Tag Archives: screenwriting

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

Scene Rewrite Case Study: There’s Hope Under the Surface!

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Have you written a scene that’s bogging your script down, moving it nowhere, maybe even in the wrong direction?

What do a lot of the gurus advise in this situation? Seemingly, their favorite advice in every situation: CUT IT! Lose the scene, lose the related characters, and drop the subplot intertwined with it. Take out everything you possibly can until it’s such a hollowed-out husk of your original vision that you don’t even remember why you wanted to write it in the first place!

But maybe you don’t see how your plot works without it, so you want to try keeping it around and troubleshooting to see if you can whip it into shape. How can you do that?

It’s always easier to be a nitpicking spectator than the gladiator in the arena, so a cursory read-through with your critic cap on can get you as far as spotting some common surface-level flaws, such as;

  • Little or no meaningful conflict
  • Insufficient stakes
  • Overloaded with expository dialog
  • No significant changes in characters or the situation
  • Etc.

If you have some of this going on (or not going on), there’s a good chance that the scene is there to support flailing plot logic. A necessary stepping stone to get us from the previous scene to the next, currently only serving to let the audience know where we are and how we can move forward.

This may vaguely point to what’s wrong, but what do you DO with it? I don’t suggest leaping to one of these all-too-common “solutions”:

  • Cut it immediately
  • Start making little line and description edits, thinking you’re fixing the problem
  • Pay hundreds of dollars for professional feedback to fix the problem for you, which may not even happen
  • Give up on writing and learn to code

Try this instead…

Digging into the layers of the scene’s role and objective may just root out the answers you’re looking for.

Here’s a scene rewrite layer scheme I came up with and have found extremely useful, in reverse order of importance. Plunging deeper gets you closer to the root of the scene’s role.

(It’s not intended as the end-all, be-all, and feel free to add/subtract/ rearrange these and deposit your upgraded model in the comments):

  • Layer 1 – Words and Actions: What cool dialog and slick unique unexpected actions are making this an interesting scene to read/ watch?
    • NOTE: This is the level at which many novice writers’ analysis stops. Maybe if they’re lucky, they make it to the next one or two…
  • Layer 2 – Story: How does it convey the character dynamics/ rules/ mechanics/ historical origins/ nature of the world and mythology I’m creating?
  • Layer 3- Plot: Where/ how does this fit into my chosen plot structure model? Is it the inciting incident that’s toppling the main character’s normal world? Is someone getting what they want but paying a heavy price for it? Is it the “all is lost” moment? Is it the Act II pinch point? Is it at least leading to one of these waypoints?
  • Layer 4 – Emotional Impact: How do I feel about what’s happening here and/ or what emotional response do I hope/ expect to stir up in the reader/ audience? This is where you discover what the stakes are.
  • Layer 5 – Theme: Are the events of this scene pulling the protagonist toward or away from my thematic message? This tells you where you are along the character arc.

And here’s the miracle that tends to happen at this point. Chances are you’ll find that your instincts were right about the need for this scene to be there. Its purpose, function, and potential to enrich your story were just hiding under the surface, perhaps quite deep.

It’s the iceberg principle; the scene’s foundational substance was under the waterline while you were perhaps too fixated on the visible tip jutting out above it.

In case this all sounds like abstract fluff, here’s an example from my own writing experience:

In the feature script I’m currently rewriting, a scene was falling flat…

My protagonist, a mafia enforcer who’s hijacked a bar for the night to shake down the owner and other characters for vital information, is questioning a corrupt  FBI agent.

This scene was a narrative black hole. Its only purpose was the divulgence of said information to move things along, which, as discussed, is the kiss of death. So I plunged the depths to see if it could be salvaged:

  • Words and Actions: The protagonist is using the FBI agent’s drug addiction against him by withholding his fix rather than employing naked force. That, plus some (maybe) clever dialog, and let’s say it passes at this level.
  • Story: It shows that this world is populated by seedy criminal types where a Fed’s vices and nature, and a precarious situation, can put him at the mercy of a criminal. It seems to pass this one too, so there doesn’t appear to be a problem. See what a danger it is to stop at these upper levels?
  • Plot Structure: This is the first significant occurrence of Act II (the threshold was when he took over the bar), and you could call it part of Blake Snyder‘s (Save the Cat) “fun and games” acting out a display of the movie’s premise, but it had no momentum toward a meaningful midpoint of false defeat/ victory, raised sakes, major reversal, glimpse at the final resolution, protagonist facing his major flaw, or any of that. So here we have the first signs of trouble. This showed that I hadn’t included any setups, hooks, or telegraphs to seed what would come up in later, more significant plot points. Altering and adding a few beats with the upcoming midpoint reversal in mind improved it immediately.
  • Emotional Impact: Who cares about a dirty junkie Fed getting shaken down for information that we know nothing about? Aha! This pointed to the fact that I hadn’t properly set up the stakes of the scene by hinting about the content of this intel, and that not getting it could bring about dire consequences for the protagonist and some of his allies. So I was able to go back and add some simple elements to establish higher stakes here. As a bonus, I also telegraphed the possible consequences for the Fed if his people found out about this interaction.
  • Theme: The theme is that living your life under someone else’s thumb leads to existential ruin, and here I realized that I had stupidly neglected to infuse the implications of these two men’s positions, one following the orders of a domineering mafia chieftain and the other operating at the behest of government bureaucrats, and how they could best interact to express this theme. So, I textured the dialog with much more text and subtext, pointing to how their power dynamics with their superiors and each other affected their words and actions.

