Just Effing Entertain Me

Words Into Pictures

Hello everybody! Had fun teaching to a full room at Warner Bros today! Our topic was Words Into Pictures: Writing Cinematically for the Silver Screen. It seems obvious that script writing should be colorful, sensory and cinematic but many writers, fearing that they don’t have license to write anything more elaborate than a blueprint, err on the side of writing dull, dry pages.

We talked today about the Three S’s: sight, sound, smell. So that if we have a scene set in a forest, we engage the reader’s senses wholly by using evocative words to describe the sharp smell of pine needles on the forest floor, or the way the sun looks peeking through the branches, or the muffled footsteps of a shadowy deer.

We also talked about establishing an intention, on page one, for how you want the reader to FEEL when reading the script and in particular, when reading each scene. Know your genre and set your agenda very early. If this is a thriller, we want to set up dread on evey page. So that forest might not be so sun-dappled, right? And perhaps the pine needles are rotting and black. And wind blows the branches.

So we manipulate the world we describe in action lines, slug lines and in dialogue to literally hypnotize the reader into feeling the way we intend them to. If Muzak is playing in a deserted convenience store late at night, if it’s totally generic elevator music, that’s creepy. But if it’s “Dancing Queen” or “The Hustle,” that’s a little funny. You can indicate music if there’s a source for it in the scene. A radio, boom box, CD player or radio. Otherwise, indicating music is NOT done.

We use modifiers and adjectives in the same way a painter uses paint in a pointillist painting. Little dots flecked with color take on a complete picture when you stand back.

Don’t worry about these details so much in your first draft – this is polish work. But do bear in mind, even in the early drafts, that your job is to seduce the reader into feeling the way you want them to feel about the story.

So set your intention on page one by knowing your genre and paying homage to it on every page. Bear in the mind the Three S’s (sight, sound, smell) and dig deep into your vocabulary for descriptors that turn the red apple into a blood red apple into a scarlet apple into a blushing apple into a crimson apple and back again.

That is all. Now get back to work.

Action Line Clean Up!

Here are some helpful tips for going through your draft with a laser eye looking for Action Line Clean ups:

Are your action lines written in the present continuous tense? Harold is walking, is sitting, is loading his gun – NO NO NO – rather, Harold walks, or he sits or he loads his gun. Action lines should be written in the present simple tense.

Are there ANY typos, misspells or homophones? (two, too, they’re, their, your, you’re)

Are there any DENSE blocks of action lines? Screw up your eyes and look at your pages. Any block-like patterns? Seek out and destroy them.

Are there scattered action lines that interrupt virtually every line of dialogue? Seek and destroy.

Are you action lines as pithy and efficient as possible? REALLY as efficient as possible?

Have you chosen evocative words that suit the mood, tone and genre of your script?

Are there widows (single words occupying one whole line)?

Are characters described briefly yet effectively?

Are there sounds in your script, which help make the read more cinematic?

Is there a minimum of “business” in your script?

Are there repeated words you’ve used? Is there too much alliteration?

Go ahead. Start on page one and ask yourself if your script has any of these problems within the action lines. And spend a day or two improving upon these issues. It’s good for your script, it’s great exercise for you as a writer and once you really, really GET how to write great action lines, you’ll never have to worry about it again. But it takes practice and repetition. It really does.

You see, your script can and might have any number of problems ranging from global to specific – structure, theme, logic or character issues – but bad action lines really are the KISS OF DEATH. Because when your action lines suck, then it follows, in a reader’s mind, that your whole script sucks. Because action lines are the plate upon which your whole script is served up. I read a script the other day with a GREAT core premise – really, really fascinating. But the action lines absolutely blew the concept out of the water because they were so bad. Don’t let this happen to you. There’s no excuse when you have resources all around you instructing you how to do it right.

Action Lines: Opportunities Waiting to Happen

One of the weird things about table reads is that the action lines are read aloud along with the dialogue. It’s slightly counter-intuitive because in the movie version of your script the action lines are, well, actions that are happening, not words someone is reading aloud. But when your script is read, there’s that translation that happens in the mind of the reader – I’m reading your action lines and visualizing the actions you are describing. Right? I mean, we know that.

This is one of the things that makes screenwriting SO unique – action lines are meant to be READ at first, but read in such a way that they paint a picture. Then later, they will be read and interpreted into images and actions. So that, for example:

EXT. LAKE MICHIGAN – DAWN

The icy lake is steel grey, tinged with pale blue. A flock of GEESE flies overhead, HONKING. The sun begins to rise, bathing the lake with a honeyed glow.

