Schellhardt Laura. Screenwriting for Dummies
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
The list isn’t meant to overwhelm you, though it may, or to make you feel
ignorant in any one area. Its purpose is to challenge you to search beyond
what you already know. Researching any one of these fields grants a writer
unending possibilities, it broadens his talent pool, and it forces the imagina-
tion to question, What if? What if you wrote about the Berlin wall? What if
you set your story in England after the plague? Which angle would you take?
Which story would you choose? Remember that everything you learn informs
your work.
If an idea still eludes you, consider the following four arenas. Most stories
spring from one of these sources:
Current events: Glance through the paper, listen to public radio, or watch
the evening news. You find yourself besieged with story possibilities. Seek
out unlikely sources as well. The obituaries and the classified ads suggest
both quirky characters and lives worth celebrating. The controversial
film Munich was clearly based on the Munich Massacre. The Pursuit of
Happyness is based on the real life story of Chris Gardner, who went from
being homeless to running his own brokerage firm.
Fiction: These stories emerge almost entirely from the writer’s imagina-
tion. They may materialize as original human adventures like All About
Eve or The Royal Tenenbaums, or they may take on some new world
altogether as in Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings. In this type
of film, the characters and structures in place may be loosely based on
the human experience, but details of location and culture remain unique.
Historical accounts: History provides some of the most compelling sto-
ries. The events are generally documented in some form and may suggest
characters and pivotal events right away. A quick glance through articles,
criticism, personal letters, journal entries, literature, and art of the time
may also suggest language and images that will be crucial to your piece.
Such movies as Gone with the Wind, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Gladiator,
and many others capitalize on historical sources.
Personal experience: Here’s where the old adage “Write what you know”
comes in. Situations that you’ve lived through or that have been handed
down to you are often easy to envision and already hold personal mean-
ing. The characters, usually based on people you have an intimate
knowledge of, tend to emerge quickly as well. The challenge is to extend
the event’s significance beyond your own experience and create charac-
ters that differ from the real people. Erin Brockovich is based on one
woman’s life, as are the Bridget Jones films. Neil Simon and Woody
Allen are also notorious for writing comedies based on their lives.
Fictional stories require a writer to concoct the details from scratch and,
therefore, require a slightly different approach. I refer to original plot devel-
opment in Chapters 6, 7, and 8. The other three sources, though — historical
accounts, current events, and personal experience — involve actual happen-
ings, so your approach to those stories may be similar. Start by asking the
following questions:
42
Part I: So You Want to Write for Pictures
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 42
What exactly do I know about the account? Record as many details as
you can recall. Where did it take place, and during what period of time?
How did it start and end? Who was directly involved and/or affected?
What is your sense of the account — was it funny, tragic, foreboding,
awe-inspiring, intimate, or epic? The more you can record now, the
easier it will be to assess what kind of research or dream work you’ll
need to do later on.
How reliable are my sources? Historical documentation is often recorded
from a point of view. The plantation owner’s account of slavery, for exam-
ple, would be far different from that of a slave. Family stories are similar in
this regard. Most people only remember events as they were personally
affected by them. Finally, these days the media often choose sensation
over strict fact when composing a report. Check your sources and check
their particular bias. If you can only locate one side to the story, imagine
another.
What don’t I know? Even after extensive research, your story will
undoubtedly have holes. Consider this dilemma to your advantage as
you can dream up some action to fill those gaps. The most compelling
scripts often emerge from events you know little about. Why? Because
unanswered questions are the heart of drama. They create mystery,
and they demand that the writer dream up some answers.
What interests me most about the event? The answer to this question
will keep you writing long after the novelty of the idea has worn off.
Often, the most intriguing portions of an idea are those that you know
the least about or those that elicit some strong emotion — fear, confu-
sion, anger, awe, and so on. This is your angle on the story, and it’s what
makes it unique.
What interests me least? This question will help you edit or pare down
your script. Taking on an entire event is difficult, and doing so often
weakens the effect of any one storyline. The Queen, for example, follows
Queen Elizabeth II’s life at the time surrounding Princess Diana’s death. It
does not tackle her childhood, her early years or much after the funeral;
that would be an impossible film to sit through. After you know what
details interest you least, imagine how the story shifts without them.
