Just Effing Entertain Me

Where Geography Meets Backstory

Good morning, Effers! Day I’m-not-sure-anymore here in London (10? 11?) and am slowly recovering from catching my death (or something approximating it) on the Tube (or at least I suspect). I have discovered Lemsip and how to work my tv remote control and so spent the evening fitfully watching the Crufts Dog Show and wondering, subtextually, about people who get so wrapped up in stuff like dog breeds. I can hear my mother saying now HONEY if YOU were into dog breeds it wouldn’t be that strange to YOU now would it? But, like seriously – srsly – is it me or are these people kinda nuts?

Travel is good for so many things, but one of them is character study. Specifically, in my case, noting the differences between Brits and Americans in not only our day-to-day manners and customs, but the larger picture as well. I have noticed that British food is, by and large, what we Americans call comfort food. A lot of warm, toasted, jammy, gravy, potted pie, mash, mushy peas to be had here. I have also notice that Brits are both much more polite and restrained than Americans but also much more bawdy and kooky as well. I mean, KOOKY.

Could it be that this windswept, relatively small island, with rocky shores and windy moors has given rise to and nourished the British personality whereas the huge spaces, diverse geography and manifest destiny of the US gave birth to our optimistic, devil-may-care casualness? The answer is evident, I think.

But who would have thunk it? That literally a hot or cold climate, the presence of desert, mountains, snow or wide rivers and fields would literally form customs and national identities? Someone asked me incredulously the other day, whether it was true that most Americans (insert hushed, amazed tone here) do NOT have passports?! I replied that I am unsure of the percentage but no, we don’t really need them in the US, mostly. Our country is huge and varied and we don’t really have to leave it to go skiing or sun bathing or to explore different foods and cultures.

So blather, blather, blebbit, and I blame it on the “strepsils” I am taking and the “lemsip” twice daily, because all of this is self-evident and of course, of course, but – aha! – BUT – where is your main character from in your script? Have you given any thought to that, pray tell? If you are an American and reading this you might say, yes, my mc is from Ohio – big deal – nothing interesting there. Or they are from where I am from and we aren’t that interesting or different in Nevada. Or Idaho. Ah – but you are. Think about the specificity of your region in terms of weather, food, customs and so on. In the US, there are so many distinct regions and history of same. I think we all saw FARGO and learned, therefore, about the Scandinavian and German influence on the Minnesotans to this day regarding the imbibing of “hot dish” and “salad” made from saltines and jello and whipped cream not to mention the lasting legacy of the wood chipper.

Why are Californians so relaxed and friendly and mellow? Because it’s so freaking warm and easy to live in California. We have the luxury, because we aren’t freezing our behinds off, to slow down, mellow out and feel the sun on our faces. Makes us feel kinda groovy.

In the London workshop of the other day, we spent a lot of time talking about how character begets plot rather than the other way around. There are many exercises for building character, from doing the Proust questionnaire with your character, to writing stream-of-consciousness musings to role playing to identifying your main character’s astrological sign or mythological equivalent or like, feng shui-ing your characters cardboard diorama which you made one night at like 3am.

Do whatever works for you but thinking of your main character in a holistic, organic way is definitely the widest avenue toward creating (out of thin air, mind you!) a character that actually seems like a real person. Start with the basics of formative psychology like where your character is from (as above), how they were raised by their parents and how and where they were educated. Those are broad brushstrokes, granted, but it is in those broad brushstrokes that a kaleidoscope of smaller details can then be found and explored.

I spend a lot of time talking and teaching about two things in particular: excellent page work (landing moments, making your pages glimmerescent, etc.) and structure vis a vis character. This is something that the Menage a Flaw ties together beautifully – character, plot and the ballet the two must perform.

We’ve all heard the expression “You can’t get there from here”. Well, when writing a great character, you certainly can. But a good map as a jumping off place is key. So find what works for you, personally. I can suggest various exercises, but it is in the realization that anybody can think of a PLOT but not everybody can create, using the 26 letters of the alphabet, an entire human being with heart, soul, fears and dreams that your power lies. This is writing. This is alchemy. This is good stuff.

