Just Effing Entertain Me

The Suggestive Power of Language

Because you are a writer, you probably do what I do which is to write everything a bit like a maestro. Every word counts. You backspace and delete a lot. You look up words to make sure you’re spelling and using them correctly. You use the thesaurus a lot and wind up “wasting” 10 minutes looking up stuff you don’t need but that fascinates you.

You are particularly careful when writing an email to your mom. Or the guy you’ve been seeing but you don’t want him to get the idea you care TOO much. Or when vibing a business relationship – it’s totally cool man, not that invested at all, just saying, I’m here if you need me but whatever and I’m totally good for money so no big D!

Being here in London I have delighted in the different use of language and I don’t mean the accent(s). Yeah, sure, that’s fun but after awhile, you don’t notice it that much since you’re surrounded by it. What I do notice and revel in is the word choices the Brits use and the very subtle difference these choices create.

“way out” instead of “exit”
“give way” instead of “yield”
“lift” instead of “elevator”
“pavement” instead of “sidewalk”
“cinema” instead of “theater”

The Brits use a form of English that is gentler, somehow. It’s softer. Americans are much more blunt and to the point. And let’s not even TALK about the Aussies. You know who you are, you delightful hammerheads of the English language. Oh okay fine, I have to give this example:

Somebody once told me that, say a person walks in the room and forgets to shut the front door -

The English person says: I’m so very sorry, but you seem to have forgotten to close the door.
The American says: Please shut the door.
The Aussie says: OY! Shut the f*cking door, mate!

Doesn’t “gone missing” FEEL totally different than “missing in action?” Doesn’t “tewb” FEEL so different than “subway?” “Chips” versus “fries,” “black pudding” instead of “freaky stuff made of BLOOD!!” You get the gist.

The way Americans speak is evolving and always has – as does the way anybody speaks any language. Times change, new words are needed, zeitgeist sets in and you wind up becoming a fan of a Facebook group called “saying ‘that’s crazy’ when you’re not really listening to someone.”

Is there a particularity in the way your character speaks and makes word choices? I assure you there is. Think about what your character wants to achieve in each scene. Even if it doesn’t seem like much, it’s at least to seek approval, get along, make a good impression or make some kind of impression – could even be I’m the guy who doesn’t give a good god damn. How educated is your character? This will also be brought to bear. Of course. How was your main character raised? By educated parents? By parents from another country? By parents who use a specific slang, intonation or colloquialism:  Huh uh, no you dit-nt girl-FRAY-ND!

Pay attention today to the language all around you. Is the newspaper article you’re reading slanted? Just a little bit? If anyone saw Jon Stewart’s parody/pillory of Glenn Beck earlier this week you saw an exaggerated version of use of language and the ridonkulous extremes that can be had – and parodied.

I often read two different Israeli newspapers – Ha’aretz and the Jerusalem Post. Same news. Totally different word choices and totally different tone and slant on the same exact events. Of course, if you’ve read this blog for a long time you know that it is usually around now that I bring of up of course Orwell’s 1984, with the “new speak” that Orwell wrote about – as a way of controlling the way a populace thinks, you reduce the language available for them to use until self-expression is essentially impossible. If something can only be “good or “double plus good” one has a hard time telling someone they love the way they walk. Capice?

So pay attention to the way you speak – and to the way others speak in coming days. Really be observant. What socioeconomic conclusions can you draw? What geographic or cultural conclusions can you draw? When you read an article, what is the subtext beneath the words? How do I use language here on JFEME? Am I coercing you, manipulating or in any way evoking a feeling from you using my word choices? Of course I am. The implant chip comes next! No, I am evoking laughter and familiarity because I think when people feel those things they feel relaxed and happy and when you feel relaxed and happy you are more open to new ideas. Ha HA! You have been manipulated, Effers – my evil empire is in the offing!!

Authentic Dialogue

Yours truly – formerly a redhead, now apparently a “ginger” – has been doing a lot of writing for and working with the British lately. I have always been a bit of an Anglophile, having been one those weird kids (probably like a lot of writers) who stayed in on sunny days and read Dickens and Maugham, Bronte and Austen exhaustively. When I got older, it was Morrissey, The Cure and The Psychedelic Furs. I love that cold windy isle they call “blighty.” I’ve never heard that moniker for England, have you? (No fair you Brits!)

