if the page number is anywhere but in the upper-right-hand corner, or if it’s in non-Courier font. Or if page one is anything besides “1.” I have seen a lot of scripts that assign pg 1 to the title page, and the first page of the screenplay is “2.”
A gigantic brick of description. Older-school screenwriting used to be a much more dense affair. Contemporary writing is much more often about a lean, efficient style. A script that leads off with a massive brick of description is a) begging for that paragraph to be skimmed or skipped; b) opening itself up to a “Nah” pass. It’s better to show the readers right on page one that the script is going to be a fast and easy read.
Typos. Nothing say “Uh-oh” quite like a typo right there in line one at the top of page one. I’ve seen typos in the first slug. I’ve seen typos in the title. Nobody expects scripts to be 100% perfect, but we should strive for perfection on the first page. As the saying goes, there is only one chance to make a good first impression.
Bells and whistles. The more formatting bells and whistles on the first page, the bigger the “Uh-oh.” By that, we mean stuff like scene numbering (in a spec), CONTINUEDs all over the place, CUT TOs and other transitions on every tiny change, and so on. Newer writers sometimes don’t know what to add, so they put in everything.
Nothing happens. We need something to happen on page one.
]]>I’ve read a lot of scripts that kinda-sorta deliver its genre goods, but they might take a while to really kick in, and/or do so in a minor way.
For example, there are comedy scripts that are “funny” in the sense that they’re gently amusing throughout. There is wit in the dialogue, the characters are clever, the sensibility is light; all of the hallmarks of a comedy. But is it funny? Is the reader actually laughing? Do we have beats and scenes that are clearly working toward eliciting a laugh? And if so, how often to they appear?
This is vital because a comedy is only as successful as its ability to make the audience laugh – hard, and often. If a comedy is funny, absolutely nothing else matters; it could be written in Times New Roman, have zero structure in place, we could hate the characters, etc. But if it’s funny, we’re good.
“Gently amusing” doesn’t get us there. Because, for example, take a sitcom. Your average sitcom is working toward, at minimum, a laugh per minute/page. Even if the audience doesn’t laugh at the specific joke, that’s okay because humor is subjective. But we should see beats and scenes where there is a clear effort to tell a joke, make the audience laugh.
Now consider that the audience can watch sitcoms at home. They don’t have to get off the couch to see a sitcom. To see a feature film in a theater, the audience has to go to a lot more trouble. If the comedy film they see offers fewer laughs than the sitcom they could have watched while sitting on the couch at home, then the film fails in its reason to exist.
What’s needed to bring the comedy script in line is a punch-up. Very often, we’ll hear about how this or that writer was brought in to punch-up a script; it could be for character, dialogue, etc. But it could also be for comedy. It’s better if the original writer does the punch-up in the first place, because it shows that those skills are in hand.
A punch-up doesn’t apply only to comedy. For instance, a horror movie is only as successful as its ability to scare the audience, so we could roll through with the intent to punch-up the scares; more dread, more jump beats, more beats and scenes that are clearly meant to get the audience to react in a bigger way. The same goes for action. An action movie can have barely any story so long as it delivers the action, and is thus fun to watch. And so on…
Even if a script is good in a lot of ways, it might still use a punch-up.
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It’s a common wisdom among reps and producers that name talent (i.e. movie stars) rarely read past the first-10 if they don’t see their character, and/or if the character doesn’t grab them as interesting. Given that financing is frequently contingent on attaching name talent to the leads, those first ten pages – and how well they can introduce the lead characters – can literally determine if the movie gets made or not.
The second key thing the first-10 needs to accomplish is to act as a statement of intention in terms of its genre and high concept. For example, a comedy should open with a funny scene; a horror movie should open with a scary scene, and so on.
The third key thing we can potentially do in the first-10 is to establish the problem of the story, the situation that needs to be solved.
That might sound like a lot to get done in just ten pages, but scripts and movies do it all the time – simply by maintaining a tight narrative focus. Typically, we either lead with the antagonist and then introduce the protagonist, or introduce the protagonist who then discovers the problem of the story.
For example, in ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE our very first scene has Ace disguised as a UPS guy and kicking a package down the street. It’s a funny scene (statement of intention) and immediately introduces our titular protagonist in a strong and cinematic manner. This scene is a side gig to show us how Ace makes a living; only after its done do we introduce the problem of the narrative – the main case that comprises the spine of the A-story.
Look at THE MATRIX. We open on Agents (the antagonists, and thus the problem of the story) closing in on Trinity (who isn’t our protagonist, but she is a main character). We have a fight/chase sequence that establishes our statement of intention (sci-fi action-thriller), and immediately after it wraps we introduce Neo, our protagonist. All in the first-10.
James Bond and Indiana Jones movies always open with an action sequence. Horror movies almost always open with someone getting haunted/stabbed/eaten by the antagonistic boogie.
One common “trick” in the spec game is to grab a funny or exciting or scary scene from later in the story, and throw it in the first-10; then we cut back in time and begin telling the story. This works (take a look at JOHN WICK), but it shouldn’t need to be done. The script should be crafting a first-10 that’s grabby enough that it doesn’t need to borrow from later in the timeline.
The best first-10 is that which can stand alone as its own short film. And in fact treating the first-10 like its own contained entity is one good way to approach its writing. Because if it leads off with a scene that’s already entertaining… now it’s got ‘em.
]]>However, in thinking of the audience, we should never lose sight of the most important member of the audience of all: You, the writer.
You have to write stories that you find interesting, engaging, and entertaining. If you don’t care about the script, then it will show on the page – guaranteed. There is no reason to spend time writing a script about which you do not care. Even if you are getting paid, if you do not care, the product will be sub-par, and your name will be on a sub-par script.
If you are writing a comedy, then the script should be making you laugh. If it doesn’t, write until you laugh. Perhaps not everyone in the world has your specific sense of humor, but somebody will, and if the script is making you laugh, it will make them laugh. A comedy is only good if it makes somebody laugh.
Apply this thinking to all genres. If you are working on a horror script, write to creep yourself out. If you are working on a thriller, write until you are thrilled. If you are working on action, write scenes that, if you saw them in a movie, would make you think THIS IS AWESOME.
You must do the same with the characters. You have to love them, hate them, engage with them, care for their fates, and write until they come to enough of their own life that they surprise you. If you aren’t writing characters that you care about, then you aren’t writing characters the director, actors, or audience can care about.
If you don’t care about the script – why should anyone else? A writer who writes something about which they do not care will more easily reach for stereotypes, cliches, tropes, and easy choices. Why push harder if you don’t care?
Sometimes writers shy away from this kind of approach because it smacks of the egotistical. Set this aside; it’s empty negativity. For example, I made a movie called Death Metal. I’ve watched this film hundreds of times during the post-production process. I still find it greatly amusing. If I’m not a fan of my own movie, why should anyone else be?
