I Wonder What Would Have Happened If I’d…

In a recent interview on Big Think, writer Paul Auster tells of the inspiration for his novel City of Glass. He was called on the phone by someone who asked, “Is this the Pinkerton Detective Agency?” He answered, “No, wrong number,” and hung up. The same thing happened the next day too, but after he hung up the second time, he immediately regretted it. He began to imagine what might have happened if he had kept that person on the line and pretended to be the Pinkerton Detective Agency. This became the starting point for his novel.

Seems to me we all regularly experience these kinds of moments. Something as simple as thinking in retrospect of a biting retort you could have given an uncooperative salesperson. Or perhaps you only realized when the train pulled out of the station that the person who was sitting next to you was inviting you to flirt.

Here’s an incident I experienced a while ago:

I live in a sleepy suburb and I have a dog (these facts in themselves are a long story, but some other time). I often take the dog out after lunch, you know an old-fashioned constitutional. At that time of day, most normal people are at work. Of course, I’m working too, you just can’t tell by looking at me; I’m a writer.

On this particular day, it was during the summer holidays, I saw someone I didn’t know sitting behind the wheel of my neighbour’s expensive SUV. My neighbour and his family were on holiday in Tunisia.

From a distance it looked like the guy was trying to hot-wire the car, as he was fiddling around below the steering wheel. The man was large, had cropped hair and a scrunched up face that seemed to bear witness to numerous fist fights (that I imagined he had won). So there I stand, a timid, bourgeois man with a little dog and a terrible dilemma. Should I approach the man and ask him straight what he’s doing in my neighbour’s car? Should I pretend I haven’t noticed?

I can’t decide, so I walk around the parking lot, pretending to attend to my dog, while keeping an eye on the suspect in the car. I think things like: Should I call the police? Should I go away? The man starts the car. Shit. Now I really have to decide. Then he spies me watching him. Fuck. He’s going to kill me. Now my heart is pounding. He drives the car slowly across the parking lot. Why slowly? This doesn’t make sense, and worse, he’s coming towards me. I act like one of those animals that feigns death when faced with a predator.

The man stops the car and climbs out (really, like he’s a gorilla). That’s when he smiles at me, and I feel a wave of relief. This is also when I begin pretending to myself that I’m courageous. I ask him who he is, and he tells me he’s my neighbour’s brother-in-law. I suddenly see the resemblance. He says he couldn’t work out how to get the mirrors out… fucking fancy-shmancy cars… He says he saw me watching him, and I tell him something about us neighbours looking out for each other and so on. Turns out he’s going to the airport to pick them up, they’re coming home from Tunisia today.

Now then… in retrospect I feel I should have been braver. I should have gone up to the car right away and asked who he was. But who knows what would have happened then? What if this had been a car thief? Or what if this was some goon sabotaging my neighbour’s car for the local mob? He might have pulled out a gun and shot my dog… or asked me for help with the mirrors, or tried to escape… who knows.

See? A simple, uneventful incident for which your imagination can supply any number of alternative continuations if you let it wander.

One thing’s for sure, next time I think in retrospect of something I could have said or done, I’m going to play it out in my mind and see where it takes me. I’ll keep you posted.

Follow Your Gut, But Train It First

I’m a great fan of Jeff Goldsmith’s blog and podcast, which features Q+A sessions with screenwriters of movies currently in theatres. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to hear people describe familiar writing dilemma’s and creative issues; it helps to know it’s not just me. Other times it’s useful to hear how other writers find inspiration or deal with specific dramatic writing issues; a great tip can save much unnecessary sweat.

However, what I’ve always found most intriguing are the interviews with writers who don’t exhaustively prepare and outline their screenplays before they start writing a first draft. They write intuitively. Just a few of these writers I can think of off-hand: Guillermo Arriaga (Babel), Ronald Harwood (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly), Martin McDonagh (In Bruges), David Benioff (The Kite Runner).

What strikes me about these people, is that they all have a background in writing novels or stage plays, or both. They come from a world in which the writer is a far more highly respected and autonomous player. They appear to write from a very different starting point than screenwriters whose thinking is steeped Hollywood jargon that seems to serve more to reassure studio executives than to advance the creative process. You know, plot points, character arcs and all that stuff.

But there’s more to it than that, I fear.

I recently started work on a screenplay without doing the usual text book preparation, and it made me extremely nervous. Being the introspective type, I wanted to know what was going on, so I looked inside and realized: I feel like I’m losing my religion. Shame, guilt, accusatory voices in my head (don’t worry, only I can hear them), and all because I’m violating the edicts of all the how-to books and screenwriting tutors.