I wrote an article for Twelve Point, and the editor helpfully edited my piece and added British-isms where I had not. I’m learning that in Britain, you are not mad AT somebody, you are mad WITH somebody. It’s not a resumé, it’s a CV, it’s not a bathroom, it’s a loo and so forth. Some of this I knew, and other things I…did not.

(Pet annoyance: How many of you know Madonna-like people go on vacation to Britain and come back with Britishisms in which they tell you how they’re “going on holiday” and end their emails with “cheers?” A pox upon them!!) – Did I actually type that out loud?

Feel free to accuse yours truly of same when I return, if I lapse into this pretentious habit as well. I’m just saying – if you read the article in Twelve Point – that ain’t how I tawk! I also wrote an article for MovieScope Magazine that will hit the UK newsstands as well as the MS magazine website in February. Now that article I purposely wrote in a much more formal tone than you guys are used to. Mama doesn’t know the crowd over there quite so well just yet. Here we can talk about cupcakes and Effers and we have a common language. In Britain one must appear to be more formal – at least initially. Then it all descends into Benny Hill rather quickly. Saucy lot, the Brits.

When writing a character from another part of the world, or even another part of the US (this is a vast country with many differences in idiom. To wit: Sarah Palin), visit websites and read material written by people authentically from that part of the world. Study up on the idiom and particularities of the language and its cadence. Pay attention to the little differences such as the level of formality or relaxedness of expression. If you’ve ever heard an Irish person speak, you’ll notice a very distinctive idiomatic pattern such as “time for a cuppa tea, so.” I have read (and I’m sure I’ll stand to be corrected by some Brit from Blighty) that the reason for the Irish idiom is that the Irish, when forced to speak English by the Brits, did so under duress and adopted the words but folded them into their pre-existing Gaelic grammar and idiom. That’s why they sound so adorable.

All right, that’s enough of that. Now get back to work. Or I’ll have yer hide, I will!

Memorable Dialogue

How would you like to write a line of dialogue that people literally couldn’t forget for years afterward? That’s what we need to strive for as writers. To not only write dialogue for each character that is organic and totally natural sounding but also to come up with a turn of phrase that is so memorable it is burned into the collective unconscious indelibly.

Here are some bits of dialogue from movies that I will never forget. So much so that I use them in my own life frequently. Or, well, you know – when it’s applicable. I don’t often have cause to say “Yippy ki-yay motherf*cker,” but trust me, the minute I do have cause, I’LL SAY IT with vim and vigor!

…t’ hell’s going on Bob?
DOWN BY LAW

And your little dog, too!
THE WIZARD OF OZ

You have no idea.
REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

We’ve got a piper down!
SO I MARRIED AN AX MURDERER

Go ahead, cry yourself to sleep on your huuuuge pillah!
SO I MARRIED AN AX MURDERER

I always get the fuzzy end of the lollypop.
SOME LIKE IT HOT

Would you look at that? It’s like jello on springs!
SOME LIKE IT HOT

Give her the goddamned camera!
ORDINARY PEOPLE

I AM crazy!
BARFLY

Put. The Candle. Back.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN

More?!
OLIVER

And that, folks, is why I won’t do two shows a night. I won’t do it.
BEETLEJUICE

You think I’m too dumb to know what a eugoology is?
ZOOLANDER

What do you think I am, dumb or somethin’?
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

Well if it isn’t Ethel Barrymore!
SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN

What have the Romans ever done for us?
THE LIFE OF BRIAN

We-wease Wog-ah.
THE LIFE OF BRIAN

S-u-r-r-e-n-d-e-r- D-o-r-o-t-h-y.
THE WIZARD OF OZ

Yippy ki-yay motherf*cker.
DIE HARD

Welcome to Mindhead.
BOWFINGER

I wrestled with reality for 35 years, doctor, and I’m happy. I finally won out over it.
HARVEY

Creative Cursing

I’ve been spending a great deal of time watching Big Love lately – I am loving this show! – and because the show is about Mormons who don’t drink or smoke (but do engage in plural marriage) they of course do not curse. So you hear phrases like Jimminy Crickets, heck, good grief, etc. In an episode I was watching recently, a character said she wished she had a gun so she could “blow the hate right out of him” (referring to an antagonist).  If someone other than a character in that particular show had made the same statement it would have included at least one or two expletives – and been half as colorful. It’s not that blowing the hate right out of someone is particularly outside the box in terms of the use of language – it’s that the character couldn’t just say I want him to die. No, she’d blow the hate right out of him.  Her hypocritical restraint made the statement WAY funnier.