Your Main Character Does Not Read Eckhard Tolle

Apropos of nothing I had a laugh as I thought of the image of Glenn Close as Sunny Von Bulow, sitting at the end of a ridiculously long table, sunglasses on, eating a sundae with a cigarette in her hand in Barbet Shroeder’s fantastic REVERSAL OF FORTUNE (the wonderful movie from which we get the droll “You have no idea” for those of you keeping score at home).

Or again from Mr. Schroeder, Mickey Rourke stumbling into an intersection with a golf club as Charles Bukowski in BARFLY.

Seeing someone in the movies be EFFED UP runs the gamut from funny to discomfiting. The extremes of life, especially being effed up seem glamorous in a weird way. Until it’s YOU smoking a cigarette over your tequila breakfast. Not so funny, fun, glamorous or anything else.

My point today is not to discuss just how many cigarette and tequila breakfasts I’ve had, no, rather, it is to emphasize that at the start of your script, your main character is EFFED UP. Not good. Not doing well at all lately, thanks so much for asking. They are tightly wound, unhappy, losing something, gaining something they’re not sure of, confused, uncomfortable and NOT happy. But ah – here’s the thing…your main character would rather eat a slice of Tabasco pie than EVER admit this to you, themselves or anyone else.

So often writers care about or identify with their main characters so closely that they start the main character off on page one as being – well – relatively okay and normal. Mmmmmaybe they want to be dating. Mmmmmaybe they have some faint thoughts of wanting to be more of a success. But that’s about as bad as it gets because the newer the writer is, the cooler the main character is.

I GET IT, GUYS. I really do. When you’re pretty new to writing it feels SO good to write cool stuff, y’ know? Visually alluring scenes, SCARY moments, cinematic characters that have a great walk and leather jacket, delicious meals – it’s all a gorgeous, wish-fulfillment/fantasy world. But that’s not where interesting characters come from.  Your main character is deeply flawed, deeply unconscious OF their flaw and, in a word, Effed Up.

No, your main character does not and will not read Eckhard Tolle. EVER. Got it?

In real life, most of us try QUITE HARD not to make mistakes. We eat, we pray, we love, we read Tolle and all the Chicken Soup books and Bukowski (as a cautionary tale) and we strive to be happy and then happier and wise and wiser.

But in reel life (see what I’ve done there? With the spelling?) characters are so overwhelmed by problems of their own making that they don’t even HAVE the consciousness to do better. At first. Until maybe some time around the midpoint when they are even worse off and have to begin to reflect some.

Your main character will rise to a level of conscious fulfillment and change not through books or CDs or self-help groups – no, your main character is going to struggle, smoke too much, go to the WRONG self-help group and make terrible mistakes – in order to become more whole and conscious in the end.

Movie characters are EFFED UP, OFF BASE and trying all the wrong things. If they have a self-help book at the top of the script, I guarantee you it’s the wrong one anyway. (Anybody remember the HILARIOUS title my friend Steve Faber came up with for Owen Wilson in WEDDING CRASHERS?)

Don’t fall so in love with your main character that you neglect to write a truly organic main character with one big difference from a real, human person – they are not only not awakened to what drives them in life, but they will, do and cannot avoid making gross errors because of it, and THAT is how they become a butterfly.

That is all. Now get back to work.

(More about the wonderful Barbet Schroeder here…)

A Good Cry

…so I’m working in my office as the sun slowly sets behind the sound stages and k.d. lang’s “Helpless” is playing on my iTunes and I get a lump in my throat just remembering the beautiful movie it was used in – AWAY FROM HER. Wow that movie made me cry. I’m one of those people who tries to hold the tears in very valiantly but sometimes, there’s no stopping them and down they come like rain. There is something about the story in AWAY FROM HER that just wrings out my heart. Undying love, the loss of a life-long spouse, the cruelty of Alzheimer’s, Julie Christie’s elegant, effortless performance…What a gorgeous movie. Has anyone else seen SILVERLAKE LIFE? That put me through a box of tissues easily. Oh and who can forget TERMS OF ENDEARMENT?

