Writing emotional scenes

Most people watch movies because they want to be moved emotionally in some way. They want to laugh uncontrollably, to blubber unashamedly, to tremble in fear, to feel the surge of adrenalin, and so on.

The last thing you want while you’re watching a film is to get that distracted feeling. The urge to pee, or saunter to kitchen in search of munchies, or to check for Twitter updates on your phone.

One of the ways to keep the audience emotionally involved in every scene is to make sure it’s the characters themselves who are responsible for their actions. That may sound obvious, but unfortunately it’s a simple principle which is often ignored. Too many convenient coincidences in a plot will stretch the reader’s and the audience’s ability to remain emotionally involved with the story.

Here are a couple of questions to focus your creative imagination on finding the character’s emotion in the scene and using it to drive the action.

• What’s the worst thing that could happen to my character in this scene? What would make them panic, or feel like jumping off a bridge, or want to sharpen that old axe in the garage?
  
  
• What could my character have done (wrong) to set this disastrous event in motion? What were they trying to achieve or avoid? Why?!
  
  
• What’s the best thing that could happen to my character in this scene? What would make them cry tears of joy? Or jump up and punch the air? Or kiss their scumbag boss??
  
  
• What does my character need to do to cause that wonderful event to happen? What course of action does your character imagine will be the right one? Is it? Or are they fooling themselves? Is there something they don’t know?

Of course characters encounter external obstacles they have to deal with. But when the troubles and victories a character experiences are primarily the result of their own actions (intended or not), that’s when you really empathize with them most. It’s their courage, stupidity, vulnerability, fear, etc, which makes you hide behind a cushion or wet yourself laughing.

So...

1. Show the character attempting, or avoiding something.

2. Make sure the audience/reader already knows what will happen if they fail/succeed.

3. Show the character failing, or succeeding.

4. Make sure the consequences of this failure/success are clear.

5. Show the character’s response in their actions (which can include what they say).

And above all, have fun writing!

P.S. If you’re a fan of screwball comedies, check out my Great Screenwriting blog, where I’ve posted a new article on Austin Powers …

Essential Writing Skill Number One: Nurturing Your Ideas.

Possibly the most important aspect of any screenplay is the idea that generated it. Screenplay grammar and formatting can be learned, as can screenplay structure, genre conventions and so on. Yet there’s a popular fallacy which claims that you can’t learn to generate ideas. You’re either born with a talent for it, or not.

I think what’s closer to the truth is that if it doesn’t come naturally, it means you’ve learned to ignore the endless stream of ideas that everyone is subject to during the course of the day. Which is not necessarily a bad thing in many walks of life. Would you want your airline pilot daydreaming on the job?

As a screenwriter though, you need to unlearn that conditioning, open your eyes and ears. Everything around you is potentially the kernel of a story, a scene, a character. Allow yourself to daydream and fantasize about news items, people’s behaviour, locations, anecdotes, music, science, snippets of conversation, children playing, and so on. As I’ve written before in this blog, keep asking What if?

You also need to develop the ability to spot a nugget of gold buried in that mass of mental sludge. Because most of what we think is just white noise. Not Oscar-winning screenplay material.

However, perhaps the most crucial skill to master, is the skill of nurturing an idea you really think is worth exploring further.

In her insightful blog post entitled Idea Killers – 3 Ways To Stifle A Great Idea, M discusses three ways people often nip ideas in the bud. I’ve listed them here with specific reference to writing:

1. Not giving your idea a chance to grow.
This is when you undermine your idea by criticizing it and writing it off before it’s had a chance to ripen and blossom. Before its potential is clear. It’s the inner critic that likes to sabotage your creative mind, just for the fun of it. Don’t heed this voice! It’s good to have an accurate and sharpened critical faculty, but not at the initial ideas stage of the writing.

2. Sharing your undeveloped ideas too soon.
Often a side-effect of the initial enthusiasm and euphoria a writer can feel when an idea initially presents itself, this is when you blurt out a raw idea which to the listener just sounds vague or even silly. That response causes you to doubt too. You need to bite your tongue, keep the idea to yourself until it’s stewed for a while. This is a bit like sending a passionate email: It’s always a good idea to write the draft email, leave it overnight and then decide in the cold light of the next day if that’s what you really wanted to write.

3. Sharing your ideas with the wrong people.
This is a classic! The wrong people can be the kind of wet blankets who, for whatever reasons, always respond negatively to any kind of enthusiasm. The kind of people who can’t stand you feeling so upbeat and inspired. The wrong people can also be what Julia Cameron, in her immensely inspiring book The Artist’s Way calls crazymakers. The kind of larger-than-life, domineering, energy-guzzling busybodies who love to make you feel small, insignificant and untalented. Keep your ideas well away from them!!

