Posts Tagged With: writing tips

How NOT to introduce a character

Posted on 05/30/2014 by VR

“In closing, […] screenwriters — you need to chiggity check yo’selves before you wreck yourselves.” “#betheFUCKINGChange”
―@mysteryexec (Twitter)

**Oh ye of sensitive dispositions: I apologize in advance for the all swearing in this post. It is necessary.**

A while back (almost a year ago) the sage @mysteryexec of Twitter fame went on a bit of a rant:

“pretty without pretense or solicitation” “pretty without trying” — If you have this as character description you are a BAD, LAZY WRITER.

STOP WRITING FEMALE CHARACTERS AS FUCK PUPPETS. YOU ARE ALL BAD WRITERS. ALL OF YOU.

TALK TO ACTUAL WOMEN. MALE WRITERS, YOU ARE ALL DOING IT WRONG.

HAVE A WOMAN READ YOUR FUCKING SCRIPT AND CALL YOU OUT ON YOUR AWFUL FUCKING DIALOGUE.

“She’s quirky”. NO SHIT!!! WE BETTER GET ZOOEY GODDAMN DESCHANEL ON THE LINE RIGHT FUCKING NOW!!! LAZY LAZY LAZYYYYY.

“It’s stylized,” you argue. NO. IT IS SHIT. NO WOMEN TALK LIKE THIS YOU FUCKING HACK.

THE FACT THAT REPS BRING THIS SHIT TO ME IS EQUALLY EMBARRASSING.

So sayeth the Lord of the Mystery Twitter Accounts.  Amen.

However, again almost a year later, I am still seeing this crap in the scripts I read.  “The only thing prettier than her face is her ass.” “Her eyes were clear blue gems in a porcelain face.” (also – present tense people, please.)  “Girl-next-door looks with a not so sweet mind.”  Yes these are real.  But you see the problem.  Besides being pretty awful, they also tell me NOTHING about the character.

Now I admit, I was guilty of this until the amazing ladies at Script Chix (http://scriptchix.com/ shout out to Miranda Sajdak) hit me over the head and pointed out that I wasn’t any better.  I take solace in the fact I was doing it to both male and female characters, though that doesn’t make me a better writer, only a less misogynistic one.  But it is totally and completely lazy.  Here’s a piece of advice from the Script Chix: Hollywood does not hire actors who are not good-looking.  Therefore it is entirely redundant to specify in the script that they are good looking.  It’s a given.  It doesn’t tell us WHO the character is.  And on a smaller soapbox, it limits casting.  Is it important that your heroine is blonde?  Is it important that your hero has green eyes?  Of course not.  I tried to argue once that it was, actually, important to my character that she was pretty and that it influenced who she was as a person.  But the way to go about that was not to talk about how beautiful she was.  It was to show how she acted in the scene.  I’m sure “show don’t tell” has been beaten into your brain enough by now, but it’s as true for character descriptions as it is for anything else.

Look at some screenplays from writers you admire (I’m not going to compile a list for you, that’s what research is for) and pay attention to the descriptions.  As John August says, “Look for details that have an iceberg quality: only a little bit sticks above the surface, but it represents a huge mass of character information the reader can fill in.”  Think simple, think memorable, think beyond hair color and ass shape.

First impressions are forever, make sure yours don’t suck.

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Friends on TV

Posted on 05/25/2014 by VR

“In a very real way, television is the new mythos. It defines the world, reinterprets it. The seasons do not change because Persephone goes underground. They change because new episodes air, because sweeps week demands conflagrations and ritual deaths. The television series rises slowly, arcs, descends into hiatus, and rises again with the bright, burning autumn.”
―Catherynne Valente

 

The Social Surrogacy Hypothesis sounds like an episode of The Big Bang Theory (actually it IS the name of my BBT spec, so don’t steal it), but in reality this is a very real phenomenon of psychology which says that people can form social attachments to their favorite television characters.  This research is supposedly proves why Friends really feel like your friends.  Or why someone (don’t know who, just someone, no one in particular, stop looking at me) would vow to never watch Lost again week after week as their favorite characters are methodically killed off, only to return like a moth to a bright screen.  And then repeat that with Grey’s Anatomy and then again with Game of Thrones even though I had already read the books and totally knew those people were about to die horribly.  But this isn’t about me.  I think.

This parasocial element of television has helped “Who shot JR?” and “Joanie loves Chachi” and “Yadda yadda yadda” become an ingrained part of our culture.  Studies have shown that people feel less lonely, less sad, less afraid, when their television is on.  And this is a GOOD thing.  Of course shunning the outside world to watch reruns of Gillian’s Island is probably going too far.  But, though it seems crazy, it is perfectly normal to get caught up in the imaginary lives of the Gallaghers of South Side Chicago or the Starks of Winterfell.

However, the sense of belonging, which can buffer a negative mood and even increase self-esteem, is part of the reason we love television so much.  It’s why we keep returning even though they killed off Charlie, why we cheer for Alicia even when she does something a little scummy, why we may or may not have cried just a little bit when Cam and Mitchell got married, and why if Daryl dies we riot.

So what does this mean for us as writers? (after all this is a writing blog)  It means television is all about the characters.  We start watching because of the hook, but we return because of the characters.  So when you’re working on that new pilot and thinking about your story engine and all the little plot points that will allow the series to get to episode 100, remember, it all starts and ends with the characters.  I’ll be posting a little more on television in the weeks to come, so tune in (har har.) to get some tips and trick on starting that pilot or spec.

