How Well Do You Know Your Screenplay?

One of the keys to getting a screenplay written, is to discover what the screenplay wants to be, instead of trying to force it to be what you want it to be.

Sounds a bit like being in a relationship, doesn’t it? The more you acknowledge who your partner is, the more authentic and genuine your relationship with them can become. Or the more disastrous, of course, if your expectations or demands turn out to be unrealistic. The same with a screenplay. Is it Movie Of The Week rather than Oscar material? Is it art house rather than high concept? Is your short really a one-hour TV drama? Or is it even a stage play rather than a film? Acknowledging what kind of animal your material is, can be tough. Especially when it’s not what you expected. However, I think it’s essential to the process of getting the script written as well as possible.

Recognizing What You’re Writing
According to a recent episode of WNYC’s RadioLab, called Help!, Tom Waits apparently has very specific relationships with his songs while he’s writing them, as if they are entities outside himself with whom he has to deal. Sometimes the relationships are stormy and argumentative, other times he will negotiate with a song in order to get it down on paper. To me, this makes perfect sense. It’s the same as with children. Despite certain general similarities between all children, each individual child is unique. Even the same child can change dramatically without warning. The same applies to screenplays. Regardless of genre conventions, formatting rules and other limitations, each screenplay is a unique thing. Some stories seem to arrive more or less pre-packaged, complete with great visuals, intriguing character and neat little act breaks. Others need coaxing and kneading, like they’re unwilling to expose themselves to the harsh light of day. It’s only once you recognize with whom (or what) you’re dealing, that the writing really starts flowing.

What Happens When You Push Too Hard?
Unfortunately, it’s often impractical to spend the necessary time wooing a screenplay, letting your relationship with it gestate and mature sufficiently. Especially when you’re writing on assignment, and other people are waiting for your pages. But the alternative, pushing, is not necessarily the best thing for the script. Pushing can take on many forms, depending on the drive to push. You might be so enthusiastic about a draft, or conversely, so fed up with a story, that you send off a draft before it’s really ready to read. You might make do with second best because someone is breathing down your neck, or because a competition deadline is approaching. You might not know your screenplay well enough and be trying to squeeze a comedy out of a not so funny premise. You might not want to go through another round of feedback from script readers because you can’t face even more notes. However the pushing manifests, the end result is always the same: The script isn’t as good as it could have been, and there’s only one person to blame: the screenwriter.

Knowing Which Tactic To Choose
If a screenplay refuses to cooperate, it probably means you’re not listening to it. The screenplay feels offended and sulks. It’s a stalemate. Now you have a choice of tactics: Start shouting and screaming, issuing threats and throwing heavy objects around the room. Alternatively, you could offer the screenplay chocolates, sweet talk it into collaborating like a good screenplay should. Failing that, you can always walk away. Go and do something else, something which will take your mind off the humiliation of being held hostage by your own fantasy. Walk around the block, do the shopping, clean the kitchen… whatever it takes for your emotions to cool down, so you can go back to the screenplay, apologize, and ask in your nicest possible voice what it was trying to tell you when you were so rudely not listening.

When All Else Fails, Use Force Anyway

Another option, perhaps the most dangerous of all, is the Ulysses tactic. Ulysses, hero of Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey, had his crew members stuff their ears with beeswax and tie him to the mast of his ship and ordered them not to untie him no matter how much he pleaded, so that he would be able to hear the song of the sirens without following them to his death. (BTW, this is portrayed beautifully in Ben Stiller’s Tropic of Thunder, where Jack Black goes cold turkey tied to a tree.) Needless to say, you don’t need to be a Greek king to do this, you could achieve the same effect simply by agreeing a deadline and making sure there a whole lot at stake if you don’t finish by the deadline. The problem with this approach is, of course, that for some writers, this kind of pressure paralyzes the creative mind rather than liberating it.

Just as no two screenplays are the same, every screenwriter has to find the right way to relate to each script they write. The trick is, I think, to recognize and respect each script on its own terms, and allow it to show you how to treat it.

Movie Characters And The Stoic Trichotomy Of Control

You might associate the word Stoicism with asceticism and suffering, but this ancient philosophy has a lot to teach screenwriters about writing great characters.

One of my favourite books of late is: A Guide to the Good Life; The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, by William B. Irvine. This is not a book written for screenwriters, in fact it’s not about films or screenplays at all. It’s a book which makes the principles and values of Stoicism relevant and applicable to the 21st century, and advocates adopting them as a philosophy of life. It’s a fascinating and enlightening read in and of itself, but also contains many surprisingly relevant and practical insights for screenwriters. The main reason for this is because the book deals with how we can and should relate to the things we desire, if we want to live a joyful and fulfilling life. Which is kind of what most great movies are about too, when you scratch beneath the surface.

