January 2012
27 posts
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Screenwriting Tip #885
Try writing short films — or, hell, even short stories — between larger projects to cleanse your mental palate. Also, finishing things tends to boost confidence.
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Screenwriting Tip #884
Every failed pitch, every screenplay that doesn’t sell, is an opportunity to figure out what went wrong and never do it again.
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Screenwriting Tip #883
Avoid meaningless generalities in your loglines, e.g. “a tale of love and fate”, ”but it’s not going to be easy”, “unintended consequences”, “hilarious results”, and ”may change their lives forever”.
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Screenwriting Tip #882
If you try to write by the “rules” and find the rules don’t work for you, feel free to break them. But at least try them before you denounce them.
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Screenwriting Tip #881
Mould your world and setting elements to fit your characters’ arcs, not the other way around.
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Screenwriting Tip #880
If you find yourself reaching for the perfect turn of phrase, stop reaching. You’re not writing the Great American Novel — you just need to be clear and precise. Save contacting your Muse for the second draft.
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Screenwriting Tip #879
When searching for something to cut, start looking in Act One. All that setup you thought you needed? Just training wheels. If you’re giving the audience the same information later, then you don’t need it at the start.
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Screenwriting Tip #878
Study the patterns of your own mind. If, for example, you keep writing stories about shell-shocked veterans, or haunted hotels, or doomed love triangles, stop and think about that. Ask yourself why these things matter to you. Then follow them to their ultimate conclusion.
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Screenwriting Tip #877
You don’t need to have been to a place in order to write about it. You just need to see that place clearly in your head, and make the reader believe that you see it.
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Screenwriting Tip #876
At the top of every scene, ask yourself: “What does the protagonist want, and why can’t she get it?”. From that one question, everything else in the scene will flow.
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Screenwriting Tip #875
In highly kinetic sequences, you can use overlapping dialogue and intercutting between scenes to give a sense of constant forward momentum.
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Screenwriting Tip #874
Instead of just throwing characters into arguments, try thinking about their goals for the scene. Who’s trying to achieve their goal, who’s blocking someone else’s goal, and whose goal changes halfway through?
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Screenwriting Tip #873
What does the love interest offer the protagonist? What does he or she provide which is currently missing from the protagonist’s life? If your answer is “a relationship”, it’s time to dig deeper and find the real answer.
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Screenwriting Tip #872
Become a collector. Collect ideas, bits of dialogue, kinds of people, things that move you, social trends. You never know when you might need them.
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Screenwriting Tip #871
If you’ve got a zealous, all-encompassing worldview to sell, your screenplay is not the place for it. Readers/audiences can smell preaching from a mile away.
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Screenwriting Tip #870
Good TV pilots move fast and contain a lot of dialogue, because that’s how TV is. If your pilot is slow-paced, contemplative and quiet, you might want to consider turning it into a film instead.
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Screenwriting Tip #869
Know how you work, and how much work you can reasonably do. Don’t pile up ten different projects just because you want to feel “prolific”. That way lies guilt, doubt and madness.
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Screenwriting Tip #868
Your protagonist should probably not be an idealized version of yourself. And if they are, at least give them your flaws as well.
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Screenwriting Tip #867
The other way to make a character empathetic — after having them be very good at what they do — is to make them extremely passionate about something. Passionate people are interesting, no matter the subject of their passion.
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Screenwriting Tip #866
The most powerful method for refining motivation and stakes in your script is to ask, “So what?”. So what if the protagonist loves a man her parents disapprove of? So what if the villain learns all about the hero’s plan? So what if the main character doesn’t get that big promotion she wanted? And so on.
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Screenwriting Tip #865
When writing action lines, stop trying to make the reader see exactly what’s in your head. Instead give them clear, sparse description and let their head do all the work.
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Screenwriting Tip #864
Yes, you have to update the jokes in a comedy spec or pilot every six to twelve months. Unlike fine wine, comedy doesn’t age well.
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Screenwriting Tip #863
The point of plot is to break through your protagonist’s outer persona and reveal the true character within. To use an unsavory metaphor: you’re the interrogator, your protag is the prisoner, and your script is the rack.
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Screenwriting Tip #862
At some point in the planning phase, backstory goes from ‘useful information which will inform the script’ to ‘useless distraction from real work’. That’s when you stop planning and start writing.
