Have you really got what it takes to be successful?

Fresh back from presenting The Fantastical World of Scriptwriting in New York for the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Woodstock, in this second contribution to The Story Department, filmmaker and teacher Jack Feldstein bares all and gives us his honest advice on the matter.

Previously: Confessions of a Scriptwriter (1)

11. HOW NOT TO BE PRECIOUS.

“Kill your babies” is a saying that’s prevalent in scriptwriting circles. As is “you can’t polish a turd”.

How does a scriptwriter learn to have “open heart surgery without an anesthetic”? In other words, to accept editing by others – or even oneself – for the benefit of the film/project.

Acting like a professional scriptwriter is rarely easy. But criticism that improves the script must be accepted. How does a scriptwriter get “out of the way” of the ego? While still maintaining enough self belief to continue?

The Zen knowledge of the acceptance of not being able (or want) to control the world greatly benefits a scriptwriter.

There is a line between arrogance and confidence. Where is that line?

Think about this. If it is said that “pride is a prison” then “humility is the key”. Separating both is that line.

Confidence can be learnt by surrounding oneself with confident people. Plus continuing to achieve small successes.

Above all, if one cannot find it in oneself to say something positive about one’s own script, then it’s best to say nothing at all. RATHER than point out a negative.

Besides, people will find plenty of flaws without the scriptwriter’s help.

12. OPPORTUNITIES AND OPENING DOORS

Should a scriptwriter accept every job and opportunity that comes their way?

Probably. On the path through life, learning is the goal. And every situation presents new challenges.

It’s helpful to remember that the next script a scriptwriter writes rests on the mistakes and successes of what has been written previously.

Hopefully the mistakes won’t be repeated and the successes will help build confidence.

Perhaps not being afraid of failing with a script, (or being brave with the concept of failure) is a great lesson in itself.

It might be best in scriptwriting to not look backwards too much and rather to be optimistic and look to the future (next) script.

A nice metaphor for this is the story of Lot’s Wife who turned into a pillar of salt when she looked back.

13. MONEY AND ART

That infamous unholy matrimony.

In a capitalist world, the balance of the two is a necessary axiom. Maybe discovering and then accepting the sort of scriptwriter that one is, is the only solution to this eternal dilemma. For instance, if certain ethics are important, consider documentary.

These days, becoming a filmmaker is a common option for a scriptwriter as well.

If a person’s attitude is “I’m an artist and I’m not going to be dictated by evil commercial interests” then definitely a life as a filmmaker should be considered, rather than one as a scriptwriter.

Otherwise a future grappling with ulcers and hypertension might be on the cards.

We are all human. And perhaps all we can hope for is aiming for the best we can be, in any particular situation. Forget this at one’s peril because then the scriptwriter runs the risk of being dogmatic and didactic. And – unfortunately – the cardinal sin of… boring.

Have something to say, but be careful not to force it down people’s throats.

14. HOW CAN A PERSON TELL THEY ARE A SCRIPTWRITER?

They read scripts. And actually, they love reading great scripts.

To write structure and plot can be learned. But a scriptwriter must have the aptitude to write characters who ring true to an audience. Perhaps, as in many paths of life, a scriptwriter is born that way. It’s the way they think. With the ability to understand people.

Is it their consciousness? I’d need ten years studying metaphysics for the solution to that question.

All people may be born equal… but we are certainly not born the same.

Certain traits in a person’s nature can aid in making a scriptwriter’s life less difficult. For instance, bohemian rather than corporate expectations can help.

Most people know the alphabet. They’re literate. But few literate people are truly scriptwriters.

If a person’s ease of writing is greater than or equal to their ease of talking then they are probably a writer. If in their writing, they are drawn to drama and conflict, then they are most likely a scriptwriter.

A script is not a mouthpiece for one’s views. (Except of course for propaganda). It is a blueprint interpretation of what a scriptwriter has seen/heard/experienced.

15. RES IPSO LOQUATOR

The thing speaks for itself.

A script must contain the blueprint basis for all the information that will be conveyed to an audience. Further analysis is inevitable but that’s AFTER the experience of viewing the film/play/series.

The academic world of analysis of films runs parallel to the scriptwriting world itself.

16. HOW DOES A SCRIPTWRITER KEEP ON WRITING?

In psychological terms, writing might be an attempt to heal inner emotional damage from childhood. If that’s the case, a scriptwriter seems almost compelled to continue scriptwriting.

But blocks can occur. What are they?

The inability to face certain truths? Fear? Of failure? Of success? Of offending others? Of self-revelation?

