Friday Writing Roundup

A selection of articles and postings from Leaguers that have appeared in other corners of the internet recently. 


Cake Man talks about The Happy Family Curse, and how it can make a show or film laborious to watch when poorly executed, but how it can elevate a story immensely when done well.

http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/2012/04/07/the-happy-family-curse/


The Name Game, or how often you should use a character's name in spoken dialogue (another of Cake Man's posts on Screenwriters Utopia).

http://www.screenwritersutopia.com/2012/03/28/the-name-game/

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 223 - The Rock and the Hard Place

I feel there's a nebulous, viscid mire writers can become entrenched in, which lies at a very finite point somewhere between having made it (i.e., selling a script) and still being unknown and unrepresented in the industry. This point is one where a scribe has achieved a modicum of success, namely having attained an agent or a manager or other representative, but has not yet sold anything. Having landed that rep or those reps, however, in a funny way closes as many doors to that particular writer as it opens, if not more.


I inhabit this middle swamp ground.


Let me try to explain a bit more clearly. Before I found representation, I was writing for myself - what I wanted, when I wanted. I didn't have access to producers or directors or actors' people. I was an unknown writer trying to make it. Competitions were fair game for me, and when I thought I had something worthwhile, I prepped and sent query emails. Anywhere a new opportunity came up along the way, I pursued if I deemed it applicable. In short, the world was my oyster, and it was up to me how to prepare it.


Now that I have representation, things have changed. I get my ideas approved by my agent or manager before I embark upon them, as those guys have more insider knowledge as to whether something similar is already in the pipeline, or if the market's just not in a good place for it at the moment. I'm supposed to turn in two scripts a year to my agent; unfortunately, in the 18 months since I came on board with him, he's seen zero new script from me. I've written a few, but my manager and I decided to table them for various reasons. Opportunities that I one time would have jumped on - competitions, logline contests, even the revamped Amazon Studios - are no longer really the most viable routes to take. The end goal of so many of those being to secure a writer an agent or a meeting with a producer, they are no longer quite worthwhile. Even that logic is irksome, though, as all writers know that any means by which we can get our names out there are worth pursuing. On the flip side, I do have indirect access to directors and producers that I personally still can't get to yet, and one of the producers I'm working with has helped me get my current co-writing gig, but actual sales have still yet to materialize.


I can't help but wonder what would happen if I move to LA. Should I have been there already? Maybe I lost opportunities for meetings 18 months ago when I was fresh in my agent's mind. (My manager tells me that no, I haven't, but I can't help wondering.) What if a great competition comes along that I know I could place highly in, but it's for writers without representation? What if I fall out with my reps and go back to square one? Have I missed my shot by being three scripts behind for my agent? Would he even know me if I emailed him?


All these questions and more threaten to darken the success I have achieved, which is frankly silly, since I am working on something now with a known writer. I still have producers actively pursuing my post-Apocalyptic spec and even had a sort-of lead come up just last week. I have access to industry professionals I can turn to for help. All of that is great, and nothing I'd want to trade. They just can't mitigate the sensation that I am in that weird, indefinitely binding gray zone between anonymity and greater success. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 222 - A Midpoint Discovered

Ask most screenwriters, and they'll probably tell you that Act Two is the most difficult portion of the script to write. More specifically, the crucial midpoint (of Act Two and of your script as a whole) can be particularly difficult. And the section that comes after that - what I like to call "the 60 to 70 slump" - is traditionally even ore problematic. Those pages (60 through 70, or whatever the ten that immediately follow your midpoint) require both a cool down period to get over the intensity of the midpoint, as well as a continued raising of the stakes; this, in short, makes them onerous to write. 


