Just Effing Entertain Me

THE KARATE KID

Check out this interview with Harald Zwart, director of THE KARATE KID!

V.O. versus O.S.

Most of us know what (V.O.) means when it appears after your character’s name on your script pages: voiceover. And then there’s (O.S.) or (O.C.). Both mean the same thing: offscreen or off-camera. The upshot is that (O.S.) is used when we hear your character’s voice but don’t see them because they are in another room, behind a plant or other large object or just – and here’s the fun part – out of our view for whatever reason. You’ll see why that can be fun in a minute.

Voiceover means your character is NOT in the scene whatsoever but they are narrating something – potentially even something from the next scene. Yep – I know that sounds weird but let me give you some examples.

EXT. CORNFIELD – DAY

Rows of corn undulate under a blue sky.

DORIS (V.O.)
I grew up on a farm. And it was on this farm that I learned to be a man. Yes. A man.

A windmill picks up the wind and turns – crick crick crick.

DORIS (V.O.)
That’s right. I was the first gender-awkward man in Tuolumne County.

- So our character is narrating this story over a view of her lovely corn farm in Tuolumne County. And that’s a real county and it’s pronounced “Twah-luh-me.” Just FYI.

But then we might have:

EXT. CORNFIELD – DAY

The wind picks up. A storm is approaching. The hat FLIES off the scarecrow.

DORIS (V.O.)
And the biggest test I had as a man was the day the big storm came.

INT. EDITOR’S OFFICE – DAY

A fancy high rise in Manhattan. DORIS (32), slender, pre-op, a thin five o’clock shadow, in jeans and a flannel shirt, sits across from a literary editor.

DORIS
It was an F5 tornado. The only ones who were safe were the ones down in the coal mine.

EDITOR
Doris – I mean, Don – I have to stop you right there. Coal mine?
This is -

He looks down at his paperwork.

EDITOR
…California, right?

So we used V.O. with the images of the cornfield and then as we roll into the next scene, we see that Doris is sitting right there and that’s where the V.O. came from. We didn’t have to do that; we could have then jumped into the tornado scene and picked up the dialogue as the tornado is actually happening.

Another fun way to use V.O. is to use it for comedic or ironic effect – you can juxtapose the image with the content of the V.O. Right? Does that make sense?

INT. COAL MINE – DAY

MINERS sweat and toil in the inky darkness.

DORIS (V.O.)
Daddy worked hard for his money.

INT. CORPORATE OFFICE – DAY

An older man with a mane of silver hair winds up a phone call.

MAN
I don’t care how many particulates they inhale! I need more coal!

He slams down the phone. Presses the button for his secretary.

MAN
Get my daughter on the phone, STAT!

So as long as you don’t abuse it, there are a lot of fun ways to use V.O. for entertaining and informative purposes.

O.C. or O.S. means, once more, that the person is THERE somewhere, just not visible to us.

So you might have:

INT. CORPORATE OFFICE – DAY

MAN
I don’t care how many particulates they inhale! I need more coal!

He slams down the phone. Presses the button for his secretary.

MAN
Get my daughter on the phone, STAT!

DORIS (O.S.)
You mean your son.

Doris hands her father piping hot coffee. His eyes widen.

MAN
Doris?

DORIS
It’s Don now, Dad. It’s Don.

So we used the O.S. just to make that little exchange more fun. It takes a sec to see Doris. It’s like he/she is the sidler from Seinfeld.

So (V.O.) and (O.S.) are differentiated because one is literally a voice over a scene with the person being totally absent because this is perhaps a memory, or perhaps the origin of the voice is revealed in the following scene.

(O.S.) means the person is in the scene but they aren’t visible for whatever reason – because they are in the bathroom and we hear them but can’t see them. Because they are in another room. Because we just aren’t showing them for a sec because it’s funnier or scarier that way. For example:

EXT. FARMHOUSE – NIGHT

A man looks at a creaky, fall-down barn. Bats SWARM out of the rafters.

EDWARD
Let’s start the tear-down tomorrow, Shirl!

MAN (O.S.)
I wouldn’t do that if I were you.

Ed whirls around. He’s face to face with his DEAD FATHER!

So V.O. and O.S. – know the difference and use them well. And before you ask, yes it’s okay to use V.O. as long as you don’t abuse it by being too expositional or heavy-handed. Use it for good, not evil. Don’t be lazy.

Subtext

One rogue Rouge Waver has asked me the same question twice in comments rather than email me the question directly and the lesson here is both that you kids need to listen to mama and also if you bug me enough, I’ll probably answer the question eventually anyway. However, going forward, please, please do not leave questions in comments that require a whole blog post to answer. Email them to me using the handy sidebar above my picture that says MY EMAIL. That way I can find ‘em, consider ‘em and answer ‘em in a timely manner. Questions I love – questions in comments make me crazy. Ahem. Onward.

