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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

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!

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!

Book Reviews

Review: The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction by Erik Bork

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One of the most prevalent and vexing feedback notes we can get is “it’s just not working,” thus initiating the never-ending punishment and agony of “making it work” (more on punishment and agony later). But a real pro can always whip a story into shape, bringing whatever concept he’s confronted with, whether his own or inherited from another writer, to a working and engaging plot, right? Well, not so fast.

I’ve actually received the comment that I’d done a respectable job buttressing unworkable plot points with the circumstances and exposition that made them almost dovetail believably into the story. Of course, the troubling part about this was that we both knew it wasn’t a compliment. Applying a tourniquet doesn’t close the wound.

Maybe what separates the pros from the up-and-comers is their ability to discern a workable story idea from one that’s just plain deficient at its core, and, in its present form, can’t be made to work, no matter how many hours or how much grief the writer is willing to throw into trying. This is the skill that’s explored in The Idea: The Seven Elements of a Viable Story for Screen, Stage or Fiction by Erik Bork.

In his assent to screenwriting prominence, Erik Bork started as a dude from Ohio who made the big move to LA, wound up temping for 20th Century Fox, where he was assigned to assist some actor guy you may have heard of, named Tom Hanks. He was in on the development of From the Earth to the Moon and Band of Brothers, both of which he helped write and produce. On the latter, he worked with some producer guy you may have heard of, named Steven Spielberg. This experience sounds, on one hand, like a dream atmosphere in which to develop one’s career surrounded by first-rate mentors; and on the other, a brutal thrown-into-the-deep-end scenario. Either way, the author’s credibility doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Bork opens the book with an insightful briefing on the modern market. He professes that the more things have changed, with greater capabilities to create content on modest budgets and resources, the more they’ve stayed the same, with the continued need to get past the gatekeepers if you want to put your stuff in front of a sizable audience, thus turning it into a career. He then lays out a catchy blueprint on how this can be achieved through the proper vetting of your idea.

As we all know, at the heart of every story is a problem, so Bork has couched his quick and concise guide into an acronym that spells out the most crucial elements of a story concept in the following way…

  • P – Punishing to the protagonist from start to (almost) finish
  • R – Relatable characters and situations we can empathize with
  • O – Original: “give us the same but in a different, unique way”
  • B – Believable logic/ character actions, even in an unreal world
  • L – Life-altering stakes should be involved
  • E – Entertaining material that fulfills genre expectations
  • M – Meaningful enough to leave a lasting emotional impression

Don’t be turned off by the neatness of how these factors fit the acronym. Bork didn’t’ choose them lightly, and backs each one up with solid hard-won wisdom about its vitalness, how it operates alongside its counterparts, and its place in the hierarchy as far as how much wiggle room you have with it.

As you may have gleaned from my previous review, lately I’ve been delving into more specialized books that cover specific components of the script or steps of the process. If there’s an ideal go-to reference that you should crack first, it would be The Idea. Once you run your concept through Bork‘s gauntlet, and you’ve got all of the cylinders firing, then you can more confidently move forward to the mechanics of plotting, character development, twists and turns, etc. with far fewer headaches and self-loathing contemplation about whether you should just throw in the towel and sign up for an online typewriter maintenance course, or is that just me?

As mentioned, The Idea is a short read. However, despite being dense with useful content, it’s also an enjoyable journey through the PROBLEM elements. It’s laid out in a way that’s extremely accessible to writers at all levels, usually detailing the most common ways that new writers tend to fall short in each of the techniques, the mindset that led them astray, and how these can be remedied.

The story concept is where it all begins. If you want to create great fiction from the ground up, then giving this component its due attention and scrutiny may be the single most valuable habit you can add to your craft. Several of this book‘s insights were immediately actionable for me, and the impact it’s had on the quality and my experience of writing, is immeasurable. If you’re having trouble with your process that isn’t easily identified, chances are it can be traced back to the issues addressed in The Idea, but don’t just take my word for it. Pick it up and let me know!