Whereas, I read a script last night that someone told me was a real tear-jerker and I felt nothing. Nope. Not sad. Something in the script resonated for my friend and pinged and pung all those heartstrings in mysterious ways.

I have a close friend who is only a few weeks away from passing. She’s not eating and losing weight. Sometimes she’s resolutely cheerful, other times, she weeps, scared. I try to visit often as I can and ask about happier times in her life and she shares eagerly. I’ve never lost a friend before, being both too young and too lucky. I see the dark cloud getting closer and I know it’s gonna hurt. Bad. Someone just last evening offered me a big hug, asking how I was handling all of this. I blinked a little blankly – how am I? I am not the problem. All I can think of is my friend and her family and what they are going through. But I’m going through something too, something painful and dignified and rare – accompanying a friend along the path toward death’s door. I’ll cry when it happens and I’ll cry about it again and again when I see a movie that plucks the same strings.

I’ve said it a thousand times and I fear it ain’t too original – we see movies so that we can feel. In life we have to soldier on, be brave, be tough and laugh it off or be strong for someone else. In the darkened theater, we can feel fear, grief, rage, passion and shame in the privacy of our own minds. It’s emotional catharsis. It’s why we need that flickering silver screen – so that we can collectively sniffle, scream, rant and cheer and be reminded of our own humanity. So we can know everything’s gonna be okay.

Are you capable of writing something so sad that it would make someone cry? Just how is that done, anyway?

By being unafraid to feel the pain yourself. Whether that is reliving a painful experience or opening your heart up and imagining that kind of pain or loss. And by writing characters that are so real and so compelling that their very soul is palpable and what hurts them hurts us. I know I have cried while WRITING something awful that happened to a character. Crazy, right? But I knew I was doing something right because if it plucked my strings, it’ll pluck someone else’s because surely there’s another mother out there who knows about loss and grief.

Writing something so poignant, powerful and real that the audience cries is a gift. Because we all need a good cry.

What was the last movie that made you cry?

Love Letters

Good morning, Effers! Everybody by now knows one of my favorite topics of screenwriting is character. Nothing that happens matters unless we are rooting for and can identify with (good and bad) the main character. We’ve talked about writing backstory, writing page -10 and interviewing your character about seeming minutia like how he or she takes coffee in the morning, etc. But we can always find even more ways to explore who our characters are beneath the words on the page.

And since Valentine’s Day quickly approaches, love letters have been on my mind.

Love letters. Sounds like a thing of the past, right? Something you’d write in spidery quill pen and seal with wax. But people still do it. Maybe in shorter, more modern versions like emails or even the odd FaceBook update, but the expression of excitement and attraction and connectedness two people feel toward each other is still as strong as magnetic north. It’s as old as time and will endure forever. Of this, I am quite sure.

Whether you are single, married, or somewhere modernly in-between, can you summon that thrilling feeling, of communicating with someone you’re wildly attracted to? What things would you share about yourself? The funny quirks, the deepest secrets, the littlest details? Your favorite music or movies? What would you reveal about yourself? What would you keep hidden for another time? Would you talk about the little things you do each day? And – what would you want to know about the blue-eyed, sexy British person you were writing? It’s fun to tease information out slowly, isn’t it?

Especially if you are writing romcom, this is a great exercise to do. So go ahead, write a love letter. Do it from you to a loved one or do it from your character to a fictional loved one. It’s good for your writing (and heart) muscle.

That is all. Now get back to work.

Character Study: Geeks, Nerds, Slackers and Hipsters

First there was the nerd. Clean cut, intelligent, earnest and, well, totally uncool. They were social outcasts, mocked in high school and mildly ostracized in college, remaining virgins for unnatural periods of time. But they grew up and into themselves, got good jobs and had the last laugh at high school reunions. Still, nerds like George McFly just never had, well, nads.

Coolness is totally beyond the reach of the nerd. But – nerds, in the movies anyway, do have heart. They are the underdog, the one you sort of root for in the end. Why? Because oddly, many of us identify with the nerd. The nerd is the foundational visage of insecurity. No matter how cool you thought you were in high school, part of you felt outcast no matter what. The nerd just wore it on his or her sleeve.