I have mixed feelings about the way cursing has become so mainstream. Not for moral reasons. Not because it offends my sensitive ears (hello: name of this blog) but because it has reduced our collective vocabulary. We’ve become enslaved by the same three or four expletives or versions of them and therefore, the words we use to express anger, disappointment or frustration have become very limited.  For those of you who have read 1984, you may remember the “new speak” that the totalitarian government enforced. It was designed to reduce the vocabulary and therefore reduce the ways in which the populace could think about things. So if something was VERY good, it was not excellent or outstanding or superb – it was “doublegood” or it might even be “doublePLUSgood”. If something was bad it wasn’t “bad” it was “ungood”. It was a brilliant innovation by Orwell, and needless to say it was very effective in the fictional society he described.

Have WE become enslaved by the eff word? How often do you curse and when you do, which expletives do you use? I know I have become far too dependent upon the usual suspects. And I don’t like it. I’m so much more interesting than that. “Fricking”, “freaking” or “frakking” do not really count as going too far off the reservation, by the way. Come on now.

Every parent experiences the horrible-but-very-funny moment when your child learns to curse. My son Truman suddenly began to curse like a sailor when he was about 2 1/2. It was hilarious. But of course we had to grow very stern and explain to him that these were bad words. When he was about 11, I caught him teaching a friend how to spell F-U-K. I pointed out that he’d spelled it wrong anyway and we had to have the talk about cursing and why it’s best to avoid it. Not because these are bad words, in my view as a parent and as a person – words are just words – they are only empowered by the meaning we assign to them. For me to say “damn” is as weighted as me saying “jelly bean” – for me it has no moral negativity or trespass assigned to it. That said, as I counseled my son, the thing is, that when you start cursing, you can become dependent upon using those particular words to describe your frustration or anger and then one day, you’ll be in mixed company and you’ll really offend someone, or make a terrible impression. In other words, you limit your own possibilities.

I recently said to someone that I’d be shocked as pink paint if something didn’t happen. My mother used to describe either a person or a situation that was going downhill as going to hell in a hand basket. My grandmother used to say good NIGHT when something surprised or shocked her. I remember once she said “damn” and she immediately clapped her hand over her mouth and apologized.  I don’t know where I picked it up but I will sometimes say “H-E double toothpicks” or “fudge”. We’ve probably all heard someone say “Jesus, Joseph and Mary” – fairly mainstream if you’re Irish and Catholic – but what about “Jesus-on-a-stick” and variations like that? Then there are the antiquated versions like “jumpin’ jehosaphat”, “what in the tarnation!”, etc.

Language is such an amazing thing – it is an instrument that can be both very delicate and very blunt. It can be used to exhort, lacerate and brainwash (think about Hitler’s speeches) and it can be used to woo a lover. How often do you read a book and pause because you read a sentence that takes your breath away? Happens to me a lot. Just a few words, strung together just so, just right, and I’m freezing cold and can almost see my breath and smell woodsmoke. Just a few words, strung together just so, and I can smell the salt spray of the sea and feel the heat on my back. A few words and I can feel my heartbreak or my spirits soar. Just a few well chosen words. That’s powerful stuff, Effers.  I really do believe that words have magical powers. They have been used to conjure and to curse for centuries. They weave dreams and spin tales. And that’s what you do every day – not just in your writing but in the life that you live and how you describe it to yourself and to others.

How do you curse? Do you use old-fashioned variations or do you make up your own? Has your cursing vocabulary become limited by the socially acceptable usual suspects? And of course, Effers (ha!) we always return to our writing. What about your characters? Do they curse? How do they use their language? Aggressively? Suggestively? Subtextually? Powerfully? Persuasively?Passively?

That’s it for me – I’m going to get some motherflippin’ lunch.

Now get back to work.

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.

