He meant screenwriters should keep scenes to what is essential to the story. No arrivals and departures, no meet & greet or chit-chat.

This is one of the fundamental rules in writing a scene, one which David Mamet has also been credited for. ‘Late’ usually means later than you imagine, so its wise to try and cut out as much as possible at the beginning and ask yourself if it still works. The later the better.

In the following example from Fight Club, the scene starts off with a gun shoved into the mouth of Edward Norton’s character. We are immediately connect with the scene and wonder how it happened and what will happen next.

As Hitchcock once said, drama is life with the boring bits cut out. So give the reader the essential, exciting bits of information in the least amount of words. As soon as the goal is achieved in the scene, get out.

I have this really beautiful shot that really must stay

Exceptions that deliberately break or bookend the flow of the action sometimes work at the beginning of an act or sequence.  You’ll hold a shot or scene longer when you want to give the audience a breather and you want to intentionally start re-building tension again.

In case you need this transition moment at the beginning or end of a scene, consider making it interesting by dramatising it or introducing something unusual, unique.

Here’s another prime example of leaving early and thus creating wonderful suspense.

In this scene from “The Dark Knight”, Jonathan and Christopher Nolan carefully finish the scene with unfinished business. A question unanswered. A massive conflict. Three men. Two halves of a broken cue. One survivor. Who will win? It also adds character to the Joker, showing how ruthless he is without ever mentioning a drop of blood.

However, unless it’s the final scene in the film, be sure to leave a question unanswered. This will engage the audience and urge them to ask what happens next. This creates movement, and it is important to have everything in your screenplay serve the movement in order to propel the story forward.

“Film is really 24 frames a second in the present, and I realize when you leave certain gaps, it allows space for the viewer to enter the film. That requires a viewer who wants to be engaged, who wants to have an emotional connection to a film, which should not be confused with films that elicit emotions like weeping and whatnot. You watch a certain movie, and the director puts you in a headlock through ways of dramaturgy, music, camera moves and excessive acting. It hits certain synapses in your brain and makes you cry, then you leave, and the next day you’re having a hamburger and you don’t really remember what the film was. Despite that those are the kinds of films that get lots of accolades and attention, it doesn’t attract me as a person nor as an artist. I’m more interested in the ones — because of your participation — [that] seep into you, and two months later, are still a part of you. I don’t know if I’ve accomplished this, but it’s what I’m striving for.”

That’s exactly how I feel. Emerson added:

“What he describes — that space that allows the viewer to enter the film — is a quality I particularly treasured when going through No Country for Old Men with the audience at the Conference on World Affairs last week. Although the first time you see it you’re aware of pulse-pounding tension, suspense and unforseen eruptions of violence, the movie is really full of breathing room. Long wordless sequences encourage you to get inside the heads of the characters and see things through their eyes, to experience what they’re thinking and feeling moment by moment: the opening sequence (which I played once without sound so we could simply look at the progression of images, then see and how they play off of Ed Tom’s voiceover); Lleweylyn following the trail of blood to the two trees in the desert; Llewelyn methodically assembling the tools he will need to place the satchel in the vent; Chigurh tending to his wounds in the motel bathroom…”

Long wordless sequences encourage you
to get inside the heads of the characters,

I would agree with that as well, although I’d hate for anyone to turn off the dialogue in any of my films so that they may feel like they’re getting inside the heads of my characters or so they may experience what the characters are thinking and feeling. You should be able to do that just as well with the dialogue. I’m not belittling what Emerson did. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that kind of exercise, per say. It’s always great to study the visuals. But when it comes to dialogue, the problem, I think, is that too many films and scripts are filled with words that are on-the-nose. Characters that are saying exactly what they’re thinking and feeling defeats the purpose of the visuals and puts the audience in the awkward position of being just observers rather than active participants in the story. Hence the need for subtext in dialogue, which is more difficult to write, but the payoffs are magnificent.

Too many films and scripts are filled
with words that are on-the-nose.

When you realize the characters in a film you’re watching are saying one thing and meaning something else in order to accomplish X, Y, or Z, you get sucked into the film without even realizing it, because you’re asking yourself questions about the characters, about the conflict, about their motives, etc. In the recent subtext example from Gilda, you knew that Johnny and Gilda had a past and absolutely hated each other while they were behaving so politely to each other in front of Ballin and not saying one word about their true feelings. That, to me, is essential to encouraging audience participation. Subtext is the greatest trick of screenwriting.

Subtext is the greatest trick of screenwriting.

This also brings to mind Hemingway’s ICEBERG PRINCIPLE. In his famous Paris Review interview, Hemingway said:

“If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story.”

How this applies to screenwriting and films is obvious, I think. All the audience can see and hear is what appears within a frame, which is the tip of the iceberg. But for the audience to lose themselves within the story within the frame, the whole of the story has to be lying underneath. In other words, by NOT explaining everything verbally, by allowing the actors to reveal the interior dialogue of the characters, which may be at odds with the words they’re speaking (hence, subtext) you suck the reader (and the audience) more into your world.

When 3:10 to Yuma came out, I recall having a discussion with someone, Mickey Lee, Joshua James, maybe, I don’t remember, about Elmore Leonard’s earlier western novels. Leonard didn’t have chatty heroes with compelling motivations to define their actions. They were men who were who they were and they did their jobs. Period. That was it.

I know Leonard has in the past complained about how some of the best westerns in cinema history, which were adaptations of his own frickin’ books, were fouled up because the movies didn’t allow his heroes’ bravery to stay quite as mysterious as he wrote it. I think, generally, there’s wisdom in that. The filmmakers that give you breathing room and make you want to revisit their films and characters again and again are the ones that don’t verbally explain everything. Thus, I’ve argued repeatedly to writers for less backstory and more mystery.

Obviously, I have a thing for mystery.

Hehehe…

- Mystery Man

In his own words, Mystery Man was “famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. A homebody jetsetting around the world. Brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.”

MM blogged for nearly 4 years and tweeted for only 4 months, then disappeared – mysteriously.

The Story Department continues to republish his best articles on Monday.

Here, you’ll also be informed about the release of his screenwriting book.

Well why didn’t you say so?

And here I was working on my 20th really bad script!” Bitter reactions aside, it’s true. Write a great script and you’re in.

What hasn’t been clarified is what “great” means. Well I got to thinking (yes, it does happen). Why don’t I post exactly what a “great script” is so there’s no more confusion? Now when we say, “Just write a great script,” people will actually have something to reference. This idea sounded brilliant when I first came up with it, but the more it marinated, the more I realized that if writing a great script could be explained in a 2500 word blog post, we’d probably all be millionaires.