Or am I?

In fact, my conclusion is different. Learning to write good screenplays is like learning to paint or play a musical instrument, or any other creative endeavour. You first have to spend a long, long time imitating the people who’ve done it all before you. Learning their tricks, distilling principles, practising an array of techniques, and so on. Only once you’ve mastered the technique can you transcend it. That’s how you develop intuition, or gut feeling, and that’s when you discover if you have anything interesting and original to add.

Which is why learning to outline, knowing what an act break is, understanding what’s meant by a character arc, familiarizing yourself with genre conventions and so on, is essential. Only then can you go beyond the generic and create something truly original.

Like my current favourite Keith Johnstone says in his book Impro:

It’s easy to play the role of “artist,” but to actually create something means going against one’s education.

Which I don’t take to mean mindlessly rebelling against what you’ve learned. The point is to internalize what you’ve learned, so that it becomes a repertoire you have at your disposal, and then follow your instincts.

There’s a famous psychological experiment in which two groups of subjects are given a free poster to take home for keeps. They get to choose between two reproductions of impressionist paintings and some huge photos of cute little kittens. Group A simply chooses a poster and leaves, Group B is asked to first write down the reasons for their choice.

When the subjects are called a few weeks later and asked if they’re still happy with the choice they made, the vast majority of Group A, who mostly chose the impressionist painting, are still very happy with their posters. However, Group B, who mostly chose the kitten, absolutely hate their posters. The explanation, according to psychologists who study decision making, is that this type of aesthetic decision is best made instinctively rather than by means of conscious deliberation.

People in Group B had to write down the motivation for their choice. This conscious thinking removed them from their initial, unconscious preference, and instead prompted them to follow a more “rational” and in this case less authentic approach.

Something similar goes on in a screenwriter’s mind when there’s too much thinking and conscious reasoning, and not enough intuition involved.

Right now my intuition says it’s time for some tea.

Why You Need To Play With Your Characters’ Status

I’m currently having great fun reading Keith Johnstone’s book Impro: Improvisation And The Theatre. It’s a book of improvisation techniques and exercises for theatre actors, and it’s full of enlightening insights for screenwriters. In his chapter on status, for example, Johnstone sets out how he gets actors to understand, through practicing different roles, the importance of the various characters’ status in a scene. He gives some hilarious examples of students playing high and low status to each other, to the space around them, to objects and so on. But always with the intention of making students aware…

… that we are pecking-order animals and that this affects the tiniest details of our behaviour.

It’s essential for actors to understand what status characters have in the scene, and to what extent this conflicts with what they and the other characters believe about themselves. Is it a master-servant relationship, a subtle difference of rank, do the characters have superiors as well as minions, etc.

The issue of status is also important for screenwriters, though. Even a scene with no dialogue can show the characters’ attitudes to themselves and each other in terms of status. A character who feels in charge, who is on their own territory, will move and occupy the space differently from someone who feels intimidated and powerless. Equally, in terms of dialogue, characters constantly reinforce or challenge each other’s status with the subtleties of their language.

Above all, status is expressed in behaviour. It’s not just some abstract notion of social standing or military rank. One character may formally have a lower status than another, but they can still play high-status, in order to bluff or to reassure themselves, or for some other reason.

Here’s a brief example from The Departed by William Monahan. In this scene Billy (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is trying to infiltrate into the mob run by Frank Costello (Jack Nicholson). He’s been called in to meet with Costello at his home. He’s wearing a wire and he’s very scared of being discovered. Also present is Costello’s right-hand man Mr. French (Ray Winstone), a ruthless killer.

Costello sits down in the breakfast area in his bathrobe. He has a bowl of cornflakes.

..............COSTELLO
.....Have a seat Billy.

..............BILLY
.....Thank you.

..............COSTELLO
.........(he looks up)
.....You know John Lennon?

Billy sits. Mister French is nearby.

..............BILLY
.....Yeah, he was president before
.....Lincoln.

..............COSTELLO
.........(smiles)
.....Lennon said “I’m an artist. You
.....give me a fuckin’ tuba and I’ll get
.....you something out of it.”

..............BILLY
.....I’d like to squeeze some fuckin’
.....money out of it.

Costello and Mr. French look at each other.

..............COSTELLO
.....Smart mouth. Too bad.

Costello lifts a piece of plastic on the table revealing a severed human hand. Billy tries to conceal his shock.

