Why Moral Ambiguity Is Essential For A Great Screenplay

In a fascinating and very entertaining lecture for TED, writer Amy Tan discusses how her creative process works. Among the many wonderful insights she gives, I find this one in particular relevant to screenwriters:

We all hate moral ambiguity, but it’s absolutely necessary in writing a story.

As human beings we are constantly confronted with events to which we need to respond. So we ask ourselves: What is the morally right thing to do?

In fiction, which is a deliberately condensed reflection on reality, it’s no different. A story explores a particular moral ambiguity, it asks a specific question. An essential part of the process of writing, is to discover what question you are asking.

But beware! According to Ms. Tan, laying too much emphasis on articulating what the story is “about” (= the answer) can distract the writer’s attention from what is more important, namely finding the question.

To my mind, this is what all the great screenplays have in common. Whether they are relatively small, personal dramas (e.g., In The Bedroom) or huge blockbuster spectacles (e.g., The Dark Knight), they all ask a question about characters facing morally ambiguous choices.

Ms. Tan describes the serendipity that comes into play once she discovers what question her story is asking. Once she has that focus, she sees the question addressed all around her. She constantly receives “hints from the universe.” All the previously random and seemingly irrelevant events of daily life now flow through that one question, and the question becomes the point of reference for all the elements in her story.

I’d say that sounds like the perfect state of mind to be in while writing a screenplay. Thanks Amy Tan!

Screenwriting: The More You Notice, The More You Notice.

In a recent review, Frank Kermode discusses a book called How Fiction Works by James Wood. Here’s a quote from the book which caught my imagination:

Literature makes us better noticers of life; we get to practice on life itself; which in turn makes us better readers of detail in literature; which in turn makes us better readers of life. And so on and on.

I really like this image of literature as a kind of ongoing university of life. And when I transpose it to the realm of screenwriting, it makes perfect sense too:

Screenwriting makes us better noticers of life, we get to practice on life itself, which in turn makes us better readers of detail in screenplays and films, which in turn makes us better readers of life. And so on and on.

The more you notice about people and the world around you, the more you’re able to layer your screenplays with meaningful and original detail.

Indeed, the difference between good screenwriting and great screenwriting, is attention to detail. Details such as the subtle nuances of language, which make the difference between a generic description and an intriguing, captivating image.

The screenwriter must never agree to settle for “good enough.” I’m not talking here about getting an idea down on paper, beating out a story, or even writing a first draft. I’m talking about the end result. The document you want influential people in the industry to read. Your calling card.

The annoying little voice in the back of your head telling you that some beat or line of dialogue might still be a little bit of a cliché, even after seventeen rewrites, is actually you noticing. Isn’t it weird how the human mind can ignore its own sound advice when heeding it means more work?

It’s very tempting, especially under pressure, to overrule your intuition and hope no one else notices. Of course, they will.

So the thing to do is allow yourself to notice. More and more. Notice what goes on around you, notice what your intuition is telling you, notice what you’ve written.

What transpires is, pleasantly enough, this: The more you notice, the more you notice. And being a good noticer of life is one hell of a valuable asset for a screenwriter.

I’ve just noticed the time ….

Writing Treatments: Why Silence Is Golden

I’ve just recently finished a first draft of a (so far) thirty-page treatment. It’s taken ages and bucket-loads of blood, sweat and tears to reach this point.

Why are treatments such a big deal? Everyone talks about them, screenwriters are often asked to write them, and yet I’ve never met anyone who actually enjoys writing or even reading them.

Treatments are a big deal because they’re so damned hard to write well. There are various reasons that it takes so much effort to write a good treatment, but for me at least, the main one is because you need to leave the dialogue out.

There are numerous definitions of what a treatment is in terms of format (to slugline or not to slugline) length (three pages to three hundred), style (screenplay idiom, short story style, whatever you please style), and so on, but the absence of dialogue seems to be a standard requirement in all of these variations.

Now, so much of the fun of writing a screenplay is putting your characters in unpleasant, embarrassing, threatening and tempting situations and then seeing how they respond. You let them ramble on aimlessly in order to generate those few lines of dialogue that end up in the final draft.

But at the treatment stage the characters have to behave as if it’s still the age of silent movies. No talking!!

Limiting yourself to what can be seen is precisely the reason the treatment so mercilessly exposes weaknesses and blind spots in a story.

By not allowing the characters to speak, you force yourself to think through very precisely what each scene is about. You have to ask yourself specifically what the characters do (to each other), what they want and why, what the relationship is between their actions and the overall theme of the story and so on. It also allows you to look at the relationship between scenes, between set-ups and pay-offs, and other structural aspects of the screenplay as a whole.

Once you’re clear on these issues, it becomes a lot easier to write good dialogue, be that dramatic, romantic or comedic. Because if you know what you want your characters to communicate by means of their actions, it’s easy to have them talk about something else (i.e., create subtext).

In fact, getting to the end of a treatment is almost as big a kick as getting to the end of a first draft. Because once you’ve cracked the treatment, you know you’ve done most of the hard work. Your structure is pretty well sorted, your characters are fleshed out, your scenes are well balanced, and so on.

All that remains is the fun part: Peeling the duct tape off your characters mouths and letting them verbally express themselves at last.

Ah, can’t wait!!

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.

