Time to Write

A great starting point: What do you want your readers to feel?

Halloween stories and horror movies are always about making people feel scared, but every kind of writing has the goal of making the reader or viewer feel something. Deciding what that is can help you develop your plot and characters.

Ads provide a good model. Some companies create new things to fear. When I was young there was a campaign with the slogan “No more ring around the collar!” in which people spotted that a man’s inside collar had a ring around it (due to poor washing powder) and were repulsed. “Ring around the collar” was sung in a kids’ mocking way and implied that people would think you were dirty. The way to avoid this humiliation was to use Wisk laundry detergent.

EMOTIONS ARE THE GATEWAY TO YOUR STORY

To bring the reader into the world of your story, it helps to have four elements:

• A protagonist with whom they can identify on an emotional level. If you introduce us to a character who yearns for love, for instance, it doesn't matter whether it's a prince or pauper, an innocent young girl or a lonely widow, a little mouse or the last dinosaur on earth. It's the emotion that is the basis of the reader's or viewer's bond with the character. 
  
  
• A tangible goal the protagonist pursues. While we may identify with the character's emotional state, our interest will wane if they don't soon start doing something to try to get whatever they need or think they need. Sometimes we become aware quickly that they are taking the wrong route to get their need met, and that will make us curious whether they'll recognize their error and do something else. 
  
  
• An antagonist who gets in the way.  This could be a love rival, for instance, or a person who has some kind of power over them. As you may have noticed as you've gone through life, a person can also be their own worst enemy. When that's the case, we want to get at least some clues as to why they are sabotaging themselves. Things like the weather, an accident, or a coincidence can also serve as an antagonist. In the case of coincidences, remember that it's fine to use one to get your character into trouble, but not out of trouble (that will feel like you're cheating).
  
  
• A variety of emotions for the protagonist to experience. As the story progresses, it will be emotions that keep us tied to the character. We will feel their shifting responses as they move forward or experience setbacks. If the protagonist stays in any one emotional state for too long we will get bored. 

I've linked these points to the protagonist, but in more sophisticated stories they apply to the antagonist as well. It's easy to boo a villain, but if the antagonist also has needs and goals with which we identify, the story will be richer. It may raise some conflicting emotions in us as we follow the story. For instance, let's say the person opposing a young woman's relationship with a poor young man is her mother, who truly believes she's doing the right thing, maybe because she suffered from poverty when she was young. We still feel the mother is doing the wrong thing, but we understand that her actions come from love for her daughter. It involves our intellect as well as our emotions and thereby enriches the story.

START WITH WHAT YOU WANT THE AUDIENCE TO FEEL

Knowing what emotions you want to evoke before you start writing can help you construct a good story and design the characters.

It can be helpful to have a map of the emotions you want your protagonist to go through on their journey. When you write the script or the novel you can check to make sure that each major scene or chapter is evoking the desired emotion. Even in a horror film, for instance, you need some variety because nobody can be scared 100% of the time, You need some moments when your protagonist (falsely) believes that now they are safe, before the monster or the ghost reappears. This need for variety is true for every genre.

You also can decide what you want the audience to feel as they leave the cinema or theater or read the last page of your novel. If, for example, you want the reader or audience to feel repulsion at the destructive power of greed you can choose to have the character realize it before it's too late, or you can have them remain blind to it and suffer the terrible consequences. 

OVER TO YOU

What is the central emotion you want your audience to feel? Try using that starting point, and let me know whether it helps you develop involving plots and characters.

 

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.

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 Albert Einstein can help you rewrite your book or screenplay

Do you get stuck when you set out to do another draft of a screenplay, novel, or other creative project?

Albert Einstein allegedly said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them."

He wasn't talking about writing, but I think it applies.

When we write fiction, we're in a kind of dreaming state. We imagine what might happen and what people might say. It's a highly intuitive state, unless we are slavishly following a formula or template (not recommended if you want your work to be original).

