I urge you all to read the speech.Great insight.Great wisdom.
I found one section to be particularly helpful to screenwriters.In defense of his use of a “banal platitude,” Wallace said:“the fact is that in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have a life or death importance.”
How does this apply to screenwriting?In my experience, many screenwriters look down on stories that explore so-called “Universal Truths,” themes like “Love Conquers All,” “To Thine Own Self Be True,” “With Great Power Comes Responsibility,” etc.
These messages are dismissed as clichés.Hackneyed and trite.“Banal platitudes.”
But they also happen to represent the fundamental issues that we struggle with most in the day-to-day trenches of our lives.The core questions of human existence.The stuff we care about above all else, as relevant today as in Shakespeare’s time.
To trot out yet another cliché, “clichés become clichés for a reason.”
Am I actually suggesting that aspiring screenwriters not try to thematically explore something new and original?
Yeah, I guess I kinda am.
Basically, I think that all the key questions of life, of what it really means to be human, have already been explored.(And that the very same questions will continue to be explored for as long as humanity exists.)
So, rather than try to find completely new and unique questions/themes to explore, I suggest that aspiring screenwriters instead turn to these “Universal Truths,” these “Banal Platitudes,” and strive to explore them in completely new and unique ways.Ways that speak to us, and our world, today.Ways that maybe – just maybe – will provide us new answers and/or insights into these vital and ageless issues.
Like “Eternal Sunshine of the Eternal Mind” (“Better to Have Loved and Lost Than to Never Have Loved at All”)…
And “Sideways” (“More Important Than Worldly Success is Love”)…
And “Wall-E” (“What Matters Most are the Connections We Make”)…
I could go on and on, but you get the point:Instead of trying to say something new, try to say something timeless… in a new way that speaks to us today.
Steve Mazur is a screenwriter and one of the judges for The Script-a-thon.
Yes, the sharks are moving in and there’s nary a thing you can do about it.Unless you happen to have a spare $800 million.Do you?If so, let’s talk Miramax.I confess, I have a soft spot for the Weinstein’s creation. It brought us My Left Foot, The Crying Game, The Piano, Clerks, Pulp Fiction, Kids, Basquiat, Citizen Ruth, Shakespeare in Love, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Chocolat, The Others, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Cold Mountain, No Country for Old Men, There Will be Blood, and my favorite – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.Now, these may not be your favorite indie films of all time, but who else would have greenlit these scripts?Who else would have had the TASTE to do it?Taste.Ahh… that old-fashioned word.How often to we talk about taste in the movie business?We’re so busy talkin’ BO (box office) that taste pretty much gets swooshed out the window.
So what do we get?Just look around. I hear SO MUCH complaining about the crappy movies being made.Who makes these crappy movies?Either A) people who don’t have taste and think they’re making good movies, B) people who don’t give a rat’s ass and make what they think will mesmerize the YOUNG public into spending billions, or C) corporations (yes, the big evil C) that are so convoluted by their own hierarchies that they wouldn’t know a good story from a hole in their… wall.
I just read a piece in the LA Times (I still get a hard copy, believe it or not) about the imminent takeover of Miramax from Disney by Ron Tutor, a real estate tycoon or “construction magnate” as the paper labeled him, and his semi-silent partner, David Bergstein who has left a trail of bankrupt companies in his wake. The article stated that, “Bergstein has said he is acting solely as an advisor to Tutor and an offshore investor, whom he declined to identify, in the Miramax transaction.”CREEPY! I don’t know about you, but I get the heeby jeebies when considering the prospect of selling out our movie machines to “offshore investors.”Will they have ulterior motives? Will they have an agenda that doesn’t fit my idea of a “universal voice?”
The problem is inherent to me, but perhaps it’s not a problem for others. I still believe that our movies bring messages. That they are a stealthy form of preaching to the masses whether we mean them to be or not. Even if you don’t consciously write a story with a hidden agenda, it will have a message based on your world view and personal philosophy. Unless you purposely manipulate it to say the opposite.So even that would be a conscious message.Life sucks.Life is full of hope. You pick.So why do I think it’s dangerous to give our stories into the hands of unseen foreign “creative dictators” (those who would dictate our creativity…)?