….becomes a shot, right? And if this shot makes it into the final draft of your script and everyone loves it, a camera crew will shoot on location – might not be THAT great lake, might be some lake that looks really big and cold and steely. Might not be at dawn, might be at dusk. Might have to CG the geese or might get lucky. “Honeyed glow” might be a real sunrise or it might be done in post production. But you see, this very short, quick description of mine will now require a whole set of filmic actions to bring to life. But in that initial read, the reader is absorbing a mood , and the lake is setting that mood. Does it matter, then, if you wrote the same action line like this:

EXT. LAKE MICHIGAN – DAWN

The sun comes up over the large, cold lake. Geese fly overhead.

Well, no – look, it’s the same shot, right? And the second example used way fewer words. But which description was more cinematic, sensory and memorable to you? It’s all about finding YOUR voice and YOUR way of describing things, but I promise you that the more cinematic your writing, the more absorbed your reader will be in your script. And the better writer you are (better defined here as: both cinematic AND pithy) the better people will react to your script. Not to mention that an agent or manager will definitely not be impressed by or drawn to utilitarian writing that is there to just get the job done and move on.

Some screenwriters complain – hey, my action lines are just that – they are actions that are happening; camera movements and descriptions of visuals. So why do they have to be written WELL and held up to the same standards as prose? Because they will be READ, that’s why. Read and seen and felt by a reader – then later, read, seen, felt and translated into images by the actors and the director.

At table reads, most writers are eager to hear how the dialogue sounds. That is the primary focus, usually. And they get a little yeah yeah, get through the action lines, I want to hear the characters interacting. But. Hearing your action lines read gives you a chance, for one thing, to hear how those action lines are translated by a reader. In other words, if your trusty narrator is stumbling over some of the words in your action lines, or sounds like they are going on and on as they read – it’s a reflection upon the action lines themselves.

You might have too much black; you might have chosen alliterative or unnecessarily complicated words. Or you might be over-directing the characters. Take one recent example – a character in the pages is a cigar smoker. And he’s veritably always holding onto, sniffing, smoking or otherwise fondling his cigar. So the writer wrote that in the action lines. Throughout the script. So that this character’s lines of dialogue were always preceded and peppered with the business with his cigar – which interrupted the flow of the read. Because every single time this character spoke, we first had to read an action line about something he was doing with his cigar. Frustrating for the actor trying to just do his dialogue with flow and emotion and frustrating for the audience having to hear repetitive lines about a cigar.

Now: There are people (and characters) who are always fiddling with something – their hair, cigar, gun, cigarettes – whatever. But in general, if it’s just fiddling that we’re talking about, set it up early in the script and then leave it out after that. Why? Because the actor gets it already: I’m a cigar-fiddler. Micro-directing how that character is repeating personal gestures takes up space on your script pages and unnecessarily interrupts the flow of the read.

INT. PARLOR – NIGHT

Emil sniffs his cigar appreciatively.

EMIL: Your move, my friend.

He snips the end of his cigar.

FRANK: Ah, so it is.

Emil searches his jacket pocket for a lighter.

FRANK: Check and mate, my friend.

Emil lights his cigar and inhales. The smoke swirls around his face.

EMIL: Fair enough. I suppose you’ll want your payment at the usual time?

Emil ashes his cigar.

FRANK: At dawn. By the lake. And bring rope.

AARRHGHGH – we get it with the cigar already! Because something really interesting is happening here; these two men have made a bet and Frank won and holy shit, by the lake with a rope? But the lines about the stupid cigar interrupt the flow of that. And Wavers, I know you think I make up examples to make my point in the most heavy-handed way possible and yet I swear upon my mother’s blue eyes that this is the kind of action line writing I have seen many times over.

Remember, when someone is reading your script, they are primarily drawn to the lines of dialogue. Firstly, this is a visual thing – the dialogue is centered on the page. Secondly, the dialogue is where the story moves forward. Right? It is true that readers sometimes skim action lines, particularly if they are a bit dense. I don’t mean SKIP – I mean SKIM. Because remember, readers have to time their reads – they have several more scripts to go this week and they just need the UPSHOT of your script. So if your action lines are dense and not particularly entertaining, they start skimming in order to facilitate just getting through the read.

