scripts

Better than socks and underwear

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xmas
“Not the insightful script analysis from a seasoned professional I was hoping for, but a Rolex is nice too.”
With the holidays coming up fast, and you’re just not sure what to get the screenwriter in your life, take a gander below at all the great gift choices available. What better way to show your support in helping them be a better writer in 2017?

And if you opt to splurge on yourself by purchasing any of the services being offered, they should count as tax-deductible (but double-check with your accountant, just to be sure.)

Keep in mind a lot of these offers are time-sensitive, so don’t delay and order today!

-Writer-director-producer Jimmy Day has launched the new Write12BlockScripts script consulting service. Mention Maximum Z when ordering and he’ll take $50 off, and that applies to both full script and 30-page reviews. Contact Jimmy here.

-Consultant Phil Clarke wants you to take advantage of getting his script services at the 2016 rates before the new 2017 rates kick in on January 1st. Visit www.philmscribe.com for details on a script consultant with bonafide, rarely rivaled industry experience, or contact Phil here.

-Story analyst Jim Mercurio is offering a 48-hour flash sale with 50% discount on several services. Get up to 20 pages of notes and save up to $600 on Jim’s Snapshot Evaluation, Comprehensive or Professional Analysis Services. Even if your script’s not ready to send right away, sign up the end of this weekend and submit your script anytime through the end of January. Contact Jim here.

-Author-consultant Michele Wallerstein will be teaching the online course How to Break into the Screenwriting Business via Screenwriters University starting on February 9th, and her book Mind Your Business: A Hollywood Literary Agent’s Guide to your Writing Career is now available in both paperback and Kindle versions.

-Writer-consultant Philip Hardy’s The Script Gymnasium is offering up the 2016 Holiday Special of $99 for full script evaluation and notes. This offer is good through December 31st. Contact Philip here.

-Consultant Andrew Hilton (aka The Screenplay Mechanic) will give a $10 discount on any of his services through January if you mention you were referred via Maximum Z. Better hurry! Spots are filling up fast!

-Consultant Danny Manus has a special holiday deal in place: purchase any Basic or Extensive Notes Service now thru January 1st and receive the 2-hour webinar “Mastering the Short Pitch” FREE! (normally $49) when you reference Maximum Z. Contact Danny here.

-Writer-consultant Mark Sanderson is offering a holiday discount of $25 off all consulting services. The offer runs through December 31st, but can be used throughout 2017.

-Consultant Lee Jessup is offering a 15% discount on her one-on-one career coaching services if you use the code MyPalPaul.

-Consultant Barri Evans is offering 15% off all services purchased between now and January 4th. Check them out here, or contact Barri here to discuss the best option for you. Services range from pro help on crafting powerful loglines, queries, and pitches to script consults offering one-on-one interactive feedback, as well as mentorship to meet your every need. Plus, be sure to check out her free Logline Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down on her consults page!

-Writer Bill Martell is having a sale until December 26th on the mp3’s of his audio classes: half-price for the Classic Class Set and the Naked Screenwriting Class. Bill also has a wide selection of e-books.

-And when you decide to take a break from writing and just want to lose yourself in a good read, Brian Fitzpatrick’s screenplay-turned-novel Mechcraft is slated to be published by Inkshares in 2017. With the visual intensity of The Matrix combined with the wonder of Harry Potter, pre-orders for Mechcraft are being taken now! Check out the site, the reviews, and sample chapters here.

Try the direct approach

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handshake
Nice to see you again. Mind if I ask you something?

Sometime last week, I received a very nice compliment via on online forum regarding the quality of the script notes I give. A mutual associate of ours chimed in with the grumbly “Well, he never does it for me.”

To which I responded “Because you never ask.”

I don’t know what this writer’s standard M.O. is for getting notes, but from what I can gather, usually involves them posting “Anybody want to read my stuff?”

There’s nothing wrong with that, but the drawback is you run the risk of getting feedback from somebody with less experience than you, or worse, has no idea what they’re talking about.

This is why networking and establishing relationships with other writers is so important. If someone posted a generic request for a read, I’d be less inclined to respond. Even if I knew the person. I figure they’ll probably get a few other responses, so why bother?

But if someone came to me specifically and said “If you have the time, would you be able to read this?”, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. This shows me that they value my experience and opinions, along with respecting that I can’t simply drop everything to accommodate them. They’ll also include an offer to read something of mine, if I’m interested.