However, that doesn’t mean I can’t offer a list of 13 things I consistently see in great scripts. It may not be a step by step guide but at least it’s something. Yeah, I thought. That might work.

Now while I was hoping to provide an all-inclusive list of tips to best help you write a great script, the reality is I’ve probably forgotten a couple of things. So this is what I’m going to do. In the comments section, I want you to include what YOU think makes a great script. Over the course of today and tomorrow, I’ll update this post to include the best suggestions from you guys. Together, we’ll create *the* perfect go-to list when it comes to writing a great script. Isn’t this wonderful? Team Scriptshadow!

So here they are, in no particular order…

1) AN ORIGINAL AND EXCITING CONCEPT

This is the single most important choice you will make in writing your script because it will determine whether people actually read it or not. I used to hear agents say, “90% of the scripts out there fail before I’ve even opened them.” And it’s true. If you don’t have a compelling concept, nothing else matters. This slightly circumvents the “great” argument because nobody’s saying you can’t write a “great” script about a boy who goes home to take care of his ailing mother. But the reality is, nobody’s going to get excited about reading that script. Even the kind of people who WOULD want to read that script probably won’t because they know it’s a financial pitfall. It’ll take 5 years off their life and, in the end, play in 10 theaters and make 14,286 dollars.

If you don’t have a compelling concept, nothing else matters.

Now obviously an “exciting” idea is subjective. But it’s fairly easy to figure out if you have something special. Pitch your idea to your 10 best friends. Regardless of what they *tell* you, read their reactions. Do their eyes and voices tell you they’re into it? If you get 10 polite smiles accompanied with a “Yeah, I like it,” it’s time to move on to the next idea. So give me your Hangovers. Give me your Sixth Senses. Shit, give me your Beavers. But don’t give me three people in a room discussing how their lives suck for 2 hours. And if you do, make it French. –

2) A MAIN CHARACTER WHO WANTS SOMETHING (AKA A “GOAL”)

Some people call it an “active protagonist.” I just call it a character who wants something. Ripley and the marines want to go in and wipe out the aliens in “Aliens.” Liam Neeson wants to find his daughter in “Taken.” The girl in “Paranormal Activity” wants to find out what’s haunting her house. The stronger your character wants to achieve his/her goal, the more compelling they’re going to be.

The stronger your character wants to achieve his/her goal,
the more compelling they’re going to be.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that passive characters sometimes work. Neo is somewhat passive in The Matrix until the end. And, of course, Dustin Hoffman is the most famous passive character of all time in The Graduate. But these characters are tricky to write and require a skill set that takes years to master. In the end, they’re too dangerous to mess around with. Stick with a character who wants something.

3) A MAIN CHARACTER WE WANT TO ROOT FOR

This is one of the more hotly debated topics in screenwriting because a character we “root for” is usually defined as being “likable,” and there are a whole lot of screenwriters out there who would rather bake their craniums in a pizza oven than, gasp, make their protagonist “likable.” I got good news. Your hero doesn’t have to be “likeable” for your script to work. But you DO have to give us a character we want to root for, someone we’re eager to see succeed. He *can* be likable, such as Steve Carrel’s character in “40 Year Old Virgin.”

Your hero doesn’t have to be “likeable” for your script to work.

He can be defiant, like Paul Newman in “Cool Hand Luke.” But he has to have some quality in him that makes us want to root for him. If your character is mopey, whiney, and an asshole, chances are we’re not going to want to root for that guy.

4) GET TO YOUR STORY QUICKLY!

Oh man. Oh man oh man oh man. As far as amateur screenplay mistakes go, this is easily one of the Top 3. Even after I explain, in detail, what the mistake is, writers continue to do it. So I’m going to try and make this clear. Are you ready? “Your story is moving a lot slower than you, the writer, believe it is.” For that reason, speed it the fuck up! In other words, that ten page sequence which contains 3 separate scenes, each pointing out in its own unique way that your hero is irresponsible? Well we figured it out after the first scene.

Your story is moving a lot slower
than you, the writer, believe it is.

You don’t need to waste 7 more pages telling us again…and again. Remember, readers use the first 30 pages to gauge how capable a writer is. And the main thing they’re judging is how quickly and efficiently you set up your story. In The Hangover, I think they wake up from their crazy night somewhere around page 20. You don’t want it to be any later than page 25 before we know what it is your character is after (see #2).

5) STAY UNDER 110 PAGES

This is a close cousin to number 2 and a huge point of contention between writers as well. But let’s move beyond my usual argument, which is that a 120 page script is going to inspire rage from a tired reader, and discuss the actual effects of a 110 page screenplay on your story. Keeping your script under 110 pages FORCES YOU TO CUT OUT ALL THE SHIT. That funny scene you like that has nothing to do with the story? You don’t need it. The fifth chase scene at the end of the second act? You don’t need it. Those 2 extra scenes I just mentioned above that tell us the exact same information we already know about your main character? You don’t need them.

Cutting your script down to 110 pages forces you
to make tough decisions about what really matters.

I know this may be hard to believe. But not everything you write is brilliant, or even necessary for that matter. Cutting your script down to 110 pages forces you to make tough decisions about what really matters. By making those cuts, you eliminate all the fat, and your script reads more like a “best of” than an “all of.” As for some of those famous names who like to pack on the extra pages, I’ll tell you what. For every script you sell or movie you make, you’re allowed 5 extra pages to play with, as your success indicates you now know what to do with those pages. Until then, keep it under 110. And bonus points if you keep it under 100.

6) CONFLICT

Does everyone in your script get along? Is the outside world kind to your characters? Do your characters skip through your story with nary a worry? Yeah, then your script has no conflict. I could write a whole book on conflict but here’s one of the easiest ways to create it. Have one character want something and another character want something else. Put them in a room together and, voila, you have conflict. If your characters DO happen to be good friends, or lovers, or married, or infatuated with each other, that’s fine, but then there better be some outside conflict weighing on them (Romeo and Juliet anyone?). Let me give you the best example of the difference between how conflict and no conflict affect a movie.

The conflict is gone and therefore so is our interest.

Remember The Matrix? How Trinity wanted Neo but she couldn’t have him yet? Remember the tension between the two? How we wanted them to be together? How we could actually feel their desire behind every conversation? The conflict there was that the two couldn’t be together. Now look at The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions. Trinity and Neo are together. They’re always happy. And they’re always F’ING BORING AS HELL! The conflict is gone and therefore so is our interest. If your story isn’t packed with conflict, you don’t have a story.

