HOLY GRAIL OF SCREENWRITING: THE STORY

I’m not interested in criticizing or reviewing films, not in any traditional sense.  Basically, I don’t like film reviews.  Half the time I can never understand what’s being said.  I want to respond and react to the films I see in the quest of what I call the Holy Grail of Screenwriting: Finding a great story.

Actually, it doesn’t have to be great. Generally, I want to define “what is a story.”

I also want to understand the importance of movies in my life and the millions of others who just can’t seem to get enough.

I’m a songwriter, screenwriter and freelance writer. The two most important things in my life are songs and films. You could say, I live totally in a fantasy world, a world of fiction…a media child.

I want to understand the meaning of songs and films and if they really are something more than mere escapism or entertainment.

Music and film are inseparable, with the exception that music can be listened to without a visual counterpart. But, live concerts, music videos and film clearly illustrate the visual side of music.

I’m personally offended when someone says, “It’s only a movie,” or, “It’s only fiction,” or “It’s just entertainment.”

So, am I fooling myself into thinking I’m searching for the meaning of life when all I’m really doing is escaping?

Well, the desire to write screenplays helps to answer the question to some degree. I want to touch people’s lives. I guess entertainment by itself can do that. And creating something that makes people laugh, cry, think, scream or get angry is, in a way, entertaining. But the desire to write goes deeper than that. I want people to understand themselves and the world around them better. I want to inspire them to change when things ain’t right.

More so, I want to offer hope, especially in a world where hope is in short supply.
And ah, of course I wanna have fun. Having fun actually has a significantly serious side to it. If you’re having fun, it pretty much means things are OK. Either that, or, you’re just a cold sucker who can have fun no matter what is going on. War isn’t fun. Neither is crime, disease, poverty or natural disasters. Ironically, comedy writers find the fun in personal and world problems. We’re better off for it.

But the thing is, when we’re having fun on a Saturday night, or having fun during a backyard barbecue on a Sunday afternoon, it’s because nothing bad is happening. Something bad happens, and the party is over.

If we could live in a world where all we did was have fun, where EVERYBODY was having fun…we’d probably get bored, ha! So, having fun is a good thing. It’s just hard sometimes for me to have fun when I know so many other people are not having fun.

Am I a martyr? Hell, I could even be an asshole. I mean, why should I give a shit if they’re starving in Africa when everybody else around me is headed for the hottest dance club in town.

Yeah, it’s a money thing. America has a lot of fun. Vacations, amusement parks, shopping malls, ship cruises, arcades, video games, sports, popcorn and candy and…songs and films.

I was in Vegas during 9/11. The experience was an invaluable lesson in what I call “The Meanwhile Theory.” The Meanwhile Theory underlies every movie I see. Very simply it means while one thing is happening, something else is happening someplace else. Think Godfather, when Pacino is babtising his child, “meanwhile,” he’s ordered a string of hits on his enemies, which take place at the same time as the babtism.

In Vegas, sure, tourism was down. In fact, a lot of people got fired. But it sure didn’t stop the casino parking lots from filling up. The tables were plenty busy. People were laughing and drinking at craps tables as if not a thing was wrong in the world. In just under a year, Vegas was back up and running and as of Dec 2006, it is allegedly the fastest growing city in America. Average cost of a home is somewhere around 300K. There are plenty of homes in Vegas that go for much more than that.

Meanwhile, there’s a war in Iraq. And off the Strip? Well, some of the side streets in Vegas are just as dangerous as any other of the most dangerous streets in America.

What does this say about movies? Well, if movies–Hollywood–is anything like Vegas, that is, movies are just for entertainment, then I don’t want any part of it.

Well, this is my cross to bear: I wanna have fun but I feel guilty. This is the kind of stuff that informs the screenplays a writer writes. It defines integrity. It defines style.

You can tell when a movie cares. You can tell when people cared about the movie they were making. You can tell when characters care. Who wants to watch characters that don’t care about anything? We need heroes and heroines. And the first place heroism begins is by caring.

