The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 279 - The Collaborative Writing Experiment

For over a month now, we've been conducting a little experiment here at League Headquarters. We're trying to see if, as a group and without discussing or outlining, we can write a coherent, well-structured screenplay. There are six of us participating. We take turns (based on the roll of a die) to assign placement each round of six pages and then, when each writer is up, he or she adds one and only one page to the script. There's no discussion about what should come next, what's off limits, or what the direction of the script it. In short, it falls to each individual writer to follow the tone, guide the plot, introduce characters and elements, and adhere to the rules already established by the previous writers. The goal: a completed script, with each of us having taken 16 or 17 pages over the course of the project.

The experiment has been pretty fascinating so far. In the first couple pages, two of us established a particular tone and characters' voices, but we left the direction of the script very ambiguous and open for the next four writers. On page three, the third writer really took the reins and very clearly pointed the script in a clear, perhaps a bit extreme, direction. In all honesty, the rest of us were a bit shocked, but in the spirit of the game, we knew we had to honor the genre and story that had been determined. Page four saw a very well-written wrangling of the scene, reverting a bit to the previous tone, while still adhering to the new reality of the project. 

From then on, the group has pretty much operated as one. Sure, there are temptations we succumb to. As individual writers, we all have ideas and objectives for the piece. However, since we'll only write one sixth of the material (at best), we sometimes feel compelled to cram a lot into our own page to further our individual agendas. I'd be lying if I said there were no pages where this happened; on the contrary, there have been a few instances of one writer (beyond the third page) essentially saying, "This is what I want to do" and doing that, regardless of how well it honors what precedes it. Still, we've sallied forth.

I, myself, have been guilty of another error that's popped up a few times throughout the fifteen or so pages we have to date. Because we're writing so piecemeal without a treatment and with only a fraction of the direct knowledge for why certain things have been introduced, it is too easy to loose sight of minor elements. For example, in the page directly before my third installment, characters disarmed. I inadvertently overlooked/neglected that as I continued the scene into my page, which resulted in a shootout. Guns (that shouldn't have been there) were a-blazing. Opps, my bad. Hopefully, minor inconsistencies like this one will be removed in the collective editing process, which is still TBD.

One of the major take-aways for the project, though, I think will be the ability to write a filler page. No page should ever be boring, but as we all know, there are certain beats within a screenplay that serve as a cooling off period after a major reveal, action beat, or dramatic moment. These in-between scenes further the plot, but they might not be the heart-pounding scenes that surround them. When writing a script as an individual, these scenes are no cause for worry, because one has just had the enjoyment of writing a major beat. However, when writing only a fraction of a script, it becomes easy to fall into the trap of wanting to force a scene to be more than it should, so as to get the full effect of one's turn at the helm. The six of us will each inevitably write a few of these softer, quieter pages. Hell, my second page was muted, compared to the ones that came directly before it. For the sake of the script, though, I know I have to suck it up and write an in-between scene. 

By and large, the group has handled these in-between scenes deftly. In fact, I think the beats and pages in question have become more intriguing in the group project than they might be in a script written by a single writer, because the person responsible still wants to imbue some flare where possible. When I write an in-between scene in my script, I might do so quickly and with less enthusiasm than with other scenes, so that I can advance to the next big beat. When I write the in-between scene in the group project, though, I accept my task, but I take extra effort to make that scene more engaging than it might otherwise be. This drive to instill even the less riveting pages with a sense of excitement has paid off in the league project so far, and I hope it is something I am able to bring to my own writing going forward. 

Spring Breakers - A Party Worth Skipping

Driven by desperation at not having the financial means to get themselves to spring break, three girls (Vanessa Hudgeons, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine) rob a cafe. Their idoneously named religious friend, Faith (Selena Gomez), rounds out the quartet post-larceny, and the girls board a bus for some beach-based bacchanalia. A hotel bust (completely unrelated to the inciting burglary) lands them in jail and, subsequently, in the company of amateur rapper and all-around bad news dude, Alien (James Franco). 

From the get-go, Spring Breakers seems unsure whether it wants to glorify spring break rowdiness, or condemn it. The only foil for the trio of ne'er-do-wells is Faith with her overt religiousness. As her compatriots are drawing pictures of dongs and robbing people at gunpoint (in that order, with about that much time between them), she is singing hymns with other Christian coeds. The contrast couldn't be more on-the-nose, and in fact, is representative of a larger weakness of the film. Subtext, one of the defining traits of engaging cinema, seems as much a priority to writer/director, Harmony Korine (Rachel's real life husband), as modesty does to the spring breakers.