I want to highlight just one of these insights here, which Irvine, in typical philosopher-speak, calls the trichotomy of control.

So, What is this Trichotomy of Control?
The ancient philosopher Epictetus advocated the following: Don’t set your desires on things over which you have no control, as this will inevitably lead to disappointment and misery. In other words, he divides the things human beings have to deal with, into things over which we have control, and things over which we have no control.

Irvine expands these two categories into three:

Things over which we have absolutely no control. This includes external things such as the weather, the economy, traffic, etc., and internal phenomena like impulses, aversions, cravings, urges, and any sensation or thought that arises spontaneously.

Things over which we have complete control. These would be things like our opinions, the goals we set ourselves, the values we decide to live by, etc.

Things over which we have some, but not complete control. This refers to things like, achieving goals we set for ourselves, developing our skills to the best of our ability, living according to our values as much as possible, acting or not acting on our impulses, etc.

Using these three categories, it’s possible to decide quite rationally where to invest effort and where not to. And besides being a very useful way of analysing and dealing with real life situations, it’s also a great way to focus your character’s behaviour too.

What does your character have absolutely no control over?

Externally, this is the physical threat or opposition a character faces from a powerful antagonist. Whether the hostile force takes the specific form of an individual, a natural environment, an organization, etc., doesn’t matter: The fact of the opposition is something the character has no control over, and must somehow deal with. Internally, the character is confronted with their own unconsciously generated, spontaneously occurring impulses, aversions, and desires. Perhaps these internal forces are initially less obvious to the character than to the antagonist (and the audience…), but they are nevertheless events over which the character has no control and which they must deal with.

Some examples:

- Phonebooth – External: Stuart (Colin Farrell) is powerless in the face of the invisible sniper who has him in his sights. Internal: Stuart has to contend with his intense aversion to being honest.

- A Serious Man - External: Larry (Michael Stuhlbarg) is confronted with a fait accomplis, his wife’s infidelity. Internal: Larry must deal with his incessant need to understand what’s happening to him.

- Ratatouille – External: Remy the rat can do nothing about the fact that he’s regarded by the human world as vermin. Internal: Remy can’t help his relentless desire to cook.

What does your character have complete control over?
These are mostly internal phenomena, like opinions, goals, values. In other words, a character can quite rationally and consciously decide to take sides in a military conflict, or to strive to achieve a particular academic or professional qualification, or to try and win the love of a particular woman, and so on. The character is also in complete control over how he or she tries to achieve their goal, or defend their position, and so on. This says nothing about their chances of succeeding, of course, because as often happens in films, the character is free to choose the wrong approach, too. In most mainstream, narrative films, the main character will face a final, painful moral dilemma at some point. Here too, the character has complete control over their choice.

Some examples:

- The Lives of Others - Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) chooses to work for the repressive East German state security police.

- Avatar - Jake (Sam Worthington) chooses to switch sides and defend the values of the Na’vi.

- An Education – David (Peter Sarsgaard) consciously chooses to deceive Jenny (Carey Mulligan) by not telling her he’s married.

What does your character have some, but not complete control over?

Here’s where a character’s choices become interesting, and where conflict and dilemmas can really take hold. We all know how hard it is to live consistently according to values we hold dear, or how hard it can be to resist acting on impulses which we know will lead to trouble. Equally, we all know when we’re cutting corners or doing our utmost, and that choice is within our control. Even more so, then, for a fictional character, whom you deliberately place in the worst possible circumstances in order to test their mettle. Because it’s when a character has some, but not complete control over events, that their choices become dramatic. The screenwriter deliberately confronts their characters with difficult choices in order to emphasize a particular moral issue. The drama, or comedy, comes from the uncertainty about whether the character can distinguish between what is within their control and what isn’t. Will they recognize temptation and withstand it? Will they see the danger but persevere anyway? Will they overestimate their powers? In the end, what characters have control over, are their choices and the lengths they’re willing to go to achieve their goals.

Some examples:

- Greenberg – Greenberg (Ben Stiller) constantly faces the negative social consequences of having acted impulsively in the past, and still struggles with this urge in the present.

- Little Miss Sunshine – Olive (Abigail Breslin) is never destined to win the beauty pageant, but because she makes such an effort, she achieves something far more valuable.