SCREENWRITING DEFINITIONS

 

Place:  A place is a physical environment.  Physical environments can be static or dynamic.  A house by itself is static, unless the storyteller is trying to convey the house is haunted. 

 

Backdrop/Background:  A backdrop is used either as a one dimensional static picture, or can be used dynamically, as “against the backdrop of the Civil War…”  The background usually includes information that precedes an event.  Background can also be the total of a person’s experience, education and likes and dislikes. Something can be happening in the background to influence what is happening in the foreground. 

 

Vignette:  A vignette is a small scene, with or without structure, conflict, or dialog.  It is better to move the story forward than to use a vignette as filler.  However, a series of vignettes combined can move the story forward in the context of a scene.

 

Montage:  A montage is a series of vignettes that can reveal character, set up a bigger event, or provide exposition. 

 

Setting:  A setting is also the backdrop.  A setting establishes time and place and sets the stage for dialog and action. A setting can also show action as it is happening, such as a war or car accident.  A setting can indicate something is about to happen, like launching a ship or a plane about to take off. A setting can be physical, social or cultural.  It can establish mood and style.

 

Context:  Context is usually used to describe a word setting.  A word or phrase makes sense only in the context of the words and phrases that precede and follow it.  The same applies to a picture, static or moving.  A context includes the parts of a discourse that surround a word or action and gives meaning to those words or actions.  Context shows connection to what precedes something and what follows.  For example, “I love the water” is a meaningless statement without the right context (seashore, drinking fountain, rainstorm). 

 

Environment:  The environment is the circumstances, objects, or conditions by which something or someone is surrounded.  The environment affects behavior, character and action (a desert environment, a poor home environment).  It is also the sum of social and cultural conditions that influence the life of an individual or community. It applies to all the external factors that have a formative influence on one’s physical, mental, or moral development (the kind of environment that produces juvenile delinquents). 

 

 

Event:  An event is something that happens in time and place.  It has a cause and effect.  It can be character-driven or caused by natural and super-natural forces. An event is a significant occurrence.  It can personal, social, cultural or inanimate. 

 

Possibility:  Possibility indicates an event may or may not occur. 

 

Probability:  Probability indicates an event will most likely occur, depending on obstacles, conditions or character motivation.  An outcome is expected. 

 

Occurrence:  An occurrence is usually smaller than an event or carries less importance but could be an event in itself.  Something can happen once or many times.  It can happen unexpectedly or as planned.   

Incident:  An incident is generally an event or occurrence that happens out of place or out of time.  It could be meaningless or cause for alarm.  It could be serious enough to set off a chain of events, such as an incident that occurs on the borders between two feuding countries.

 

Serendipity:  Something good happens unexpectedly, usually by chance.

 

Episode:  An episode is usually a brief unit of action in a dramatic or literary work.  It is a situation that can be integral to but separate from a continuous narrative.  An episode is an event that is distinctive and separate although part of a larger series.  A series of episodes tells a story and each episode can be a story in itself.

 

Circumstance:  A circumstance is a piece of evidence that indicates the probability or improbability of an event.  A circumstance can give rise to an event or allow an event to occur.  In the plural, circumstances can be the sum of the essential and environmental factors that allow something to happen or make something happen.

 

Action:  Action is the bringing about of an event, occurrence or situation either by force or by nature.  For an actor, action is performing, either by speaking dialog, making gestures, body movement or any act and expression of will. Action occurs in time.  It could already have happened, is happening or about to happen.  Action can mean something that happens once or is repeatable. It is a form of engagement.  It means something is not static.  Action is a series of events that unfold.

Something is moving.

 

Achievement:  A result or outcome gained by effort.  An achievement can be great or small (winning a war; tying a shoelace).

