What's The PROBLEM?
I think I have an epiphany about developing a story:
Think of all your tent-pole sequences -- starting on or around page 10, page 30, page 45, page 60, page 75 and page 90 -- as Weighing The Options scenes followed by intense action (or dramatic) scenes! They don't have to be executed like exposition scenes, but the content need to be along the lines of people weighing their options and making a plan of attack.
Many gurus, including McKee, talk of story in terms of problems to be solved and characters making choices, but I think I FINALLY get what they're actually saying, and why.
I used to more or less ignore this approach to breaking a story because the ideas I had never fell easily into a Problem To Be Solved format. AND, the ideas always developed into stories that didn't feel particularly exciting. Interesting, yes. Compelling even, in a mellow way.
But not intense, driving, gotta-get-to-the-end kinds of stories.
And I think the reason why is because they're all these leisurely strolls through a world, even though the worlds tend to have monsters lunging ravenously at the heroes! How can that NOT be exciting?
Because there's something about actually having people talk -- in harried tones, natch -- about why this approach won't work and the flaws in this other approach and why their best bet is this other seat-of-their-pants stop-gap solution that get the audience ready for a wild ride! Then follow those scenes up with the attempted solution, the unexpected complications that arrise, and your heroes' resourceful skin-of-their-teeth escape from the complete failure to execute their plan and the audience is awake and watching and listening!
It's a wierd balancing act, because you have to have the emotional archs of the characters to make the audience care about their being in jeopardy, but you also -- I now believe -- have to have physical (or psychological, or whatever) jeopardy to make the emotional archs really resonate as meaningful.
I came across this idea when I was toying around with a short story as a sort of mid-development "snack" to clense my palate and continue tooling around with my craft. I had this realization and developed the story from the stand point of a series of Weighing The Options And Deciding On A Plan tent-pole scenes, and the story came out quick and dynamically!!!
So if your story isn't feeling exciting and compelling enough, try to retool your tent-pole sequences in this fashion, and see if it doesn't super-charge your entire screenplay!
posted by RayJay @ 2:46 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I came across your blog and I wanted to let you know, harsh as this sounds, if you keep doing what you're doing, you will never be a working writer.
I see so many of these "writing" web sites that have absolutely nothing to do with the real business of writing, it makes me crazy.
Writers write, they don't write about the difficulties they have writing, they just write.
They don't worry about what color index cards they have, or how many they fill out per day, they don't talk about 'units' or genres and 'sub-genres' (whatever those are) or 'tent poles' or 'big moments' or whatever.
Even worse, you're purporting to give advice to others who want to write. You know nothing about writing or being a writer, but you put out suggetions for other people to use. That is the most dangerous thing of all, because you're taking other people's lives into your hands, and you may be sending some real writers down a seriously wrong path.
If you're going to be a writer, you have to sit down and write. Scripts are nothing more than story and character. I can think of no business where the phrase 'keep it simple, stupid' applies more.
Your schedule should be something like this (using TV as an example): pick a show you think you can write well, watch 5 episodes, take notes, get your hands on 1 or 2 scripts from the show, sketch out a story on a legal pad.
By watching 5 and reading 2 you will quickly realize there are certain elements that are always there (what the show wants) and certain elements that are always different (what the writer contributes that is original). This is what should be in the notes you take.
(By the way, sorry I'm focusing on TV, I see that you interest seems to lie in film, but I'm a TV writer so that's all I have to give you, but I promise it will be helpful either way. Film is similar, so be smart and read between the lines.)
Don't get lost in all this 'index card' crap, index cards are for working staffs on shows where there are so many people on a script that no one can keep track of anything, they're not for individual unemployed writers sitting in their houses not writing. I happen to know that Abrams actually does not use index cards on his own projects (other than posting some bits in the writer's room from time to time), I know he teaches this, but when he writes, he just sits down at a computer and writes from top to bottom until it's done.