7) OBSTACLES

Your script should have plenty of obstacles your main character encounters in pursuit of his goal. A big issue I see in a lot of bad scripts is that the main character’s road is too easy. The more obstacles you throw at your hero, the more interesting a script tends to be, because that’s why we come to the movies in the first place, to see how our hero heroically overcomes the problems he’s presented. He can’t be heroic if he doesn’t run into anything that tests his heroism.

The more obstacles you throw at your hero,
the more interesting a script tends to be.

Go watch any of the Bourne movies to see how obstacles are consistently thrown at a character. And a nice side effect? Each obstacle creates conflict!

8) SURPRISE

A great script continually surprises you. Even if the story seems familiar, the characters’ actions and the twists and turns are consistently different from what we expected. The most boring scripts I read are ones where I have a good sense of what’s going to happen for the next 5 or 6 scenes. Remember, readers have read everrryyyyyything. So you really have to be proactive and outthink them to keep them on their toes.

Readers have read everrryyyyyything.

The Matrix is a great example of a script that continually surprises you. The first time you watched that movie (or read that script) you rarely had any idea where the story was going.

9) A TICKING TIME BOMB

Ticking time bombs can get a bad rap because they have such an artificial quality to them, but oh how important they are. What’s so great about them? They add * immediacy* to your story. If a character doesn’t have to achieve his goals right now, if he can achieve them next week or next year, then the goal really isn’t that important, is it?

If you don’t have a ticking time bomb in your script,
you better have a damn good reason why.

We want to watch a character that has to achieve his goal RIGHT NOW or else he loses everything. Sometimes ticking time bombs are clear as day (Hangover: They need to find Doug by noon on Saturday to get him back in time for his wedding), sometimes they’re more nuanced (Star Wars Luke needs to get the details of that battle station to the Rebel Alliance before they find and destroy the planet), but they’re there. If you don’t have a ticking time bomb in your script, you better have a damn good reason why.

10) STAKES

If your character achieves his ultimate goal, there needs to be a great reward. If your character fails to achieve his ultimate goal, there needs to be huge consequences. The best use of stakes is usually when a character’s situation is all or nothing. Rocky’s never going to get another shot at fighting the heavyweight champion of the world. This is it. Those stakes are damn high.

There needs to be a great reward.

If Wikus doesn’t get Christopher up to the mothership in District 9, he’s going to turn into a fucking alien. Those stakes are damn high. If all a character loses by not achieving his goal is a couple of days out of his life, that’s not very exciting, is it? And that’s because the stakes are too low.

11) HEART

We need to emotionally connect with your characters on some level for us to want to follow them for 110 minutes (NOT 120!). The best way to do this is to give your character a flaw, introduce a journey that tests that flaw, and then have him transform into a better person over the course of that journey. This is also known as having your character “arc.”

Give your character a flaw.

When characters learn to become better people, it connects with an audience because it makes them believe that they can also change their flaws and become better people. In Knocked Up, Seth Rogan is a grade-A fuck-up, the most irresponsible person on the planet. So the journey forces him to face that head on, and learn to become responsible (so he can be a parent). You always want a little bit of heart in your script, whether it’s a drama, a comedy, or even horror.

12) A GREAT ENDING

Remember, your ending is what the reader leaves with. It is the last image they remember when they close your script. So it better leave a lasting impression. This is why specs like The Sixth Sense sell for 2 million bucks. If you go back into that script, there are actually quite a few slow areas. But you don’t remember them because the ending rocked.

Your ending is what the reader leaves with.

And I’m not saying you have to add a twist to every script you write. But make sure the ending satisfies us in some way, because if you leave us with a flat generic finale, we ain’t going to be texting our buddies saying, “Holy shit! You have to read this script right now!”

13) THE X-FACTOR

This last tip is the scariest of them all because it’s the one you have the least control over. It’s called the X-Factor. It is the unexplainable edge that great scripts have. Maybe it’s talent. Maybe the variables of your story came together in just the right way. Maybe you tap into the collective unconscious. A great script unfortunately has something unexplainable about it, and unfortunately, some of that comes down to luck. You could nail every single tip I’ve listed above and still have a script that’s missing something. The only advice I can give you to swing the dreaded X Factor in your favor is to write something you’re passionate about. Even if you’re writing Armageddon 2, create a character who’s going through the same trials and tribulations you are in life. You’ll then be able to connect with the character and, in turn, infuse your script with passion.

Write something you’re passionate about.

Probably the best example of the X-factor’s influence on a script is American Beauty. A lot of people didn’t understand why they liked American Beauty. They just did. The Brigands of Rattleborge is another example. It just seeps into you for reasons unknown. I sometimes spend hours thinking about the X-Factor. How to quantify it. It’s the Holy Grail of screenwriting. Figure it out and you hold the key to writing great scripts for the rest of your life.

So there you have it. I’ve just given you the 13 keys to writing a great script. Now some of you have probably already come up with examples of great scripts that don’t contain these “rules.” And it’s true. Different stories have different requirements. So not every great script is going to contain all 13 of these elements. But you’ll be hard pressed to find a great script that doesn’t nail at least 10 of them. So now I’ll leave it up to you. What attributes do you consistently see in great scripts?

-Carson Reeves

I started devouring scripts as a way to further my education as a writer.

photo credit: urbanshoregirl

(continued from Part 1)

I thought of 10 or so qualities.

1) Avoids Drama, Tension, & Conflict – I believe the key to timid screenwriting is what King said, that the writer makes decisions so “There is no troublesome action to contend with.”

This is what kills me about new writers. They dream and work hard to become a screenwriter, yet, they’re so reluctant to embrace drama. Hello? That’s screenwriting! And sometimes I think they deceive themselves when they’re writing happy warm scenes where all the characters are getting along because they’re feeling the happy feelings of the characters.

This is what kills me about new writers.
They dream and work hard to become a screenwriter,
yet, they’re so reluctant to embrace drama.

And they assume the reader will feel those feelings as well. No, they won’t. That’s when the reader will be falling asleep because there’s no drama, tension, or conflict. That’s what a story is. FADE IN and something’s wrong.

Or writers will just dip their toes into a conflict and then quickly get away from it, and I find myself telling them, “get rid of all that extraneous shit and dive right into the drama. That entire scene should be about the conflict!”

Get rid of all that extraneous shit and dive right into the drama.

