Time to Write

Writing Excuses Demolished: "I don't know if my idea is good enough."

Some people never get around to writing because they don't know whether their idea is good enough to succeed in the marketplace.

Welcome to the club!

Every book, poem, short story, and screenplay is a gamble. Even the top publishers are not very good at predicting which books will take off and which will have disappointing sales. The same goes for movie studios, hence the famous William Goldman quote, "Nobody knows anything."

Sometimes writers have a huge success with one project and a huge flop with the next one, or vice-versa. 

All you can do is your best. Write the book or script, do as much as you can to help make people aware that it exists, and move on to the next one while still devoting some time to marketing your previous projects.

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. 

 

Can you tell your screenplay story in six words?

Screenwriter Scott Meyers suggests boiling the story of your screenplay down into six words. If you can't do that, he says, you don't have a story.

Sometimes I really resist the idea that everything should be simple, but he has a point. Obviously, six words will not encapsulate the totality of your script but especially if you tend to get lost in your story sometimes, this can be a good tool.

Let's try some examples. See if you can tell right away which films I'm describing:

Son takes over family business: the mafia

Racist driver. Black passenger. Southern roadtrip. (I may be cheating, road trip probably should be two words.)

He's down, she's up: love possible?

Or, for a classic play: Father murdered. Son's revenge consumes all.

I imagine you got those: The Godfather trilogy, Green Book, A Star is Born, Hamlet.

Admittedly, these descriptions don't reveal that Michael doesn't want to be the new godfather, or that a friendship develops between the driver and the passenger, or that the 'down' and 'up' refer to fame and musical careers. And six words can't do justice to Hamlet. However, these do all identify the core elements of each plot.

IT'S ABOUT THE PLOT

Someone said that plot is what the story is about, and theme is what the story is REALLY about.

For instance, Macbeth's plot is the series of murders the Macbeths commit to try to make him king; the theme is the price of ruthless ambition.

Usually, your six words will be about the plot. In the example above, only the six words about Hamlet hint at the theme: that revenge can destroy the person exacting it as well as that person's target.

Don't try to make the six words reflect the theme unless that comes naturally. Of course, it's your execution of the plot that largely determines the quality of the script, but you have to have a solid plot before you can execute it.

HOW TO USE THE SIX-WORD STRATEGY

I'd never use the six-word format in a pitch, but it can be useful to work it out to make sure you know the core of the story.

Write the six words on an index card and put it where you can see it as you work on the script.

When you're unsure about a scene, ask yourself whether it is in alignment with that core idea. Even if it's a scene in a subplot, probably it will reflect the main idea in some way. I haven't done an analysis, but I'm pretty sure almost every scene in A Star is Born is about either him going downhill, her rising to fame, and/or their love.

Think about the films you've seen most recently. How would you sum up their plots in six words? Practicing with other people's stories will make it easier to do it with your own.

 

Unleash your Creativity by Writing from Within

Drawing from Within: Unleashing Your Creative Potential is a book by Nick Meglin that has a lot of great thoughts about drawing that apply equally to writing: 

"We make the mistake of looking outside ourselves for validation of what is, in fact, an inner experience. We look to others for approval, for them to tell us how good our work is before we can feel good about having done it!"

Of course, we want to sell what we write so eventually others will have to think our work is good, but worrying about that too soon can cripple your creative process.

Meglin adds, "The wonderful paradox is that the work that is sincere, personal, and created for one's own satisfaction is what is most often celebrated by both critics and the public alike."

"People learn to draw through the experience of drawing."

"The goal is not to make a pretty drawing, a neat drawing, a good drawing, etc., but just to draw." A good thing to keep in mind when doing your first draft.

AND IF YOU'RE TOO CRITICAL OF YOURSELF:

"We must focus our energies on identifying that part of ourselves that 'finds fault' with or 'disapproves' of our own work--that voice which tends to be self-deprecating, insecure, and negative. And we must learn how to cognitively reframe these negative voices and turn those destructive energies around."

 

Screenplays: add to characters with subtle symbols

There are lots of ways to make a screenplay character three-dimensional, and one is using symbols. Of course if the symbols are too on the nose they can detract, but here's an example of a subtle one:

Actor Paul Scheer told Fast Company magazine: "My character [in Black Monday] wears a wig in the show, and that was a conscious [choice] because when we first start talking about how he’s wrestling with his sexuality, I wanted that wig to represent the idea that he’s already hiding. On the base level, it’s like he’s not even comfortable being bald in this world."