The same should be said of any script you write. Ever hear the term “Physician, heal thyself?” This also applies to art. “Writer, entertain thyself.” If you’re entertained, then you’re engaged, and doing your best work. It’s the Frankenstein lightning that brings the cold flesh to life on the page.
]]>For example, there are one hundred million (or so) scripts about detectives solving a mystery and/or chasing a serial killer. Many of the protagonists of these scripts are variations on a single detective character; if you have seen one, you have seen 99% of the others. Even if the writer tries a little bit to make the protagonist unique, it’s usually an off-the-shelf choice, like the detective has a pet, or an interest in music (usually the blues or classical).
But let’s actually sit this detective down and start asking questions. Start with the basics. Where are you from? Where do you live now? How old are you? How long have you been a detective? Why did you go into this line of work? What do you like or not like about detective-ing?
Even if we’re building on a stereotype, we can probably land on easy answers for basic questions. But then let’s start going deeper. Let’s ask our detective about where he went to school. His first kiss. The first time he got into a fight. The first time he can recall a member of his family passing away. The first time his parents disappointed him. His favorite album. How he likes his burger cooked. If he’s ever been out of the country, and where did he go.
The point being that we start asking this imaginary person questions that are unrelated to his position in the story (protagonist) and his stereotype (detective.) Instead, we’re talking to this guy about his experiences as a human being. And the answers to each one of these questions gives us another piece of the puzzle.
Then let’s allow our detective to start throwing curveballs; answers that we don’t usually expect from this kind of character. The challenge is to make these curveballs organic; don’t settle for just random or kooky-wacky-silly, but actually think them through.
For example, when asking our detective why he became a cop in the first place, the easy answer would be, “I came from a family of cops, so it was natural.” But what if we instead say his family hates him becoming a cop. They wanted to him help run the family bakery. So why did he diverge? Well… because one day the bakery got held up, and that made him feel helpless; a feeling he didn’t like. So becoming a cop is his way to try to not feel helpless.
We can and should apply this same questioning to supporting characters, or even minor characters. For instance, it’s easy to just write BARTENDER and call it a day. But a bartender who’s missing her left ear has a story to tell.
]]>There is of course such a thing as sub-plotting; narratives with an A-story, a B-story, a C-story, etc. But making each of those story threads reside within its own context is an approach that better works in five-act TV writing, i.e. in this episode the A-story is about this character doing this thing (plugging into the over-arching narrative, if it’s a serialized one-hour drama), the B-story is about that character doing that thing, and so on.
But feature film, and especially spec scripts for feature, are a much more focused storytelling medium. They play best when the story is about one protagonist who is driving a single A-story. If we have sub-plots, they function to inform the A-story. For example, we might have a B-story romance, but the love interest feeds into the A-story (as both a supporting protagonist, and a function of deepening the main protagonist’s A-story). We have one internal arc: the protagonist’s. We have one thematic statement. We have one concept.
Note that in pitching, a script has a logline. It isn’t a log-paragraph, or loglines. It’s logline, singular; usually one sentence describing one idea about one character who is driving one story told in one movie.
It’s only with this kind of narrative focus that we can shape the narrative around the structural beats of a single A-story. One dramatically powerful plot point one, that clearly delivers the function of that structural beat, is worth far more than two or three scenes that might be plot point one – maybe?
On the marketing side, let’s note that the term of the movie’s poster is “one-sheet.” It’s one poster pitching one movie to the audience, and what kind of film-going experience they can expect if they buy one ticket to see it.
Have you ever seen a one-sheet that’s too busy? We aren’t talking about the one-sheets in which we see multiple characters in an ensemble film. We’re talking about the amateur posters we see with spaceships and dinosaurs and explosions and cars and animals and a bunch of various characters. The people who mock up posters like this think they have to tell the audience about everything in the movie. The opposite is true; one single idea is worth a jumble tossed in a pile.
It is of course better to have too many ideas than too few, or none. But if we have too many ideas, instead of trying to shove them all into the same script, it’s better to parse them about across multiple scripts where each can be given the chance to breathe and develop.
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I see dead people. The protagonist is grieving a dead spouse, a dead child, or both. Screenwriters have murdered more fictitious children on the page than the Bubonic Plague. So many tearful scenes over gravesites.
The traumatic past. The protagonist is haunted by a traumatic XYZ that happened in the past. If this is an action or thriller project, very often we’ll get a flashback to the protagonist dealing with a harrowing situation in a military setting. So many dead soldiers in so many locations in Iraq/Afghanistan. This usually involves an IED or an ambush. Very often, the protagonist is inadvertently at fault, and that’s what fuels her sadness.
PTSD. Continuing the thought… In action scripts and various thrillers (especially detective thrillers) our protagonist struggles with PTSD. This is frequently expressed via the action-thriller protagonist go-to: alcoholism. So many empty vodka bottles; so many scenes of the protagonist sitting in a bar, staring at a shot of whiskey, trying to decide whether to do it or not.
Man-child. Oh-so-many comedies are driven by protagonists who just have to learn to grow up. If male, we’re talking about a man-child who still likes to do the dude-bro player party thing, and/or is the nerdy version thereof with the video games and the fixation on pop culture.
Party girl. If our comedy protagonist is female, her transgressiveness/need to grow up/doesn’t take nothin’ from nobody is usually expressed via booze and random hook-ups.
Good looking. Female characters never seem to know how attractive they are, though they are very frequently strong and fiercely independent. If we were to get a dollar for all of the fiercely independent female protagonists in screenplays, we would have almost as many dollars as we’d get from the dead spouses/kids.
Male characters are often ruggedly handsome or boyishly handsome. If the script is a comedy or romcom, he might also have a spring in his step and/or a twinkle in his eye.
Everything falls apart. If the project is a certain kind of drama (the “Sad Man” drama) or dramedy, we’ll often open with the protagonist losing everything. He comes home to find his wife is cheating on him/announces she wants a divorce; he gets let go from his job; he gets in some kind of legal trouble and/or he loses all his money, etc.
Joe Campbell. If the project is fantasy and/or a certain kind of sci-fi, the protagonist is too clearly a product of Hero With a Thousand Faces. This person lives in a village and some goons attack so they have to go on a journey to get The Thing that will defeat The Evil and along the way they meet supporting protagonists, etc.
Pretentious road movie. Our protagonist’s car breaks down in a small Southwestern town with a kooky name (Revelation, AZ, Pop. 66) that’s chock full of colorful characters. This is more of a ‘90s thing, but still shows up.