Now – seriously – you don’t want your action lines skimmed. So you have to make them melodious and interesting. You have to make them a value-added part of the experience of reading your script – a delightful, cinematic bonus. Just be careful not to overwrite your action lines; your character smokes cigars – we get it. And perhaps more importantly, the actor gets it. Set it up early and leave it alone. Or find another, more clever way of indicating the relationship between this character and his or her cigar, hair, gum, fingernails or zipper.

Try having your own table read. Have a friend or loved one play the narrator and the characters – have them read just a few pages. And listen to the way the action lines sound read aloud. Are they lengthy? Is your friend stumbling through them? Are certain gestures of a character crowding the pages or interrupting dialogue?

Action lines that are o-k-a-y get the job done. Action lines that are exceptional get writers repped and sold. It’s pretty simple, Wavers. Interrupting your dialogue with action lines that micro-direct a character and his cigar is unclever-scriptus-interruptus-gimme-a-breakus.

Which is better writing – to show us repetitive details of fidgeting with a cigar or to write a character who is the essence of one who smokes cigars – whether that’s expensive cubans or cheap cigarellos? What is the cigar really about, in other words? It’s not just a prop; it’s a way of being and thinking. So capture THAT rather than leaning on the prop itself.

Yes, action lines are, in part, utilitarian; but a good writer never leaves it at that. Why just state what’s going on when you can show the reader your beautiful command of the language and your ability to direct the eye cinematically? Why have a cold lake when you can have a steel grey one with the honking of migrating geese echoing across it as the sun rises? Why do something just all right when you can do it exceptionally?

Focused Rewriting: Action Lines

You’re doing it all the time. Rewriting your script. They say that writing IS rewriting and I think this is self-evident. This is why we must not judge ourselves so harshly. Your writing can always improve. In the early stages of writing your script, mostly you just want to get it down on paper. Just get those pages going.

Rewriting is a necessary, fun and challenging part of improving those pages.

But it’s easy to go back over pages and tweak them to death with no actual goal in mind. You start off by thinking – I’ll just make this better. In fact, going over previous pages from where you left off can sometimes be a time-wasting way to avoid not writing the new pages you need to write. I know when I sit down to write, even if I left off on page 42, I start back at page one and read/skim the previous pages and of course make a few changes here and there before returning to page 42 and making that turn into page 48. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. But imagine the efficiency of doing a focused rewrite pass.

How about this week Wavers collectively do an Action Line Rewrite Pass?

Start on page one and go through the script with a laser focus and look at every single action line paragraph:

Are your action lines written in the present continuous tense? Harold is walking, is sitting, is loading his gun – NO NO NO – rather, Harold walks, or he sits or he loads his gun. Action lines should be written in the present simple tense.

Are there ANY typos, misspells or homophones? (two, too, they’re, their, your, you’re)

Are there any DENSE blocks of action lines? Screw up your eyes and look at your pages. Any block-like patterns? Seek out and destroy them.

Are there scattered action lines that interrupt virtually every line of dialogue? Seek and destroy.

Are you action lines as pithy and efficient as possible? REALLY as efficient as possible?

Have you chosen evocative words that suit the mood, tone and genre of your script?

Are there widows (single words occupying one whole line)?

Are characters described briefly yet effectively?

Are there sounds in your script, which help make the read more cinematic?

Is there a minimum of “business” in your script?

Are there repeated words you’ve used? Is there too much alliteration?

Go ahead. Start on page one and ask yourself if your script has any of these problems within the action lines. And spend a day or two improving upon these issues. It’s good for your script, it’s great exercise for you as a writer and once you really, really GET how to write great action lines, you’ll never have to worry about it again. But it takes practice and repetition. It really does.

You see, your script can and might have any number of problems ranging from global to specific – structure, theme, logic or character issues – but bad action lines really are the KISS OF DEATH. Because when your action lines suck, then it follows, in a reader’s mind, that your whole script sucks. Because action lines are the plate upon which your whole script is served up. I read a script the other day with a GREAT core premise – really, really fascinating. But the action lines absolutely blew the concept out of the water because they were so bad. Don’t let this happen to you. There’s no excuse when you have resources all around you instructing you how to do it right.