I don't know how many people watching Black Monday would pick up on that, but a lot of times we register such clues subconsciously. 

Here are some other ways of revealing character:

What kind of clothes do they wear? Are they still wearing the style they wore twenty years ago, or are they desperate to keep up with the latest fashions? Do they care more about the label than the clothes per se? Do they try too hard to be quirky--or to avoid being noticed?

What kind of decorations and furniture do they have at their residence? What kind of painting or photos are in the background? The total absence of any decoration also tells a story. 

What kind of accessories do they choose, such as watches, rings, bracelets, etc.? For example, what does it tell you when a guy wears a Rolex? (It ain't about telling the time.)

I find it helpful to think about such things because they make the character more real to me. The more real the character is to you, the writer, the easier it is to know what they'd say and do in any situation.

Is Your Idea Any Good?

You've probably had the experience of suddenly having a seemingly great idea pop up in the middle of the night, while you're in the shower, or just walking down the street.

Eureka! This idea is going to make you a fortune, save the world or, ideally, both!

Then you revisit the idea later and most of the time you wonder what you were thinking.

But once in a while you still believe it might be a great idea, but you're too close to it to know for sure. What criteria can you use?

That's the question addressed in a book I've been reading: Chasing the Monster Idea - The Marketer's Almanac for Predicting Idea Epicness, by Stephen Mumaw.

Despite the author's fondness for puns and his annoying practice of pointing them out just in case you didn't notice them, the book has some excellent tips for evaluating ideas in terms of their likelihood of succeeding in the marketplace.

Of course, that's not the only criterion for a great idea; you may decide to pursue one that isn't likely to take the world by storm because you believe it's worth doing even if it reaches only a small number of people. Either way, though, you want it to be as good as possible. 

THE CRITERIA FOR A GREAT STORY

One of the topics the book considers is what makes a great story. Mumaw identifies these six qualities:

• A well-defined, singular theme
• Clear characterization
• A well-developed plot
• Stylistically vivid
• Dramatically told
• Audience appropriate

Yes, I know--each of these is a huge topic in itself. But at least this list is a useful starting point. Here are a few ways to address each element.

THEME

Can you identify in one sentence the theme of your story (or product or service, for that matter)? Plot is what the story is about, theme is what the story is REALLY about. 

CHARACTERIZATION

Is it clear what your protagonist wants, as well as the personal qualities that help them and the weaknesses that work against them? Is there a solid reason that the antagonist is opposing your protagonist? 

PLOT

Does the plot have a beginning, a middle, and an end that comes from the actions of the protagonist? Have you made sure that the middle doesn't sag? If your character changes over the course of the story, is that change lined closely to the events of the plot?

VIVID STYLE

In one way, "stylistically vivid" applies more to novels than to screenplays, since the style of the movie owes a lot to the way it's directed, but even the screenplay should be an entertaining reading experience for the people who will decide whether to buy or option it. One good practice is choosing vivid verbs: Instead of "George opens the door, obviously excited" try "George slams open the door, bouncing off the walls with excitement." (Note: use strategically--a script or novel written totally that way would be annoying).

TELLING DRAMATICALLY

Have you considered whose point of view will be most interesting? Have you piqued the audience's or readers' interest, then doled out the information they want, one piece at a time in a way that keeps them interested? Have you included some surprises?

AUDIENCE APPROPRIATENESS

Deciding what is audience appropriate is trickier than it used to be. There used to be pretty clear definitions, for instance, of what was a kids' film and what was an adults' film. These days the kids' films that are successful are careful to include content that may fly over the kids' heads but will keep their accompanying adults entertained. And when I go to the cinema, I often see kids in the audience even for films that have guidelines suggesting they're for adults. I asked a cinema manager about this once and he shrugged and said, "If the parents don't care, I don't care."

It's possible for a story to have all of these elements and still flop or to have delayed success, but if your idea or story does have these six characteristics, there's a very good chance it will succeed.

That Exposition -- It's Naked!

"Beautiful Boy" was a well-acted and generally well-made film that earned Amazon Studios some critical plaudits but didn't do too well at the box office. With an estimated budget of $25 million, its worldwide earnings were just over $8 million.

One thing that surprised me was the naked exposition in the opening scene.

Steve Carell, as the boy's father, is talking to a therapist. He says he's there on a personal matter, not as a journalist, and then this is the dialogue:

DAVID It’s about my son.

DR BROWN (O.S.) Okay, how can I help?