Or a lack of having anything left to say that’s not repeating what the scriptwriter has already said? Can the creative well run dry?

When inner psychic damage is repaired (healed), does a scriptwriter stop being a scriptwriter?

These are interesting points with no clear answers. They are issues that should be considered by each and every scriptwriter for themselves.

17. WHAT IS TALENT?

Is it determined by the Zeitgeist? The cultural milieu for whom it’s meant?

Is a scriptwriter’s job to capture the Zeitgeist… and is the ability to do this a measure of the scriptwriter’s talent?

After all, without common cultural references, many great works lose their relevance and their meaning is obfuscated.

Is this perhaps, why many Australian films don’t travel easily into the wider, global market? (see # 23 for further discussion)

Also, remember Mozart and Salieri or Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. A human being can learn almost anything, except: to become more talented.

There might be an unconscious desire for a less talented individual to kill a more talented one.

Scriptwriters should choose their friends carefully.

18. DRINKING AND DRUGS

The trouble with these is that they wear off. And both lead to poor judgment.

A scriptwriter’s greatest asset is a clear mind. Best to keep it that way and NOT choose Aldous Huxley as a role model.

19. COMEDY : THE TEARS OF A CLOWN

Comedy may be the most lucrative of all genres. The public seems to have an insatiable appetite and need for humour. And it is often said in the scriptwriting business, “funny is money”.

Also well known is a definition of comedy as “when tragedy happens to someone else”.

To write comedy, the scriptwriter must take a subversive and lateral point of view of their own inner wounds. No one wants the tears of clown. (Think Pagliacci, in the famous opera.) Or the anger of a clown. (Robin Williams occasionally falls into this trap.) The sexuality of a clown. (Paul Reubens aka Pee Wee Herman is a case in point.) Or even the nihilism of a clown. (Woody Allen’s serious filmscripts are a perfect example of the latter.)

What psychic price does the scriptwriter pay with funny scripts?

Be aware there is one.

A scriptwriter should know that under the best humour lie the greatest truths.

20. PROCRASTINATION AND EASE

One trick scriptwriters use to start a script is to pretend to themselves that no-one will ever read that script. They are writing it merely for themselves. And will place it in a drawer. Then, of course, a script has been written and it’s too late.

As for ease of scriptwriting, a free road to one’s unconscious and consciousness is clearly beneficial while writing a script. (As opposed to real life, where it might be rather challenging.)

Reasons for procrastination can include fear of failure. Or even fear of success.

But only a mind reader can really know why a person might constantly talk about writing a script and yet, ironically, never write one.

Jack Feldstein is a director, playwright, scriptwriter, script editor, series creator, interactive scriptwriter, filmmaker & lecturer in Sydney. His short films including ‘The Ecstasy of Gary Green’ and ‘The Great Oz Love Yarn’ have been shown at festivals around the world and have received acclaim for their originality and humour.

An ongoing climate of attack & defense in our industry inspired me to these thoughts on the value and nature of feedback and criticism. It’s about scripts in the first place.

Whenever we expose personal work to the judgment of others, we run the risk of getting feedback that hurts. Because our natural instinct is to protect our feelings, our heart will tell us we’re right and the critic is wrong.

What feedback to expect? And what type of criticism is fair?

Of course you want to make your script better. But how to define ‘better’?

When I consult to filmmakers, I have these objectives: 1) to turn the script into a great read and 2) to make the (future) film play for a large audience.

Very few writers I know have ever objected to the first goal. But…

I don’t want to make a dumb commercial movie!

If you want to be un artiste and make an art film, you are on your own. Seriously, what individual can judge your artistic genius? You want to know how you compare to other artistes? Or you’d rather just hear “I LOVE it”?

Purely positive or negative gut feel feedback is useless.

When your work is being criticised, ask not just WHAT feels wrong but also WHY. There should be a good reason. “It doesn’t work for me” is not enough; at least it is not professional.

We look at what has worked in the past and deduct our conclusion from this empirical evidence. Then apply it to our own work.

The ‘principles of screenwriting’ are a science. How you implement them is the art part of it.

Great screenwriting = craft principles + artistic genius.

Of course there is the area of your story’s morality and no-one else has any authority in this. Only you can be the judge of what you believe is right.

But irrespective of what your intentions are, the objective of feedback remains the same.

A competent critic helps to increase your story’s appeal.

Your story’s statement can only have maximum effect if the film appeals to the widest possible audience.

What about those movies that are trying to ‘make the audience think’? Here’s some news: you don’t turn a popcorn audience into a thinking audience. Most likely you’ll piss them off when they smell your patronising.

