5 Tips on Making your Romantic Comedy Lovable…Er, Relatable
by Lauren Miller
We asked screenwriter, Lauren Miller, for her tips on writing a relatable romantic comedy. Take it away, Lauren!
Who doesn’t love to love a romantic comedy? No one, that’s who! But how often do you go to the theatre just dying to love the new girl-chases-guy, girl-loses-guy, guy-wins-back-girl movie and you leave the theatre just a little… well…not in love?
Unfortunately, I find that it happens a little more often than it doesn’t happen, and I thought of a few things that might make your romantic comedy the most lovable and relatable thing you’ve ever seen.
- Keep your romantic climaxes real. Okay, we all love Richard Gere climbing the fire escape, and we all love Tom Hanks finding Meg Ryan on top of the Empire State building, but these are just hugely fictional and completely unrealistic dreams. Yes, they are fun to imagine that it’s you on the receiving end, but these huge gestures fail way more often than they succeed on screen. Keeping it true to your characters will give you a chance to connect to your audience in a way that is much more likely to ring true to the romantic in themselves.
- Give your women some depth! For the most part, there are two types of women in romantic comedies:
- The super-hot, ditzy klutz who has had so many boyfriends, but none who really understand her.
- The super-hot, uptight, and über-successful businesswoman who has forgotten how to love until the artist/loser shows her how to live again.
- Keep the world your characters live in real. How many times do you watch a rom-com and the main character is a lowly assistant at a non-profit, yet they have the most fantastic wardrobe and the best NY apartment you’ve ever seen. Nothing disconnects me more from a movie than when that happens. If someone is struggling at their job, I want to see them struggling everywhere! Don’t be afraid to write that your character is just normal at some things–not every character has to be the best-dressed, the smartest, the cleanest, the messiest. What are you wearing right now? That’s what your character should be wearing! Where do you hang out with your friends? That’s where your character should be hanging out! What colors are your walls? You guessed it…you’re character’s walls should be that color too! If the world your character is living in isn’t real to you, then it won’t be real to the audience either.
- Don’t force your characters together. Again, keeping it real especially helps here. Say that you like spicy food and basketball. Will you fall in love with every other person who also likes spicy food and basketball? You really have to give your lovers a chance to genuinely fall for each other.
- Please! Not New York! People fall in love other places you know. Okay, it’s not that a romantic comedy can’t take place there (it’s so awesome!). But how many times can people fall in love there? Come on! Spread the wealth to other cities! And small towns! Use average places where your average people live. Give them a chance to be romantic too! And remember, if it has to be NY, more than likely, their apartment will be the size of a shoebox and won’t have a flower-pot-lined stoop.
For example, think about your own life. What’s the most romantic thing someone has done for you? Maybe you could steal that! Or think about the things that you like to do, and imagine that you are out doing them one day and the object of your affection shows up unexpectedly.
I guess what it comes down to is the need to keep your romantic swells organic to your character’s everyday lives. If a character is poor and has any sort of responsibilities, they probably can’t stop everything and follow some guy they heard on the radio to the top of the Empire State Building.
If you’re a girl, ask yourself this question: “Are you either of these people?” And if you’re a man, ask yourself this question: “Do you really know one of these women?” Hopefully the answer to those questions is “nope.” Because usually, women are a mix of so many different things! Don’t be afraid to let your female character be a little of everything. And let her emotions be real! Give her an annoying fault and give her something to be admired for. And give her some hobbies that are real (and not just football because that makes her likeable to the male lead). She should be someone you would be friends with, and you should know her better than anyone. I bet Nora Ephron always knew what Sally Albright was doing with her day.
Lauren A. Miller lives in Los Angeles where she is currently working on a script for Fox Atomic.
Reach for the Evocative Word
by Lisa Drostova
We asked Lisa Drostova, critic turned actor, her thoughts on great dialogue. Take it away, Lisa!
Write things that are exciting or powerful to say, things that make an actor hyperventilate with desire to speak your words out loud. Actors are sweet on writers who pay attention to this point. There are plays that get performed for years, decades, even centuries after they're written because actors want to do them . Not just because directors feel they're "important" or subscribers find them satisfying, but because actors agitate to get them staged. Hang around with actors for any length of time and you'll hear them delivering lines they love, even from plays they've never done. Last month I shared a dressing area with a woman who sings Gilbert and Sullivan's A Modern Major General between acts of a completely different show just because she loves lines like "I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes." Meanwhile out in the parking lot, other castmates were wandering around quoting each other's lines from shows they'd worked on together in the past. Comic, poignant, angry, seductive, bleeding, raunchy. Outrageous lines are the way to an actor's heart, and from there to the audience's. Not to mention that directors and literary managers, as they consider plays for production, are imagining how they'll sound.
Play with line lengths. Don't give every character the same number of words or lines because you're worried the actors with less will feel bad--believe me, if they're out of high school, they won't. You can show a lot about characters by how much they speak in relation to each other, both to comic and dramatic effect. Make sure you're reading what you write out loud. This seems obvious, but I've read scripts where the writer clearly hadn't taken the time to sound out the work. If it sounds clunky and wrong coming out of your mouth, chances are it's not going to be any better coming out of mine, and I won't thank you for making me say something clumsy in front of paying strangers and long-suffering friends.
And when I say out loud, that's exactly what I mean. Go ahead and mumble it at your desk first if you have to, but at some point do it on full voice, with commitment. Roll the words around in your mouth for their flavor and texture, just as the actor does as she makes them hers. Notice which words strike you, which ones make you giggle, which ones make you feel strange or angry or powerful as you say them. Keep those. The ones that make you sleepy, euthanize.