]]>Waking up. In the opening scene, we watch the protagonist wake up. We get a sense of their daily life, etc. Bonus points if waking up is preceded by a dream. Extra bonus points if the alarm goes off and the protagonist is in a hurry because a) they’re late; b) it’s a big day for them.
Waking up in space. This is the sci-fi variation thereof. Ever since the original ALIEN came out, we’ve seen millions of sci-fi spec scripts that open with the protagonist (and perhaps other characters) waking up in pod, where they have been kept in stasis during a long trip.
Tied to a chair. This one frequently pops up in thrillers. We open on a character who is tied to a chair and being menaced by someone else, typically the antagonist. The person in the chair is usually a minor character. The antagonist gives them a big monologue, and we usually cut out of the scene with a gunshot/smash to black. This trope was nicely used in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE III. Which leads us to…
Tense beat from later in the story. The script opens with a tense, actiony scene from later in the story; we end the scene on a cliffhanger of some kind, and cut back in time to the beginning.
This is a frequently used tactic, particularly with the scripts coming out of the bigger agencies. It’s used to let the reader/audience know that… don’t worry, the script will deliver the goods. (In this way, it works as a “statement of intention.”) Once we’ve established that the script will deliver, we can relax and engage as it plows through the necessary work of establishing exposition.
A minor character gets killed. This one typically shows up in horror specs. We want to open the horror movie with a scary scene. This scene can work to establish the threat (GHOSTBUSTERS), establish the high-concept (SCREAM), and/or establish the antagonist (pretty much any slasher). The victim is usually a minor character, though sometimes they attain story prominence by bringing the protagonist into the story (THE RING), establishing the nature of the threat/haunting (JAWS), and perhaps how to solve/defeat it.
The unrelated mission. We open with the protagonist engaging in a mission that’s fun and exciting, but plot-wise doesn’t have anything to do with the primary A-story. This is a common trope to action movies, for example the James Bond franchise, and the first three Indiana Jones movies.
“That’s me.” The script uses the opening scene to establish the protagonist by introducing them in a tense and/or surprising scene, and then the protagonist starts speaking to audience in voice over, telling them, “That’s me.” We usually see this one in comedies; for example, it was subverted nicely in RATATOUILLE. However: avoid the urge to accompany the freeze frame with a record scratch; I have never once read a good script that makes this choice :-)
]]>From 7am until 2pm I wrote non-stop. After 35 pages, I finally ran out of raw material from the dream. The choices I made in stitching together some of the more ephemeral elements gave me a direction; I have a firm idea as to where the rest of the story will go. Finishing the script will be just a matter of typing it.
Similarly, when I was presented with an opportunity to write and direct my first feature film, DEATH METAL, about half of the script was drawn from dreams I’d had over the years, dreams strong enough that I still carried them in memory. All the scary stuff in this horror movie comes from the delightful nightmares.
I offer these two anecdotes as examples of situations in which I have taken the stuff of dreams and put them on the page. Any movie begins with the writer’s imagination; a waking dream. And filmmaking is the act of using technology to translate the most ephemeral of things into a sharable reality. Films are sharable dreams.
Some people keep dream journals. I don’t; perhaps I should. But I still remember dreams I had many years ago, even dreams I had when I was a kid. Not all of them are as involved as the dream that gave me 35-ppg of script. I keep them in a mental file for when they might be of use.
Dreams are the most nutrient-rich source of inspiration. They are the primordial ooze that lies at the bottom of our subconscious. They are an ever-renewable resource. The mind creates them when it’s left to speak only to itself. They are of infinite value to writing.
Screenwriting is a “harder” form of writing than most. It’s rigid with format rules, structural concerns, and having to eventually bring what’s on the page to the set, and thus to the screen. With screenwriting in particular, it’s very easy to be distracted by outside elements that are not the characters or their story.
Those external rigidities are just scaffolding for the dream. They exist to give form to the fire of raw imagination, so when they are taken away the dream has the solidity to stand on its own.
Everyone dreams while they nightly lie in the embrace of death’s cousin. But it’s only we, the writers, whose task it is to shape those dreams into a form that can be shared. We do so to bring a bit of happiness to our fellow humanity, a brief respite from their waking cares. And isn’t that quite wonderful?
]]>A-story. This is the main story, the “what the movie is about” story. This is the story on which we are breaking the structural beats: first-10, inciting, plot point one, midpoint turn, plot point two, climax, and denouement. This is also the external “stuff that happens” story.
B-story. The B-story is the protagonist’s internal arc. This is the story of the protagonist’s growth and development as a person. These beats follow the same trajectory of the external A-story: first-10, inciting, etc. At each external A-story plot beat, we get an internal B-story character beat, the “what the story means to the protagonist” narrative.
An A-story without a B-story is just incident, stuff happening, popcorn; it has the emotional ballast of a fireworks display. But if we only have an internal B-story, then we get a lot of character work, but nothing much actually happens. So it’s a lot of thinking, moping, staring into mirrors, etc.
C-story. This is typically the “love interest” story. That is: the story of how the protagonist and love interest fall in love in the course of the narrative. The C-story lies somewhere between the A and B, and can inhabit elements of both.
For example, at plot point two, the protagonist’s darkest hour, he might have a terrible fight and break-up with the love interest. But in doing so, he comes to the other aspect of plot point two: a realization of his failings. And thus he is able to grow as a person, and inhabit the thematic elements of the story. This is all very B-story kind of stuff.
D-story. The D-story has no set function; it mostly defines itself as being a consistent set of narrative beats that inform the A- or B-story. For example, on the plot side the D-story could be the protagonist rising in the ranks of a criminal organization. Or on the internal side, the D-story might be the protagonist working to resolve her relationship with her estranged mother.
The D-story is only of value insofar as it has a unique value to either the A- or B- story. For instance, if the D-story is the protagonist’s rise in a criminal organization, that could concurrently lead to a rock bottom moment in his B-story in which he realizes he has become morally bankrupt, leading to a decision to fight back against his former criminal colleagues in the climax of the A-story.
The point is to be aware of what each beat, scene, and choice is doing. When every part of the story engine has a specific and vital function, the whole thing runs smoothly, and the audience can settle in for the ride.
]]>It’s the condition commonly known as writer’s block.
There is no easy cure. But it’s just a part of the process. Everyone hits these odd corners of development, and solving for them is what makes writing an art and a craft. Each instance of block is its own beast, unique to the script, the writer, the scene. But there are a few ways to rattle the machine to (hopefully) get things going.
Change the script. One common cause of writer’s block is a set of story elements that comes together in a way that creates a sticky puzzle. “But if she knows the butler is the killer, why does she go to the mansion in act two…?”
The way to solve for this is to get fearless about changing the elements that have created the puzzle. Ask the tough questions. Do we need this beat, scene, character? Can we introduce a new character who breaks the stalemate? Can we shift up the sequence of events so A goes where B is and B goes where D is and D goes after F? Could we just erase all of the boring parts, and restart with just the good stuff in hand?