See how that’s done? Costello receives Billy in his pyjamas while eating his breakfast. He is so much higher in status that he is completely unthreatened and totally at ease. He also has his lieutenant at his side. He gets to determine when Billy sits and Billy confirms the relationship by politely thanking him. Then Billy shows he’s more than just another hoodlum for hire by being flippant, and it’s clear that Costello registers this and appreciates it. He does this first of all by smiling, and when Billy is flippant again, by looking at his lieutenant before speaking, as if to say: Do you see how much guts this guy has got?

Costello’s judgement, passed as perfunctorily as Caesar at the games, “Smart mouth. Too bad,” expresses amusement and concern. These both reflect his higher status. He’s saying: I like this guy and I might consider hiring him, but he also might just be too clever for his own good so I might just have to put him in his place. So to finish off, just to show Billy who’s really boss, Costello uncovers the human hand on his desk.

This scene would have played very differently if Billy didn’t try and up his status by being clever. He takes a huge risk, because his flippancy can be construed as a sign of strength (I’m not scared of anyone), or of nervousness (I’ve got something to hide). We the audience feel his anxiety. We feel hope as he impresses Costello and then despair when Costello cuts him back down to size.

Great insights from Keith Johnstone, great writing from William Monahan. Don’t you just love this profession?

Screenwriting Technique #429D: Reverse Engineering

Often screenwriting isn’t a neat linear process. You don’t necessarily sit down and think up A followed by B and therefore C, etc. Perhaps you wake up one morning and you know what C is, but you still haven’t a clue why.

Sometimes the best way to write a beat or a scene, is to start at the end and work backwards in small steps from there. Reverse engineering, as it were. For example, as I’ve found in recent weeks, if you’re working towards a cliffhanger, it can help to know in advance what the cliffhanger is going to be.

For whatever reasons, it makes a difference when your focus changes from, “What happens next?” to “What happened before?” It’s perhaps a more logical, conscious approach, because you’re looking at the result of an action and trying to decipher what the cause could have been. Like a detective reconstructing possible scenarios from clues at a crime scene.

The principle is the same whether you’re writing for animation or live action. You have a specific image or turning point which you feel just has to be in the script. Perhaps the genre demands a particular set piece. A car chase, a first kiss, a murder. Maybe you have an important reveal that needs to be cleverly hidden. A hidden identity, a family secret, a betrayal.

At a less detailed level, perhaps when you’re outlining, reverse engineering is sometimes also the best way to plan out a sequence or even an entire screenplay. Maybe you just have a few big scenes in your mind, tent poles on which you want to hang the rest of the story. In that case too, looking back at how the action in the scene came about, can be enlightening.

Whatever the reason that you know your narrative destination, what happens when you work backwards is that your options are pleasantly narrowed. I say pleasantly, because sometimes an endless number of options can be daunting. Knowing the result before the action that led to it, focuses your creative faculties on possible causes, which by definition is a more limited set of choices than possible outcomes. Especially given the nature of your story world, the point in the character’s development, and other limiting aspects of your story.

On the other hand, the danger of this approach comes from precisely the same place as the benefit: its rationality. If the outcome is predetermined, and therefore your options limited, there’s a risk that you might not come up with the kind of unexpected twists that you otherwise would. But hey, sometimes an element of predictability is precisely what you want in order to be able to play with the audience’s expectations.

Of course, this being a screenwriting technique, it’s not a rule and it’s not always the appropriate method to choose. It’s just one of many ways to approach the task at hand. The bottom line, as always, is: whatever works for you.

The Difference Between Fun To Read And Fun To Watch

If there’s one thing you learn from writing animation, it’s to stick with what you can see and hear on the screen. In the buzz of writing a wacky animation sequence, it’s easy to get carried away with descriptions that are fun to read, but don’t actually tell anyone enough about what they’re going to see. Not that the flavour and pace of a scene can’t benefit from a few snappy similes or the occasional well-placed adverb, but in moderation.

In live action, description sometimes needs to leave a certain ambivalence for the actors and director to play with on set. In animation there is no room for that kind of ambivalence, but equally, it’s impossible express the kind of detail that is subsequently created in the storyboarding and animation phases.

So the trick is to find a balance between describing as much of the action as possible without going into superfluous detail and without the writing becoming boring and technical.

Here’s a brilliant little quote from the screenplay of Ratatouille, by Brad Bird. It’s from the scene on page 40 where Remy the rat accidentally discovers he can control Linguini’s movements by tugging his hair:

Remy is yanking tufts of Linguini’s hair like a kid with a new toy. Linguini jerks around like a helpless puppet.