The rogue Waver says I should talk about subtext. I find this question very silly because almost everything is subtext. The alternative is writing on-the-nose. There is subtext to what I’m writing right now. Can you pick up what I’m laying down? Do you detect an undertone? That’s subtext.

Subtext is one of those skills that separate talented writers from inexperienced writers with unconfirmed, nascent would-be-maybe talent. Why? Because if you have to ask, Houston, you are lacking a fundamental skill set when it comes to writing. All right, all right, now I’m being a little snobby. But really. Seriously. Subtext is any writer’s stock and trade. If you don’t know that – know it now.

Think about the root of the word – sub – and then text. Beneath the text. The meaning beneath the words.

Subtext: Aren’t you glad you paid attention in school during “root words are fun”?

In screenwriting, we have different kinds of writing: We have action line writing, which is where that pithy, almost haiku-like, voicey stuff goes – the way you describe things cinematically – and we have dialogue writing. Everything else is the way the story is organized. Notice I’ve left out the most fundamental ingredient – inventive imagination – but that’s not writing, per se. It’s how you came up with the idea in the first place and it’s how you figure out theme, tone and genre.

Two kinds of writing. Dialogue. Action lines. And both can include subtext.

LLOYD (52) is an insurance adjuster cowboy with the knock-off Rolex to prove it. He moves his tie over the gravy stain on his polyester shirt and leans toward MARVELLE (35), way too pretty to be at this crummy convention:

LLOYD: Hey. Let me know if you didn’t get that last part. We could uh, go over it later if you want.

Marvelle shifts her attention from the SEA OF CONVENTIONEERS to Lloyd.

MARVELLE: I’d love to go over it later.

LLOYD: Oh yeah, sure. How about we meet in the bar in 10? I’ll sketch it all out. Go over the numbers. Put you ahead of the game.

MARVELLE: Let me go freshen up.

So who’s zoomin’ who here? There’s subtext in the dialogue, there’s subtext in the description of Lloyd – and yet all of it rises to the surface to create a situation which could either be funny or horrifying. The subtext in the action lines actually isn’t that subtextual: “knock off Rolex,” “gravy stain,” “polyester shirt” – this paints a picture of Lloyd, yes? Does Marvelle need to freshen up because she’s a two dollar hooker scamming conventioneers or because she truly likes Lloyd and she’s had a long day? Is this a love story about to play out? Or FATAL ATTRACTION?

In the same way that writing is rewriting, subtext is writing. That’s why it’s so hard to write and write well. Subtext is the feeling behind the words and the situation. And to get that out of your head and onto paper in a way that I can be entertained by – that’s just magic. If you are asking what subtext is – the answer is subtext is what writing is made of.

Again, the alternative is writing on-the-nose. It’s the difference between writing a manual and writing real prose. A manual leads me step by step – no imagination, no experience of revelation and discovery is possible. But good writing always includes subtext – it IS subtext. The reader has to piece together what’s happening.

Subtext exists in writing because it’s a lot like real life. Almost nothing in real life is exactly what it seems. Is that happy couple really happy? Was that a sincere comment? Did your boss really mean to put you on another account for your own good? But subtext also exists in writing because good writing is like life elevated to a higher, more thematic, more symbolic level.

Writers are both pointillists and realists. Portraiture artists and modern artists. We zoom in and out in our writing to create a satisfying web of a story that engages the reader on every level.

If all of this is beginning to sound pretentious or intimidating or confusing simply scroll back up to the mini-story of Lloyd and Marvelle. There’s subtext in every bit of that tiny sketch.

Look at your script pages – are you telling us exactly what’s going on very clearly? Or are you showing us through gestures, tones and – subtext?

Now, upon occasion, some high falutin’ writers who have gone from novel writing to screenwriting forget that in screenwriting there needs to be more clarity and less circular intellectualizing of things. Screenwriting is NOT the bastard stepchild of prose; it is at once much simpler and more complex. It’s nuanced but clear. It’s cinematic but internal. It is universal, it is personal.

While a novelist can take two pages to explore a character’s inner thoughts with nothing else driving the plot in that moment, a screenwriter must marry plot and character development in each scene.

So – what is subtext in screenwriting? Everything. It is the essence of the craft itself.

Now get back to work. And don’t leave me questions in the comments section anymore.

Subplots or "B" Storylines

There are of course charts, graphs and stacks of books on every aspect of screenwriting. And at times it can all feel quite academic and intimidating. I know I used to feel that way about subplots. Subplot – what do you mean? I just figured out the main plot! Aaargghhh!