The personal computer saw the rise of the geek – a nerd with mad computer skills. They spend hours alone, they play interactive online games and speak a sort of weird, yawn-inducing language nobody understands. Like the nerd, they are prone to sweaty palms and bad hair. But they had one thing their forefather the nerd did not – a skill set (computers) that is highly in demand. A geek is not such a, well, geek when you need your computer fixed, are they?

Then we have the slackers and the hipsters. I don’t know about other urban areas but Los Angeles is awash with hipsters. They are literally everywhere, with their pork pie hats, tats, and man bags. Variations include chunky glasses, Doc Martens, soul patches, and either very coiffed or not-shampooed-lately hair. Is the hipster an outgrowth or expression of the nerd or the geek? Or are they in another category altogether? Is the slacker a slightly less cool, unemployed hipster? What about the metrosexual?

Connect the dots, Wavers – what is the evolution or provenance of the hipster? Do old-school nerds still exist? Are geeks really geeks anymore, or just people you pay a lot of money to to fix your computer? Are geeks sexy? How about hipsters? Cool? Or pretentious and annoying? Recently I had lunch with an unabashed nerd but I remember thinking to myself – man, this kid is one pork pie hat and tat away from being a hipster. He could go from social reject to trendy Angeleno in one afternoon. Are hipsters just nerds with more fashion sense? Or are they, as I suspect, inauthentic types, mining nerdom for irony and cool?

Do you fall into any of these categories? Do these categories apply to women as well? How many female geeks do you know? What category would Tracy Flick (Election) fall into? Do hipsters annoy you or do you aspire to be one? What makes a person hip, anyway? Is there an age cut off after which you’re not a slacker…you’re The Dude in The Big Lebowski?

Social labels are fascinating. Subtle shadings imply social strata, ambition and acceptance. Nerd, geek, slacker, hipster…is there a straight line of evolution? What’s next? Who are your favorite movie nerds, geeks, slackers and hipsters?

Character Accents

Dear Rouge Wave:

One of my characters speaks with an Irish accent. How do I indicate that? Do I write all his dialogue phonetically or do I indicate in a wryly every time he speaks that he has an accent?

-Top O’ The Morning in Tipperary

Dear Top O’ – when writin’ a character wi’ a wee bit of an accent, ye don’t want te gobsmack the reader over and over agin wi’ it, do ye then? It can become a wee bit annoyin’, so? The reader’ll sure te go arse over tea feckin’ kettle wi’ keepin’ up wi’ ye, isn’t it?

Note the first time the character speaks that he or she has an accent and let it go at that. The reader will remember and beyond that, a more powerful way to really show that this character is from somewhere else is to us a few colloquialisms from their place of origin. In other words, if we’re dealing with an Irishman, there’s more to the fact that he’s Irish than the way he speaks, right? Sure, you might use some specific words like arse or cuppa but don’t over do it and don’t bother trying to write the dialogue in a way that evokes the accent. That’s for the actor to interpret. I have well and truly seen writers put a wryly that says (in a Spanish accent) over ever single line of dialogue for a character – which is super annoying – I got it the first time, thank you very much. Talk about ass over tea kettle and cluttering up your script. Don’t do it.

What you are really indicating is that this person is from Ireland (or wherever). So you might throw in a few word choices that indicate that but beyond that, dig deeper – what does it mean that your character is from Ireland? It means your character has a different frame of reference, a different way of looking at the world and a slightly different way of expressing him or herself. If a character is from Canada, I don’t need to literally see in the dialogue that he says “aboot” – I get it already. It’s all in the set up of that character on the very first page that we meet him. If you do it well, I won’t forget where he’s from. If you hit me over the feckin’ head wi’ it, I’m gonna get real cranky on your arse.

So Much Fear, So Little Time

So what are you worried about right now? Swine flu? Money? Relationships or lack of them? Your kids? Terrorism, global warming, your health, closing factories, the government? I find the world is growing more and more alarming – and alarmist. Every day I read the headlines and I think oh man, am I getting old or is stuff accelerating in negative ways? Am I shining a rose colored light on a few years back when I was younger or is stuff happening in our world that is rising in intensity? So much to fear, so little time.