In Save the Cat, Blake Snyder refers to the first part of Act Two as the fun and games section. We've met our characters and been introduced to their world and situation in Act One. For the first half of Act Two, things are mostly fun for them. They're having fun on their adventure. Things might be daunting, but they're not overwhelming odds yet, nor is the danger really as life threatening as it can (read, will) be. At the midpoint, things come to a head. The midpoint might be the pinnacle of success so far, and it will therefore be followed by a fall from grace. More commonly, perhaps, is the alternative - the midpoint serves as the floor of the valley, the darkest, gloomiest, most devastating moment so far. This might come in the form of a death, a loss (of a crucial object, of a friend to some other fate, of the path to glory), or any number of other devastating blows. After the midpoint, you have to sustain the audience's attention as we work our way toward the climax of the film, but you also offer a minor reprieve from the extremes they've just experienced. If the world has gone to hell, then maybe there's a glimmer of hope at the end of the 60 to 70 slump. Or if all's been stellar so far, then we get a taste of darkness at that point, instead.


Normally, I struggle through Act Two. I'm never quite sure of how well what I've constructed is working or not. It can be particularly difficult to tell when outlining. to my great pleasure, when I met with my co-writer, W.A., this past week, he told me that he loved my second act. Part of the success of it stems from a very wise suggestion he had made previously, which I decided to run with. 


The script contains a number of large reveals. One of them in particular - the identity of the guide turned antagonist - had been a point of contention, as its placement in the script had been in flux for a long time. W.A.'s original outline had this reveal roughly 2/3 of the way through the script. When I took my first stab at the outline, I wound up moving it to the end of Act Two, or about 3/4 of the way through the script. There's a lot of information and material that we can mine from that surprise, though, as well as a lot of character motivation, so W.A. rightly felt that we were losing a handful of opportunities for ratcheting up the conflict by pushing it so far back. Not to mention that the later the reveal comes, the less time we have to address it in the script. And it's something that we have to ensure ample time is devoted to.


To fix this, W.A. suggested that I take a look at moving the reveal up to the midpoint, coupling it with the death of the protagonist's best friend - the crushing defeat that brings the fun and games portion of the script to a swift and definitive end. As the real world hits, so too does this new bit of information. I went with the earlier reveal, and I must admit - it works really damn well. Not only do we get a lot more time to work with the information, but it makes total sense, since the antagonist is directly responsible for the friend's death. It was sort of a speed bump to do the partial reveal - he's an antagonist - and not come forward with who he actually is until much later. And, by the time we got the information, it was almost too much and too late. 


Now, with this reshuffling of the information, the reveal comes at a point where our characters can do so much more with it, the world crashes down around our protagonist even harder at the midpoint, and the actions of everyone we've been following come to a simultaneous head at that point. The fun and games are over, and we know who is good and who the antagonist is. We don't know the full rationale for the reversal yet, but we know we have half a movie to devote to it. Act One flows into Act Two organically, and the fun and games transition naturally into the devastating blow that is the midpoint; coming out of that loss and the attached reveal, we move organically through the obstacles faced on our way to Act Three and the resolution. 


It is, in a way, almost pretty in how it wound up working. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 221 - Strength from Originality

If you're at all like me - and for your sake, I hope you are in as few ways as possible - then you experience a barrage of creativity and ideas and writing followed by listless respites. These can come in months, weeks, or even days. When I'm actively writing a script, I'll write straight through for a month or more, and then experience as long a time off after completing the first draft. Now that I'm working on a collaboration, as well as keeping my demon thriller on the back burner, those draughts are shorter, no more than a few days typically. 


Still, a draught is a draught, and it will be felt. 


Ok, let me partially retract that. I spent a good week working on revising my outline for W.A., my writing partner. He and I met a couple weeks ago and tossed around a lot of good ideas. For the most part, he was (is) very pleased with the progress I'm making and have made so far. For the most part, the notes he had were pretty minimal. Once again, I've gone through and made some large changes to the outline he first presented. And, once again, he has come back with some mainly "cosmetic" suggestions for improvements. I'd be lying if I said that I've had ample time to devote to them this week in preparation for our meeting tomorrow, but I understand fully where he's coming from on all but one of his remaining notes. I'm not too concerned at all about my ability to address the trio, even if I do lack a degree of clarity for one of them. Hey - that's why we're meeting tomorrow. 


In the meantime, I've been planning on getting back to my demon thriller. Time, however, has not been my friend. Though the day job hasn't been overwhelming, commitments after work have seemingly stacked up in the past few weeks. That, and I'm actually exercising again! I know, I know. Lame. Every time I plan on getting down to pumping out some actual pages on the demon thriller, I get waylaid by some other activity. 