But think of it this way – your character has more going on in his or her life than the adventure at hand, right? Your character has or had a job, a spouse or significant other, parents, siblings – a life. So the B Story – or subplot – is going to be related to something else going on for your main character, if not something going on with another significant character in your script. It’s another, lesser complication and it also adds to the lesson or journey for your main character.

Writing subplots is part of writing three-dimensional characters – the adventure happening to them does not exist in a void, right? Stuff was going on for your character before the story began and stuff will go on after the story ends. Characters cannot exist in a bell jar. Subplots not only create a more compelling, fleshed-out story, they are part of a more compelling, fleshed-out character.

Your script might have several strands or subplots that all thematically connect and relate to the main plot. A subplot doesn’t necessarily have to take up much screen time but it will definitely have a beginning, middle and end.

A great way to study and really GET subplot is in sitcoms. Just because they are quite overt. Rachel and Ross decide whether to live together – subplot – Joey auditions for a part as a dinosaur. And you’ll notice the connect-a-dots with the subplot interrupting the main plot only enough to play itself out pretty efficiently.

Subplots do a lot of things for your script: They flesh out the world and the characters and they also serve as a way of creating more tension in the main plot because we want to get back to THE GOOD PART and see what’s going to happen! I could say a bunch of academic stuff here about how the subplot needs to be in service to the theme – but, is that academic? Or just plain obvious? Right? The subplot is some kind of version – even an opposite version – of the theme in the main plot.

Let me think of some subplot examples off the top of my head – mind you, I am only plucking out ONE subplot from these examples, of course there are more:

LEGALLY BLONDE: Elle tries to help her manicurist friend with her love life.

BEETLE JUICE: Lydia’s horrible mother, Delia, is an “artist” who seeks to turn the house into an avante garde haven for her pretentious friends.

MILK: Harvey’s relationship with his boyfriend is strained by his ambitions.

3:10 to YUMA: Dan Evans tries to earn his son’s respect.

HOT FUZZ: Nick Angel’s friendship with Danny Butterman.

SCARFACE: Tony Montana’s relationships with his wife and his sister.

STAR WARS: The love triangle between Luke, Princess Leia and Han Solo.

POLTERGEIST: Craig T. Nelson’s relationship with his work – the evil company that paved the burial ground in the first place.

So take a look at your script – do you have subplots going on? And are those subplots in service to the main character and the main plot? Does each of your subplots have a setup, a complication and a resolution? Does the subplot (or subplots) fit organically into the larger plot? Does the subplot speak to the theme?

Remember, subplots don’t need to be complicated, necessarily. Subplots are complements to the main plot. They add nuance, complication and emotional complexity. You don’t need to overthink your subplot – I’ll bet you already have at least one. Just make sure you set it up, complicate it and pay it off.

Writing is Rewriting

Forgive my absence today, Wavers. My writing partner and I are deep into a rewrite of a script set to go out to buyers after Sundance. We’re having a lot of fun with it but it is time consuming.

The story of this psychological thriller is a long one. I came up with the idea probably five years ago, based on a newspaper article I read about a local man waiting for a heart donor. I was writing comedies at the time so I just wrote down one or two sentences about the idea and shelved it. I was just about to graduate from the two year program at The Writer’s Boot Camp when one evening I mentioned the idea to some of my writer friends. They were completely excited about the idea. So I outlined it and then got in touch with the talented writer who is now my partner. He had written a number of psychological thriller novels and I knew he’d bring so much to the table. We wrote the script in just a few weeks and felt we had a strong draft. It didn’t take us long to get a manager and we were off to the races. The script went out wide and we had a interest from some major players. One of which was a producer at Fox. We decided to work with that producer and we went into development, i.e., several weeks and months of rewrite after rewrite after rewrite. The script improved with every pass but over time, the producer got more interested in another, “hotter” script and we got bumped. So much for that. Months of our time. Down the drain. We were disappointed and yet we did have a better script for the experience. Except now the script had nowhere to go: too many eyes had already seen it. Into a drawer it went. For almost two years.

Until about a month ago when a friend of mine passed it to a producer known for hating every script he reads. Sort of a useless favor, I thought. Except – he liked it. And the rewrites were on – again. Tweak it this way – tweak it that way. No, no – too far. Bring it back. It’s like trying to steer a ship into a dock. A very big, slow moving ship. Again, the script has benefitted but I kid you not, this is easily the 35th draft of the script since its inception almost five years ago.

It has been written and rewritten and rewritten again and reinvented and tweaked to make it scarier and more R-rated and less scary and more PG-13. But the bones of the story have always remained. It has been a lesson in taking notes and a lesson in executing those notes to the best of our understanding. There have been notes that we didn’t agree with and that we stood our ground on. There have been notes that we hit ourselves on the head over because it hadn’t occurred to us.