If we stay in that state when we try to figure out how our first draft could be improved, often we'll either draw a blank or come up with something that makes the work different, but not necessarily better. 

The trick (thanks, Mr Einstein) is to move to a different level. In this case, the critical level.

The creative level vs. the critical level

The writing process is subjective, the critical level is analytical.

When you write, you're on the inside, in the moment with your characters. When you critique, you're looking at them from the outside and you can take a step back to assess the big picture.

How to switch levels

One way to change your mental state is to change your physical state first. 

• To snap out of the creative state, do a bit of movement--a brief brisk walk or a few stretches
  
  
• Move to a different location, even if just across the room from where you write
  
  
• Change your body position. Instead of sitting upright in a chair, lean back in an easy chair

Another strategy is to make the material seem less familiar, more like it's something someone else wrote since it's always easier for us to be objective about someone else's work.

• Print the script rather than viewing it on a screen
  
  
• Print it on different color paper
  
  
• Print it using a different font from the one on the screen
  

Remember you're a critic now, not a creator.

• Just like a professional critic would do, start by considering the totality of the work and identify any big problems. Read through the entire script and consider whether it has any major issues that will impact multiple scenes. Jot down your conclusions. For instance, a review I read recently said that the film couldn't decide whether it wanted to be a comedy, a satire, or a drama with amusing moments.
  
  
• Next, go through the script scene by scene and note weak points, inconsistencies, or other issues. For instance, when I go back to the first scene in a screenplay I ask myself whether it immediately creates a question in the minds of the reader (and, later, the audience). If they're curious, they'll want to continue reading or watching. 
  
  
• Don't try to solve these problems. A critic's role is to point out the good and bad points of a work, not to fix it. If a solution occurs to you, go ahead and note it but do not make any changes in the script--doing so will flip you out of the critical state.

Time to go back to the creator's state

When you've finished making your critical notes, go back to your usual work station and get back into the creative state. You'll have a list of things to fix but not how to fix them.

For instance, maybe one note is that the opening scene, an argument between the protagonist and his father at the dad's apartment, is too talky and doesn't make a visual impression. Now you can imagine how it would play out if, for example, it took place in public, or if the father showed his anger physically. Because you'll be tuned back into the characters, you'll think of options that are what they would actually do, not an arbitrary solution.

Keep shuttling back and forth

You don't have to wait to make all the changes before you go back into the critical state. You can take a printout of an individual scene to your critic's easy chair and assess whether the problem has been solved. This back-and-forth continues until you've made it the best you can.

Warning: don't do this just in your head!

Resist the temptation to think that it's just as easy to make the mental switch without the other changes I've suggested above. Yes, some people can do it, especially after years of practice, but it's difficult and often trying to create and judge at the same time leads to writer's block.

 

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!

The scourge of dishonest writing

When I was a student of Danny Simon (Neil's brother and a very successful TV writer) one of his maxims was, "Don't go for the joke!" 

This may seem like strange advice from a comedy writer, but what he meant was that you should stay true to the situation and the characters. If you have them say or do something they wouldn't logically do, you're sacrificing them for the sake of a joke. If you do that a lot, you end up with characters nobody believes. A high price to pay for a cheap laugh.

I was reminded of this the other day when I watched a few minutes of a US TV series called 911. It's on the Fox network, which says, "The show draws from real-life, high-pressure experiences of first responders who regularly face heart-stopping situations that are often unpredictable, intense, and uplifting at the same time." 

One of the situations was an old guy who was working on an old car that somehow sucked his head, or maybe just his beard, into the innards of the engine. A woman who may have been his wife or daughter calls 911 and says the car is eating the man and starts to talk about his relationship to the vehicle, and when the responders show up she tells them the car is finally getting her revenge...this is while somebody she presumably loves has his head stuck and she doesn't know how seriously he could be hurt. 

Yes, it's comic relief, designed to give the audience a breather from the more tragic plots, which is fine, but it was so obviously written to be a zany moment that it cheapened the entire enterprise.