And there you have it. Processing the scene through these layers was a huge help in pointing specifically to what wasn’t working, giving me a clear plan of action in the rewrite, rather than leaving me poring over it time and again, pulling my hair out, clutching for how to course-correct.

Maybe it can give you some direction in your rewrite as well. Let me know!

Movie Reviews

How ‘A Christmas Story’ Tricked Us Into Loving It

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Let’s get this out of the way up front; I love this movie and am here to sing its praises. If you love it as much as I do, this next bit may sting a little.

A Christmas Story is a facade of a narrative. It makes a mockery of several cardinal rules of screenwriting, leaving it no right to be as good as it turns out being.

Let the nitpicking begin…

There’s no overarching story goal. “Nonsense,” you may say. “Protagonist Ralphie wants to get an official Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time! If that’s not a story goal, I don’t know what is!” And here we arrive at the first big trick. As far as plot structure goes, this goal is a decoy.

The BB gun pursuit adeptly disguises itself well as a legitimate story goal. It’s established in the opening scene, and Ralphie takes several overt actions toward it; placing the ad in his mom’s issue of Look magazine, crafting his theme assignment at school to make a case for the blue steel beauty’s superiority to a football, bringing up the grizzly bears spotted in town (disclaimer: nothing in this blog post should be interpreted as hunting advice, and we would never recommend going after grizzly bears with a BB gun). These attempts are all swatted down like flies and Ralphie’s mission feels more and more hopeless, yet another way it appears to follow a proper plot trajectory. BUT… these setbacks don’t result in Ralphie learning anything, acquiring new skills or insights, or toughening him up to rise to the achievement of the goal.

This brings us to another issue; Ralphie doesn’t really develop as a character and has no arc.  He doesn’t even overcome the antagonistic mantra “you’ll shoot your eye out,” as he very nearly does. (For the record, I’m so glad this incident didn’t dissuade him from wanting the BB gun even a little. That would’ve ruined it for me.) I’ll discuss this more below, and address the counterarguments you’re muttering right now.

The resolution comes from the one adult in Ralph’s life whom he didn’t appeal to on his journey; the Old Man. The prize is there on Christmas morning, not as a result of any of Ralphie’s efforts, but because his dad wanted to surprise him with it. Sure, it’s possible that Mom passed along Ralpie’s Christmas wish after he let it slip in the kitchen, but going by the Old Man’s child-like giddiness (as only the great Darren McGavin could pull off) while Ralphie was opening it, it looks to be something he’d planned all along, regardless of his son’s coaxing.

So, he wanted the BB gun, some things happened, and then he got it. Hardly a killer logline. How does a story get arranged in such a way?

A Christmas Story is based on a book of several fun short stories by the great Jean Shepherd, but high-quality source material does not a great movie make. If you don’t believe me, just search something like “great books adapted into terrible movies” on YouTube, and I’ll see you in a few hours.

Combining multiple short stories into one film (that’s not an anthology) brings about numerous hazards, namely that it’ll come out like a disjointed episodic series of stuff that happens, not a cohesive story.  And indeed, even if you haven’t read the book (as I haven’t), you can see the separate story threads in there. Several of them don’t focus on our protagonist Ralphie, or even really involve him. Sure, some of them are bona fide subplots, like the Scut Farkus affair and the Major Award impasse, but others don’t qualify (the tongue freezing to the lamppost, The secret message from Little Orphan Annie, the mouth washing for saying the f— word, etc.), as they largely come up and get resolved in one scene. Plus nearly ALL of these break a sacred rule of subplots and asides; they don’t serve the main plot in any way. They don’t cross paths with Ralphie’s quest for Old Blue, they don’t move the story forward by changing the status of the story world, they’re just there… for fun (a factor we’ll come back to).

With all this going against it, how did it turn out so good?

Brilliant story construction. 

The filmmakers knew this script’s inherent flaws and challenges, leaned into them, and produced something not only passable but truly special. By harnessing the universal themes around being a kid at Christmastime, A Christmas Story does plotting all wrong while appearing to do it all right, that appearance becomes our reality and shapes the viewing experience, so the flaws cease to matter in the least.

While there’s no throughline of Ralphie achieving his goal, there is a clear ticking clock established immediately, leading us up to Christmas, that creates a timeline and framework upon which the Parker family and friends’ disparate episodes are woven so seamlessly that we don’t question them for a second. It’s the winter Christmas season, so kids dare each other to stick their tongues to metal objects, companies run aggressive ad campaigns for sponsors like Ovaltine and scammy sweepstakes for gaudy prizes like leg lamps, furnaces are working overtime and may need to be battled, and tire blowouts are more common. They sprout up as naturally as the grass.