Dense Action Lines = Kiss of Death

For many new screenwriters, action lines seem like the least of their concerns. That’s just the part where you download what’s happening, describe characters, etc., big deal, how hard can it be? I have seen many an aspiring screenwriter who writes in some other context, sometimes even on a high level of achievement (having been published or otherwise lauded), really take action lines for granted – which honestly, as a person who has written published essays and short fiction as well as scripts, irks me. Don’t take action line writing so lightly – give it some respect.

Action lines are in some ways Screenwriting 101: Don’t just tell me what’s going on, lay it out as if I am watching what’s going on. Huge difference. Yes, yes, one can adhere to “rules” like keep action lines to less than four lines in one paragraph but really, what sets action lines in a script apart from any other type of writing is that they are cinematic in nature. They have movement, they guide the eye, they set the tone. They don’t just plunk us into the middle of a tableau and describe it to death: They are kinetic and elegant.

Don’t ever just toss out action lines to simply describe something. Always take advantage and make them pull two and three times their weight. Don’t describe a scene as if it is a static diorama. Remember that action lines are NOT subtitled; don’t tell me that this dude is the CEO of Evil Corp. and that he’s having an agitated conversation with someone. SHOW me what that looks like. Sorry I’m ranting a little; I read a script yesterday that had a great premise but that was absolutely sunk by action lines that did nothing to service the story and everything to take what should have been exciting and make it a describe-o-rama snorefest.

Let me give you an example that is scrambled for confidentiality’s sake. This is an amalgam of every bad action line mistake you could make…but let me also say this is NOT an exaggeration. I repeat – NOT an exaggeration. This is sadly common:

LOUISE GINT is blonde, in her 50s but still looking good. She wears expensive clothing but she is annoyed. She is the president of the Junior Soccer League. She is in a high school gymnasium and stands at a podium set up on a stage and tries to get the crowd to quiet down to listen to her. Her vice president, LOU HALL is in his 30s and is a grumpy type who rarely smiles. All around them a crowd waits to hear the speech. A PHOTOGRAPHER with a beard stands toward the back and begins to snap pictures of the event. He is Louise’s ex-husband and there is no love lost between them. Screens are on either side of the podium and the screens play footage of a soccer team in Ireland winning a game. Louise starts her speech.

Do you see how annoying this is? And this example is probably eight lines shorter than I commonly see. It is expository, it is boring, it is overwritten and it just sits there like a lump. It doesn’t MOVE.

Now let’s try it again:

A high school gym is crowded with SOCCER FANS. Parents, die-hards, teenagers. A bearded PHOTOGRAPHER jostles for position at the back. Suddenly, microphone feedback echoes throughout the gym -

LOUISE (O.S.): Ladies and gentleman! Quiet down please!

The crowd turns its attention to the commanding woman at the podium. LOUISE GINT (50s), blonde and confident in her Donna Karan, looks over the crowd.

LOUISE: Quiet please!

LOU HALL (30s), grim and unsmiling, leans in to Louise.

LOU (under his breath): This isn’t going to be easy.

Louise covers the microphone with her hand.

LOUISE: Shut up and roll the footage, dammit!

Two large screens on either side of the podium flicker and come to life. Team Ireland plays a rousing, mud-spattered game.

LOUISE: It is my duty as Junior Soccer League President to present to you the incriminating footage of the game played last year in Dublin Heights.

MAN (O.S.): Miss Gint?! Miss Gint!

Louise swivels her head to someone in the back of the crowd. It’s the photographer.

PHOTGRAPHER: Wasn’t this footage obtained through illegal means?

The crowd grows silent. Lou leans closer to Louise and whispers.

LOU: Isn’t that -

LOUISE: My ex husband. Bastard.

Etc.

So – you know – this is an example and it really goes nowhere but do Wavers see how both examples basically give out the same information but one does it in a way that is moving along and the other is just an action line DUMP?

Look, writing action lines vis a vis the first example is a natural way for new writers to do it. It’s what you are used to; it uses a weird combination of pointillism and paint roller to set up what’s going on. But the second example is how scripts (good ones) are actually written – information is doled out on an as-needed basis. As one example, in the first iteration, the writer just informs us that Louise is the president of the junior soccer league and that further, she is annoyed. But in the second example, we just let her BE the junior soccer league president – she tells us that as part of what she’s doing. And she SOUNDS annoyed. We don’t inform you the photographer is her ex, we discover that in a kinetic way. Louise sees him only after he asks a question. And we find out just who he is in a much more fun way.