The result: only the already thinking audience will get to see your film – if you are lucky – and you’ll end up preaching to the converted.

So what was the point of investing millions in that exercise?

Whatever the story or statement of your film, feedback is only useful if it helps increasing the appeal of screenplay and film. This is why you have your script read and pay good money for professional input.

If the reader is really helping you, why the thin skin?

Perhaps you don’t trust the reader. Perhaps the feedback is not motivated. Or perhaps you secretly don’t want a large audience.

Maybe you are so afraid to fail that you don’t even want to try making a mainstream movie.

Before you know, you’re making movies for your peers. That other thin-skinned crowd…

And criticism never ends…

That’s right. When your movie hits the screens is when the feedback bubble really bursts. How do you deal with it at this point?

You listen. You learn.

Shut up. Move on.

Mapping out the Territory of the Dialogue Writer.

Most writing departments employ a larger number of dialogue writers on a part-time basis, leaving enough time for some consideration in the development of the meat of each episode.

A script that was written in a day or two will stand out like a sore thumb and rarely qualifies as anything more than a first draft.  Part-time writers will have other work commitments and schedule their time accordingly.

For the Dialogue Writer, there is a fine line between creating dramatic reality and tinkering with actual story content.

They will spend somewhere between 20 and 25 hours completing a script at 3rd draft level, leaving breaks in between sessions or days of writing to revisit the text with fresh eyes.

These writers are the lucky ones, as everyone else in the writing department, technically, only has one day to do what they need to on an episode.

For the Dialogue Writer, there is a fine line between creating dramatic reality and tinkering with actual story content. The job is to develop the ‘who says what/does what to whom prose’ from a breakdown into real interactions between characters with each a unique personality, voice and motivation.

It is the very potential for misunderstanding and miscommunication that keeps the audience unnerved, anxious to see how characters are interpreted by others.

It is not about changing content into something seemingly more credible or exciting.

For actual changes they’ll need clearance from ‘the top’ and other subsequent scripts – many already in the process of being written-  might need adjusting.

It sounds simple enough, but imagine how confusing it would get if ten writers all want to change content while simultaneously working on ten different episodes.

There is no list of golden rules to write by in this genre.  As in all endeavours, practice makes perfect.  Reading your scene drafts out loud to yourself or an objective ear often exposes glaring errors in rhythm or style.

TV dialogue is NOT natural.  It is quite far removed from real-world dialogue, stage dialogue and even film dialogue. There is less repetition, fewer ‘ehms’ and ‘ahs’, it is less disjointed and much more economical than everyday-speak.

The Television audience is impatient, mainly because they have the option to choose an alternative if they are not completely engrossed.  They see Television content as a right rather than a choice.  If you’ve made the effort to go to the Theatre, chances are you’ll sit through the uninspiring bits and wait for the captivating bits.

TV dialogue is NOT natural.  It is quite far removed from real-world dialogue, stage dialogue and even film dialogue.

At home, you’ll go and make coffee or flip to something else, even have a chat while the show is on if it doesn’t have you by the balls.

Therefore, in daily drama especially, the writer has to cater for a shorter, more predictable attention span.  Long speeches are a rarity; long scenes are a rarity; scene length is more consistent.

The genre is driven by dialogue. The demand for content combined with budgetary restraints inevitably leads to minimal variation in visual setting.

It is the characters and their verbal interaction that keeps the audience engaged over an extended period of viewing.

Creating dialogue that allows actors to inject more value into what’s NOT being said, the subtext, the ‘lines’ between the lines, is a skill that is equally necessary in all forms of screenwriting.

The genre is driven by dialogue. The demand for content combined with budgetary restraints inevitably leads to minimal variation in visual setting.

The breakdown will often point to what a character aims to get across.  The Dialogue Writer aims to use words that allude to that aim, with characters often not directly saying what they mean, even when being truthful.

It is the very potential for misunderstanding and miscommunication that keeps the audience unnerved, anxious to see how characters are interpreted by others.

There are many more areas in which writing for the daily genre will require a unique approach. This was a very wordy and drawn out debut-blog, more poop than pop, but I hope it stirs up some thought about the mechanics of the text-audience relationship in this deceptively challenging form of screenwriting.

Jan Ellis is a multi-media all-rounder with a glittering career in South African Film, Television and Theatre, who moved to Sydney in 2007 to train as a Video Editor and continues to write regular episodes for the popular South African daily drama, ‘Binnelanders’.