 

Plot:  A plot is the unfolding of a series of events.  It is the plan or blueprint for revealing story.  The scenes and/or events in a plot are related; interconnected.  It can be secretive, positive or evil.  It can create conflict or resolve it.  It can cause intrigue.  It can be a conspiracy. It leads to an outcome, negative or positive.

 

Plan:  A plan is a method for achieving an end.  A plot may not develop according to plan.  A plan carries with it a set of procedures, rules and regulations.  It can also be improvised.  A plan is usually a step by step process used for the purpose of reaching a goal. 

 

Scheme:  A scheme is a plan or program of action, especially a crafty or secret one, usually concocted by a villain or adversary.

 

Procedure:  A procedure is a particular way of accomplishing something.  It is usually defined by a set of specific instructions that rarely change, except with occasional modification as part of an upgrade.

 

Protocol:  Protocol is a preliminary memorandum often formulated and signed by diplomatic negotiators as a basis for a final convention or treaty.  It can be the records or minutes of a diplomatic conference or congress that show officially the agreements arrived at by the negotiators.  It is a code prescribing strict adherence to correct etiquette and precedence (as in diplomatic exchange and in the military services).  It can also be a set of conventions governing the treatment and especially the formatting of data in an electronic communications system, or a detailed plan of a scientific or medical experiment, treatment, or procedure.

 

Goal:  A goal is an end point in the pursuit of a dream or desire.  Reaching a goal is the attainment of an animate or inanimate object of desire.  Goals are usually reached by direct effort (action) and planning on the part of a character determined to overcome any obstacles that get in the way. 

 

Intrigue:  Intrigue means to arouse interest, desire or curiosity through action, excitement, mystery and suspense.

 

Drama:  Drama is conflict.  Drama is a written, audio or visual work designed to tell a story involving conflicts expressed emotionally through dialog and action.  Something dramatic implies a heightened state of reality. 

 

Conflict:  Conflict can take the form of a fight, battle or any combination of opposing forces.  These forces can be external or internal.  Conflict involves struggle for resolve. 

 

Obstacle:  An obstacle is anything that impedes progress or achievement.  Obstacles can be tangible or intangible. 

LOGLINE

I’ve spent hours alone trying to write a logline.  Actually, it’s a log paragraph.  I don’t necessarily believe the selling and production of a script depends on how well written a logline is.  But, it is a teaser.  And I’m challenged to write the best logline possible because it tells in a very clear and concise manner what the story is about.  This is something I need to do before a script is written.  I need to know where a story is headed.  I need to know beginning, middle and end.  I need to know the central conflict, the climax and who the antagonist/protagonist are. 

The structure of a logline best follows the essential definition of a what a story is:  A flawed character overcoming obstacles to reach a desired goal.

Here’s one logline taken from an unknown book on screenwriting:  “A meek and alienated little boy discovers a stranded extraterrestrial and finds the courage to defy authorities to help the alien return to its home planet.”  — ET: Extraterrestrial.

References are made to the objective and subjective storylines.  For instance, the objective storyline of Rocky is about a boxer.  The subjective storyline is about the character of Rocky overcoming obstacles to reach a desired goal.  But obstacles are objective and subjective.  The objective obstacle is overcoming an opponent.  The subjective obstacle is overcoming low self-esteem. 

Because we can not see inside a character’s mind, the inner struggle must be revealed through external conflict.  In real life, an insane person could be sitting in a chair in an asylum with WW3 going on inside his head.  But the blank stare and a body that doesn’t move is not going to tell us what’s inside. 

In turn, we can see a cop chase a bad guy through a gun battle, car chase and all kinds of fantastic stuntwork.  But we know nothing about the cop or bad guy.  We need to care about the characters to care about what ever obstacles they overcome. 

Keywords fill out the logline.  We must know who the hero is, what happened, what the central conflict is (inner and outer obstacles), who the antagonist is, what’s at stake, and how the story resolves.  A logline can include the following:  Situation, complications, action, crisis, a hint at climax, a character’s transformation, production value (sex, greed, danger, humor, thrills, satisfaction) and genre.