In this one little paragraph there are two concrete actions, “yanking hair” and “jerking around” plus two accompanying similes: “like a kid with a new toy” and “like a helpless puppet.” This combination of specific description and general flavour expresses quite precisely what the beat will look like, without trying to depict every little movement.

Entertaining though it may be to read, superfluous flowery verbiage (= wordiness) in a screenplay risks diverting attention from the action to the author. Ideally your screenplay has to be fun to read and fun to watch, but given the choice, it’s more important to focus on the “fun to watch” aspect. Everyone else involved in the production needs to be able to understand as clearly as possible what’s going to be seen and heard.

Of course, if it’s fun to watch, it’s probably going to be fun to read too…

My Two Cents On Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art

In a recent a post on her The New York Screenwriting Life blog, Janet describes getting a well-needed “kick in the tush” from Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art. Having just read the book myself, and having had a decidedly different response to it, I just have to get this off my chest.

I ordered the book after reading how warmly Robert McKee recommended it to screenwriters. Not that I take McKee’s word as gospel by any means, but he knows a thing or two about writing. So I was hoping to find some new and practical insights into dealing with procrastination, lack of focus and all the other annoying obstacles that a screenwriter has to deal with on a daily basis.

Instead, what I was treated to was a collection of wild and inaccurate generalizations, formulated in bombastic, pretentious language, peppered with the kind of absolutist Christian theology that would even make the Pope blush.

I intensely dislike Pressfield’s use of a moral frame, in which writing is good and not-writing is evil. He has this unified theory of everything which blames anything unpleasant on Resistance (his caps). He constantly refers to Resistance as a pernicious, insidious and conniving force, with petty and narrow-minded Ego as its accomplice in sin. His use of overblown terms like "destiny," "fate," "forces in the universe," etc., is so pretentious it drives me nuts. He never once even attempts to give anything remotely resembling evidence for any of his claims and theories. It’s just what he thinks, take it or leave it.

And he uses that awful third person style. We always this, we never that … insinuating that he knows with absolute certainty that “we” are all the same. Speak for yourself, please.

Pressfield’s essential mistake, in my opinion, is the same one all proponents of this Rhonda Byrne type pseudo science make: He takes metaphors literally. He elevates concepts such as the Muse, or the Ego or Angels (yes) to the status of actual living entities, which I find ludicrous.

Don’t get me wrong, I can understand his evangelical enthusiasm. After all, once he managed to get a handle on what was holding him back as a writer and he was able to let rip and write freely, he wanted to give everyone else the same experience. Unfortunately, in his fervour he fails to distinguish between a metaphorical concept which helped him work more productively, and a silly, literal belief in (religious) symbols.

Not to mention the totally outrageous suggestion that Hitler wouldn’t have started World War Two if he had only known what Mr. Pressfield knows, and continued painting. That is so absurd and ill-informed it just defies any reasonable response. Or what about Pressfield’s claim that cancer can be caused by not following your creative urges. Even more revolting: the suggestion that terminal cancer can be cured by finally picking up that paintbrush or pencil during the course of your chemotherapy!

I find this entire way of thinking distasteful and counterproductive. Not only because of its preachy idiom and cadence, reminiscent of a minister admonishing his congregants and scaring them into submission with threats of fire and brimstone. Not just because of Pressfield’s arrogant way of stating absurdities as facts, for example , that “humans” have been around for fifty million years. But more than anything else because this type of thinking is the ultimate form of blaming the victim: If you’re not successful as a writer, it must be your own fault. That, in the end, as with all self-help methods based on positive thinking, is the source of much more sorrow than solace. Because most aspiring writers don’t possess the magical powers necessary to simply will themselves to success. As a result they will end up feeling more wretched for trying. The tough truth is, not everyone can be a Hemingway or even a Steven Pressfield.

Feh! I came away from reading this mercifully brief book, pleased to have been reminded of how wrong-headed this approach to the creative process is. At least for me. I don’t find it helpful to look at life in terms of judgemental absolutes and neat linguistic dichotomies. Life, certainly the life of a writer, is far more complex and fluid than that. Sometimes you gets your pages written, sometimes you doesn’t. Which doesn’t mean your Ego is in cahoots with the devil, it just means it’s not your day. You’ve got to be able to accept the rough with the smooth, because that’s what life as a writer is like. You can’t exorcise the rough, no matter how many capital letters and sweeping analogies you deploy.