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Screenwriting Tip #861
Horror is when the audience has no idea what’s going to happen next, coupled with the awful suspicion that maybe they don’t want to find out.
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Screenwriting Tip #860
There’s nothing more sobering than hearing an actor read one of your lines completely wrong. The good news is, you can prevent future suck by writing crystal clear, unambiguous dialogue in the first place.
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Screenwriting Tip #859
Don’t spend a lot of time looking back. Learn what you need to learn from past mistakes, then move on.
December 2011
32 posts
1 tag
Screenwriting Tip #858
You don’t need to give up what you love in order to be commercial. The trick is to take what you love and make it commercial.
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Screenwriting Tip #857
If you can’t come up with a unified set of symbols and motifs, steal one from somewhere else. Mythology and the Tarot are good places to start.
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Screenwriting Tip #856
You can’t paper over a cheesy line of dialogue by having your characters step back and go, “Woah, that was a bit cheesy.” Well, you can, but the reader is going to groan.
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Screenwriting Tip #855
Steal another trick from novelists: when you want to shock the reader back to careful attention, deliberately insert an unusual word or metaphor in your action lines.
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Screenwriting Tip #854
If you’re writing a joke and you stop to try and think of something topical and relevant, the joke is already dead. Go with your gut. What makes you laugh will make somebody else laugh.
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Screenwriting Tip #853
Follow the deepest currents of culture, not the obvious surface trends.
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Screenwriting Tip #852
During the holidays, try to find the quiet spaces between family obligations. Then write in them.
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Screenwriting Tip #851
The only way to understand story is to think about story all the time. You should be mentally dismantling the structure of the movies and shows you watch; your time of being a passive audience member is over.
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Screenwriting Tip #850
Every skill, trait or item your protagonist uses to get out of a tight spot should be set up earlier in the script. A hitherto unmentioned ability to speak Latin is just as jarring as a hitherto unmentioned gun.
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Screenwriting Tip #849
When someone sends you negative script notes, read them once, twice, three times… then again the next day. You’ll react with progressively less emotion, and the notes will seem more and more reasonable.
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Screenwriting Tip #848
Don’t think of the end of Act Three as being about answering questions and tying off threads. Think of it as getting the protagonist to the point where there’s no more story to tell.
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Screenwriting Tip #847
There’s a fine line between a comically naive character and a character who couldn’t possibly function in the real world.
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Screenwriting Tip #846
When writing a contemporary character bio, try pretending you’re interviewing that character for an article. You could even write it in modern magazine style, e.g. “When I first saw Sarah she was sitting at the back of the cafe, typing away on her iPhone…”.
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Screenwriting Tip #845
If you’re trying to break in, “good enough” isn’t good enough. Producers, agents and managers want to meet the next great writer, not the next decent one.
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Screenwriting Tip #844
Pick and choose which elements of your sci-fi world to expand on. The audience needs to know that everyone now has HUDs in their eyeballs and can teleport at will. They probably don’t need to know about society’s incredible advances in park maintenance.
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Screenwriting Tip #843
“He grabs the gun that is holstered at his side”. So is it at his side or in his hand? Unholstered or not? You may think you’re being clear, but one slightly confusing sentence can trip up a whole scene.
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Screenwriting Tip #842
Don’t put stupid things on your title page, i.e. the number of drafts, multiple home addresses, your Skype handle, URLs with silly names, or that old email address that contains your high school nickname.
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Screenwriting Tip #841
Think hard before violating the laws of your story world (or the laws of physics) for the sake of a joke. You might get a good laugh from some of the audience while completely losing others.
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Screenwriting Tip #840
Finding an amazing, little-known story from history is hard — finding the movie inside it is much harder. Look for the protagonist, what they want and who they want to be; those are your signposts to the screenplay.
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Today's the Day
It’s 2011 Black List Day! Get your copy now: http://blcklst.com
So what do you think about this year’s Black List? Sound off in the comments below!
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Screenwriting Tip #839
If you put an answering machine in your script, readers are going to wonder if it’s a period piece set in the 90s.
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Screenwriting Tip #838
No one ever looks back and wishes they’d sent out an unpolished draft, but there are plenty of writers who made that decision and regret it. Never show the world anything less than your best.
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Screenwriting Tip #837
If you’re having trouble visualizing scenes, try sketching out your major location (e.g. the protagonist’s house or workspace). You don’t have to be an artist, but it’ll give you some sense of space and ground you in your protag’s world.