Book Reviews

Review: The Plot Machine: Design Better Stories Faster by Dale Kutzera

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Stumbling blocks are inevitable in any form of writing. Fiction writing carries some special challenges, and one of the most vicious monkeys on the screenwriter’s back is the formulation of a logical, well-structured plot. Plotting complications might arise in the prewriting/ planning phase, in the midst of cranking out the pages, or, worst of all, when you’ve completed a draft and realize your story thread has serious issues and needs some damage control. It’s a scary feeling to write a slew of scenes that are working for you, only to zoom out and realize you’ve lost your way along the narrative through line. Even the coolest beats are pointless if they’re just dangling in the ether, or drifting by on a winding, dead-end street.

These hiccups can take a variety of forms, affecting (or infecting) your script in a number of ways, and looking to one of the classic, standard, comprehensive screenwriting bibles may not always be the most straightforward or efficient troubleshooting route to take. Sometimes what you need is a specialized tool geared directly at what’s ailing your story. The best such tool I’ve encountered in a long time is The Plot Machine: Design Better Stories Faster by Dale Kutzera.

Did you catch that word “design” in the title? Well, Kutzera means exactly that. He comes right out and states, “this is a design guide, not a writing guide,” at one point analogizing story planning to architectural engineering and the final movie to a solidly constructed building.

Through his chosen method of taxonomy, or classification into ordered categories, Kutzera effectively deconstructs, simplifies, and distills the plotting process into a readily applicable workflow, or rather, one of several possible workflows depending on the type of story you’re going for. He neatly catalogs some of the most prevalent and successful types of endeavors, archetypal characters, brands of character arcs, possibilities for your death moment, and so on. This technique essentially is The Plot Machine, and it ticks like a Swiss watch.

Don’t let these cold pragmatic overtones (or the page count) fool you. The conciseness doesn’t render it light so much as dense. There’s a surprising degree of depth and thoughtfulness built into The Plot Machine. It begins by taking a step back to ponder the overall purpose of stories and storytelling and then bears this in mind as a referential guidepost throughout. This same principle is applied to each tier of the system. We’re prompted to consider the core functions of each plot element or to ask ourselves a few simple up-front questions about what we hope to accomplish in its development. This serves as an aid to our creative choices, a course-correcter to keep us on track, and a hedge against the problems that tend to come up later if we overlook these factors.

With the essential overarching intentions established, he funnels down to the nuts and bolts of the process. One of The Plot Machine‘s key features is its focus on prioritization. The objectives seem to be maximized economy and minimal need for revisions and rewrites in the end, as you will have built a solid foundation at each stage before moving onto the finer details and ornaments. So if you’re diving into a new script, The Plot Machine can offer a place to start shaping your plot (hint: it’s not on Act 1, Scene 1, Page 1), and a full unfolding of where to go from there in terms of what narrative components you have to work with, ways to structure them, and how the sequences you build can lay into the storyline. If you’re having trouble with a script that’s in the works, these same procedures can just as easily serve as a quick-reference problem-solving guide.

If all this sounds too rigid and formulaic, think again. The Plot Machine’s starting point is your own creative inspiration, as Kutzera prescribes beginning with what you have in mind for your movie idea, whether that’s a particular character, situation, genre, or whatever. He also points out the infinite avenues open to the plotting process due to the disparate demands of different types of stories, and the virtues of understanding the conventions so that we can turn them on their heads. Not every plotline needs a midpoint reversal, not every protagonist needs to refuse the call to action, and who’s to say the slayer can’t join forces with the dragon in Act 3?

The Plot Machine can be a boon to your writing regardless of where you are or how it’s going. Its only weakness, near as I can tell, is also one of its greatest strengths. As mentioned, it’s a design guide, so it doesn’t delve into the mechanics or fundamentals of screenwriting, telling you how to color within the formatting lines in your description (until it’s time not to) or how to keep the rhythm and cadence of your dialog in tandem with the tone of the piece. If you’re looking for those things, you should turn to one of the classics. You won’t find it in The Plot Machine. However, you will (quickly) come away from it with an enriched understanding of how to configure your story, why you’re writing it, and perhaps why you write at all.

Movie Reviews

Alita: Battle Angel Review: A Pretty Face WIth Some Robotic Parts

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(Spoiler-free)

As a fan of dystopian stories and Japanese Manga storytelling, I have to say I’m surprised this one managed to sneak up on me like it did. I saw it today, and to get the technicalities out of the way, I have no familiarity with the source material, neither the graphic novels nor the 90s anime. I saw it in 2D, though if 3D is something you’re into, this one probably looks great in that format.

