The new screenwriter tends to have a
love affair with his/her "baby." He's married to every word and nuance he's
carefully scripted onto each page. Often, it reads more like a novel than a
screenplay and usually it needs a serious rewrite. It's time to get a divorce.
You must not be afraid to hack, chisel or cut-out ANYTHING that does
not serve to push the story forward. Sooner or later, you'll write a scene that
is just plain good. You're in love again and all is right with the world.
Finally, you conclude that it doesn't serve the story as it should. You must
get a divorce and hack it out of the script.
Remember: Not every story
is movie material. Not every story is as fascinating on the screen as it is in
our heads. This is especially true of biographical stories. As interesting as
someone's true-life experiences are, they rarely translate well to the screen.
However, it often makes an excellent bestselling book.
In
screenwriting, you only have
TWO TOOLS to work with in a screenplay:
DIALOGUE: that characters say
ACTION: a visual
description of what is seen on the movie screen
This does
NOT
include:
* Anything anyone "knows" (i.e. "Ed heard about Jennifer's
problem at school.")
* Anything that cannot be photographed (i.e. "Mary
loves chocolate ice cream.")
* Anything the audience "knows" (i.e.
"This is the same woman we saw earlier at the bar.")
* Any background
information (i.e. "John is Tom's best friend.")
* Any action
description that uses '-ing' words. (i.e. "Sue is reading the newspaper."
should be "Sue reads the newspaper.")
Here's a common sense approach
to self-analysis of your own screenplay:
1. Read some FIRST-RATE
scripts! You need outstanding examples of well-written screenplays
against which you can compare your work objectively. I recommend you read at
least three, preferably nine, screenplays. Here's the catch: You MUST read them
ALL in the same week. Agents and development executives read 35-50 a week on
their own time so I know you can read at least three. Don't look at a single
page of your script until you've finished reading the scripts you downloaded.
Read one (or more) in each of the following categories:
* One in the
same genre as yours,
* One that's been made into an OSCAR-winning or
nominated movie, and
* One that's an all-time favorite movie of yours.
2. Now: read your script. It might seem a little
different now, but that's GOOD. You're becoming a little more objective.
3. Read yours again: OUT LOUD. Isaac Asimov: "Either it
sounds right or it doesn't sound right."
You might be amazed at how
you'll spot those things you know need a little extra attention. They're those
things that seem "odd" or don't feel "right" to you when you read it out loud.
You might find yourself thinking that certain characters say and do things that
don't seem to "fit" their backstory. You likely find this especially true of
dialogue. Circle these dialogue passages so you can come back to them later.
4. Act it out. This is also an opportunity to get
actor friends to read your script. If scenes are awkward or don't come across
as you intended, they need work. Stage a reading of the script. Make sure all
of the actors get a list of the characters they will portray and have someone
assigned to all of the lesser, incidental characters. Don't prep them! Let the
actor get the information about the character only from the script. If he
doesn't get it, neither will an agent, reader or producer; and you need to go
back the set-up the character so he DOES get it. During the reading, mark
scenes that don't work or have the intended impact and come back to
them
later.
5. Read it through out loud again, but only the ACTION
DESCRIPTION. Movies are a visual medium. If your story isn't
visual, maybe it shouldn't be a movie. Did you get lost? Are things vague? Are
the scenes not visual? Can you tell what's going by the visual clues? Mark
those scenes and come back and flush them out a little more.
6. One
more time out loud, but this time only the DIALOGUE. Do characters
seem to drone on and on? Can't tell WHAT they're talking about? Do they talk
about things not essential to the scene? Mark these scenes and come back and
rewrite them later.
Rule of Thumb: Scenes and dialogue should start at
the point where, if you cut out the start of the scene, what follows doesn't
make sense any more. This also applies to movies. Many screenplays really start
around pages 30-50, which means the writer spent way too much time setting up
the story. How do you tell? As you read, it suddenly seems as though you've
started a "movie in a movie" and you like it better than the one you started.
Time to get divorced. Unsure? Write a second script and see which version you
like best.
Writing is Rewriting Ernest Hemingway:
"Don't get discouraged because there's a lot of mechanical work to
writing...I rewrote the first part of Farewell to Arms at least fifty
times." Paddy Chayefsky:
"I'm not a great writer, I'm a great
rewriter." Good advice from two guys who ought to know.
Copyright Don Bledsoe. ABOUT THE AUTHORLong wanting
to be in "the business," Don Bledsoe started young, producing a short film for
NBC while in high school, worked at Paramount Studios at age 19, and later as
an actor and makeup artist in in Hollywood. In 1999, he founded
http://www.scriptnurse.com to help aspiring screenwriters
write better.
