Category: Writing

treat your script reader as a viewer

25/8/2015

There’s a script note I’ve given rather a lot over the years – to myself and other writers – and yet it doesn’t get talked about all that much (except for this week, when a post by the mighty James ‘Sitcom Geek’ Cary reminded me to write this).

Since launching my Script Analysis service a few months back, I’ve applied this note to a fair number of the varied and splendid TV and film scripts I’ve received.

Don’t tell the script reader things which the viewer won’t see or hear onscreen.

It’s easy to fall into this trap. Why? Because we’re keen to communicate with the reader and get them on board. We want them to enjoy the script and get the story, without getting confused. But our eagerness leads us to forget that readers enjoy scripts most when experiencing them as a viewer would – when they’re picturing the drama in their heads and gleaning all information solely from what’s ‘onscreen’.

So if your script’s action lines start sidling up and whispering privileged information about offscreen stuff, you run the risk of snapping them out of their own imaginations. You can remind them they’re reading a script rather than watching something. Suddenly they’re no longer visualising, but processing purely written information. You also make it harder for them to gauge how well the script is actually telling its story onscreen, where it counts.

Here are some examples of imaginary action lines which commit this cardinal sin…

INT. LINDA’S BEDROOM - NIGHT
Linda lies on her back, staring at the ceiling. She’s been awake for hours.
How do we, as viewers, know how long she’s been awake?

INT. BAR – NIGHT
Dan props up the bar, nursing a whiskey. He’s thinking about what Susan told him this morning.
How do we, as viewers, know this? Even an Oscar-winning actor would find themselves hard pressed to convey specific thoughts using only their facial muscles.

EXT. SPACE
The massive and imposing Stornbecker 8 spaceship glides into view. This vast behemoth is home to over 200 scientists who specialise in the latest cloning techniques.
How do we, as viewers, know it’s home to over 200 scientists specialising in the latest cloning techniques? Sure, we’ll hopefully gather this stuff in subsequent scenes as we venture inside the ship, but why tell the reader up front? It’s a waste of a line. And more importantly, the reader is no longer wondering, ‘Hey, I wonder who might live in a spaceship like this’. Let’s look at another example of robbing the reader of questions…

EXT. GOLF COURSE – DAY
Pete runs breathless past the 18th hole, towards a pub called The 19th Hole. Something falls from his jacket. He stops to snatch it from the ground, then takes a moment to study it: a photograph of his dead wife HELEN.
How, in the name of all that’s holy and unholy, do we, as viewers, know that’s his dead wife in the photo? This, by the way, is the first time we’ve encountered Helen in this imaginary script and so we have no idea who she is. And crucially, we shouldn’t yet. When we read the script we should have the exact same experience as the viewer, wondering who the woman in the photo might be. So from this point on, the script reader and the potential viewer are having two completely different experiences. And since the Mystery Photo Woman would have been a good hook, the script reader is actually less engaged.

Sometimes we writers fall into this trap by mistake, in early drafts. Other times, we try it as a crafty cheat, to avoid having to find ways to convey information, either visually (ideal) or by dialogue (the last resort). But it’s very much a false economy and can cause real problems. If Helen is never established onscreen as Pete’s dead wife, she’ll forever remain a mystery for viewers. The writer has told the script reader but never the viewer. This is an outrage!

So, we need to watch ourselves when it comes to this stuff, especially when flip-flopping between prose and script (and it’s arguable that ‘show don’t tell’ still applies just as much to prose as it does to script, even though the prose writer gets to communicate directly with the ‘end-user’. Depending on the narrator’s POV and story, we should still ideally be looking to convey things to the reader via characters’ surface lives – through their gestures, spoken words and actions.) As a general rule of thumb, look out for these three warning signs:

You find yourself writing about what a character “feels” or “thinks”...
Or using the word “clearly” or “obviously”, which often tends to be code for “I’m not sure how to convey this visually”, eg ‘Tim is obviously finding this new bar job a struggle’, instead of something like, ‘Tim, caked in sweat, pours two drinks at once. He glances over at a row of frustrated, waiting customers, then knocks a stack of glasses over. Smash!’
Or naughtily delegating work to the director and/or actors. One example of this might be starting a scene with ‘Lisa, Colin and Tom are chatting on the sofas. Suddenly, the door bursts open’. Guess who has to supply the actual words these people were chatting? That’ll be you, unless this is some kind of crazy arthouse-improv show.

Are there exceptions to the above? Should we never write little asides for the reader’s sole benefit? Yep, there are always exceptions. When introducing new major characters, it’s more of a matter of taste as to whether you tell the reader their relationships to each other (‘TED holds the door open for his elderly mother IRENE’) – provided, of course, that you also remember to establish these onscreen.