Because I believe that some of our voices would be squelched.And nobody would really know it was happening. There are ALL sorts of inventible reasons to explain why one story was greenlit and another was not.You may have a brilliant screenplay but if the “unidentified offshore investors” don’t approve the underlying message, “off with your head!”If this was only happening in one company, I wouldn’t be concerned, but I sense a trend.
Ah, but what about the old studio days?Weren’t the studios run by authoritarian dictators even in the hay day of Hollywood? Yes!But they were like magnanimous, though strict, fathers to their little film families.I know I romanticize it, but at least they were Americans and showed up to work every day and we saw their faces and they put their finger into everything and cared about every little aspect of their business.There was PASSION for storytelling and TASTE back then. Yes, I romanticize it.But lately, I’ve been renting a lot of old films and realizing what brilliant work was being made 70 years ago.Honest, authentic, seamless acting, storytelling and production. Our studio films are on shaky ground these days.They tend to be fly by night quilts barely stitched together by committees of 50 or more executives, fresh out of college trying to figure it out and answering to foreign bosses.
What’s the answer?Make a billion and start buying up the conglomerates.Break them into little pieces and break the distribution domination of the studios.Let the little guys in.Give the audience some choice.Make great films and let them be equally marketed and available. Encourage our stars to support the small quality films so they can get into the world wide marketing/distribution machine.
And let Harvey and Bob Weinstein take back their baby.I want them to keep making and distributing films.They may not always be nice people (rumor) but at least they have TASTE!
My secret screenwriting weapon?Turbo Kickboxing!It’s the place I work out all my frustrations, pump up my endorphins and remind myself that I DO indeed have some self-discipline despite my suspicions that I am a lazy lizard who just wants to hang around and play and can’t make herself write if her life depended on it.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) my life DOES depend on my writing. I have designed an ENTIRE FUTURE based on the act of consistent writing. If I don’t complete my script, I can’t convince a producer to join me and he won’t be able to help me attach my actors and I won’t get funding and I won’t direct my next film and then I won’t be able to get the next one into gear, and the next and the next.Oh, sure, I could design a different future where I didn’t have to flagellate myself for not writing for an entire week, but I don’t want that future.
Whenever I get my lazy butt to my kickboxing class and get all the way to minute 59 and 59 seconds (not that I ever watch that big clock on the north wall of the room), I am reminded that, yes, I can, dammit! Yes, I can. The only difference between writing in my quaint little local café and throwing punches in class is that there’s loud percussive music playing and a teacher who yells and cheers us on every step of the way.
I need to harness my inner Kickbox teacher/coach for my future writing bouts. Give her reign over my writing life. Let her boss me around and keep me off the internet. Wax On, Turn Internet Off.She can boot my butt in the morning when I’m groggy and the whisper of procrastination taps me on the shoulder: “maybe I’ll write tonight…” Hah!
My message to ALL writers on the planet: Exercise! Walk, run, bend, bump, grind, lift, sweat, huff and puff, bounce balls, hit balls, whack balls, dance, twist, do your warrior stance, whatever, just move your body intensely for 30 minutes or more a day. It will make you a better writer.I promise.
Why? Studies have shown -- I’m not going to quote any directly, I hate research -- that exercise raises your endorphins or serotonin or whatever those feel good chemicals are that make you a happier, brighter, more-willing-to-overlook-the-asshole-in-the-next-lane-who-just-cut-you-off person. A happier person is probably more likely to choose writing over drinking a bottle of tequila at noon and burying their face in a vat of guacamole. Save the chips.
When your body is revving, your mind tends to rev along with it. Nothing like a morning walk to wake up my brain.Sex is good too… so… sex and walking or ambulatory sex could be a really good remedy for sluggish writer brain. How many more times can I get the word sex into this blog? Does it make a difference for the search engines? Sex. Sex. Sex.