It’s like the difference between trotting out beauty contest girls and saying: Miss Corona Hills is 27, likes long walks on the beach and really loves puppies! Rather than introducing information as if she walks out onto the stage as an actor in a play – we gather information about her through the way she talks and acts – we gather the information, we look for it, we experience it.

And that sums up the vibe of good action lines, people. Don’t information dump but rather, let the information wash over us incrementally. Because when you write that way, you have engaged me, the reader. I am experiencing what I am reading, not being hit over the head with it. This not a manual for a garbage disposal. This is like being led on a garden tour.

And that. Is my rant for the day. Thank you and get back to work.

Directing the Eye of Your Reader

We all know that including directorial/camera instructions in your script is a big no-no. It’s annoying, it’s unprofessional, it’s overstepping, it’s pretentious and it’s annoying. Yeah, I said annoying twice.* I’m talking about stuff like MOS (without sound), SMASH CUT, PAN TO, TRACKING SHOT, etc.

SMASH CUT TO:

*an anonymous Rouge Waver commenter once pointed out that I had used a word twice in a very ha-HA way. To which I responded, dude, I am a good writer. I never use a word twice unless I am being ironic or comedic. Every word I write is thought through. Because that’s what writers do. Unless I’m too lazy, tired or hung-over to notice in which case, ha-HA away; nobody should drink 3 grape soda and vodka cocktails in a row and I know that now.

BACK TO SCENE:

Anywho, I get the impulse – we screenwriters see and hear the scenes we’re writing. Aspiring screenwriters often do one of two things wrong: they either add camera directions as above, or they just – don’t. They do something like:

WALT crosses to the sink and rinses his coffee cup. He notices the birds singing outside. Behind him, a drooling monster enters the kitchen and begins to pant hungrily. Walt turns and sees it.

Walt: Oh my god a drooling monster!!

B-O-R-I-N-G.

So the trick is, how do you guide the eye of the reader in your action lines without over or under serving the moment? How do you get that nice dun dun DUN moment in there?

Walt is the character whose point of view we are with, right? We are experiencing what he is experiencing. In the example above, the scene is written as if from a bird’s eye view and it saps the scene of any tension. But try this:

WALT hums while he rinses his coffee cup in the sink. Outside, two robins chirp merrily at the bird feeder. Walt smiles when – another sound, one he doesn’t recognize…it’s not coming from outside. Slowly, Walt turns.

A DROOLING MONSTER is right behind him!

Walt rockets backwards onto his ass, spilling water all over himself.

Walt: My god! A drooling monster!

So we jump in later, we put Walt’s attention on something else before he notices the monster, we create a nice dun dun DUN! moment when he sees the monster and we give him a sharp reaction to the sight of it.

Now that silly example might be really far from what you’re writing but the concept applies to good scene work in any genre in any script.

Action lines are not just a droning narration, they are more akin to telling a story around a campfire. You know? Like in summer camp?

And THEN –

Everybody stares at you, the crackling of the fire the only sound as their respective marshmallows start to burn…

Behind her…

Your fellow campers can’t stand it – what? What is behind her? I know you know what it is but TELL US!!

And it doesn’t have to be scary, though I keep using those types of examples because I write psychological thrillers.

Let’s crib that set piece from BRIDGET JONES I was talking about the other day. Without looking at the script, mind you, which was probably written differently than this but you’ll still grok my point:

Darcy takes a swing at Cleaver. He goes down momentarily then rushes Darcy. The two struggle then tumble into -

A packed Greek restaurant!

Now, again, I actually don’t know how that scene was written but you’ll notice that the way I have done this here, the mere separation of the action lines gives the reader pause long enough to be pleasantly surprised. They don’t see the Greek restaurant coming because you, simply using a line break, waited to show us that.

Another writer might have done this:

Darcy takes a swing at Cleaver. He goes down momentarily then rushes Darcy. The two struggle then tumble into a packed Greek restaurant.

You see how much more fun the first example is? But what I most commonly see from new screenwriters is this – the worst way to write this:

Darcy and Cleaver fight. Behind them, a Greek restaurant is open. They struggle their way into the restaurant.

I kid you not, I see that kind of writing all the time. Dull, dull, dull. You’ve told us everything from a bird’s eye view and there’s no fun to be had in the reading of that. YOU know there’s a Greek restaurant and they’re going to tumble into it but as the viewer (or reader) I only vaguely know there may be businesses on that street but I’m not really paying attention to what kind of businesses – I’m on the fight. That’s the beat of the scene. The fight. But you, the writer, you’re going to top the fight with the introduction of a new element – a packed restaurant.

