Time to Write

Secrets sell books and screenplays

I noticed a pattern today in the "free reads" books featured by Amazon Prime this month. Here are the log lines of a few of them:

"A novel of secrets, memory, family, and forgiveness..."

"A chilling story of a woman with a forgotten past and a town with dark secrets."

"A double homicide and a missing woman lead a detective to unearth disturbing secrets in this gripping thriller..."

"A woman unlocks the mystery of her father's wartime past in a moving novel about secrets, sacrifice, and the power of love..."

THE SELLING POWER OF (SUPPOSED) SECRETS

The theme of secrets shows up a lot in messages from people trying to sell us stuff, too.

They' offer us the secrets of writing a great novel, or having hair that shines, or getting a promotion.

Some of them add a conspiratorial dimension by adding that these are the secrets some "they" don't want you to know.

It seems corny but it must work or else copywriters wouldn't keep using it. We keep falling for it despite repeated disappointments. I've yet to find a book or course that has revealed actual secrets that the Illuminati or anyone else is actively trying to keep me from finding out. 

DON'T KEEP YOUR SECRET A SECRET

In fiction, a big secret in the story suggests that something unexpected will be revealed. We do love to be surprised and in that sense, a plot twist is a kind of secret from the reader or viewer.

Beyond that, being able to incorporate the notion of a secret in your logline may help your project sell.

Obviously it has to fit the story you are telling, but if it is a feature or you can make it one without affecting the integrity of the story, be sure to point it out when you're writing your logline and your query letters.

Useful tips for rewriting your screenplay or novel

One of the most common questions I get is "Do you have any tips for rewriting?" That's because when we've written a screenplay or novel it's really hard to be objective about it.

I've written about this before, but I thought I'd add a few tips offered by the late copywriting great, Ted Nicholas.

He was referring to writing copy, but I've added notes for how these tips can be just as helpful with fiction:

• Outline what you want to say before writing a word. [I don't necessarily believe you have to know the entire story, but I think it's really helpful to know where you're headed with it.]
   
• Write your first draft as quickly as possible without worrying about being perfect.
  
  
• Start strong.  Finish strong.  Rewrite your first sentence and last paragraph.  They are crucially important. [For scripts and novels, I'd change this to your first scene and your last scene.]
  
  
• Vary the paragraph length.  Similar length paragraphs and sentences can bore the reader. Sprinkle in a few one-word paragraphs. [For fiction writers, I advise checking that your dialogue includes the kinds of variations in length and tone that make it realistic. Also, see whether you have used subtext effectively--after all, what a character doesn't say often is as revealing as what they do say.]
  
  
• Let your work breathe between rewrites.

Do You Have a Panic List? (You should)

Do you have a panic list?  (If not, don't panic.)

As mentioned in an old issue of The Writer magazine I was perusing while procrastinating the other day, author Janet Groene says she has a panic list: a list of phone numbers and supplies she keeps handy in case of emergencies.

On the phone list are the numbers of her computer consultant, the support lines for the software she uses, her office supply store, an office machine repair shop, and a temp agency that can send over an assistant at short notice.

Her emergency supplies include packaging and paperwork for overnight mail and FedEx. If something goes wrong when a deadline is looming, she's prepared to handle it.

Every person will have his or her choice of items for a panic list, but it's a great idea to have one with at least two options for each type of person you may need to call upon, and several of each of the key items.

I'd include an extra set of inkjet or toner cartridges, an extra hard drive you can boot up from if your main hard drive crashes, and extra batteries of various kinds.

Optional but helpful: the numbers of at least one friend you can call who respects your writing and can talk you back up when you've had one too many rejections or feel yourself falling prety to the imposter syndrome.

The Joy of Writing an Articulate Character

I love the old screwball comedies like "Bringing Up Baby." The characters in those typically were fast-talking, witty, and playful. 

Even if your script or novel isn't populated with those kinds of characters, often it's easy and fun to slip in at least one. 

If you'd like to be inspired in terms of their dialogue, a great resource is the 1913 edition of Webster's Dictionary, which is easy to access online here:

websters1913.com

A conventional character might call someone a crook.

One who expresses himself or herself in the screwball tradition, however, might say, "You, Sir, are knavish, fraudulent, and unjust. You have made a U-turn on the path of rectitude."