DAVID There are moments that I look at him, this kid that I raised who I thought that I knew inside and out, and I wonder who he is? He’s been doing all sorts of drugs, but he’s addicted to crystal meth, which seems to be the worst of all of them. And I guess I am here because I just want to know all that I can about all of it. Know your enemies right? So... my two big questions are, what is it doing to him and what can I do to help him?

FADE TO BLACK.

Whoa! If this had been the first page of a script by one of my students I would have advised finding a scene that would intrigue the audience, not spell out exactly what the story is.

Stories about addiction tend to be predictable (on drugs, off drugs, on drugs, off drugs), the only question usually being whether or not the addict survives. Therefore this script needed to find fresh ways of keeping the audience's interest and that first speech didn't help. Yes, the point of view of the father desperate to help his son and willing to go to extreme lengths to do so added depth to the story, but the way it was presented didn't. 

THREE WAYS TO PUT CLOTHES ON NAKED EXPOSITION

There are a few ways to disguise exposition. The first and best is to show the information, rather than telling it. There are plenty of scenes in the movie that establish the boy's drug habit, the father's frustration, and the dad's extreme desire to help. I don't think this speech was needed at all. 

Another method is to put the exposition into an emotional scene. Instead of saying that he thought he knew his kid inside and out but now sometimes wonders who he is, it's easy to imagine that being built into a dramatic confrontation scene between the father and son in which the father's anger turns to tears of frustration. 

The third strategy is to involve an outsider who doesn't know the full situation, ideally someone who has an emotional connection to your protagonist rather than a neutral figure like a therapist. For instance, a close friend of the father, who has noticed how distracted and torn up the dad is but doesn't know why, could ask, "What the hell is happening to you?!" There could even have been a bit of irony if the friend asked, "You're not on drugs, are you?"

If you find any naked exposition in your own scripts, quick, cover it up!

Writing "improvised" dialogue

Can you write dialogue that sounds improvised? Should you? 

Eric Roth, co-writer of the current version of "A Star is Born," talks about how he abandoned his usual approach to writing dialogue:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/eric-roth-having-mindset-writing-a-star-is-born-1161322

I saw the film recently, and I did wonder how much of the dialogue was improvised--and Roth says in the clip that some of it was. 

Obviously, any dialogue can be improvised, but it seems to work best when it's side-comments that help establish the nature of the relationship of the people talking. That might take the form of teasing or being playful, as in "A Star is Born," or maybe some other additional subtext.

I find that a good strategy is giving your 'final' draft one more look and seeing whether loosening up the dialogue that way will add to the richness of your characters. Of course, the specifics depend on the nature of your characters, but by loosening up, I mean something like this:

Original line: "Would you like that?"

Looser exchange: "Would that float your boat?" 

(Other character:) "Float my boat? Did you just escape from the 70's?"

While dialogue is almost never the same as actual speech, strategically bringing it a bit closer can help your characters come alive.

 

 

Put our prejudices to use in your fiction

Our prejudices--our tendency to pre-judge people--can be pernicious in real life, but you can use it to your advantage when creating characters for your fiction.

A study at the University of Texas at Dallas found that our first impression of people is based, at least in part, on their body shape, according to a report by ScienceDaily.

Generally, heavier bodies were associated with laziness and carelessness. (I know--unfair, but I'm just reporting the results!)

Lighter bodies were associated with self-confidence and enthusiasm.

Bodies considered classically masculine (broad shoulders, smaller waist) and classically feminine (pear-shaped) were associated with being quarrelsome, extraverted, and irritable.

Bodies that were more rectangular were associated with trustworthiness, shyness, dependability, and warmth.

In fiction, you can choose to use these assumptions to help define your character--or to subvert the stereotypes by, for instance, creating a self-confident, enthusiastic character who also happens to be heavy, or a lazy, careless one who happens to be skinny.

I prefer the latter, not only because it may be a tiny step toward undoing this kind of pre-judgment but also because readers like being surprised and if they subscribe to the current stereotypes, this kind of reversal will surprise them.

 

 

 

 

Four mistaken beliefs about writing

There are a few bits of writing advice that I run across a lot that I think are bogus and may be damaging your confidence:

"You must write every day."

It's great if you do write every day, but there are plenty of successful writers who don't. Some have periods during which they research and periods during which they write. Some write a lot for a few days, then take a couple of days off. Whatever works best for you is right.

"You're not a real writer until your work has been published."

Was Charles Dickens a real writer the day before his first book was published? I'd say yes.