Back to Ralphie’s character development, or lack thereof, he does have a few mini-arcs in some of the sequences. The most prominent is that he learns to stand up for himself when he wades into Scut Farkus and beats him to a pulp, completing a solid subplot. He also learns something about the dark side of mass media advertising when Little Orphan Annie’s secret message is an Ovaltine ad.

While none of these serve the main conflict, they do inspire empathy and relatability like few other pieces ever have, which goes a long way in explaining why this film is played for 24 hours straight every Christmas Day on at least one network.

Your humble blogger naturally exaggerated the point of “does plotting all wrong” earlier. The employment of setup and payoff is executed to perfection here.  Take the Bumpus’s Hounds thread, for example. They show up a few times as extras for what seems like comedic garnish, becoming an organic part of the movie’s landscape, only to emerge as a major plot influence when they infiltrate the Parker house, eat the Christmas turkey, and displace the family from their home so they can be introduced to Chinese Turkey. And that’s only one example of how adeptly story elements are introduced and played out across multiple episodes.

One last factor that can’t be overlooked or overstated in a piece like this is the charm, style, and just plain fun of the direction and wordsmithing. It reminds me of a quote I heard from Karl Iglesias, author of Writing for Emotional Impact; “you can break every rule except one, be interesting”. The dialog, comedic timing, and creative craziness of the recurring calamities of this movie keep us so charmed in the moment, that there’s little concern for the big picture or how it all connects, and while we writers would like to always be firing on all cylinders, this is something we should all relish, as it’s rare to reach this high a level of captivation.

So, there you have it; a dissection of a beloved holiday classic that hopefully we can all learn from. Rules can be bent, broken, and mangled; and you can still come out with a timeless classic on your hands if you sprinkle in the right doses of the right storytelling magic.

 

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

Giving Feedback – Do Your Job!

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Once, several years ago, after I’d completed a first draft, I excitedly solicited a feedback exchange in a social media group I was a part of. A writer who’d purportedly written and sold a script of the same genre volunteered to read it, I sent it, and a few days later I got this back…

Read the first 10 pages – with all do respect – can’t go any further – boring and uninteresting writing – no depth or imagination to the characters – nothing pulls you into the story on page one or to page 10 – go over ur [course] notes to see where you went wrong or buy

Anatomy of A screenplay and put your script on the rack

I would have to write many pages of notes to get you in the game

Best

Pretty harsh, huh? My favorite part is “with all DO respect”. I guess if you’re gonna ‘do respect,’ do it write! Sure, it’s dismissive and snarky, there’s a lack of DO respect, and it’s a half-step above telling me to give up all hope; but do you see the real problem here? In the long run, what really bothered me was that, as a writer who’d agreed to give feedback, he didn’t honor his commitment.

When it comes to giving feedback, there’s loads of great advice out there about the mechanics of script dissection and evaluation, but what I’m really talking about here is mindset. When the writer enlists you for this crucial task, they’re trusting you to aid in translating their vision from the subjective creative echo chamber of their brain to the objective world at large, or, more frighteningly, the market. You have a job to do. What is that job? First, here’s what it’s not… 

  • Making it all about you – Showing off your own screenwriting prowess by picking out everything you would’ve done differently, and then sending the writer something that reads like a “top 100 list of the ways I’m better than you.”
  • Being an unconditional cheerleader – The other extreme. Usually, this happens when it’s a close friend’s work you’re reading, so you praise every single word, even the misspelled ones, calling them a creatively quirky stylistic choice, and tell the writer they’re an unadulterated genius with nothing to improve, regardless of the objective quality, clarity, and impact of the writing itself. This may sound unrealistic, but trust me. That nasty note above notwithstanding, I’ve exchanged feedback with some real sweethearts.
  • Treating it like an academic assignment – marching through it with your red pen and a mechanical “correct/ incorrect” mentality (“Oh, your description got inside the character’s head here, minus five points!”), rather than a storytelling/ marketability perspective, and handing them back something that’s more “graded” than assessed for its narrative effectiveness.
  • Copping out – Telling them that after the first few pages you already know it’s not good enough and giving no real guidance or tips to course-correct, except maybe vague book or course recommendations. SEE ABOVE (More on this momentarily).
  • Faking it – Instead of taking the time to read it, just picking out a few random scenes and making a few comments about them to give the illusion that you read it; and turning over a few disjointed unhelpful comments. 

All of these amount to misunderstanding the central tenets of the feedback-giving mission: 

It’s an employment/ business proposition: Even if the writer calls it “friendly feedback” or some other gentle euphemism, you should still think of it as business. This will put your ego in check. In a job interview, if the HR person asked about your interest in this company, would you think of that as a juicy opportunity for a power trip to pick apart and harp on every aspect of the business you think is “wrong”? If so, how do you like living in your parents’ basement? The dynamic here is that someone is employing you to enhance their enterprise, thus… 

Join the writer’s team. By agreeing to give feedback, you’ve taken on an interest, however small, in the direction this piece will go. You’re putting, at the very least,  your trustworthiness with this writer on the line, and purporting to put your best writing know-how into picking up this script, wherever it is now, and carrying it as close as possible to the end zone as defined by the writer. This is a task not to be taken lightly. BUT… You don’t want to cross the line and start offering notes like “I think it would be cooler if right here this character did x,” and “I would like it better if this scene ended this way.” You’re on their team, but not their new writing partner. this hasn’t become your script, which brings me to my next point.