Even if there's no room for such a character in your project, spending 30 minutes randomly browsing 1913 definitions will give you more joy than an equivalent period on Facebook!

Dealing with being stuck writing a scene

I happened across a question someone asked on Reddit about what to do when you get stuck in the course of writing a screenplay. The following answer is by "Hotspur Jr", a member of the Writers Guild of America (I'd credit him or her with their real name, but I don't know it):

This is what they do when they get stuck on how to write a particular scene:

"Write down what you know.

I need the scene to do X, Y, and Z. I need the scene to do blah. I'd like these three characters to be in the scene. The scene needs to feel like this. I'd love it if she said a line like "this". It can't happen at the beach house because of X. It needs to feel different from the car scene. The scene is difficult because of Z.

Just keeping writing down everything that you know about the scene. I do this in an open OmniOutliner document.

And at certain points, I'll just start sketching the scene out in an outline document. What would THIS version of the scene look like? I rough it out, and then look at what I roughed out.

Why does this not work? It doesn't work because of X and Y. What if I changed X to Z?

Rough it out again.

Repeat as necessary.

There are two things this does.

The first is that it takes that vague feeling of "This isn't working," and it breaks into concrete problems that I can fix. It takes what's in my subconscious and lets my conscious mind take a crack at it.

And the other thing it does is occupy my conscious mind with concrete tasks so that my subconscious is free to zoom around, put weird ideas together, and come up with aha! out of the box solutions.

It's also a scientifically proven method for trying to solve difficult conceptual problems: don't try to solve the problem. Just talk about the problem without specifically aiming for a solution. In this case, the "talking" is the conversation I'm having with myself by writing stuff down. (Writing it does is important. What you write down is not, but the fact that you're writing it down stops you from going in loops).

Lastly, there's one more step, and it's very important. After I've done that for an hour or two, I go do something else. Play a game of chess. Go for a walk. Pick up my guitar. I mean, why do y'all think I post on reddit so damn much?

Something that takes my conscious mind off the problem entirely. This is, again, a tool that is scientifically proven to work."

Good advice!

Writing: it's a job!

Screenwriter Michael McDowell said this to his potential screenwriting partner:

"If you’re going to work with me, look at it like we’re working in a bank.

We get in at nine, we have a cup of coffee, we say good morning, then we go to work.

And we write until lunch.

We go have our lunch.

We come back. We write again until three o’clock in the afternoon.

We fold up the writing. We return whatever phone calls and whatever business of writing we have to do.

And we do this five, six days a week.

And it’s a job.

It’s not you sitting with a metaphorical beret in a metaphorical loft waiting for inspiration to strike.

It’s a job.'”

I have to admit I have never worked that way. Part of my motivation in becoming a writer was to get away from the 9 to 5 routine. I've always felt more creative in the evenings, so frequently I write until the early hours of the morning and then hit the sack and sleep late.

However, the part of it that is true for all professionals is that you have to have discipline. You have to put in the time, consistently.

Even if you sleep until noon, you have to devote a certain number of hours to writing and to the business aspect of writing. 

FOR PART-TIME WRITERS

Even if you're writing as a sideline, if you want to be productive, setting aside a specific time to write and to do the important writing-related tasks (e.g., finding an agent, learning more about the craft, etc.) is the key to moving forward.

Treat it as a part-time job, even if you're not getting paid at this point. 

GO BIG OR GO SMALL, BUT GO

Which works better for you: finding 30 minutes a day several days a week to write, maybe getting up early or staying up late, or working during your lunch hour; or setting aside a big chunk of time on the weekend?

Use trial and error to discover the way you find easiest to be consistent.

NO BLOCKS ALLOWED

In a regular job you're not allowed to say, "You know, I'm just not feeling it today, so I'm going home. I'll be back in the office when I feel inspired again."

It should be the same with writing.

If you are blocked, you have lots of options. They include:

• working on something else for a bit, then returning to the project
  
  
• trying to work in a different environment (the park, a cafe, etc.)
  
  
• devoting the time for brainstorming sessions on how to move forward
  
  
• pretending your best writing friend has this problem--what would you advise them to do? (Then do it.)
  