Alita: Battle Angel is set a few hundred years in the future. After great technological and economic advancements allowed us to build great cities in the sky, a great war brought all but one of them crashing back to Earth. Now the elites populating the last floating city of Tiphares lord over the rest of the human race living on the surface, benefitting from their excruciating labor and dumping their garbage down on them. One day, Doctor Ido of Iron City, who specializes in both humans and cyborgs, salvages the head and torso (“core”) of a humanoid cyborg that resembles a teenage girl, whose brain is still alive. He revives and rebuilds her to find that she’s lost her memory, retaining only vague images of combat.

Ido effectively adopts the girl, naming her Alita, and we discover this new world alongside her. The residents and way of life on Tiphares, and its mind-controlling leader Nova, are the stuff of legend and rumor. The only way to get there is to dominate the intense violent game of Motorball. The sport is central to the public consciousness and even the politics of Iron City, which is currently being terrorized by criminals murdering people and dismantling cyborgs for parts as means of gaining an advantage in Motorball, and a ruthless class of bounty hunters enlisted to stop them. From there, Alita makes a lot of dramatic discoveries about the people around her and her own past as she tries to survive this rough new environment and protect those she’s grown to care about.

First of all, as is obvious from the trailer and any material you’ve seen on this one, it’s a visual extravaganza. It definitely delivers on spectacle. Everything looks great. This isn’t surprising considering the people involved. Speaking of which, it would’ve been intriguing to be a fly on the wall and observe the working dynamic between director/ writer Robert Rodriguez and writer/ producer James Cameron, one of whom is famous for making relatively cheap movies that look expensive, and the other for making the most expensive movies ever, leaving an indelible mark on visual storytelling. In light of the 200 million dollar budget, it seems they went more with Cameron’s method; but whatever combination of practical sets, old-fashioned matte paintings, and CGI was employed, it all came out pretty seamless and quite dazzling.

But beyond the look of Iron City, this film’s greatest virtue is in its world-building. From the beginning, this setting feels authentic. It displays not only an impressive sci-fi landscape but a society with numerous embedded cultures. Everything from the citizens’ attitudes and behaviors, to their looks and fashion, to their games and recreational activities, comes off as organic. The world is gritty, raw, and feels lived-in. It’s not merely a backdrop but is part and parcel to the mythology and adds great symmetry and depth to Alita’s universe.

Of course, great world-building will only get you so far. Even the most breath-taking story environment will fall completely flat if certain other narrative cylinders aren’t firing, namely the characters (as evidenced by Ridley Scott’s Prometheus series). Alita’s characters are overall pretty solid. Most everyone fulfills a pertinent dramatic function, making for a nice “family tree” of interconnected players, and they’re well-acted by the excellent cast. Christoph Waltz is great as always. Rosa Salazar gives an excellent performance that really comes through her animated face equipped with Disney Eyes. The latest motion capture technology is really amazing that way. The weakest of the main characters is Alita’s dubiously necessary love interest played by Keean Johnson, the poor man’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and I wouldn’t classify him as unbearable. The problem there is more with how he fits into the equation (more on this later). Jennifer Connely and Mahershala Ali do their jobs well in this, but there just isn’t much of a job for either of them to do, and here’s where we run into some trouble.

Alita’s plot falls victim to several of the standard hazards of an adaptation. The filmmakers (perhaps the studios) never seem to want to scale the source material’s story down to manageable proportions for a feature-length film. The M.O. seems to be, “throw in everything from the books that will fit and could possibly be appealing to someone, somewhere.” Mind you, these complications are handled better here than in most adaptations I’ve seen, but there are definitely some plot elements that are underdeveloped. Some of the most noticeable include moments of high drama that flare up spontaneously because it’s the right time for them to happen, extremely close relationships that form very quickly, intriguing interpersonal dynamics that are barely touched-on due to time constraints, and character motivations that change on a dime to accommodate the fast-moving plot. These issues never quite cross the line into absurdity, but it feels like a lot of wasted potential that could have been capitalized on by properly fleshing these things out in the next movie (or cutting them, I guess).