If you're stuck for what to write, go outside. Real conversation is more outrageous than we realize. Playwright Anne Washburn works extensively with "stolen" text and is a great teacher to boot. She transcribes scraps of the conversations around her and then either integrates them directly into her text or riffs off them. Is this cheating? Sure, if you think all true creativity entails sweating blood alone in your garret, but there are advantages to working this way beyond scoring some free dialogue.
Transcribing overheard conversation exposes you to the real rhythms of people's speech. It opens you up to folks and what they worry about and the wild ways they talk about it. The rise of the cell phone and the iPod are a godsend to writers of every stripe. As people go deaf from their music and forget that there are others catching the details of their visit to the gynecologist, they get louder and more self-revelatory. You can hate that you're getting all the dirt of a stranger's life as you stand in that packed commuter train, or you can grab a notebook. Check these out:
It's giving me the willies with all that yellow.
I shrunk your head. And then I blew it back up.
"It's beautiful, but it's full of suicidal squirrels. I swear, we were riding there, and there were twenty squirrels lining up. They were really waiting along the sidewalk until we came up to run across the trail."
Those were all harvested from conversations I overheard on the train, in art classrooms, at a party. None of them are "finished" dialogue, but they're full of weirdness and energy and can tell you much more about the relationships between the people speaking than pages of exposition. They're also the sort of thing that if you heard it, you'd be eager to hear what comes next. And finally, they make great jumping-off places for your own dialogue.
Go on, go too far. Make your characters say things that seem overblown, dangerous, and extreme. You can always pull back if they sound wrong read aloud. Go out and write something that will make actors and audiences dizzy.
Lisa Drostova was an award-winning theater critic at the East Bay Express in Berkeley, California for seven years. She jumped the fence in 2007 to become an actor and dramaturge. She is now a member of Concord's Butterfield 8 Theater Company, where she's played Theseus in A Midsummer Night's Dream and Gwendolen Fairfax in The Importance of Being Earnest. She's also on the literary committee for the San Francisco Playhouse, where she solicits and evaluates scripts to help the artistic director choose the company's seasons.
Three Secrets of Great Storytelling
by Jill Chamberlain
We asked screenwriter and story doctor, Jill Chamberlain, the secrets of great stories. Take it away, Jill!
If you find yourself blocked and can't figure out what to write next, the problem may lie not in the scene you're stuck on but in your story as a whole.
Take a look at these three secrets of great storytelling, and see if they help you reimagine your story in a fresh light. With a few tweaks, you can usually manipulate your tale to work within these three frameworks. Then, your story should be rock solid, and hopefully you'll never find yourself at a loss for words again.
1. Every story is a version of "be careful what you wish for."
At the beginning of a screenplay, usually within the first 10 pages, the protagonist is introduced, and we find out what the protagonist wants. Later, the protagonist will get exactly what she wanted–it may not be the thing she wanted the most–but she will get something she wanted in those first 10 pages. Then, pretty soon after that, the protagonist's life will begin to resemble the old maxim "be careful what you wish for."
In The Wizard of Oz Dorothy wishes she could go somewhere over the rainbow because she thinks that there she'd escape her problems. Does she get her wish? Yes–but it turns out to be a scary place, and instead of taking away her problems, it compounds them.
In Tootsie Michael Dorsey, the out-of-work actor played by Dustin Hoffman, desperately wants an acting job. Does he get his wish? Yes–but the acting job is that of a female character on a soap opera, so he has to disguise himself as a woman all the time. Eventually this creates so many problems in his life that he risks his entire acting career to try to get out of his contract.
In some films "be careful what you wish for" is more apparent than in others. Often it requires some verbal dexterity to create just the right wording of the wish so that it's the one that is fulfilled. But deep down, it's always there.
2. Your protagonist's flaw is secretly what your story is about.
In life, we all have strengths and weaknesses. Well-developed fictional characters should have both, too. And your protagonist should have one weakness in particular–one specific personal flaw–which she is going to have to come up against before the end of your story.
The protagonist's flaw isn't something like a mustache or a Southern accent that you can tack onto your script as an afterthought. The protagonist's flaw is the story. This flaw and how your protagonist deals with it is actually what your story is secretly about.
You could say that The Wizard of Oz is about a Kansas farm girl whom wakes up in a magic land and, to get back home, she has to follows a path through scary places so she can talk to a wizard she's told can help her. But it turns out that she alone has the power to bring herself home, which she does by proclaiming "there's no place like home." That's the plot.
But what The Wizard of Oz is really about is a girl who yearns to be someplace else so she can escape her troubles. When she wakes up in a land far away, she finds she has all new problems that are even scarier than the ones she was trying to escape. When she finally is able to return home, she proclaims that she'll never look for excitement further than her own backyard, because somewhere new won't take away your problems; it'll just make them worse. That's the story.
When you think about it, so very many movie plots revolve around a physical journey. It's a great metaphor to use. Because, at the heart of it, every great story is an emotional journey. If you don't give your protagonist a real flaw to tackle, she'll literally have no place to go.
3. Don't put Tootsie in a chicken suit.
Stories are not one-size-fits-all. Your protagonist's journey should be specific to that character and her flaw. If you can easily remove your current protagonist from your story and replace her with a different character, say, your protagonist's best friend, and nobody would notice the difference, then your story is not specific to your protagonist. You have what we call at The Screenplay Workshop "Tootsie in the Chicken Suit" syndrome.