The writing/production environment

The practical implications of the production of daily drama seriously influence creativity in the process.  Firstly, consider the structure of a typical writing department and the process through which each script is produced and realised on screen.

It generally breaks down like this: Producers, Head Writer, Script Coordinator, Script Editor, Storyline Writers, Dialogue Writers and possibly Box Producer and Director/s meet anywhere between once and four times a year. During an intense brainstorming session they propose and deliberate characters, depending on actors’ contracts and availability.

Storylines are proposed for the long term (six months to a year), mid-term (three to six months) and short term (two weeks to a month) and the appropriate primary story arcs are developed.

Similarly, on any given day, people in various departments will be dealing with episodes’ scripts each at a completely different stage of their individual evolution:  one-line scene breakdowns; paragraph scene breakdowns, 3rd draft versions, edited versions, revised versions, approved versions, camera scripted versions.

A dialogue writer will be composing a draft for an episode that will be shot two months later and broadcast three months after that, while the script editor will be streamlining dialogue and checking continuity issues in an episode (with the preceding and following episodes very much in mind) that is six weeks from shoot.

On the same day a director will be planning camera shots and cutting points for an episode to be shot in three weeks or a month.  An editor will be finalising an episode that is due for broadcast in a couple of weeks.  And so it goes every day.

How many writers, did you say..?
The Head Writer – bless his/her soul – will deal with a number of episodes every single day,  churning out a daily instalment’s worth of new content for the Storyline Writers who convert it into scene summaries (breakdowns). Episodes coming in from the Script Editor will need to be read for approval,  then sending to the Producers for further approval.

The Head Writer also reads and approves previous breakdowns from Storyline Writers and deals with overall discrepancies in continuity, logic and character-consistency. Because of the domino-effect from already-written episodes, often solutions are needed to avoid collisions with others further down the production line, or in episodes yet to come.

The Dialogue Writer receives that blue print called the “breakdown” script.  Their aim is to flesh out the prose style skeleton into a scene with beats, rhythm, dialogue which is character specific and consistent, dramatic tension or comedy where appropriate and, most importantly, authenticity.

Breakdowns vary on different productions from fairly detailed summaries of the interaction in each scene to a mere few sentences describing the overall aim of the scene and what the characters motivations are.

In our case, each breakdown is about 4,500 words in length, representing a standard of 13 to 14 scenes per episode.  We have a team of about ten dialogue writers, each delivering an episode every two weeks on average.

The deadline for delivery is set five days after receipt of the breakdown.  While not writing, each writer reads all other breakdowns, as well as all final scripts as they are approved to ensure they are up to date across all levels of content.

The Script-Coordinator – usually a mere shell of a human being due to exhaustion and stress – manages the scheduling, filing and archiving protocols of this web of rotating script-versions and keeps everyone in the Department (as well as Production and Art Dept.) informed of every single detail that may be changed, cut, replaced, reworked, etc.

Suffice it to say, for every pair of eyes and ears that are needed to make sure that screen content flows well in any other genre, daily drama needs five pairs… and still errors inevitably slip through the net.

Jan Ellis is a multimedia all-rounder with a glittering career in South African film, television and theatre, who moved to Sydney in 2007 to train as a video-editor and who continues to write regular episodes for the popular South African daily drama, “Binnelanders”.

Simply put, it’s about Action and Re-action. In the context of story however, this will make no sense whatsoever without establishing Point of View first. In other words: WHO witnesses the events and/or performs the actions?

If an action is ‘a meaningful activity performed by a character’, let’s look how we can define EVENTS in this context.

It can be:

- an incident or occurence; something that happens to the hero: e.g. The hero’s car runs out of fuel.
- an action by an other character that has an impact on the hero: e.g. The hero’s neighbour calls for help.
- dialogue by an other character directed to or heard by the hero: e.g.  “You’re fired”.
- a (sudden) memory, realisation or revelation, expressed by the hero: e.g. “Dag! He’s the same guy who conned me!”

Summarising, we can say:

“An EVENT is a meaningful occurrence that is witnessed by or revealed to the hero.”

To make the distinction between EVENTS and ACTIONS, it is essential to first establish the POV. Mostly this will (should) be the POV of the hero.

In a story that works, the number of Events and Actions will be roughly in balance. If your screenplay has an abundance of one and a lack of the other, it will suffer from:

1. an unmotivated hero (too many actions, not enough related events); or
2. a passive hero (too many events, not enough related actions)

A step outline can help you in diagnosing your story with either condition.

Psychology, timeframe, teamwork…

Jan Ellis reflects on some of the aspects of daily drama writing that set it apart from other screenwriting genres.