So I work hard to feel better. Think globally act locally. Exercise. Meditation. Laughter. Focusing on the positive wherever it can be found. Unplugging from the media (or the weapon of mass distraction as a certain spiritual leader I admire would say). What do you do to try and feel better when there are so many things to worry and feel anxious about? Don’t tell me you have no underground rivers of things you worry about. We all do.

And so do three-dimensional, unforgettable characters. Really great characters act and speak like real people, right? That’s what makes them compelling. So what world do they live in beyond the construct of conflict you have engineered? Have you thought about the balance in your main character’s checking account? Or how your main character feels about the issues in the media? You may not focus on some of the very real, real world issues happening within the world of your script; WHEN HARRY MET SALLY didn’t focus on what was happening in the White House at that time – and it shouldn’t have. Movies are escapist fare. But even if your script doesn’t focus on global or personal realities, when writing a great character, those life realities are still happening beneath the surface. They have to be.

Every character has a family of origin. A past. A few pounds they’d like to lose. A bad habit they’d like to break. A lonely weekend. Moments of doubt. A spiritual belief system – or not. A world view and a world experience. They came from somewhere, they grew up and they lived in a world. So how has that impacted them over time? How has it impacted you?

As Tony Gilroy so truthfully wrote in MICHAEL CLAYTON – people are incomprehensible. So writing a character who feels real is a pretty tall order. Some writers, such as like Proust or Tolstoy, accomplish this with pointillist details. Others, like like TC Boyle or Denis Johnson, use a more graffiti-like way of writing, with broad strokes and bright colors that somehow coalesce into a realness on the page. In screenwriting, we can combine both tiny details and broad strokes to achieve an impact. But mostly, we have to use actions to define our characters. Which is both easier and much more difficult. We don’t have the luxury of getting inside our characters’ heads to tell a long backstory or reflect upon madelines. We have to be quick and dirty, which I personally think is the funnest thing about screenwriting. It’s like puzzle solving – how can I show you that this is a lonely person? How can I show you that this is an optimistic person? A joker, a cynic or a worrier? How can I convey that quickly and effectively so that you the reader (or viewer) can plug into that person and get who they are?

I know what NOT to do and that is to write a character who is two-dimensional. Which is a charge often found in coverage reports. Two-dimensional writing is a character who is described physically and only concerned with what is happening right now – but who does not have foibles, traits, eccentricities or specificity as a human being. Even if your character is a type, it has to be a type that we can connect to. Oh yeah, I’ve met that guy before.

So back to today’s topic – think about it – what is on your main character’s mind that has nothing to do with the story at hand? Think about what you are worried about or anxious about and how you cope with that and ask yourself what your main character feels about the news of the day. Does your main character live in anxiety or blow it off? Do they drink or smoke it away? How evolved is your main character on a personal level? How do they deal with conflict and personal managment? Do they get lonely in a crowd? Do they have a savings account? Are they worried about that strange new mole? Give your character the same details that we all have.

In a SCRUBS episode a million years ago, Zach Braff coped by being in a bubble bath, surrounded by candles and singing Toto’s Africa at the top of his lungs. It was hilarious, it was specific and it was real.

Update: You may be wondering about the Robotard 8000. They unfortunately had a last minute change of plans and my interview with them is on ice for the moment.

Now get back to work.

The Flight of the Conchords

So have any Wavers watched HBO’s FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS? What a strange, delightful, weird show. When I watched the very first episode of the very first season, after having heard friends rave about the show, I must admit I was flummoxed. It was funny – I guess. In a very awkward way. I mean, New Zealand accents are actually a little hard to understand and I didn’t quite get the tone of the show. By the second episode, I was hooked. And the more I watched, the more I got hooked. Those Kiwis are addictive.

