scenes

Active, not reactive – OR – C’mon, do something!

Maximum Z characters, goals, guidelines, protagonist, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, structure, writing
Never has a call to action been more necessary
Never has a call to action been more necessary

As you work your way through your latest draft, among the numerous questions to keep in mind is “Is my main character the one driving things forward?”

It’s a common complaint: a protagonist who is too passive. How do you make sure they aren’t?

Start with this: Do they make things happen or just react to them?

Your story is about this character going through some ordeal as they try to achieve their goal. Are they taking the steps needed and doing what they have to in order to do that?

Their normal routine has most likely been drastically altered. How are they reacting to all these changes while trying to get things back to normal?

How does the character factor into each scene? Are they having some kind of impact? Does the outcome of each scene depend on them? Does what they do here get them closer to reaching their goal?

A scene can be about them even if they’re not part of it. Maybe it’s the other characters’ reactions or the ramifications of what they’ve done.

You don’t want a main character who just sits around, waiting for things to happen. Get them out there and throw them right into the thick of it.

What it’s about, not what happens

Maximum Z Back to the Future, characters, guidelines, outlines, parenting, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, theme, writing

bttf theme

A usual part of my daily routine is helping V with her homework. This week, they’re learning about how to identify the theme of a story.

Nothing like starting with the basics.

After reading the one-page story together, I asked her what she thought the theme was. Her response was more focused on one part of the story, rather than the whole thing, so I tried another approach.

“What’s the message of the story? What is it trying to teach us?”

That made things clearer to her, which made finding the theme of the next day’s story a little easier (with a little guidance from me).

This of course made me think about finding, or at least knowing, the theme of the story of your script.

Some writers start writing and figure out the theme later. I’m the total opposite of that. I don’t think I could even start on the outline if I didn’t at least have an idea of what the theme was.

A lot of the time it’s just a single word or a short phrase, but it still plays a key part in putting my story together.

Knowing the theme of your story is vital; it influences how the story’s told and what it’s about. If you don’t know what your story’s really about, how can you put the rest of it together? That would be like doing a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what the final picture is.

A great example of a theme on display is BACK TO THE FUTURE. Look at the dialogue exchange in the picture up top, which takes place just a few minutes in. Jump forward to Act Two, where, after all the setup in Act One, we get to see how history does indeed change, all thanks to Marty. (Just another reason why this is a phenomenally bulletproof script)

So as you work on your latest draft, take a look at each scene, even if it’s just a few lines long. Does it advance the story, the characters and the theme?

If so, great and keep up the good work. If not, take a moment to figure out what could be changed so it does.

Once you learn how to do this, hopefully your writing process will be just a little bit easier.

What’s wrong with PG-13?

Maximum Z action, adventure, creativity, Django Unchained, feedback, Indiana Jones, mystery, networking, plot, scenes, screenwriting, script, spec, story, storytelling, Tarantino, tone, westerns, writing
One of the two movies which resulted in the creation of this rating
One of the two movies which resulted in the creation of this rating

In recent discussions with other writers, I’d be asked what I was currently working on. I’d mention the western and mystery specs, and give a thumbnail description for each.

Among the responses I’ve come to expect is usually the follow-up question:  “Who’s your target audience for that?”

Everybody.

While what I write would probably be too much for very small children, there’s no reason it couldn’t be enjoyed by anyone between 8 and 108, as the saying goes.

In addition to all the usual criteria, I want to make sure the story is interesting enough so it would appeal to a wide spectrum of viewers, as well as keeping the content dead-center on that fine line between “not enough” and “too much.”

One writer sent back his notes on the western. He had some very good comments, but some of them seemed to be through a DJANGO UNCHAINED filter (which he also admitted being influenced by). It was suggested I go for a more intense level of violence in some scenes.

Which would be fine if I were writing something that was a hard ‘R’, but this isn’t.

I’m just more of the family-friendly sort, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing that kind of material. (FROZEN has earned $350.7 million so far. Not too shabby, with the sing-along version ready to be unleashed.)

Although I want my stories to be fun and exciting, it’s also important to me they respect the audience’s intelligence, no matter what age they are, while also being fairly easy to follow.

I appreciate it when a movie does that, and hope to keep the practice going.

Caught in the ripple effect

Aside Maximum Z continuity, creativeness, creativity, ideas, opportunity, outlines, plot, problem-solving, protagonist, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, storytelling, theme, writing ,
It starts a chain reaction you just can't stop
A chain reaction you just can’t stop

When I work on pages, I make a point of adhering to the story as it’s written in the outline. There may be some slight alterations here and there, but that’s not an uncommon thing.

At the moment I’m in the middle of a sequence, that, according to the outline, was all planned out. No problems.

Little did I realize that over the course of the pages before this, all of those slight alterations would drastically change the circumstances surrounding my protagonist’s situation in that sequence.

Without knowing it, I had made things much harder not only for him, which is how it should be, but also for myself, which isn’t exactly the greatest of news.  Most of the details now had to be thrown away.

And because I’m such a glutton for punishment, this sequence was slowly becoming way too similar to one from about 20 pages before it. How I didn’t see this while outlining I’ll never know.

So it’s not necessarily back to square one, but I’ve got some work to do. Looking at this from the silver lining perspective, this is actually some pretty good stuff:

-My protagonist now faces bigger challenges, which still advance the story, theme and character development.
-I’m forced to come up with better, more creative ways of depicting how things play out.
-Recognizing and handling the domino effect those earlier changes have made and will make on the rest of the story.

Fortunately, we writers are a hearty lot and not easily deterred.  Time, experience and constant rewrites provide us with the determination and intestinal fortitude to work our way through this sort of thing.

The twiddling of thumbs is strictly prohibited

Maximum Z action, characters, conflict, dialogue, plot, scenes, screenwriting, script, story, The Simpsons, writing

How often have you read a scene with several characters in it, but the focus is only on two of them? Makes you wonder why exactly those others are there, doesn’t it?

The last thing you want is to have characters just standing around. Give them something to do!

Each scene has to move the plot forward, and every character, no matter how big or small their role, plays an important part in making that happen.  If there’s no purpose for them to be there, then they don’t need to be there.

Countless opportunities abound for what characters can be doing in addition to exchanging dialogue, thereby avoid the dreaded “talking heads” scenario. The important thing is to keep it relevant to the scene, and not just something random.

Maybe it’s providing (or at least contributing to) the conflict for that scene, or showing the latest development of the main character’s arc.

If you’re not sure what the characters should be doing, try to come up with several alternative versions that reach the same conclusion.

You know what the point of the scene is and what kind characters they are, so take the time to figure out the best way all of you can work together to get the best possible result.