ScriptFaze

Something I Wish I'd Known As A New Writer: Don't Write Scripts That Can't Be Made

A lot is made in screenwriting classes and books of the importance of a writer’s ORIGINAL VOICE. And it’s true! You don’t want to rewrite Black Swan for goodness sake, or pass on an obvious Tarantino rip-off to prospective managers or agents. You DO need to find your own muse, your own style, and your own point of view. A truly original plot will turn heads and make producers take you seriously. A great hook will get you invited in to pitch. Originality is everything, right?

Well… Sort of.

All of the above is true, but if you can learn anything from THIS writer’s mistakes, it’s important to understand that originality... Is relative.

Relative to what?

The market.

Yep. At the end of the day, filmmaking and screenwriting is a BUSINESS, and the market will only bear SO MUCH originality. Skilled screenwriters know that a great script (read: a SELLABLE script) manages to be two things at once: original AND familiar. When your script is done and out there trying to find its place in the market, producers will be looking for like-films to use as comparison-points in setting budgets, guessing revenues, and inspiring financing. For this reason ALONE it’s important that your script resemble at least a handful of previously released films—but the need for familiarity runs even deeper.

Audiences (and producers, readers, etc. by proxy) like to be surprised, like to have things turned on their head—but also want their expectations met. When they go to an action movie, audiences expect explosions, sweeping camera work, death-defying stunts. At a drama they expect tears, and at a comedy they expect laughs. Blending genres and throwing out the rules may feel revolutionary when you’re alone at your computer, but one of the first things a producer will ask himself when reading your script months later is, “does this script satisfy?” A great script will pull the rug out from under its audience—then catch them in a way that feels familiar and bring them along for the rest of the ride.

Another practical consideration in the “Don’t Write Scripts That Can’t Be Made” category is MPAA ratings. I once spent an entire summer writing a screenplay that I was sure would ‘wow’ audiences and push the envelope to the absolute edge. It was a thriller about a group of urban 13 and 14 year-olds who find themselves witnesses to a murder, and must spent a night on the run from the police and murderers alike. These kids were REAL, I told myself. They cursed, fought, had sex with other young teenagers and generally carried on like the 20 year-old gangsters they were trying to emulate. Just like real kids who’d grown up on the streets, right? I finished the script, ended up pitching it to a few companies, and finally met with one that was interested. Their first note? Make the kids 18 and 19. I made my case for keeping the characters young, but their argument was stronger: A script full of cursing pre-teens will never be made. Why? The MPAA. I had written a rated-R movie starring an age-bracket of kids that are meant to be watching PG-13. Older teens wouldn’t go see a movie starring 13 year-olds, and 13 year-olds couldn’t get into the theatre. It was valuable lesson in market realities.

So there you go. Yes—you should be original. In fact, you need be! You need to write scripts that startle and surprise, but at the same time you need to write scripts that coddle and reinforce. 

It’s a weird dichotomy, but it’s this trick—balancing the old with the new, and the worn-in-the-pants with the cutting-edge—that will determine your ultimate success and longevity as a screenwriter. Sometimes when I’m writing, I try to imagine the audience in the theatre watching my film play out—I literally try to see their faces and imagine their thoughts. I’ll ask myself—are they thrilled? Are they one step ahead of the plot, but never two or three steps ahead? Are they being surprised? And finally—are they getting the experience they were promised? The answers to all of these must be YES—or else you need to step back and recalibrate.

And, uh… Only write movies your target audience is old enough to see!

 

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Paul Haggis Interview

How to Format a TV Script

There are three dominant television genres: 

 

The sitcom.

The hour-drama.

And the TV movie (or movie-of-the-week, as they were once called).

 

Each of these of genres is formatted differently, so before you look at any format guide you'll need to decide which type of script you want to write. Recently, there's also been a resurgence of channels willing to take a risk on the lame-duck of TV genres, the half-hour drama. If you decide to go down this path, know that half-hour dramas are formatted just like hour-long dramas, but shorter. By half. 

Okay--have you chosen your format? Great! Now choose your link to the appropriate ScriptFaze Format Guide:

How to Format a TV Sitcom

How to Format a TV Drama

How to Format a TV Movie

The Screenplay CLIMAX

 

By the time we get to Act III, every screenwriter is ready for a little ACTION. If the hero’s journey through the end of Act II has been an ordeal—then chances are the WRITER’S journey up until this point has been just as stressful. You’ve been through Act I, weaving your story through the first ten pages, page 17, and the point of no return—then jumped off into the no-man’s-land of Act II, and found a way to keep your story lithe and interesting by turning your lead character ACTIVE at the midpoint. Then, after some smooth sailing, your hero seemed to have it all figured out, when WHAM—you took it all away from him and sent him CRASHING DOWN into the all-is-lost moment. What a strange, strange trip it’s been...

So what’s next? At the start of Act III, your hero will have discovered some new information that will allow him to pick himself up, dust off his knees, and keep marching forward—and this means the first ten pages of Act III are gonna move pretty quickly! Armed with a new point-of-view, your hero should be connecting dots and RACING towards a MOMENT OF TRUTH in which everything will finally come to a head. After the disaster at the end of Act II, the rules of the game may have changed for your hero—but that doesn’t mean that the ultimate confrontation he’s headed into 15-20 pages into Act III should not address the ORIGINAL conflict your character faced—just that he might have to address this conflict in a different fashion than he once intended.

Indeed, this final CLIMAX should be a thing of beauty. A stressful, anxious, awful—but totally fulfilling moment in which your PROTAGONIST finally faces off with your ANTAGONIST, and will ultimately WIN or LOSE. Whether your climax is a larger than life experience—such as when James McAvoy backs a garbage truck full of bomb-toting rats through the front gates of Morgan Freeman’s “Fraternity” and faces off with Angelina Jolie in Wanted—or a more grounded moment, such as Sophie and Stingo’s double-suicide at the end of Sophie’s Choice—ALL climaxes must accomplish TWO THINGS: They must RESOLVE the conflict between your hero and your bad-guy, and they must give CLOSURE to the hero’s emotional journey established on page 17.

Climaxes can be long or short. They can be FULL SEQUENCES, such as when Elliott springs E.T. from the back of a government van, meets his friends in the park, flies over San Fernando Valley on a BMX, and returns E.T. to his spaceship—or they can be simple scenes, like the dual-marriage at the end of Guys & Dolls. There is a lot of flexibility in how you choose to build to your climax and how you plan to pay-off your hero’s adventure—but above all else, the climax should not be ill-defined or VAGUE. This is not the time for innuendo or hints—even if you choose to pull the rug out from beneath your audience in the final moment, such as in The Usual Suspects, your audience needs to BELIEVE the story has ended in the climax, and needs to KNOW how your main characters have fared.  The climax is not about raising questions—it is about answering them.