Another example might be giving the reader a brief reminder of a smaller character’s identity, eg ‘Rob, the homeless guy from earlier, stares menacingly up at Tara’s window.’ The viewer will have the advantage of instantly recognising Rob from earlier, but the reader will thank you for a prompt.

Such small exceptions aside, scriptwriting is all about visual storytelling. And that’s why we must treat reader and viewer as one and the same.

[Excellent Sitcom Geek post which prompted this one]

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@JasonArnopp on Twitter

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blind dates and dialogue writing

23/7/2015

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I enjoy the Guardian Weekend magazine. Well, about 63 per cent of it, which is pretty good going on their part. Lately, I've noticed a trend in one of the mag's regular features, which can unexpectedly inspire fiction writing and dialogue in particular.

The Blind Date feature sends two strangers for an evening in a restaurant, then quizzes them individually about the experience, placing their answers in two columns side by side. One of the questions is What Did You Talk About?, and it's this one we'll focus on here. Take a look at the two sets of answers to this question, from six different Blind Date features, and notice something which unites all of these examples...

Yes! When the participants are asked what they talked about during their date, they each recall completely different subject matter. Literally not one thing the same. This doesn't always happen in the Blind Date feature, but about 75 per cent of the time.

This phenomenon has little to do with blind dates in and as of themselves. Neither does it mean each person has appalling short-term memory or is being dishonest. It is, however, relevant to writing dialogue, because it underlines how everyone tends to have their own conversational agenda. All too often, we're lost in our own little egotistical worlds, convinced that the other person really is "genuinely interested" in that dissertation.

And of course, the reality may differ. Unless a conversation is particularly focused for some reason - urgency perhaps, or politeness, or the involvement of a gun - it doesn't ping perfectly back and forth, with each side neatly answering the other every time. Surprisingly often, two simultaneous conversations are happening, about different things, or the subject matter gets tugged to and fro. Each party is much more interested in certain subjects than others, for their own reasons, just as they each take different things away from the conversation.

So next time we're writing dialogue, it might be an interesting technique to ask ourselves this: if each of our characters was asked what they talked about during this conversation, might they say entirely different things? And might the conversation gain authenticity and dramatic tension as a result?

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@JasonArnopp on Twitter

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five ways to kill audience satisfaction

11/12/2013

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Being a writer tends to taint your experiences of film, TV or novels, albeit in a way which can improve your own work. While absorbing fiction, I'll inevitably analyse why I'm enjoying, or especially not enjoying, a story. Finding faults can be brilliantly instructive, in terms of avoiding the same mistakes - provided, of course, that it's not simply an issue of taste. You don't learn much from not enjoying a gangster film, for instance, if you don't particularly care for the genre.

Here are five of the mental notes I've made over the years, while trying to work out why some stories leave you feeling instinctively dissatisfied. There's no exact formula for making audiences happy, with that indefinable sense of 'fiction fullness', but we can certainly try to avoid these pitfalls...

1) IMPORTANT CHARACTERS TURN UP LATE
I've seen this happen in two horror films in the last three months alone. The protagonist has been established, then between half and two-thirds of the way through the story, new people turn up. Key distinction here: these characters aren't newly-introduced incidental characters like gas station attendants or waiters. No, they're behaving like protagonists. To all intents and purposes, they areprotagonists. In fact, in both of the films I saw they were Good Guys, on a (rather late) mission to rescue people from Bad Guys. This feels instinctively wrong, as if the writer has only just arbitrarily decided to throw them into the story - or she's become bored with the protagonist's plight, or even the protagonist themself, since these Newcomers are behaving like heroes. At the very least, they should have been seeded into Act One. But even then, there's a potentially fatal snag when...

2) THE PROTAGONIST DOESN'T RESOLVE THE MAIN PROBLEM
Yes, if those Newcomers actually do manage to sort stuff out, that's unsatisfying to say the least. We want to see those Original Protagonist deal directly with the threat they've been facing - it's no good, watching them rescued or helped by magically materialising outside forces. This is mainly because the OP has had the longest journey. They've been through the most hardship and are ideally the least equipped to deal with the main problem or threat. So their eventual triumph over adversity is bound to be the most entertaining. We're rooting for them to overcome all... so if someone else does it for them, we're deflated like a cheap air-bed.

Sometimes, often in TV drama, the protagonist needs to be instrumental in solving someone else's predicament. I recently watched an episode of an otherwise good drama series from a few years back, in which our regular protagonist tried to help a guest character overcome their terrible problem. Come the final scenes, it felt very much as though the guest character would have overcome it anyway, without the protagonist's help. Needless to say, this was deeply unsatisfying, and could so easily have been fixed. So here's a good question to ask yourself: if your protagonist was air-lifted clean out of this plot, would the whole story collapse? If not, you've got real problems and need to carry out some surgery.