Now, Doggone it, Get in Character!

How many Rouge Wavers watched the Palin/Biden debate yesterday evening? I know I was glued to it, admittedly waiting (and hoping) for a Palin gaffe that never happened. But my oh my did Governor Palin crank up her down home, regional accent for effect. She peppered her language not only with soft enunciations like “ya” instead of “you” and all the usual “goin’s” and “shoulda’s”, but also a couple of well placed “doggone it’s”. The effect was quite calculated – this is a down home, all American, kitchen-table mom that you can relate to. Now, for someone like me, this was an annoying affectation – but for the voters Palin was trying to connect with, it was canny slam dunk. She understands ya. And maybe she won’t answer questions the way ya’d like her ta, but Americans are just wantin’ straight talk. Dontcha know.

From the linked article above:

Reaction to Palin’s speech has been highly varied. Some people dislike it, finding it harsh or grating; others regard it as charming or authentic. These are common responses to a distinctive accent. Depending on the context, such an accent can make a person seem stupid or uneducated or, conversely, honest and folksily trustworthy—often at the same time. Some people exploit this for effect, emphasizing and de-emphasizing dialect features to prompt a particular reaction. Linguists call this code-switching. In this Palin interview with Katie Couric, you can hear her enunciating her -ings and her yous more clearly in responses where she appeared to have a ready answer, and returning to her more natural -in’ and ya when she seemed stumped, which suggests that Palin may have been deliberately attempting to minimize her dialect features for that audience.

Yes, this code-switching…Palin does what I call a “Zelig”. You know, that great Woody Allen movie about a guy who instantly becomes just like everyone around him at a given moment in order to fit in?

Full disclosure: I am a born and bred Democrat from an educated, East Coast family that doggone moved west but retained a regional loyalty toward everything Boston and a love of literature and discussion. My grandmother attended the Leland Powers School of Elocution in fact, though she could never quite rid herself of her Brahmin Boston accent, i.e., driving the cah to the pahk. For me, while Palin’s diction, colloquialisms and overall diction is clearly a result of where she is from, there is an affectation that I find patronizing and which frankly galls me. Do ya know what I’m sayin’?

But moving on my from personal predilections and prejudices re Palin, I thought it an interesting lesson for screenwriters when it comes to dialogue. Palin employed a particular speech pattern for powerful effect: she was in character. Did she come across as warm, folksy and honest? That was the intent.

But to be both fair and realistic, we all have a bit of Zelig in us. How we want to be perceived varies from situation to situation. The way we speak tells others volumes about us. About where we’re from, our socio-economic status, our education and our world view. We are all in character.

I know that while I might seem fairly polite on the Rouge Wave, in real life, I use the eff word and a thousand variations of it very liberally when hanging around with my friends. Wouldn’t do that around my parents or around someone that I didn’t know very well. When I’m around people who are quite educated and who show that in their speech – I’m right there with ‘em too. My speech patterns and diction vary by situation. And your does too.

Take a look at your script pages and ask two questions of the dialogue: what affect is your character trying to have in the situation and what dialogue and diction choices have you made for your character in order to establish and reinforce personality?

How do you want your character to come across? What kind of vocabulary and diction do your characters use and to what affect? Oh dear, now I’m getting that paranoid feeling that I’m mixing my affects and my effects up. I probably am. And for every smarty pants Rouge Waver who writes in with the definitions of each and both, here’s a preemptive cupcake for you.

The bottom line is that however you felt about the Palin/Biden debate, Palin had a little lesson packed into her speech for us screenwriters. Dialogue defines character.

For more on the debate click HERE.

Dialogue or Less Dialogue – That is the Question

There is quite an interesting conversation going on in the comments section beginning with the noting of dialogue-heavy short scene finalists and traveling all the way to whether dialogue or visuals are more memorable, ergo, important in the cinematic experience.

Here’s where I stand:

the dingo got the baby
it’s definitely time for Judge Wapner
fasten your seatbelts, it’s gonna be a bumpy night
you have no idea
I can’t quit you
I’m ready for my close up, Mr. Demille*
I have the feeling I’m not in Kansas anymore
of all the gin joints in all the world…
I want to be alone
you talkin’ to me?
you’re gonna need a bigger boat
yippy-kiy-yay, motherf*cker
I see dead people
I read the Feminine Mystique! I’m in charge of my own orgasm!
Everybody knows, you never go full retard

…and that’s just literally off the top of my head. Yes, cinematic scenes are also memorable, but it’s the dialogue that moves the story forward and it’s the dialogue that makes us laugh, cringe and identify with the character who said it.