You’re a hired gun. This should provide just about the right balance between detachment and commitment.In reverse order, the hired gun is committed enough that he’s made the client’s enemies his enemies, and will risk his own life to kill them. Luckily you’re not being asked to risk your life, kill anyone, or make any enemies (if you are, maybe pass on this one). But you should take on the writer’s desired outcome as your own; whether that’s to get the draft ready for a submission, iron out an Act 2 lag, flesh out one or more characters, whatever. But… the hired gun is also detached enough so that there’s no personal investment or emotional dissonance to get in the way of accomplishing the mission. So you should not get so emotionally involved in the writer’s script that you do things like forego your own work, relentlessly follow up on how your feedback was applied or not after the fact, or get involved in the writer’s decision about the next step. A hired gun doesn’t really care, as the job is just a job he took on under certain very strict terms. He’ll do his part and then move on with his life. If he’s not ready to do that, he’ll turn it down, as should you, so…

Get all the way in, or all the way out. If you’ve got too much on your plate already, you really don’t care for script-reading, or for some other reason you just have a distaste for the job from the outset, don’t take it on just to be nice! Politely declining to read and give notes is far preferable to giving half-baked, disinterested, or even fake feedback (see above) that can set the writer on the wrong track moving further away from their vision. If you’re not ready and willing to do the job right, don’t do it at all. 

So back to that love note I received,…

It’s fine to think my writing is crap. That’s just an honest assessment of the quality as he sees it. It’s fine to stop after ten pages. As mentioned, it wasn’t paid feedback, and ten pages is more than enough to get a feel for how the rest of the script will go. I dare say no script has ever been crap for ten pages and then morphed into greatness on page eleven (what a twist!). But what about that part where he said he’d “have to write many pages of notes to get me in the game?” Does he owe me that? Should he or any other generous offerer of feedback have to trudge through writing so bad that it’s hard to know what the intention was, and pen 120 pages of notes for a 90-pages script? Of course not. BUT… to read ten pages and then write a few sentences just saying it’s basically hopeless? Good thing this wasn’t paid feedback. What should he have done? 

Well, someone claiming to be on the level he did shouldn’t require this explanation, but here we go… He should’ve isolated one scene, or even one scene segment, that he felt was representative of a fundamental problem with the writing overall; missed opportunities for “depth or imagination,” description and details that were extraneous and don’t “pull you into the story,” whatever; and given me a few tips on what would be a better direction to take it. 

So, the lesson here is, in case it wasn’t clear or was too “boring and uninteresting” to follow (I’ve heard that my writing can be that way), NEVER give feedback like the note above. Actually, it’s too generous to call it feedback. He basically offered to give feedback and then withdrew his offer in a rather nasty, back-handed fashion. When a writer shows the respect and reverence to request your thoughts on their work, do your job!

Book Reviews

Review: Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science To Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel by Lisa Cron

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https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1607748894/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=screenwrit0eb-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1607748894&linkId=8f29743a2eb815e192dc14c572802f1b

One of the most anxiety-inducing elements in all of writing is “structure.” We all go on and on about its importance, the efficacy of its numerous paradigms, and its elusive overall nature. It’s perhaps the most controversial concept of the craft. Many consider it an absolutely crucial roadmap, necessary to carry them forward. Without the guideposts of the inciting incident on page 15, the Act Two turn on page 30, the “all is lost” moment on Page 85, etc. they would be totally lost. To others, this is all nothing but a stifling roadblock that only serves to hamstring their creativity and subvert their inspiration as it tries to cram their square ideas (in terms of shape for the sake of this metaphor, not in terms of hipness) into these round-shaped predetermined inflexible plot beats. Sometimes we get so frustrated with a story idea that we can’t make fit into this formulaic scaffolding that we just want to throw out the whole concept of structure and tell the story we want to tell. Well, what if there was a way you could, while still adhering to a natural storytelling scheme that would churn out an effective yarn? Let’s have a look at Story Genius: How to Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste Three Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere) by Lisa Cron.

Cron comes at this storytelling thing from a whole new angle. Rather than the external plot, of things just happening in the world of your book or script, her contention is that it all stems from the internal struggle of your main character, between an ingrained desire and a self-sabotaging misbelief. Cron labels this dynamic the “third rail” of the story, that activates it and gives it life, thus literally every other component of the narrative emanates from it. So all creative decisions are made from the inside out, based on the (very Aristotelian) idea of “what would my character do next, based on what is happening and, very importantly, what has happened to him/ her in the past to shape how the decision of where to go next will be made.” So, this represents a total departure from the story structure-dictated dilemmas such as “how do I make a death moment happen for her?” or “I need to change his goal at the midpoint, so what should the new one be?” This is story composition off the beaten path, and it can lead you to some intriguing places.