Creating a script based on real events is a common but nonetheless challeng-
ing process. A precarious balance exists between preserving the essence of a
situation and crafting an original version of the story. You want to maintain
the integrity of a historical moment while raising it above the facts and into
the heightened realm of drama. The artist’s right to dramatize and shape real
events around a specific purpose is known as artistic license. When employing
artistic license, you’re using real events as a blueprint for a largely fictional
work.
When tackling real events, you should consider the following at all times:
43
Chapter 4: Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 43
Your emotional distance from the event
Your personal judgment of the proceedings
A strong, emotional involvement with a subject may enhance or destroy your
script. It often impairs a writer’s clarity and the clarity of the final product.
Here’s the test: Can you imagine changing key elements of these people —
their opinions, their fates, their genders — if necessary? If you can’t imagine
changing them, don’t write them yet. You should be able to see the people in
your script as characters that you can alter to fit your ultimate design. Also,
don’t judge the characters in advance, or you unwittingly delegate an audi-
ence to the role of passive observer rather than active participant. In other
words, don’t create good or evil characters; create human beings that per-
form good or evil actions. Let audiences judge for themselves.
Identifying your writing voice
The term writing voice is often used interchangeably with the word style, yet
they differ in one small regard. Your writing voice determines what catches
your attention and what you want to communicate. Style refers to the tech-
niques and language you choose to communicate with. Your voice stems
from imagination; style stems from knowledge of craft.
You already possess an artistic voice. It’s the result of your life experiences
thus far, and it will alter as you experience more. Unsure of what that voice
sounds like? Try answering the following questions. The answers may sug-
gest your unique way of viewing the world.
What subjects are you drawn to and why?
What kind of stories do you pursue? Comic or tragic? Supernatural?
Realistic or surreal? Romantic?
What is the scope of the stories you’re drawn to? Intimate, epic, familial?
How do your stories reveal themselves? Through character, dialogue,
image, or an equal mixture of the three?
What kind of language do you use when expressing yourself? Poetic,
terse, lengthy, mysterious?
How do you move from one image to the next? Chronologically or out of
sequence? Quickly or in slow motion? Do images blend together or cut
back and forth?
What patterns, if any, exist in your previous works? Consider works of
any kind; don’t limit yourself to writing works.
Every writer experiences and expresses a subject in a unique way. The result?
Many different films about roughly the same subject. Consider this scenario: A
woman is sitting at a window table in a coffee shop. She’s reading a book and
44
Part I: So You Want to Write for Pictures
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 44
drinking espresso. She twirls a pen in her right hand between sips and occa-
sionally glances up to scan the street before retreating back to her book.
Hand this image to three screenwriters, and you’ll end up with three diverse
scenes. One writer begins with the image of the hand twirling the pen and
then slowly moves up the arm to the eyes staring out at the street. Another
writer pays close attention to the book itself, zipping from the blue cover to
the title to the first page, keeping the woman’s face in shadow. The third writer
reveals the whole scene at once, allowing the audience to guess the situation.
All approaches stem from one image, yet they differ in several distinct ways:
The order in which details are revealed
Color
Texture
Light and shadow
Pace between details
The proximity to the subject
While I caution the writer against adding camera directions to your work, you
should certainly think like a camera in scripting your images. Images are the
initial components of style, and it doesn’t hurt to begin tracing them through
your own story ideas now. How would you have revealed this image? A note
of caution, though: Voice and style are not something to lose sleep over. If
you continue to test your imagination, if you continue to read and reflect and
question, they’ll take care of themselves.
45
Chapter 4: Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft
The imagination project
I find newspaper headlines useful in many
ways — from story suggestions, to plot twists,
to revision work. They’re also grand for
strengthening the imagination.
I list five unrelated headlines below. Choose the
one that catches your attention first. Don’t think
too hard in making your decision; the first
choice is usually the instinctual favorite and the
place to start. After you’ve settled on a headline,
let your imagination twist it into one solid image.
Who or what is in the image, where are they,
and what might be going on?
“A Pardon For Walter Burnett”
“Dinosaurs Flock To The Field”
“Ice Cream Social Gets the Cold Shoulder”
“Ten Saved, Three Still Out There”
“Diamonds Missing From Local Ballpark”
Created an image? Great. Now imagine an audi-
ence in a darkened theater. You’re about to show
them this image. How will you do it? Concoct at
least three versions of this moment, bearing in
mind the elements of style: color, texture, the
order of details and the pace between them, light
and shadows, and the proximity to the subject.