Let's say that instead of having to convince everyone he's a woman, Michael Dorsey in Tootsie has to wear a head-to-toe chicken costume. Instead of getting the part of a woman, he got the part of "Mr. Chicken," a kook who always wears a chicken suit for some reason. Now, let's say the producers want to keep the identity of Mr. Chicken top secret, and so Michael has to come to work and leave work in his Mr. Chicken costume, and he can never reveal to his costars or anyone whom he really is. Everything else about the plot of Tootsie we're going to leave exactly the same: Michael falls for his costar; Michael's character on the soap opera becomes a big hit, etc., etc.
Men dressing as women are funny; chicken costumes are funny. The rest of the plot is the same. So why wouldn't "Tootsie in the Chicken Suit" be as good a story? Why wouldn't it ultimately work?
The problem is that a chicken suit is arbitrary; it has nothing to do with the character Michael Dorsey. In the film Michael Dorsey is a guy who sleeps around and has no respect for women. Making him have to be a woman is a perfect test of Michael and his flaw, and it's exactly what makes it such a satisfying story.
A story isn't a bunch random events dumped onto characters. A story should be specific to its characters and their flaws. Don't put Michael in the chicken suit! Make sure you put your characters on journeys that are designed to test them as individuals and their specific flaws.
Jill Chamberlain is a screenwriter, story consultant and script doctor whose stories have been seen in theaters across the U.S. She's currently Director of The Screenplay Workshop, an acclaimed program where concrete, tangible writing techniques are taught by professional screenwriters in classes in groups, online and one-on-one.
Midpoint—The Key to Cracking Any Story
by Blake Snyder
Here at the middle of Script Frenzy 2008, we asked screenwriter and producer, Blake Snyder, for his advice on conquering the middle of any story. Take it away, Blake!
In both my Save The Cat! books and also the Save the Cat! Story Structure software, I have stressed the vital importance of figuring out what the midpoint of a screenplay is. I like to say that if you can crack the midpoint, you can crack the story. And it may not be until you do that you truly know what your story is really about!
To me, the day I discovered there is a secret to what happens at the midpoint in EVERY story, I was rocketed into a whole new dimension in my abilities as a writer.
There are two things that have to happen at the midpoint, both vital to making your story work:
- "the stakes are raised," and
- a "time clock" appears
When we meet the hero in Act One, and he decides to go on an adventure in the Break into Act Two, it isn't until midway through the movie that these two key elements cause him to truly decide if continuing on is for him. Thus the midpoint becomes a vital "weigh station" for the hero of every story, primarily because of these two simple devices.
Cracking your midpoint is the key to figuring out not only where your story goes, but what it means. By forcing these "stakes-are-raised" moments on your protagonists, and laying in the accompanying "time clocks" that put pressure on them to decide what to do, you may make their lives more difficult, but you also force them to address the changes that will truly make them worthy of the term "hero."
In his 20-year career as a screenwriter and producer, Blake Snyder has sold dozens of scripts, including co-writing Blank Check, which became a hit for Disney and Nuclear Family for Steven Spielberg. His book, Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need 
Five Building Blocks for a Rich Scene
by Liz Lisle
We asked Liz Lisle, producer, dramaturg, and playwright, for her thoughts on sparking up a scene. Take it away, Liz!
Banging your head against the door of the refrigerator because your scene just won’t come together? Here are some quick and dirty ways to get your characters moving, your plot dancing, and your imagination playing the fiddle like it’s a hot summer night.
1. Add a character that speaks differently. Put someone in the scene that uses words in a distinctly different manner than the other characters. As soon as language becomes a focus, there are lots of interesting questions on the table about who, why, and what. As the playwright, you then get to spend time deciding if these are questions you want to answer now or later, if at all. A great way to create a dynamic in a scene is to create mystery around what is common knowledge and what is not. Who knew this different person would be so different? Who knew they were even coming? It all depends on what kind of world you are creating onstage. For an additional twist, try making this character’s language, dialect, or speech impediment translatable by only some of the other characters. (Example: “This is my girlfriend, Monique”.)
2. Add a distraction. Create a magnetic event that each character has a different opinion about. Even though the event may not fund the strict structure of the plot, it adds a central point around which the characters can orient, and gives everyone a sudden, unexpected reason to show their true colors. By adding a live moment of action to the scene, you immediately add a layer to the story of the play, something the audience and the actors are living together and learning about together. This makes the audience feel smart, which is usually a good thing. Creating a distraction also gives opportunity for some characters to sneak away from the main action of the scene and do some business in a dark nefarious corner if need be. Then you have the glory of making two scenes happen onstage at the same time, which will make you feel smart. (Example: “Did you see that? Some hobo out there just got hit by a car!”)
3. Add a threat. Create a rhythmic shift in the scene and some attractive tension by pitting two characters against one another. When one character threatens another in no uncertain terms, there is a real boxing match sort of effect onstage. It’s raw, it’s exciting, and no one seems to know who’s got the stronger right hook. Whether the threat is verbal, emotional or physical, there’s nothing like writing a current moment of conflict to pick up the energy. Who can tell what might happen when an angry animal gets cornered! Be sure to work all the angles here, and let your characters really get sweaty. (Example: “Go ahead! If you throw my plant out the window you know what you’ll get.”)
4. Add a discovery. Everyone loves knowing a secret. Finding one out might even be better. Create relationships between characters in a scene, and then move them around as things are revealed. Try setting up the reveal, so that characters that seemed firm in one stance or another can be exposed or victorious, just at the moment no one was expecting them to be. Secrets pave the path for power exchanges, for romance, for betrayal, for friendship… the possibilities are endless. It’s all about creating a small, enclosed space onstage, smaller than the world the characters have been living and moving in. Invite the audience into that space, whether it is through sound level or posture, and then give it to them: that wonderful feeling of knowing. Of being in on it. (Example: “Well you knew, right? He and Monique…?”)
