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character Character Motivation and Scripts

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wheatgrinder

Hi all,
Simple "script writing 101" question:
When Im writing a script, am I supposed to include "internal motivation" of my characters in the scene description, or do I reveal that motivation through action and dialog?

Seems to me that just because I say my character is motivated by some desire in the scene description, unless some specific action or dialog points this out, his motivation has no impact on the story. If I am unable to show that internal motivation, or that the script reader cant figure it out, then my script needs to be fixed..

Comments?
 
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wheatgrinder said:
Hi all,
Simple "script writing 101" question:
When Im writing a script, am I supposed to include "internal motivation" of my characters in the scene description, or do I reveal that motivation through action and dialog?
Click to expand...
Something that is quite difficult to understand and master is to
write only what the director can shoot. The director cannot
shoot what a character is feeling unless the character does
something. You cannot write, "Mary is a Harvard graduate who
was once a porn star" in the character description. No director
can film that.

I think you have it right; the characters motivation has no
impact on the story. The characters actions have impact on
the story.
 
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Great, Im glad my question was understood and I got the answer I wanted :P

I was thinking of the different was to communicate motive. Dialog, and action are obvious. but I realized that we, as people often infer motive of others based on many different factors. A person in a specific situation may suggest motive by simply being in that station. Or a persons relationship to another might infer that they have the same motive (i.e. husband and wife)


can you think of any others?
 
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I'd go a step farther and say: "the characters' actions are the story."

Be careful wheatgrinder about "situations," they can lead to two kinds of exposition: one is merely boring, the other... much worse.

Exposition of situation at the beginning of a story -- yeah, you often need it, but be sure to embed it in something that keeps the story moving, not static (e.g., the well-known phrase "Pope in the Pool" -- situation is not just told, but also revealed).

The worse offense is when a story needs a summing-up exposition at the END -- that is, the first-grade teacher leaning-in and telling you: "so class, the moral of this story is...." UGH. If your story needs that, then: well, you've failed to tell much of anything with your actual story.
 
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you could try intergrating the epistolary form into your script, (show the character writing a letter, expressing what is you want to show) this is a easy but effective way.
 
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wheatgrinder said:
A person in a specific situation may suggest motive by simply being in that station. Or a persons relationship to another might infer that they have the same motive (i.e. husband and wife)
Click to expand...
You have slipped too far into intellectual academia for me. I
dropped out of high school.

Are you saying that a person in a bank during a robbery may
suggest that person is a bank robber? Or that a man in an adult
book shop may suggest his motive is to cheat on his wife by simply
being in that situation?

As both a writer and a director I can’t think of a way (for
example) to show a person in an adult book store (a specific
situation) whose motive is to find his missing daughter who he
suspects has gone into porn without some specific action or
dialogue. Just seeing a man in that situation doesn’t indicate
motive. And writing that in a script without any dialogue or
action certainly wouldn’t indicate any motive.

Or am I reading you wrong? As I said, I fear you have gone over my
head.
 
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Sorry to bump an old thread.

You really can't write internal motivation, thats a tool of a novel writer, not a screenwriter. A lot can be said about a characters motivation by subtext. For example if you are thinking a spouse of cheating, you can't ask "are you cheating" well you can but thats scary so you bounce around the question with every intention being put on what you want to say. So questions like "what did you do tonight?" "who were you with?" etc. Its obvious what you are getting at and why you are asking what you are asking, but the question itself has no accusations of cheating associated with it.

I am not sure If my point is clear, so I tried to find a good example of subtext.

http://www.scriptforsale.com/articles/subtextfuture.htm

If you can master subtext, there isn't much need to tell motivations.
 
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