The writer might say, "Hey, there are all kinds of crazy people who say just about anything." That's true, and if you've established that the character is like that before the moment of maximum craziness, it works. But in this case, this was the first time we'd seen these people.

I'm using a comedic example but you'll find plenty of examples in drama as well, with people saying or doing things solely because that's what's needed in order to advance the plot. It's not only dishonest, it's also lazy. 

If in doubt, it's useful to ask, "Would a human being really say this in this situation?" If the answer is, 99% of the time, no, then it's worth rewriting. 

 

Learning from first pages that work...or don't

You pick up a book or check the "look inside" feature on Amazon, and read the first page.

Do you want to continue reading? Enough to buy the book?

On the Writer Unboxed site, there's a feature called "Flog a Pro: would you pay to turn the first page of this bestseller?"

As the title suggests, the feature reveals the first page of a popular book, asks you to decide whether you'd pay to continue reading, and explains why they would or wouldn't. You can vote and see how others voted.

The most recent example was the first page of Glass House by Louise Penny, which held the ninth spot on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list for Sept. 17, 2017.

I opted for "no", as did 54% of the total voters--but since this was a new post, only 17 people had voted.

The post's author, novelist Ray Rhamey, also voted no.

Like Rhamey, I felt that too much of the first page was devoted to the unremarkable musings of a character I don't know yet. The book is part of a character series, so that might not bother people who have read others in the collection. 

Focusing the the first page is an enjoyable way to get yourself to be analytical about what works (or doesn't) to grab the reader, a good source of lessons for our own writing. It's not only browsers who pay attention to the first page, so do agents and publishers. Crafting a strong first page is equally important for screenplays. 

However, avoid the temptation to try to make the first page perfect before you write the second and third. That's better left for the second and subsequent drafts, if you want to avoid driving yourself crazy.

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Would you like writing advice from the classic and modern greats? You'll find it in my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, published by Nicholas Brealey/Hachette, and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

 

 

Whatever your writing is, let it be that (a lesson I learned the hard way)

I created a surreal sitcom for which I wrote a spec script not so long ago. A friend got it to a writer/producer who said he thought it was very funny, but he couldn't identify enough with the characters and I should change it to make it more like a current comedy series about the challenges of a working class single parent.

There was a time when I probably would have scrambled to try to do that, but I won't, and here's why:

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

What I mean is that while it's always possible to improve a piece of writing, it's a waste of time to change it to try to make it something that it isn't. Usually, the result is a compromise that won't please anybody. And I have the stories to prove it...

AN EXPERIENCE I CAN (ALMOST) LAUGH ABOUT NOW

Once upon a time I wrote a romantic comedy TV movie that the wonderful producer Stan Margulies wanted to make (he produced the original "Roots' mini-series).

We took it to one network and they said they wanted to do it with a particular actress. The next week, it came out that this actress had a drug problem, and the network backed out.

Stan and I took it to another network. They said they loved it, they wanted only one change: "Someone should be trying to kill the young woman."

What?! 

We pointed out that it's a romantic comedy. "Oh yeah, don't lose that," the network exec said. "Just add the thriller element."

Stan and I had a lunch of pasta and lots of wine. LOTS of wine. We talked ourselves into trying it. I hated every minute of writing that version.

I hated every minute of writing that version.

We took it back to the network exec. He loved it. However, his boss, who made the final decision, didn't, and the network didn't make it.

We'll never know whether the top guy would have gone ahead with the original if we'd been able to get it to him directly, but I learned a lesson. 

IF IT FAILS, LET IT FAIL FOR THE RIGHT REASON

In the sitcom, naturally I want my characters to be plausible within the world I've created, but the series is about the strangeness of everyday life, as reflected in fantasies and events that, while grounded in the greater reality, are not commonplace everyday events.

Giving the characters the kind of emotional reality that might attach to a single parent struggling to make ends meet would be incompatible with the basic idea of the series.

The series may or may not be any good, but if it fails I want it to fail on its own terms. 