- The Crying Game – Fergus (Stephen Rea) finds his conscience at odds with life as an IRA gunman and chooses to desert. Interestingly, Jody (Forest Whitaker) mocks Fergus, saying he has no control over his choices because of his intrinsic nature!

Is your character trying to change something over which he has no control?
Here we get to the crux of the drama or comedy in a story. Because before a character understands he’s battling something he has no control over, instead of focusing on the thing he can control, he will continue to bang his head and get into worse trouble. This confusion is often resolved in a kind of “aha” moment, when the character realizes they’ve been focusing too much on some insurmountable, external opposition, when really they need to face their inner demons first.

Some examples:

- The Fountain - Tommy (Hugh Jackman) spends almost the entire film fighting against something no one has any control over: death. It’s only after his wife has died that he acknowledges this and finds some degree of peace.

- The Crucible – Proctor (Daniel Day-Lewis) struggles against the absolute power of the church, almost saves himself by confessing to something he didn’t do, and eventually chooses death above hypocrisy.

- Nemo –Marlin tries to prevent his son Nemo from taking risks, but must finally acknowledge that he can’t stop Nemo growing up and becoming independent.

All the above examples deal with big-picture, basic story elements. But the same trichotmoy is just as useful for examining other, more detailed aspects of a screenplay, such as sequences, scenes and even individual beats or lines of dialogue.

So you see, those dusty old Greek philosophers knew a thing or two about human nature, which is, essentially, the screenwriter’s main raw material.

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.

Why Screenwriting Is Neither Science Nor Religion

At the moment I’m reading Your Screenplay Sucks, by William M. Akers. I highly recommend it. It’s a very entertaining and educational compilation of the most common screenwriting conventions, presented as advice on how to get your screenplay read by the people that matter. However, apart from being a useful checklist with which to critically assess your writing, it’s also a reminder to me of the dangers of taking screenwriting conventions too literally.

The film industry in Hollywood is constantly inundated by spec scripts, most of which are not good enough to become produced movies. As a result, there is an extensive system of “filters,” such as agents and script readers, who sift through the mountain of screenplays in search of viable material. These people, by necessity, employ rules of thumb to make their work easier. So, for example, if you don’t format your script according to the accepted conventions, it most likely won’t be read. That’s one very good reason to adhere to formatting conventions.

But what about conventions that govern the content of your story? Here’s where it gets a whole lot trickier in my opinion … Screenwriting isn’t a science. There’s no way to replicate empirical findings. What makes one script tick may not work in another. And screenwriting isn’t a religion either. There are no divine laws that you must accept with blind faith.

So I’m a little uncomfortable with Akers’ numerous must-mantras such as “you must have an active protagonist, or “your protagonist must change by the end of the story,” and “your antagonist must be stronger than your protagonist,” and so on. These are all basic Hollywood story conventions as presented by popular teachers such as Robert McKee, John Truby, Syd Field and which are always disingenuously qualified as not being rules at all but merely guidelines distilled from successful movies.

In fact, these are rules, and they sound very Thou Shalt Not-ish to me.

I get the notion that these rules are formulated to help you avoid giving anyone a reason to stop reading your screenplay. The trouble is, follow these rules too closely and you end up with generic, boilerplate writing. Plus, presenting these rules as if they’ve been unequivocally proven by numerous experiments and studies, can lead to some pretty strange mental gymnastics.

For example, Akers criticizes blockbuster box-office successes such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Alien for not following the rules. On page 40 he literally writes, about an inconsistency he perceives in the actions of an evil pirate,

"It should have been infuriating, at least, to somebody."

To me this just confirms how impossible it is to dictate in detail how (not) to write a screenplay. I mean, it’s not really a convincing argument to claim that a hugely successful blockbuster movie was not actually as good as everyone thought, because the bad guy wasn’t written according to the rules.

In fact it’s evidence of precisely the contrary: Even if you don’t follow all the rules, your script can still be a killer.

To my mind, screenwriting is like any art or craft or skill: You first need to learn the techniques before you can subvert them and find your own voice. The same way an artist needs to study the effects of light and learn basic drawing techniques before he can experiment with new forms. Or like a musician needs to master her instrument by endlessly practicing scales and arpeggios in order to be free to improvise.

In other words, books like Your Screenplay Sucks are hugely useful for learning basic screenwriting techniques and conventions. But the real art of writing only kicks in once you stop thinking in terms of articles of faith or proven laws. The magic really starts when you open your mind and let your characters lead you wherever they choose.