Loglines are often used by DVD Clubs (like Columbia House) to entice a buyer.  Or they are used by TV Guide to entice a viewer.  More often than not a logline is a device to help the screenwriter see the story as clearly and simply as possible. 

Many loglines contain the names of stars where the stars becoming the selling device and not the character, theme, genre or story.  In terms of selling a screenplay, a logline works much in the same way a trailer works to entice an audience.  Sometimes trailers are better than the movies they advertise.  The same applies to a logline, synopsis or treatment.  A logline can also be a “pitch.”  A screenwriter “pitches” a story to a producer, actor or director.  A pitch can happen in an elevator or during a 15 minute appointment set up to hear the pitch. 

GENRES

Genres can generally be viewed in terms of the main conflict or central struggle.  For instance, a struggle against nature or supernatural forces, a struggle against new worlds, a struggle to find identity, a struggle for justice, a struggle to catch a criminal, a struggle against historical change, a struggle against society, a struggle against hate, a struggle to find/keep love, a struggle against montsters or demons, a struggle against technology, a struggle against morality, law or beliefs, a stuggle for survival.

Action
Adventure
Action/Adventure
Disaster
Comedy
Black Comedy
coming-of-Age
Crime (Detective, Cop, Courtroom, Gangster, Heist, Drugs, Street)
Thriller
Epic
Epic/Myth
Fantasy
Film Noir
Horror
Romance
Romantic Comedy
Science Fiction
Social Drama
Historical
Biographical
Buddy Film
Chick Flick
Art Film
Foreign Film
Independent Film
Musical
Western

TOOLS FOR DEVELOPMENT

 

An idea for a story can come from anywhere, usually an event:  something happens to someone, or someone is trying to reach a goal.

The Genre is not just a marketing ploy but also captures the essence of what the story is about and provides a framework for the telling of that story:  horror, sci-fi, comedy, drama, musical, western, thriller, action/adventure, love story (and various combinations and sub-genres).

A logline (log paragraph) tells what the story is about in 1-3 sentences.  “This is a story about cars” is not a logline.  “This is a story about cars that get blown up” is still not a log line, nor is it a story.  The logline must include the protagonist, the major conflict and the theme.

An outline usually takes the form of scene by scene (not shot by shot or camera angle by camera angle—shots and angles are only in a director’s shooting script).

A synopsis is more than a logline, usually 1-10 pages or so.

A treatment is an elaborate telling of the story in narrative form, up to 60 pages long.  A treatment can be a short story.  It is a visual telling of the story in narrative form with dialog and scene divisions removed. 

A screenplay traditionally has a 3-act structure equating beginning, middle, and end.  It might have more acts depending on sub-plots.  There is an inciting incident (something happens) which produces a series of conflicts leading to a main conflict and the resolve of that conflict.  Once something happens to a character, there is no turning back.  The character must overcome a series of obstacles to reach a desired goal. 

Movies are generally 2 hours long, with one page of a script representing one minute of screen time (120 pages). 

What is the difference between a movie, a screenplay, a story, a theme, a premise and a plot?  What is a hook?  What is an idea?  What is a concept?  What is the difference between an idea and a concept?  How is concept different from theme or premise?

A story consists of structure, time, place (or space), a journey, theme, premise, style, Protagonist, Antagonist, supporting characters, scenes (a series of events or plot points), acts, sets, locations, lighting, mood, genre, exposition, music, camera angles, beats, vignettes, dialog, action, conflict, climax and resolution.  All of these elements are storytelling devices. 

There are different kinds of stories:  epic, allegory, parody, satire, children’s.

AUDIENCE

·        Who is the target audience?

·        How old are they?

·        What are they interested in?

·        Will they be desperate to know what happens?

·        What topics and issues matter to everyday people?  Where do pirates, ghosts and aliens fit into this?

·        Audiences interpret in many different ways.