Sketching your story on a pad should take about 2 to 3 hours. Now flesh it out, that should take another 4 to 5 hours, make sure you have all the elements that the show you're writing for uses from week to week. The best advice I can give you about this process is make sure you have strong endings to your acts, and make sure the beginnings of your acts resolve whatever mess was left behind by the strong ending you wrote for the previous act. Sit down and watch any 5 hours of primetime television and you will see that every single show follows this formula. Again, film is similar.
This should give you enough to sit down at a computer and start writing your script with dialog from start to finish. That should take approximately 1 to 2 days with plenty of time for breaks to clear your head, get a Pepsi, read a magazine, call a friend, then back to work.
Put it away for a day or two, come back to it and rewrite it from top to bottom, half a day tops.
Put it away again then come back to polish, about 2 to 3 hours, read it once more and send it in.
That's all there is to it. The minute it is in the mail, start your next script.
And I'm serious about these time limits, if you get bogged down any more than this you will never do what needs to be done and, unfortunately, you will never work. And the rest periods are just as important as actual writing time. You need to let your script sit for a day to give it a fresh read. You will see things you can't believe any human being would write, and you will fix them.
Writers write all the time, and we put out at least a script a week, one because we have to and two because that's all the time it takes to deliver a good script. If it's taking you longer you are definitely doing something wrong.
By the time you get to your 5th script, you should be getting pretty good at the process. By 15 or 20 scripts you should have a decent agent on your side, and by 30 scripts or show you should have landed your first job, even if it's only an assignment.
One final piece of real advice: if you want to get noticed fast in Hollywood, write a movie. It will never get made, but it will get your phone ringing. Use the exact same process I gave you here, but give yourself 3 or 4 weeks (max) rather than the one week a TV script takes.
You apparently have one of the most important requirements for being a working writer: desire. Now do the real work. I'm going to bookmark this blog, and the next thing I want to see on it is that you've finished your first script and sent it in, and you're starting on your second. Believe me when I say I am doing you a huge favor by telling you all of this.
Good luck.
PS: Put a better photo of yourself up there. People (agents, showrunners) are eventually going to want to meet you, and they want to see a clean-cut, respectable looking person. There's plenty of time to let yourself go to hell when you're on a staff working 21 hour days.
I mean no disrespect when I say this, but if you elect to mentor me I will follow all of your recommendations happily. I will also not hesitate to barrage you with questions when I get stuck and can't figure out "what happens next", lol.
However, since your comment is posted annonymously, I doubt that this is your intention.
In which case I'm stuck floundering through the best way I can, which is the process this blog is tracking.
I VERY SINCERELY appreciate your advice, though! Would you believe that I have spent 3 or so years looking for EXACTLY the information about how long TV writers spend developing your stories that you provided? There is a shameful lack of practical -- in-the-field, as it were --information available about the TV writing process, a process I admire because of the speed with which you're forced to produce quality stories. Also, many recent Golden Boys in screenwriting cut their teeth in TV and recommend it as a way of learning to get rid of Writers Block (as you simply don't have the luxury of writer's block on a TV schedule).
I'm guessing the lack of in-depth information reguarding the teleplay-writing process is due to the fact that none of you (working TV writers) have the TIME to sit down and detail what you're doing and how you're doing it. As opposed to Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio -- screenwriters -- who do find the time between projects to write articles for their site www.wordplayer.com.
At any rate, until someone takes me under their wing I'll continue along this path, because it is currently working for me (and if you read less recent entries of this blog you'll find that I have been searching for a process that DOES work for me for 14 years now, lol) and because I don't have anyone to whine to when I have questions about the umteen other processes (in cluding the "Just Do It" process you outline) when I get stuck, or get writer's block, or when I'm 3 quarters through a script and suddenly realize I'm writing crap.
If you'd like to start an actual dialogue, I'm at RufusTiberius@hotmail.com and would be interested to know what show you wrote for last season and how many on-screen credits you received.
I, as you know, have no onscreen credit to date, lol.
Thank you for your comment! I will keep all your advice in mind.
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