The layout of Cron‘s book is extremely user-friendly, as it’s not all abstract prescription about story design, but it actually details the development of a novel from the ground up; one that’s being written by Cron‘s friend, author Jennie Nash. So we get a real-time case study of the thought process at work; every step, and misstep. The whole thing starts with why you want to write this story in the first place, then goes on to who your main character is, how he/ she got this way, and therefore what lead up to the impossible situation that will be the main conflict of your story. It goes into how to build one minor conflict onto the next, and eventually to the ultimate culmination, how to handle secondary characters, etc.

Enjoy making scene cards to map out your story? No problem! Cron has a system for doing just that, with a card specifically compartmentalized into sections with certain prompts. The answers to these prompts get to the heart of your scenes and bring out their ultimate purpose and utility in the overall plot. This excises a lot of aimless guesswork (speaking from experience) from beating out your story, and there’s virtually no question about the order or usefulness of scenes to contend with. The cards are split into rows that detail what happens (the external) and why it happens, in terms of the protagonist’s primary inner struggle (the internal), so they blaze parallel trails between your hero’s inner and outer journeys, keeping you honest all along the way.

“That’s all good and well for a novel, that can be all about a character’s inner thoughts and psychological struggles, but I’m a screenwriter, working in a visual medium, so it’s all about the external actions.” Not so fast. The ultimate object of Cron‘s cultivation of the characters’ inner conflicts is precisely to dictate their outer behavior. Story Genius leads us to tangible actions while providing a metric to keep them consistently in character.

A few things to consider when taking on the Story Genius challenge: Cron‘s “my way or the highway” position is laid out in no uncertain terms, and she doesn’t pull punches in taking the entire paradigm of story structure, and every one of its incarnations, right to task and enjoining the reader/writer to toss it straight out the window, not to be pondered again. So giving Story genius a shot involves setting aside some principles that may have become quite precious to you on your journey. But hey, don’t all significant leaps forward start with an open-minded approach and a step outside your comfort zone?

The Story Genius approach has also been particularly useful for me in rewriting a completed script. It’s provided some solid criteria by which to judge each scene’s service to the overall piece, as well as its logical coherence, so that it may be modified, shifted, or axed. Cron‘s standards have also planted some big red flags in character choices and behaviors that were misaligned with their core inner conflicts. This method has really streamlined and clarified my vision on more than one project.

If, among your writing woes, you find yourself meandering through your plot, waffling and indecisive about where to take it, and beating your head against the wall to decode its structure (again, experience), then I can’t recommend Story Genius enough. It’s been a game-changer (a term I don’t use lightly, and usually not at all) for my writing and it may just be what you need to get unstuck on a current piece, get going on a story idea, or straighten out a completed work that just doesn’t quite feel right. In other words, if you’re a writer at all, looking for a clear narrative direction to go in and the conducive thought process to take you there, Story Genius by Lisa Cron is not to be missed!

Book Reviews

Review: Write Time: Guide to the Creative Process by Kenneth Atchity

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I’ve reviewed many books about the writing process, from the broad and overarching to the highly specialized, focused on a singular step of the journey. I’ve read the greats’ musings on everything from formulating the idea, to plotting it out, to emphasizing the emotional element, to remedies for writer’s block. Each is great in its own right, but what if I want a mentor to really make it personal, get in my head, delve into the intricacies of my own unique process, troubleshoot my pet neuroses that seem to chronically hold me back from reaching what I know to be my true potential, and clue me in on how to harness and optimize the writer’s most precious resource; time. Simple request, right? Simple for Kenneth Atchity, author of Write Time: Guide to the Creative Process, from Vision through Revision – and Beyond.

This book reads like a writer’s counseling session (the constructive kind), in every sense of that term; from cold hard business prudence strategies to processing deep-seated self-defeating thoughts. It grabs you from the Author’s Note which, as with any great forward or introduction, does more than just preview what’s to come. Dr. Atchity‘s credibility is firmly established here. He lets us know that 1) he feels our pain, and understands what we’re going through as creative souls who want to be professional artists, and 2) he’s been around the block enough times to know how to get us to where we want to be.

Once we get rolling, Atchity dispenses with the BS right out of the gate and lets us know that, while writing might be based on intuition and creative passions, it’s a craft and a discipline that must be honed through a rigorous and deliberate regimen. But here’s the good news – he’s going to take you by the hand and lead you through the process of establishing a productive and rewarding routine, and he’s going to leverage your own psychology to do it, turning your debilitating issues and hangups to your advantage. The book takes a deep dive into the human mind, points out how its natural workings must be considered, accommodated, and manipulated to develop habits and tricks to make your mental apparatus work for you instead of against you in achieving your creative goals, and some of his strategies will really surprise you!

Atchity provides an intriguing illustration of the interplay between parts of the brain that activates the motive power of creation. Just as conflict is the foundation of story, so it’s also the spark that sets your creative will into motion – this is the conflict between your rational faculties (which he nicknames the Continent of Reason) and your free-wheeling intuition (dubbed the Islands of Consciousness). The original quirky ideas of the islands are translated into the comprehensible and relatable language of the Continent through the intermediary function he calls the Managing Editor. Getting a grasp on these dynamics allows us to work toward striking a balance between “tricking” our brains into action and riding the wave of their natural functioning to channel our mental energy into our writing. Sound intriguing? That’s just the beginning!

