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

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

Check it out! http://www.movieoutline.com 

Ask any East Coast transplants, and we’ve all got a different story.  Some flew to LA and some drove. Maybe others took a bus or a train. But probably not.

Anyway, Chelsea and I drove. Thus, if you ask us about ‘coming to LA’, we’ll inevitably launch into the story of our drive over here.  If you’re considering the drive, read carefully, for there is much to be learned here…maybe. Okay.

 Probably not.

 We left in early September with two comedy screenplays, 3 original TV pilots, and seven or so spec TV scripts packed up and ready to go.  Yes, in retrospect, these samples all seem kind of terrible. But if we knew in August 2009, that in May 2010, we’d think our work was terrible, we’d still have left. Most likely because we wouldn’t believe our future selves. But also maybe because we’d realize that being in LA taught us so much in so little time (hello to future, future selves, realizing how little we know in May 2010….DIE YOU!...wait, please don’t die…okay good.)

 But that’s all I’m gonna write about screenwriting in this post, because this post is about our JOURNEY. And don’t roll your eyes at that. This is one of the rare contexts where the word ‘journey’ isn’t cheesy and overwrought.

 We left NY, drove through Pennsylvania (lots of corn) and didn’t stop until we hit Eastern Ohio. We spent the night in a typical American highway town. We could have eaten at Applebee’s or Chili’s or Wal-Mart if we wanted, but we’re too cheap, so we ate Domino’s on the bed.

Left the next morning and drove to Chelsea’s home town of MIDDLETOWN (?) Ohio.  Chelsea grew up here until she was nine, so it was nice to see it.  Lots of corn. As Chelsea continued to eat Dominos (out of the trunk, in the summer, I know…) we went to Oxford, Ohio.  Met Chelsea’s friend. Bought some blue Sparks, cuz they don’t sell ‘em in NY any more. That Sparks is actually still in the fridge now. We’re not big drinkers. I begged Chelsea to let us crash one of the classrooms at Univ. Miami Ohio, but she said no. So that sucked. I still think it would have been fun. They would have never known that we weren’t really students and we would have been stealing learning!!!!!!

Did I mention that we’re not big drinkers?

Okay. So from Ohio, we drove through Indiana (…corn) and into Illinois, where we stayed with Chelsea’s family friends.  They live in very, very rural Illinois.  And they are quite nice.  A bit quirky, but incredibly friendly, happy people.

Their neighbors, however, burn garbage in the streets/their backyards. And leaves, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Oh yeah, they cook lots of meth and like to hang out at the gun club down the road, too. 

I think I’ll stop there for now. Half way through our oddly jagged cross-country journey. The gun club is kind of a cliff hanger, I know. Don’t bite your nails too far down, though.  We’ll be back soon with more.

by Anne

For those of you who have followed my blogs on MovieMaker.com, you know me as a mostly tongue-in-cheeker. I confess, I get much more satisfaction from making people laugh than from making them frown or cry. OK, crying is pretty damn cool. I MADE YOU CRY WITH MY IMAGINATION!!!! Hot dog! Sort of on the sick side, I will admit.

This particular blog is serious. I’m going to share a little revelation I had on my twilight walk tonight at the risk of sounding corny. I’m secretly a mush ball. Maybe not so secretly. Don’t misunderstand me  –  I do have a streak of cynicism running deep through my veins. I’m not giving it up. It’s the flip side of my innocence and keeps me balanced and able to deal with the realities of the world and Hollywood.

So I was on my walk in the hills of Sherman Oaks. I rounded a curve and looked up at a tall pine and saw an owl perched quietly above me. I heard a chorus of birds all around. A breeze tickled my skin and I walked on in a state of wonder. As I gazed up around me at the variety of flowering trees, I realized that my mouth was gaping wide open and my eyes were like giant flying saucers.  I shook myself out of my reverie and realized I was walking around in awe. In awe of the world. I just hoped none of the neighbors saw me.

I thought about it and came to the conclusion that this ability to be a kid, staring at the world in wonder and amazement, is what has allowed me to survive thus far. It’s also the key to my ability to write well.

I think it’s what makes any writer a good writer. We are able to approach our characters with endless curiosity, to tap into new worlds and be fascinated with everything we create. Hmmm…. I wonder how they are going to meet… what does he do for a living… how am I going to make him really miserable and give up all hope before I give him a little reason to love again…

It’s this constant game of make believe that arouses our desire to play, to write.

If your mind is busy trying to figure out when the next plot point is coming and how to make this a role that Robert Downey Jr. will play and how to bump it into the $20 million range, and how do I skew this scene so Warner Brothers/Paramount/Disney will read it, then your imagination is pretty much screwed. I think you’ve taken 10 steps out of Wonderland.