The two-dimensional characters are frustratingly ambivalent about their malevolent deeds. Perhaps if we had a better sense of who the trio of robbers are as individuals - as opposed to sex and booze hungry coeds with little more depth than that - we could better buy their rash decision to hold up a restaurant for bus fare. As it stands, we don't get to know them and, as such, don't have enough of a foundation to be able to decide whether we're supposed to feel for them and the mess they get themselves into, or if we're supposed to look down on them with disdain. 

If Korine's reluctance to offer some sense of viewer relationship to his quartet of coeds was its only shortcoming, Spring Breakers might be a fun ride. However, a nagging voiceover, inconsistent tone, and repetitive editing all conspire to weigh the film down further. Frequent repetition of dialogue, shots, and scenes from different angles makes one wonder by the 20 minute mark how much actual story there is to the movie. Ninety minutes later, the answer is, very little. When not much is happening anyway, the decision to show scenes time and again works against the finished product. 

More grating, though, are Faith's frequent voiceovers. Perhaps Korine's attempt at infusing the film with depth and his characters with dimensionality, he has Faith question aloud their actions, overlays phone calls between her and her grandmother with the immoral behavior of the other three girls, and try to reconcile her religious beliefs with the crimes she and her friends are rapidly becoming involved in. The existential voice overs are at odds with the near incessant shots of bare-chested coeds, beer bongs, and coke lines. They belong in a deeper film, one that knows whether it wants to condemn or tout such behavior.  In a film where not until 50 minutes in do the girls even have more in their wardrobe than bikinis, it is hard to take any of the characters or their dilemmas seriously. Korine seems to believe (as one would hope he would) that such actions are shameful, but his unwillingness to take a firm stance fails to mesh with Faith's verbal musings. The greater failure, though, is the inability to make the viewer care about any of it. 

Sure, I like a scantily clad woman just as the next guy, but the film blurs the line between trash, porn, and an actual story for 90 minutes straight, and nearly the entire first hour is proof of where the director's priorities lie. If you want to see topless college girls and don't care much for plot or depth, then Spring Breakers will be right up your alley. Of course, you could also just go down to Florida in March and experience it for yourself; it would certainly be more fun.

The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 278 - Never Delete an Old Draft

It has been a crazy couple of weeks. The children's book went out to my friend in publishing last weekend. Then, early this week, I got another round of notes from my writing partner on our sci-fi collaboration, which I had to turn around. He gave me final thoughts on Wednesday night, the grand total of which were six minor edits (literally, folks, we're talking about cutting a sentence or changing a couple words here and there). We jumped on a quick call yesterday morning, and after 43 minutes of work, I had the revised draft out to him. We have sent it to his manager for a read. Pending notes from the manager (who was a development exec before becoming a rep), we'll get our producer's notes and, fingers crossed, be that much closer to looping in our agents and developigng a strategy to bring it out.  

Yes, I know that sounds crazy. I said six edits, right? Correct. And it took 43 minutes? That's an average of over seven minutes an edit, and all I was doing was changing a word here and cutting a line there? Well... basically. At this stage, every word counts, so I had to choose them carefully. Sure, the cuts happen in the blink of an eye. Find the page, highlight the text, and hit delete. Problem solved. 

When it comes to dialogue, though, you want to be more circumspect. For example, we were altering one small bit of dialogue - perhaps about six lines in total - that describes the enterprises and roles of an underworld character. The existing dialogue hinted at a reason why the character (and his wares) is so important, but it was too vague. The character's role in the world played a major factor in something that was to payoff later, so we had to get it just right. I spent the most time of all the edits on that section, writing and then revising it, wording and re-wording until it felt right. I was happy that my collaborator was pleased with the results. 

I also had to go back and re-incorporate something that had been cut from the current draft, but which was present in earlier incarnations of it. The ability to go back to old drafts and look at what you had, potentially to lift it and re-insert it, is invaluable. It is because of this that I make it a practice of not simply saving over an old draft when editing. I always create a copy of the file and save it as the current version (usually by date). Even if I'm just making relatively small edits in revision mode, I want to preserve the earlier work. Sure, at some point, after the script it made, I can purge the files if I need the space. Until then, though, there's no reason to overwrite an existing file. Script files don't take up that much room on your hard drive, and they can prove valuable (as evidenced in the example above). I suggest that you try to retain all previous versisons, too - you never know when they might come in handy.  