·        Audiences identify, sympathize and empathize.  They also cheer and boo.

·        What is a wide audience compared to a narrow audience?

·        Audiences don’t necessarily relate to the character but to the heart of a character (a sympathetic bad guy).

WHERE STORIES COME FROM

·        Novels (Horse Whisperer, Silence of the Lambs)

·        Short stories

·        News stories

·        Children’s books (Harry Potter)

·        Autobiographies

·        Documentaries

·        Non-fiction

·        Military (Top Gun, the Hunt for Red October)

·        Comic books (Spiderman, Batman, Superman, Men in Black)

·        Bubblegum cards (Mars Attacks!)

·        Word-of-mouth

·        Radio shows (The Shadow, War of the Worlds—also from a novel)

·        TV series (Star Trek, the Brady Bunch, Mission Impossible)

·        Newspaper comics

·        Cartoons (Flintstones)

·        Computer games (Rocketeer, Mario Bros)

·        TV Comedy (Blues Brothers, Wayne’s World)

·        Toys (Masters of the Universe)

·        Poems (Jabberwocky)

·        Plays (The Crucible, Romeo and Juliet, A Few Good Men)

·        Myths (Clash of the Titans, Hercules)

·        Songs/albums (Tommy, The Wall, Sea of Love)

·        Legends (Excalibur)

·        Campfire stories (Halloween)

·        Dreams (Eraserhead)

·        Mythical beasts (Dragonheart, Godzilla, King Kong)

·        Historical events (Titanic, Braveheart)

·        Real people (Nixon, Catch Me If You Can, Mommy Dearest)

War, social events, disasters, famous crimes, famous criminals, doctors, lawyers, politicians, inventors, misfits, scientific discoveries, geographical discoveries, explorers, athletes, daredevils

BLUEPRINT FOR A SCREENPLAY

Following is a series of “explorations” in screenwriting.  I call them explorations because they’re not written in article or essay form, nor were they ever organized in book form.  I call it a Blueprint. 

Also, everything here is by no means original.  I’ve blatantly pulled things from other books on screenwriting and have failed to give credit where credit is due.  So if there are any issues please don’t hesitate to submit a comment and I’ll make corrections accordingly. 

If my explorations in screenwriting were to ever be compiled in book form, the preface of the book would state clearly how I take a non-linear approach to a linear art form.  As any writer knows, in any kind of fiction, an idea can come from anywhere:  a word, a look, a theme, an event, a person, place, a scene, a dialog.  So, for me, screenwriting is a holistic process.  You can’t have one thing without the other.  But all the things that go together to make a good story–a good screenplay–don’t happen in any particular order. 

You’ve got characters walking around in front of a green screen.  You’ve got a great location but haven’t a clue what its importance is to the story.  And for me, I’ve got so much dialog going on in my head, well, it’s literally a cast of 1000s.  Who are these people?  Where are these voices coming from? 

But, films are linear.  They happen in time.  They begin, go somewhere, and end.  Of course, you can take an avant garde or experimental approach and not build a story at all or pay any attention to a clock ticking forward in time.  I’m not interested in that kind of style, with one exception:  Finding the Holy Grail of screenwriting, which is, “what is a story?”

Now, there’s plenty of exploration into structure.  There is the stuff that holds the story together, and the stuff that makes up the story.  There are rules and there are places to break rules.  And, there are dozens of stories and dozens of ways to tell them. 

I’m in keeping with the tradition of Hollywood, although the Independent film is increasingly becoming more attractive in its ability to tell stories Hollywood won’t touch, or introducing a ton of new talent that never found a home in Hollywood. 

The traditional Hollywood film is under 2 hours.  It has a beginning, middle and end–the traditional 3-act structure.  A number of books on screenwriting go beyond 3-acts, and such a view is very useful.  I’d say the more you are able to break it down the better off you are at putting it all together.  Afterall, it’s a scene-by-scene and in some cases, frame-by-frame building process. 

So, let the journey begin.