For those of you who know nothing about the F of the Cs, it’s an HBO series that airs Sunday evenings at 10pm and is about to wrap up its second season. It’s about a New Zealand folk music duo – Brett and Jemaine – who have moved to New York and are trying to book gigs through their dedicated but totally inept manager, Murray. They have one fan – stalker Mel – a hilarious, hilarious actor, and live in a crappy apartment. They are an odd brand of man/boy – they are quite naive and trusting but also clearly dim. It’s the details of the show that crack me up. The posters touting New Zealand in the background at the consulate: New Zealand – Don’t expect much. You’ll love it! And of course, the music – the show is interspersed with songs by Brett and Jemaine and the lyrics are ridiculous. Not to mention the music. But Brett and Jemaine take themselves and their music quite seriously. Rhys Darby, who plays Murray, is for me the best part. He insists upon band meetings in which roll call is necessary. Brett: yes. Jemaine: yes. Murray: present. His devotion to the band is nothing short of delusional – and yet it is heartwarming.

Like SEINFELD, it’s a show about not much. Brett and Jemaine face difficulties like getting mugged, needing new fans, going on a warm-up tour. Most of their gigs take place at libraries, aquariums and empty bars. They are unaware of the absolute lack of actual progress as a band. The episode in which a fruit vendor is racist because he thinks they’re Aussies is my favorite. The constant poking fun at New Zealand is priceless. New Zealand! Rocks!

The attention to detail and backstory is great. Their one fan Mel is married to a man who plays solitaire in the basement and drives her to Conchords gigs. When Brett is in the bathroom at Mel’s house, she pokes her head in the door to “check” on him and to her right, there is a picture on the wall – such a small detail – of a sketched nude male with both Brett’s and Jemaine’s heads cut from a picture and glued onto its head. Mel, by the way, is a junior professor of psychology. And, yes, a stalker. The New Zealand Consulate, where Murray works as an attache, is housed in the same building as businesses like All Asian Massage and a meat distributor.

If you haven’t seen the show, rent or buy the first season. It’s a cult favorite and it’s highly entertaining once you become accustomed to the particularity of the world. The artful construct of that world, from a writing standpoint, is the strength of the show. Totally character driven, it highlights the ridiculous music and the naivete of the band. It’s a fish out of water construct – but what fish.

World. Particularity. Irony. Details. FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS is a show that aspiring writers should watch at least once. Because this, Wavers, is how it’s done.

To learn more about Brett, Jemaine and their journey as comedians and performers, click HERE.

Character Introductions and Voice

The very first time we see a character in your script is a fantastic opportunity for you to show us in descriptive words, WHO this character is. We need to know their age, yes, but we need to know something about the totality of this person. Now, in reality, people are layered and complex and one glance can’t possibly telegraph everything about them, can it? And yet one can get a snapshot of a person based on their clothing and mannerisms.

Here’s an amalgam of BAD character introductions that I have seen approximately 1.3 million times:

JOHN PATRICK is 43 years old and is wearing khaki pants with a blue shirt and a green tie. He is the president and CEO of a large industrial company and he is uptight and judgmental. His WIFE is 38 and has blonde, curly hair and green eyes. She is dressed in a sexy dress and she is bored with her life.

So – here we have a collection of descriptive words that don’t add up to a feeling of who this couple is. They both just stand there like mannequins. We have a lot of information here – and information, by the way, that we cannot SEE (the president and CEO of a company) and dull details that do not paint a picture of the essence of these people. What does “bored with her life” look like? Why the specificity of khaki pants and a blue shirt? What does that convey, actually? That he’s conservative? Maybe.

I once read a script years ago in which an African American couple debarks a plane on a tropical island. As they walk down the steps to the tarmac, the writer described their clothing: JOHN wears jeans with a white tee-shirt, tucked in and tan loafers. GINA wears a red floral dress with pink and purple flowers, white sandals and a floppy hat made of straw.

TERRIFIC. What. In the heck. Does this mean? Why do I care? How about they are wearing casual vacation clothes? I mean – what is the meaning here? That they look like they are on vacation? A laundry list of clothing or attributes is just that – a laundry list. It doesn’t feel like anything. Don’t ask me why that terrible description stuck with me. I have no explanation.

Remember that in screenwriting, your job is to describe people and things in such a way that the reader picks up what you are laying down about a character in the macro and in the micro. The details of their clothing generally doesn’t matter – unless it MATTERS.

