Bit of an Election Day shorty today (and for readers in the US – make sure you vote, if you haven’t already).
Count me among the legion of writers using the month of November as a 30-day writing exercise.
My project of choice: first draft of a script that’s been in development for about a year and a half. Looking forward to talking about it more once the draft is complete and some next steps take place; but for now – mum’s the word.
The daily goal of 2-3 pages has again been established. So far, so good, especially working with an outline that’s pretty solid. That really helps.
Working on this reminds me of how much I enjoy the writing process, particularly when it involves my genre of choice (action).
My objective is to be finished, or at least as close to being finished as I can get by the end of the month. Fingers remain, as always, firmly crossed.
I sincerely hope your November is equally as productive.
I’m always keen for a good movie-watching recommendation, especially if it’s something I’ve never heard of, or at least heard of but haven’t seen. We all know a few of those.
So here’s your chance to shed a little light by a film (or films) that you’ve always enjoyed, but a lot of people may not be too familiar with.
Here are three of mine:
The Kid Brother (1927) An amazing piece of work from Harold Lloyd. Worth watching for the boat sequence alone. Plus it has a monkey in it.
ffolkes (1979) Roger Moore at his most un-James Bond-iest. A somewhat dated but still very entertaining action-thriller.
Whip It (2009) A charming and fun story that combines equal parts comedy, drama and women’s roller derby. Features a lot more name actors than you realize, and Drew Barrymore’s directing debut.
It doesn’t have to be a classic, nor does it have to be “a cinematic masterpiece”. You get a kick out of it, and think the rest of us would too. Just write down the title and what you like about it in the comments below.
As writers, we fully realize that inspiration can hit at any time, and in any situation. And it’s what you do when it does that really matters.
Late last year, I was taking the dog for her last walk of the day. Something about that particular moment triggered a story idea. I won’t say the floodgates of creativeness opened wide; more like the squirt from a water pistol. It was just a sentence, maybe two, but I immediately saw so much potential in it.
We got home, I created a file for it on my computer, and I wrote down the tidbits of story I’d managed to come up with.
And in the hard drive it sat, practically untouched for months on end.
In a manner of speaking.
As is usually the case, even thought I may not actually be writing, I’m always thinking about the writing.
Although I’ve worked on several other scripts this year, every once in a while, a new detail about this story would pop up and I’d add it in. It’s definitely an ongoing work in progress, moving at a glacial pace, and there’s no rush to get it done.
It’s actually very beneficial to not put any pressure on yourself and just let the ideas show up at their convenience. And sometimes it pays off when you least expect it.
About a week ago, I came up with an idea for a short, but then realized the location would be a perfect setting for the climax of this script. Determined to hang onto that idea, I reopened the file and figured it was as good a time as any to to move things forward a little, so I started organizing the plot points. There are still a few blanks to be filled in, but it’s slowly coming together.
When the’s next time I’ll work on it? No idea. It’s still very, very early in the development process. A few other scripts currently have priority over this one, but I highly suspect the trend of occasionally adding a few details will continue.
As it should. And then when I finally get around to focusing all of my attention on this one, chances are I might be further along than I expect.
So keep on working on whatever it is you’re currently working on. But feel free to let your imagination wander about once in a while into something else, particularly something you plan to eventually work on. See what you come up with, and if you like it, stash it away for later. Hold onto it even if you’re not that crazy about it; you might find a totally unexpected use for it later.
No matter what you do, Future You will really appreciate everything Present You is doing.
When you start reading a script, you tend to recognize pretty quickly whether or not the writer knows what they’re doing. Their mastery of the craft (or lack thereof) will become soon apparent.
Bad formatting. Misspelled words. Unfilmables. On-the-nose dialogue. Cliches as far as the eye can see. Quite a checklist.
Find one or more of these early on, let alone just on the first page (which does happen), and there’s not much hope of improvement. You’re left with no choice but to force yourself to push forward. Maybe once in a while, you glance up at the upper right corner of the page/screen.