Writing kinetic action lines is a variation of show don’t tell but I prefer to think of it as an issue of pacing and where the eye is directed. What do you call attention to in order to then create some surprise on the page? A Greek restaurant! Wow! But if you tell me the restaurant is there in the first place, I already saw that moment coming and it sucks the fun out of getting there.

Using line breaks, hyphens, all-caps – these are all tiny little mechanical cheats to draw attention where you want it. In the Walt example, above, we put his attention (and yours) on the birds outside. That way the monster will be more surprising. In the Darcy/Cleaver scene, we want your attention on the fight itself. We save the Greek restaurant for the topper.

Now, before some smarty pants Rouge Waver sends me the BRIDGET scene and says SEE- Fielding did it thus and such way which was totally different from your example, let me say in advance, I don’t care, I am making a very salient point here and I think we all get that. Or, I hope we do.*

SMASH CUT TO:

*Dear anonymous commenter, stuff it.

BACK TO SCENE:

Look at the rhythm and pacing of your action lines. Make sure you play out your scene in such a way that you are taking the reader by the nose and putting their attention where you want it so that I get maximum fun and entertainment out of not noticing the CREAM PIE about to be heaved into the character’s face. Or the guy standing behind the door with an ax. Or the elevator door about to open on a crazy circus clown. Who has a cream pie.

Pacing and rhythm is fundamental to all entertaining writing – whether it’s a blog post, short story, novel or script. I do it on the Rouge Wave all the time. Pretty much in every single post. Because otherwise this blog becomes information, information, information, information. And that is dull and you wouldn’t come back for more, would you?

Now if you’ll excuse me – DING! – huh, what’s that? I pause in my blogging, I turn and -

A CRAZY CIRCUS CLOWN HEAVES A CREAM PIE IN MY FACE!

I wipe the cream from my eyes and it’s then that I notice -

It’s Anonymous Commenter!

Julie: Very funny, dude. Very funny.

Decor – Does it Matter?

You can tell TONS about a person by what’s in their home, right? Just tons. Next time you go over to someone’s house, use your writer’s eye and sweep the room. A lot of books? Is it super dusty and messy? Or clean as a whistle? Is there a prominent flat-screen TV and lots of movies lying around? How about the color scheme? Bright? Neutral? How about tchochkes? (Knick-knacks for you non-Yiddish speakers.) How about awards or artwork? Anything embroidered? Anything at all?

In my neighborhood, many people have their windows flung wide open at night, owing to the heat. And a stroll up and down the block will reveal an apartment with a huge, wide-screen tv with a lawn chair pulled up in front of it. And a living room painted bright red, strung with tiny Christmas lights. And a living room window peppered with children’s drawings. Messy apartments, with stereo systems up on cinder blocks. Apartments with a lot of Hollywood posters of yesteryear. There are apartments that look very lived in. And apartments that look just moved in to.

What is important to us is revealed in our homes. This is our womb-like lair. Where we go home, after a long day, to relax and find safety and peace. It’s where we can walk around in boxer shorts and ripped up tee shirts. It is our private space.

So I was reading a script recently which indicated that the main character’s apartment was nice. That’s all. No other details. Just”nice”. While you don’t want to take up an inordinate amount of space on your pages with design details, taking a second to describe your main character’s domicile is a very good idea. Or, to state it in the reverse, not doing it is a missed opportunity. A big missed opportunity.

Sometimes writers will say that the place is “bare bones” or indicate that the main character is rich or has “good taste”. But – neither one of those things really gives me a visual.

Take “bare bones” as an example. Okay, all right – but are the dishes stacked neatly near the sink or is the sink overflowing with dishes? Is the character a slob or a neatnik? Is this place bare bones because the character is broke or because they have no life? In other words, what does bare bones say about the psyche of the character?

You don’t have to go into a lot of detail (which is another, very common mistake I see) but just sketch it out some. When you say they are rich and the apartment is nice, do you mean they have expensive antiques? Or so you mean they catalogue shop at Pottery Barn? Is the apartment or house stuffed with things or pretty minimalistic? Is it an overstuffed couch or leather? Is the decor feminine in nature or very masculine? Gloomy or bright?

