I've been trying to change my Scifi tech thriller movi, that I mentioned in a couple of other threads to be similar to the type of films that you see on Sundance, and IFC, seems impossible, either that or it seems I'm writing endless scenes of nothing. Or it seems that way in the treatment. I usually stall on the love story, and bringing the charachters togeather, and making them believable that they would even have anything to do with one another.
There are different 'screenwriting styles': visual, verbal, action, and emotional. It often helps to have collaboration between writers with two different styles to hash out a good screenplay.
Visual - They see the whole movie play out, unfortunately they tend to write elaborate descriptions and not so good dialogue. They are good directors.
Verbal - They write incredible dialogue but it tends to go on and on with little action. Somehow, they make it work, usually. Often they are playwrights or novelists. Their wordiness needs to be pruned.
Action - They know HOW to move a scene along. Often the descriptions and dialogue are very minimalist except for the characters responding to situations. They tend to lose sight of the plot so the story seems to be one giant sequence of events loosely tied together. They tend to be directors and actors.
Emotion-focused - These writers create massive scripts which lack driving story or action. Much of the dialogue is sparse or is done as a voiceover to express the "inner feelings". Usually, they don't get produced unless they are paired with another writer.
It's always good to have a verbal writer on board and pair them with a visual or action writer. Often one finds the director (visual/action) works with a co-writer (verbal) to create the screenplay.
I have never experienced love for someone so I'm guessing thats whats killing that aspect.
It's hard to write about what one hasn't experienced but not impossible. You need to research people who have had that kind of relationship. Much of writing is 'reporting' or 'interpreting' daily life. Connecting with another writer who is verbal or emotion-focused may help.
I'm trying to make a "pretty pictures"IFC/ film festival darling film with some tech thriller/scifi elements.. Instead of a scifi ish movie with elements of raiders, we get the same film but with an indie, lonely people drama too...
It's hard to force fit a story into a genre that's already written in your own head. If it doesn't evolve naturally from the story line, you'll lose the audience. Many SyFy movies have a forced hero/heroine element that doesn't come across a believable. Sometimes film is an art and not just a collection of techniques. Again if you have an action/visual perspective, team up with a verbal/emotion-focused writer.