Last, and also least, there are numerous instances of my pet peeve offense: on-the-nose expository dialog. There is a lot to explain, in an unfamiliar setting, but for $200 million, it should be done with a little more style and smoothness than:

  • “It’s a harsh world. The strong prey on the weak down here.”
  • “You are someone very special, not just a teenage girl.”
  • Alita: “And I’m just an insignificant girl.” Hugo: “No, that’s what they want you to think.”
  • “I do not standby in the presence of evil.”

Honestly, the last one sounds like it was taken from the Japanese manga, run through Google Translator, and put right in the script.

So, that’s about it. Is Alita: Battle Angel worth seeing? Absolutely. Worth seeing at full price? Yep, and then some, because seeing it in 3D, multiscreen, supersound, 4DX with moving seats and pies to the face, or whatever can really make this a fun ride. Is it going change your life? Not likely, but it is what it is; a highly enjoyable world to visit for a few hours.

My Story Theories

The Not-So-Silent Treatment

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As anyone who read my post on loglines might guess, I’m in a phase of reevaluation and rediscovery of prewriting tools due to a new project. The latest object of experimentation is the treatment, or stylized synopsis of the script. The producer I’m working with asked first for a four-page, and then a 16-20-page treatment as a means of tweaking and developing the concept.

Much like the loglines, I’d previously thought of treatments as an annoying step that came in the marketing phase, to pare my script down to a document short enough to accommodate the time constraints and attention spans of producers or executives. I always found the process whittling the story down into an effective summary excruciating.

After learning that it’s commonly done prior to writing the script, I wasn’t much happier about that prospect. I’m a scene cards (index cards) guy. They’ve become my favorite tool for mapping out the significant plot points, so I can then adjust the structure until I’m able to kinda sorta watch the film in my head, and then dive into the screenplay itself. I didn’t see what could be gained by distilling and summarizing a plot that was still in development.

But, of course, I was wrong again…

The misconception that was really holding me back was viewing the treatment as a rote synopsis (recall that “effective summary” language used earlier). The utter stupidity of seeing it as simultaneously a promotional device, and an essay devoid of creative flair, where the story concept was laid bare to speak for itself, is unfathomable now. After some perspective damage control, I’ve discovered a whole new dimension of prewriting benefits, both artistic and mechanical.

There’s much more literary flexibility in the treatment than the script itself, due to the need to get to the point and economically convey the mood and tone. It’s permissible to spend some time in the characters’ heads, as well as the readers’. Of course, we still have to stay primarily visual and not hit them over the head with how they should feel at every turn, but there’s much more room for suggestion on these matters.

Throwing in some stylistic and provocative turns of phrase here and there; such as “She’s devastated to find out that…,” “He doesn’t quite buy that explanation, but he agrees,” or “And then they exchange a knowing smile. These two are working together!;” also hatches a graphical “emotion map,” an invaluable guide for the writer to reference and adjust along the way, which brings me to the more pragmatic aspects…

If the scene cards represent a blueprint of the story, then the treatment operates more like a miniature 3D model. It reflects not only the order and structure of the beats but also how they flow and blend together. Thus it goes beyond the mere framework of the story and gives a preview of how it will be told. This allows numerous plotting mishaps to be pinpointed and rectified in the treatment-writing process, and uniquely so, since they aren’t so easily spotted in outlining, scene cards, any other form of “beating out the story” that I’ve employed.

Its nature as a piece of prose rather than an itemized list of occurrences lends greater immediate visibility to how any change you make affects, not only that plot point but other narrative factors as well. Here are some issues it can help detect…

  • The overall timing of scenes, setup/ payoff pairs, obstacles, tense moments, reveals, and twists are awkwardly and/ or predictably paced.
  • Two significant events are butted against each other, but the logical cause-and-effect principles that would carry one to the next just aren’t there.
  • A character’s mood, actions, or motives change on a dime or seem inconsistent somehow
  • The characters are acting according to knowledge or motivations that they don’t have yet.
  • Scenes and sequences need to be added or cut to get to certain waypoints more smoothly and effectively.