Screenwriting's Only Rule: Find Your Voice

I often see advice to screenwriters couched in very normative language. Screenwriters are admonished by authors of how-to books, by professional script-readers, know-it-all bulletin posters anyone else with an opinion on the matter, NEVER to break certain cast-iron rules that will absolutely, definitely ensure that your material is never read.

Um … maybe. Maybe not. Let’s take a look at some of these so-called sacred interdictions and their rationalizations.

• Never use “We see …” It’s old-fashioned, today’s film execs don’t like it and it shows you’re not up to speed about current screenwriting conventions.
  
  
• Never use the phrase “he realizes.” You can’t see what someone is thinking, it has to be a description of something they do, which demonstrates what they’ve realized.
  
  
• Never use camera angles, it takes the reader out of the story and displays arrogance, as if you’re trying to do the director’s work.
  
  
• If anything can be shown rather than said, always go with the non-verbal alternative. Dialogue is for theatre plays, whereas film is all about telling a story by juxtaposing images.
  
  
• Never describe what someone is thinking, or anything else you can’t see or hear. Similar to the previous rule, but with the patronizing qualification: Save that for your novel.
  
  
• Never use flowery, literary language. Be concise, businesslike and to-the-point. Any other style will be perceived as you showing off your literacy, rather than your storytelling skills.

There are others, I’m sure you’ve heard and read them too. But what strikes me every time I study any great screenplay (i.e., a screenplay that became the foundation for a beautiful movie), is that really good screenwriters don’t care about these rules.

It’s a bit like saying that Arthur Rubenstein wasn’t really a good pianist because he played with flat fingers, which is not how you’re “supposed” to do it.

I recently finished writing an article for TwelvePoint.com on Knocked Up by Judd Apatow. Now there’s a script that could easily be a stage play. It’s almost all dialogue! But it’s a fabulous film script, too. Witty, moving, and visual (yes). Do you think any producer in his right mind would have rejected the script on the basis of some abstract rule concerning how much dialogue is allowed in a film script?

Or what about The Departed, by William Monahan? Now there’s a nail-biting screenplay, full of double-crossing twists and reveals, action-packed and thrilling to the last page. That script contains plenty of no-nos, such as “we see,” “he realizes,” as well as specific descriptions of what someone is thinking. Somehow I think Martin Scorsese was OK with that.

How about No Country For Old Men, by the Coen brothers? A wild and gripping read, whisking the reader along from one unlikely encounter to the next. But it almost reads like a director’s shot list in places, it’s so full of explicit camera instructions.

I could go on. But the point I’m making is that sticking to a set of arbitrary style guidelines is not going to make a screenplay more likely to be picked up and produced. The thing that jumps off the page in the scripts I mentioned above is precisely the vividness and originality of the writing. Above all, what these screenplays have in common is a unity and consistency of style.

They each have a distinct voice.

The inner cogitations of The Departed would seem out of place in Knocked Up. The deeply ironic and self-ridiculing dialogue in Knocked Up wouldn’t fit in No Country For Old Men. The camera-centred style of No Country For Old Men would feel clumsy in The Departed. And so on.

In other words, the only thing that really counts, is making the script a really entertaining and intriguing read by finding your own voice.

How Much Do You Leave Up To The Director?

One way of making a distinction between the screenwriter’s job and the director’s job is this: The writer’s job is to determine what to film, the director’s job is to determine how to shoot it. So when it comes to deciding what to include and what to cut from the script, it’s often a matter of choosing the level of detail.

Finding the right balance between too little and too much detail, is a large part of the art of screenwriting. Use too little detail, and you run the risk of not adequately getting your intention across. Too much detail, on the other hand, can feel restrictive and rigid. So the trick is to use just the appropriate amount of detail for the given beat, making clear what the beat is about while leaving enough room for the director to visualize the beat in his or her own way.

Take for example the famous scene from American Beauty, where Ricky (played by Wes Bentley) shows Jane (Thora Birch) his video recording of a plastic bag being blown about by the wind. Here’s how screenwriter Alan Ball describes Jane’s initial reaction to the video:

Jane sits on the bed. She watches Ricky’s WIDE-SCREEN TV, her brow furrowed, trying to figure out why this is beautiful.

Which is a lot of information for two short sentences. You know Jane is sitting on the bed, you know she’s watching the TV screen and it’s clear she’s feeling confused because she likes Ricky and is trying hard to understand him, so she can decide whether she really wants to get any closer to him.