In terms of screenwriting, an idea only acquires value in the real world once it germinates into a story. You can’t copyright an idea but you can protect a story, even if it’s just a synopsis. So trick number one is to harvest as many ideas as you can, in the full knowledge that you’ll never use most of them. And trick number two is to contain your enthusiasm when you do discover an inspiring nugget, at least until you’ve written a story concept based on the idea.

Five Important Reasons To Know Your Premise Inside-Out

A premise is a catchy, shorthand description of what your screenplay is about. A couple of compact sentences giving a sense of the genre, the main character(s), the central conflict and the basic narrative action.

The premise is based on the initial inspiration for the writing. This might have been a seemingly trivial stimulus which first made you think of a character, a situation, a theme, a title, or whatever it was that then became the seed for a screenplay. Equally, it might be a profound question or issue you’ve wanted to write about for as long as you can remember.

Here’s why it’s important to be acutely aware of your premise:

1. Whatever the initial trigger was, once you start writing, the premise will become the corner-stone of your screenplay. It becomes the measure against which you can hold every line of dialogue, every dilemma and every twist. A kind of compass to keep you on track while you write.
   
   
2. The premise is, as screenwriter extraordinaire Terry Rossio puts it in his characteristically witty column, A Foot in The Door, your calling card. There is no way to overstate the importance of a well-written premise as a marketing and pitching tool. The premise is the briefest but most essential advert for your screenplay. A well-crafted film poster or DVD cover can convince undecided or sceptical punters to part with their money on impulse. Similarly, your premise can mean the difference between your script being read or being binned.
   
   
3. “Classic narrative is … like a river which has a source in an inland spring … the premise is the source of the river.” (Cherry Potter) In other words: Being aware of what your inspiration is, ensures you can return to it whenever you need creative nourishment, throughout the entire process of writing and selling the script.
   
   
4. Your premise will pique people’s curiosity because it expresses the unique driving force of the story. It contains the main dramatic issue, the central conflict which is reflected in all the conflicts in the story (see John Truby for more on this). Plus it gives a sense of the unique story world, which elevates it above the generic level of its genre.
   
   
5. As writer Bill Johnson explains, a story is a promise. It creates expectations. The audience unconsciously enters into a deal with you, and you have to deliver. The premise enables you to be aware of what your story promises while you write the screenplay, but also when you pitch and hopefully sell it!

Knowing your premise inside-out means you know what you’re writing and why. You owe this to yourself, to everyone else involved in making the film and to the audience.

Great Expectations

Last night I sat up late, impatiently waiting for extended coverage of the US Masters golf to end (who watches that stuff anyway!?). At last, about 45 minutes later than scheduled, the final episode of Damages began.

As I mentioned in a previous posting (The Power of Withholding Information) the masterfully created mystery and tension had me hooked right from the get-go and I could hardly wait to see the final pieces of the puzzle fall into place!

Which they did, but with a whimper rather than a bang as far as I’m concerned.

The build-up was tremendous. The clever use of flash-forwards kept teasing and wrong-footing me. It created the expectation of some kind of incredibly unorthodox denouement.

Which is exactly why, as the final details were laid out like someone revealing their hand after a nail-bitingly tense game of cards, I couldn’t help feeling they’d been bluffing. That’s it? That’s all there is to it!?

The principle the series used is simple: Cut the story and serve it up in such an order that it’s never obvious who’s really responsible for what until the very last moment. But for this kind of storytelling to be more than a fig leaf for an otherwise mediocre plot, the final twist needs to be hugely powerful and memorable. Which it wasn’t. Not for me, anyway.

Contrast this to a movie I saw recently, The Illusionist, written and directed by Neil Burger. A very simple story in terms of plot, but told in such a way that the very last sequence completely reverses almost every assumption you’ve been led to make throughout the film!

You are literally treated to a montage of all the pieces falling into place in the mind of the detective. Suddenly it all makes sense and in retrospect the entire story acquires a different value.

For me the difference between Damages and The Illusionist is like the difference between a slick and hugely expensive commercial for a run-of-the-mill product, and a modest recommendation for something surprisingly valuable.

The lesson for screenwriters? Never create expectations you can’t deliver on, big-time.

Your hero’s worst enemy

In most movies, the hero eventually has to confront his worst enemy: himself. This encounter with one’s own limitations is a mainstay of narrative fiction, and for good reason.

Because it’s so extremely hard to change your own behaviour.

A recent newsletter from by Michael Bungay Stanier (whose wonderful blog The Possibility Virus is well worth checking out), directed me to a fairly disturbing article called Three Keys to Change. The article describes most people’s inability to change their unhealthy lifestyles, even in the face of dire medical prognoses.