Or in horror scripts, I’ll tell them to embrace the tension and fear and drag out the suspense to excruciating levels. That’s the fun of horror!

There’s another aspect of avoidance. Some writers keep themselves distanced from the action, too. An important scene would take place off screen. Or we would have to watch important action scenes from a distance. Like a battle scene observed solely from a mountain or men going down into a tunnel filled with monsters or something, but we’d be watching the action only on TV screens in a newsroom.

Put the reader in the middle of the action!

2) Passive Protagonists – Much has been written on this topic, and I’m sure my readers do not need this explained. Just as timid writers embrace passive sentences in novels, I think they also embrace passive protagonists in screenplays. This is where things are being done to the protag, as opposed to a protag being active and mixing things up.

One of my cigar friends is in sales and he says he gets up at six a.m., works out, and then gets into his office to “make things happen.” That’s a good protagonist. There are exceptions to this rule. I have few problems with Forrest Gump or Benjamin Button. But I’d have to say that new writers should master the art of the active protag first before delving into exceptions. You need to be established before people will be willing to embrace an exception like that.

New writers should master the art of the active protag first
before delving into exceptions.

3) Weak Antagonists – Even pros make this mistake, which at times can be just poor decision-making. But sometimes, with new writers, I think they make certain decisions to weaken an antagonist because they want to be accepted SO MUCH as a writer that they water down the antagonist to make it easy on the reader. That’s crazy! Readers WANT to go on that wild ride. They WANT to feel that tension and suspense. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Or maybe timid writers think that nasty antagonists will reflect poorly on their personalities because they want to be viewed as nice people. Fuhgeddaboudit! If you love stories, you must love a good strong nasty villain. Besides, the nastier the villain, the more satisfying the finale.

4) Excessively Pared-Down Dialogue and Action Lines – Some writers have read so much about “Show, Don’t Tell” that they’re almost afraid to write dialogue.

Look, your characters need to be alive on the page! There’s nothing at all wrong with dialogue so long as it’s good dialogue, which for me means forgetting about realism and aiming for layers and subtext.

Some writers have read so much about “Show, Don’t Tell”
that they’re almost afraid to write dialogue.

Also, some writers pare down the action lines to keep as much white on the pages as possible. There’s nothing wrong with action paragraphs either, so long as there’s a reason for every single word you write and you avoid incidental actions.

Follow Dave Trottier’s principles of keeping the action paragraphs down to four lines or fewer. It’s all good so long as it serves an important purpose.

5) Wrong Emphasis in Action Lines – Sometimes I think that timid writers pay an extreme amount of attention to the action lines and descriptions of rooms and incidental actions as a way of avoiding conflict. This is about HOW the scene plays out. This is about WHAT happens, not so much all of the little details you’ll see on the screen.

I once came across a script full of “maybes” in the action lines. “John (maybe) shoots Kate (or he stabs her or poisons her).” I said, “What the hell is going on with these actions lines?” Well, he had read an article that suggested adding “maybe” to the action lines because screenplays are a collaborative effort and this would invite collaboration. Are you kidding me?

It’s your job to figure out the story! I told the writer to stand up, straighten his back, stick his chin out and write, “John shoots Kate.” There. Don’t you feel better?

6) Thin Plots – There’s nothing wrong with starting out on a simple plot. In fact, there’s wisdom in starting out simple. But that doesn’t mean you should stick with one plot and nothing else. To do this risks stretching your story too thin. Throw in a subplot or two.

There’s wisdom in starting out simple.

7) Flashback Structures – With a few exceptions, I despise flashback structures.

There was a time when I was actively writing reviews on TriggerStreet that it seemed almost everyone had a flashback structure. I think this stems from a need to hook the reader early because they aren’t confident enough to think they can hold the attention of a reader through a normal 3-act structure. So they try to hook a reader by showing part of the ending first and then making that reader sit through 120 pages to actually see how the ending ends! Fuhgeddaboudit!

Do the hard work. Master the 3-act structure.

8) Lack of Trust in the Reader – I touched upon this earlier, but it’s worth repeating. An inevitable sign of growth in a new writer (and we all go through this arc) is in the area of trusting the reader.

Newbies and timid writers who haven’t developed the discipline of trusting the reader tend to over-explain simple things in the action lines or they over-explain obvious reactions in characters or they indulge in on-the-nose dialogue to convey obvious emotions we all know that particular character is feeling.

Over time, you’ll learn that you only need to explain something once (or not even explain it at all) and then move on because you know very well that your readers are with you, will get it, and will appreciate you more for trusting them.

9) Copy Instead of Create – Creating is what makes screenwriting so much fun! And I think timid writers tend to pull from scenes and techniques and style choices in other successful films (thinking that it will make their own story successful) as opposed to taking a concept and making it your own.

Just because a certain sequence or technique worked well in another film does not necessarily mean that it’ll work at all in the context of YOUR story. Sit back and ask yourself: “What’s the best way to tell THIS story?” “How can I tell this story in ways we haven’t seen before?” Brainstorm about ways you can be different.

10) I Can’t Think of Another One – What are your thoughts?

Hehehe…

- Mystery Man

In his own words, Mystery Man was “famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. A homebody jetsetting around the world. Brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.”

MM blogged for nearly 4 years and tweeted for only 4 months, then disappeared – mysteriously.

The Story Department continues to republish his best articles on Monday.

Here, you’ll also be informed about the release of his screenwriting book.

As I write this I’m knee-deep in dirty words. No, not the four-letter variety, although I may mouth off a few if I don’t meet my self-imposed deadline this weekend and finish a first draft of a script. And therein lies the rub.

If I write dirty I can meet even the most supernaturally tight deadline in hours and not agonising, revise-heavy months. But like a lot of you, I wanna be perfect. Or at least write perfectly, first time around.

And somewhere in the collective unconscious a gaggle (?) of Muses laugh hysterically. Write. Perfectly. First. Time. Around. Sure.

Dishin’ the dirt.

Superb screenplays, ie fast-paced, economically written, fresh, original stories stuffed full of quirky, yet believable characters and high stakes (phew) don’t spring out of a writer’s head fully-formed.

They really, really don’t.

A great script is deceptively simple. Looks great on paper but it doesn’t just happen when you let fly with the ol’ courier font and double spacing. If a script reads beautifully and simply it’s usually because the writer has worked long and hard on giving you a great, easy, free-flowing experience.

According to Pixar maestro, Andrew Stanton – and I paraphrase –

A good screenplay takes 10 man-years of labor. That’s two writers working five years or 10 guys working one year. Apparently, for Toy Story 3, 10 people toiled and spelt for two to three years.