The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 277 - A Shorter, Streamlined Script

Last night, I submitted a revised draft of my sci-fi spec to my writing partner. The past couple months have born witness to an incredible transformation in that script. By roughly mid-April, we had a really solid idea of the story we wanted to tell. From about mid-May through mid-July, my collaborator and I were going back and forth on the script with each other, as well as with our producer. A lot of notes passed from one mind to the other via email and phone calls, all with the goal of distilling the story down to its most streamlined, concise, and riveting version possible.

Just shy of a month ago, I sent my partner a 108 page draft, which was the culmination of edits driven by the aforementioned notes and discussions. He got back to me about a week later with another round of notes. He asked me to do a major dialogue and action pass through as I edited, looking for anywhere I could cut. I did him one better - I made my edits, and then I did the dialogue and action pass. After that, I did another dialogue only pass, reading for cohesiveness, redundancies, and consistency. I sent him back a 98 page draft.

Not long later, about a week and a half ago, my collaborator came back with more notes. For the most part, his suggestions this last time were cosmetic. He pointed out a few areas that could be further truncated, multiple scenes that could be collapsed into one, and lines of dialogue that could be shortened or cut entirely. Still, he had some larger thoughts. 

One character we meet right around the midpoint wasn't quite working, because he required a lot of back story that a) we didn't have the means to easily convey and b) really affected a lot of the other characters and necessitated a lot more to be directly stated about them and their histories. More so, his presence created a double beat with a pair of characters we meet later in the script (more about them anon). We came up with a smart and easily workable solution - the character remains necessary, but his story was malleable. So, we completely rewrote who he was in the world. He lost his affiliation and history with the others, which solved the back story hurdles, and because he became so different, we didn't have to worry about the double beat any more. In changing him, we crafted a much more interesting character unbound by lengthy exposition. 

As for the duo, we had to spice them up a bit and give them a reason for their current situation in life. With the double beat worry off the table, I was free to take a closer look at what role they had to serve in the story, and the solution I came up with also made them much more compelling and lamentable. 

My writing partner's astute observations for where to collapse scenes all proved right on. I did more edits, consolidating and merging and further streamlining dialogue, for an end result of an additional four pages chopped off, bringing the script to a lean and mean 94. The cuts and reworkings of the characters have worked together to make this the strongest draft of the script yet. Hopefully, my partner agrees that it is strong enough to show our agents next.         

Breaking Bad, Or Why I'm Underwhelmed

Let me just start by saying that I love Breaking Bad. I think it is possibly the best T.V. show I have seen, and that's no exaggeration. The transformation of the characters, the A+ caliber of the writing, and the show's uncanny ability to craft edge-of-your-seat cliffhangers on a weekly basis blow my mind. I am perpetually awed and floored by the show. 

Except, I haven't been for the past two episodes, and I will tell you why. 

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

As pretty much anyone with either a television set or an internet connection knows, we're in the final eight episodes of Breaking Bad. (Technically, this is Season Five part 2, but let's get real - eight episodes more than constitutes a season these days, and since it was over a year since the "first half" ended, we might as well just call this Season Six. But I digress...) Because the end is so unfortunately near, I have become overly critical of the show, perhaps a bit to the detriment of my enjoyment of the past two episodes.

My biggest gripe has to do with the frequent rehashing of previous scenes and seasons. Take a look at the three examples below to get a sense of what I mean. I know that all of these conversations had to happen in some form or other, but to me, many of them played as almost wasteful uses of what precious screen time the show as left.

1) Marie confronts Skyler, asking her when she first knew about Walt's criminal activities. This scene was four and a half years in the making (as, to a similar degree, was Hank's sit down with Skyler). As the sisters sit on the bed, Skyler chokes back tears, and Marie slowly begins to realize the length of her sister's complicity in Heisenberg's crimes. Marie says, to paraphrase, "Hank thinks you knew when you jumped in the pool, but it was sooner than that. Was it before Gus Fring? Was it when you bought the car wash? Skyler, did you know before Hank was shot?"