3) COINCIDENCE OVERSTEPS THE MARK
Sure, we'll swallow the occasional small coincidence in a story. Two friends bump into each other in a big city? Okay, we'll buy that. Fine. When coincidence plays a major role in the story later on, though - that's when our brows furrow, we become restless and suddenly we can hear The Wheels Of Plot grinding and creaking (more on that in a moment). Plot should be a big chain of events, each of which follows logically on from preceding events, so that we understand and sympathise with how this story developed in a logical fashion. Attempt to serve plot with a great big coincidence and you run the very real risk of that chain's links flying apart. It's like hurling a basketball at a domino which stubbornly refuses to topple onto the next. Here's a useful general rule: we're much more likely to accept a coincidence which gets the hero into trouble, than one which gets them out of it.

4) THE RULES OF THE WORLD ARE NOT DEFINED
This is especially dangerous in the more fantastic genre fare. Real-world drama has an in-built set of rules. We know that world and so it needs less explanation. If we're in a heightened, supernatural, fantastic or otherwise unfamiliar world, though, we need to know the rules. This doesn't mean we have to be force-fed them, Fight Club-style, in the first 10 minutes. They should be ladled on throughout, with the artfulness also reserved for character detail and general colour.

Why are the rules important? Because if we don't know the rules, it's likely that we're unclear on the nature of the threat faced by our protagonist. What are the stakes? What's the worst thing that can happen in this story and world? If our protagonist is a ghost, can they actually die in any meaningful sense? If we don't know what they stand to lose, we're far less engaged and liable to switch off altogether.

5) CHARACTERS DO STUPID THINGS
Now, this one's interesting, because it certainly isn't always a mistake. If characters didn't do stupid things, they wouldn't get themselves into the scrapes and conflict demanded by all good drama. So many stories - so many 'inciting incidents' - are launched by characters doing stupid things. Drama practically demands foolishness, folly and flaws. But here's where the Creaking Wheels Of Plot come back into play. If characters do stupid things because, for instance, the film would be over if they didn't, that's when the writer feels our wrath. We hear the Creaking Wheels Of Plot and it's a terrible noise, reminding us that this is just a figment of someone's imagination and a clunky figment at that. The spell is broken.

I've been deliberately vague about the other fiction to which I've alluded, but can give you a precise example of this one, which will give you a mild spoiler for the otherwise excellent horror film Wolf Creek. About two-thirds of the way through, a protagonist (there are three in this film, which is one of its many strokes of genius) escapes the evil antagonist's house. She then goes back inside, and for the first time, we hear the infernal din of those Creaking Wheels. It's the film's sole flaw. Incidentally, I'm giving you this example because I once interviewed its director Greg McLean as a journalist and put the criticism to him. Here was his response: "Guilty! Absolutely. Without giving too much away, there's no reason in the world why she'd do that. What the fuck is she doing? I watch it and I go, 'Mmmm... okay'."

Needless to say, I've generalised throughout. Rules are made to be broken, and all that, but I think it's best to have very good reasons for breaking the majority of the above.

What about you? What regularly disconnects you from fiction and/or leaves you instinctively dissatisfied? Tell us about it, in the comments below.

Photo Credit: piglicker via Compfight cc

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@JasonArnopp on Twitter

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eight ways to annoy people whose help you want

30/10/2013

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Hello you! Here are a few tough-love pointers about approaching people in the scriptwriting, TV, film, prose and generally creative industries. Specifically, via e-mail. I'm sure this won't apply to you, because you're lovely and you know better. But it might. And that being the case, you may find this useful. Here then, are Eight Ways To Annoy People Whose Help You Want...

1) Appear in someone's inbox, out of the blue, and immediately ask if they'll read your project.
If you really must do this - although you shouldn't - at least put some effort into that e-mail and a little finesse. A pro script-friend of mine recently described receiving a really abrupt e-mail from a complete stranger, asking if he would read their script. The e-mail barely introduced the sender and didn't even end with a sign-off line. That's a great way to make a terrible first impression.

When you've written and finished a thing that you like, it's easy to build up a head of zealous steam, to the point where you assume the world is waiting to read it. Take a deep breath and calm yourself. Approach your contact-to-be politely, lightly and in a personalised way which doesn't make them think they're Number 227 in your Xeroxed Introductory E-Mail campaign. As I said, ideally don't ask them to read your project in this opening salvo. You wouldn't do this during an opening exchange at a party, so why do it in Cyberworld? And Good God...