So if it generally takes this long, why not have some fun when you first let your story free on the page?

Enter the Dirty Draft.

Get dirty. Feel free.

Unless you go back in time ten years with a copy of a Pixar script or Little Miss Sunshine or any other screenplay that whispers genius – and then you type it up, pass it off as your own, (…win tons of awards, designer goodie bags, endless acclaim – no this isn’t my fantasy), you ain’t going to write a watertight script first go.

The Dirty Draft is effectively your first draft. It’s all about staying in-flow and moving forward page after page in spite of mistakes, cardboard characters and nowhere plots that make Lost read like William Goldman penned it.

It can be a liberating writing experience and, here’s the crazy part, it can also be fabulous, mistake-happy, fun.

The purpose ain’t perfection. It’s about transferring the thoughts the notions, concepts and big dreams from your head onto the page. Don’t be precious about this process.

Just get your story down. And don’t interrupt your flow or allow vanity to sidle up to you and whisper,

‘Hey, go back and read that last scene – it was genius!’

The Great Write Hope.

You may be writing a script that’s going to get you noticed, kudos, be an incredible calling card in Holly / Bolly / Ozzywood (thank you, Mr Segers), but nothing will murder inspiration faster than expectation.

Yours. Mine. Theirs.

Weighing your script down with the hopes of a small village namely parents, spouse – your bank manager, will shoot the storytelling dead. The Dirty Draft should free you of any grand ideals especially if it’s typically, fabulously, crap – but only the first time around, of course.

The Dirty Draft gives your story space to breathe. It also alleviates the pressure to be scene-perfect.

How to do the dirty.

1. Shut up your censor.

We’ve all got one; it’s the nagging little voice that urges us to read the last bloody scene 15 times before moving on with the rest of the script. It’s a saboteur, a spoil-sport, an awesome pain in the butt.

So how to silence it? Wait until it goes to sleep. No, really. All censors need a snooze – even yours. And when they sign-off for the night you can unlock some amazing stuff inside you.

Just wait until you’re craving warm sheets and 8 horizontal hours and then, write. Your eyes need to be closing as you type. Do it for about 20 minutes and then go to sleep.

In the morning go back and read what you wrote. Granted, some of it will be otherwordly nonsense but you may experience the weird sensation of reading words that’ll make you think,

“Hey, that’s not bad. Who the hell wrote it?”

2. Find someone to get dirty with.

A fellow scribe who’s working on their own dirty draft will push you to meet your deadline and stay in-flow.

Make sure it’s a writer you feel safe with and enjoy a healthy, competitive relationship – otherwise you’ll be writing to impress them – not yourself.

3. Stuck? Write scene place-holders.
You need that big, watershed scene between Penny the porn star and Daryl the deer hunter*. It’s a challenging moment in the story, but you can’t get your head around it right now. Fine. Don’t labour it.

Write a few lines of explanatory copy, describe the scene, maybe even write some dialogue – it’s okay, no one has to know – except you and your Dirty Draft confidante.

* not real characters. Just made ‘em up.

4. Pound out a page in 60 seconds.
Don’t think. Don’t analyse. Just enjoy feeling nervous about mindless writing. In many ways, the liberating nature of writing a Dirty Draft can be a silver bullet for writer’s block.

You’re creating art, but not as you know it.

The point of all this madness (and creating any art requires a modicum of insanity otherwise, what’s the point, right? Actually forget modicum – anyone who would tackle this intangible artform is an out and out stark raving, padded-cell loving lunatic – and loving it.)…

The point is, you’re getting it ALL down – every last little emotional, insane, sexy, hilarious, terrifying story beat that, up until the Dirty Draft, was just a hazy notion in your head. An anecdote you wheeled out at chi chi cocktail parties as you played ‘budding screenwriter’,

“So I’ve got this great idea for a scene in my movie, listen to this…”

Come on, you know you’ve done it, er, haven’t you?

When full-fat is fabulous.

The minute you release yourself from the shackles of creating immaculate art the first time around, you’ll liberate your muse.

And you’ll know you’ve got a Dirty Draft when you do the first read-through and discover a full-fat, over-written, flabtastic extravaganza. Now you can start cutting back on dialogue-saturated scenes, over-processed plot-lines and fatty big print.

Now…

If you still think the superscribes don’t write filthy first…

I have it on good authority that, a certain world-famous Aussie director with a predilection for jubilant penguins, draws pictures into his first drafts, eschews the sacred courier font and generally makes it look so unlike a screenplay it’s unbelievable.

Now we’re really talking dirty.

-Phyllis Foundis

Writer, media presenter — and stage diva (on hiatus) Phyllis Foundis has written and bellydanced her way to the tender age of 36. She’s been writing stories, ads, one-woman shows and to-do lists for as long as she can remember. She loves big shower heads and loathes coriander.

photo credit ‘free clean dirt’: betterbethany
photo credit : Gibson Claire McGuire Regester
photo credit paper: designshard

The Story Department continues to republish his best articles on Monday.

Here, you’ll also be informed about the posthumous release of his screenwriting book.

“Let’s go back to New York City. Consider this monolog, called, I’m a Type. In a perfect world, this should not be watered down for mainstream consumption. As far as I’m concerned, a good actor should be able pull it off in a way that everyone can understand and enjoy:

He was givin’ me a one-two look with his eyes. “Look-” I say to the casting director. “I’m a type person that’s a type, believe me! You want a college type? So I’m a college type! Look what I can do with my Adams. See? A squeeze and it’s a collegiate hat. I got talent. How do you want I should convince you – show you where I was initiated? You want I should show you where they tattooed the fraternity pin on my chest? Want my report card, maybe? I didn’t save it. So how should I know I’d want to become an actor.” Now he’s smiling. Look how the jerk is smiling. If I had his set of teeth I’d sew up my lips. What are you smiling at, Jerk, if you’ll pardon the expression? What’s funny? What do you see – a guy with two heads? Personally, on him it wouldn’t look bad. “Look-” I say to the guy. “So, you put out a call for collegiate type. All right – that’s me. Ask me questions. Go on! Anything. What do you want I should tell you about college? City College is on 23rd Street. You know something! I can love better than a certain party that his name is Gable. Gimme a football and I’ll make like Frank Merriwell. How’s about trying me out on dancing? Waltzes, foxtrots, anything. I got tempo. Timing! Wait a minute, fella – I’ll make like I’m cheerleader – Gimme a break, will you you? Ricky-Coax, Ricky-Coax! Look – For Christ’s sakes, look – I’m doing a sommersault!”