And now – we’re back at it again. We did a draft about two weeks ago. Big changes. But not quite what the producer wanted. We made things too pointed in the first act. Then we did another draft, softening the first act and making the first act break BIGGER. We took our set pieces and added more “stuff.” We tweaked the character arc of the protagonist. Which had a trickle down effect and forced changes in almost every scene of the script.

We’ve made changes with a chainsaw – losing entire scenes wholesale. We’ve made changes with a scalpel, tweaking single lines of dialogue toward a connotative meaning. We’ve used a sledgehammer on some of our set pieces – and a laser on others. Some drafts have clearly been better than others – other drafts have been six of one and a half dozen of another – it just depends on subjective tastes.

You can go crazy rewriting a script this many times. Seriously. It’s tempting to get sloppy and lose sight of the fundamental DNA of the script that you originally envisioned. It has been an intense lesson in listening to, interpreting and enacting notes.

We’ve had to reconsider entire sequences and replace them with new material. We’ve had to repurpose sequences, moments and even single lines of dialogue. When you have this many drafts on file, you have almost a library of scenes and sequences to repurpose. The producer we’re working with now has impeccable taste and I think (or hope) that the script is now in better shape than it ever has been to possibly – maybe – hopefully – get sold. The producer is a well respected heavy hitter and so it’s going out to the big boys. We don’t currently have rep but have already had a couple of offers. Know what? I don’t feel like giving anyone a percentage of a sale, should we be so lucky. We’ve done all the heavy lifting and we have a good lawyer.

You know what has made this experience a good one for us and for those we have worked with? A willingness to bury our darlings, a sharp ear when interpreting notes and a resulting toolbox full of laser beams, chainsaws, sledgehammers and scalpels. But possibly most importantly, we have maintained a love of the fundamental story we wanted to tell. Even after all these drafts. We’ll see what happens after Sundance. Maybe we’ll finally make that homerun. Maybe not. But I’ll tell you one thing – we’re better writers for this experience. We’ve proven to be writers who are good to work with. We listen to notes carefully and we deliver drafts quickly. We’re good in a room and we are totally focused on one thing and one thing only – writing a draft that is the best iteration of the story we wanted to tell.

Are you willing to take notes – over and over and over again on your script? To hack away scenes or sequences that you were really fond of? To totally reinvent, reimagine and repurpose them? To be totally flexible and yet totally focused on the essence of your story? And then to not even be sure that you’ll ever earn a dime for any of it? It’s a tall order.

Upon occasion I work with writers who are loathe to take notes, make changes or totally reimagine a scene, act or even a premise. To which I generally observe – silly preciousness will get you nowhere. Get limber, my friends. Get real limber. Do your writing yoga every day. Be willing to do anything to elevate your script to its highest creative potential.

You might as well. Writing IS rewriting.

Bigger Set Pieces

One day this could happen to you. You’re sitting in a meeting with an agent, manager or producer (okay in my case, I am talking about a producer) who says to you - I really, really like the script. Great concept, great writing, I think I can sell this. Except…. He leans forward. Could you just…make the set pieces, I don’t know – bigger?

And you stare. And you think, what do you mean – bigger? I have this incredible car crash or fight scene or jet fuel explosion – how does that get BIGGER than that? You mean like, more stuff in the scene? Yeah, exactly – he says – more stuff!

And you leave the meeting and google the nearest bar. More stuff. What the hell? But this is where the two most powerful words in screenwriting can be your friend. And those two words are “what if”. But let’s wind back the tape and talk about just what a set piece is:

Set pieces are the – wait for it – stuff that producers dream of. Because set pieces are the parts of movies that audiences remember the most. Think of some of your favorite movie moments – likely those moments were set pieces. Set pieces are relative to the genre of the movie, so your set pieces may have nothing to do with jet fuel or car chases or smashing through plate glass windows. Set pieces are the essence of show don’t tell. Set pieces can be five minutes long or just a quick moment.

The other night, I (re) watched BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY and had a new appreciation for great set pieces. When Bridget shows up to the Tarts & Vicars party and it’s been canceled – that very first moment when all eyes turn to her in her ridiculous bunny suit – that’s a terrific set piece. The montage when Bridget shaves her legs, waxes her punanny and works out really hard – that’s a set piece. Set pieces show up in the trailer for your movie. They are on the poster. They sell the movie.