If there’s anything positive I took away from the book, it’s a confirmation that the only constructive attitude for a screenwriter is to focus on the work. Which means different things for different people. Just listen to a few of the Q+A’s in Jeff Goldsmith’s invaluable series of podcasts to get an impression of how varied professional screenwriters’ writing habits and processes can be.

The key is to find the regime that suits you best. You might be a ten hours a day person, you might be someone who writes in fits and starts. You might be a meticulous outliner, you might be the more spontaneous type. Whatever works. However, the worst thing you can do, in my opinion, is add a moral dimension to the search for the method that fits you best.

Screenwriting has nothing to do with battling against demonic resistance to the good which is creativity. It’s a profession. It’s about writing. As much as you can. It’s about reading. As many screenplays as you can. It’s about learning. From whatever source suits you best (workshops, DVD lectures, how-to books , university courses, etc.).

Oh, and by the way, I understand why Robert McKee so warmly recommends the book. Apart from the fact that it fits perfectly with his paradigm which says that all stories are essentially mythical tales about the individual overcoming the worst possible obstacles and thereby discovering their “true self,” he’s also mentioned in the book and he has his name on the back cover. Of course that may be irrelevant …

P.S. Just for clarity’s sake, Janet at The New York Screenwriting Life, this diatribe is not directed in the least bit personally against you! You just happened to be the trigger that prompted me to respond.

How Showing Work In Progress To The Right People Helps

In a recent interview in Variety, Disney-Pixar’s John Lasseter talks about allowing people to fail as part of the creative culture which originated at Pixar and is now being implemented at Disney too.

At all levels and stages of the creative process, everyone is encouraged to propose new ideas and solutions to problems. As the article puts it:

[Lasseter] ... is adamant that teams not be allowed to sequester themselves or work too long without sharing their progress with others. No matter what state a project is in, every three months, directors are required to put their film up on reels and test how it screens. That way, Lasseter and his fellow leaders can identify problems early.

I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing I try and avoid more than having someone read anything of mine that I don’t consider polished and presentable. If I know the writing isn’t ready yet, I keep it well hidden. Because almost no one understands that the process of screenwriting consists of writing draft upon draft of a variety of documents which often only make sense to the screenwriter. That you just have to produce and discard a lot of crap before anything worthwhile emerges. That it takes time and lots and lots of effort to come up with a presentable screenplay.

Which is why having a writing partner can be a boon. That is, if you’re in a writing partnership that can contain and cope with the inevitable emotions involved. The sulking, the accusations, the manipulations, the abuse, the violence and, yes, the affection.

As I mentioned a while ago, I’ve set myself a series of deadlines for an outline (already finished!), a treatment (nearly done!) and a first draft of an animation feature I’m writing together with my writing partner. And this is what happened a couple of days before I read Lasseter’s interview:

My writing partner comes over, for something unrelated to the screenplay in question. (For the sake of clarity, the way we’re working on this stage of the screenplay is that I’m writing and he’s critiquing.) I mention in passing the progress I’m making on the treatment. So he says, why don’t I give him what I’ve written so far, so that he can catch any problems before they become more complicated to solve.

I feel myself freeze. I hear myself offering lame excuse after lame excuse for not giving him the pages. "I’m still working on some set-ups and pay-offs," I lie. "There are scenes at the end which might still prompt changes in earlier scenes," I hypothesize. And so on.

Then it dawns on me that I’ve gone defensive. Big time. Whereas if there’s anyone who’s going to add to the quality of the writing by looking at the work in progress, it’s my writing partner! So I give him the pages, he takes them home and reads them, and gets back to me that same evening with some really insightful notes.

So now you see why the interview with Lasseter struck such a chord with me. He’s basically saying that his people have to show each other their work in progress on a regular basis. Because openly encouraging them to not be afraid of failing, increases the likelihood of identifying and fixing problems earlier rather than later in the creative process. Which confirms the experience I had just a couple of days earlier.

Sure, it can be pleasant to lock yourself in your writer’s ivory tower, but the advantages of identifying problems while you can still correct them relatively easily, are huge. Not only does it save time during rewriting, it also allows for more depth of rewriting.

However, as I’ve written in an earlier post you have to choose the right moment to show your work in progress, and it’s essential that the person reading your work has no ulterior motive for pointing out problems in your writing. As long as you’re both equally invested in and committed to producing the best work possible, then it’s well worth the potential embarrassment of exposing your writing at an early stage.

And now I’m off to finish the treatment before Tuesday’s self-imposed deadline …