Screenwriting: The Incremental Method

I’ve been busy reading an inspiring and wonderfully written book by Tom Lazarus called Rewriting Secrets For Screenwriters. The book is chock-full of very practical tips and humorous, familiar-sounding anecdotes.

Among the techniques Lazarus describes, is the way he sets about developing an idea for a story, using what he calls the incremental method.

This basically involves writing down, off the top of your head, a shorthand list of all the scenes, events, characters etc., that are involved in your story idea. It doesn’t have to make any sense to anyone other than yourself, and it doesn’t have to meet any kind of standards at all. It’s just a rough list of thoughts about an idea you have for a story.

This way of working isn’t revolutionary, it’s completely intuitive and logical, but what’s so good about getting the idea for your story down on paper this way, is that you avoid the trap of thinking too much, too early on in the process.

There’s nothing that can nip a potentially good story idea in the bud more effectively than a bit of premature rational, critical brain work. Especially if (mis)guided by official structure manuals that tell you on what page to put plot points and act breaks.

Not that screenwriting manuals aren’t extremely valuable, but focusing on structure too early on can be devastating for the creative process.

Once you have the list, it becomes the starting point for elaboration. A place from which to ask yourself questions about what might have happened to cause a particular event, what the consequences could be, what the characters want, what their emotions and conflicts are, what locations might look like and why, and so on.

As you add more details, scenes and characters begin to emerge, and it will become clear whether the story is viable or not. If it is, perhaps a more structured outline is called for. If it’s not, better to know now than half way through the first draft.

The reason the incremental method works so well, as does the rewriting method Lazarus sets out, is this: By going back over the same list again and again, you gradually notice and adjust more and more detail every time. It’s a great way to avoid writing clichés and stereotypes, because when you come back to the same beat for the tenth time and it still feels fresh and surprising, you know it’s good writing. If you come back to a scene and it feels tired and too familiar, you know you need to move it up a gear or two.

Another great (re)writing tip from Tom Lazarus is to check what new information the scene is delivering. But more about that next time.

The Origins Of Subtext

From a very early age human beings learn to understand other human beings primarily non-verbally, i.e. by interpreting gestures, intonations, facial expressions, body language, etc. As soon as children begin to master that most human of all phenomena, language with syntax, they realize that a person’s non-verbal behaviour is generally a more reliable indicator of their motives and intentions than their words.

Especially when it comes to their parents.

Being a parent myself, I can quite easily see why this is: You want the best for your children, you see them imitating your worst habits and you tell them it’s not a good idea. They understand your words, but they see a contradictory message in your actions.

Now the child begins to learn a different set of rules, which govern the concept of calling a spade a spoon in order to avoid trouble. Once the child has mastered this principle, the next step is to pretend this whole as-if situation doesn’t exist. Pretend you don’t see or hear people’s speech and behaviour contradicting each other. Pretend for long enough and the trick becomes second nature. Like learning to ride a bike. No need for conscious effort any longer.

Lo and behold, the child has graduated from Subtext 101! It’s now ready to start writing screenplays. Because great screenplays are full of scenes which are “… not about what they’re really about …” to paraphrase David Mamet.

All screenwriters were children once, so presumably they’ve all been through this same learning curve. But they have to be able to consciously and deliberately switch between these different levels of communication. Between the literal content of speech and the accompanying, incongruous non-verbal communication, or subtext, as this is also known.

In other words, the trick is not to think too much about what subtext really is, but rather to understand that as a human being you’re already an expert at it.

Here’s a little exercise: Next time you’re interacting with another human being, imagine you’re a subtextually challenged child watching an adult desperately trying not to say what they really mean.

Have fun … and take a notebook with.

How Research Can Inspire

In a recent post entitled Give Up The Research Excuse!, inspirational writing coach Jurgen Wolff warns against the danger of using research as an excuse not to write. Just because you haven’t done all the research on your to-do list, doesn’t mean you can’t start writing.

I couldn’t agree more. Certainly when it comes to writing fiction, research can often provide huge amounts of new ideas and fresh twists. In fact, my writing partner and I very recently experienced exactly this phenomenon.

We have been working on a particular screenplay on and off for a long while now, and we decided we needed to interview some experts in a particular field to make absolutely sure the climactic scene of our movie had sufficient grounding in reality.

It didn’t.

Bummer.

We spent a couple of weeks desperately trying to bend the plot in order to keep the wonderful scene we’d had in mind for so long. We even considered adding a new character in order to set up the ending to fit credibly with the facts we’d learned from our research.

However, in the end, our conclusion was that it was just too contrived. It wouldn’t work. We had no choice but to kill our darling.

Out of this disappointment though, has risen a completely new version of this climactic scene, which we both agree is much better than what we had before! It’s more visual, it expresses the theme more precisely and it neatly pays off a number of things set up earlier in the script.

Without the research, not only would we have written a climax which might have knocked a few people’s suspension of disbelief, we would also have missed the opportunity to improve the quality of the screenplay as a whole.

The idea to interview these experts only came after we’d finished an outline, were a good way into a treatment, and began to wonder if that particular scene was making proper sense. If we had waited to start writing before “finishing” our research, we would never have thought to interview these particular people in the first place.

Research and writing can go hand in hand, each suggesting ways for the other to proceed, each feeding the other until all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place in the final draft.

And then it’s time for the director and his team to start doing their own research …