Differences of space/time
The second aspect of daily drama writing that sets it apart from other screenwriting genres is the configuration of space and time. Weekly drama often transcends the boundaries of real time.  An hour-long episode can represent a series of events that play out over weeks, even months or years and skip forward or backward in time with great effect.

Although flashbacks are used to an extent in daily drama, flashing forward is rare (unless the characters themselves have some clairvoyant skills).  So is leaving out substantial periods of time, except when weekends are deliberately used to suggest breaks in continuity from a Friday episode to a Monday episode.

Daily drama scripts are largely bound by a day-by-episode format in order to parallel the viewer’s calendar.  One of the consequences is that issues are often dwelled on much longer in terms of screen time.

Whereas a conflict and resolution (that say, plays out over a week) between two characters can quite easily be represented in a few key scenes in a single episode of a weekly drama, writers of daily drama are forced to use more scenes (meaning more interaction and more dialogue) to tell the same story, as they cannot afford to put too much distance between characters in space and time.  If a certain issue is at hand between two or more characters, it needs daily attention in the show, whether those characters interact daily or not.

Because of the sheer volume of screen time that needs to be filled by daily drama and the limited time available to fill it, here are a few general time-space issues that probably create greater challenges to the writers of this genre than others:

1. A => B => A
Unlike most American dailies, those from Australia, the UK and South Africa avoid the classic ‘Cut from scene A to scene B and cut back to Scene A’ structure. By this I mean: cutting  from Ridge and Eric arguing to Brook and Stephanie reconciling and then back to Ridge and Eric still arguing, a la The Bold and the Beautiful. New scenes generally mean new interactions, rather than continuing where the characters left off in previous scenes.

The challenge is to overcome the obvious choice of starting scenes with one or more characters present in a setting, and another character arriving to prompt interaction.  The aim is to start scenes mid-interaction, presupposing dialogue that the audience is not privy to.

2. Left to ponder.

Another pitfall is to continuously end scenes with a character leaving another behind to ponder whatever they discussed.  It can be used to great effect, but should be done sparingly.  The idea is to get in after the start and get out before the end of an interaction (again implying off-screen dialogue), which keeps scenes less bookended and ensures better narrative flow.

A tactic to keep things dynamic is for a character to exit from a situation as another enters either to interact with the character left behind or approaching another character that happens to be in the same communal space as the first.  The two-hander is the most frequently used character combination used in daily drama scenes.  Under time constraints, it speeds up the writing process and often provides a more classic bipolar interaction for the viewer to absorb.

3. The never-ending story.

Daily drama is, by definition, perpetual, resembling a stream of consciousness with highs, lows and temporary resolutions.  The aim is to keep going, not for a season, not for a year, not for a few, but for a lifetime.

In most weekly genres, a particular issue or event is dealt with in each episode.  In CSI, this week’s murderer is caught (or gets away with it, rarely) and next week, a new case arrives.

Daily drama, on the other hand, consistently juggles three main storylines at various stages of their individual arcs at any given point in time, with cliffhangers being required every 24 hours.  A story will almost never begin and end in the same episode.  One storyline (which could play out in a month) might be in the infancy of its cycle, another (which has developed over three months) may be reaching a crisis point, whereas a much longer story-arc might be in that phase of the cycle where its effect on current events is marginal.

A healthy mix of two- and multi-character scenes (with more complex interactions), added to the odd scene where all or most of the characters in the story are present, e.g. the Christmas Party or Dance Competition, brings balance in terms of the audience’s view on the individuals and the communal world which they all inhabit.

Jan Ellis is a multi-media all-rounder with a glittering career in South African Film, Television and Theatre, who moved to Sydney in 2007 to train as a Video Editor and continues to write regular episodes for the popular South African daily drama, ‘Binnelanders’.

Psychology, timeframe, teamwork…

Jan Ellis, writer for South-African daily television drama, “Binnelanders”, reflects on the aspects of daily drama writing that set it apart from other screenwriting genres.

This is my first blog post.  Pop.

My briefing was to highlight some of the unique methods in writing text for daily drama as opposed to other genres of screenwriting.  The differences between daily drama writing and film writing are more obvious, purely because films are mostly discreet units of narrative with a set-up, conflict and resolution (open-ended or not).

When it comes to writing for daily drama as opposed to weekly drama, the differences are more subtle.  But they still have a profound effect on the way the respective scripts are conceived and produced.