This isn’t a magic bullet. Haven’t found one of those yet. Maybe a treatment is as useless to you as I once thought it was for me, but many of the issues above were caught and dealt with much sooner in the process this time around than on previous projects that had no treatment in the pipeline. Adding one on this go-around opened a new world to me. If you’re getting stuck in the development of your plot, maybe it can give you the same refreshed perspective! Give it a try and let us know how it works for you!

My Story Theories

Don’t Underestimate the Logline

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We’re all familiar with it, and many of us dread it. It’s that terribly brutal chore of condensing 100+ pages of story into a single sentence. It’s often invoked as a necessary component of the marketing package of your script once it’s complete and ready to be shopped around. However, the depth the logline’s purpose and utility go far beyond that. It’s a mistake to overlook it as a powerful prewriting tool, guide, and measuring stick for a developing idea.

According to John Truby, most scripts fail at the premise level, meaning that the foundational concept isn’t adequately fleshed out before the writer opens up Final Draft and gets going. Forming a logline isn’t the catchall remedy to this, but it can be the ideal starting point for troubleshooting. It’s a super quick, super efficient device to gauge whether your premise or situation has graduated to the level of a story; and to get you there if it hasn’t. 

The logline lets you know if the bare essentials are taken care of. In its most common and basic form, it represents the skeletal framework of 1) protagonist, 2) protagonist’s goal, 3) antagonist (or antagonizing force), 4) stakes (consequences if the goal isn’t achieved), and maybe 5) world of the story if it’s unique and/ or vital to the narrative.

Example – Logline for The Dark Knight: A masked vigilante hero must stop a sadistic domestic terrorist before his attacks destroy Gotham City.  Loglines can undoubtedly vary in form and structure, and will usually be modified later when the objective becomes marketing and promotion, but most of the time they’ll look something like this at the outset.

See all five of those pieces in there? If you can’t roll call these elements and articulate how they operate together in one concise sentence, then you probably have some fundamental story problems; and these are much easier to take care of at the prewriting stage than after you’ve written 25 pages and don’t know where to go from there.

This is coming from experience. I had an idea for an action thriller that I was so fond of, it seemed as if the entire story just played right out in my mind. So I just dove in head-first and started cranking out pages. Somewhere around the end of Act I, I hit a wall. Some glaring logic issues started creeping into my head that needed addressing before I could move on. A fellow writer, much more experienced than I, suggested taking it back to the logline to ferret out any missing pieces.

“Logline? Those awful one-sentence summary things they harped on in filmschool? Isn’t that for the pitch phase?” I’m not proud of my mentality or writing from those days. Anyway, I took his advice and the missing link came jumping off the page at me. 

I had a familiar but unique protagonist, with a clear goal, and his polar-opposite-in-every-way antagonist that had perfectly organic reasons to oppose him. The bloodbath finale between them was the image that made we want to write it in the first place.

BUT… 

Those logic problems came from one central notion: why wouldn’t he just walk away from the situation before said bloodbath ever ensued? There were no stakes. So many other building blocks were so clear, and so many of the plot points practically wrote themselves, that I’d developed a total blind spot when it came to the stakes. Who cares why he has to be in this situation? If he’s not, my awesome story can’t happen! That’s why! Well, I don’t think that’s going to cut it with a producer or manager.

This is where things really got interesting. It’s just stakes. No big deal, right? Just contrive some reason that explains his plight and traps him in it. I’ll have this script back up and running in no time; awesome story still intact. Not even close.

The narrative corner I’d painted myself into couldn’t have been a better arena in which to learn the indispensable nature of each of those logline components. It dawned on me real fast that they interconnect like the cells of a Rubik’s Cube. Change one, and you shift several others with it. The most precious ideas in the story were so dependent on certain choices by the protagonist, that the introduction of every type of stakes I brainstormed threw them off. 

I’d reached a storytelling impasse. My premise needed stakes, but the addition of stakes altered it into something I wasn’t so excited to write. So I shelved it, extracted some of my favorite aspects, and put them into a new script; one with a complete logline.

Is that idea dead forever? Of course not. No story issue is insurmountable, and it may just get another look someday. But the point is that looking to the logline allowed me to avoid digging deeper into a story that had already failed at the premise level and direct my time and effort toward something with a greater chance of success. So when you’re getting a newly-formed story concept off the ground, bypass this step at your peril.

What do you think? Do you agree that the logline is an important guide? Let us know!