Hehehe… Both of those monologs come from two books I love:

American Dialects: A Manual for Actors, Directors, and Writers

Foreign Dialects: A Manual for Actors, Directors, and Writers

I’m not a believer in realism in dialogue in screenwriting. What’s the point of hearing thoughts we hear every day? I’m a believer in a drama. High drama, if you can achieve it. I’m a believer in heightened realism, in dialogue that has a poetic quality that elevates it above realism, that operates at a theatrical level. It’s like The Godfather. They were able to take ethnic dialect and elevate it to this syntax of opera librettos, which no one else has been able to achieve at that level. I’m also a believer in hearing words that are fresh and different, if possible. It’s about fictional words that stir the heart and soul in some fashion. We read these scripts to feel something. We go to the movies to feel.
I love, for example, the opening lines by Booth in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog / Underdog. This, I swear, soars to the heavens on the page and in the theater. (Booth’s practicing a 3-card monte scam.)

Booth:
Watch me close watch me close now: who-see-thuh-red-card-who-see-thuh-red-card? I-see-thuh-red-card. Thuh-red-card-is-thuh-winner. Pick-thuh-red-card-you-pick-uh-winner. Pick-uh-black-card-you-pick-uh-loser. Theres-thuh-loser, yeah, theres-thuh-black-card, theres-thuh-other-loser-and-theres-thuh-red-card, thuh-winner.
(rest)
Watch me close watch me close now: 3-Card-throws-thuh-cards-lightning-fast. 3-Card-that’s-me-and-Ima-fast. Watch-me-throw-cause-here-I-go. One-good-pickll-get-you-in, 2-good-picks-and-you-gone-win. See-thuh-red-card-see-thuh-red-card-who-see-thuh-red-card?
(rest)
Don’t touch my card, man, just point to thuh one you want. You-pick-that-card-you-pick-a-loser, yeah, that-cards-a-loser. You-pick-that-card-that’s-thuh-other-loser. You-pick-that-card-you-pick-a-winner. Follow that card. You gotta chase that card. You-pick-thuh-dark-deuce-that’s-a-loser-other-dark-deuces-thuh-other-loser, red-deuce, thuh-deuce-of-heartsll-win-it-all. Follow thuh red card…
I love when writers break-up the dialogue so that they’re not all complete sentences. Or shift gears mid-thought. I love the opening (and very Chicagoan) lines in David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross:

Levene: John… John… John. Okay. John. John. Look: (pause) The Glengarry Highland’s leads, you’re sending Roma out. Fine. He’s a good man. We know what he is. He’s fine. All I’m saying, you look at the board, he’s throwing… wait, wait, wait, he’s throwing them away, he’s throwing the leads away. All that I’m saying, that you’re wasting leads. I don’t want to tell you your job. All that I’m saying, things get set, I know they do, you get a certain mindset… A guy gets a reputation. We know how this… all I’m saying, put a closer on the job. There’s more than one man for the… Put a… wait a second, put a proven man out… and you watch, now wait a second – and you watch your dollar volumes… You start closing them for fifty ‘stead of twenty-five…
Let me end with this one. How about the funeral in the opening of Kushner’s Angels in America? Here, Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz speaks “sonorously, with a heavy Eastern European accent, unapologetically consulting a sheet of notes for the family names.”

Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz:
Hello and good morning. I am Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz of the Bronx Home for Aged Hebrews. We are here this morning to pay respects at the passing of Sarah Ironson, devoted wife of Benjamin Ironson, also deceased, loving and caring mother of her sons Morris, Abraham, and Samuel, and her daughters Esther and Rachel; beloved grandmother of Max, Mark, Louis, Lisa, Maria… uh… Lesley, Angela, Doris, Luke and Eric. (Looks more closely at paper) Eric? This is a Jewish name? (Shrugs) Eric. A large and loving family. We assemble that we may mourn collectively this good and righteous woman.
(Looks at coffin)
This woman. I did not know this woman. I cannot accurately describe her attributes, nor do justice to her dimensions. She was… Well, in the Bronx Home of Aged Hebrews are many like this, the old, and to many I speak but not to be frank with this one. She preferred silence. So I do not know her and yet I know her. She was…
(Looks at coffin)
…not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania – and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here, in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes – because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home.
(Little pause)
You can never make that crossing that she made, for such Great Voyages in this world do not any more exist. But every day of your lives the miles that voyage between that place and this on you cross. Every day. You understand me? In you that journey is.
So… She was the last of the Mohicans, this one was. Pretty soon… all the old will be dead.”

- MM

In his own words, Mystery Man was “famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. A homebody jetsetting around the world. Brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.”

MM blogged for nearly 4 years and tweeted for only 4 months but his passion and insights will forever leave an undeniable mark on thousands of followers all over the world.

Next you decide what is important for the understanding of the scene and what should be left to the design team.

Finally: stay close to the 1 page per minute rule.

The first step may seem a bit lame but it really only is about staying aware of the fact that you need to stay as close as possible to the amount of detail needed. Not more, not less.

bottom line really is: give us enough detail so the reader and audience can visualize the scene and understand what will go on the screen.

So, how many more characters will there be?

At the beginning of the scene, we need to know what the situation is. Describe the room they’re in briefly. Is it modern or classic. Simple or ornate? Where are the characters? Do they all sit or stand?

Next, it would probably benefit this scene to describe some body language. How do the characters respond to the news? Do they put down their work? Sit straight?

ACTION vs. DESCRIPTION

Oh dear. If this were the first scene of the script, a professional reader would probably not make it to the ‘knock on the door’. The irony is that the opening is cluttered with seemingly useless detail but the essence of the scene is brushed over, rather than spelled out in dialogue.

Rejected.

It is important to describe the action rather than things stationary, unless the plot calls for it. If the slug line states we’re in a restaurant, we know there will be tables and chairs. We get it, so be economical. Give the reader just enough information and let them imagine the rest.

In the following example, Joseph Stefano, the writer of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” carefully describes the action, leaving the physical layout of the bathroom to the art director.

Using an active description like “down the side of the tub, running thick and dark along the porcelain, we see many small threads of blood” gives the reader a sense of action. After reading this excerpt from Psycho, I can almost guarantee next time you describe the dead girl to someone, you will refer to her eye as being “popped”. Find the exact word to match the appropriate action.