5. Add physical quirks. The great thing about theater is that you have bodies to play with. Sometimes it’s hard to remember this when you’re crunched in front of a computer screen with only your eyes and your fingers moving for hours on end. But the greatest plays are the ones where playwrights have given some hint as to the physicality of his or her characters. Even if these details don’t end up in the final draft, it’s worth your time to spend a hour walking around the room and being your character. My advice is to make eccentricities and tics visible, even when your characters are “normal” people. Also, think about what piece of clothing, prop, or beloved item might define a character, and how the other characters choose to react—or whether they’ll even notice. (Example: “That’s some sweater.”)
Liz Lisle is a producer, dramaturg, and playwright. She has worked in non-profit theater arts and management since 2000, and with Shotgun Players Theatre since 2001. Liz is also a company member and the director of Shotgun’s Theatre Lab, the company’s second stage experimental season. She is also on the selection committee for the Bay Area Playwright’s Festival (BAPF), and worked as a dramaturg for the BAPF, as well as for Word for Word. Liz’s play EAT was produced by the Shotgun Theatre Lab in 2003, and in 2007 she was commissioned to create a new play in Just Theater’s Writer/Director Lab, the product of which is called Matterless Fact. Liz is the recipient of the Observership Grant awarded by Theatre Communications Group. In addition to her work with Shotgun Players, Liz is the Managing Editor of Watchword Press, an independent literary collective that publishes a biannual literary magazine and creates public gallery events that combine literature, visual and performing arts. For the last seven years she has also co-produced an annual festival of radical puppetry in San Francisco called PuppetLOVE!
QUICK TIPS ON SHORTS
by Will Bigham
We asked Will Bigham, winner of On The Lot, for his thoughts on writing a winning short. Take it away, Will!
Writing is writing, whether your script is 5 pages or 205 pages (please don't let it be 205 pages). Everything you know about character, structure, tone and format in regards to writing a feature, the same rules apply when writing a short. The only difference is SCOPE. Here are a few quick tips for those of you who have a story to tell and only a few minutes to tell it.
1. Keep it simple. If you have an idea that takes place in ancient Rome, where the newly appointed Caesar must win favor of the Senate, while his sister is courting the son of their enemy's king, and in the climactic battle sequence, brother and sister fight each other over the empire they love and the man that's tearing them apart... write a feature. In a short, keep it to a hero wants something, there's an obstacle, he tries a few things to get what he wants, and he either gets it or doesn't. I know when I say it like that, it sounds boring. But take a look at any good short, and I guarantee the basic story structure is as simple as that.
2. Define your hero. If you only have 5 or 10 pages to tell a story, you can't waste much of that time getting to know your characters. Find something in your hero in which everyone can relate to, something universal. You don't have to make them a stereotype. They can be unique and different. In fact, if they're not, why write them? But we have to know who that person is on the first page of your script. And we should know who they are by the choices they make and the actions they take. If you feel like you need a voice over to tell the back story of your hero, start rewriting. Give that character an action or have them make a choice that will define who they are. The audience cares about who they are now, not who they were.
3. Start strong and end strong. Whenever I go to festivals or I'm surfing online, I know in the first ten seconds if I'm going to like a short. First impressions are everything. Do something right off the bat that grabs your audience's attention. That doesn't mean you have to have an explosion or a gun fight. It just means you have to show your audience something they weren't expecting. As I said earlier, your hero needs to be defined quickly. Why not have your hero do something unexpected. It will let your audience know who he is, and it will grab their attention right out of the gate. Also remember that last impressions are lasting. Be sure to end with some sort of emotional button. If you're doing a comedy, end on a laugh. Whatever your tone, make sure you give the audience a final impression that will keep them thinking about your short.
When coming up with ideas for your short, always keep in mind that it is a SHORT, which means it should be short. If you've ever sat through a shorts program at a festival, I'm sure you'd agree with me in saying that the shorter the short the better. When you find yourself on page 20 and you still haven't reached the inciting incident of your story, stop. The reason we write short screenplays is because we have a small but meaningful story to tell. Tell that story in as few words as possible.
Will Bigham is a writer/director, currently with a development deal at DreamWorks Pictures. Last summer, Will was voted the winner of Fox's reality show "On the Lot". Originally from Texas, Will now lives in Los Angeles with his wife and two daughters.
FIVE WAYS TO START A SCRIPT
by Nick Turner
Around the world the clock is striking midnight and the Frenzy is beginning! As we start Script Frenzy 2008 we turned again to award-winning writer Nicholas Turner for advice on the best way to start a script. Take it away, Nick!
The best scripts feel both original and familiar at the same time&151;no easy feat. Even more challenging: being able to capture that tone within the first few pages. Your script only gets one first impression, and if it doesn’t hook a reader immediately, its next stop may be the landfill.
That doesn’t mean the beginning needs explosions and car chases—or that it even has to be particularly fast-paced. What it should do is introduce a bit of mystery. Your readers should have a thread of suspense pulling them from page to page. What’s going on here? Who are these people? Why does one of them keeping sharpening his bowie knife?
Unsure how to start? Here are five classic beginnings you may want to try. A tried-and-true formula gives you structure and helps ground your reader in something familiar. The challenge is to give your opening a twist, making it your own.
1. The how-did-we-get-here opening. With this beginning, you plunge right into the action—showing your character in an intriguing predicament. Maybe your hero is by the gallows, getting a hood placed over his head. Maybe she’s dragging a trash bag full of twenties past a policeman—and the bag slowly starts to split open. In any case, as soon as you’ve hooked your audience, you flash back to the beginning of the story. If you’ve done your job right, they’ll be itching to find out how it all happened. The ultimate version of this opening may be Memento (2000), which is a movie told backwards.