What follows is an incredibly powerful moment that irreparably tears the sisters apart and cements Marie's desire to see Walt taken down. After all, he was directly responsible for Hank's nearly fatal shooting. But did we need Marie to recap over two seasons of events for us? It felt a little bit like the "remember what happened last issue" dialogue that opens every monthly comic book.

2) Todd recaps the train robbery for his uncle. The train robbery was awesome. Todd would totally gloat about it. Would he do so this long after the events of it, though? His uncle surely knows the story by now (in which case, repeating it for us and taking up a few minutes of dialogue is gratuitous). Further, relaying the story in such a public place as a diner is just plain dumb. I expect, for that reason, that this will have greater implications. But still, Todd (aka Meth Damon - thank you, internet) robbed us of golden Breaking Bad screen time. Those of us who saw the train robbery episode distinctly remember it, so unless the uncle or his friend are going to turn state's witness, all that jibber-jabber could have been replaced with new, unfamiliar jibber-jabber.

3) Walt "confesses" to his crimes for Hank. Ok, I'll admit this one is me being a dick. Walt provides Hank with a DVD that provides a confession about his meth cooking, though certainly not the one Hanks wants to go public. Walt frames Hank, saying that his brother-in-law forced him to cook, pinning Heisenberg's activities on Hank. It's devious and evil and perfect reminder of just how smart and dangerous Walter White is. It is also a refresher course on the past few seasons of Walt's most nefarious activities. Granted, Walt's video deftly threatens Hank into silence, but for those of us who have seen every episode, it works in tandem with Marie's previous episode dialogue and Todd's recantations to reiterate stuff we've already seen.

The confession serves a purpose, for sure, but when we only have 220 minutes of Breaking Bad left (five episodes, minus commercials), do we really want to hear the characters talk about what's come already? Personally, I want them to focus more on where they're going.

Beyond the repetitious dialogue, I was starting to grow tired of the characters' paralysis. In the brilliant garage scene of the first episode this half season, Hank confronted Walt, laying out in no uncertain terms that he is onto him. Since then, though, he's been unable to act, unsure what the best course of action would be - and for good reason. Ratting on Walt will mean the end of the family life, the end of Hank's career, the end of so many things. This has left Hank frozen, not unlike how Jesse has been frozen. Jesse's stagnation stems not from being overwhelmed by an earth-shattering revelation, but by depression and guilt over his past crimes. Blank stares gave way only to tears, before leaving his face blank again. Jesse, I feel for you, man, but you are stuck. And with Hank stuck, too, I couldn't shake the feeling that Breaking Bad itself was spinning its wheels a bit, unsure quite how to get to the explosive climax we all know is coming.  It seems that Jesse finally broke, so at least his paralysis is over.  

I know I'm being nitpicky here, but I'm doing so out of love. I love the show and I am dying to know what's next. As much as I can't wait to see how everything wraps up, I dread the notion that we only have five more episodes before it is done forever. I just wish that Vince Gilligan and his team would use the time a little differently in the home stretch. I know what's come before. Why else would I be so hooked?

Article Alert - Are Sequels Statistically Worse?

Nerd Wallet recently released an interesting (and controversial) article that attempts to prove what many of us believe subjectively: movie sequels are almost always worse than their original.

The article makes use of Rotten Tomatoes data to show the drop in both critical and audience response to the subsequent offerings in a film franchise. A staggering number of sample franchises are used in the study - from Batman (not clear whether this is the Keaton or the Bale dark knight), Conan, Men in Black, and basically every slasher film ever made, since they're all part of a series. Take, for example, the Pirates of the Caribbean series. According to the data, the first four films earned, respectively, a 79%, 54%, 44%, and a 33% on the Tomato Meter. (Editor's note: I've seen the first two, and I heartily agree that two was far inferior. I actively avoided three and four.)

However, the study goes further, trying to also prove a direct correlation between the ratings, longevity of a franchise, and its earning potential. In the above Pirates of the Caribbean example, the first film earned $413,295,000 (domestic); the second spiked to $527,367,500, and the final two brought in, respectively, under $370M and under $250M. (Editor's note: boo hoo.) My guess is that a box office spike for the second film in a franchise is not an infrequent occurrence at all - it might even be common (cough Dark Knight cough).