I think that the Rouge Waver who began this discussion in comments is referring to the old trope that ideally, a screenwriter should be able to write a scene with no dialogue so well that dialogue is unnecessary to get the point of the scene across. I think this is of course a great skill and a great exercise, but as another poster said – welcome to the talkies.

Movies are about the human experience. And the importance of dialogue in conveying the truth, the terror, the contradiction and the joy of that is inestimable. Let’s turn to the predecessor of movies – drama. Theater predates movies by hundreds of years. Movies are, relatively speaking, still in their infancy as a form of expression and entertainment.

In its earliest form, there were no visuals and certainly no action sequences in theater. Theater was just people on a primitive stage, speaking the truth about pain, joy, loss and what it means to be a human. Sophocles did not write action scenes. Either did Euripides or Aristophanes. Or Arthur Miller for that matter but that’s pressing the fast-forward button.

And of course we come to the master playwright – Shakespeare.

Four hundred years later, how often is his dialogue quoted? How many people have heard “out damn spot” without even really knowing which play that came from (MacBeth) or necessarily remembering the dark, stormy, creepy castle that line of dialogue is uttered in? Because the castle is frosting – the sentiment – that guilt cannot be washed away – is powerful and that is memorable. 400 years powerful and memorable.

I think it inarguable that dialogue is the single most compelling and memorable part of most any movie. Because dialogue is spoken by memorable and compelling characters. The supposition that a great scene should or can be written without dialogue (or with minimal dialogue) is, in my opinion, Film School pretention.

I also think that the idea that dialogue is not entirely necessary is also born of the fact that there’s so much BAD dialogue out there. Newbie screenwriters tend to write on the nose, expositional dialogue which is blunt, workman-like and uninteresting.

To be fair, let’s also point out that movies are not exactly like theater. The cinema is a relatively new human artistic expression which is an extraordinarily powerful marriage of theater, music and visuals. Movies are an artform unlike any other and yet deeply, inextricably indebted to theater.

Really good writers know how to use dialogue sharp as a scalpel, light as a feather and as layered as a rich, creamy Trifle. And they do it so well that dialogue becomes part of our culture. Sometimes for literally hundreds of years to come. Not that “never go full retard” falls under that category. She says with a wink and a tug of her ear.

Now get back to work.

*This quote, from SUNSET BOULEVARD is often misquoted. In fact, the line of dialogue is this: All right Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close up.

From the Mailbag

Dear Mistress of Coolness -

- Okay you guys were never going to buy that, were you? Fine.-

Dear Wave-inatrix:

I just started reading your web site a few weeks ago and really appreciate it. I’m still working through the coolestfilmsites. I really enjoyed your essay on rhythm (Music in Writing) with your example from David Mamet. While you are on this topic, I’m wondering about the difference between dialogue on the page versus actually being spoken. When I read what I’ve written, it always sounds great in my head, and also when I read it aloud, but I have a feeling that’s like having your mother tell you how talented you are. I’m hoping you can write a few words on this topic. Thanks for your great web site.
-Wondering in Williamsburg

Dear Wondering -

You need a table read, my friend! If you don’t have access to my free SAG all volunteer table read, do this – get some of your friends together and have an impromptu table read to see how your dialogue sounds. Choose a pivotal scene and give your friends the upshot of the scene and the script itself. Give each person a quick bio of the character he or she will be reading. Young, old, bitter, excited, upset – whatever. One person needs to be the narrator (the one reading the action lines). That can be you but it might be harder to focus on hearing the how the dialogue sounds and also, hearing how the action lines sound can be illuminating too.

Make sure the friends you ask are hep cats – hep to movies and screenwriting – somewhat. Sometimes even well meaning friends can sound pretty wooden because they are self-conscious. You don’t want that. You want people to take it seriously and to go for it. Don’t feel bad if your dialogue is not the greatest right now – good dialogue takes time to get a feel for. Bribe some good friends with beer and hotwings and host yourself a table read party. It does wonders.