HIDE DESCRIPTION WITHIN ACTION

Through that paragraph the reader is focused on what is happening with the poor girl’s body, and probably won’t realize the writer sneaked in a description of the bathroom. This was done without giving the feeling of describing a still object.

Remember, we are describing things happening, not just things per se. That’s why we call it “movies”.

(with thanks to Vi Truong)

BTW, Any technical element that is about HOW it is filmed rather than WHAT is filmed, takes us out of the read. This includes “Point of View”.

So it is annoying.

But more importantly, it is totally superfluous.

To get my point, it is important to distinguish two types of ‘point of view’ in movies: One is the Camera POV, the other is the Story POV.

1. Camera Point of View

This is the place where the camera will go. Sometimes it will be the place where (the eyes of) the characters are imagined to be. In some rare cases, this technique is taken to the extreme, such as in movies like Lady in the Lake (1946) and Dark Passage (1947).

Here is an example of the use of POV in a script:

POV Jack: We see how slowly the monster puts Danny back on his feet, then turns to face us.

Danny, grappling with the fact that he’s still alive, disappears behind the nearest rock.

The monster stands up and roars. The sound is deafening.

It is now coming at us…

Nice, but you know, directing is not our concern.

As screenwriters, we must refrain from adding directorial comments. And telling the director where to put the camera is a serious intrusion.

2. Story Point of View

This Point of View refers to the story and more specifically the character that drives the story – or the particular scene.

So this surely is our concern. So how do we determine the Story POV?

I’ll make an attempt:

The Story POV is the perspective of the character in the scene or the story we empathize with most, through whom we experience the story. In the beginning of the movie, as we’re trying to figure out what’s going on, it’s often the character who asks the questions. Remember the opening of Back to the Future? Marty has a lot of questions when he doesn’t find Doc at his lab. And so do we. As a result, we put ourselves in Marty’s shoes, in his Story POV. Yet nowhere in that opening does it say “POV: Marty” in the screenplay.

The Story POV will almost always be that of the Hero.

However, in a scene from the Story POV of Jack, the Camera POV will mostly alternate between Jack and one or more other characters, or a neutral (technically invisible) 3rd person POV.

Now, in 99% of the cases where a beginning screenwriter writes “POV: [Character Name]“, this character is effectively the Hero.

So if
1) the Camera POV is not our business and
2) the Story POV is already that of the Hero anyway,
why putting it in the screenplay as a camera direction?

Tell me in the comments if you know of exceptions where it is helpful or even essential to clarify the point of view in the script.

Always keen to learn!

- Karel Segers

Karel Segers is a producer and script consultant who started in movies as a rights buyer for Europe’s largest pay TV group Canal+. Back then it was handy to speak 5 languages. Less so today in Australia.

Karel teaches, consults and lectures on screenwriting and the principles of storytelling to his 5-year old son Baxter and anyone who listens.

He is also the boss of this blog.

I once had a brief conversation about this topic in e-mail with Jennifer van Sijll, a screenwriting professor, consultant, former professional reader for Universal, and author of Cinematic Storytelling.

(what preceded)

She wrote,

“I think a writer should avoid anything that takes readers out of the read. As soon as they start visualizing equipment rather than what’s on the screen, they’ve broken from the story. Here is an example.

Joe scans the room. His eyes land on the glock. He stops. He trains his eye on the murder weapon, and puts a match to the curtains.

This is a pan, probably a push in to closeup, and a wideshot.

If you can write without mentioning camera angles, it’s more engaging.”

Exactly.

I think a writer should avoid
anything that takes readers out of the read.

She also wrote a great article about this called Directing-the-Director. Here’s a portion in which she discusses a scene from Pulp Fiction. (People always remember Pulp Fiction for its great structure and dialogue, but many don’t realize that he also wrote the shots and practically edited each scene through the action lines.)

Cinematic Example:
Editing – Pacing and Expanding Time

In the drug overdose scene, midpoint in the movie, Vincent (John Travolta) attempts to revive Mia (Uma Thurman) by stabbing Mia’s heart with a hypodermic needle filled with adrenalin. The scripted scene fills us with tension. We hold our breath hoping that Mia is going to make it.

The reason “we hold our breath” is because the script is written “already edited.” In this case it is edited to “milk the scene” and thereby pump up suspense.

So how does Tarantino do this?

Tarantino does this through overlapping action. He includes cuts to the needle, the red dot, and the faces of characters. These cuts lengthen the time needed for the real-time-event of the stabbing to occur. Although Vincent counts out three seconds on the dialogue track, it takes ¾ of a page for the moment to take place or 45 seconds of screen time. That means that we are holding our breath 15 times longer than Vincent’s three-second countdown suggests.

Through purposeful use of editing, the writer is guiding the reader’s emotional experience, and delivering a scene that can be imagined as a movie.

Writing in Shots

Tarantino accomplishes this by writing in shots. He doesn’t write in descriptive paragraphs like novelists. Each of his sentences implies a specific camera angle. “Implies” is the operative word here. Camera angles and lenses are not called out, but understood from his description.

The script’s pacing mimics what we will later see on screen. Paragraphing and sentence length suggest how long a shot will play on the screen. For example, a single one-sentence paragraph implies one shot. The implication is that it should play out longer on screen than would say, multiple shots implied in a four-line paragraph. The white space buys the single shot time. Adding an editorial aside like “Mia is fading fast. Nothing can save her now” is like saying “hold on the shot”. It again gains the shot more screen time.

Let’s take a look at how this is done in the actual script. This excerpt is taken from mid-scene.

The top line is from Tarantino’s script, where no camera information is given. The parentheticals in the line below are my interpretation of the shot that is implied.

Excerpt from Pulp Fiction

Summary

In this brief page, Tarantino has implied 15 camera angles. Despite his use of camera, the reader isn’t taken out of the read because the script never calls out specific camera positions or angles.

Had Tarantino described the camera angles with 15 descriptors like CLOSE-UP ON MIA’S EYES, it would have been an unbearable read.

Tarantino was able to slow down real time by cutting away to objects and multiple reaction shots of the characters. He used editing and the inherent elasticity of the medium to help dramatize a pivotal moment and up the suspense.

Pacing was further aided by how Tarantino suggested shot length through paragraphing.

I also want to share one more quote from Jennifer’s article:

“Writing cinematically is not the same as Directing-the-Director. Directing-the-director is when you write: “JOE’S POV WINDOW– LOW ANGLE,” instead of “Joe looks up at the window.” They mean the same thing. The first unnecessarily draws attention to camera information taking us completely out of the story.

Writing cinematically is not the same as Directing-the-Director.