  
• if it's a story problem, getting help from a writing group or another writer you respect
  
  
• if it's a problem in the middle of your script or novel, looking for the source of the problem in the earlier sections

IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE GOOD--YET

There's at least one point in every project when I convince myself that it's no good and I should just stop and move on to something else. Fortunately, most of the time that's not true, it's just the normal "dip" that happens in the middle. 

The solution is to keep going. Even if it really isn't good you can make it better in the next draft and the one after that.

The work comes first, the payoff comes later--if you're lucky and, even more important, if you're dedicated.

How to be successful in the TV and film industry

I saw two very wise quotes about the film business by director Gina Prince-Bythewood ("The Old Guard"):

"This industry is about overcoming 'no'."

That's true of the publishing industry as well, and probably all of the arts. 

"You need just one yes."

Actually, sometimes you need more than one, but one gets the ball rolling. 

Yes, it's a bit like looking for a needle in a haystack, and that's how the people on the other side see it, too.

Producers are looking for something they consider special and often they don't know it until they see it. They see a lot of scripts that aren't it, and finally one that IS it. 

Sometimes--no, MOST times--your script isn't it. But they're going to keep looking so if you keep writing good scripts and submitting them, it may well be that one of those times it is a match.

If you remember that 'no' is the rule rather than the exception, the process gets a little easier to bear. But Prince-Bythewood says, "But it's hard. There were many days where I was on the floor."

I got to know the floor, too, and sometimes I still find myself on it. If you can deal with that, you're on your way.

TEN SCREENPLAY SCENES TO AVOID

There are some scenes in movies that are cliches, or too improbable, or just plain silly. Here are ten to avoid:

1. An alarm clock goes off, the character wakes up, groans, and feels around to turn off the clock. Extra minus points if you show their bare feet hitting the floor.
    
2. The character opens the fridge and looks in and all that's there is a beer and a bottle of ketchup.
   
   
3. The character knocks somebody unconscious with one blow to the head. (I'm sure this works sometimes, but it didn't when I tried it. A guy was attacking a friend of mine and I grabbed a heavy glass vase and hit him over the head with it. Not only didn't it knock him out, it didn't even break. He tried to convince the police that I should be arrested for giving him a concussion. They didn't.)
   
   
4. The baddie is about to kill the hero but pauses to explain their motivation first.
   
   
5. Aliens restrict themselves to attacking New York City or Washington, D.C. (and they always want to wipe out humans or enslave them).
   
   
6. The bomb has a countdown digital timer with red numbers.
   
   
7. Heroes get shot only in the shoulder.
   
   
8. The hero and family or friends are cheerful because they've survived the final battle or the final event in the natural disaster, even though in the background a few million people have just been wiped out.
   
   
9. Even today's sophisticated cars are easy to hotwire.
   
   
10. The final battle always is a one-on-one fight with the baddest character, often hand-to-hand.
    
    If I've missed any of your favorites, feel free to add them in the comments.

The Hidden Danger in Act One of Your Screenplay

WHEN NORMAL IS BORING

Act One in a screenplay comprises the first quarter or so of the script and often it is described as relating the "normal world" of your protagonist before they are plunged into the new world of the main conflict. 

For example, in a story about a teacher who, upon retiring, decides to return to their long-forgotten dream of climbing Mt. Everest, the first act would show their rather settled life, their retirement party, then boredom setting in, until finally at the end of Act I, perusing an old journal of theirs awakens their dream again (the inciting incident). 

The hidden danger in that story, and many first acts, is that often the protagonist's normal world isn't very interesting. We don't want to be bored for 20 minutes until the interesting part of the story starts. At the same time, what follows is more dramatic if we understand how far out of their depth the protagonist is when they find themselves in the new circumstances.

SOLUTION 1: BOOKENDS

There are several solutions to this problem. The first is to use a bookend structure. You start the story with the teacher stuck halfway up the mountain in peril, and then flash back to the beginning, or you can distribute several flashbacks throughout the script.

"Titanic" used the bookend structure, with the old Rose at the start and end, and the story of the young Rose in the middle.

SOLUTION 2: FORESHADOWING

Another option is to foreshadow what is to come. For instance, in the story of a violent home invasion, you might show the home of the family being observed by persons unknown while you establish the members of the family and what their life is like.