Oh and thank you for the compliment on the Rouge Wave. The Wave-inatrix, she tries real darn hard to make it a fun place to be. Rock on, Wondering!

Rear Window

You’ve heard of Found Objects, right, Wavers? Stuff that you find that has intrinsic artistic or sentimental value? Or that guy – who was that guy – anyway, it was on NPR or something, who gathered notes and lists he found everywhere he went and compiled the notes and lists into a book. Well anyway, so it’s summer in Los Angeles, and the Wave-inatrix lives in a neighborhood with beautiful old-growth trees, palm and otherwise, and lined with very grand, old, 1920′s apartment buildings.

When it’s hot, which it often is, everybody hangs around outside on their front stoops and leaves their windows wide open at night, owing to the heat-keeping nature of stucco circa 1925. The buildings are insulated in a way in which locks in temperature – heat or cold. So there’s a little something you give up for the built-ins, hardwood, high ceilings and arched doorways. Oh, Charm, you beguiling temptress of real estate choices!

Upshot: particularly at night – everybody can hear everybody. Music, tv, arguments, laughter. The neighborhood is alive with human interaction. And this is what the Wave-inatrix heard just the other evening:

Susan: But I WANNA read in bed!
Charlie: (incomprehensible)
Susan: So GET a book you like!
Charlie: (incomprehensible)
Susan: But I LIKE reading in bed!
Charlie: (incomprehensible)
Susan: But it’s not FAIR!
Charlie: (sharp retort)
Susan: (exclamation)
Charlie: Well, what makes ANYONE happy?
Susan: (whining, fading away)

Writers are thieves – you’ve heard that expression before, no doubt. The Wave-inatrix lived in San Francisco proper for many, many years. And walking through my neighborhood at night was one of my favorite things to do. All those Victorians, cheek by jowl, in the early evening, before the curtains are pulled to – and all those people inside, laughing, kissing, arguing, stooping to put something away – a silent pantomime of life. What were they talking about? What was going on?

There is one evening in San Francisco that I will never forget. I lived in Noe Valley and it was foggy as usual. Maybe 2am or so. When suddenly, out of the moist, foggy blanket of silence, I was awoken to hear a woman begging, in a low moan, for someone to please, stop! She begged and she begged. With silences in-between. Was it some kind of consensual sexual activity? Or was she really being hurt? Her cries rose in intensity and she began to scream and cry. No – whatever it was – it wasn’t consensual. Alarmed, I called 911. Where was it coming from, they asked? I stared out the back window at the maze of adjoining gardens, covered with wet vines and nasturtium. The houses were dark. Not one light. I – I don’t know, I stammered. The woman screamed again – Please! Please, stop!

Look, Miss, the 911 operator said, we can’t help if we don’t know where to look. My heart raced. Someone definitely needed help. But where? How could I help her? With an annoyed sigh, the 911 operator said she’d send a squad car to circle the block but if they couldn’t find anything, they couldn’t very well help, could they? I went back to bed and clutched the blankets to my chest and stared out the window, the lace curtain moving softly in the foggy breeze. The cries continued. Then grew softer. And faded back into the fog. I never knew what happened or who that woman was. But I’ll never forget that voice, that begging.

Use the life going on all around you, Wavers, as you seek inspiration for story ideas, bits of dialogue or chemistry and dynamics in relationships. Life is a stage and we are all actors upon it. What is really going on behind closed doors?

Top Ten Things Readers HATE

Good morning, Wavers. I trust many of you, as usual, are busily thinking of a clever one page scene for the latest competition. There’s nothing to lose and a $25 gift certificate to gain. Plus we like to have fun at the Rouge Wave, so, you know, you really gotta give it a whirl. Click HERE for the guidelines and click HERE to submit.

Also: just FYI, I have recently had requests from two production companies and a lit manager for some GREAT scripts. I have already submitted a few this week, from my client base but am definitely looking for great material to get out there. Obviously, I have to read the script first and yeah, that obviously means do some notes on the material, but the reputation of the Script Department has grown to the point where I am getting hit up for good scripts. So. Just put that in your pipe and smoke it. I am looking for anything well written, but also family, tentpole, action, horror and thriller.

