TIPS OF THE WEEK ARCHIVE
EVENT WRITING OVER DIALOGUE
Screen and TV writers are not playwrights. The magic of having live performers acting right in front of you stimulates the brain centers and allows a high attention span for the dialogue to be effective as a method of moving a plot forward.
But with film and TV there is a separation between performer and audience member. The magic that is present in a live performance is greatly dulled. This isn't to say you can't accomplish a great deal with amazing dialogue.
But in our craft, an audience is not stimulated by the dialogue as they are by events. The best way to craft an exciting manuscript for either film or TV is to outline from event to event, with a major plot point happening once every six minutes in film, and even more quickly for TV, around every four minutes, with the scenes in between being logical connectors between one major plot point to the following one.
While in TV you can have as many as twelve storylines running concurrently, you must take great care to not just set things up repeatedly but instead weave an intricate balance of huge events to small connectors, crashing storylines into one another as often as possible and mixing in excellent Twists in order to keep your audience on the edge of their seats.
Screenplays are simpler animals. You have a plot and a sub-plot and nothing else. It is easy to fall into a pattern where not a lot is happening, and thus your pacing slows down to a crawl which is psychological torture for the reader.
Often writers overwrite their scenes, and for early drafts that's fine. But when you get into your third draft and onwards, you need to clean it up. I prefer to keep every scene limjted in TV from 10 seconds to 90, no more than a page and a half. With features I can go up to two minutes for a scene. I try to never go above that except during huge scenes where the action or drama or comedy is ramped up to the highest levels. Only then will a reader not become bored with a scene's content.
So when working on your outline, list the primary goal of the scene -- the event that will move the plot forward one notch. Don't have scenes that are just meant to be character examinations, or to just be funny, or scary, or dramatic. Too much of that and you kill the pace of your script and bore your audience to tears instead of taking them on the emotional roller coaster they were hoping for. And, sometimes our scenes get too long if you try and do too much with it. You should only have one primary purpose for a scene. Feel free to break longer scenes with multiple goals into several small, quick scenes. It will make your script a quicker read rather than the thicker one it is now. And that's what we want. It's all about the events in our form.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - FEBRUARY 17th
MIXING WRITING WITH PHYSICAL EXERCISE
I admit it, I used to be a sloth! A human-sized sloth who thought because I was a writer I was justified in sitting in a chair for 6-10 hours, snacking on chocolates and chips, and basically abusing my body. That was a bad idea. While I never overdid it to the point of being truly fat, I also wasn't doing the right thing for myself. The mind and the body are joined and they are one.
And so, I now like to combine exercise with writing by using the time I exercise -- whether it is walking for 30 minutes, doing a regiment of sit-ups and push-ups or riding a bike around the town to consider the scene I am going to craft next. Before I start my physical exercise I look at my outline, and choose a scene on it that I am going to craft.
While I am exercising instead of wasting the time mentally, I am thinking about the event of the scene, thinking about the dynamics of the characters, imagining the scene in my head.
Having visualized the scene it becomes easier to write it, even though I am much more tired physically from the exercise. Combined with eating right, I am now also taking care of my body every day as well.
You can do a lot of different things that help your writing while you exercise such as listening to an audio book about the craft of screenwriting, or if you have a writing partner, you can discuss the project while working out together.
All humans need a minimum of 20 minutes of exercise a day. As writers, we spend a lot of time sitting on our butts. Get away from the screen to protect your eyes and wrists from damage, and keep the rest of your body nice and fit. You'll find that you'll have more energy than ever when sitting down to write, especially in the morning.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - FEBRUARY 10TH
The Importance of White Space
Novelists have it so easy, and so do playwrights and essayists! Screenwriters and TV writers have to be cognizant that there is a visual aesthetic that is required at all times! As if crafting a great story, incorporating a relevant theme, and keeping the audience on an emotional roller coaster at all times weren't chores enough!
You need a lot of white space on each and every page, and here is how I make sure that happens with my own pages.