As the title indicates, Write Time charts a detailed path to writing success, leaving no stone unturned, from initial dream all the way to polished product. It’s a comprehensive guide to the creative, technical, business, and personal aspects of the craft. Sound too rigid and formulaic for your taste? What if I told you it entails A LOT of variation at the numerous stages, and more than a few mandated vacations? The aim isn’t that you match a prescribed workflow to the letter. It’s to show you a proven real-world model and leave you to dovetail what’s useful with your own strengths, fill in any gaps in your process, make adjustments, and replace what’s not working for you. This section is all about establishing a writing agenda that your mind is geared to stick to and thrive on, and how to not become a statistic who perpetually and eternally has a “work in progress.”

Of course, one of the main threads of the book is the teaching of time management. It’ll show that you don’t really lack the time to achieve your writing goals. The time is there, you’re just not coordinating your cognitive resources in such a way to generate the necessary output within that time. Maintaining a reasonable perspective on the work/ time relationship is paramount. There are methods of mindset, planning, strategy, prioritizing, and step-by-step exercises to optimize your available chunks of time (even if you have to steal them). This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

From there the writing process begins, and we’re off to the races. Here’s what’s in store as you make your way through Write Time:

  • Approaching drafting and revision
  • Style – how it comes about, and its rightful place in the writer’s hierarchy of values (pretty low, but valuable)
  • A sample step by step process of creating a nonfiction book, explaining the reasons for the order, actions, and method at each waypoint; with an accompanying comparison to fiction writing
  • The most important elements of fiction, and how to pack your story with maximum drama by tapping into your intuition to find its natural shape and structure (which has nothing to do with chronology)
  • What your main priority should be to succeed in writing (Hint: It’s not using big words and feeling clever)
  • A lengthy chapter on getting your book published. Don’t make the mistake of dismissing and skipping this one as irrelevant to the plight of a screenwriter. There’s a wealth of information here about…
    • Dealing with gatekeepers with respect and professionalism (in person and through correspondence such as query letters and emails)
    • Legal forms and contracts for deal-making
    • Handling rejection, and the higher pressure situation of handling acceptance
    • Seeking representation, consulting attorneys
    • Customizing your workspace.
  • The importance of understanding mythology for shaping and clarifying your story, with a striking illustration of how a film can go astray due to the inconsistent retelling of a myth.
  • Methods and tricks for getting in touch with your subconscious through dreamwork and other avenues, along with some brilliant case studies of psychological techniques employed by writers having story problems, that’ll leave you inspired and cracking up.
  • Overcoming psychological traumas of the past by channeling them into our writing and bridging the gap between conscious and unconscious.
  • Some nice practical nitty-gritty stuff on screenwriting – character development, structure, twists, layers of effective storytelling; all through the prism of the key questions on the minds of the producers/ executives evaluating and vetting your work for production and/ or broadcast.
  • The card system revisited, with workflow tips distinguishing the processes of novels vs. screenplays.
  • Insights about revising (keep a particular eye out for the “conflict or cut” rule), and how many revisions are enough.
  • The crucial golden Hollywood skill of pitching and how it must not be overlooked in one’s pursuit of a screenwriting career, with a really fun illustration of the pitch-to-production process (it involves a relay race).
  • A baker’s dozen of straightforward rules for breaking into Hollywood; covering the personal, psychological, mindset, business, and more.
  • A critical therapeutic chapter on Recapturing Creativity – what to do when your motivation to create (inevitably) wanes. A veritable troubleshooting manual for the writer’s perspective. Something to be revisited any time you feel you’ve lost your way.
  • He closes with an amazing collection of his favorite quotes from great figures to leave the reader feeling inspired, encouraged, and motivated to carry on with the struggle.

Overall, Write Time amounts to a rather economical mentoring session with a writing sage who’s been there, done that, and wants us to get there too. It’s a premium blend of tough love, advice, encouragement, clarification, and delusion-busting. It approaches the needs of the writer from every angle and gives us what we’re yearning for, whatever that may be. For the writer at any stage of the game looking for guidance, this one is not to be missed.

Inspiration

Concept to Script in 48 Hours!

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When it comes to completing a draft, I’m a big believer that perfectionism is the enemy. As I’ve stated before, getting it on the page, to be shaped and honed in the rewrite will get you out of that rut of stewing over the optimum execution of the current scene, which can hang you up for weeks, or months, or longer.

Here’s a great breakdown of a super-compressed drafting process by Tyler Mowery. He deftly illustrates this point by starting from zero and getting a first draft knocked out in two days! Here is his detailed video chronicle – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Inspiration

A Deep dive Into RoboCop!

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This is a pretty interesting look into the story integrity of an unlikely Sci-Fi Action hit from the Golden Era of Action Movies! Check out this retrospective of RoboCop!

Screenwriting Issue of the Day

Derail Your Plot To Get It On Track!

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First, the bad news…

Recently, while trudging through a page-one rewrite (those are always a breeze), I found myself in a familiar (not to downplay its awfulness) predicament. In my steadfast resolve to knock out this draft from start to finish, I’d written myself into a corner, or several corners if the metaphor still holds ( I don’t think it does). It went like this – I had an idea of where I wanted my plot to go but didn’t see how the stuff I was currently writing could reasonably get there. I wouldn’t call my condition the dreaded b-word (you know the one), but I was definitely stuck. (No more parentheticals. I promise.)