The second method implies it’s a POV shot and a low-angle, but it does not distract us with technical jargon. Similarly if a tracking shot is essential to a scene it’s better to say “Joe jogs alongside Susan” rather than “TRACKING SHOT – JOE AND SUSAN JOGGING which is considered directing-the-director.”

Exactly. I couldn’t agree more.

Consider the “write the shots” example I gave in my Billy Mernit script review. Remember how visual that was?

Consider how Melissa Mathison brilliantly incorporated low angles from the creature’s POV in the opening sequence of her E.T. screenplay to make the trucks, the lights, and the keys, all so very scary and to establish the humans as the antagonistic force.

Consider the L.A. Riverbed sequence in Chinatown where Gittes follows Mulwray. With Secondary Headings, Robert Towne starts with long shots, then cuts back and forth between Gittes and Mulwray. When the action gets intense, he goes to close-ups of Gittes.

Consider the way Apocalypse Now and Barton Fink uses creative camera angles to disorient the audience in order to make a statement about the mental state of the protagonist. You can write that so long as you don’t use camera angles. I could go on and on.

Did you know that the world’s first screenplay was written by a woman? Yes, Alice Guy-Blaché wrote “screen-plays” in order to organize her thoughts and all the ways she would experiment with sound and visual effects in the late 1800s. The whole point of her “screen-plays” was to write the shots. By the way, the first screenplay was for a short called The Cabbage Fairy/La Fée aux choux (France, 1896), which was a comic fantasy about babies that were born in cabbage patches. Guy-Blaché would go on to direct over 700 short films and establish one of the world’s first movie studios – Solax.

Did you know that the world’s first screenplay
was written by a woman?

I don’t mean to say that you have to edit every scene and write every shot with every action line. Sometimes, you just need to write about the action, and yes, the director will figure out how to film it. But write the shots when it really counts.

And now you can also take a deep breath and embrace and study all those old screenplays that are full of camera angles. The only thing that’s changed is the fact that we no longer write camera angles, but the principles of action lines have never changed in that we should think like filmmakers, we should render our stories cinematically, and we should write the shots.

- Mystery Man

I’m famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. I’m a homebody who jetsets around the world. I’m brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.

I also write for Script Magazine.

I don’t know how or why this happened, but a lot of newbies seem to think that a scene is comprised of two or three things only.

.

1) a Master Scene Heading (such as INT. MYSTERY MAN’S KITCHEN – NIGHT) and 2) they should just add some action lines to describe the room, the characters, write a bunch of dialogue, (and quite a few more action lines to describe even the slightest gestures of characters, which we call incidental actions), and 3) move on to the next scene and repeat this process for 120 pages.

Wrong.

How did they get so far away from the core principles of screenwriting? Were they mislead? I don’t know. Even by the very low standards described above, some newbies can’t even get that right and they fill their action lines with what we call unfilmables – sentences in action lines that are not visual, such as backstories of characters, author’s intrusions, inner thoughts, questions to the reader, etc.

We ARE meant to describe the setting,
characters, or actions of those characters,
but these sentences must be very lean and mean.

Now, what do we know about action lines?

With Trottier’s Screenwriter’s Bible, we know that we ARE meant to describe the setting, characters, or actions of those characters, but these sentences must be very lean and mean. We write only what we see on the screen and only the most essential elements using the most minimal words. We have to provide a framework of visuals that tell the story so the reader (and audience) can put two & two together and visualize what’s happening on the screen.

Action paragraphs should be 4 lines or fewer. You typically write one paragraph per beat of action, and they should be important actions. I loved what Trottier said about incidental actions: “If your character raises her cup of coffee to her lips, that’s not important enough to describe… unless there’s poison in the cup.”

Hehehe…

Always, always err on the side of brevity.

Screenwriters are filmmakers, too,
and we have to think like filmmakers
and endeavor to render our stories CINEMATICALLY.

Now let’s take it to the next level. The only way you can truly excel at writing cinematic stories (on a par with or surpassing the pros) is to elevate your craft to a level where you can (without using camera angles) WRITE THE SHOTS.

Bwaaah! You’re SO wrong, Mystery Man! Yes, I can hear you balking already and screaming at your monitors that, dammit, man, you can’t describe the shots because it’s up to the director to decide how that scene will be filmed and thus, all you can do is just tell the story – what happens to what character and then move on to the next scene.

Wrong.

That’s completely and absurdly wrong.

This kind of hands-off thinking about filmmaking has harmed more screenplays, prevented more writers from getting sales, and generally lowered the quality of contemporary films.

It’s not enough that we, as screenwriters, must have a god-like knowledge about the story we wrote and about the art of storytelling, characters, dialogue, and structure. Screenwriters are filmmakers, too, and we have to think like filmmakers and endeavor to render our stories CINEMATICALLY, which means that we should write the shots.

This does not, has not, and will not ever offend directors or anyone else. On the contrary, reading a truly visual, cinematic screenplay that really feels like a movie on paper INSPIRES readers, INSPIRES producers, INSPIRES executives, and yes, directors, too, and those are the scripts that GET SALES.

I mean, come on. The way to get a director onboard is to get him/her excited about the story and the visuals. And your screenplay is essentially the first grouping of cinematic ideas, the first shot across the bow about how to render this particular story cinematically. It’s the springboard for what will be many future creative discussions about turning your script into a film.

The way to get a director onboard is
to get him/her excited about the story and the visuals.

Conflicts between screenwriters and directors have more to do with a screenwriter not thinking like a filmmaker (and wanting to tell instead of show) than it is about a director not recognizing how brilliant the dialogue is.

Rules about not writing the shots so as to avoid offending directors are so absurd, because, like everything else in life, this business is about relationships. It’s ALL about the relationships you build with people in the business. Period.

If you walk into a room and say “this is the way it is and to hell with what you think – no one big or small can change one word or comma of my screenplay,” yeah, everyone will hate you. If, on the other hand, you walk into a room and you’re capable of having a creative discourse and engaging people who have different ideas and calmly explaining how and why and what you were trying to accomplish with each moment of your screenplay, you’ll go far.

Like everything else in life,
this business is about relationships.

Establishing good, working, creative relationships with people is, umm, a good thing for your career.

With some directors, that’s impossible, but that’s another article.

(continues)

- Mystery Man

I’m famous yet anonymous, failed yet accomplished, brilliant yet semi-brilliant. I’m a homebody who jetsets around the world. I’m brash and daring yet chilled with a twist.

I also write for Script Magazine.