One set piece from BRIDGET is a perfect example of more stuff in a set piece. And here we harken back to those golden words: What if? Colin Firth and Hugh Grant get in a fist fight outside in the street. It’s a great confrontation, it really is. Because every time it gets good, it gets better. So what if the two main love interests are duking it out in the street, in front of Bridget? What if as they start fighting, they tumble into a restaurant? But – what if someone was having a birthday party in the restaurant? What if, just as the fighting is really going crazy, a waiter brings a birthday cake into the room? A really elaborate birthday cake? And what if, as a comedic detail, the two characters stop fighting momentarily to join in singing “Happy Birthday?” And THEN the fighting resumes and they crash through a plate glass window? So we’ve gone from a confrontation out on the street to a full-on slapstick reverie. With a lot of stuff.
It is helpful to go through your script and simply list the set pieces you have. Do you have at least six? And – do they have enough “stuff?” Are they big, bigger, biggest? Are they exciting and scary and funny or whatever your genre calls for?

Set pieces are the coin of the realm when a producer reads your script. You need to not only deliver a number of entertaining set pieces in your script, you need to make sure they are as chock full of exciting detail and “stuff.”*

Stuff: going into the Rouge Wave vocabulary along with BOSH (Bunch Of Stuff Happens, but not good stuff).

The Opening Image

We all know by now that screenwriters have very little time to grab the attention of a reader. Some say 10 pages, some say five – I’m going to blow your mind and say one page. Most experienced readers and consultants will often say privately to one another that they can tell if your script is good somewhere on the first page. Sometimes we sort of joke around with each other after a couple of cocktails – I can tell within two sentences. I can tell by halfway down the first page. I can tell by the first line of dialogue. I personally can tell by the first page. Can tell what? Whether you’re a good writer and whether this script is going anywhere.

And how can I (we) tell? Your use of language, the pacing on that first page, succinct but compelling action lines, and a great opening image.

Now, the screenwriting world is divided into roughly two camps: The Film School Academics, who spout Eisenstein, and the Populists who spout just-effing-entertain-me. Then you have your subgroups: The Hero’s Journey-ers, the Save-the-Cat-ers, the McKee-ers, the Syd Field-ers, the UCLA-ers, the USC-ers, the NYU-ers and the I-Never-Took-One-Class-ers.

What I try to do on the Rouge Wave is to synthesize those various points of view into actionable simplicity. Stuff that’s easy to understand and to do. It doesn’t have to be rocket science, in other words. Because if you want to talk Eisenstein, I can go there too but honestly, you don’t have to go to film school to grok this stuff.

The opening image – it’s right in the name – is literally the first thing we “see” when we read your script (or watch the movie, should you be so lucky). So, given that we all understand that your very first page better be provocative, compelling and totally engaging – what should you choose as your opening image?

The opening image could be a landscape, a home, a person, an event – but whatever it is, it should set the tone, genre and theme of your script up immediately, pleasingly and artfully.

This is the opening image from BLADE RUNNER:

EXT. HADES – DUSK
We are MOVING TOWARD the Tyrell Corporation across a vast
plain of industrialization, menacing shapes on the horizon,
stacks belching flames five hundred feet into the sky the
color of cigar ash.

This is the opening image from LA CONFIDENTIAL:

Over the opening strains of “I love you, California,” a MONTAGE: a mixture of headlines, newsreel footage and live action. Economy Booming! Postwar Optimism! L.A.: City of the Future! But most prominent among them: GANGLAND! Police photographers document crime scenes. The meat wagon hauls ex-button men to the morgue. Where will it end?

This is the opening image from LOST IN TRANSLATION:

EXT. NARITA AIRPORT – NIGHT

We hear the sound of a plane landing over black.

INT. CHARLOTTE’S ROOM – NIGHT

The back of a GIRL in pink underwear, she leans at a big window, looking out over Tokyo.

You see how each example is setting up the story to come with tone, visual theme and a compelling, interesting opening that describes, on a micro level, the story to come? So when it comes to your script – do that. Go to your page one right now – seriously, minimize The Rouge Wave and go to page one. I’ll wait right here.

[muzak version of: You Light Up My Life]

Okay. What was your opening image? How does it speak to the story to come in a cinematic, thematic, tone-establishing way? Or does it do that at all? The opening image is fun. It is a creative opportunity to set the tone and to grab your reader. The opening image should grab YOU.

You know how you flip the channels on the TV and you take about 3 seconds (and guys, for you, that’s 1 second for some weird reason) to decide whether to stay or keep flipping? That’s how your script is read. You have one page, guys, to make me believe that you are a good writer and that I should turn the page and keep reading. Not for readers – you have one page to get them liking you enough to not be jaded and cranky as hell, since they HAVE to read the whole thing. But execs, agents and managers? One page. Maybe less. They have the luxury of the circular file. Don’t tempt them into playing yet one more game of Script-In-The-Can.

Now get back to work.