So the happy, happy class who took Ten Things Readers HATE over the weekend requested that I repost that list here on the Rouge Wave. Now – you really had to to be there and I can’t reprint everything that we discussed in a 90 minute class. But I will reprint the list itself just for fun. This list could have been much longer but this is what we discussed at the Great American Pitch Fest. And remember – because it’s the Wave-inatrix – my list actually goes to 11.

Bear in mind that readers are often overworked and underpaid and your script may be the third script they read that day. So they’re a little cranky, a little jaded and they really want to go to bed. But no. Your script is staring at them and they gotta get through it quickly so they can turn in the coverage that night so tomorrow they can go pick up six more scripts from another production company a long, smoggy drive away. So I’ve set the scene, right?

Top Ten Things Readers HATE:

#11 A script over 120 pages.

Reader thinks: Please kill me now. The writer doesn’t have a good grasp of structure and tight story telling. Great. Just great.

#10 The writer sent weird shit in the mail with the script.

Reader thinks: Oh god. A rank amateur. Some kind of nut. What is this map/sketch/doll/polaroid/music and how fast can I toss it to the floor so I can just read the script already?

#9 Boring, derivative scripts in which nothing happens.

Reader thinks: Wtf? Where’s the conflict? What is the bloody point here? I hate this writer! Why can’t he or she just tell me a story already! I’m hungry. Maybe there’s something in the fridge. Maybe I should throw some laundry in. But I have to get this script done and – I hate this writer!

#8 Wonky Tone or Genre

Reader thinks: Wait – I cannot draw a bead on this. It’s funny, it’s graphic, it’s scary, it’s got characters with more personalities than Sybil. I can’t sum this up, I can’t follow where it’s going. There’s no cohesion. I’m gonna PASS this writer so fast his head’s gonna spin. Gd it.

#7 Bad, Confusing Sluglines

Reader thinks: My eyes! The humanity! These pages are cluttered and overslugged. Too many details in the slugs! Or – completely generic slugs – ext. house – day – oh come ON!

#6 Gratuitous, Shocking Sex or Violence

Reader thinks: Really? Am I supposed to be impressed or shaken by this? You’re dealing with the wrong reader, pal. If it’s not in keeping with the tone and narrative, if it’s just there to pop wheelies and tell me way more than I ever wanted to know about your sexual fantasies or urge to scoop out eyeballs with a melon baller, then color me NOT impressed.

#5 On the Nose Dialogue

Reader thinks: Talk about an urge for violence – what do you think I am, stupid? This dialogue is patronizing, dull and amateur. But hey – this is going to be a fast read and an easy PASS. Bring it.

#4 Dense Action Lines

Reader thinks: Like I’m going to wade through this crap. I’m just trying to synopsize this quickly and efficiently. And this is killing my eyes, slowing down the read and adding exponentially to my already cranky mood.

#3 No Structure: the BOSH script

Reader thinks: Nothing is moving this story forward, it just goes and goes and goes. It’s a BOSH script! (bunch of shit happens).

#2 Lame Characters

Reader thinks: These characters sound, act and look like robots. If there was one thing that might have gotten me into this story, it would have been characters I give a damn about. But no. Is this writer serious? Does he or she read this dialogue outloud? People don’t act this way. These are types! Oh! I’m so cranky!!

#1 Typos and malaprops

Reader thinks: Oh come ON. Seriously? One or three is one thing but now I’m beginning to feel personally insulted. Proofread! Is it that hard? Do you want to be taken seriously??

Now, Wavers know that there is a remedy to every single one of these items. And if you are new to the Rouge Wave, look at the Browse by Topic and click on corresponding subject labels to read up on how to do a better job and improve your craft. Mostly, just do the opposite of each point made here. But of course, there’s a lot more to it than that.

The larger point of the class is that you have to imagine yourself in the reader’s shoes. And during the class, cruelly, that’s just what I did, by passing out the first ten pages of a script that somehow managed to accomplish everything on this list save number 10 and that’s just because I didn’t bother to bring the map of the castle to the class. I gave everyone four minutes to read the pages (about how long a reader would spend, give or take) and asked that they circle those things that are slowing down the read for them. It was painful to watch, and I’m sorry, but it was effective, no?