2. The who-are-these-people opening. Mysteries don’t have to be about murder and cover-ups. Just put two characters together and have them start a conversation. Don’t tell us that they’re man and wife, or boss and secretary, or hit man and victim. Let the facts leak out gradually, through natural dialogue. The audience’s desire to figure out the relationship between characters can hold their attention. This approach often works best for stage plays (Harold Pinter is a master of the technique), where there are few clues other than dialogue.
3. The big-bang opening. There’s nothing wrong with an explosion or two. If you’re writing an action-adventure script, it’s wise to start off with a tightly paced set piece. In addition to grabbing the audience, it can help establish your character. In Speed (1994), an elevator sequence teaches us that Keanu Reeves’ Jack Traven is a quick-thinking cop on the bomb squad. In the Peruvian-temple scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), we see Indiana Jones’ bullwhip-cracking prowess, as well as his respect for ancient artifacts. After the set piece, you should step back and slow down—showing your character in a less frenzied environment (Indiana Jones teaching college kids, for instance). Remember that your climax will have to be even more exciting than your opener, so don’t pump up the action to the max. Where will you go from there?
4. The waking-up opening. This beginning is fraught with cliché dangers, so be careful. How many movies have you seen where an alarm clock goes off and a weary hero flails around in an effort to shut it off? It’s a shopworn scene. However, there’s something to be said for showing your protagonist starting out a typical day. It helps your audience identify with the character and also establishes who this person is—before the events of your script irrevocably change his life. To see a twist on this idea, check out Half Nelson (2006). Ryan Gosling’s character is in his living room, strung-out and wide-awake, when his alarm clock goes off in his bedroom. Like all good beginnings, this reveals something about the character: You know immediately that this guy is messed up.
5. The origin opening. If you want to add a little heft to a character trait, consider this opener. Say your protagonist is deathly afraid of bees, you may want to show her as a kid, when she bumps her head on a buzzing hive. Or maybe you’re giving the origin of a superhero’s powers, as in Superman (1978). When you cut to adulthood, the audience has a deeper understanding of the character than they’d get through dialogue alone. The risk: Starting off with your main character in childhood can easily be hackneyed and cheesy. And when you show that character as an adult, the audience may not recognize that it’s supposed to be the same person. (You also may want to withhold the origin story until later in the script, to give more mystery.) For an example of this approach done well, see The Orphanage (2007). It shows the protagonist Laura as a kid, enjoying games at the orphanage. You then can understand why she would return to the same rundown place later in life, eager to restore the idyll she remembers. Again, the best openings spotlight the hero’s character.
Nicholas Turner's stage plays have been performed in Berkeley, Chicago, San Diego and San Francisco, and he has sold three film scripts. His first produced screenplay, "Fissure," debuted in March at the AFI Dallas International Film Festival. His latest stage play will be performed in the Washington DC area this summer.
A "TO-DO LIST" FOR ASPIRING SCREENPLAY WRITERS
by Melissa Carter
Melissa Carter graduated from The Florida State University's Film School M.F.A. program in 1996. Her student thesis film Used Cars was a student academy award finalist in 1997 then sold to Revolution Studios to became the film Little Black Book in 1999. She has sold six original television pilots, sold the feature spec Parental Guidance, and has worked as a writer/producer on two television shows, both Life as We Know It for ABC and Yes Dear for CBS. She is currently in pre-production to film her first pilot for Fox 21/Lifetime called Mistresses.
We asked Melissa if she had any advice for young writers, and she has come up with 6 awesome tips:
It is funny, but no matter how far along you get in your career as a writer, you are constantly looking for the “secret” or that one piece of advice that will solve all your problems. I say this, because I have been supporting myself solely as a writer for the past ten years, and I am endlessly looking for advice! I often find it in the form of screenwriting books or friends, but know that even if you are a “professional” you often look to others to see if you are on the right path. I think this is so because every script is different, but there is always one problem with it. I can’t tell you what that is, because that one problem always changes.
So, I thought I would give you, dear aspiring writers, the “advice” that I dole out when young writers ask me for guidance. Instead of giving you generic advice on dialogue or structure, I thought I would compile my list of “to do’s” that I am always trying to do myself:
1) WRITE AN OUTLINE FIRST I know, you don’t want to hear this, I didn’t want to hear this. No one wants to hear this. I have worked in television, and as part of your contract they make you write an outline. This is true whether you sell a pilot or work on a show. I have also, irritatingly enough, found this to be true for features. Some producers and some production companies make you hand in an outline or beat sheet before progressing to the script stage. I suggest the book Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
2) FINISH YOUR FIRST DRAFT What does that mean? You might be asking yourselves why I would include such an obvious piece of advice that is so obvious it isn’t even advice. Well. . . I find with young writers that they will get close to finishing a draft, and then realize that a different story would be better. Or, they should make the boyfriend a brother, or they should change the point of view, or the main character, or the city or the ending—whatever—what I’m trying to say is FINISH YOUR FIRST DRAFT before trying to change anything. If you have a story about a boy who runs away to join the circus, finish that idea/draft/screenplay before changing it to a boy who runs away to join a rock band. I think what we all try to do is procrastinate by changing it—you avoid finishing it. It is okay, and actually expected, to have a terrible first draft. We all do. I promise you I have written some >i>horrible first drafts. But the only way to get to a good second, third, or tenth great draft is to finish the first horrible one.