Record each version and compare. Which one do
you like best? Though predominantly a project for
your imagination, you may also discover some-
thing about your writing voice in the process.
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 45
Craft: A Vehicle for Your Imagination
After you’ve defined talent and discovered how to access it, the more difficult
work can now begin.
As I suggest in the “Imagination: Your Creative Arsenal” section, earlier in this
chapter, there is a difference between a talented individual and a writer. That
difference is known as craft. Craft acts as a shuttle between the idea and the
finished screenplay; it’s how you get from one part of the process to the
other. I may harbor many imaginative ideas on how to build the perfect car,
but I wouldn’t try until I’d taken Automotives 101. The same is true of writing.
Ideas do not a screenplay make. You need a sense of craft.
So what is craft exactly? Or rather, what does it involve? On a general level, it
can be broken down into three elements: form, technique, and discipline.
Form
Form refers first to the dramatic structure of the work you’re creating. Films
generally require a clear beginning, middle, and end — though they’re not
always revealed in that order. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for
example, bounces between past and present, as the characters’ memories
are slowly erased. The three parts of the story still exist in this film; they just
exist in a different order.
Form also refers to the script’s technical format. Novels exist in chapters or
lengthy portions separated by jumps in time or narrator. Plays exist in scenes
or vignettes arranged in a particular way on the page. Screenplays are gener-
ally divided into three acts with particular attention to font type, page layout,
and length. Having a concrete knowledge of both dramatic structure and
screenwriting format is important. While your formatting should remain con-
sistent, you may eventually stray from traditional story structure. However,
learn the basics first. They tend to work. I talk more about both parts of form
in Part II.
Technique
Even without a definition for craft, you probably know a well-crafted film
when you see one. In such scripts, the writer demonstrates an ease with any
or all of the following elements:
Action
Character depiction and growth
46
Part I: So You Want to Write for Pictures
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 46
Choice of location
Conflict
Description
Dialogue
The manipulation of theme
The use of time
Technique refers to the “how” of all these elements. There are as many ways
to reveal any one of them as there are types of films. For example, if your
story’s main event involves a murder in high society, will you underplay its
effects in favor of character development à la Gosford Park? Will you use it
to generate the comic mockumentary style of a film like Waiting for Guffman?
Or will you write another Illusionist and spend your time discovering how
magic will help your protagonist and his love escape the Empire that entraps
them?
How you tell your story is infinitely more important than what’s being told. In
the hands of a less skilled writer, the quiet family drama You Can Count On
Me would hold little impact. As it stands, the characters’ ordinary dreams are
portrayed in such extraordinary ways that the story feels as important as any
epic. It’s all in how a writer conveys information. I detail each of the listed
story elements individually in Chapters 6 through 10.
However, I should detail three elements of technique now. They are the foun-
dations of clear writing — dramatic and otherwise — and they affect all
elements of a story. They are
Vocabulary
Grammar
Organization
Consider these items your assets, your big guns, so to speak. Strive to master
each, if for no other reason than that they help you control your stories. Have
a clear idea but no clear thought on how to express it? A knowledge of these
three items can help.
Vocabulary
As a writer, a limited vocabulary thwarts your ability to travel. Think about it.
Want to travel to Britain for your film about the bourgeoisie? How will you
craft the characters without a sense of language? If a lord opens his mouth in
the first scene and says, “Hey guys, like, what’s going on?” you’re sunk. Look
at verbal masters like Spike Lee. He realistically conveys multiple ethnicities
and educational backgrounds through the vocabularies of his main charac-
ters alone.
47
Chapter 4: Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 47
It never hurts to have a running list of writers and the words they brandish. I
encourage you to sift through writers of all types when compiling your own
collection. If you’re looking for words with a poetic lilt and a Southern bent,
Tennessee Williams is your man. Want your language terse and intense?
Looking for socially minded vulgarity? Read David Mamet. And for one- and
two-syllable words that resound together with ten times their individual
worth, read Robert Frost. This list acts as a reference guide should you need
a quick lesson in one vocabulary or another. That way, if you do write a film
on the British bourgeois society, you’ll know to read Charles Dickens.