Change the story. Another common reason a block sets in is an unwillingness to settle for common tropes and familiar choices. The writing of the scene is hard because the easy version is a cliché. While it’s good to have the drive to push harder to offer the audience something new and fresh, that won’t happen if the scene never gets written at all.
There is a value to writing “the dumb version.” Or drawing on the familiar trope, the cliché. At least then the scene gets written. And in the writing of the scene you’re thinking okay, how can we change this thing up? Instead of staring at a blank page, now you have several pages in hand to act as raw material. Nothing cracks writer’s block quite like writing. Just get the characters talking to each other, doing things, thinking and reacting. The characters will very often lead you out of a patch of doldrums.
Change the writer. Check your head. So much of this craft involves crouching over a keyboard for many, many hours, staring wide-eyed at the screen. It’s easy for the brain to freeze up.
The solution then is to change your thinking. Change your surroundings; a lot of people go for walks. Work out, drive around, hit a bar, go see a movie. Do something new; go somewhere you haven’t been, listen to music you don’t ordinarily spin, call someone you haven’t talked to in a while. Shift your perception, and the words will come.
]]>However, screenwriting is unique because it involves a duality. With a novel, short story, or poem, the relationship is simple: the writer writes the words, the reader reads the words, the end. But a screenplay exists as a blueprint for a movie. While a script can be enjoyed in and of itself, that isn’t its true use in the world. There is another step to be had, turning it into a movie.
In that sense, we might say that a screenplay is similar to lyrics for a song, or a layout for a building. But while a screenplay can be well-written, it can’t have the poetic nature of a song; it needs to also serve as a blueprint for the production of the film. While a screenplay can work as a blueprint for a film, it can’t limit itself to the blunt functionality of a layout; it needs to also tell an engaging story, using the craft of the writing arts to do so.
For this reason, a screenwriter needs to develop a multi-dimensional set of skills and sensibilities. Since a script is the blueprint for a movie, it’s good to watch a lot of movies, see what works, and write in a cinematic manner.
Not just the movies that are our favorites; we should push outside of the comfort zone. If you don’t usually like horror movies, watch horror movies. If you usually watch genre, start delving into indie dramas and romantic comedy. Watch everything that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Watch films from other countries, cultures, languages, time periods. Watch TV; we are in a continuing Golden Age of incredible television storytelling.
But ultimately screenwriting is still writing, so watching movies isn’t enough; reading is the other key component.
Reading screenplays is important, of course, because we should see how other writers have solved issues on the page. But we can’t limit ourselves. We should be shoving as many words in our heads as possible. Novels and short story for the pure writing and enjoyment of story; articles, essays, and non-fiction books to understand the world (and get story ideas). Poetry and lyrics for the craft of turning a single line into a powerful image or emotion.
Someone who doesn’t read has no appreciable advantage over someone who can’t read. The craft must be developed and nurtured. The word is the tool of translation from dream to screen, with the blank page the medium; the instrument.
]]>Let’s take for instance the trope of characters doing a lot of drugs. This choice is very often used to relay two ideas. The first is to establish “these are the wild party days.” The second is to shorthand the idea of a “beginning of the end.”
For example, look at BOOGIE NIGHTS. We have scenes in which the characters blow a lot of coke. Early in the story, these are treated as fun beats; the characters are engaging in bacchanalia. They are on a rise, they are partying, it’s “good” for the characters.
But then later we have beats in which Dirk is snorting lines, but now the tone is much darker; he’s pale, the scene isn’t fun, Dirk can no longer perform as well due to his overindulgence, he gets into an argument that leads to a split with Jack. This is a “beginning of the end” beat. Still later, Dirk almost gets killed while pulling an ill-advised cocaine heist. It’s our “rock bottom” beat. Same action (doing drugs), but the trope serves multiple uses.
More recently, in the Hulu mini-series WELCOME TO CHIPPENDALES, we see these tropes play out in a very similar way. We get beats in which Banerjee and his wife decide to embrace the ‘80s LA lifestyle; their doing drugs is shorthand for “fun,” “party,” “going wild,” etc. But later, Banerjee is doing drugs by himself. The tone is darker. It’s a “beginning of the end” trope.
A trope becomes a trope when it enters the lexicon of common shorthand. Looking further afield, we find similar beats in GOODFELLAS. As with Dirk Diggler, Henry Hill falls out with the family due to his involvement with drugs, and during his rock bottom sequence he’s similarly, pale, unhealthy, he’s shoving as much coke into his face as he can.
Consider the famous climax of SCARFACE. Drugs don’t lead to his falling out with the other criminals, but we end with Tony Montana indulging in that gigantic mountain of cocaine. On a smaller dramatic scale, look at FOXCATCHER; we get a key scene in which John du Pont catches Mark Schultz pulling bongs instead of working out. Not only does this cause a rift (as with GOODFELLAS and BOOGIE NIGHTS), but the drug use also serves as a shorthand to tell us the formerly dedicated athlete has become lazy and indulgent.
To be clear, this article isn’t about drugs; it’s about the idea of taking a trope and applying its core narrative payload to various narratives. Tropes are certainly useful. But let’s also be careful to not solely rely on them, or else they can come across as an off-the-shelf choice from the Script Store. We want every trope to be organically applied to the story.
]]>The difference being with mystery, the script is carefully building a machine comprised of gears made of clues. The script knows exactly what is happening and why, and is revealing both by presenting the audience one piece of the puzzle at a time.
It’s a purposeful crafting of narrative, with a clear pay-off for the audience: they have fun trying to guess what’s going on, and can enjoy a sense of resolution when the mystery is revealed.
Rian Johnson’s latest who-done-it, GLASS ONION, largely accomplishes this as his protagonist, Benoit Blanc, navigates a twisty plot in search of motive and opportunity. Or take for example, the classic mystery-comedy CLUE, which is so well-constructed that it famously offered different endings in which various characters are revealed to be the true murderer, each with a set of motivations and actions that make complete sense within the context of the story as presented. The pieces of the mystery are so well-honed that the film is able to take them apart and put them back together again in a variety of ways, and it plays every single time.
Sometimes, people criticize a film because they are able to figure out the mystery too easily and/or too early. That critique is fine, but it points to the presence of an actual, constructed mystery. If the mystery can be figured out and solved, then the clues fit together in a logical manner. Simply put, the script is doing its job.
And the complaint is one of disengagement. That is: an audience member who figures out the mystery too easily or too soon is thus not as able to engage with the storytelling; they know where it’s going and why. This is the heart of what the mystery has to offer: engagement. The script is engaging the audience in a conversation. They are playing a game with the film, trying to piece together the clues as they are presented. It’s the clever and elevated mystery that can complicate the process while still maintaining the integrity of its structure and logic. It doesn’t cheat.