Diagnosing Your Script: The Charmin Effect

So I have read – oh gosh – a thousand scripts? Fifteen hundred? I have no idea anymore, I’ve stopped counting. These days I take it easy; I don’t read all that much, maybe 3 to 4 scripts a week. And more than ever, I realize the value of having another pair of eyes on a script. What to me is obvious – a weak complication, two-dimensional character or front-loaded script – to you is a nagging mystery until I point it out. Because after spending so much time with one script, you can’t see the forest for the trees. And I don’t blame you.

The only thing I have that you don’t have is perspective and a thousand scripts under my belt. I have not stared at your script day in and day out for six months. I have not lived with your characters. I am like a doctor. I sit your script down on the exam table and I look at what’s there in the here and now. And it might hurt juuuust a little. Close your eyes if you don’t like needles or a whack on the knee. But I always send my patients back home with a lollypop and a smile.

It takes a lot of courage to go to the doctor. We all want to get a clean bill of health. But people come to The Script Department because they have a weird itch, limp or rash and they don’t know why. We all want to hear we’re going to be fine and that there’s nothing we have to change or worry about. We all want to hear that if we take the doctor’s advice, we WILL win the marathon or gold medal. But the doctor can make no guarantees. Only diagnose and send you home with a prescription.

If I had to name the most common script problems I see, the problems I point out over and over and over each week, I would have to say The Charmin Effect.

DIAGNOSIS of the CHARMIN EFFECT
Soft character arcs, soft premise and soft structure.

What does “soft” mean, exactly? It means that there’s too much subtlety in whichever element. As we are all aware, in real life, things are often complex and multi-layered and things almost never resolve neatly. Complications and reversals can land on us like a ton of bricks or they can accrete over time. In real life we muddle through our problems and we are quite good at not allowing anything to force us to change. Some of us literally never change.

In the movies, however, audiences crave resolution, for one thing, and they need to see things writ large. Now, of course there is a difference between character arc in a movie like THE SAVAGES and in a movie like THE MUMMY; you have to service your genre appropriately.

Soft premise, soft character and soft structure – these things are all related. It’s all the same problem. Not going BIG enough. Put it another way: not enough going on in the premise to warrant a whole feature script, passive main character and complications and act breaks which don’t move the story forward in a significant way. This all combines to create a boring script, or the BOSH script – bunch of stuff happens. Kiss of death, my friends. Flat line on the monitor.

CAUSE
A soft premise is the result of fear of conflict not really thinking the premise all the way through. Writers get stuck in their heads sometimes and tell a story which has mild emotional and usually autobiographical interest to them but not to anyone else. A woman inherits a house from her grandmother and learns that like her grandmother, she loves photography. Wha-? Movies are about conflict. Major conflict. Movies are uncomfortable and filled with tension. In real life most of us avoid conflict like the plague. But the movies are centered on it. Writing a script is a time to scrap being polite, proper or careful. Movies are conflict.

Newer writers are too easy on their characters because they model them too closely after themselves or people they know. But your character is not you or a friend – a character is a symbol that represents Jealousy, Power, Innocence, Betrayal, Justice or Heartbreak. Writers are often loathe to be too hard on their characters. They like them too much to give them a meaningful, active flaw. They start them out pretty nice and they wind up nicer. Characters must have an arc of change and they can’t wind up changed if they started out pretty okay in the first place. Something has to be majorly amiss in your character on page one. Not a little amiss like they are shy and want a date. That’s boring. We all want a date. Go. Bigger.

Soft structure is bound, hand and foot to soft premise and soft character arcs. You cannot separate these three elements. If you’re too soft on your characters, the turning points and complications will be soft too. Your pages will just blur in to one another with nothing significant moving the story forward. And you wind up with a script with the consistency, color and flavor of oatmeal instead of a script with the consistency, color and flavor of paella.

THE CURE
Don’t avoid conflict – seek it out. Take the gloves off. Don’t be so polite and so careful. Writing is a down and dirty occupation and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

Write down your premise line. Do you have an antagonist? A crux of CONFLICT, major turning points and a big sacrifice or choice the main character will have to make? Stare at your premise line. Is it going to get anyone outside your immediate family excited? Does it have a hook and a unique concept?

It takes courage to Go Big in your script. Writers are afraid to really think bigger and sometimes they are too lazy to do the work. That’s right, I said it. Too lazy. Where is the backstory for your character? Where is the outline for your script? Where is the killer logline that you should have worked out before you started writing the script? Laziness, timidity and a loathing to really put your characters through the wringer is the reason that the word “soft” would apply to so many scripts.

I know most writers don’t have the access to read a thousand scripts in order to gain the perspective that lends a person. But you have the Rouge Wave and a million other resources. Ask yourself if you’re really writing about conflict, change and catharsis. Not kind of – but truly.