Learn to love words — words like baggage, scrumptious, contrivance, wicked,
daft, okey-doke, crackers, keen, wily, and winsome, to name a few of my
favorites. Each one packs a different wallop (another great word). Respect
their differences, respect what they do, and accrue as many as you can. You
should always have a dictionary and a thesaurus nearby, either in book or
Internet form. The more you know, the more places you can go.
Grammar
Ah, the dreaded grammar. For many people, it conjures up visions of high
school, pop quizzes, and extended hours in front of a chalkboard. If this
image is what you see, don’t worry. Does it help to have a comprehensive
understanding of our language and its structure? Yes. Should you bolster
your grammatical skill? Probably. Can you write scripts even if you scraped
through high school English? Yes. You just need to know the basics. Because
books on grammar abound, I offer you a few beginning tips:
Differentiate between character voice and scenic description: Few
people speak in grammatically correct English, and it’s a good thing.
You’d be bored to tears if they did. Your characters will speak in differ-
ent ways, with different grammatical structures. Write them as you hear
them; don’t get hung up on grammar. You are, however, also responsible
for description — of location, of character, and of action. You want that
portion of your script to be clear, efficient, and effective. Description is
where the grammar lessons come in handy.
Be consistent with sentence structure: Do you need to write in complete
sentences? No. You should, however, at least know how to construct a
complete sentence, which requires a knowledge of nouns and verbs, and
you should be consistent with whatever sentence structure you choose. If
your description begins in phrases, stick with phrases: “Enter Allen. Goes
to door. Checks outside. Closes it again and hurries upstairs.” If you prefer
full sentences, “Allen enters the room. He goes to the door and checks
outside. Satisfied, he hurries upstairs,” and then maintain this choice
throughout.
Avoid the royal “we”: Many writers use the royal “we” in description,
alerting the reader to certain details in the scene. For example, “Sam
enters. We see that he’s concealing something under his jacket.” I usu-
ally caution against relying on this technique too frequently. Drawing
attention to the reader distances him or her from the story; your
48
Part I: So You Want to Write for Pictures
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 48
screenplay suddenly becomes a script with an audience and not a world
of its own. Also, if you simply write what happens as it happens, the
reader will see it. You might write “Sam enters. He is concealing some-
thing under his jacket.” I see it, you needn’t tell me that I do. Reserve the
royal “we” for details in the scene meant only for the audience and the
camera. If in the middle of a party, for example, the image of a car appears
out the window, you might say, “In the window, we see a car approach.”
We see it; the characters don’t.
Eliminate excessive adjectives and adverbs: The resounding rule here
is when in doubt, cut them out. You can’t avoid all descriptive words, if
the wallpaper is stained and peeling, you should tell me that. However,
the addition of a few lines of dialogue often alleviates the need for adjec-
tives. You don’t need to tell me the mountains are beautiful if a character
says, “They’re more beautiful than I’d imagined.” If the day is hot, let it
affect the characters in scene. Discovering a detail is much more effec-
tive than being handed one. You can exchange most adverbs for a strate-
gically chosen verb. Why not replace “She walks quietly upstairs” with
“She tiptoes upstairs”? Or “The castle is heavily guarded” with “Hundreds
of soldiers guard the castle”? Verbs are powerful words. Trust them. Let
them work for you.
Avoid passive voice: Your high school teacher and I may share one
thing in common — our opinion of passive voice. It probably irritated
her, and it irritates me. Active voice means that the subject of the sen-
tence does something, as in “Molly washed the car,” “Harold sweeps the
floor,” “Margaret plays the piano.” Passive voice means that something
is done to the subject of your sentence: “The car was washed by Molly,”
“The floor is swept by Harold,” “The piano is played by Margaret.” Feel
the difference? The first sentences are accessible; they have energy and
life. Passive voice tempers that energy, making the sentences safe.
Screenplays are about action, so write them with active strokes.
As with all rules, after you’ve mastered the basics, you can branch past them
should the need arise. The preceding rules are intended as guides toward
more effective writing. What you do after you absorb them is up to you.
Organization
If art is in the details, the writer’s voice is most often in the organization of
details. Organization asks two questions:
What do I want to reveal?