This little description does a great job of pointing everyone on the set in the same direction. However, none of the information tries to force a particular way of shooting the beat. Which means that as the screenwriter, you hand the director (and the actors) all the necessary ingredients, but you leave it up to them to do the cooking.

A little further along in the same scene, while Ricky expresses the wonderment he felt when he first witnessed the flying bag, all Alan Ball says about Jane’s reaction is:

Now Jane is watching him.

Which is about as brief a description as you can imagine. It doesn’t give any concrete (visual) information other than: Jane has switched her attention from the video to Ricky. However concise though, this little snippet does have a clear function: it shows that Jane is more fascinated by Ricky than by the video. She’s not so much sharing his experience of the video, as feeling something similar while watching him. But again, it leaves the director and the actors free to portray this information in whatever way they find most appropriate.

Some directors will storyboard extensively before venturing onto the set, others like to “let it happen” and then compose the scene during editing. That’s all about execution—the how— rather than inventing the scene in the first place—the what— which is the screenwriter’s job.

As far as I’m concerned, the answer to my initial question is: Leave as much as possible up to the director, while making absolutely sure not to lose the essence of the beat.

Why You Need To Entertain In Order To Enlighten

As a screenwriter, the bottom line is you are part of the entertainment industry. However high-brow your subject matter may be, people watch movies in order to have some kind of visceral rather than intellectual experience. They want to be entertained.

Regardless of whether you’re talking about a Hollywood blockbuster or a lo-budget art house film, or even a feature-length documentary, audiences pay to be frightened, amused, romantically stimulated, outraged, and so on, not to get an academic education. They want to be entertained.

A movie can express a moral point of view, pose hypothetical questions, explore historical events, personal relationships, social conventions, and so on. Whether it does so through drama or comedy, the audience only agrees to watch the film in the first place because they expect an engaging, emotional cinematic experience. They want to be entertained.

The word entertainment has had a lot of bad press. It’s mostly equated with superficial distraction. Look at what the dictionaries have to say: “To cause the time to pass pleasantly … to amuse … to divert …” (Webster's). “To amuse, to occupy agreeably,” (Oxford). “To provide amusement for …” (Collins).

But wait, put your judgemental, artistic indignation on hold for a moment and acknowledge a simple fact: The function of entertainment is to direct someone’s attention to something enjoyable. Again, “enjoyable” here refers to the full gamut of emotional cinematic experience, ranging from hilarity to terror. That, on the face of it, is the screenwriter’s job. Write stuff that people want to watch, for whatever reasons they may have.

Of course, the trick is to give the audience something enjoyable to watch, and while they’re not looking, slip in under their radar.

Or if you prefer a more classical metaphor: The job of the screenwriter is to write Trojan horses.

In other words, a film has to be entertaining (in the broadest sense of the term) to earn and maintain the audience’s attention so that you can tell them something that is anything but entertaining.

How you achieve this? The same way painters, musicians, composers and all other creative artists do, by mastering existing techniques in order to be able to subvert them. For the screenwriter that means getting a good understanding of what makes films entertaining: Genre conventions, pacing, structure and all the other “technical” aspects of screenwriting.

I could be wrong, but it seems to me that mastering the “entertaining” part of screenwriting is just as important as getting the “enlightening” aspect right.

Why Screenwriters Need To Pay Attention To Attention

Veteran Disney storyboard artist Francis Glebas, packs a huge amount of information about visual storytelling in his wonderful new book Directing The Story. He goes into great detail about all the key principles that contribute to clear and dramatic storytelling, all of which he illustrates with copious storyboard examples from a variety of films.

One principle particularly struck me, and this is the principle of deliberately and methodically directing the viewer’s attention in order to affect their emotions. This is perhaps par for the course for directors, but for screenwriters, who often focus more on the “what” of the story rather than the “how” of its realization, it can be enormously helpful too.

Whether you’re writing a first draft or a final one, it’s important to have a clear image in your mind of the beat or scene you’re writing. Once you see the scene in your mind’s eye, you’re able to choose how to describe it on the page. With the aim of creating a specific emotional effect.

If you imagine (or draw) the scene you’re writing in storyboard form, what does the viewer see first? What doesn't the viewer see? How many different ways can you think of showing exactly the same beat? What is the difference between these different executions in terms of affecting one emotion or another? It’s the same principle regardless of genre.