It calls to mind a quote that has been attributed to various people, including Luther Price:

"Be what you is, not what you ain't; 'cause if you ain't what you is, you is what you ain't."

I share this in case it's helpful when you get advice about your writing. 

Ask yourself whether the change would make it a better version of what it is, or would it force it to try to be something it ain't.

If it's the latter, forget it, no matter how much wine you've had.

(Come to think of it, this might be a good practice regardless of what the advice is about.)

 

A thought about ideas (and bad first drafts)

“All good ideas start out as bad ideas, that’s why it takes so long.”

• Stephen Spielberg

To which I would add: if you think your first draft is really, really, really good...oh oh.

How to write descriptively

How do you make your writing come alive in the minds of your readers? Here, in a four-minute TED-Ed talk, Nalo Hopkinson shares her thoughts:

 

Could writing more slowly increase the quality of what you write?

A study suggests that typing more slowly increases the quality of your writing. Study participants who typed with only one hand produced essays of a higher quality than when they used both hands.

The study is published in the British Journal of Psychology under the sexy title, "Effects of Disfluency in Writing."

The study's authors suggest that slowing done your writing makes it less likely that you'll go with the first word that occurs to you. Instead, you have time to consider alternatives and use the best one.

Some writers have found the same effect when they do their first draft in handwriting. I've found it to be true when I've used long airplane trips for writing something by hand.

Especially if you find it difficult to reconsider your word choice when doing a second draft, slowing down when you write the first one could be useful.

In any event, it's a useful reminder that faster is not always better.

Walking for creativity and learning

In researching my book, Your Creative Writing Masterclass, I found that one thing many great writers have in common is that they come up with ideas while walking. Charles Dickens was famous for this, apparently averaging 20 miles a day! 

Now some new research from Sweden suggests it helps learning, too.

University lecturer Olle Balter started taking his class for walks in a wooded park instead of teaching in a classroom.

He reports, "Students feel freer to talk when they are outdoors than when they are in a classroom."

He also says 21 of 23 students preferred this method, saying they felt better after an outdoor session than one inside. 

Obviously this is more suited to some subjects than to others (Balter teaches media technology), but it is consistent with a Stanford University study linking creativity with physical activity.

The next time you feel yourself stuck--or even when you're not--take a walk!

(source:)

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Hemingway's Iceberg

"If it is any use to know it, I always try to write on the principle of the iceberg. There is seven-eighths of it underwater for every part that shows. Anything you know you can eliminate and it only strengthens your iceberg. It is the part that doesn’t show. If a writer omits something because he does not know it then there is a hole in the story." - Ernest Hemingway

I think this is useful at two points.

First, it underscores the importance of getting to know our characters, including many things we will not end up including in the script or manuscript.

Second, when revising the first draft cut the bits where you've pictured the entire iceberg for the reader. Leave the one-eighth that allows the reader to know or at least sense the other seven-eighths. 

Related articles

Do you have defining moments like this in your script or novel?

Hemingway on how to practice to be a good writer

This charming two-minute video shows why creativity takes time

The charming short (2 minute) video below uses kids to demonstrate the difference between going with your first idea and giving yourself enough time to come up with something more creative:

What to look for and avoid when getting feedback

What should you look for (and avoid) in getting feedback on your writing or other project?

Max Brooks, author of World War Z, said this in an short collection of tips on Publisher's Weekly:

"I’m very careful who I let proofread my unfinished work. Too often people will want to rewrite the entire story or take it in a direction I never intended. Vetting proofreaders over time allows me to find eyes and brains that want to help me get where I originally intended to go."

He calls it proofreading, which I associate with looking only for typos and spelling errors, but what he describes is more typical of people giving feedback on whether or not what you've written works. The danger he points to is that they, with all good intentions, start pointing you toward the way they would have written the story or scene, rather than givng you feedback that helps you write it better the way you intended to.

My advice is to ask them to stick to identifying the problem--maybe the scene feels like it goes on too long, or something isn't clear, or the dialogue doesn't come alive--and leave the solution to you.