That cheating is confusion. As mentioned, confusion looks like mystery, because we also have an audience that doesn’t know what’s going on or why.
The difference being the script doesn’t, either. It’s making up random stuff. Instead of careful, logical construction of narrative, it’s giving us empty illusions of things that look like they are meaningful, and perhaps part of a mystery, but are in fact just… nothing. It’s like standing next to a car and shouting “VROOM! VROOM!” and then trying to brag about its powerful engine.
Occasionally we'll see scripts that have some elements that are crafted mystery, but once the script paints itself into a corner, instead of doing the work to craft a narrative that clicks, it instead fills in the gaps with cheats. That’s empty confusion, which is inherently unsatisfying for the audience and should be avoided. It’s better to do the work, make the mystery play.
]]>We can find examples of this in the most elemental of story forms. For example, fairy tales. “Once upon a time, there was a princess who lived in a castle…” Bang, there’s our story: a princess is living in a castle, and then something happens, so then she does X, which leads to Y, and onto Z, and so on. That’s our narrative.
Or even a joke. Jokes are stories; they are short and ultra-focused, but we still find they are built on narrative construction principles that apply to any other kind of story. For example, “A guy walks into a bar…” In this case, the joke is telling a story. Who is the story about? It’s about the guy who walks into a bar, then something happens, so the guy does X, and the bartender does Y, and so on. That’s our narrative.
The opening scene is often a statement of intention: this is our protagonist, and here is the beginning of our protagonist’s story.
For instance, let’s say we have a script that opens with a young boy who wakes up on Christmas Eve and sees Santa Claus. From that point forward, it would be weird if this story wasn’t about the boy, or Santa Claus, right?
Let’s say we open with the boy and Santa Claus, and then we shift focus to a tough detective who is chasing bank robbers… and never come back to the boy or Santa again. We’re left to wonder what was the point of the opening scene with the boy and Santa Claus. We’re left to wonder why we didn’t open on the detective and her case. As in: we’re opening the movie on a scene that feeds the audience nothing but confusion.
But a film like SILENCE OF THE LAMBS opens with the protagonist, Clarice Starling, being pulled from her training at the FBI Academy to interview the notorious inmate Hannibal Lecter, in an effort to gain insight on another serial killer, Buffalo Bill. These scenes set the stage for the protagonist's primary objective, her emotional flaw, and the ensuing obstacles/conflicts.
There are exceptions, of course. For example, we might also open on the antagonist. Doing so is still introducing the protagonist’s story because, by opening on the villain doing villain stuff, we’re establishing the problem that the protagonist will have to solve in the course of the story.
We often see this in horror movies: we open on a scary scene in which someone gets haunted and/or killed by the Baddie, then we cut to our protagonist who is living her normal life, knowing that she will soon encounter the Baddie, which in turn will lead to the story of her dealing with the Baddie.
We can always start from a very basic place: “This is the story of X Protagonist who wants/needs Y and does Z to get it.” From this one sentence, we have the engine that can make the narrative go. But the protagonist is the key. Without the protagonist, we have no goal or motivation; we only have incident, stuff that happens, and that by itself isn’t story.
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One page per day is very do-able. This is because if you know that you are going to be writing that page, throughout the day you’ll be thinking about that page. You will have thought about that page so much that, when you actually sit down with the script, the writing process will be just the typing. Typing a page of script, when you know what you’re going to write, takes maybe 15-20 minutes. And that’s with dwelling over the wording factored in.
If you have a day job, school, kids, etc. you can still find 15-20 minutes to write one page. If you did not want to write a screenplay, you wouldn’t be reading this article on this site. Thus, the desire is there, and so is the ability. After that, it’s nothing but the doing. And keep in mind that every day screenplays are written by people with jobs, school, kids, all of the above.
You might get into a script and realize the story requires more thought or research. That’s fine; give it thought while working on another script. Or just power through the first one and work out the flaws on the page. An imperfect script that is completed is of infinitely more value than an incomplete or non-existent script.
Perhaps you have been slugging it out on endless rewrites of a script, trying to get it to snap into place. Again, that’s fine; but you might find some new energy in jumping into something brand new. Stepping away from one script to work on another can give your subconscious the space it needs to make the first one work. Dreams and idle thought are invaluable tools in the writing process.
Let’s say you start a script today. You’re writing a page a day. As the work progresses, it often gathers momentum. You might have to stop yourself at just the one page. That’s a good sign. Stop only if you want; if there are more pages to be written, and you have the time, then write them. That way, you buy yourself days off in case they’re actually needed, if 15-20 minutes really does become an issue. But don’t do that too often. One page a day is easier than seven pages once a week.
Watch movies, and read. Screenwriting is about translating the written word to the shootable page. This requires an understanding of two media working in tandem. Each book you read and film you watch is a new “word” in your screenwriting vocabulary.
A screenwriter writes screenplays. In 2023, are you going to be a screenwriter?
]]>The major screenplay contests often see around 30K+ submissions. Going with the assumption that X number of these scripts are submitted to multiple contests, and X number of scripts are rewrites of submissions from prior years, we can maybe say we’re looking at about 100K new screenplays written per year. This number is wildly inaccurate, and a total guess, but it gives us a number for the sake of conversation.
So far, we’re only talking about scripts written by people submitting to contests: newer writers looking for a win to hook them into a career. Let’s also factor in all of the many scripts written by established, working writers. Again, just to give us a number for conversational use, let’s say that’s around another 100K.
Between new writers and established writers, we’re kinda-sorta-guesstimating about 200,000 screenplays per year. Hoo boy, does that seem like a huge number. And it is, if we’re looking at competition for specific financing opportunities within the industry.
But let’s step back and look at a much broader canvas: the world as a whole. At the moment, we have kinda-sorta-guesstimating about eight billion people on the planet. Going by the very broad assumptions that each of our 200K yearly scripts are brand new, freshly summoned from the ether of the zeitgeist for the first time, this means that within the entirety of the human experience only .00025% of the population has written a screenplay this year.
Which means that if you are a screenwriter, you are automatically included in this tiny slice of our fellow humans. Simply by typing “THE END,” you become a member of a very specific group. Writing a screenplay means you are already a better screenwriter than 99.99975% of anyone who is living right now.
This isn’t meant to engender a sense of elitism, etc. Only to point out that screenwriting is a not-usual thing to do. Thereby, if you are a screenwriter who writes screenplays you are also, by definition, a person who does not-usual things. An unusual person.
Accomplishing unusual things requires an unusual person. You know what is even less-usual than writing a script? Making a movie, specifically getting a movie made based on a script that you have written. That is the epitome of not-usual. But that’s the ultimate goal, yes? To become even more unusual than you already are?