Does your character care for plants? Or not even? How about pets? Anything slithering around or rubbing up against your leg? Could the place use a good cleaning or health inspector? Or does your character use a maid? Is your character’s home a welcoming space or a cold, unwelcoming one?

Again, I cannot stress enough that in the big sweepstakes of significantly important qualities in your script: original premise, character arc, theme – decor is a detail that is not up there as one of the most important details. But not taking a few words to set the scene is a missed opportunity to tell us more about your character. Saying “nice” or “expensive” or “bare bones” is a cop out.

But nor should you catalogue everything in the room. No – broad strokes – but when you say the character is “rich, with expensive tastes” what does that mean, exactly? That tells me absolutely nothing. Is it gilded, Colombian drug lord “good taste” or is it eclectic, upscale-flea-market-collectors-finds “good taste”?

Do some research this week and look around at the home decor of your friends and neighbors. What stands out? How does this define your friend or neighbor? Our chosen decor does offer a glimpse into us, no doubt about that. Whether that decor is cardboard boxes and lawn chairs or priceless art and antiques.

Describing decor is ultimately a small detail of your script but don’t miss an important opportunity to give is a glimpse into your character’s soul.

Repeated Words and Alliteration

Clearly, the Wave-inatrix reads a lot of scripts. A lot. At least one full feature on a daily basis, and very often, two. When I read your script, I have a huge advantage over you – I’ve never seen it before. When you’ve spent that much time with your pages, it’s hard to see the forest for the trees after awhile. That’s where I come in.

If you use the word “angry” or any version of it on your pages more than once, I see it. It’s like that scene in A BEAUTIFUL MIND when Russell Crowe sees all the patterns in the numbers. It’s like I put 3-D glasses on and suddenly everything that is not working comes into full view. If a writer needs to work on the flaw of their main character, or has a typo here or there – I have no judgment about that. My job is point it out and help fix it. But, as Wavers know very well by now, when I catch something that the writer overlooked, I get a little nuts. Like typos, malaprops and just plain laziness.

Here’s a quick, made-up but scarily accurate example:

INT. BEDROOM – DAY

Quietly, Jim pulls back the covers and goes to the window. All is quiet outside.

SHERRY: Jim, what are you doing?
JIM: Shhhh, be quiet.

Okay so here we have “quiet” used three times in short order. Hello? Make like an Eskimo and come up with other words to describe that it’s quiet.

I might be reading a page and notice the word “she” used maybe ten times in one page. Or “they”, or “damn” – doesn’t matter what the words are but it’s lazy writing to repeat the same words over and over. Words on your script pages are like pointillist paintings; you are going for this larger image of beauty, but that image is made up of tiny dots. And when the tiny dots are spelled wrong, repetitive or my personal favorite – malaprops, the larger image has a hard time arising from them.

Now. Is this something that falls under the screenwriting priority list of theme, character arc or the originality of your premise? No. Your words won’t be seen onscreen at all, so in the end, using “quiet” six times on a page doesn’t matter. Or does it?

Alliterative words are defined technically, as words with the same consonant sound: She sold seashells at the seashore, or Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers. But in the sense I use it here, it simply means words that sound an awful lot alike and therefore make the read slightly clumsy.

Think twice before naming your female ensemble characters Sharon, Susan, Cindy, Sookie and Sally. Because I am going to get them all confused. They sound too much alike. I recently read this: a stray ray of sunshine blah blah blah. Stray and ray. Back to back.

Much has been made of the multitudinous and egregious spelling errors in Tarrantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTARDS. Spelled Inglourious Basterds on the copy that I have. Must we really pause here to point out that this is an established, and some would say, very gifted director and so he gets a free pass where you don’t? Okay. I said it.

When someone reads your script, you are not only not preceded by a reputation for greatness, coolness, celebrity-ness or artistry – you are actually preceded by loads and loads of really bad scripts. So the assumption is, on page one, that this script probably won’t be very good. Because you’re one of the hoi polloi. Guilty by association.

So this is your shot. Don’t blow it. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Scan your pages for alliterative words and names, for typos (god knows) and vis a vis today’s lesson – repeated words. Use a highlighter and go through your pages – have you unwittingly used a word over and over again? Get rid of those repetitive words. Stand out from the crowd with stellar pages which represent a stellar script.

As we duke it out over the final, final, top scripts in the Silver Screenwriting Competition (and there’s been some um, lively duking-it-out, trust me) not one of the scripts in question has typos, repeated words or malaprops. Not a one. Otherwise they would have been knocked out in an earlier round. We want the best of the best. You need to do anything and everything to be sure you fall under that category and what may feel like a silly chore – making sure you don’t use “they” ten times on one page is actually not silly at all.