Of course, you don’t want to start filling the script with explicit camera angles. It makes the script hard to read, and apart from that it’s the director’s job. However, even just thinking about which visual element of the scene best compliments the character’s action or contrasts the dialogue in an interesting way, or creates suspense or humour … the mere act of imagining seeing the same action from different perspectives, can greatly clarify your understanding of what the scene is about and what it needs.

And it all comes down to directing or diverting the viewer’s attention in order to create a specific emotional effect and to avoid boredom or confusion.

In contrast to directors, screenwriters don’t have to be specific about the technicalities of camera angles, composition, lenses, lighting and so on. However, suggesting these elements when they serve to heighten the emotion of the story, is definitely an option.

As Glebas puts it:

A story is like a giant knot that we have to unravel and show the audience how all the pieces connect in a linear way and then tie it all back up for them at the end. It’s not about creating the drawings as much as deciding which images should be shown and when.

Happy visualizing!

How To Introduce Your Character Through Other Characters’ Actions

In an article entitled The Plot Thickens - 8 Ways to Bring Fiction to Life literary agent and author Noah Lukeman makes a very simple but useful point: One of the ways we get to know a character is by witnessing how other characters relate to them. Lukeman cites an example from The Godfather:

In the opening scene of ‘The Godfather,’ the character of Don Corleone is established without his doing or saying a thing. He sits behind a master desk, in a room of quietly devoted supporters, while across from him a man pleads for help and forgiveness. We get to know Don Corleone simply by watching THE WAY OTHERS TREAT HIM.

Think about that for a second. As a viewer, you intuitively understand that Corleone is a powerful, much-feared ruler, a kind of absolute monarch, from the way the people around him prostrate and humiliate themselves in front of him.

While writing, it’s easy to get stuck trying to figure out what a character should do in a scene in order to demonstrate who they are. Whereas sometimes a more effective way to show who they are, is to focus on what the other characters in the scene are doing in relation to them. Which is an important indicator of their position within the story world.

For example, in a scene introducing one of the main characters in a script I’m currently working on, we see a group of three young men speeding along in a car. The two guys in front are in their mid-twenties and the third, on the back seat, is about seventeen years old. The two older guys are euphoric, shouting and singing along to music. The younger guy keeps glancing nervously out of the rear window. The two men in front shower compliments on the younger guy for having kept his cool under pressure. They reassure him, tell him he can relax now. The kid laps it up, relieved.

From the older guys' attitude and words it becomes clear that the young guy has just been on his first serious criminal job in which he remained calm and professional while holding a gun to someone’s head for the first time. He’s now perceived as “initiated” by these veteran gangsters.

A scene like this, apart from setting a narrative in motion, also paints a picture of a character’s situation, of their station in life, their prospects and expectations, and so on. In this case, the younger guy’s inexperience, his ability to overcome fear, his willingness to use violence, his need for reassurance, his decision to embark on a career in crime … all of these character elements are implied by showing how the other two men relate to him, rather than showing the kid committing the crime itself.

Once you’re clear in your mind about what you want the audience (or reader) to know about a character, this is one way of portraying it. It’s a way of being able to show who your character is, while at the same time painting a picture of the situation or relationship they’re in. It simultaneously gives you room to expand on other characters too, as it’s them doing the work.

Of course, as with all screenwriting techniques, this is not a rule, but rather a possibility. It’s just one of many ways to think about how to introduce your character, and in screenwriting it pays to be aware of your options.

What Is The Conscience Of Your Screenplay?

Not in a superficial, politically correct or zeitgeisty green way. But rather in a more fundamental sense: If you were character X or Y, would you know what to do? Would you dare to follow your conscience?

Your conscience is your personal, individual measure of good and bad. It’s in your own mind. No one can see it, and it’s one of the things that makes you as a human being a lot more complex than, say, a snail.

Humans mostly operate on a very simple level. In any situation we instantly evaluate possible risks and benefits. However, our decisions to take this or that action are also determined by conscience. In other words, an awareness of the moral consequences of our actions, especially for other people.

I’ve mentioned psychologist Philip Zimbardo here before, and one of his 20 hints for resisting unwanted influence, is this:

Be ready to say the three most difficult phrases in the world: “I was wrong,” “I made a mistake,” and “I’ve changed my mind.” Cut bait, accept immediate loss of money, face, etc. that could lead to bigger long term losses …

Sound advice, indeed, but extremely difficult to put into practice sometimes!

Imagine your character saying one or more of those simple lines in a critical situation. In a situation where any other answer would be the safe option, but would run contrary to their conscience.