What else…? Oh yes, working out your story problems while moving... Even driving is good for this, but that’s not the point. This is one area where sex probably isn’t the best exercise to elicit story breakthroughs. (Maybe it works for you, but I believe there are certain situations in which one should really focus on one thing at a time. As a general act of courtesy, if for no other reason…)
On my countless walks in the hills, I have created dialog, worked out structure kinks, broken through logistical blockades and had out-of-the-box inspirations because of some errant bird dipping too close to my head or a dead snake on the side of the road. It’s all fodder for the imagination. With the breeze on my skin, and the sun on my head, I feel more alive and ready to tackle anything, even a plot point that’s been swimming in mud. Suddenly, the light flashes and I just know what to do.
I know writers who go to the gym to unwind, others who play racquetball every day before writing, hike, do yoga, any number of things. Then there’s the occasional geniuses I know who bend their arm drinking beer and playing poker and never get up off their ass and it just doesn’t seem to hinder their writing.
Nevertheless, move, baby, move! It will make you feel less sluggish, look less wan, be more creative, and may even improve your sex life.Most importantly, it could be the access to literary and metaphysical transcendence in your life.I kid you not.
As promised, the following is a list of sixteen deadly sins screenwriters commit that causes story analysts to cringe and write “Pass” on their coverage. There are more faux pas a writer can commit on the page, but the list below are the ones I personally dread coming across in your screenplay. I offer them in no particular order, but you should consider them all to be as equally important as the first:
1)Make your concept something I can see on a poster and pitch effectively in one sentence.
2)Don’t write a “fixer-upper” assuming that your high concept is what will sell without crafting the plot, building the characters and honing the dialogue.
3)Don’t include novel-like narrative description prose or long-winded, chunky dialogue.
4)I know within the first ten pages if a screenplay is going to be a PASS or a CONSIDER. Make your first ten pages bullet proof.And all the pages thereafter.
5)Know the difference between “their,” “there,” and “they’re.” Or “your,” “yore,” and “you’re,” for that matter.
6)PROOFREED! (sic)
7)Learn proper script formatting or invest in screenwriting software that does it for you.
8)Don’t try to type out a scream, e.g., “Aaaaarrrrgghhhh!” or “Eeeeeeeeeeeeek!” or “Noooooooooo!” How inadvertently comic is that? Instead, in the narrative description just say, “She screams.”
9)Don’t impart character traits, back story, or your character’s interior thoughts in the description that a movie audience couldn’t see in the action or hear in the dialogue.
10)It’s called “motion picture” for a reason – please include cinematic visual story action to put on the screen that helps the plot to progress.
11)Be consistent with your character’s name. Don’t sometimes call him by his first name in dialogue and sometimes by his last name in the narrative description. Confuses the hell out of me. Especially if you’ve given me twenty side characters to track.
12)Don’t rely on a verbal info-dump to catch your audience up to speed after some complex plotting. If you have to explain your twist or reveal after the fact via dialogue, it’s not a good twist or reveal.
13)Never use the word “strut.” (Okay. Admittedly, that’s just a reader pet peeve of mine – all professional readers have them - but seriously I’ve never read a good script that had the word “strut” in it. Unless you are referring to a turkey or John Travolta walking down the street in SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, nothing else on this planet realistically struts. Strutting = Ridiculous)
14)It may sound silly, but most readers who get a script submission that has three brads rather than two brads holding the pages together instantly know they are dealing with a newbie writer. Luckily, since most scripts are now .pdf-ed around town, the “brad factor” doesn’t come into play much anymore. But if you are going to use brads, please use the very tough, large ones, and not the flimsy, baby brads that cause your script to come apart in my hands and makes me “Aaaaarrrrgghhhh!” in frustration.
15)Don’t make me use any of the following words in my comments about your story: “contrived,” “convoluted,” “verbose,” “superfluous,” “extraneous,” “pedestrian,” or “on the nose (too obvious).”
And finally…
16)A screenplay that is over 125 pages is usually an automatic pass just on general principal.Please don’t recite James Cameron’s screenplay page lengths to me as your defense for writing your 178-page magnum opus… James Cameron overwrites his screenplays because he knows he’s going to direct them and edit out huge chunks of the story in post. Plus, he’s James Cameron.