3) START A WRITER’S GROUP Get a few people together who like to write. I find that having a writer’s group is incredibly helpful to getting better. I suggest keeping it to about five to six people and meet say once a week. Finding good readers, or any readers, can be difficult, so create a group. If you don’t know anyone local, try the internet to find someone and email drafts back and forth. Having a group read your work, and you reading other people’s work is invaluable. If more than one person has a problem with something I’ve written, then I admit that there is a better way to do it, something that needs to be fixed. If two people don’t understand the third act, or get a joke, or like a character—well, it’s probably true.
Your writer’s group should be a supportive one. You are not there to tear down each other's work. You are there to give each other constructive criticism that will make their work better. You may not (and probably this is a good thing) all write the same kind of screenplays. You need to be able to help one another reach the goal of making a story work. The flipside to that is don’t be defensive when getting criticism. I’m not saying you will agree with all of the notes, but figure out how you can take that criticism and make a better script!
4) READ AS MANY SCREENPLAYS AS POSSIBLE Read real screenplays in screenplay format. Now that there is that nifty internet, it is really easy to download scripts for free. Dailyscript.com is one of the great sites. Find scripts that are in your genre and study them.
5) REWRITING IS WRITING As long as you finish that first draft, get it out of the way, know that screenwriting is really rewriting. As painful and laborious as that may sound, it is true. Screenwriting is very much about structure. Again, I think Save The Cat! The Last Book on Screenwriting You'll Ever Need
Structure supports character. You want to create a structure that builds. You want to have a structure that shows change and growth in character. You also want to have a structure that lets the reader know you know what you are doing. If you have a 50-page first act and a ten-page third act, well, that’s just wrong.
6) KEEP AT IT Hollywood is really a five to ten year town. Very, very, very few people make it right out of the gate. For every Diablo Cody, there are thousands of people who took seven years of writing to make it. Everyone wants to be the Diablo Cody, but know that if you really work at your craft, have great ideas and talent, you can make it. Everyone is on their own path, so don’t judge your journey by someone else’s itinerary!
GOOD LUCK AND ENJOY!
HOW TO MAKE YOUR SCENES DANCE THE “WADOOGEE”
With Writer and Author Hal Ackerman
We asked Hal Ackerman—screenwriter, playwright, and Co-Chair of the UCLA Screenwriting Program—to share some indispensable advice on scene-writing from his book, Write Screenplays that Sell: The Ackerman Way
There is a one and only purpose for every scene that is placed in your script. Nope. It’s not the one you’re thinking of. No. Not that one either.
Your number one focus is to create a situation in which two characters each have an urgent, immediate need and those needs are in direct opposition to one another. Here’s how to keep your scenes alive and dancing:
1. Your protagonist must have a CHARACTER OBJECTIVE. This is not something long range, like “finding happiness, finding true love, coming of age, gaining empowerment.” An objective must be tangible, not abstract. (Get the job, get out of the room, find out a name, open the safe). It must be specific. (Grab that money…as opposed to getting rich). It must be immediate. Right NOW.
2. The opponent in the scene must also have a CHARACTER OBJECTIVE (most scenes have two principal characters and then minor foils). The same criteria apply. TANGIBLE, SPECIFIC, URGENT, IMMEDIATE. Don’t make either character a pushover.
3. Main characters’ objectives must be in OPPOSITION TO EACH OTHER. If Joe wants to buy cat food and Jane wants to wear a yellow blouse, there is no opposition to those desires. Both can be accommodated without conflict. ORGANIC CONFLICT is the product of urgent, immediate desires placed in a circumstance where only one can prevail.
4. Are characters dancing their WADOOGEES? “Wadoogee” is made up of the three key words you must remember. What does the character WAnt? What does the character DO to GEt it? Screenwriting is a verb-oriented craft. Verbs are words of action. The dance is the wa“DO”gee, not the Wa“SAY”ee. What does the character DO? It is a far better scene when you have a character take definitive action that the other character has to UNDO, than to have the characters debate or argue or threaten.
Action puts things at stake, which causes responses based on individual needs, which are at odds with each other, which generate opposing needs, which generate the lifeblood of every scene…CONFLICT.
5. This is the most important one. One out of a hundred of you will do this with true commitment. And you are the one whose writing will improve most dramatically. WRITE DOWN THE CHARACTER OBJECTIVE FOR EACH CHARACTER IN EACH SCENE. (It should be no more than a few words. If it takes too long to say, that’s a litmus test that you haven’t defined it clearly.) A day after you’ve written the scene, read it back aloud. Can you sense the character’s Wadoogee every moment? Are there times where you, the writer, intrude? Are you having the character talk about stuff that interests you but is not in the character’s immediate, urgent interest? Create a brand new file for great bits that you adore that have nothing to do with the scene.
Does the scene hold your attention? Where do you get bored in it? Figure out why. (As a clue, re-read 1-4.)
6. (A bonus for doing all the other 5). By staying with the characters’ desires, you will bypass having to think about theme, morality, or meaning—all stuff that, when self-consciously imposed upon a script, makes it less interesting. If you write through characters’ desires, the meaning will emerge that way. And moments will occur that you never anticipated, surprising and delighting you…and your reader.
5 SECRETS FOR IMPROVING YOUR COMEDY WRITING
With Sitcom Writer/Producer Fred Rubin
Whether you’re writing a romantic-com, a fantasy, or a horror flick, nearly every script can benefit from more levity. So we asked Fred Rubin, veteran writer/producer of such TV classics as “Different Strokes," “Mama’s Family," “Family Matters,” and “Night Court,” to share his side-splitting secrets. Besides writing dozens of sitcom episodes, pilots, and TV movies, Fred teaches at the UCLA film school and spends a great deal of time punching up scripts for other writers. Take it away, Fred!