What temptation must they resist? Is it money? Power? Security? Approval? Safe passage?

What’s the principle at stake? Is it honesty in business? Fidelity? Fairness? Equal rights?

And what about you? When have you ignored your conscience? What temptations have you been offered in your life which entailed an unacceptable pay-off? Did you resist?

A character listening to their conscience and standing up against temptation and influence, is a powerful dramatic concept. It requires the character to wilfully take a risk in order to remain true to a principle. Something quintessentially human about that, right?

As a story element, illustrating your story’s conscience creates dramatic tension because you know the character is going to be in for some unpleasant consequences. But it also demonstrates who the character is by showing their inner process as action. In addition, it’s a way of illustrating your theme without being preachy or heavy-handed.

What is the conscience of your screenplay? Altogether a question worth asking yourself.

Transitions – The Devil Is In The Details

I heard an interview last week with Michael Brandt, co-writer of Wanted , in which he divulged numerous interesting writing tips. One comment in particular stayed with me, and I paraphrase …

One way to tell the difference between a script written by a seasoned professional and one written by a novice, is how the transitions from one scene to another are written. How and when the screenwriter cuts into and out of a scene.

The dramatic principle of “get in as late as possible and get out as early as possible,” is a familiar one to most screenwriters, but Michael Brandt gives an example which speaks volumes: Cut into the scene when the cup of coffee is put down on the table. Not while it’s being prepared, poured, or put on a tray, etc.

In other words, unless the preparation for the action is essential in itself (in which case it is part of the action), and visually engaging, then don’t include it.

In a similar vein, Tom Lazarus (whom I mentioned in my previous post) advises the following exercise when (re)writing transitions:

Read only the beginnings and ends of scenes and visualize how they will look as they transition from one to the next.

Because transitions are such an important aspect of visual writing! The contrast between the shot at the end of one scene and the shot at the beginning of the next one tells a story too.

The funny thing was (is this what they call synchronicity?), I listened to the Michael Brandt interview right after finishing a sequence which includes one character serving another character a cup of coffee. And guess what? Yeah … I went back and cut that bit.

Why You Should Know Your Fictional Reality Inside-Out

The other day I got stuck in the minutiae of a scene, asking myself over and over whether the action was realistic enough. Realistic in the sense of “how things actually happen in non-fictional reality.” I got annoyed and reprimanded myself: “It’s fiction, stupid!” Fortunately I wasn’t satisfied with that answer, and after a little thought I realized two significant things:

1. You need to get your facts right … within the fictional reality of your story world.

2. The emotional truth of a scene requires just as much attention as factual accuracy.

Allow me to illustrate with an example.

How many viewers of No Country For Old Men by the Coen brothers were so distracted by practical questions about Javier Bardem’s unusual murder weapon, that they couldn’t enjoy the film? Certainly far fewer than the number who felt shivers down their spine every time the bizarre piece of equipment appeared on screen, right?

That’s because the oddness of the weapon fits seamlessly into the context of the story world: It’s a fictional reality in which the boundaries of what is considered decent and expected (even amongst criminals) are blown wide open. The weapon astonishes and shocks everyone precisely because it is so outlandish. No need to dwell on how it works technically, and whether this is “realistic.”

In addition, it also makes perfect emotional sense in terms of the detached, psychopathic nature of the character. Each time the killer brandishes his weapon, it baffles his victim and causes them to drop their guard.

The emotional charge is right on target: This hit man is so methodical and indifferent, that even cynics such as the hard-nosed chief of police and a ruthless fellow assassin can’t get their heads around him. This is the emotional truth that accompanies the killer and his weapon wherever he goes: He overwhelms people by trashing all the accepted boundaries and norms.

Now, imagine the same implement in, say, a social realist film by Ken Loach. Or a romantic comedy by Nancy Meyers. Or a Star Wars movie. See what I mean? In a different context, the same thing isn’t necessarily realistic. That is, consistent with the fictional reality of that story world.

In order to establish your fictional reality effectively, you have to be clear about genre conventions (“laser gun” might be enough description for a sci-fi movie, but “pistol” might seem lazy in a crime thriller), plus you have to be consistent. It makes for confusing reading if the script changes tone arbitrarily, whether the tone is ultra-realistic or completely fantastical.

Once you’re clear on what characterizes the fictional reality of your story, you will be able to determine what level of detail you need to describe where, what issues you need to research further, and of course, what you’ve already nailed perfectly!

As for me, I have to get back to my in-depth analysis of the impact of the credit crisis on the average thickness of business cards.