In disaster movies, the foreshadowing often is something like a minor earthquake (in advance of The Big One) or a TV weather person making a by-the-way comment about a storm taking an unusual turn, or a kid with a telescope being teased when he thinks he's spotting something strange about the comet that's going by.

SOLUTION 3: DISTRACTION THROUGH ACTION

The James Bond movies had a pattern of showing Bond in the exciting, action-packed finale of a case we didn't know about. Then he would go and get his next assignment. Having already had an adrenalin fix, the audience would be patient while the next case was set up. This could be called distraction through unrelated action.

SOLUTION 4: REVEALING IN REAL TIME

A more challenging but often effective solution is to kick off with the inciting incident and in the course of the story reveal what the protagonist's normal life was like. That is, reveal their normal situation in the story's real time rather than in flashbacks.

For example, in the story of a man who gets kidnapped, normally you would show his family life and maybe his work relationships first, then the inciting incident is his kidnapping. Alternatively, you could start with the kidnapping, and reveal the relationships via how the people in his life react and what they do to try to help him.

GO BACK AND FIX IT

Sometimes writers get stuck trying to come up with the perfect opening scenes and keep rewriting them instead of moving forward.

Don't get hung up on trying to come up with the perfect first act in your first draft. Do the best you can and keep writing through to the end.

When you get ready to do the next draft, ask yourself whether your first act will get and keep the attention of the audience; if not, try the remedies above.

How do you come up with ideas for stories--especially if you're blocked?

In Writing Magazine, author Jack Gantos shared a bit about his writing process. These tips are great anytime, but they may be especially helpful if you're blocked or just feeling uninspired:

COMING UP WITH IDEAS

"A lot of my books are based on personal experiences. Since I keep a journal and write in it every day--even a sentence or two will do per day--I manage to discover something interesting that takes place each day."

GETTING READY

"When I get ready to write a book I try to find about 10 books to read that I think will be helpful--perhaps they are full of characters I find inspiring, or settings I find engaging, or themes and problems that I find fascinating and will help me think through the story."

CREATING CHARACTERS

"I pay close attention to people I find interesting as I walk down the city streets, or in libraries, or at the mall, or in grocery stores. I find restaurants are a very good place to find characters because people are very honestly themselves when they are hungry."

BECOMING A WRITER THE HARD WAY

Here, from the Amazon blurb for his book, Hole in My Life, is the unusual way Gantos' writing career started:

"In the summer of 1971, Jack Gantos was an aspiring writer looking for adventure, cash for college tuition, and a way out of a dead-end job. For ten thousand dollars, he recklessly agreed to help sail a sixty-foot yacht loaded with a ton of hashish from the Virgin Islands to New York City, where he and his partners sold the drug until federal agents caught up with them. For his part in the conspiracy, Gantos was sentenced to serve up to six years in prison.

In Hole in My Life, this prizewinning author of over thirty books for young people confronts the period of struggle and confinement that marked the end of his own youth. On the surface, the narrative tumbles from one crazed moment to the next as Gantos pieces together the story of his restless final year of high school, his short-lived career as a criminal, and his time in prison. But running just beneath the action is the story of how Gantos – once he was locked up in a small, yellow-walled cell – moved from wanting to be a writer to writing, and how dedicating himself more fully to the thing he most wanted to do helped him endure and ultimately overcome the worst experience of his life."

 

 

How to write healing stories

At the moment our stories about what is normal are in disarray. It doesn't seem normal not to hug your friends, not to be able to go to the movies, not to be within six feet of people in a store without a mask. The stories we tell ourselves about progress and goals and what's important have been shaken up.

The silver lining is that when old stories are questioned, there's room for new stories to emerge. It seems to me what is needed now is stories that promote healing. 

Clarissa Pinkola Estes writes, in Stories as Medicine, "Stories, particularly healing stories, depend on the amount of self--the gristle, blood, and bone--that the teller is willing to put into them. Not all story is medicine. Generally, a story is not medicine unless it has caused the teller to laugh or to weep."

The teller, not just the listener. In other words, the story has to come from your heart. That doesn't mean it has to be a heavy drama; Groundhog Day and Tootsie are two examples from comedy.