The overall point being: The moment you set upon this course, you are already marking yourself as someone who is willing to do something that is, statistically (and perhaps literally) speaking, strange. Weird. Daring. Odd. There is a sense of striking out across the open sea in search of adventure. There is something special and magical that’s inherent to daring to be unusual. Let’s carry that thought into the new year.
]]>By way of example, there is a type of romcom or romadrama that can be called “the Hallmark movie.” (Though now it’s more accurate to call them the “Hallmark-style movie,” as other companies have seen the value of these films and are replicating the style). The Hallmark-style movie plays by a very specific formula. Very often, they take place around Christmas; often enough that we can lump these under the broader umbrella of “Christmas movies.”
Consider how tough it has become to a) sell a spec script; b) get a movie made that isn’t based on established intellectual property. Now consider that just last year one-hundred-and-fifty Hallmark-style movies were made, most or all driven by spec scripts without IP. If the idea is to make a living by writing screenplays, this is one of the richest veins of opportunity that reside in the industry. (The other, ironically enough, is horror).
That’s just one style of Christmas movie. The Christmas movie can encompass a variety of disparate genres, from light family comedy (A Christmas Story) to edgy dark comedy (Bad Santa) to indie dramedy (Happy Christmas) to action (Violent Night, Die Hard, Lethal Weapon) to horror (Christmas Bloody Christmas, Silent Night Deadly Night).
Why do we have this vast flexibility in a way we don’t see with other holidays? Because: No other holiday comes with the same deep, broad toolkit of culturally universal touchstones that we get from Christmas.
For example, Christmas often involves a family coming together to celebrate the holiday. This is a grounded, universally understandable situation that often involves the interaction of disparate personalities in a way that generates drama and conflict. Christmas shares this family element with other holidays that sometimes get the movie treatment (Home for the Holidays, Fourth of July), but not nearly as often.
Christmas is a religious holiday, which opens it up to that exploration in any number of TV/feature stories, sometimes as an influence (Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown) or using angels as characters/narrative devices (It’s a Wonderful Life).
Christmas comes with the additional mythology of Santa Claus, Mrs. Claus, the Elves, Reindeer, North Pole, etc. Every movie that draws on these concepts and characters (Elf, The Santa Claus) is inherently a Christmas story. By way of juxtaposition, while it’s “traditional” to watch horror movies on Halloween, there isn’t a set cast of characters associated with the holiday. Even Halloween-themed characters like Jack Skellington and Michael Myers are specific to their franchises.
And Christmas takes place at a specific time of year. Simply by setting a story near the end of December can make a story a “Christmas movie” as it often involves common elements like snow, parties, travel congestion, and so on. For instance, there is no Santa Claus in Home Alone, but Home Alone is still a Christmas movie. Nor does Santa appear in A Christmas Carol, but we still get snow, spirits, magic, etc.
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By asking what the movie “is,” we’re talking about a variety of elements: genre, sub-genre, paradigm, tone, audience. We know who is going to watch the movie, and why, and what they expect out of the movie they have chosen to watch, and where the movie exists in the ecosystem of the industry.
For example, let’s say we’re talking about a project that’s intended to be a family movie, i.e. something that’s okay for kids to see. While we might introduce some slightly dark elements, and/or some jokes that might be more for the parents, ultimately, we aren’t talking about a movie with a ton of on-screen sex and gore. Right?
But I’ve read a lot of scripts that are very cartoony in tone and subject matter, right up until a character gets murdered by a psychotic clown in act two. It’s easy to ask… what were you thinking when you wrote that scene? Because a psycho murder-clown indicates one kind of movie, and cartoony characters and choices indicate another.
It’s possible to mix anything, of course (as evidence by KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE) but we’re talking about threading a very specific needle… which requires knowing exactly what the movie is from the get-go.
Similarly, I’ve read “comedies” with no clear jokes. The script isn’t just not-funny; it’s hard to tell which parts are even supposed to be funny. I’ve read romcoms in which both of the leads are awful people and they hate each other – not played for laughs as a dark comedy – so when they kiss at the end it’s… huh? Where did that come from? I’ve read action movies with little or no action, “thrillers” that are just dramas with one slight thriller element, and so on.
Point being: the script should adhere to the tenants of a specific genre, and then deliver the goods of that genre in order to be a successful project.
This also comes down to vision and tone. For example, let’s say we have an action movie. We keep the same basic premise, characters, and story… but one is a very dark, gritty action-thriller directed by Jennifer Kent (The Nightingale, The Babadook), the other is a fun, over-the-top popcorn action comedy by Sam Raimi (Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Evil Dead, Spider-Man). Even though both are in the same genre, and build on the same story elements, we’re talking about two very different movies. So, a script that bounces between ultra-gritty action-thriller and popcorn action-comedy without settling on a choice is just going to make readers (and the audience) wonder, “What is this movie?”
A dark movie can have lighter moments. A comedy or family film can have some serious emotional ballast. We can mash-up genres. But ultimately every choice needs to be in service to the answer to, “What is this movie?
]]>If we have a fight scene, the fight can be exciting and awesome, but it should equally and concurrently work as an inherent part of the narrative. If we have a love scene, it can be steamy and/or swoony by degrees, but should equally and concurrently work as an inherent part of the narrative.
As an example of the former, look at GLADIATOR. The audience is showing up for the titular fights, and so the film has to deliver. But if it’s just two hours of gladiator fights and nothing else, it’s going to get real dull, real fast. To keep the audience engaged, every fight needs to be part of the story. In this film’s case, each battle in the arena gets Maximus closer to his revenge against Commodus, while also escalating the threat Commodus presents to Maximus, culminating with a duel between the two characters in the climax.
As well, each fight should be a mini-story unto itself. In GLADIATOR, one of the early fights has the slaves beset by archers in chariots. At the top of the sequence it looks like they are going to get massacred. But Maximus is a general; he uses command and tactics to turn the tide, win the fight, and save their lives. The fight isn’t just blood and death; it’s telling the story of our protagonist using his skills to unite the people around him, which pays off later when the now-loyal gladiators mount a rebellion so he can attempt to escape.
Love scenes are often used to draw our protagonist and love interest together. The intimate sequence tells the audience these two characters are now in love. From there, this newfound love might help the protagonist to grow (and thus advance an internal arc), and/or we might put that love to the test.
Sex scenes can also be used to convey a character’s emotional flaw. In FATAL ATTRACTION, the married protagonist engages in a hedonistic weekend of wild abandon with a woman he’s just met, which eventually endangers not only his marriage but ultimately, the very lives of his family. His selfish indiscretions force him to confront his failings as a husband and father and force him to take inventory on what matters most to him.