Here are five key character introductions from JUNO that just sing on the page because they tell a whole mini-story about each character in an engaging, clever and voice-filled way:

JUNO MACGUFF stands on a placid street in a nondescript subdivision, facing the curb. It’s FALL. Juno is 16 years old, an artfully bedraggled burnout kid in a Catholic school uniform.

PAUL BLEEKER steps onto the front porch of his house for early morning track practice. Bleeker is a frail 16 year-old kid who looks 14. He wears a cross country uniform that reads “DANCING ELK CONDORS.” He is eating some kind of microwaved snack gimmick.

We see BREN cutting up LIBERTY’S food diligently. She’s wearing a football sweatshirt over a turtleneck, and sporting the classic Minnesota mom bouffant.

VANESSA opens the door. She’s a pretty, meticulous woman in her early 30s. Very Banana Republic.

MARK LORING sits in the austere LIVING ROOM with a woman in a business suit. He is boyishly attractive and in his mid-30s. He rises immediately upon seeing Juno and Mac.

Do Wavers see how entertaining and yet information-specific these introductions are? Do Wavers see the specific word choices that Cody made in order to convey a feeling of each character? Their ages and what they are wearing is noted but equally as much the way they do things speaks VOLUMES.

Bren cuts up her younger daughter’s food diligently. Not precisely. Not efficiently. Diligently. Writers are wordsmiths – which is why one of my biggest pet peeves is screenwriters who do not have a love of or facility with language. Diligent is different than precise. It’s a subtle difference – well, not really – it’s a shading. Diligence conveys duty while precision conveys efficiency. Diligence is a trait that connotes working hard and precision connotes control. Is Bren a controlling mother? Not in the least.

How much does: “...an artfully bedraggled burnout kid in a Catholic school uniform” convey about this main character? Not just bedraggled – artfully bedraggled. Not just artfully bedraggled but an artfully bedraggled burnout kid. Take away any one of these words and the picture shifts just slightly, doesn’t it?

Or the detail that Bleeker “is eating some kind of microwaved snack gimmick.” Not an apple. Not a muffin. A “microwaved snack gimmick.” Which he is eating while standing on the porch.

Notice the fact that Mark Loring “rises immediately upon seeing Juno and Mac.” He’s polite. Or is he nervous?

I’m actually not the type who idolizes or mythologizes successful screenwriters, heaping them with super-human accolades – HOW did you THINK of that SCENE?? – but I know good writing when I see it. These character introductions of Cody’s NAIL the characters; they are engaging and they smack of the tone and vibe of JUNO. I don’t care who you are – Diablo Cody or Judy Henkstein from Nebraska – writing in an engaging, entertaining way is just good stuff and it’s completely within your reach.

We talked yesterday about doing an action line pass on your script this week – seeking out and destroying various action line problems (too dense, too scattered, too detailed). How about this week at some point you go through your script, Wavers, and take a look at how you introduce your characters using the examples above as inspiration? If Cody can do it, you can do it. Lots of screenwriters can do it – it’s not rocket science. It’s having FUN when you introduce main characters. It’s having FUN with the language you use. It’s looking over your palette of word choices and choosing specific words to convey specific feelings. Which YOU and only YOU get to do. Because this is your story, Wavers. How do you want to tell it? How do you want me to feel when I read it?

What B Movies Can Teach Us

The Mini-W and I have a rainy day pastime of renting B movies with titles like BLUE DEMON and SHARK HUNTER. Although we were a bit disappointed by the Sci-Fi Channel’s IT WAITS because it wasn’t that bad. SHARK SWARM, for a bevy of reasons, is still one of our all-time faves – a perfect storm, if you will. But I digress.

You have to love a B movie. There’s a certain bonhomie present when the dollars are low, the motivation is high and the writing – well, whatever sort of works. We have been amazed and impressed at the directorial decisions that elevate budget constraints into cleverness – or camp. But one thing we have noticed, fairly consistently, is the presence of two-dimensional characters.