EXAMPLE: HEALING AT MIDLIFE

In Fairy Tales and the Psychology of Men and Women at Midlife, Allan B. Chinen writes, "Before newspapers, radio, or television, fairy tales and folk tales were the only mass media, providing news, commentary, humor and entertainment. Storytellers put insights about their lives and the human condition into their stories. Many dealt specifically with characters in the middle third of life."

He notes, "Mid-life stories emphasize the importance of dealing with life as we find it, not as we imagine or hope it to be. These tales highlight an important point: that growth is possible in the middle years, no matter what kind of childhood one has had."

YOU ARE THE NEW MYTH-MAKER

If you write for TV and movies you are one of the myth-makers now.

Of course, traditionally a lot of commercial television has been treated as the placeholder between the commercials that sell us bogus stories, for instance, if we use shampoo X we'll have a great love life.

A lot of movies are near-duplicates of each other, seeing how many sequels the producers can crank out before we tire of that story.

However, there have always been exceptions and with all the additional outlets available now there's more room than ever before for a wider range of stories--including the one you feel the strong need to tell.

STORIES, NOT SERMONS

While your story has a theme, the screenwriter's or novelist's job isn't to propagandize, it's to say, "Here's an authentic story." Then it's up to the reader or viewer to decide what if means to them and whether there's anything in it they can use.  

THERE'S A BONUS!

I've always found when I've written about a subject close to my heart, it's been therapeutic for me, as well. That's the bonus you get when you write a healing story--at the very least, it helps heal you.

 

What does the new reality mean for screenwriters?

As I write this, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the near-term future of film and TV production. What is certain is that for at least the next year, productions will have to adjust. What does this mean for screenwriters? 

• Strong scripts with limited sets and cast will be more in demand than ever before. Often these have been the province of lower-budget productions, but now the studios will be looking for these more than ever before;
  
  
• The writers (and directors) who can find innovative ways to make those kinds of scripts look and feel bigger than they are will have the advantage. For instance, I'm working on a script that can integrate stock footage to broaden its visual appeal.
  
  
• With streaming services like Netflix, Disney +, Hulu, etc. all trying to attract as many subscribers as possible, the writer with projects that have some kind of novel element will have the advantage. A merely competent traditional script won't stand out.
  
  
• The writer who is most flexible will prevail. New formats will emerge. The biggest prizes will go to those who create them, but there will also be a market for skilled writers who are able to adapt to formats innovated by others.
  
  
• As always, you're selling yourself as well as your material. If you're easy to work with, willing to listen, and deliver on time, you'll be in the top 25% on that basis alone.

We are all experiencing that ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times." It's not easy, but it's up to us to make the most of the challenges.

What else screenwriters need to study

I had an email saying, "I've done several screenwriting workshops and gained a lot from them. Are there any other courses you think are beneficial for writers?"

Yes! The more you have an understanding of the other aspects of filmmaking, the better. Here are the four I recommend:

ACTING: For finding out what actors look for in a role and what challenges they have saying somebody else's words, nothing beats taking an acting class.

Try to find a beginners' class, ideally one that includes others who want to learn about the craft without necessarily becoming actors. That will make you less self-conscious.

IMPROVISATION: You'll get something different from this than you'll get from a straightforward acting class.

Improv teaches you to think on your feet and quickly immerse yourself in a character. It also stops you from being too precious about any one idea, because you learn that ideas are endless. And it's fun!

EDITING: Find a course that teaches the basics of editing--not the software, but the effects of juxtaposing two things, of short scenes vs. long ones, and of the importance of reaction shots. Filmmakers know the extent to which editing determines whether a movie works or not.

Once you appreciate the basics, you'll find that you're reflecting them in the way you structure your scenes on the page.

DIRECTING: Just as it's helpful to experience what actors look for, the same goes for stepping into the shoes of a director, even if you never intend to direct. You might even discover you have an affinity for it and become a writer/director. 

That's a lot but there's no need to rush into learning it all.

If you can do only one, I'd go for an improv course. To get a taste of how relevant the principles of improvisation are for any of the theatrical arts, read Keith Johnstone's book, Impro: Improvisation for the Theater (one of my favorite books for its insight into human nature). 

Where's the money in screenwriting?

