Time to Write

The best opening for your screenplay or novel

I just read an article about Stephen King's new book, The Institute. The person who wrote the article admires King's novels but in this one he got to chapter 7 and there was still no story.

The Amazon blurb for the novel reads, "In the middle of the night, in a house on a quiet street in suburban Minneapolis, intruders silently murder Luke Ellis’s parents and load him into a black SUV."

That's intriguing, but even by chapter 7 there was no hint of that story.

Of course, King has millions of followers who are happy to let him take his time to get the story going, but the rest of us will do better to follow the advice to open your novel or screenplay with something intriguing going on that draws us in and has a strong connection to where the story is going. 

THE PROBLEM WITH NORMAL 

Usually, the first chapters or script pages are about the normal life of the protagonist, before the inciting incident that draws them into the main story. That allows us to identify with them and gives us a sense of their strengths and weaknesses. For instance, in a story about a teacher who is falsely accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a student, the first act of a screenplay or the first chapters of a novel would give us a sense of the life that's about to be destroyed. The problem, of course, is that normal life typically isn't very compelling.

FORESHADOW WITH A HINT

Foreshadowing is giving a clue about what's going to be happening later. In our example story, we might have the teacher discipline several students for a prank. One of them comments to the friend who leads their little clique that he's surprised the friend isn't more upset about it. That student says, "That's OK. She won't be teaching our class--or any class--for much longer." OK, maybe a little heavy-handed, but it makes us wonder what he has in mind and we know it's not going to be good. That keeps us interested and buys the writer some time to get more into the life of the protagonist. 

FORESHADOW WITH A METAPHOR

If you can't foreshadow with an incident directly tied to the story, sometimes you can foreshadow with an incident that serves as a metaphor. For instance, during the teacher's happy birthday party there's a scream as one of the guests spots a rat running through the kitchen. Even though rats will not be playing a role in the rest of the story, it gives a hint that in the midst of this happy norm, there's a dark element that will disrupt her life.

This is especially useful if you have a story in which the tone changes drastically as the story goes on. It helps to prepare the reader or viewer on a subconscious level for what's to come.

USING BOOKENDS

You can open at the end of the story if it's exciting or intriguing, flash back to the start, build to the same ending moment with which you began. For instance, you might start a script with your protagonist on the gallows. As the noose is placed around his neck, he turns to the camera and says, "It all started so innocently..." Then you flash back to how it started and continue until we're at the moment with which you started. Then, either he dies, or he manages to get out of being hanged and is available for a sequel.

Another example is Titanic, in which we see old Rose at the start and end, but the core story belongs to young Rose.

OPENINGS TO AVOID

One opening to avoid that I've seen sometimes in novels and short stories is something like, "Little did Posie know that in a mere few days her life would change forever." Clunk!

A dream, especially a nightmare, as an opening tends to feel like a cheat, especially if we don't know it's a dream. 

Prologues can work but tend not to be popular with publishers. Sometimes the prologue is a moment in the heart of the action, a preview of what's to come, and then the novel starts back at the beginning. Or they might show, for instance, a trio of witches brewing up a curse that will come into play later in the story. 

IF YOU CAN'T THINK OF A WAY TO FORESHADOW

If you can't think of a good idea for foreshadowing as you write the first pages, don't worry. It can be easier to come up with that idea after you've gotten farther into the story or even completed the first draft. Often, I'll just write the first act without it and then go back and add it.

And once you get to be as popular as Stephen King, you won't have to worry about it!

Write Like Nobody's Watching

Actually, nobody IS watching. So for your first draft, feel free to be as clumsy, daring, or crazy as you like.

Put it aside for a while.

Then look at it.

    What were you thinking!?

    That's TOO crazy!

    Or it just plain sucks.

The good news is, STILL nobody's watching.

You get to rewrite it as often as you want.

Or maybe more times than you want, but you keep going because you know it's not quite as good as you can make it yet.

Then, finally, when it's ready, you send it out. 

NOW somebody's watching.

They may still say it's too crazy or wonder what you were thinking or that it sucks.

If they have constructive criticism or you suddenly see another way to improve it, great, back to the desk with it. 

If not, keep sending it out until it finds a champion.

Meanwhile, write another thing like nobody's watching.

Bad writing advice from the web

The web is full of good advice. It's also full of bad advice.

Here's some bad screenwriting advice:

"Quite frankly, Hollywood people don't like to read; the first time they see so much as a simple metaphor in your scene description, their eyes are likely to glaze over in incomprehension and they'll slap your front cover down with a definitive 'nope.'"