Learning to be funny is one of the most difficult writing skills to master. Most everyone is born with the sensibilities to be scared, confused, serious, moody, frustrated, conflicted, and angry—all elements that contribute to great writing. But “funny?” Well, if it’s not in your environment as you grow up, it’s often not on hand when you create. Still, I believe anyone who at least possesses a sense of humor, anyone who likes jokes and laughs a lot, can learn to be “funnier.”
Whenever I’m hired to do a script punch up, before getting deeply into rewriting jokes or going through the time consuming task of writing new jokes, I always do a quick reading of the script with the following five tips in mind. These rules will help you in creating humor, but they are particularly helpful in improving jokes you may already have.
1) BE SPECIFIC
There is nothing that improves a joke more than using a “specific” object or allusion. The more well known the object or allusion, the bigger the laugh. Often novice writers, or people trying comedy for the first time, use general things in a joke, say for example the word “dog” rather than Schnauzer, or Poodle, or Chihuahua. Using any one of these “specific” breeds is automatically funnier than just “dog.”
Recently, while watching Mel Brook’s classic movie, The Producers, I laughed again when Max Bialystok tries to convince Leo Bloom how poor and needy he is. He screams at Leo, “I’m wearing a CARDBOARD belt!” Flimsy belt, crummy belt, discount belt…none of these are as specific as “cardboard.” It’s part of what makes the joke so funny.
2) PUT THE FUNNY WORD AT THE END
This rule is so simple and so obvious that writers often don’t take it to heart, but it works. If there’s a funny sounding word within the punch line of your joke, try to arrange the sentence so that the funny word falls at the end of the joke. A lot of what makes us laugh is mysterious. Even hardened, cynical comedy writers can’t always explain why some jokes work and others fall flat. But we do know that it has to do with rhythm and sound. If a funny sounding word is the last thing the audience/reader hears, it strengthens the joke. What makes a word funny? Well, for one thing:
3) WORDS WITH A HARD “K” OR HARD “C” SOUND ARE FUNNY
Watch any great comedy movie or any classic sitcom and you will find across the board that a good majority of the jokes rely on the use of a word with these sounds. In the hysterical Neil Simon masterwork on comedy, The Sunshine Boys his main character, Willie Clark, an aging vaudevillian, lectures: “Pickle is funny, Chicken is funny, Alka-Seltzer is funny.” And, he’s right. Comedy writers as a rule don’t search their brains for “K” or “C” sound words to end their jokes, but when pitching the jokes, our minds “instinctively” choose words with those consonants.
4) NEVER WRITE TO A JOKE—LET THE JOKE COME OUT OF THE CHARACTER OR SITUATION
Often, while writing a script, particularly when one is struggling to be funny, a great, fully written joke comes to mind for use later in the scene. We are so enamored with the joke that we then begin crafting the dialogue in the scene to lead to that joke. This almost NEVER works. Nine times out of ten when rereading that scene, the joke jars the flow of the dialogue. Sometimes it stops the scene dead, sometimes it can change the entire emotionality of the scene. It doesn’t work because it does not grow organically from the characters or the situation. Even though it might be on topic, it can still feel out of place.
The best humor ALWAYS comes first from character: fully developed characters with very specific, hopefully quirky traits. Secondly, comedy grows out of the conflict of the situation. Some of the best comedy writers write their scenes without any comedy, then they do a rewrite to find where in the character and conflict the humor can be mined. It’s important to:
5) GET RID OF THE JOKES THAT DON’T FIT, EVEN IF YOU LOVE THEM
I have a vivid memory from my first job as a television writer many years ago, of watching the producers rewriting my script and tearing out whole pages of jokes and dialog that I had loved. Never mind that I had sweated over them, rewritten them half a dozen times, cherished them, and been paid for them. I felt angry, frustrated, and betrayed. But after this happened a handful of times, I came to learn with some surprise that the script worked anyway! And often the comedy was even sharper, because as Shakespeare wrote in Hamlet “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Don’t be afraid to edit, trim back, and discard, because pacing (again rhythm) is also a key ingredient to a successful comedy. The very hardest thing in comedy writing is when you recognize that a perfectly crafted joke, a hysterical joke, a joke you laughed out loud at as you wrote it, is not working in the scene. Just give it up and kiss it goodbye.
BUILDING GREAT PLOTS WITH ACTRESS ANGELA PATON
We asked Angela to lay out the Top Five things that go into creating satisfying screenplay plots. Take it away, Angela!
1) The Hero. The Hero must have a dream or need that he is trying to fulfill, and his or her problem is trying to make that wish come true. He or she should be someone we like, so we want him or her to solve the problem of making that dream come true. Often there is also some lack in his character or life that he is unaware of, but that others might be aware of. In sad scripts, this is called a tragic flaw, sort of a troubling ghost getting in his way. In happy scripts, this is often the schtick that makes us laugh at his problem. The Hero's need is what starts the action of the plot, makes the plot move forward, and its success or failure is what brings the plot to an end. The tragic flaw is what makes it hard for the hero to see his way through the Plot.
2) The Opponent. Also getting in the hero's way is the opponent, who must be as strong or as smart or as interesting as the hero, or the film will be rather boring, like a game between a major league team and a minor league team; you know from the beginning who is going to win. The Opponent also has a dream or desire, and it might even be the same as the Hero's. He also has a gap in his personality that he's unaware of or doesn't much care about.
3) A World or Place or Universe. This world is the context in which the Hero lives and which is the origin of his needs, desires, and problems. It has minor characters that add to or obstruct the Hero's goal.