So there you have it. Sixteen (count ‘em, 16!) sins to avoid committing in your own screenplay to help make story analysts want to suggest to their executives that s/he stop what they are doing and read your script NOW. I WANT that to happen for you. I WANT you win multiple Oscars. I really do. Because I’m on your side, remember? I’m rooting for you.
I’ve been a freelance and union story analyst (fancy term for “reader”) for studios and production companies and a story consultant for private clients in Hollywood for the past sixteen years.Like a hockey goalie, I’m usually the first defense against the deluge of screenplays, graphic novels, writing samples, teleplays, treatments and books that writers, agents and managers attempt to slap-shot by me and into the net for a score. It’s my job to block most submissions from being read by my client, the buyer. Don’t hate me. I’m saving you from some of the worst films on the planet. I should wear a cape.
Here’s how it works. I read the submission in question, which can be as thick as the new Stephen King manuscript or as slight as a pile of newspaper column clippings, as was the case when I evaluated SEX AND THE CITY as a possible film or TV series. Yes, I have to read every page; I’m the only one in the company who has to. I write story coverage on the material (two pages of synopsis and one solid page of comments) evaluating the material’s merits or lack thereof, what is right or wrong with the story, whether it is visual enough, strengths and weaknesses of the writing, the plot’s commercial viability and marketing potential – basically, I decide whether anyone else in the company should bother to read it.
As a story analyst, my job is to keep my executives from reading as much as possible while also preventing that rare gem of a script from slipping through the proverbial cracks. My job description means I’ve read literally thousands of scripts in my career thus far. Most of them will never flicker to life on a theater screen at a cineplex near you, or even light up your flat screen TV as a straight-to-DVD. Not just because I say so, but because story analysts like me all over town wherever those scripts were shopped concurred with my assessment in their coverage for their buyers, too.
A smattering of the scripts I read are good.As I’ve already labored to death, many more of them are bad.Some are awful – seriously, like, the “give me some bleach to scrub my eyes” kind of awful. But do you know what the overwhelmingly vast majority of screenplays I read are?Average. Mediocre. Pedestrian. Commonplace. Nothing is terribly wrong with them. But nor is anything particularly right about them. They simply fail to stand out, to shine. While the writing itself may be technically proficient, the mediocre script always offer marginal or derivative concepts with by the numbers plotting and generic characters we’ve all seen before. Shrug.Next.
I have three choices when passing judgment on someone’s literary baby that they spent days, weeks and months writing. I can PASS on a script, meaning the executive can thank me – I’ve just saved them two hours of reading (and two hours of coverage writing) that I’ll never get back.I can CONSIDER a script – meaning, hey looky here! There’s something here in terms of strong writing, characters and concept that warrants a closer look. Lots of those make it to the big screen and are money-earners for my clients. I can also RECOMMEND a script, meaning, STOP whatever you’re doing and read this script NOW because it’s likely going to sell before the day is out, plus I’d pay money out of my own pocket to see this film get made! In sixteen years with my LASIKed eyes on thousands of spec scripts, guess how many times I’ve put “RECOMMEND” on story coverage. Go ahead, guess. That’s right. Twice. They won multiple Oscars.
That’s why every time I pick up a script, I WANT to love it. I WANT to find the company’s next hit. Plus, reading good scripts is simply a lot more fun than reading dreadful ones. So, clearly, I’m on the writer’s side. I’m rooting for you to submit a good screenplay. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it. In my next blog I’ll give you some random tips and even some story analyst pet peeves to keep your script from falling into the “average,” “mediocre,” “bad,” or “pass the bleach awful” categories on my story coverage.