PACHEW! Sounds in Your Script

Is it okay to write sounds into your script? You know – stuff like BANG! RRRIPP! POW!

Yes, please. It makes the read a lot more fun. And it’s fun to do. Your character might throw a rock into a lake with SPLASH or a soft plunk. The faucet might drrrip. DRIP DRIP DRIP. The door can open with a creak. And yeah, italics are okay once in awhile.

I have a client right now who is just the king of great sound effects. The genre of his script is such that sound effects are an important part of this story and man, does he do it well. On page one, our hero arrives in a cloud of dust in the middle ofa crowd with a BAWOOMPH! Later, bullets fly by with a SCHWIZZ! Laser guns fire PACHEW PACHEW! The ring of a phone breaks the silence with a BAAAA RING! This is not all on page or even on every page. Just here and there when the moment calls for it.

Recently, I read a script in which a rock flies through a glass window with a SPLAT! And I thought – splat? Wouldn’t that go CRASH! or SHATTER! or CRACK ? And it really bothered me because I had to backtrack to see if I had read the action line wrong, if perhaps an egg had hit the window, or spit or bird poop. No – it was a rock. Rocks don’t make glass go SPLAT, they just don’t.

So be careful that indicating the sound gets you the cinematic effect you want, not confusion.

Experienced screenwriters know that a successful read of your script should immerse the reader in the simulated experience of seeing the movie. Choosing to write a sound effect here and there adds to the effing entertainingness of your pages.

Like anything, don’t overdo sounds to the point that it’s annoying. Don’t use it as a crutch, use it for effect. Judiciously used, it’s actually very fun and adds a lot of ZIP! to your script.

Remember, your script is essentially a seduction. You want the reader to become totally immersed in your story. Use absolutely everything at your disposal – use every one of your wiles. And if a well-placed FWAP! or BOOOOSH! adds to the experience of the moment in a scene, by all means go for it.

There are a lot of qualities that equal a PASS writer, but being boring is probably number one. Don’t tempt the reader to hurl your script across the room with a THUD.

Bad Action Line, Bad!

In response to a comment sent in from my dear friend Luzid about what I mean by bad action lines, I have for your viewing hilarity, created an amalgam of every bad, dense action line that I have read just today. On the couch. Wishing I was doing something else but for that one super cool horror script.

***

The heaving SEE tosses the boat closer to the glacer while the crab pots slide toward TONY, ruddy, a drinker (mid-30s but looks like he’s 50) who glares at TRACEE (17, wishes she was 21) and RAIN pounds the deck while in the background, TOWERING OIL RIGS mone and sway in the wind. On the HORIZON a fleet of ships head toward a danger cliff and obscured by the storm, nobody can see the danger they will soon be in. Tony gropes for a rope, winds it around his left wrist, trying to help get the last crab pot in but a WAVE crashes over him and Tracee gets hit by the jib, which throws her overboard in an explosion of fome. She struggles but nobody sees her and the storm gets worse and the person reading the script starts having some kind of seizure and the WAVES of pain crash over there brain and they get a papercut and a migraine and close the script with SMASH CUT.

Too many lines, everything is run together, typos and misspells, saying not showing, bad character descriptions – a virtual bounty, an overflowing net of writhing, sardine-like action lines. Even if a person had no typos and wasn’t a totally horrible writer, remember that feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you first scrolled down and saw my example? How you kind of went oh GOD – not now. I like short, pithy Rouge Wave paragraphs – yeah. That feeling. Don’t give a reader that feeling.

A too short action line might look like:

The boat rocks. Thunder overhead. Bad storm. Cliff approaches. Lightning.

It’s like if Joe Friday and The Hulk had a baby. Hulk, smash!

I’m not going to be one of those people who says you have to use 3 or 4 action lines, no more. I don’t think one can really pronounce that there’s some limit, over or under which you will suddenly turn the reader off. Really, just make your action lines easy on the eye, make them evocative and colorful and fun. And if you find that you have blocks with more than say 5 lines of action – just ask yourself – what words can I lose or substitute to shorten this? Or is it fine the way it is? Just keep your eye on that.

There is a lot more information on the Rouge Wave if you click on “action lines” under Browse Topics.