4) A Struggle. The central part of the Plot, also called the turning point or climax, is the fight, argument, battle, debate or struggle between the Hero and his Opponent, which often takes place in the part of the world in which it looks harder for the hero to escape, like a long hallway or a Ferris wheel or locker room. The struggle often has two or three surprises which show that escape might or might not be possible. The more important the Hero's goal, the better and more exciting the struggle. This part is called the agon. The struggle leads to point 5.
5) A Big Revelation. This is the end of the Plot in which the Hero's problem is solved, and which must answer some big question for the hero. Is his goal right or wrong? And it usually makes him aware of his tragic flaw. In happy scripts it's usually the right goal. In sad ones, it's a case of: "Be careful what you wish for...you might get it." And the answer must make sense to the audience.
Angela Paton is an actress with a resume spanning the worlds of theater (including San Francisco's ACT), television (The X-Files), and film (Groundhog Day, The Wedding Singer).
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FIVE QUESTIONS TO HELP PILOTS TAKE FLIGHT
BY JONATHAN ABRAHAMS
Now that the WGA writers strike is over, many writers are gearing up to meet the 100-page Script Frenzy quota by writing two TV pilots in a month. We asked Los Angeles-based TV writer Jonathan Abrahams to lay out the Top Five plot questions pilot writers should ask themselves before the writing begins.
First of all, let me say to those who have decided to take this on: You’re out of your minds. It takes most professional TV writers a month at the very least just to write one 60-minute original pilot, and many more weeks of planning and researching and taking notes before that. But that’s because most of us live in fear: Fear that our imagination has dried upthat originality that is secretly frowned upon in our industry. So we spend forever plotting and planning to make sure we have a perfect idea before we start writing.
Anybody who signs up for this, however, is cut from a different cloth. You laugh at fear. You are to writers what X-gamers are to mere athletes.
That being said… If you are going to jump helmetless into the half-pipe, protect yourself by doing just a little pre-script thinking. You don’t have to get obsessive about planning, with the index cards, and the post-it notes, and the endless lists of story points that you work and rework. Just try to answer the following five questions before you actually start scripting:
1. What is the show? That is, start with an idea. That’s the big difference between this particular challenge and writing, say, a novel in thirty days. A novel is essentially formatless. It can be hundreds and hundreds of pages if you wish, so you have time to explore and meander and sort of figure out what your idea is as you write. With a TV script, there are—I hate to say the word—regulations. A one-hour drama pilot needs to be no less than 50 and no more than 65 pages. The very purpose of a pilot is to launch and set up a long-running series, so regular characters and settings (called set-pieces) must be introduced, and overall, people should read it and get a sense of what they’re going to see every week when they faithfully tune in to your show.
So, since you’re restricted both in space and time it’s important to start with an idea. Is it a detective show? A family show? A show about a CIA agent? Named Jack? You don’t have to have the whole thing figured out, but if you have some sort of idea, you can start thinking about scenes to support it, and that’s what a TV script is, a series of scenes that tell a story.
2. What do my characters want? You’re going to want to have a sense of who your characters are, and in the world of television, the characters are defined by what they want. That’s what drives what they do. A detective show is easy—he or she wants to solve the crime. That may be enough to start, but you’ll do yourself a favor by figuring out what drives him or her internally to solve the crime (bad version: our hero’s parents were victims of a violent crime, so he’s compensating by trying to protect the innocent… Wait—that’s Batman.) Anyway, it’s easy to come up with interesting characters in interesting situations—like a violinist who surfs in between concerts—but unless they’re driven by an extremely strong desire or need they won’t seem interesting to the reader.
3. What is the teaser? A standard one-hour drama has five acts and something called a teaser, which is a small (usually about four pages) mini-act at the beginning. It’s not a bad idea to do a little crafting of your teaser before you start writing, because this is the scene or series of scenes that basically defines the entire series. The teaser is where you introduce your main character or characters—it’s your show’s first impression, so try to think of something grabby but also, accurate. Don’t put a car chase in your teaser unless that’s the kind of thing viewers can expect to see regularly.
4. What is the event? No matter how you slice it, your pilot will be built around an event—a scene or situation or…event—where storylines come together. You don’t have to plot out how you’re going to get there but you should have in mind what the big moment of your show is. The event may change as you write, but writing toward even a vague idea will keep your story progressing.
5. What are the act-outs? This may be the most annoying piece of advice I can give you, but I’m going to give it to you anyway. A drama script is a teaser and five acts, and that structure, unfortunately, has everything to do with money and nothing to do with anything particularly creative. The show’s titles generally come after the teaser, and then, in between acts, you guessed it—commercials. So the scenes at the end of the acts are necessarily designed to be extra-compelling in order to get viewers to want to sit through the commercials and keep watching the show. Act-outs, as they are called, tend to be the most dramatic moments in the show—when somebody finally reveals the truth, or the hero makes the decision to fight back, or the heroine is captured by the bad guys. These scenes are all supposed to make the audience say “oh wow—what’s going to happen now?” (“Oh wow” may be optimistic, but we hope for it anyway.) In any case, these scenes are also the tent poles that hold the entire story up, so it’s not a bad idea to think about what they are before you write so when you do start the script it’s a bit more of a process of connecting the dots than wandering around blindly in the dark.
Good luck!
Jonathan Abrahams has written on the staffs of the ABC Family dramas Wildfire and Greek and has developed a pilot, Legal Affairs, with Steven Bochco for A&E. His plays have been produced in both New York and Los Angeles, and he is the screenwriter of the independent musical film Moonlight Serenade, starring Amy Adams.