Watch movies that are in any way similar to your script idea. Push the pause button when you think you spot a major complication. Look at the timer on your dvd player – notice that it’s right about 10, 25 and 50 minutes into the movie that these things happen? Gain some cajones, Wavers – are you writing about conflict or are you writing about CONFLICT? Are you being too easy on your main character? Is your premise SERIOUSLY worth several million dollars to make? Who would the audience be for this movie? You and your family? Or millions of people all around the world?

Writers who are unafraid to really go there – whether in the premise and in the execution or whether that means going to the doctor to find out how they did – are writers who have a million times more chance of actually having a writing career than a writer who is stuck in his or her head, too timid and too vacuum-sealed to get outside perspective and to push their characters harder and further than they thought possible – or nice – or convenient.

It’s up to you whether you take the cure. We are not all getting in shape for a sprint here, that’s the good news. This is a marathon. So you’ve made some mistakes. So what. It’s never too late to get it together so you can really compete with the thousands of scripts that flood into Hollywood every single day.

Bigger, better, faster, more. It’s the way of the movies.

The Organizing Event

Ah – autumn in Los Angeles…hot dusty Santa Ana winds and half the town is on fire again. Well, the fire is in the Valley but still…

The Santa Ana’s create a strange atmosphere – literally. Not just the increased dust and the bone dryness of it, not just the palm fronds that litter the streets, it’s a mood, something that descends upon Angelenos like a stealthy Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Here is a passage from Joan Didion’s essay “Los Angeles Notebook”:

There is something uneasy in the Los Angeles air this afternoon, some unnatural stillness, some tension. What it means is that tonight a Santa Ana will begin to blow, a hot wind from the northeast whining down through the Cajon and San Gorgonio Passes, blowing up sand storms out along Route 66, drying the hills and the nerves to flash point. For a few days now we will see smoke back in the canyons, and hear sirens in the night. I have neither heard nor read that a Santa Ana is due, but I know it, and almost everyone I have seen today knows it too. We know it because we feel it. The baby frets. The maid sulks. I rekindle a waning argument with the telephone company, then cut my losses and lie down, given over to whatever it is in the air. To live with the Santa Ana is to accept, consciously or unconsciously, a deeply mechanistic view of human behavior.

Now think about your script. Your comedy, thriller, horror, drama – genre doesn’t matter. What is it that is inexorably descending upon the characters in your script like a hot, uneasy wind? What is making the maid sulk and the baby fuss? What is not quite right in your fictional world?

The organizing event is closely related to be not exactly the same as the ticking clock. The organizing event is what set that clock to ticking in the first place. The organizing event may have occurred on page negative ten, page negative 25 or it can happen on page one. It can be what everything is racing toward on page 75. The organizing event can be a national spelling bee, a devastating earthquake or the arrival of the aliens.

The organizing event is the sometimes ephemeral, sometimes quite clear event that is pulling everyone and everything toward itself in your story. It can be the event that sets everything in motion – but it can also be the event that everything is racing toward. The organizing event can be something that happened on page negative ten which set everything in motion so that on page one, as we jump in late, the effects are felt.

In JUNO the organizing event was Juno’s pregnancy. In DUDE, WHERE’S MY CAR it was the theft of the car at the top of the script. In RAT RACE it was the race – not the getting to the money on time, that’s the ticking clock, but the race itself. In REDS it’s the Russian Revolution. In SUNSET BOULEVARD it’s the murder of Joe Gillis. In THE GRADUATE it’s Ben Braddock’s recent college graduation. In MEMENTO it was the murder of Leonard’s wife. In JAWS it is the first shark attack. In DONNIE DARKO it’s the jet engine falling into the Darko house. In THE RAINMAN it’s the death of Tom Cruise’s father.

So give this some thought, Wavers. What is the organizing event in your script? If you aren’t sure, ask what the ticking clock is and then pause and think about what set that clock to ticking in the first place. Having an organizing event can illuminate what your negative page ten (recent back story) is. It can ensure that your ticking clock is organic and powerful. It gives your characters something around which to gather, strive for, avoid, or fight against. Like the Santa Ana’s, it’s something in the air, something which has descended upon your fictional world which makes extraordinary decisions and actions necessary.

Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery

….but it’s not going to sell your script.

Last week, I read a really good script. It was so well executed. Compelling, masterful, entertaining. But completely unoriginal. Because it was a carbon copy of a movie which has already been made.

So this tells me the writer is a quick study, a fan of the genre, and a competent writer. But it also tells me this writer has not done his or her homework thoroughly enough when it comes to understanding the marketplace.