When you’re watching a B movie, your expectations are much lower. In fact, you’re pretty sure you’re going to wind up with some pretty good belly laughs. And you usually do. But from a writer’s perspective, even characters in a fairly ridiculous situation (a Yeti killing all the pretty college girls in the next cabin over, or giant alien-eels with telepathy attacking your submarine) should have SOME believability. Shouldn’t they? Are writers like hairdressers at a party, doomed to observe what is NOT working and cringe?

Obviously, the writing in B movies is not meant to inspire, resonate or be otherwise organic by any measure. That goes out the window in the same way that Little Debbie Cakes are not meant to provide nutrition. And hey, I can respect that. However, if I were training a hairdresser to have a sharp eye for what is fashionable and what does and does not work, I would take that hairdresser to a romance writers convention in Kansas City and just roam the place with my Jack and Coke and soak it all in. That’s what I’m recommending here.

B Movies are what they are – and there have been plenty of books written on the topic. And yet, they yield lessons for screenwriters with higher – no – different aspirations.

I’ve always maintained that reading bad scripts is more instructive than reading good ones. Good scripts are just – good. What works well works so harmoniously that they are not as easy to deconstruct. But bad scripts – it’s like that scene in A BEAUTIFUL MIND when the numbers float into focus and create a pattern.

The Mini-W and I just watched a movie yesterday in which an ancillary character LOATHED the main character for believing that X monster was responsible for the undersea troubles at hand. LOATHED him. And we kept thinking – why? Was the actor over-emoting? Well, I think it’s fair to answer yes to that one. But – what was going on for his character that the possibility of a crazy, outsized, paleolithic monster inspired rage? And, in the case of the main character, would a person be truly ANGRY for lo these 20+ years since his parents were killed by said monster? Seriously? Just pissed off and two dimensional for all this time? In every situation? I’m not sure which is more uncomfortable, listening to dialogue that bad or watching the actor try to work with it anyway.

To take one example of a character flaw so roughly hewn as to give one giant splinters: In SHARK HUNTER, our main character witnessed his parents being eaten by a megalodon when he looked to be about 10. We fast forward what appeared to be about 20 years or so and he is an edgy, bitter college professor of some kind, who designs state-of-the-art undersea exploratory stations. Okay I’m making that up – some kind of undersea something stations. It was hard to tell. Now he is needed to go down into the undersea something station and try to find out what destroyed another undersea station with one giant, blunt blow to the side. Something’s fishy. And it really pisses our main character off. PISSES him off that he has to go on this adventure and that obviously what did it was the same megalodon that attacked his family 20+ years ago. And we know this because he emotes EDGY ANGER at all times. So you can see the writer’s logic: family killed, guy pissed at megalodon this whole time. Now he has a chance to come face to face with it. So what’s his character flaw? By the looks of it, that he is pissy and angry. Why? Parents were munched. And how does he pay for this flaw? Uh, he’s unpleasant? And how does he overcome this flaw? Uh, he kills the megalodon in the end?

In IT WAITS our main character is a drinking, sobbing wreck because her backstory is that her friend died in a car crash for which she was responsible. The monster, a demon unleashed from a cave puts, the Unhinged Woman whose flaw is…not taking responsibility(?)…through the wringer until she calms down enough to (SPOILER ALERT) kill it good by mashing it back into the cave and blowing it up. And so now, she has taken responsibility and…the demon is dead and…well, you know, from the perspective of a viewer, the brushstrokes are pretty broad. She killed a demon. You know, like, she slayed HER demons and now she is prepared to live a life in jail but guilt free. Because the larger theme is: slaying your demons is important if you want to live a guilt-free life. A be a good person. Or something.

Do you see how these broad strokes are just a bit too simple to resonate? Now, in a B movie, these formulaic half-character-arcs can work because (as above) the jumping off point is not meant to be profound. But as an aspiring screenwriter trying to write something more mainstream and, let’s face it, higher paying, one wants to delve deeper and use a scalpel, not a chainsaw when creating truly believable characters.

So watch some B movies sometime soon. It’s good for you on many levels; revel in and enjoy what a filmmaker can do with 50 grand, a state park and a great rubber suit but also observe the rough hewn characters and ask yourself – what IS the flaw here? WHY does this character act this way? What would you do differently?