In the recent slasher film X, a group of actors sets out to make an adult film in rural Texas under the noses of their reclusive hosts, but when the elderly couple catches their young guests in the act, the cast finds themselves in a desperate fight for their lives. The sex scenes in this film are used to explore themes of independence, fame, aging, anger, jealousy, and repression. The sexuality (or lack thereof) of the central antagonist leads directly to the ensuing violence.
Looking at another Russell Crowe movie, we have L.A. CONFIDENTIAL. In this film, two of our leads, Bud and Ed, vie romantically for Lynn Bracken’s heart. Their love triangle sends Bud into a jealous frenzy that almost leads to Ed’s death.
A sex or violence scene is inherently intense, and thus acts as a crucible by which we can show where a character is in life. For instance, when Rocky loses to Clubber Lang in ROCKY III, we see he has gone soft; he’s on a path back to greatness. And in KINGPIN, when Roy sleeps with his landlady in lieu of rent, we similarly see in powerful terms just how far he has fallen.
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Even then, the big gimme is usually found in the set-up, i.e. the coincidence that either creates the set-up, or gets our protagonist into the set-up. For example, in AVATAR our gimme is that Sully’s brother was fitted for a Na’vi avatar, so he’s the only person who can also inhabit it. In ALIEN our gimme is that Ripley’s ship the Nostromo just-so-happens to be the ship that is sent to the xenomorph planet. In GROUNDHOG’S DAY, Phil just-so-happens to be the guy who falls under this curse, and so on.
Beyond that one big gimme, we have to do the work of selling the story beats. Because when it comes to narrative, coincidence is the weakest of all construction materials. Using coincidence to build the story is exactly like putting up a house that’s made of balsa wood and paste glue; one stiff breeze knocks the whole thing down.
Coincidence comes with the lure of easy solutions. What if our protagonist just-so-happens to end up in the right place, and know the right person to get him to the next plot point? What if she just-so-happens to find the files she needs to solve the case, which the bad guys have been kind enough to leave out in the open?
Simply put, any story choice that leaves the audience free to think, “Boy, isn’t that convenient” is a gimme. The trouble with leaning on gimmes is it’s not just lazy, but obviously lazy. So obviously lazy that the audience can easily pick up on them. Once they notice one gimme, they start looking for more. And a script that’s willing to indulge in gimmes probably has more.
So instead of sitting back and engaging with the movie, the audience is now disengaged. They aren’t with the movie, they’re against the movie. They’re looking for plot holes, things to laugh at and make fun of. Watching the movie becomes a game of finding the gimmes. Then they come out of the theater and tell their friends and family about the movie they just saw… a movie that “makes no sense.” Because it’s constructed on gimmes and coincidence.
Here's an example of gimme vs. sold. In STAR WARS (the original) our gimme is that Uncle Owen buys these droids that just-so-happen to be on a mission to get to Obi-Wan. This gimme is necessary to the story because it gets our protagonist, Luke Skywalker, into the story.
Luke meets Han Solo and Chewbecca. Is this meeting a gimme? No. Because he and Obi-Wan go to Mos Eisley, looking for a ride. Mos Eisley is a “hive of scum and villainy.” The kind of place smugglers might hang out. Smugglers like Han and Chewie. Their presence in this location is sold, no gimme.
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But these scenes can present a challenge. At core, they are inherently uncinematic. We have a scene in which two (or more) characters sit at a table. We get medium close shots of their talking heads. We do a shot/reverse-shot as they go back and forth, talk-talk-talking. Simply put, it’s a flat thing to watch.
And eating/drinking scenes off the lure of an easy crutch for downloading some exposition. The characters sit down and trade wads of exposition. As mentioned in other articles, exposition should be treated like the necessary evil it is: minimize it as much as possible, and try to couch it in something more engaging (visuals, human, etc.) But an eating/drinking scene allows the script to just let the characters sit there and dump their exposition on the table. It’s a path toward easy but uninspired storytelling choices.
Eating/drinking scenes also invite the danger of empty business, like servers showing up to take an order, characters discussing the menu, the script burning lines on the characters eating food and sipping drinks and other inane clutter.
There is of course a place for eating/drinking scenes. The key is to ask if there is enough conflict and story inherent to the eating/drinking scene that it plays as well as a non-eating/drinking scene. For example, BIG NIGHT is about two brothers running a restaurant; of course there are going to be scenes of characters eating, and in the climax they cook and serve a meal. This final sequence is laden with story, because the stakes are high: how the meal is received determines if they will be able to keep the restaurant open or not.
Also: eating/drinking scenes in which danger is presented, like Michael Corleone’s sit-down in an Italian restaurant in THE GODFATHER, or Indiana Jones meeting with shady buyers in a swanky club in TEMPLE OF DOOM, only to be poisoned.
The litmus is to ask: Does this story beat have to be staged as an eating/drinking scene? For example, if we have a beat in which two characters go on a date, could we have them do anything else besides sit there and exchange gettin’-to-know-ya chit-chat dialogue? Could they go to an axe-throwing bar? Or ride a roller coaster? Or even simply walk in a park? Any of these give the characters action, and the scenes visuals, that are more cinematic and engaging than the aforementioned shot/reverse-shot medium-close static blah blahs.
A script might have the characters sit and eat/drink. But let’s always ask if there is a better, stronger, more interesting choice to be had. That way, if we still decide to go with the eating/drinking scene, we know the choice is being made for clear storytelling purposes, as opposed to easy filler.
]]>A-story. If we’re talking about a romantic drama or comedy, the romance is the A-story. Meaning: it’s the load-bearing spine of the narrative; the “what the movie is about” aspect of the story. Anything else going on in the narrative is an expression of the A-story.
The pay-off of a romance is the two leads fall in love.
Fulcrum. The two romantic leads are the fulcrum relationship. Meaning: these are the two characters whose choices and actions determine the main business of the A-story. One pushes, so the other pulls, back and forth.
Typically, the two characters are the prime source of conflict for each other. This is easy to craft in, say, an action movie, in which the fulcrum relationship are protagonist and antagonist. But in a romance, we need our two leads to create conflict for each other, but in the end not only resolve their differences, but fall in love.
If there is no conflict, then the two leads just instantly fall in love the second they meet, and thus there is no story to tell. At core, a romance is the story of two people who fall in love despite the challenges.
Audience engagement. A romance is only successful if the audience is engaged in rooting for the two leads to fall in love. Their conflicts might be understandable, but the audience is behind the leads getting over their challenges so they can get together and deliver the pay-off of the genre. What this means is the audience has to not only sympathize with and like both leads, they have to be invested in the happiness the leads will clearly find with each other.