But can we really draw this kind of connection? Sure, some franchises wear themselves out. They become more about money than product (I know, I know... they all are). Dark Knight Rises wasn't as good as Dark Knight, and it didn't earn as much, but there were special circumstances surrounding the second film in that series. The most recent Indiana Jones was, well, if you saw it, I don't need to say anything more. In neither of those instances, but in many franchise examples, the original talent, writer(s), and director leave the series, and new elements come on with a different approach. The X-Men trilogy is a perfect example. 

Still, can we say for sure that they will make less money (mind you, we're not really talking about losing money here)? They just announced that Avatar will will be a tetralogy. The Fast and Furious franchise is zooming ahead, with the sixth offering being the most successful at the box office of the bunch. 

What do you think? Is there truth in the numbers? Should I stop writing Leaving Las Vegas 2?    

The Writing Week (Vol. 6) part 276 - That WHAM Moment

Ah, rewrites. How you are necessary. How you are exhausting.

It's been a long haul on my sci-fi spec (over 18 months now). For the most part, it has been a wonderful process. My writing partner is great and offers a superb learning opportunity (he has decades of industry experience and work). We (I) have churned out draft after draft, first of the treatment (at least seven major versions), and then the script (I've lost track - maybe five primary drafts with smaller edits in between). Now, we're just about there. 

My collaborator and I spent about 90 minutes on the phone last night going over his final set of notes on the most recent draft I sent him. For the most part, the notes were miniscule - this is a little confusing here, and I'm not quite sure we need this there. A couple larger notes will be fun to address. We're revising one of the characters from a scientist into more of an underworld entity, because the role he fills as a scientist is a duplicated later in more important scientist characters. He became a redundancy as we spoke, and all redundancies must go. We've also figured out how to further simplify the science, which will be fun if for no other reason that it will eliminate some of the headache of explaining the rulse of the world. 

One note, though, demanded a fair amount of chit chat before we decided we had to bite the bullet and forgo what I like to call the WHAM moment. Every script should have lots of "WHAM moments" - scenes, beats, or revelations that glue you to the edge of your seat. No amount of urgency to refill your popcorn or soda or to take a leak should be able to draw you away from a WHAM moment. These will typically occur around the tentpole scenes (inciting incident, act turns, midpoint, climax, etc.) but can be scattered throughout. Our inciting incident draws the protagonist from the everyday into the sci-fi world he was unaware of. He lands somewhere completely foreign to him, somewhere dangerous and devastating; this should be a WHAM moment. It's a big moment, but due to the rules of the world, we can't thrust him into the heart of the chaos. His emergence into this other realm, while jarring, takes place in a controlled environment, which is heated emotional, but not physical, implications. 

My partner and I went over this scene again and again. How can we get him into the chaos? What can go wrong that forces him there? Can we manipulate in a way that the moment he crosses the plane, he's in danger in a big way? That's what the scene should be. That's how we'll capture the audience and the reader in a big way. That's the WHAM moment. 

Ultimately, the rules of the world won't let it be so. Too many things would have to be fudged; too much would have to be explained (or worse, glossed over later). It just wouldn't work. Yes, we lose our WHAM moment, which is a shame, but we do so in order to preserve the rules we have established. Ultimately, though perhaps a less riveting exposure to this other realm, the rules have to trump the WHAM. We can't unravel the story for the sake of the scene. Who knows, maybe we'll figure out a solution. But for now, we have to suck it up on this one and proceed true to the story. 

On a side note, I've been working on editing my children's book further. For a project that has never been longer than 1,670 words, it is an incredibly difficult process. In fact, it is an incredibly difficult process because the project has never been longer than 1,670 words (and needs to be closer to 1,000). 

A friend who works in publishing suggested that I cut the nearly 1,700 word manuscript down to a thousand or so, since the age group of my targeted readership is low. It's a wise note, but cutting is easier said than done. I have excised some portions and looked for redundancies or areas to combine verses in order to truncate others, but the fewer words I have, the harder it becomes to strip further. I'm down to just under 1,350 words now, which is still probably too long, but I feel like I can't cut much more without eliminating entire parts of the story. What I can do, though (another suggestion from my friend) is to look at the verb choices and words I use. If I can't reduce the word count, I can at least make the existing words more active, imaginative, and magical. The goal is to make every single verse sing, which is a laborious, yet fun process. My goal is to be able to send it to my friend by Labor Day, so that she can put me in touch with agents soon after.