Because admit it, you totally squealed like an eighth-grade girl when Sheldon kissed Amy.

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The cutting room

Posted on 02/20/2014 by VR

“I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”
―Truman Capote

I’m doing it.  I’m going to tear apart my favorite script to date.  Don’t be fooled by my bravado, I created a separate file to do all this tearing and cutting because I’m a giant scaredy-cat and have the same inner fear of every writer about to revise that I’m changing my baby for the worse.  Which it totally possible.

However, one thing is for sure: if I don’t tear this thing apart, it WILL NOT get better.

I hate revision.  I’m set in my ways and have a hard time seeing around what I’ve already accomplished.  But as Capote would agree, the scissors are just as important as the pencil.  Here are my tips for revision:

1) Give it away

Send you work out for someone else to read.  They will see things you did not and not see things you intended them to.  Either way, it will tell you something about your work.  Feel free to discard the suggestions you don’t think fit, but be open.  If you only believe the good and throw away the bad, your writing WILL NOT get better.

2) Walk away

Unless you have immediate ideas about how to fix things, put the project in a drawer for a while.  Come back to it after a healthy amount of time has passed and try to read it as if it were not your own.  Get some distance to get some perspective.

3) Create a new file

If you save the original work and use a new file to revise, some of the fear of “messing up” will be taken away.  In this new file you can hack, tear, and stitch with abandon.  Plus it’s much easier to move things around if you can just copy and paste from the original.

4) Walk away again

Let it sit for a week or so and then read it again.

5) Give it away again

If your readers will agree to it, have them read the revision.  By the way, when say readers I don’t mean your mother or husband.  Get some writer friends!  They’ll have more knowledge and will hopefully be honest with you.  You know you’ve found good ones when they give you excellent advice but don’t get butt-hurt if you don’t take it.

6) Take all the advice

Just for an exercise, create a new file and revise using every piece of feedback you have even if you don’t agree with it.  See what happens.  It might just open up something for you.  You can throw it away later if not.

7) Know when to stop

I could read everything I’ve written every day until the end of the world and still find something to change each time.  Know when to put your tools down and say done.

8) Proofread!

For the love of god, proofread.  Please.  Use find & replace to fix common mistakes like their/there/they’re and it’s/its, etc.  Nothing screams amateur more than spelling and grammar mistakes.  Proofread.  Seriously.  Proofread.  I’m going to say it one more time, proofread.

 

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Hacking away

Posted on 01/31/2014 by VR

“The first draft of anything is shit.”
―Ernest Hemingway

Working down from my list, I opened my dramedy (I really hate that term but I’m going to keep using it) for the first time in almost a year.  This was a pretty big surprise to me, I honestly didn’t think it had been that long, but there it was, the date next to my file read 2/21/2013.  Yikes.

Far from being like a visit from a long lost friend with whom conversation continues to flow swift as the Snoqualmie River, it was more like going back to a high reunion and realizing you hate everyone there.  I have never been to one of my reunions, so please no one take that personally.  I need to do some serious pruning on this tumbleweed of a script.

First off, I had originally had no plans of making this a low-budget film.  Most writers (not filmmakers, writers) don’t get overly bogged down in the budget of the spec they are writing.  This is big mistake.  I’ve met a ton of would-be screenwriters who tell me their movie can’t be made for less than 100 million.  I can’t think of many studios who are going to throw that kind of money at a newbie writer’s spec.  Sorry.  Of course there are exceptions, but I’m not pinning my hopes and livelihood on being the exception.  I recently made two great contacts who helped me make the decision to turn this script into a low budget piece.  One is an independent filmmaker who read one of my other, high-budget scripts and liked it enough to ask to see something lower when I had it.  Huzzah!  The other is a brilliant writer/filmmaker and my fabulous writing partner (you know who you are and I won’t divulge you until I have your permission) who actually taught me what low-budget looks like in script form.  So here are my tips and tricks which I will soon be utilizing on my script:

1) Location (not location location location)

The more locations your script has, the more expensive it is going to be to make.  This doesn’t mean it has to all take place in one diner or one cabin or one airplane (though think of all the movies that do that and turn out just fine), but if you can limit your locations, you can lower the budget.  Also think about culling exterior night scenes and public locations.

2) Action

Normally it’s show don’t tell, but in the case of the low-budget, do a little more telling.  I don’t mean you need to have eight pages of uninterrupted exposition, but avoid extending action sequences.  Which brings us to:

3) Genre

Put away your SFX and stunts and save then for another film.  This goes for period as well.

4) Cast

Pare down your cast of characters to the bare minimum.  Every character needs a actor to portray them, and actors need to be paid.  Most of the time.  Some do it for the love of cinema.  I’m kidding, they’ll want to be paid.

5) Write Something Awesome

Without all the wizz-bang of a high-budget, the script needs to be something really really amazing.  Marketable is the key word here.  High-concept is great, but what’s most important is fantastic characters, an interesting story and a plot that works.  Put ’em together and whaddya got? Something you might actually be able to sell.

__________

I know that I’m about to cut at least two main characters and five locations from my script today.  Then tomorrow I can hopefully begin to streamline my plot.  I usually don’t do things this way but this is a project I still like but know doesn’t work as it stands, so I’m excited to kill a few darlings.  Then I’ll let it sit for a while and work on my high-concept.  It’s good to mix it up sometimes.  That’s how I write.

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