Marie Rose holds a Master of Arts degree in Theater from The University of Texas at El Paso and is an American Film Institute Directing Workshop for Women alumna who has written, produced and directed award-winning short films starring such talent as Dakota Fanning (FATHER XMAS, iTunes International Shorts).As a proud member of IATSE Local 700 story analysts guild, Marie’s clients have included such studios as Disney, MGM and production companies such as Regency, Village Roadshow, Scott Stuber Co., Icon Production, Disney Channel and more.A published children’s author (PRINCESS SILVER TEARS AND ONE FEATHER, Ocean Front Books, 2007), Marie is also a past recipient of The Walt Disney Fellowship in Screenwriting for her first screenplay, DIVINE INTERVENTION.In 2009, Marie competed and was selected for participation in the Producers Guild of America's Diversity Workshop where she developed her original reality TV concept, THE HIGH ROLLER, under the expert guidance of seasoned, working non-fiction producers and show runners. Recently, Marie's new sexy comedy feature spec, FRENCHING, was unanimously named "Best Romantic Comedy" by Gotham Screen Festival judges. www.indierosefilms.com
You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.
My Dad sent me an email the other day that contained a link to a speechgiven by Steve Jobs to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University. In it, Jobs relates three stories from his life, each of which seemed like a major setback at the time, but which eventually led him to bigger and better things. One of the stories was about getting fired from Apple, the company he started in his parent's garage when he was a 20-year-old college drop-out. It was devastating for him, but it also led him to one of the most creative periods in his life.
It reminded me of the time I got fired. Of course, the company I got fired from was not one that I had started, nevertheless the experience was a major blow. I was working in publishing as a managing editor at a small boutique firm in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. It was as close as I'd ever gotten to a 'dream job' -- basically being paid to be a writer, or more accurately, to rewrite other writers. I was working in a creative field with other creative people. No more temping in law firms for me! I was beginning an actual career. Like a real adult.
Or so I thought.
When the three book series I'd been working on was finished -- on time and under budget thanks to my tireless efforts -- my usefulness at the small company came to an end. Several lame explanations were offered for my dismissal, but the plain truth was they didn't want to keep paying me what I was worth when they could easily find some young kid to do the job at half the pay. Which they did.
So I was out on my ass. And the economy was bad. I reluctantly reapplied to the temp agencies, but they had diddly. I tried to shop one of my book ideas, a parody of the Twelve-Step Program called The Twelve Shleps, but was told that Twelve-Steppers wouldn't find it funny.
I was unemployed and out of ideas. I had too much time on my hands and nothing to do. I spent long days exploring New York City from top to bottom -- from The Cloisters to Coney Island -- discovering whole new worlds in hidden places. I walked all over Brooklyn and spent hours in Prospect Park, the Botanic Garden, and the Brooklyn Public Library. It was actually a pretty amazing time. I came to love New York more than ever and really feel at home there.
Meanwhile, I had a roommate who was working in the movie business and would bring home screenplays from whatever movie he was working on. I picked one up one day and read it in one sitting. And from that moment I was hooked. I'd been interested in movies all my life, but it wasn't till then that I realized that all I needed to make a movie was pen and paper. Well, not a pen, actually, a computer. And I didn't really need the paper right away. What I needed was an idea.
I thought about all of my favorite stories growing up: James Bond, Robin Hood, Sherlock Holmes, King Arthur... I loved the story of Arthur and Merlin most of all. My high-school girlfriend had given me a copy of The Once and Future King and it had always held special meaning for me. And the Disney cartoon The Sword in the Stone had long been a favorite. Employing one of the screenwriter's most valuable tools, I began thinking "what if..." What if Merlin were to show up in modern day New York? My New York. What would he think? How would he react? How would New York react to him? One thing I knew -- it would definitely be a comedy.
I began by doing tons and tons of research. I read everything ever written about Merlin and King Arthur, from Geoffrey of Monmouth to Tennyson to the excellent series by Norma Lorre Goodrich. I prowled the Brooklyn Library and the New York Public Library for information on dragons, magic, Celtic symbolism, ley lines, chivalry, Avalon, and dozens of other topics. I couldn't get enough. The more I learned the more I wanted to learn. I had taken to heart the words spoken by Merlin to Arthur in The Once and Future King: "Learn why the world wags and what wags it."