Sometimes I’ll get an email asking me for a read, and it might be because of any number of reasons. They’ve read my stuff before and think this new script is similar. They know I have an eye for fill-in-the-blank. All of this could only have come from myself and this other writer having already established a good professional relationship.

While I always encourage writers to get out there and network, it’s also important to build on those connections once you’ve got them. You don’t have to become somebody’s best friend, but being supportive or offering the occasional words of encouragement really go a long way. Plus, people are much more likely to remember that sort of thing, adding to the likelihood they’d be willing to help you out.

More than often I’ve read about another writer’s projects and introduce myself, tell them how I found them (usually via the forums) and of my interest in the script in question, then ask if they’re cool with me taking a look at it. It’s a rare occurrence when someone says no.

Both of you are writers constantly striving to improve, and some good, solid feedback can play a big part in that. And that can be best achieved by getting to know other writers and treating with the same respect you’d expect to be treated with yourself.

 

For crying out loud, DO SOMETHING!

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bored
Is THIS how you want your audience to react?
While the November writing project moves forward at a pleasant pace (but now appears to be more of a November-December thing), part of my time has also been spent giving notes on some friends’ scripts.

One in particular had a few problems, some of which were easily fixed, but what really stood out was how it committed a cardinal sin of screenwriting by having a lot of scenes where the characters talk repeatedly about something “important” they want to do, but by the end, they end up not doing anything. And I mean that literally. These were some of the most passive characters I’ve experienced.

It didn’t help that the characters also had no arc. They were exactly the same from beginning to end (with maybe the exception of one who might have been arrested, but even the circumstances involved with that are still somewhat unclear).

Let’s face it. A main character who’s all talk, no action, and doesn’t change is the death knell for your script. Why would somebody be interested in seeing what happens to them, especially if they don’t do anything?

One of the most frequent problems I’ve seen is when the main character isn’t the one driving the story forward. They just kind of hang around and watch stuff happen.

Bo. Ring.

Remember, you’re trying to get your main character to their goal over the course of the story. They have to be the one making things happen in order to achieve that, or at least react to what happens in such a way that it helps them. The way these characters were written, I honestly had no idea what their individual goals were.

Take a look at your latest draft. Which character is moving the story forward? Is your main character active or passive? Are they making things happen? If not, can you see what you’d need to change in order to do that?

You definitely want your characters to come across as believably three-dimensional. Having them do little or next-to-nothing throughout the story is doing you no favors. Character motivation and actions are some of those key elements that simply cannot be left out. Audiences can forgive certain things, but a dull, passive main character isn’t one of them.

A few words about dialogue

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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.

Finding my forte. Mining my milieu. Spelunking my specialty.

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e-ticket
A reference only a select few will get. (85 cents?? Truly a bygone age)

While engaged in a very engaging conversation about screenwriting earlier this week, the person with whom I was conversing with asked the simplest and most straight-forward of questions:

“What do you like to write?”

Without a moment’s hesitation, I proudly stated, “Adventures.”

You can’t even say the word without implying the thrills and excitement it entails. Hands on hips, chest out, shoulders back, and a firmly-set jaw are automatically included.

I’ve enjoyed dabbling in other genres (such as drama and comedy), but nothing really grabs me like thinking up and writing out some sort of heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat rollercoaster ride of a scene or sequence.

Those really never get old.

They say “Write what you know,” and although I’ve never actually fought monsters, manned a runaway train, or flown a space-faring vessel, years of reading and watching material of that type and nature has taught me an effective way of how to effectively inject adrenaline into what I’m writing.

More than a few readers have commented that my love and appreciation of the material and genre are boldly evident on the page, which is what I’m hoping  to accomplish every time.

My mantra has always been “Write something I would want to see”, and my list of future projects is jam-packed with numerous ideas and concepts that neatly fall into that category; each one a variation on the topic of discussion.

If these are the kinds of stories I was meant to write, you’ll get no complaints from me. I get a real kick out of cranking this stuff out. There’s no reason to think this can’t develop into what I build a career on and eventually become known for (he said, his fingers firmly crossed). My scripts. Rewriting someone else’s. Contributing to another. It’s all cool as far as I’m concerned.

Until then, all I can do is keep writing and making my readers feel their pulses quicken as they eagerly turn the page, absolutely spellbound to find out how the hero gets themselves out of this particular pickle, and, more importantly, what happens next.

Strap yourselves in, chums. This is going to be one helluva ride.