How do you know whether what you’ve written is truly original or whether it is a carbon copy of something else? Well – what movie would you compare your script to? Have you written DISTURBIA which bears a close resemblance to REAR WINDOW (Ah, a little too close, according to the news of the day.) and yet turned some key points inside out? Is this a riff on another movie or a rip off of another movie?

Now – each genre has expectations. Take a sub-genre that for some reason has shown up in several movies and scripts within my world lately – the crazy-person-stalker-movie. LAKEVIEW TERRACE is related to FATAL ATTRACTION which is related to SWIM FAN which is related to SINGLE WHITE FEMALE. All good movies – well, mea culpa, haven’t seen LAKEVIEW quite yet but it’s Sam Jackson so my hopes are high. But here we have the seemingly friendly person that you get mixed up with who turns out to be someone you cannot get rid of. It’s a great sub-genre because it has an everyman-resonance. We can all relate to it, either because it’s happened to us or because we fear that it could. We build our lives so carefully and hold so many things to be so dear and then someone can come along and destroy our lives from the inside out. That’s a nightmare we can all relate to.

You’ll notice that in each of the movies I mentioned above, the basic story type is the same while the specifics are different. Different enough to make each movie unique. And yet familiar enough to make each movie appealing to audiences.

In each genre there are conventions and expectations. Some of the expectations of psychological thriller are that the main character has made an error in judgment and now must pay for it. But it gets out of control and the antagonist is generally insane. There will be blood in a psychological thriller – meaning there is often an escalation of the conflict until the antagonist must die a spectacular, deserved death. The main character should go to the police but cannot because of that initial error in judgment – the battle must be fought alone. Another genre expectation of the antagonist in this sub-genre of crazy-person-stalker is that the antagonist inextricably insinuates him or herself into the intimate life of the main character by way of that initial judgment error. And they make this initial incursion by identifying the weakness of that main character. Which is a great jumping off point for identifying the flaw of your main character.

Each genre has expectations – a template, if you will. Would a truly great horror movie entertain you quite as much if there weren’t at least ONE good pop-out moment? In THE ORPHANAGE, as one great example, there is certainly the good ol’ pop-out moment but done with such originality and with a stamp of uniqueness on it, that it satisfies over and above the expectation. If you haven’t seen THE ORPHANAGE, by the way, you should treat yourself. Here is the trailer.

So here’s how you can check in with yourself to see if you’ve written an imitation of a movie you loved or whether you’ve taken it to a new level of uniqueness:

*Ask yourself: do you truly understand the conventions and expectations of the genre? I mean – do you TRULY understand them? Watch this genre over and over until you can identify the conventions. This is a great way to take a break while writing, if you feel stuck. Go to the video store and rent 2 or 3 movies that are in any way similar to your own. This is probably one of the healthiest, most productive ways you can procrastinate. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

*List the ways in which your script has met the conventions of the genre. Go ahead. List ‘em. As one example: If you’re writing a romcom have you got the “cute meet”? Have you got the “bellamy”?

*Now: having identified that you have indeed included the expected conventions and beats, ask yourself, yes, but how have I taken that convention and gone one step beyond it? Is it a run-of-the-mill horror pop-out moment or have I made this pop-out something that has not been done in this particular way before? This is where YOUR particular voice and point of view comes into play. There are cute meets and there are CUTE MEETS which we have not yet seen before. Hint: a cute meet in which the two romantic leads bump into each other and stoop to pick up their books? Not original.

Writing a script which is a carbon copy of a previously made movie save for the location and the names of the characters is a good exercise. I suppose. But it is also a waste of your time. But do not fear if this is what you have done. Go back and look at your script and look for those conventional moments – now think outside the box. How can you take this whole script a giant step beyond what has already been done?

You might ask how your script speaks to the zeitgeist two years from now. Ghosts have been and will always be good, scary stuff for viewers. Ghosts of little orphaned children? Good, stock stuff. But THE ORPHANAGE took that a step beyond and if you’ve seen it, you’ll know that there is a particularly powerful call-back moment – a game that the children play – that is one of the several things that makes this movie stand out.

In fact, THE ORPHANAGE could be grouped together with THE OTHERS. This would be a good homework viewing double-feature, in fact, which would handily sum up my point here. They are the same – but quite different.

And that’s what you want to shoot for – familiarity but uniqueness. A seemingly difficult combination. The best piece of advice I can give Rouge Wavers who are aspiring writers is:
Know your genre inside out. Then do it differently. The same. But different.

Remember – when your audience member goes out to the movies, they like to have some idea of what they’re getting. They paid the sitter, parked the car, went out to dinner and are now shelling out upwards of $12 to see your movie. And they happened to have felt like seeing a romantic comedy this Friday evening. So you damn well better give them a romantic comedy. But not one they’ve seen before.