In general, I love having two scripts on the table, no matter what state they're in. Actually, the less developed they are, the better sometimes. When I'm stuck on one, I can just go ahead and jump onto the other. Being so versatile in the outlining stage isn't as easy when it comes to actual pages. At that point in my process, I tend to favor extreme concentration on one project, which means the other goes bye-bye for a month or more. With the demon thriller, the wait wound up paying off.


The script involved a fair amount of world creation. To me, that's one of the best part of writing a movie. Sure, it can be fun to write about a cop or a transit worker or a librarian, but how much more fun is it to write about one of those people in a brand new world that you've created? Or even in our world, but in a completely different time? Giving birth to an entirely new setting with new rules and visuals and realities... is anything greater when working on a story? It's hard to think of something. Well, for the demon thriller, my manager made the very astute observation today that I did that for half the script. Half of it is very unique with new rules, new visuals, and a new approach to possibly familiar experiences. The other half graces tv screens every night in a handful of shows. It's basically a Law & Order episode. 


I didn't realize that odd dichotomy until my manager pointed it out, but it makes total sense. The strength of the premise - and, therefore, in the ultimate execution - comes from originality. Part of the script rises up to the challenge. The other half presents a worthy problem that is organic to the nature of the piece, but it does so in an inferior way. The result, according to my manager, is a loss of steam. I see where he's coming from. More than that, if he sees it in the outline alone, I don't want to even fathom what a producer or potential director might have seen in the script. Other, of course, than a pass. Better, obviously, that I fix it before that happens. 

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 220 - Everything's Connected

I've been mired in outline land for the past few weeks, as you probably know, and this week has been no exception. After a short hiatus following the submission of my outline to my co-writer, W.A., I met with him to get notes. I have to say, getting notes is downright fun sometimes. It can also be aggravating as hell, but there's often no rush like the rush of figuring out story beats. Sitting there, talking things over while drinking coffee or whiskey or a beer, playing creator of worlds and people - what could be better?


I love that part of working on a story. W.A. and I met at his office again and though we were a little pressed for time, we made a lot of progress in the outline. Many of his notes were, to filch the term from him, "cosmetic." "We can't use the pyramids, because this similar movie did." That sort of thing. (And believe you me, those are important things to pay attention to.) Other notes were slightly bigger - "This reveal comes too late; we should probably push it up." 


"Yeah, but..." I'd start to counter. But you can only rebuff an idea for so long. In fact, when going over notes with a writing partner in particular (though the rule applies when speaking with anyone about your script), you should be as open as possible to everything thrown down on the table. After a few moments' deliberation, I would see where he was coming from. "Ok, next?" 


Some suggestions were mutual, though on the spot. We nixed a character then and there, which felt great. I waffled back and forth on the decision later, but a comment he sent via text message a few nights later cemented the decision for me. We realized that certain things couldn't happen as outlined. "These characters are stuck in prison, but I've given them an easy out, which they don't seem to realize until it's necessary. That clearly doesn't work." All told, the notes, changes, and ideas that spun out of our meeting brought to light things that I might not have otherwise noticed on my own, and then they sent me back into edit and outline mode.


The "cosmetic" changes proved not to be quite as simple as I thought they would be. Locations I had chosen appeared more difficult to swap out then I wanted. Conversely, ditching the one character helped fit a lot of other beats and character interactions/motivations into place. Moving the reveal up further heightened a pivotal sequence at the midpoint of the script and allowed me to bring in a missing element that W.A. and I both wanted in the script. Why did all these dominoes fall the way they did? Because everything is connected. 


Few if any changes can be made in a story, especially one in the outline process, which don't affect the rest of the piece. Perhaps altering a character's name can be trivial enough to not cause ripples, but anything more substantial than that will resonate throughout the entire piece. That's the mark of a cohesive story. If making changes throughout the script doesn't have larger effects on the piece as a whole, then it might not be as fluid and structurally sound as you think.

