SCREENWRITING IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK IT IS PART 6: AVOIDING THE USUAL TRAPS
I ended the last post by pointing out that - as you receive feedback - you need to be clear about the fact that only you truly know your story. Only YOU know everything there is to know about your screenplay, including what your vision or intentions were when you started. Your readers don’t. That fascinating, immersive, innovative, and effective world in your head is not available to anyone else but YOU. All anyone else has access to is your script.
All the rest of us get is what you put on the page.
And, if the person reading your work doesn’t like it, one of two things took place:
You failed to translate your idea into an enjoyable/effective read
or…
You failed to write a story worth telling
Is it also possible that the reader is just not a good match for your work and that their own personal biases and preferences might make it impossible for you to please them no matter what you write? Maybe. But, please do not buy into that because once you do, that will be the first thing you think of every time you experience critical feedback. You’ll keep searching for an audience that might not exist.
Take the feedback and work with it. Do all you can to learn something useful from it before moving on. Take responsibility and improve your work. There’s no downside. You’ll develop a better understanding and improve your skills.
Okay… that said, let’s have a closer look at what those two possible scenarios actually mean:
1. YOU FAILED TO TRANSLATE YOUR IDEA INTO AN ENJOYABLE READ
Your PAGECRAFT could be seriously lacking. This is the skill required to effectively present your ideas on the page. Poor Pagecraft will kill a great story - especially in the world of screenwriting.
All things being equal, if you actually have a compelling story to tell - because you can prove your STORYCRAFT is top-notch - then how you present your work on the page will determine how well your story is received. It’s just that simple.
If the story is, in fact, excellent at the conceptual level and it’s not producing the desired results, then it probably died on the page. This is just another way of saying…
your work is undercooked.
(It’s not finished yet)
All of the crazy, counter-intuitive, and completely unique expectations of screenplay formatting have ruined your story. Sort of. That’s not actually the real problem, though.
The REAL problem is YOU.
Somehow, you have not recognized that you need to become completely fluent in the industry-standard language of screenplay formatting. You half-assed it. Or you simply didn’t know any better. And honestly, there is no excuse for either.
The good news is that there is nothing about this scenario that is a particularly serious problem. In fact, once you realize that your Pagecraft is sub-par, you’ll be in great shape. You are still very much on track, you just haven’t completed the task at hand. This is a very common, but fixable problem with some more perspective and personal awareness. And you WILL fix this problem if you employ a more effective process that will point out all of these things to you naturally and organically as you work.
You just sent the work out too early.
No big deal.
If and when you do realize that it’s a lack of Pagecraft that’s hurting you, be grateful. That’s actually a good thing. Ignoring it or denying it is disastrous. As I’ve said earlier, admitting you have more to learn is never a bad thing. Time and a willingness to learn will fix this issue. Ultimately…
If your concept was sound when you started,
all that’s missing is time, effort, and the willingness to adapt and learn.
Writing is an iterative craft. You don’t get to the finish line in one, big move. You get there in a million little ones. It’s all a matter of knowing where you need to go next, and having an effective process or a mentor/coach will provide you with that in a hurry. You can do it alone too, of course, but it will take much longer to understand what you don’t know when you don’t know it.
So, you’re possibly still too green. You may not have put in enough time. You might not have acquired enough knowledge, experience, or skill just yet. But that’s very fixable.
And, it’s perfectly normal.
2. YOU FAILED TO WRITE A STORY WORTH TELLING
The other possible problem is much more serious and - believe it or not - much more common. Your entire screenplay could, in fact, be unsalvageable. You may have chosen to tell a story that never had any hope of becoming an effective screenplay.
This problem is about your STORYCRAFT skills. This is by far and away the biggest problem out there for new and emerging screenwriters. Scott Myers, the official Blacklist blogger and author of “The Protagonist’s Journey” likes to share these quotes when talking about the subject:
“Most aspiring screenwriters simply don't spend enough time choosing their concept. It's by far the most common mistake I see in spec scripts. The writer has lost the race right from the gate. Months -- sometimes years -- are lost trying to elevate a film idea that by its nature probably had no hope of ever becoming a movie.”
-- Terry Rossio
(Aladdin, The Mask of Zorro, Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)
“Ideas cost NOTHING and require ZERO risk. And yet, oddly, the LEAST amount of time’s usually spent in the idea stage before a small fortune is dumped on a whimsy that’s still half-baked… Ideas cost nothing yet have the potential to yield inexplicably long careers and happy lives.”
-- Kevin Smith
(Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Zak and Miri Make a Porno)
Bad PAGECRAFT is no big deal. More time and effort can fix that. Bad STORYCRAFT, however, is DEATH.
No amount of editing or polishing or time and effort will fix a broken concept. If you start writing with a broken concept, you will inevitably write your 100 or so pages and then realize something is very wrong. It won’t quite work, and even if there are glimpses of something effective, the overall story will fall flat. The worst part is you won’t be able to tell exactly what is wrong, or how to fix it.