That's in a book of essays giving writing advice and it's totally wrong. The first person your script will encounter is somebody who reads a lot of scripts and is grateful when they find one that's enjoyable to read. A fitting metaphor or simile can help make the images come alive, as shown by these two examples from the screenplay for Fargo, by the Coen brothers:

"A car bursts through the curtain of snow..."

"She screams, staring at her own imprisoned wrist..."

Illustrating a sense of style and humour in descriptions, this is from the screenplay for The Favourite, by Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara:

"ABIGAL, an open, friendly innocent woman is crushed to the side [of the carriage]. She clutches a dirty purse and a letter in her hands. Two kids, snot streaming from their noses, cough TB into the air."

Here's an example in a character description, from The Imitation Game, by Graham Moore--it's not a metaphor or simile but it's the kind of thing that the "only the actable facts!" absolutists object to:

"DETECTIVE ROBERT NOCK, 40's, athletic, more interested in football than in being a detective, hustles past a few double-parked police cars..."

Finally, this example from Logan, screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green:

"Logan cruises the wet El Paso streets. LCD Billboards for chemically enhanced life. Gang graffiti on self-driving buses. A kaleidoscope of moments, dark and mundane."

I doubt anybody slapped down the front covers of these screenplays with a definitive 'nope' and I feel sorry for any aspiring screenwriters who buy into the idea that employing a well-chosen metaphor is a prescription for failure in Hollywood.

Probably the best strategy for spotting dodgy advice is to keep your eyes open for absolutes. When you see phrases like, "If your screenplay is one page longer than 120...," or "If your script contains even one metaphor..." you're probably looking at bad advice.

What you CAN'T learn from others

The internet is full of tips on how to learn from [name of successful person]. The implication is that if you just do things their way, you'll have their success.

Usually, these tips are too general to be useful. Things like, "Be an original thinker, like Steve Jobs."

Sometimes they carry an unintentional irony: "If you want to be original, copy Picasso." Hmm.

Sometimes the tips are too specific. It may be that super-successful people X, Y, and Z get up at 5am and carry around a notebook, but it's far from clear that these are the reasons for their success. What if it's the fact that they all eat lasagna and do yoga?

As writer Dale Dauten points out, "People try to conform to success, but to be successful is to be a non-conformist." Even that is flawed advice if it leads somebody to think that being a non-conformist is, by itself, a formula for success. There are plenty of non-conformists sleeping in doorways.

For a while, Writing Magazine ran a series of articles on the theme of "How to Write Like Anton Chekhov" (or other great writers). I'm not saying you can't learn by studying Chekhov, who indeed is a wonderful writer, but writing like him has one requirement none of us can fulfill: being Anton Chekhov. As I mentioned in the previous post, imagining how he might solve a writing problem can lead you to a solution, but it won't actually be his, it'll be yours.

The moral, I think, is to write or draw, or paint, or whatever you do, your way. There's no guarantee it'll pay off, but at least you'll enjoy yourself.

 

 

 

Brainstorming Strategies: What would (X) do?

One of my favorite brainstorming strategies is imagining how another person might solve the problem or approach the task.

I'll give you a personal example. I'm thinking of writing a film or play about how political polarization affects a family, with a Christmas family get-together as the setting and occasion. How to give it a fresh angle? How would the three people above approach it?

BILLY WILDER is noted for his witty approach to comedies like "Some Like It Hot," and "Seven Year Itch." I imagine a Wilder-style approach would be a smart comedy, maybe told through the eyes of a recent addition to the family (the new spouse/partner of one of the family) who, to be accepted by everybody has pretended to agree with both sides--and of course runs into big problems when the whole family gets together.

MICHAEL MOORE is noted for documentaries like "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11." He might take a mockumentary approach to the event, perhaps with a psychologist stopping the action to explain what's going on and, if it's a comedy, getting it totally wrong; or maybe the shrink has been hired by the patriarch of the family to intervene and bring peace to the family but of course screws it up and only makes it worse.

STANLEY KUBRICK is known for "2001," "Eyes Wide Shut," and "The Shining," among others. Although there are moments of black comedy in his films, I think he'd be more likely to treat it as a dark psychodrama, perhaps leading to the total breakdown of one of the family members, with deadly consequences.

Of course, your "X" doesn't have to be a film-maker. It could be anybody whose way of thinking you're familiar with and admire. The next time you're stuck or just want a bit of extra inspiration, try the "What would X do?" method.