2) Attach your project to your introductory e-mail
Don't do this, ever. It's rude, even though it might not seem that way to you. It's the equivalent of striding up to someone at a scriptwriters' festival, saying hello and shoving a hard-copy of your script into their bag. Bear in mind that most writers - me included, sadly - can't read other writers' scripts, for two reasons: lack of time to read anyone else's work and legality (if a writer reads your script, then has a similar idea down the line, or is already working on a similar idea, you might turn out to be paranoid and insane and all, like, "You stole my idea! I sue you! I appear in your garden at 3am, harming myself and shrieking!"). So when you send someone a script right off the bat, that seemingly innocuous PDF of yours could well be violating the recipient's personal, professional and legal boundaries. Once someone receives a PDF, I'm pretty sure it's impossible to prove they haven't read it, if things should turn all weird and litigious later on. So don't put them in that position.

3) Attach your project to your introductory e-mail, because the recipient's colleague/boss/whoever has suggested you send it
This is still rude. I know, because a good few years back, I did it myself. A TV show's producer suggested I send a script to his script editor. With a head full of zealous steam (beware, oh beware, the zealous steam), I rattled off an e-mail to the script editor and attached the script. Never heard back from that script editor, and quite rightly so. I still regularly wince at the very thought of it and groan at the fact that I'm possibly forever filed away in that guy's head under "Presumptuous Amateurs". Even if someone else has recommended you send a script, still take that deep breath and write that polite, to-the-point introductory e-mail, explaining that X suggested you send them your script. Do they have time to read? That's much nicer, isn't it?

4) Play down the size of the favour
This is admittedly a relatively small pet niggle, and may be exclusive to me and my brain, but I doubt it. Don't play down the size of the favour you're asking this stranger/new contact. I'm talking specifically about saying "I wonder if you could do me a small favour...". Oh, it's only small, is it? I'll be the judge of that. This is the kind of thing it's so very easy to write without thinking, but well worth a mention.

5) Chase them up on a read
If a relative stranger agrees to read your thing, for free, in their own time, don't chase them up on it within six months. Seriously. That's just wrong and will irritate the Christ out of them. You have to be prepared to play the long game here. I've waited literally a year for industry folk to read scripts, and personally wouldn't chase them before a year was up.

If that impatient demon in your brain - the one entirely composed of zealous steam - forces you to chase someone up, at least do it indirectly. Message them about something else - ideally something which isn't asking for another favour. Nine times out of 10, this will jog their memory and provide a subtle prompt. It still runs the risk of annoying them, but it's a lot better than a "Did you get my e-mail?" e-mail, a week after the first. While I'm at it, let's all agree never to write "Did you receive my e-mail?" e-mails any more. It's 2011. The vast majority of e-mails get through. We know this, and yet still we persist with this irritatingly transparent tactic.

6) React badly to notes
So this stranger has read your thing for free and given you some thoughts. You dislike and/or disagree with one or more these thoughts, so decide to fight your corner. You passive-aggressively - or downright aggressively - inform the helpful stranger why they're wrong and/or why they've misunderstood your grand masterplan. Congratulations! They didn't particularly want any response to their notes (all those questions they asked in the notes were rhetorical, by the way, for your project-analysing use only) and now you're synonymous with two Twitter hashtags in their brain: #DifficultToWorkWith and #OverlyDefensive. Tremendous.

7) Ask a huge question, the size of the MOON ITSELF
This one isn't exactly likely to enrage people, and is once again really easy to do without thinking, but it will assuredly make their life harder. And if you've made their life excessively harder, they won't thank you for that. I'm talking about big, wide-ranging questions like "How can I go about getting into scriptwriting?". That's big. Whole books are written on that subject. In fact, are you sure you shouldn't buy a tax-deductible General Script Advice book, rather than ask a pro to write several paragraphs of advice for free? Then, by all means, you can ask more targeted, specific questions of this person. This will serve a double-duty: it makes it a lot easier for them to answer the questions, and you seem more clued-up from the very beginning. Everybody wins, nobody loses, hooray.

8) 'Forget' to thank them
Never forget to thank someone who has given you advice, help and especially notes. This is possibly the most infuriating thing of all, and there seems to be an epidemic of this behaviour going around. Almost every industry pro I talk to, shares the annoyance at not being thanked for helping people. This now seems to be a 'thing'. Strangers appear in your life, out of the clear blue sky (© Larry David), ask for help/advice/a script read, are given that valuable stuff for free, then fail to even thank the helper. That's downright weird behaviour, which has certainly happened to me a few times now. Why would anyone do that? Besides being supremely irritating and ungracious, it pretty much guarantees that the person will get zero help or advice from me again. Don't burn bridges. Don't spread the epidemic which makes helping people literally a thankless task.

Writers, producers, script editors: anything to add to this list? Comment away! I want stories of people who have contacted you, out of the blue, and proceeded to screw up their chances of you ever helping them. I'd also like stories from people who have made mistakes while contacting new people. Let's stockpile this stuff and get a little closer to establishing Best Practice when progressing in this industry and forging new professional relationships.

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@JasonArnopp on Twitter

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