All the while, I continued to explore New York, the city of never-ending discoveries. I went to a renaissance fair at Fort Tryon Park to see a mock joust and witnessed a Merlin figure dressed in a purple robe practicing tai chi with a beautiful polished wooden sword. I came upon a Wiccan circle in the middle of Prospect Park, celebrating the pagan holiday of Ostara. I wandered through Central Park and beheld a vision of the Grail Castle, a winged dragon hovering over its entrance.
I became fascinated with Stonehenge and the concept of ley lines, imagining that these magical energy pathways that ran through the earth's surface were somehow connected both to Merlin and the dragons -- and that Stonehenge was the vortex of their power. Then one day, while investigating Celtic symbols, I found a drawing depicting a dragon beneath the surface of Stonehenge, just as I had imagined. I was blown away -- this idea I thought I had conjured up on my own was right there in front of me in black and white. I called the person who created the graphic and explained how my vision quest had led me to the discovery of his artwork. He chuckled and said, "you're just on the brink of a much larger world."
As it turns out, he was right, although I don't think in the way he meant it. What I was on the brink of was the world of screenwriting. I took all of my research and distilled it into a story of a young man who goes to England and stumbles into a crystal cave where he awakens Merlin from a magic spell -- then returns to New York and finds that it wasn't all a dream, and that Merlin has followed him home and chosen him to be his next pupil.
I wrote several drafts, and each time I did, it seemed that the events I created in my story were being recreated in my real life. Soon after writing a scene where my main character gets mugged, I got mugged. I wrote a sequence where two knights on horseback are jousting on the Brooklyn Bridge and the next day I saw Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland dressed as cowboys riding horses across the Manhattan Bridge. Likewise, the things I experienced in my life were finding their way into the script -- the tai chi sword master, my trip to the Cloisters, the Grail Castle in Central Park. I got so wrapped up in my story that I never wanted it to end. It was a whole new world.
Eventually I decided to enter a contest, thus giving myself a deadline. I finished the script and sent it off, fully expecting to hear from Steven Spielberg any minute. I didn't win the contest, though, and I never heard from Spielberg. But that didn't deter me. I was already researching my second script -- based on my love of the Sherlock Holmes stories -- and was reading everything ever written on the subject. And loving every minute of it.
I finished the second script a lot faster than the first. And I even attracted the attention of a William Morris agent. I was on my way now. I had proven that I wasn't just a 'one hit wonder' and that I had material with commercial appeal. And I already had a third idea, about a guy who fantasizes about being James Bond. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to move to Hollywood.
I still don't know where this path is leading, but looking back I am able to connect some of the dots. Getting fired from that publishing 'dream job' gave me the freedom to pursue a passion that has kept me inspired ever since I read that first script. And lately, I have only become more inspired. I know there are more 'dots' on the horizon. I just haven't connected them yet.
Take a minute and think... Does my screenwriting software have character?
Don't balk at the questions, it's serious! And no, I don't mean character in the traditional sense. I mean - how does your software help you form your characters?
Your software DOESN'T help you form your characters? You must not be using Movie Outline.
With Movie Outline, not only can you keep your character information organized and easily accessible, you can also develop DEEPER, more interesting characters.
The software gives you character prompts, and forces you to think about your characters in a whole new way.
For instance, in the CHARACTER BIO section, Movie Outline asks a ton of questions about each character in your script.
Questions like:
How does Joe feel about his mom and dad?
and
Was Joe a popular child?
and
What is the most traumatic thing to ever happen to Joe?
Really help form the character in your head before you even start writing. I had never considered conducting such in depth 'interviews' with my characters before, but they truly help flesh out individuals into interesting, deep characters.
And then for every step of the way, the software continues to keep you on track. Asking questions like: What does your character need in this step? And... What are the characters motivations in this step? ... the software almost acts like a writing partner. It's there to help guide you and keep you honest throughout the long and often grueling writing process.
Character bios and arcs and interviews are an oft overlooked step for most writers, but it can really help smooth the writing process.
Although a lot of this character stuff won't make it into your actually screenplay, it informs you, the writer, about what makes that character tick! And the better you know your characters, the more familiar and identifiable they will seem to an audience or reader
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