Development. Between the two leads, one is going to be a bit more of a protagonist than the other. However, both leads need to be equally well-developed. To be sure this is the case, here is the litmus test. Ask: “If we were to remove one of our two main characters, would we still have a movie? If only one of these characters was in the story, is there still a story to tell?”
If the answer is “yes,” then we’re looking at two equally well-developed characters. If the answer is “no,” that might mean the script is looking at one or the other lead as just a “love interest.” A perhaps idealized character, but still just that – a character, not a person.
Want/Need. In crafting character motivation, there is want and there is need. Very often, we can create conflict in the romantic relationship by starting the story with each lead pursuing a want. Love comes when they realize that each uniquely fulfills a need with the other. Resolving the want and the need help the characters to fall in love.
]]>We might naturally ask what is meant by “subversive.” But it’s kind of like “high concept” or “elevated” in that it’s less of a concept that adheres to a hard and fast definition than a you-know-it-when-you-see-it sorta deal.
However, we can discuss “subversion” as a shorthand for the idea of subverting expectations. The latter concept being that, if the reader audience expects the story to go one way, they are pleasantly surprised when it takes a different turn.
The key word here is “pleasantly.” Because it’s very easy to engage in subversion just for the sake of subversion. For example, if we expect red, but we get blue instead, the script should have a reason why blue makes sense, and blue is better. Not just that it’s blue because we didn’t expect blue, we expected red, so thereby the choice is “clever” and “subversive.”
THE LAST JEDI is often accused of this kind of storytelling. I won’t wade into that argument because I simply don’t care, but that film generated enough controversy that we might use that as an example of unsuccessful subversion.
But on the flipside, we could look at horror titles like FROM DUSK TIL DAWN and the more-recent BARBARIAN as movies that subvert expectations. In both, we get a clear plot point at which the entire narrative shifts on an axis, and it becomes a different movie than the one we have been watching up until then. However, in both of those cases the subversion is sold; we understand why it’s blue instead of red.
We might say… well, plenty of movies have twists; does a twist make a particular take subversive? To which we might answer; sort of. A twist often comes in the climax, at or near the very end. To subvert a take, we use the language of cinematic storytelling to lay track for the audience, showing them a movie in which the fully expect to be surprised by standard-issue twists of the genre, only to reveal not just a twist, but a completely new layer of storytelling at work.
Or: a film might be subversive if it’s simply killing a paradigm and wearing its skin in order to trick the audience into watching a completely different film. In that sense, we could call JOKER subversive; it’s a movie that’s wearing the guise of a superhero movie in order to lure the audience into watching its version of a Scorsese/Schrader film.
As mentioned, though, the goal of a subversive script or film remains the same as the non-subversive project. Which is: to entertain the audience by telling them a good story. Spitting in the chili subverts what typically goes on in the kitchen, but that doesn’t mean we should be serving it.
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Back when I was managing, I would sometimes run into writers who would claim they were completely unable to synopsize their scripts in any way. I’d ask for a logline, and they would tell me they just don’t think that way, man. The script is too involved and sprawling and intricate to boil it down to a single sentence!
Writers who think in such a way are only failing themselves. Because being able to focus and condense the story is a fundamental skillset. This especially applies to screenwriting, where the most basic version of the story (the logline) can be used on the creative side as a guiding light, and on the commercial side the logline is the tip of the spear when it comes to the pitch.
Look at the tools the audience uses to decide what movie to see. For example, they might watch a trailer. At the theater, they’re looking at one-sheets; a poster with the title, an image, and the names of the stars. At home, watching a film on streaming, they’re looking at a thumbnail image which, if clicked on, gives us a logline, and some of the one-sheet’s info.
In none of these cases are we asking the audience to watch the full movie in order to decide which movie to watch. We’re offering a condensed version with highlights and information. These are the tools the distributor uses to market the film, and thus these are the tools that producers are thinking about when they’re considering film projects – including your script.
As an exercise, pick a script that you’ve written and see how far you can break it down. Can you write a logline? Great. Can you write a one-page synopsis? Can you put together a one-sheet that does a good job of selling the movie for which the script is a blueprint? If there were to be a trailer, what would it look like? What are the “trailer moments” within this script?
The American Film Market is in full swing this week. It used to be that producers could go to AFM and raise money just on a hot one-sheet: a grabby title, a great image, a clear pitch of what the movie is. The idea of reading the screenplay in that scenario would be ludicrous.
These days, we no longer have that kind of free-wheeling wild west financing opportunities at the markets (or at least it’s rare in comparison to the past). But the fact that producers could first sell on the one-sheet should be instructive to filmmakers and writers. A project that is focused enough that the one-sheet is all we need to grab the audience is the essence of cinematic storytelling. And once we have that focus, now all the movie has to be is good.
]]>Which is this: Above and beyond the mechanics of standard three-act feature film narrative construction, there are three acts that correspond with the level of knowledge the in-world characters have about how haunted they are, and a teaser and denouement that are typically directed more toward the audience. To wit…
Teaser. We open with a scene or sequence that acts as a “statement of intention.” It’s a horror movie, so we want to start things off with a scary scene. We want that scary scene to introduce the antagonist and concept. And we want the death(s) involved to draw in our protagonist and thus kick off act one. This is Bruce eating the girl in JAWS; it’s Samara haunting the teens in THE RING; it’s young Michael stabbing his sister in HALLOWEEN.
Act one: The characters don’t know they’re being haunted. This is where we put our pieces in place. The family moves into the house, the teens go up to the cabin, etc. The characters (particularly our protagonist) might notice a little something here and there, but it isn’t big or scary enough to make them flee. These hints are more about foreshadowing, and giving the audience some business to build tension and remind them they’re watching a horror movie.
Act two: The characters know they’re being haunted, but they don’t know exactly what’s happening or why. This is where the characters are full-on being haunted. (And by “haunted” we can mean that literally, as from a ghost or demon, or “haunted” as in being stalked by a killer or monster, etc.) In this second act, they are in a reactive mode. They’re screaming in terror, running around, getting killed, etc.
Act three: The characters know they are being haunted, and they have an idea of what to do about it, and are enacting that plan. The bodies have been found. Professor Exposition has been consulted. The characters know who is haunting them, why they are being haunted, and they have an idea as to how to make it stop.
This “act” is sometimes as long and developed as a third act in most “normal” movies. It depends on how involved the cure might be. For example, in IT FOLLOWS, NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and PREDATOR, this act involves our protagonist(s) laying a set of elaborate traps and then luring in the antagonist. In THE WAILING and THE EXORCIST, the third act is a long and dangerous ritual that must be enacted. But this act might be very short. For example, in classic slasher movies, we only get this act after the Final Girl finds the bodies of her friends and somehow stops the killer.
Denouement. We bookend the teaser with a final scare. Again, this “act” is more for the audience than the characters.
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