P.S. For more insights into effective and successful screenwriting techniques, check out my Great Screenwriting blog, where there’s also a more in-depth article on No Country For Old Men.

Screenwriter, Observe Your Surroundings!

Last week, the BBC’s Alan Yentob presented a special edition of Imagine, dedicated to the late, great writer/director Anthony Minghella. As well as being a touching tribute to a very special human being, the programme also gave some interesting insights into Minghella’s working habits. One thing in particular stayed with me:

The actress Juliet Stevenson, star of Minghella’s first major film Truly, Madly, Deeply, recollects that Minghella had a mind like a sponge. He would absorb all sorts of details from his daily experience, including anecdotes people would tell him, and integrate them into his writing.

She recalls telling him, before the film was in production, about a rat infestation in a house she once lived in, which was dealt with by a very peculiar gentleman from the municipality. Imagine her surprise when she read the script and found the incident back in the story, complete with the man from the municipality and all his idiosyncrasies!

This habit, of being constantly alert to interesting and intriguing aspects of everyday life and individual people, is absolutely something to emulate. It’s so easy to overlook the material that’s all around you, staring you in the face, as it were, while trying far too hard to concoct something “original.”

The programme got me thinking. I asked myself this: What have I heard, seen or read about recently that might be worth noting down? Here are just a couple of the many things I came up with:

• A friend of my wife’s had a terrible leakage in her flat last week. The entire place was submerged, furniture ruined and an immense conflict has been sparked with both the neighbours and the landlord. The exact same thing happened to her a year ago.
  
  
• I stumbled across a blog written by a gun-toting ambulance driver in the US, called A Day In The Life Of An Ambulance Driver; a veritable goldmine of harrowing and fascinating tales.
  
  
• I heard of a couple who enrolled their son in a particular high school at the last moment before the holidays, on recommendation. They have since discovered that the school is 99% Muslim (they aren’t), and they are mortified. They don’t want their son to be such an exception, but they don’t want to be seen as being anti-Muslim (they aren't). In any case, it’s too late to change schools.
  
  
• A few evenings ago, my neighbour’s children locked themselves out while their parents were at friends. Their keys were visible on the kitchen table, but only a tiny top window was still open. I duct-taped two little coloured sticks with magnets attached (from one of my kids’ toy fishing sets) to a garden hoe, and very carefully fished the keys out of the kitchen through the tiny window.

And so on. There’s always a story, a character trait, a scene or even just a beat waiting to be spotted out there!

Go ahead, make a list for yourself and ask yourself what you (or Bruce Willis, or Helen Mirren, or Oliver Hardy) would do in the same situation …

Why Writing Yourself Into a Corner Can Work Wonders

The Coen brothers are famous for claiming their writing method consists mainly of napping. Whether they actually spend most of their time asleep or not, there is another element to their methodology which is equally interesting and probably more constructive for most other screenwriters: They like to write problematic situations for which they have no ready solution and then see where that leads.

In William Preston Robertson and Tricia Cooke’s book about The Making of The Big Lebowski Ethan Coen talks about how he and brother Joel had the idea for a scene with a severed toe long before they knew whose toe it was going to be. He concedes, “ … that’s a way to work, painting yourself into a corner and then having to perform whatever contortions to get yourself out.”

Or in their movie The Hudsucker Proxy, where they created an even more extreme conundrum for themselves by starting out with the idea of the main character jumping off a building. “That stumped us for a while,” says Ethan, “and we had to resort to the ridiculous extreme of, you know, stopping time.”

I recently unintentionally discovered the benefits of this approach myself when I showed up for a script meeting, armed with a scene in which the main character finds himself stuck in a car with his leg in plaster, watching his granddaughter being kidnapped by a group of thugs.

My writing partner hit the roof. “You can’t do that! You’re writing him out of the action!!” To which I replied, “Well, what might he do, given the kind of character he is?”

And lo and behold, a couple of hours later we had not only nailed the sequence*, we also came up with a brilliant twist for the climax as an unexpected bonus! Which we would never have thought of if we’d plodded along in a more logical, motivational, plot-oriented search.

As with all “techniques,” this is just one of numerous ways to approach the search for intriguing scenes and twists. But it’s certainly one that can activate trains of thought and associations that would otherwise remain dormant.

And if the Coen brothers’ films are anything to go by, it’s certainly worth a try.

Go on, surprise yourself, put your character in an impossible situation and see what happens!

* The original scene in the car didn’t survive.