1.The Role of Daily Television in our Psychology

In all genres of screenwriting, some basic methodology is valid across the board.   Certain aspects, however, become accentuated when dealing with daily drama texts and its strictly formulaic structure.

As a starting point, it’s probably a good idea to consider the unique psychological relationship a daily drama audience has with the story and the characters.

The very routine and timeslot of the daily 30 minute ‘fix’ of voyeurism conveniently fits into the Monday to Friday pattern of either a housewife/husband’s mid-morning coffee break or the supper hour in which the household temporarily settles down and ‘mingles’ with their on-screen ‘family’.

The relationship with on-screen characters seems immediate; the soap reflects the viewer’s own routine more closely than film; the characters become partners in the daily grind.

It is not surprising that many hardcore fans cannot seem to dissociate the characters from the actors portraying them.  When it comes to daily drama, viewers tend to refer to the character’s names without knowing the name of the actor playing the role — even after meeting the performer in person.

This is probably why producers of other screen genres are often reluctant to cast actors who have been playing a daily character for a substantial period of time.

For producers of daily drama in all departments – writers, directors, actors, editors and schedulers – the relentless pressure of delivering 22-24 minutes worth of dramatic content every day is an immense challenge – one very easily underestimated by those who produce drama formats regarded as ‘superior’.

In some ways, yes, the daily audience might be more forgiving when storylines or characters lack drastic development or change, as this often more accurately coincides with the seeming consistency of their own routines.

On the other hand, they may be even harder to please as they simultaneously demand to experience a world that superficially reflects their own, but which is infused with extraordinary events, scandal, high tension and extreme emotions.

After all, if a character has not been seriously ill, kidnapped, threatened at gun point or been shot, stabbed, been cheated on or cheated on someone, been on the precipice of financial disaster, nearly killed in a car accident or injured in some other way, been robbed, betrayed, psychologically scarred or brainwashed by a religious cult in the last six months, what are they doing on your TV screen?

-Jan Ellis

Jan Ellis is a multi-media all-rounder with a glittering career in South African Film, Television and Theatre, who moved to Sydney in 2007 to train as a Video Editor and continues to write regular episodes for the popular South African daily drama, ‘Binnelanders’.

When writing a second-draft screenplay it‘s simultaneously terrifying and comforting to remember that there’s always a better idea. The things you came-up with in your first draft may make you want to piss yourself with pride, but in most cases better ideas lie in waiting – finding them is the hard part, and it’s what makes writing the second draft often feel like you’re stuck in a dark sauna thick with the steamy breath of a thousand doubters.

But don’t throw-in the soggy towel just yet. To help you move forward in your writing and avoid the temptation of dragging your first draft into your second, I’ve devised a contraption to alert you each time you drop into the second draft cruise.

You’ll need some electrical wire; two small alligator clips; a 12 volt battery; and access your computer keyboard. Actually, instead of me writing instructions, how about you just rig-up a system based on the image below.

You’re done? Cool. Now each time you touch the shortcut for “copy” or “paste” you’ll complete an electrical circuit that will cause extreme pain in your nipples.

This electrical agony is designed to gently remind you to not rest on your first draft ideas. Cutting and pasting great chunks of your first draft into a new document is NOT re-writing. It’s laziness.

Guillermo Arriaga, the innovative Mexican writer of such films as Amores Perros, 21 Grams and Babel starts each new draft with a blank screen, re-writing his story from scratch, deploying different language to refine his writing to its essence. Now that’s pretty extreme (I believe he uses a 240 volt anti-copy/paste system), but based on his whippet-lean scripts it’s an approach that seems to work.

Sure, Arriaga’s technique makes things difficult, but difficulty is to be embraced in the pursuit of better ideas. It’s our responsibility as writers to mercilessly seek the best ideas we can, regardless of how much it hurts in the brain-thing. In that pursuit we need to muster the courage to kill our babies, not copy and paste them into another family.

I suspect lots of the fear about killing ideas has to do with some stupid notion of creativity being finite. What crap. If you’ve had one good idea then you’ll have another. As long as you believe that then you’ll always feel safe in taking your new drafts in a direction that means you’ll have to jettison an idea or ten that you love. So relax into the fact that there’ll be other ideas, and they’ll be better.

Of course, this approach applies to just about any creative endeavour. A photographer friend once told me the secret to his outstanding documentary photos was simply taking a buttload of shots and then choosing the best. A copywriter friend said that what he likes about the advertising industry versus the film industry is that it’s infused with an attitude that there’s always a better idea, while his friends in the film industry tend to get so hung-up on their big idea that they can’t see past it.