Your shoulders sag. “I’m only up to page ____? This is taking forever!” you exclaim. Making it to the end has suddenly become a question of “if”, rather than “when”.
Now let’s examine the other side, where the writer is in total control.
You encounter writing so sharp and descriptive, you can easily “see” what’s happening. Dialogue that’s not just crisp, it practically crackles. Characters who feel and talk like real people. All of it taking place in original and entertaining situations.
You become so wrapped up that you can’t wait to get to the bottom of the page so you can move on to the next one. And maybe once in a while, you sneak a glance at the upper right corner.
Your eyebrows shoot up. “I’m already at page ____? Wow, this is just zooming by!” you exclaim. You eagerly dive back in, more than ready to continue because you simply can’t wait to see what happens next.
Now here’s the big question for you, the writer:
Of the two experiences listed above, which do you want the reader to have when they read your script?
Do you want them to be bored and see reading your script as a chore that ranks up there with cleaning out the cat’s litterbox or listening to a timeshare presentation?
Or do you want them to be so involved, their attention so riveted to the tale being told in your script, that nothing short of a major crisis or natural disaster could tear them away? (Not to diminish the intensity or significance of major crises or natural disasters, but you get the idea)
It’s tough to be that objective when it comes to reading your own material. You think it’s good (“How could anyone not like it?”), but every reader has their own criteria for what works and what doesn’t. The challenge is crafting together a script so rock-solid that not liking it is not an option. Not sure if yours is? Seek outside opinions. Rewrite with the mindset of “how can I make this better?”.
As screenwriters, our primary goal is to tell an entertaining story. The last thing we want is for someone to be easily distracted by something/anything else when they’re supposed to be reading (and in theory, enjoying) our scripts.
So when your characters speak, does what they say SOUND like something people would actually say, or does it come across as “too movie-like”?
Do they say EXACTLY what they mean?
Dialogue is a very tricky part of screenwriting that takes a lot of practice to make the words being spoken sound totally natural. When we listen to what the characters are saying, you don’t want to make us aware we’re watching a movie.
Too many times we’ll read the characters’ dialogue, and it leaves us totally flat. Maybe it’s pure exposition. Or nothing but cliches. Or exactly what you think they’ll say. There’s no subtext. No implying. Just straight-out “this is what I want to say”.
All of this makes for some boring and, in all honesty, awful reading. And if the dialogue isn’t good, it’s pretty likely the rest of the script isn’t that good either.
(And the less said about parentheticals, the better. In short – DON’T!)
A lot of writers will jot down lines of dialogue because they think that’s what the characters should be saying. But it goes a lot deeper than that. The dialogue is just one way for the character to express themselves. In fact, sometimes the most effective dialogue is where the character doesn’t say a word.
Do the lines read like the writer put a lot of thought into the content or intent of what’s being said? Audiences and readers are smarter than you give them credit for. They will get nuance and innuendo, which are both more effective than just saying the actual words.
How many writers say the lines out loud to see how it sounds? You may think that monologue is nothing short of genius, but in reality it probably makes the reader’s eyes glaze over for how much it rambles. There’s a lot to be said for organizing a table read of your script (where you will quickly learn to identify most problems, let alone having them pointed out to you by the actors).
Going back to one of the earlier questions, does what the characters are saying sound like not only something they would say, but something you would say? There’s a little bit of you/the writer in every character, so you know them better than anybody, which therefore makes you the most likely to know what they would say and how they would say it.
Like with the scene itself, you want the dialogue to deal only with the point of the scene, or at least be integrated into the context of the story. Anything extra is just going to slow things down, and the more unnecessary dialogue you have, the more it’s going to drag. Cut what you don’t need so you’re not wasting anybody’s time. Get in late, get to the point as soon as possible, get out.
There’s no secret formula for writing good dialogue. It just takes time to learn how. Read scripts and watch movies similar to yours. See how they did it, and work on applying the same principles to your material. Use what the characters are saying (and aren’t saying) to help tell the story of your script, with the challenge being keeping the words spoken and unspoken true to both characters and story.
And again – stay away from parentheticals. Please.
Maximum Z 