Rule 1: Never have more than 2 and a half lines of anything -- description, action, or dialogue, before a nice line of white space. I always break it up. I have dialogue get interrupted. I make sure the action is short and concise. I break up descriptions of multiple objects so they aren't together creating a paragraph.
Rule 2: Never have more than 3 dialogue exchanges before a relevant action occurs. Having lots of dialogue is playwriting. It certainly isn't screenwriting. In TV, you can have plenty of dialogue, but the lines must be rapid-fire quick, and short. No monologues! Anything over two and a half lines? Unacceptable.
Rule 3: When dealing with a silent scene, or one where dialogue is sparse, make sure you break up each idea into its own short paragraph. Again, never have more than two and a half lines of action and/or description before you have a nice line of blank white space.
These three simple rules will keep your pages nice and clean! A competitive necessity in a difficult marketplace.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - FEBRUARY 3RD
WRITING TWO SCRIPTS SIMULTANEOUSLY
When Writing Multiple Scripts at Once: A lot of writers like to switch between scripts and there is no right or wrong about this if these are private projects and you have no sub-contracts at the moment, or if you have one sub-contract but want to also work on a private project for sale later. I find the best technique is to switch between scripts at the end of Act Breaks instead of doing so randomly. Then you can get into a habit of outlining an entire act for either your screenplay or teleplay, then write it, then do the same for the other project, and write it. It makes switching between the projects much easier than if you actually attempt to craft them at the same time, switching off on different days of the week.The other method, for those who enjoy writing multiple scripts simultaneously, is to rigidly outline each act, and then do three scenes from your outline on one script, then switch to the other. It becomes much easier to organize because you can simply check off the scenes you've written, then just refer to your multiple outlines for which scene you plan to write next.If you attempt to write multiple scenes in a loosey-goosey fashion, you will end up losing something -- most probably character voice or tone. So take the time to create a scene by scene outline, and then no matter which method I have listed above you choose, you'll be able to work on both scripts without ever losing your place or the important aspects of each script that makes it unique. .
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - JANUARY 27TH
EVOKE EMOTION INTENTIONALLY BY ADDING IT TO YOUR OUTLINE
The key to powerful writing is to evoke emotion from your reader. A lot of the time we, as writers, become so concerned with the emotions our characters are feeling in the moment we lose touch with what the audience is feeling, and that can cause a serious disconnect where you will accidentally lose your audience.
To make sure this never happens, when you outline your scenes, write down what emotion you want the audience to be left feeling by the scene. By being actively conscious of this, you will be able to analyze your scenes and ensure that you are always motivating and manipulating the audience's emotions at all time to keep them on that fantastic roller coaster ride that they are tuning in for.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - JANUARY 20TH
Study great works in your genre to help your outlining process.
Always reverse-engineer movies and television shows that are in the same genre that you are writing in. Get a good sampling, at least 3 different movies which are considered the great ones in your genre, or 3 episodes of a show that has the same tone as the show you are building. Study the beats, note when each major plot point happens, take written notes.
When you note similiarities then you begin to formulate a "genre-formula" that will help you craft your script so that when others read it, it will feel like it belongs in the same category as those other works.
WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK - JANUARY 13TH
ATA - ACTIVE TENSE ALWAYS
While it makes no difference from a grammatical standpoint what tense your script is in, I always use the active tense, eliminating all "ing" verbs from my script vocabulary. As a result, my script reads faster in the mind of the reader, and that is a huge competitive advantage for me as opposed to most writers who don't know to do this. Here is an example of what I mean:
Other People Write: Julie is sitting at the picnic table, eating her lunch while listening to the violinist strumming nearby.
I write: Julie sits at the picnic table, eats her lunch, listens to the violinist strum nearby.
You can clearly "hear" the difference when you read this in your mind. So do professional readers, producers, and script buyers. If you write this way, you will save space on the page, making it appear cleaner. It is a faster, brisker read. Do it 100 percent of the time as I do.