Diagnosing bad Pagecraft when you are staring at 100 pages is easy. It’s right there on the surface and it’s easy to see. Diagnosing bad Storycraft when you are staring at 100 pages is next to impossible. It’s buried deep within those 100 pages and there are now a million other details distracting you and obfuscating the actual problem:
The concept does not work and NEVER DID.
You’ll more than likely need to throw those 100 pages away and start over. And you should start by successfully developing or re-developing the concept. If you don’t know how to do that, or, if you - like many new screenwriters - don’t even realize that’s a thing, then you will likely end up writing only stories suffering from that very same problem.
Somehow, not enough people are aware of this. Despite the fact that almost all of the most popular screenwriting “gurus” like Scott Myers, Micheal Hauge, McKee, Vogler, and a ton of working writers all say the same thing when asked.
“As a screenwriter, your choice of film premise is your calling card. Not your witty dialog, not your clever descriptions. Not your knowledge of structure and subplot and subtext. The very first decision you make as a writer -- 'what is my film about?' -- will define your creative instincts in the eyes of the industry. Like actors and directors, you will always be known by the projects you pick (or in this case, by the projects you initiate). You must -- you MUST -- choose well.”
— Terry Rossio
Most of us have been there. It happens ALL THE TIME. Early on in my journey as a screenwriter, I found myself in that spot more than once. That feeling of intense frustration and helplessness was what inspired me to create THE STORY FORGE which is my “best of” methodology for successfully breaking a story and developing a concept that can actually be turned into an effective screenplay.
Mine is not the only way of course, but if you want to find success as a screenwriter - if you want to get paid - you need a bullet-proof method for breaking a story and developing your concept BEFORE you start writing.
Anyone who says they can get there by “pantsing” (writing by the seat of your pants) is not a working professional and is not yet sensitive to the actual needs of the industry - which is what people get paid for. If you don’t mind spending weeks, months, or even years writing 100 pages to learn your concept never had a chance to begin with, then keep pantsing. But, if you want to be efficient and effective with your time, if you want to succeed, then learn to develop story concepts in a manner that is specific to filmmaking.
This is a very big, and complex subject, but here are the top 3 things that I believe you need to have fully fine-tuned BEFORE you sit down to write:
1. Your Protagonist’s Transformational Arc
Yes, there are people out there in a hurry to tell you that there are many different kinds of character arcs but know that none are as popular as the classic “Hero’s Journey” variation also known as the evolutionary arc. The main character is first discovered in desperate need of change and the events of your story provide the perfect catalyst needed to evolve out of a traumatically-induced False Identity and into their destined True Self.
This is not something that suddenly happens at the point of climax where the Hero instantly transforms from one state into the other. This needs to happen throughout the entire story in clearly understandable and visible ways. The audience needs to readily see and understand the incremental changes happening as the story unfolds or the resolution of the story will feel hollow and unsatisfying. No matter how much action or conflict or drama you may attempt to pack into the story, it won’t feel like anything significant happened and it will be instantly forgettable.
2. A Differentiating “Hook”
As mentioned previously, Hollywood and its consumers prefer a combination of elements best described as “the same, but different”. There needs to be a familiar quality to the concept, but it also needs a fresh spin to prevent it from feeling stale.
If it’s too familiar, the audience will feel like they’ve already seen it. If it’s too unique or “original”, then they won’t understand it.
If you are writing a shark movie, what makes yours stand out from all the other shark movies? What can the marketing department leverage in trailers and ads? What unique attribute or idea within your concept makes your story special? Whatever it is, it needs to be immediately and overtly obvious. Do not “hide the ball”.
3. The Effective Use of Theme
Of the three things listed here, this is by far the most difficult and it’s the one that will most likely make or break your efforts.
A really cool and unique hook can draw in audiences even if the characters are a little thin (Horror movies often cash in on this).
A really great cast of characters can entertain audiences even if the plot is a little thin.
But NOTHING will compensate for a lack of theme.
Theme is the one thing that gives a story its meaning - its very reason to exist. And if you don’t yet know how to bind everything together and make every detail relate effectively to every other detail of your story with a powerful, timely, relevant, and emotionally resonant theme, then you are not going to write any stories worth telling.
Again, there are many, MANY other critical details that need to be addressed before you can write an effective story, but, ultimately, you simply have to write screenplays that the industry wants. And in order to do that, you not only have to understand what industry professionals want, but you also need to know your audience and what they need to feel satisfied.
You need to understand how to move and excite people both inside and outside of the industry.
SUMMARY:
That’s it in a nutshell. And until you find success, have fun, keep it playful, and focus on the WHYs. Never let a subject go by without understanding the WHY of it. If you make understanding the WHYs of everything your #1 priority, you’ll learn and develop effective skills and instincts much more quickly.
And, by resetting your expectations and using a dependable, repeatable process that will force you to test both the artistic and the commercial merits of your concept very early on, (or by working with a coach that will provide that and more) you’ll produce work that is much more effective than most.
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