This lead to me adding things, things, and more things. Entire expository scenes and new extraneous characters were popping up in my story to bridge logic gaps and steer the narrative in my intended “right direction.” The anatomy of my script became nightmarish. The core meaning of the story that had initially drawn me to this concept was getting buried under a muddled mass of fluff, to the point where it was becoming unrecognizable. The plot was wandering aimlessly. I was re-committing the same sins that had necessitated the page-one rewrite in the first place.

I took stock of what I was writing and I wasn’t sure whose material this was, but it wasn’t mine, and I wasn’t sure who was writing it, but it wasn’t me. There was a severe lack of “me” all the way around this thing. No, this was some other guy, who was writing a term paper of sorts, in strict chronology, with mandatory requirements imposed by… someone? And what was his tool of choice to fulfill those requirements? Plot contrivances employed to rationalize other plot contrivances! I got into such a tangle that I started asking those questions that can be lethal to a writer’s motivation: Is every word I write taking me further in the wrong direction? Do I need to go all the way back to the concept phase and rethink my whole idea? Should I maybe scrap this piece altogether and start that other one I’ve been pondering? Am I really cut out for this writing thing?

But it wasn’t time to hit self-destruct quite yet.

And now, the good news…

Having already wrestled with creative roadblocks in several forms, I’d found that taking a short break from the process to reboot my perspective was usually in order. So, while catching up on my consumption of Better Call Saul, cookie dough, and Bourbon; my decompressed mind conjured up a way out of this abysmal slump that might just help you too.

Interestingly, my instinct to go back to the source wasn’t actually wrong in principle, only in content. The solution simply involved asking BETTER QUESTIONS, the type that everyone should ask when they lose their way: Why am I doing this? Why do I want to tell this story at all? Why this one instead of another of those creative bugs infecting my brain? The answers were just as useful as they were reinvigorating. They got me unstuck and in a better flow than I had before all this happened, when I was writing insincere fodder with blissful ignorance.

Why am I doing this? This one’s easy. I’m doing this for the enjoyment of it, for the unparalleled excitement of having my creative impulses pour out through my fingers and take a form that some like-minded (and maybe even some differently-minded) readers can recognize and appreciate.

Why do I want to tell this story at all? This one isn’t so hard either. I wanted to tell this story because I have a perspective on life that’s uniquely mine, and by putting these characters that I have in mind in these situations that I’ve conceived of, I can try to express that perspective in a way that connects with people to make their experience of reading/ watching my work as satisfying as it was for me to create it.

At this point, I realized that scrapping the idea was no longer on the table, and the tougher question with the more actionable answers was to soon to follow…

Why this one instead of another of those inspiration bugs infecting my head? Because I was excited about this and that particular sequence; the moments that would be a true pleasure to write, where the characters were pushed to their limits and forced into the actions that would define them and make them memorable, the points where the audience and the characters thought things were going one way, and then they take a sudden turn, and the plot unfolds in a surprising and satisfying way to subtly convey my theme.

Once I realized all this but didn’t see it happening the way I wanted, I just snapped and said, “I’ll write that scene that really needs to be in there to keep me excited about this thing, and even if I jettison the whole thing, it’ll be fun to write that scene. And that’s what this is all about, right?” So I did exactly that, and, it came together nicely. But what about when that scene was written? Where to take it next? And what about this big timeline gap standing between where I’d gotten stuck, and this completed scene?

Rinse and repeat. I thought, what’s the next most important scene for me to include in this sequence, to make this a story I’d be interested in as a writer and as a reader? It was a scene that takes place a little down the road from the one I’d just written. That scene was also a blast to write, and some unexpected gems found their way in there to enrich it as I went. I did this again and again, without regard for what came next, only what came next in importance to me.

After a few more scenes were done, I’d worked my way down to one that actually occurs between where I initially got stuck and that first “priority scene.” So, instead of being lost near the start of the journey, not knowing how to get where I wanted to go, I now had a series of waypoints laid out in front of me, and I just had to figure out how to connect them. This took some adjustments and alterations, but that was part of the fun too! And in the course of this, I really got the feeling that I had overcome something.

Things continued to happen in the process that surprised me. The characters told me what should happen, and each sequence came out a little different than I’d planned it. Most importantly, this all rejuvenated my enthusiasm for what I’m doing.

But now let’s come back down to earth. This wasn’t a magic bullet that just launched me into the stratosphere. I’m not writing this post poolside at my new place in the Hollywood hills, where John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart once arm-wrestled to decide who would eat the last cigar butt. But it did generate a wealth of inertia that continues now and has me barreling through this draft with renewed confidence that I will complete it, my only limitations being time constraints and the fact that my typing skill falls somewhere between infant and nineteenth-century Santa Fe pack mule. If I hit another snag, I know that I’ll handle it, and it may very well involve another joyous discovery!

So… if you find yourself similarly confounded; take a step back, consider your grander purpose for all this, let go of any overly-rigid “plans” that might just be stifling your inspiration, and move forward according to your priorities. Let us know how it goes!