How do I want to reveal it?”
It asks these questions of every portion of the screenplay, from the overall
plot structure to the dialogue in-scene to every sentence of description.
You’re writing for an audience; you want to lead them somewhere. Strong
organization clarifies what information that audience receives first, toward
the middle, and what the writer’s saving for last.
49
Chapter 4: Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 49
If a woman is reading in a cafe, do you want my eyes to travel from her hands
to the book she’s reading then to her face? If so, your first line of description
may read: “Manicured fingers wrap around a book. It’s a copy of War and
Peace. The reader turns a page, and the book tilts for a second, revealing a
brunette of startling beauty.” If she turns her head to reveal a scar on her
cheek, even better.
Now, there’s a reason for organizing your sentence in this way. Want an exam-
ple of organization at its best? The opening sequence of The Big Chill jumps
between various people receiving bad news and clips of one man getting
dressed. In the final shot, the man’s sleeves are cuff-linked. Both his wrists
have been cut and stitched over. In this way, the writer waits until the last
moment to reveal that the man being dressed is dead. Your organization is
important. It tells a reader, a director, the camera, and, therefore, an audience
how to watch your film.
Discipline
Imagine that you’re the high-powered CEO of company, or that you own and
run a small business. Imagine, for that matter, that you’re a butcher, a baker,
or a candlestick maker. It wouldn’t occur to you not to show up to work one
day. People are counting on you, there’s money to be made, and the job
requires your presence. Now, imagine that you’re a screenwriter. It shouldn’t
occur to you not to show up to work. The same principles apply.
Discipline is what separates a writer from someone who likes to write. It may
be the most important element of craft. Why? You can find hundreds of reasons
not to write: You have children to look after; you have meetings to attend; you
travel constantly; you have phone calls to make or errands to run or letters to
mail; basically, you just have no time. I’ll tell you something: None of that is
going to change. If you’re a writer, you have to find time to write.
If you want to churn out a 120-page script, if you want to churn out more than
one, you have to consider writing your job. I repeat: It’s not a luxury, it’s
your job. Maybe it’s your second or third job, but it’s a job nonetheless.
Procrastination is what separates would-be writers from actual writers. So
first things first — you need a place to work, and you need a working schedule.
Creating your workspace
In theory, a writer requires only two things of a workspace: It should be
yours, and it should have a door that closes. In order to concoct cinematic
worlds on the page, you need to shut out the one outside. That said, you
need a few other accoutrements as well. The following lists outline both
necessities and possible additions to any writer’s office.
50
Part I: So You Want to Write for Pictures
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 50
You will need
A computer and a working printer with easy Internet access
Extra ink cartridges and printing paper
Pads of paper
A stash of pens and pencils
1
1
⁄2-inch to 2-inch brass brads for binding
A three-hole puncher
A quality dictionary and thesaurus (online or otherwise)
A hard drive to back up your writing files
You may need
A bulletin board for images and other research
Index cards for arranging scenes
A CD player nearby (some writers require music)
A timer for timed writing projects
You also won’t need certain items in a writing space. Televisions, telephones,
and video games all hinder writers from completing a project in peace. If you
must have a telephone in the space, make sure that you can turn it off or
unplug it as necessary. Be cautious with e-mail. You may need e-mail for your
work, but it may also prove a distraction. Seek privacy at all costs. After all,
this is your job we’re talking about.
Managing your time wisely
The most prolific writers write habitually. They punch in every day, and they
get the job done. Or perhaps I should say, they get the job done because they
punch in every day. Think about it. Of the numerous things you do with your
life, which of them are routine? Brushing your teeth, walking the dog, going
to business lunches, exercising, carpooling, making phone calls and, oh yes,
writing. If you want to make it into that workspace every day, writing has to
be part of that routine.
Think that’s impossible? Think again. Try revising your schedule with the fol-
lowing rules in mind:
Prioritize the time. Your writing time has to be as important, if not more
important, than all the other things you have to do during the day. Alert
your friends and family of your schedule to avoid unnecessary interrup-
tions. Place it high on your list of priorities.
51
Chapter 4: Approaching Screenwriting as a Craft
09_345405-ch04.qxp 5/22/08 7:11 PM Page 51