Even tinned food companies do it. You know… it’s the fish that John West rejects that makes them the best. When re-drafting, it’s the ideas you reject that make you the best. But that’s not to say that your other ideas are guano. They’re vital, in fact, to your ability to see better ideas. You need to stand on their shoulders to get a good look at the geography of your story. So see your first draft as a foothold rather than something to shoehorn into a story that has evolved beyond it.

I say all this so aggressively because I’m currently deep into a second draft and so perhaps I’m writing this to myself. It’s winter and the electrical wires are cold on my goose-pimpled areolas. I’ve been electrocuted several times. But with the help of my motivational torture device, I’m confident that I’m well on the way to a superior draft.    

If you’re not the handy type or you can’t concentrate with clamps on your tits, then you can forget about the anti cut/paste device. But, as you wade through the miasma of your second draft and find yourself tempted to dump forty first-draft pages into your script so you can feel good about your second draft progress, I implore you to remember that “Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V” is called a “shortcut” for a reason.

- John Pace

John Pace is me. I’m a screenwriter. You can follow my blatant self-promotion and ill-conceived ramblings on screenwriting at: http://www.howlingpictures.com/blog/ 

As much as I loved it for its characters and situations, my first screenplay turned out to be 132 pages long, twelve pages over the 120 page limit for screenplays.  I knew that I had to cut it down to size and began the editing process.  I came to the conclusion that I was trying to throw too much into one screenplay.  As an excited amateur, I tried to stuff all these ideas I had into 120 pages, and it wasn’t going to work. I also found that many elements of the story weren’t working together.  I was trying to force a lot of situations that just didn’t seem all that natural.

DO I NEED FRANK?

One thing I noticed in particular was my struggle to close a character’s storyline.  His name was Frank, and he was supposed to be ultimately revealed as a figment of the protagonist’s imagination, a fractured creation of his mind due to the trauma of the experiences we see him go through.
I found it wiser to question whether or not I needed Frank. He was something that I fumbled with, something that just would not fit.  It was in my issues with Frank that I realized something important.  Frank may have been memorable, but he was extraneous to the overall plot.  He was a shortcut to explain certain things about the protagonist.  I had taken the cheap way out.  And because of that, ultimately Frank was cut out of the screenplay, and the story reworked.  The lesson that I learned here: All characters must exist for a reason, and a good one.

So, to elaborate on the topic of those who inhabit the world you are creating for an audience: my expertise is in the creation of unique and interesting characters.  These characters are fueled by my real life observations of all the people around me.  By simply opening up my eyes and ears, I overhear little tidbits of conversations of real people who are leading real lives, all with very authentic and genuine emotions.  I like to think that each individual is just that: an individual.  I find out what makes them unique, what drives them to do the things that they do.
In learning these things about a person, you can create a character in the same way.  Use your imagination.  Why does your protagonist do the things he does, why are those emotions in his heart?  Keep asking yourself why.  In the same way that you get to know a person, become very intimate with your character.

THE ROUNDABOUT WAY

Great characters are not all a good screenplay needs.  As great as I was at introducing quirks and writing a unique voice for each of my characters, my screenplays often lacked a strong structure.

I’m a very verbose and structureless person.  And it’s reflected in my writing and my screenplays.  Considering that it’s in my nature to tell stories in a way that are rather indirect and in a roundabout way, changing my writing style was one of my greatest challenges.  If you asked me how to get to the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan, I’d probably tell you that you could go take the D train to 59th St-Columbus Circle stop.  I know this because I used to work the area as an outside salesman.  You get up from the station, and look north.  Across the street and down a block is a store that I made my first sale for that company.  And boy, let me tell you, it was quite a thrill.  From that day on, I decided that I would become the best salesman ever and learn to close 90% of the time.  That’s how I ended up coming across this book entitled Influence, which I bought on Amazon.  Did you know that Amazon has some of the best prices?  You can even get free shipping and…..

And somewhere along the way, I’d forget to tell you precisely how to get there.  Though you’d end up with a great story about my experience as a salesman, you’d also probably be thinking, “Okay…well, that’s great, but how do I get to the hotel?”

The same goes for your screenplay: each moment in your screenplay must be moving towards something.  Your screenplay may have great character depth, but if those characters have no clear direction, your audience will become uninterested and bored as they watch you wander around with the hero in a disjointed fashion.  As such, you have to create a compelling and dramatic story.  Remember to ask yourself, where am I going with this scene?  Does it enhance the drama?  What does it show the audience?