The prospect of dying in the near future due to fairly simple lifestyle habits such as smoking, overeating, lack of exercise, etc., is not enough to motivate most people to change. Even after extensive surgery, most people continue to live as they did before, often with fatal consequences.

You undoubtedly know people who have behaved in a way that everyone (including themselves) knew would ruin their lives? Disastrous infidelities, catastrophic overspending, debilitating social behaviour, you name it.

That’s how hard it is to change, even when you’re aware of the negative consequences of your behaviour.

That’s the basic human dilemma which so many films deal with, either explicitly or as the subtext: I know what to do, I just can’t seem to get myself to do it.

Which is why you need to know this aspect of your main character: What simple behavioural change are they avoiding even though they’re aware of the consequences? A change which could mean the difference between life and death, or at least happiness and misery, fulfilment and bitterness, and so on?

The easiest way to find examples of this phenomenon is, as always, just look around you.

And if you're really brave ... look in the mirror.

Happy observing.

How To Know When To Quit

I recently read an excellent little book called The Dip, by marketer extraordinaire Seth Godin. In it, he deals with the question of whether and when to quit. To become the best at whatever you do, you’ll inevitably be confronted with a tough period in which quitting is one of the options.

In some circumstances, quitting is exactly the right thing to do, because it frees up your resources to work on something more viable. In fact, says Seth, successful people often quit, because they know when they’re flogging a dead horse (a situation he calls a Cul-de-sac).

In other situations, persevering and successfully working your way through The Dip will place you many notches above the competition. By having continued where many others give up, you become a scarce and therefore valuable commodity.

The difference between success and failure is knowing whether you’re in a Dip or a Cul-de-sac.

In the realm of screenwriting, this is true both in terms of any script you might be working on as well as in terms of your career as a whole.

A minority of screenwriters establish themselves by persevering despite repeated rejections, abysmal or non-existent remuneration, discouraging family members, and all the other factors that cause the majority to give up.

A minority of screenwriters listen seriously to criticism of their work and continue writing and learning until their screenwriting is absolutely as good as they can make it. For the majority this sounds too much like hard work, and they give up.

A minority of screenwriters acknowledge when a script is going nowhere, when it’s time to put it away and start on a fresh idea. They know that screenwriters write many scripts, a few of which get produced. The majority don’t. They’re the ones you see schlepping that same single script around with them year after year, complaining that the world is evil for not recognizing the unique talent hidden in that one masterpiece.

This uphill struggle seems to be a kind of natural selection process. That minority of screenwriters who push on through the Dip, come out the other side with infinitely more experience and skills under their belt than the majority who either get stuck or give up.

It makes sense, too, when you think about it. Part of being an exciting and inspiring screenwriter to work with, is being someone with vision and self-knowledge. Someone who acknowledges their own strengths and weaknesses. Someone who knows when to dig in their heels and when to bow out gracefully.

So where are you right now? In a Dip or a Cul-de-sac?!

Strengthen the core of your writing

There are countless screenwriting gurus and mentors, each with their own valuable nuggets of advice on how to write a viable screenplay. One of the things they all advise in one form or another, is to know what your script is really about. Not how the plot progresses, but why you’ve written it that particular way.

That sounds terribly trite and simple, yet it’s often one of the most difficult and important things to articulate consciously. Especially if you want to avoid generic, hack writing.

Whether you call this theme, premise, story promise, designing principle, controlling idea, it all boils down to the same thing, which I’ve decided to call the DNA of the story. By that I mean a basic, abstract, philosophical understanding of what you’re exploring in the story. It doesn’t refer directly to the specifics of characters or plot, but it does describe the basic question or statement to which everything in the screenplay relates.

Scientifically, this metaphor probably makes no sense whatsoever. In fact I don’t pretend to know the first thing about genetics. But I find the commonly used meaning of DNA useful for maintaining a focus during the writing: An individually configured set of potentials, present in every cell of a living organism, according to which everything in the organism grows.

If on a fundamental level, each and every aspect of your screenplay stems from the same idea, then you create a very pleasing and engaging kind of unity. You’re able to let your characters lead you wherever they want because you know which aspects of what they show you are relevant and which are not. You’re able to make intelligent, original choices about locations, conflicts, dialogue, and so on, because you know what you’re exploring.

Your story DNA might be a bulleted list of questions. It might be a pithy political or psychological statement. Perhaps it’s a nagging ethical question or some futuristic speculation. It doesn’t matter exactly what form it takes, as long as you, the writer, can use it as a touchstone during the writing process.

I’m off to genetically modify my latest brainchild.