The Writing Week (Vol. 5) part 219 - Two Outlines In the Bag, or How To Write an Outline

It was a busy week for outlining. I used to deplore outlining. My ego didn't permit me to do them ("I like to surprise myself and see where the story goes"), and multiple drafts that continued to produce failure were never proof enough that I needed to remedy my ways. This month, though, I've been working on two projects - my spec demon thriller and a sci-fi collaboration with a known writer/director/actor we'll call W.A. - and there's no way I could have achieved any progress without outlines.


To add a disclaimer, if it sounds like I only just began outlining consistently for these two projects, that's far from true. I've been outlining for years. I started making it a regular part of my process sometime in college, and no longer do I attempt a script without an outline. It just proves to be too great a waste of time to do so.


At any rate, outlines are an interesting point of discussion between my friends in the League. How long should an outline be? How detailed? Does it need to feature ever single shot, or scene, or just sequences?


The outline (perhaps treatment is a better word, but I tend to use them interchangeably in my screenwriting vernacular) that W.A. presented me on our sci-fi collaboration was just over 21 full pages long, courier new. After I retooled it, which wound up taking a long time by the end, since I was stuck on a couple key beats, I sent him back an 8 page, Times New Roman document, no spaces between paragraphs, each point bulleted. What I emailed him wasn't the most detailed; I didn't state exactly how we first met each character or how certain ones died or whatnot, but their introductory and final beats were all clearly marked. Everything was broken up by beat, primarily, with small transitional scenes wrapped up for the most part in a larger chunk of text. 


I get very finicky about my outlines and how long each section is. I stick to traditional three act structure, breaking the script up into four equal parts (act one, act two part one, act two part two, and act three). If act three comes in a little under, then that's fine. I actually prefer a shorter third act, and mine typically wrap up in 15, rather than 25 pages. This is where I get particular - if act one has a total of 8 bullet points, then I aim for each subsequent section to have that exact number, no more, and no less. Generally, I hit this mark on the head naturally. For the demon thriller, each section had 11 beats; for the sci-fi one, eight. Act three is the exception, with perhaps three fewer beats/bullets than the rest. 


Both projects turned out well, I feel. W.A. and I have a meeting tomorrow to discuss the sci-fi outline, for which he suggested I watch a movie tonight. His comments so far seem mainly cosmetic, addressing a few set pieces that might feel familiar compared to other movies, and similar tweaks. We'll get into the details at our meeting. As for the demon thriller, the Leaguers who have read it have responded pretty well to it so far, with only a few minor suggestions. At this point, it sounds as if I'm good to move forward with actual pages on both. Can you imagine how much harder those pages would have been, had I not taken the time to outline? Just think - what stumped me for a few days in an outline and necessitated changing a few prior beats could have been a week's stalemate with pages in front of me and an immediate rewrite as a result.

Writing Fellowship Alert

Attention all New York City-based playwrights - see below for a writing fellowship opportunity. It's free to apply, which is all the more reason to go ahead and do so if you have a play you think is ready to be shown.

For more information and to apply, visit http://playwrightsrealm.org/programs/writing-fellows. 

The following release is from The Playwrights Realm.

The Playwrights Realm is now accepting submissions to the 

2012-2013 Writing Fellows Residency

About the Program

The Writing Fellows Program is at the heart of what we do—helping writers write. Four promising playwrights will receive nine months of resources, readings, and feedback – designed to craft and complete a single new work. Our season of creative development is tailored to meet each individual writer’s professional goals with development opportunities in two broad categories: new play development and professional development.

Fellows work one-on-one with our artistic director and staff to bring their play from rough draft to a production-ready. Monthly group meetings allow fellows to discuss and revise their work in a collaborative, motivating setting. Fellows also attend meetings with industry professionals designed to provide them with a widened network of resources and help build their professional careers.

Finalists for the program will be interviewed in the early summer and final selections will be announced in September.


What We’re Looking For
Above all, we look for dedicated early-career writers who crave a long-term, rigorous dramaturgical process. We value intellectual curiosity, evocative language and the contemplation of big unanswerable questions; stories that embrace the complexity of life and demonstrate an understanding of the possibilities of dramaturgical structure.

Find out more here.