It may be fair to say you're not a professional writer until you've been paid for your writing, that's just how we define "professional."

If you're writing, you're a real writer. Anybody who doesn't think so just has a different definition of real.

"Your success as a writer is determined by how many books or scripts you've sold."

You get to set your own definition of success.

Is the best-selling writer automatically a better writer than someone who hasn't sold as many copies? Obviously not. The former may just be a better promoter, or have a more powerful agent, or a big publisher pushing his or her book.

My definition of success for myself as a scriptwriter was (and still is), "Am I making a living from this?" That's because I devote full-time to it.

The first three years I wasn't successful because I didn't make enough from writing to support myself. Ever since, I've been successful--although of course there are many, many scriptwriters who have made more money and had more projects produced. I respect and, in some cases, admire them, but I've never found it helpful to spend much time comparing myself to others.

Another definition of success is, "the things I'm writing these days are generally better than the things I was writing a couple of years ago--by my own standards."

"You're an imposter and will be found out."

This is one a lot of people tell themselves. Not only in the arts, although it's likely that it's more pervasive in the arts than in, say, accounting. The odds are that you're not an imposter and if you are, probably you won't be found out.

A belief of mine that may be more useful: "I'm not as good as I think I am on the days I think I'm really good, and not as bad as I think on the days I think I'm really bad."

A couple of useful questions:

When you find yourself worrying about issues like these, ask, "Says who?"

Literally, who says that?

What makes them the expert?  

They may be an expert on what works for them, but does that makes them an expert on what will work for you?

Might the opposite be true?

If so, which one feels more constructive?

Try operating on the basis of that one.

 

 

 

 

 

Is your script or novel idea any good?

How can you tell whether your idea for a screenplay or novel will interest anyone?

The other day I taught a 'taster' session for my Script Coach workshop that's running again at Raindance in Central London starting on October 15, on the topic of "How to use loglines to help you write and sell your screenplay.' One of the things we discussed is how to use loglines to test the appeal of your stories.

WHAT'S A LOGLINE?

A logline is a one or two sentence summary of your story (minus the ending), written in a way that piques the curiosity of the person who hears or reads it.

A logline should reveal your protagonist, your antagonist, and the basic conflict. For example, here's a logline for E.T.:

A lonely young boy befriends an alien and has to protect it from the authorities and help it get back home before the conditions on earth kill it.

THE COMPONENTS OF A LOGLINE

A logline should include:

The protagonist - "a lonely young boy"

The antagonist(s)- "the authorities" and "conditions on earth"

The conflict - protecting the alien and getting it back home. Loglines are so short that you don't have time to get into details, but we can imagine that both the authorities and the conditions on earth will create conflict for the boy.

DOES IT PROMPT CURIOSITY?

In this case, if we haven't seen the film, we might be curious about what the alien is like, how an alien can be friends with a boy, what kind of battles there might be between the boy and the authorities, and what he'll have to do to get the alien back home.

Having a logline that arouses curiosity is crucial because usually the goal of sharing a logline is to get an agent or producer to say, "That sounds interesting--tell me more!"

USE THE LOGLINE TO TEST YOUR IDEAS

Loglines are also a great tool for testing your ideas before you start to write, whether you have in mind a screenplay, novel, or children's book. Most writers have more ideas than time, so it's useful to know which one has the most appeal.

You can try out your loglines with friends. You should be able to tell the difference between a polite response and genuine interest. 

HOW TO GET GOOD AT WRITING LOGLINES

You can read lots of loglines at IMDB.com (International Movie Database). Just type in the name of a film and you'll see brief descriptions that you can practice re-shaping into loglines.

For instance, here's their description of E.T.:

"A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home world."

I the earlier version is better because "a lonely boy" is more specific than "a troubled child." "Summons the courage" is kind of abstract. Also, they don't mention the conflict with the authorities, which is a key part of the plot.

TRY REWRITING THIS LOGLINE

Your turn: here's their description of "Get Out!":

"A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point."

"Simmering uneasiness," "their reception of him," and "boiling point" all are vague. If you've seen the movie, how would you rewrite the second half of the description to be more specific but without giving away the ending?

If you haven't seen "Get Out!", do the exercise with the IMBD description of a film you have seen.

MORE TO COME...

You can also use the logline to help guide you in the writing process, but I'll save that for another post.

 

A documentary trick that also works for fiction films and novels

What makes a character (or a real person) interesting?

An article on Ozy.com reveals, "For filmmakers Elizabeth Delaune Warren and Danya Abt, quirk is key. The eccentricities and complexities that drive people also drive their documentary filmmaking.