Inspiration

The Creative Process Behind Back to the Future!

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There’s a lot of good stuff here, including some specific plotting and structure techniques in how Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale constructed Back to the Future, one of the greatest feats of cinematic storytelling ever committed to celluloid! Enjoy!

Book Reviews

Review: Story Maps: TV Drama: The Structure of the One-Hour Television Pilot by Daniel Calvisi

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A well-written film these days is a beam of sunlight punching through a dark cloud of disappointing, unengaging fodder. There’s an abundance of CGI-laden spectacle, pretty digitally de-aged people in pretty computer-enhanced places doing fancy things (inspiring surprisingly little emotional response), but where have all the complex characters navigating twisted challenging plots in the tensest and most gut-wrenching situations imaginable gone? Well, they’ve gone to television. It’s no big revelation that TV is where visual storytelling is at its peak in recent years. It’s now become commonplace for the biggest Hollywood stars – actors, directors, and definitely writers – to suddenly turn up working on TV series. This move that was considered a step down in decades past is now looked at as an upgrade in many ways, certainly in terms of pure narrative quality. So, more and more of us are turning our sights from the big studio lots to the staff writing rooms and looking to break into television writing.

The good news is that in this “Second Golden Age of Television” overlapping with hyper-expanding technology broadening the possibilities for the viewing, broadcasting, and production of series content, the opportunities are numerous and growing for the aspiring TV writer. The bad news is that, after so many years of motion picture dominance, there’s a relative dearth of information out there about how to write for TV, particularly in terms of “beat sheets” and general structural guides. Everyone can name numerous essential classics detailing how to structure, plot, and characterize a feature screenplay. And while a lot can be found in that sphere that applies to all formats of storytelling, with TV you’re talking about an entirely distinct business model with very different goals and markers of success than movie writing. When I embarked on the daunting journey of writing my first television pilot (first episode of a series) a few years back I felt kinda lost as to how to go about structuring it. My saving grace was Story Maps: TV Drama: The Structure of the One-Hour Television Pilot by Daniel Calvisi.

Like the shows we want to create and write for, Story Maps: TV Drama is multilayered and multidimensional. On one hand, it’s a quick, economical, streamlined primer to get you up to speed and ready to churn out your original pilot in short order, yet at the same time it contains enough insightful material to allow for an extremely thorough and in-depth study of deeper nuanced narrative devices behind some of the greatest and most successful pilots in recent TV history.

The book is arranged deductively, general to specific, starting with an overview of the character and current state of the television industry; particularly the parameters, vernacular, and qualities that distinguish it from the movie business. Calvisi also offers some insights on TV’s fast-evolving and ever-flexible nature, elucidating the growing possibilities for new writers and the prudence of steering your career in that direction. Then we’re onto the mechanics of writing the pilot. This section begins by laying out and detailing the foundational components that seem essential to a strong pilot. Each one is brought into focus in terms of its uses and service to the overall episode, and grounded in accompanying references to what’s worked in a diverse hand-picked array of great series. These citations continue throughout, serving as fantastic guideposts illustrating the validity, varying techniques of implementation, and range of possibilities for each element covered.

From here it’s time to start mixing the ingredients into more and more detailed Story Maps, assembling the pilot’s skeleton and squaring away the technical issues of getting a teleplay written. As the steps get finer and more nuanced, it funnels down to the meat and potatoes of the book: the Beat Sheet.

Prior to discovering Story Maps, most everything I found online concerning a one-hour TV episode’s structure offered simply a traditional three-act feature film’s beat sheet, but diced into more acts to allow for commercial breaks, each concluding with an essential cliffhanger “act-out.” If I was lucky, they might also throw in a few pointers about the importance of elevating the subplots to “B” and “C” stories and suggestions for how to balance them. Gee, thanks a lot, guys. I guess you get what you pay for. Calvisi’s Pilot Beat Sheet delivers on the promise of its title. It’s a lucid, illuminating roadmap. It absolutely adheres to the “form, not formula” mantra, maintaining creative flexibility (more on this below) while showing the vital waypoints on the path.

Then nearly half the book is dedicated to one of those devices that we often wish for, but rarely get – a satisfying nexus between reading the script cold and having a conversation with an industry insider about it – there’s a detailed breakdown of each selected pilot teleplay by Calvisi showing his beat sheet in action. This is where the aforementioned flexibility is really highlighted. He elucidates all of the deviations, variations, resituating, rearranging, and occasional (well-reasoned) omissions of the beats, giving us a look at how the scripts differ from the final product, how different genres and moods call for different approaches, how artistic risks can pay off, etc. He does this for Scandal, Mr. Robot, True Detective, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and Mad Men. The experience of watching these pilots, with the script and Calvisi’s breakdowns handy, is about as close as most of us can get to sitting down with the writers and picking their brains.

The only caveat I would include with this one is that it does seem geared toward those of us with some prior knowledge of storytelling and screenwriting, particularly of features (for which there’s also a Story Maps installment), rather than for total newbies. But if you have some pages under your belt, and writing for TV is indeed in your sites (and if it’s not, think about it!), this one is indispensable. Check it out and let us know what you think!