Many will beg to differ, I’m sure. “Have your eyes on the prize” they’ll trumpet. Know where the endgame is and you can target your story more powerfully. Well. Look at any of the best films in the last year and I would say no studio exec or writer could have predicted its existence in the upper echelons. The road to Hollywood is so complex that nobody can truly chart it for you.

OK, there are parameters to follow. Broad ones. A comedy needs to be f***ing funny. A romance needs to be romantically satisfying. A drama better make us feel something deep and true. They ALL better make us feel something deep and true. No matter how silly they may be. People go to movies to feel something. They may not know that’s what they are doing, but I will stand by that statement! Why else spend 100 minutes in someone else’s imaginary world? If it’s education, go watch a documentary.

Fiction = Feeling.

So… what was the point of all this? I want to encourage my writer comrades to let your wonder invade your life. Let it pervade your writing world. Celebrate it and share it with everyone. Or keep it secret and safe, but let your characters embrace it. At least one of them can be that child in you, excited by life, eager to create something, surprised by everything new, gawking at an owl on a branch in a tree in the breeze.

Recently, I've been writing a 'not quite screenplay' with Chelsea. Basically, it's a series of conversations between two people.


Each conversation is essentially it's own 'short film'.  But for ease of use, we're writing all of this in one document. And we're writing, rewriting, and editing each short with ease.


But how, you might wonder, could you possibly edit all that without a terrible struggle?


And the answer, is MOVIE OUTLINE SOFTWARE.


With Movie Outline, we can use 'steps' to name and organize each short into it's own little area of the script. We can then click to any section (while looking at our script) and be taken there immediately.


For those of you that go back and re-write your stuff often, you must be entranced by this capability.


In the past, we had to CONTROL F and search for a specific word to jump around in our script. But with Movie Outline, we can stay organized without having to memorize our script like the back of our hand.


With Movie Outline, we stay organized and edit without any worry at all. And this function is useful for screenplays too! Use it to organize your story beats and edit back and forth.  


Movie Outline -- both for writing and outlining, and helpful with all types of projects.

Ask around, and most will tell you..."If you wanna be a screenwriter, move to LA!" Then the guy behind that guy will probably say..."Nah. You can write from anywhere."

The tricky part is that both of those things are true...technically...but throughout this event, Chelsea and I plan to write installments of why we think the former is a more compelling 'truth'.  We'll write about the many facets of what it took to get us out here, the drive from NY to California, and why being here has been such a rewarding experience.

This, being the first installment, will start at the beginning...long, long ago...in February 2009.  if you close your eyes and think hard enough, you might just be able to see us, joyful and drunk on naivete...and also whiskey.  Just kidding. We are, however, naiveteaholics (recovering). Alright, enough smug.

So...February was basically the month we decided that we wanted to be screenwriters. A bit late in the collegiate game, perhaps, but UNI came through in the bottom of the ninth and delivered a fulfilling and rewarding career prospect, so we clung (and are still clinging...) to it.

But at this point, we were totally into writing TV Specs. We had just finished up a killer office spec (something about Michael befriending a homeless man, I think) and, conveniently enough, Office writer/producer/temp extraordinairre, BJ Novak, was coming to Duke to do standup.

Well.  KNOCK. KNOCK. Said opportunity.  So we opened the door.  Unwittingly, we opened in our underwear, with food cooking on the stove-top, in the middle of a heated argument, but we opened the door nonetheless. Hey - there have been crazier 'breaking in' stories than this! Bugger off, callous cynics!

So we packed up our spec and headed to the theater. In the rain. Three hours before Novak was set to perform. We hoped for a glimpse, but got nary a whiff.

Fortunately for us, however, he held a 'meet 'n greet' after the show. In this, awkward speed-dating-like situation, we were to be the balding dude, and Novak, the stunning beauty. Still, it was better than nothing.

After a brief wait, there we were. Chelsea did the talking. Or mumbling. Then I stepped in. This has been the trend for four years and counting, and we worked it like old pros. 

But it all came to an abrupt finish when Novak informed us that he could not legally read the episode of the Office we were ever-so-gently forcing upon him. Still...he was nice. And cool. And OMG OMG so like...totally a real person.  And he gave us his contact info and said we seemed like...gasp...smart kids...and we could contact him when we got out to LA and, and, and...You are planning on moving to LA right, smart kids?

We looked at each other. Somehow, this point had managed to escape our grand plans.

"You've gotta move to LA if you're serious." Said BJ.

And there you have it. The wheels of our cross country lunatic loco-motive were in motion. WE'VE GOTTA MOVE TO LA! IT'S HOT THERE! SWEET!

URL in next week for the next chapter in the saga...finding an apartment! And it's a nice one. Except for our upstairs neighbors. They suck.

p.s. BJ, we're still waiting for the return call, but we don't expect it anytime soon. Thanks for the advice, though. LA rocks.