'You take someone who’s a potato farmer in Idaho, and you expect a certain thing from them,' Abt says. 'How do they subvert those expectations?'

For Abt, the answer is in resisting the instinct to simplify and instead focusing on those very traits that don’t seem to fit the usual narrative. She believes this is the point at which a character starts to have dimension."

This works great in fiction as well.

The trick is not to automatically go for the opposite--for instance, the pro football player who is an opera buff, or the granny who rides a Harley-Davidson.

That's not to say that there aren't football players who love opera or grandmothers who ride Harleys, but it feels a bit by rote. Instead, it might be a football player whose hobby is woodworking, or a grandmother who coaches a kids' baseball team.

For inspiration, think about the quirks of your family members, your friends--or your own. 

"Sure I'm a homemaker, but I also enjoy taxidermy. I've got a moose in the basement right now."

 

 

A top agent's tip about creating characters

Top agent Jonny Geller, who represents John le Carre, among others, offers this writing tip on the Curtis Brown site:

"Every character you write is living a moment in time and it must be true and real in the moment. It must also hint at a past and to an unknown future that we care about."

Let's break that down. 

TRUE AND REAL IN THE MOMENT

As well as having a general idea of who our character is we need to know who they are in the moment we're writing about. What are they feeling at this point and how is that feeling influencing their action?

HINT AT A PAST

Of course, none of us are separate from our past, so another thing to consider is how the character's emotions and actions are being influenced by what has gone before.

We don't we don't need to spell that out; as Geller says, a hint is enough. The hint doesn't have to be in the form of dialogue (although it can be).

For instance, sometimes the pictures on the wall, or a piece of jewelry, or an unexpected reaction can do the job. If the character reacts nervously to the appearance of a police car, for instance, that suggests he or she may have had a run-in with the cops before or has something to hide.

HINT AT AN UNKNOWN FUTURE

The character's actions can give us some clues about what's coming up. Again, we want this to be a tantalizing hint, not something that's spelled out. The example of a character who is nervous when he or she sees a police car suggests not only that something happened in the past but that they'll encounter the police again at some point in the story.

THAT WE CARE ABOUT

This refers to the most fundamental aspect of a protagonist--we have to care about this person. That can be because they are likable but it can also be because we find them fascinating but not sympathetic. 

WHEN TO CHECK FOR THESE 

I think these criteria are best applied during the planning and re-writing phases. If we get too caught up in applying them in the writing phase, it can stop the flow. 

---

For more ideas about creating characters who come alive on the page, see my book, YOUR WRITING COACH, published by Hachette and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

Do you have to know the ending?

Once in a while I read about a successful writer who cheerfully declares, "I never know what's going to happen next, I just start writing and let the characters lead me."

Please, can you send some of those characters my way? My characters lead me, too, but usually into a dead end or another story altogether. They like going off road.

My hunch is the few writers who claim to write without a map actually do have one in their subconscious mind, and they've been at the writing game so long that their internal alarm system warns them when they're about to head into a dead end.

Either that or they're lying; throwing planning to the wind sounds much more romantic than sweating over an outline.

Christopher Markus, co-writer of "Infinity Wars," told the New York Times, "we're never writing without knowing where the end goes."

By the way, if you feel that movie was too fragmented, the writers probably wouldn't disagree. Co-author Stephen McFeeley noted, "Had we started from scratch, we would not have chosen six damn McGuffins [the infinity stones]. That's not helpful. It was difficult to get all that in." Once they knew that was the end, though, they were locked into that particular journey.

Having a strong ending is important--and difficult. Lawrence Kasdan, writer on "The Empire Strikes Back," in the same NY Times article said, "All the suspense about Act III is, how will this be resolved? People are always disappointed by the third act. 'That's all you can think of?'" 

I've mentioned before that my process is kind of a hybrid. I do know the ending and usually a few key plot points, but I allow myself to write freely for about the first quarter of the project. For a screenplay that would be the first 30 or 40 pages. Then I stop and plan the rest, although not scene by scene, just the key developments. For a feature script that might be roughly a dozen important events or turning points.

I'm not suggesting you use that method, although you might want to give it a try. You have to find what works best for you, what keeps you on track without making you feel too restricted by the plan. But for sure knowing where you want the story to end will make the entire process easier.

 

 

 

What to write about

"Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you;

figure out what you have to say.

It's the one and only thing

you have to offer."

Barbara Kingfisher