A former student emailed me the other day with a big question:

"Where's the money in screenwriting?

He added, "I don't mean just hitting it lucky and selling one script, but in screenwriting as a career."

Let's look at the categories of screenwriters who are coining it.

THE GONZO ACTION WRITERS

The biggest paychecks go to the writers of the big-budget Hollywood productions, which are mostly action and superhero movies.

There is a small group of experienced writers who excel in these genres and get called on again and again. While you can aspire to join that group, it's too much of a long shot to be a career strategy when you're starting out.

THE ADAPTORS

These are screenwriters who are asked to adapt a novel, play, short story, or article. They may also be asked to develop a story idea from producers or directors who don't write their own material.

To get into this group, it helps to have some credits of your own first, to focus on one genre, and to have a feel for the source material. I was once interviewed about adapting the memoirs of a woman who had undergone a harrowing abduction and rape and once I heard what the subject matter was, I knew I was totally wrong for it, both because I'm not a woman and because I didn't like the thought of spending months in the horrible depths of that story. 

To do well at this kind of writing you need to be able to put your ego aside to some degree and find the balance between serving the source material and adding your own skill as a dramatist to make it work in the medium of film.

THE SCRIPT DOCTORS

Another group that makes good money are the screenwriters who get called in to do script doctoring. Usually, they have one specialty, such as punching up dialogue or fixing story structure.

Unless what they do changes the story significantly, they are not owed a credit. That's useful because if you may be rewriting the work of, say, a well-known writer/director who may not be eager to have it known that their script needed outside help. I did some of this when I was in Hollywood, on movies starring Eddie Murphy, Walter Matthau, and Michael Caine, among others, and it paid well. 

WRITERS WITH AN OUTSTANDING SPEC SCRIPT--BUT NOT FOR THE REASON YOU THINK

Yes, you can get lucky with a spec script that a studio snaps up or, even better, that gets a couple of studios into a bidding war.

As somebody once said about writing plays you hope to get on Broadway, "you can make a killing, but you can't make a living." It happens, but not very often.

It's more likely that an outstanding spec script will lead to work as an adaptor or script doctor, and that's where the more steady money is.

Those two categories constitute a market that is kind of hidden from view and it doesn't give you the same creative satisfaction as writing totally original screenplays, but it's your best bet for paying your bills while still having time to write original spec scripts.

Your spec script has to demonstrate that you have the skill they need. In my case, it was mostly punching up dialogue and fleshing out characters.

You'll need an agent who has good connections to submit you for these assignments. However, once you've done a couple, the word gets around and eventually you'll have people coming to you. How do you get that agent? By writing that outstanding spec script and looking for every opportunity to get someone to read it.

HOW TO GET SOME OF THAT MONEY

I think my former student wasn't just asking where the money is in screenwriting, but also how he could get some of it.

As I said above, you need to write an outstanding script, but what does that really mean? It means your script has to stand out. It's not enough for it to be well-written. That's a start but there are enough well-written scripts around that it also has to have a twist of some kind, some element that is immediately intriguing. 

I'll give you an example. Here are two log lines for possible features:

When the students of a beloved long-retired teacher find out she is in the early stages of Alzheimer's, they band together to let her know how she changed their lives for the better.

When an elderly former criminal in the early stages of Alzheimer's blurts out memories of a stash of gold he buried forty years ago, it sends his formerly close family members into a mad scramble to be the first to find it.

Let's assume both are well-written. Which one do you think would get you more attention?

I believe it's the second one. The first could be a beautiful, heart-warming script; I'm just saying of the two, it wouldn't be the best choice for a writer struggling to break in. And even though the second one has elements of comedy that broaden the appeal of the story, I think it could be written in a way that is respectful to people suffering from that horrible condition.

FIND THE OVERLAP

My final bit of advice to my former student was: find the overlap between what you want to write and what will stand out. 

That's where the money is.

A Simplified Hero's Journey Structure for Scripts

In this video, TV producer/writer Dan Harmon shares the "story circle" he uses to structure storylines for his TV series, "Rick and Morty."

As you'll see, it's kind of a simplified version of the Hero's Journey (click on the text):

DAN HARMON'S STORY CIRCLE (Video: 3min 20seconds)