A screenplay is not just pages and pages of dialogue taking place in various locations.  Nor is it simply a pair of talking heads.  It is the blueprint for a film, the culmination of dramatic story telling and compelling characters.  It is an emotional experience.  It is cinema.

INT. LUANNE’S APARTMENT – DAY

Later that day I meet up with Luanne and tell her about my dream.  I am a little hesitant to tell her about the extended hug.  But I tell her everything and lay it out for her, shot by shot.  As I finish recounting my dream to her, she replies with a sophomoric, “Ewww…”  I was right: she’s not very sensitive.  I make a mental note: if I ever need an insensitive and unfeminine figure in my screenplay, I’ll look to Luanne.

-Terry Ip
Self-styled perennial student of film working towards a career with a pension.

Aspiring screenwriter Terrence ponders over a question that has bugged all of us at some point: ”Is screenwriting for me?”

Post: Terrence
Editor: Cleo Mees

The bustling streets of lower Manhattan. Ubiquitous blue planks of wood, held up by rusty bars of steel. A pedestrian crowd waves in and out of the shade falling from the skyscrapers.

CU of LUANNE, emerging from the crowd.

PULL BACK to reveal her blue sunflower-print dress. With a big smile, she waves from across the street.

Luanne walks against the crowd and crosses the street to meet ME. We hug for a long time. She gives me a warm grab of the arms. I relax into her and hold on tight. But she breaks off contact and I slouch, rejected.

She walks off and disappears back into the crowd.

LONG SHOT of me, standing still as the crowd floods around me. I become indiscernible. CUT TO BLACK.

Fade in.

This is me waking up from a dream. For the longest time, I have dreamed in a cinematic format. From framing to camera angles to cuts and fades, even sound mixing, my dreams were the stuff of film.

I only started becoming cognizant of these little quirks when I stumbled across the special features on some DVD that I can no longer recall.  It talked about framing shots, creating movement, and a lot more.  I had no idea what a lot of these cinematic principals were at the time, but it certainly opened up my eyes to the true art of motion picture.  After watching those special features I understood that every frame of that movie was by design.  Every shot, every cut, every dolly in and every close up, they were put there for a reason.

When Netflix blessed me with a service center that was not 5 miles away from me, I became obsessed with movies.  I loved rating the movies that I watched.  After all, Netflix did provide viewing suggestions based on your ratings.  By the end of a couple of months, I had rated over 800 movies, and within a year I had watched and rated more than a thousand movies.  At first, they merely served as entertainment, sometimes a distraction from the hustle and bustle and pain of daily life.  But then I started to become more of a discerning consumer.  I started to take an active interest in films.  I started noticing how there would often be shots of actors only from the chest up.  Sometimes one actor’s face would fill nearly the entire frame.  And then sometimes their presence on the screen was a small one, a small dot in the center of an aerial shot.

IS SCREENWRITING FOR ME?

Not having a formal education in film as an art form, I was a self-proclaimed student of film by way of self-study.  My education consisted of my own observations and notes about the hundreds of movies I had watched…Until the day came when I had to register for classes at my college.  It wasn’t a liberal arts college, so I was rather excited to see that there was a new class being offered.  It was Drama 106: Introduction to Film Appreciation.  Boy was I ecstatic!

Throughout the semester, we watched and studied films like The Cabinet of Dr. Galligari, Citizen Kane, Nosferatu, and surprisingly even The Graduate.  As we progressed through the syllabus, I gained a new appreciation for film.  I came to learn the lingo used in film and why we see two-shots, close-ups, how high angles and low angles are used.  I learned about mise en scene, lighting, the use of sound.  I absorbed all of this new knowledge with a great enthusiasm and appreciation.

Shortly after the semester’s end, I began penning a screenplay.  I noticed that the format felt incredibly natural to me.  Scenes started with a time and a place, new characters were introduced, dialogue was written.  The flow of it came easily – everything just seemed to make sense in a movie.  In fact, I saw my life as fitting into little scenes.  Before entering a classroom, I thought to myself, INT. CLASSROOM – DAY.  People became characters to me, and I studied them as such. I remembered bits and pieces of people I saw, be they bums on the street corner or a pretty lady in the New York City subway.

The question this leads us to is, how do you know if screenwriting is for you?  It may not come as naturally to you as it did for me.  I feel that the only way to see if the format is a good fit for you is to go and try to write one.  Just write out a story that you’d like to tell and put it into a screenplay format.  Also, find something that interests you, something that you’re passionate about.  Authenticity comes from real experience and expertise.

-Terry Ip
Self-styled perennial student of film working towards a career with a pension.