What I've learned so far

[Jijenji]

I can't say enough how incredible an experience learning can be. For most of us who dare to write for the screen, the stage, for poetry or prose, learning how to write comes naturally. If it didn't, we would have been discouraged away from all of this long ago. But learning how to tell a good story, that's the hard part. I anticipated that there would be a curve to master, and I'm positive that much more awaits. One never stops learning. But looking back on the insight I've gained in the last half year, it astounds me just how deep you have to dig if you want to get it right.

I won't bore anyone with some long back-story, so I'll just get right to the topic at hand: learning how to tell a good story, and learning how to write a great screenplay. They are synonymous. I hadn't looked at it this way until now, but I guess the reason why all aspiring screenwriters believe they already know what they are doing, and that their work is outstanding, and others just can't see it, is because usually we are all good writers. As I mentioned, if we weren't, we wouldn't be here. We know how to write...but that doesn't mean we know how to tell story. That's the mistake I made when I began, and I really think that's where a lot of people fail. They assume that writing a screenplay is about being a crafty writer, good with words, able to manipulate them in cute and cunning ways. And yes, the way you choose your words, the writing tricks and techniques you use, all of those work...but almost EVERYONE else trying to write a screenplay can do the same stuff. You're not competing with the guy who just randomly sat down and started writing a bad comedy, thought it was funny, and sent it off to an agency without even doing a query first. You're not competing with the woman who sat down and randomly compiled scenes of her life together, one after the other, and sent that off either. You're competing against other writers who are just as clever or even more clever with words than you are.

Learning how to structure a story, the basics, then the finer details of writing later...that's where screenwriters are made. You would think that most people know the basics, but they don't. Hey, neither did we at first. I spent months reading really great advice from people like Filmy on here (thanks!), the Unknown Screenwriter, Terry Rosio's blog, and many, many others that I can't remember all at once. So much valuable information, so many basics, right there for the taking, and then you read the comments or read people's scripts, and it's like they didn't even pay attention to what the blogger was saying. So I guess that's why I'm starting this thread, partly because it's therapeutic for me to examine just what I've learned these last several months, but also it might just help someone else out too. Any discussion is good discussion!

If you haven't read Filmy's tips on here, Terry Rossio's Wordplay, and the Unknown Screenwriter, I'd suggest those as great places to start, they are excellent sources. Look into 3-act, 4-act, all kinds of stuff on structure, and the monomyth as well. There are many books to buy on those subjects, but my advice is to get that stuff off the internet for free...there's enough information on it to get you going. Once you feel up to it, go out and buy a couple of books. Let me say, I'm a college student and not exactly rolling in the money right now. So you're not going to see me buying every screenwriting book ever written, and you're not going to see me shelling out hundreds of dollars at seminars either. But I decided I needed to make an investment, and I bought a couple of screenwriting books--The Screenwriter's Bible (by David Trottier), and Story (by Robert McKee). I highly recommend them. Do everything in this paragraph, research background information on your story, research even more!...and remember, being a good writer, doesn't make you a good screenwriter. That's my mantra to keep my ego in check.

On that note, here's what I've learned. I'll start with one post, and if anyone is interested or I feel the urge to share some more, I'll probably add more. Part #1: The Setup / The Ordinary World.

 

[Jijenji]

1. The Setup

Let me explain this to you...even teachers don't explain the beginning of the script very well. Have you heard things like "get the inciting incident in by page 12 AT THE LATEST, page 1 if you can", "give your characters neat idiosyncracies so they come to life and people identify with them", or generic things like "don't let your exposition be too bulky"? A lot of the advice I heard regarding the start of the script sounds logical, and it seems true because most people say it, right?

Wrong. The generics aren't wrong I guess, but they aren't right either, as in not right enough. And the thing about page numbers? WRONG. How about the characters? Same thing. Whether 10 pages, 15, 30, or only the first, the secret to the ordinary world can be found in one word: empathy.

Empathy. Think about it. We sympathize with characters a lot, but feeling sorry for them doesn't mean we are going to be drawn into their story. Rather, the audience becomes hooked by empathizing with characters, identifying with them. WHEN THEY ARE LIKE US. When they have one trait that we can identify with, we are HOOKED. It doesn't mean some nervous tick you give your character either, or any other idiosyncracy. Those things aren't empathetic. Characterization makes your character unique and is a good thing, but its not enough. Empathy must be achieved.

So how do you get it? Give your character an obsession with shoes? O.K., so then the people in the audience who have an obsession with shoes will be hooked. What if we give them a Brooklyn accent? Nope, that's characterization again, except for the people in the audience who also have a similar accent, then it might get some empathy. So how the hell do you do it? You find things deep down in character, not superficial, but deep down, that we can ALL relate to. Fear, betrayal, self-doubt, guilt, love. Universal nature. If you're writing for one genre specifically, then tailor it to that audience. If you're writing some psycho-sexual horror, you don't need to get any empathy points with the religious people out in the audience...there ain't gonna be any out there. If you're going for mass appeal, then your character needs to be universal. If you're going for a niche market, then universal to the people who watch those types of films.

That brings us to page counts and inciting incidents. I'll leave the actual inciting incident to another post, and only mention it here in the context of where it comes, and thus ends The Setup. The Inciting Incident doesn't come on page 12, or page 1, or on any other page. It comes EXACTLY after the audience has empathy for the protagonist. And that depends on each individual story. The premise of your script might be so strong, that almost no setup is necessary...and the inciting incident can then come on page 1. In other stories, it takes a half hour to make the connection. And yes, you have to place the Inciting Incident at EXACTLY the right spot.

Here's why. As soon as the audience empathizes with your protagonist, they want to get the show on the road. They don't want to see your protagonist go to work, go home to his family, get into some conversation so that you can get out some exposition. They want him up in the tree so he can get rocks thrown at him. Once they empathize, they want story, or they will get bored. In that same light, if you put the inciting incident before the audience is with your protagonist, then your film will feel shallow, because nobody is going to care about your hero. Why did the inciting incident in Rocky come a half hour in? Because that half hour was used to show the love story between him and Adrian, to get the audience to care about him, to show him as an underdog, so everyone didn't think "just another bum fighter". If the setup is too short, nobody will care about your protagonist. If it's too long, people will get bored. That's the trick you have to work out.

Now everyone says, The Setup should never go past 15 pages. And I'll admit, the earlier you can get it in, the better. But some stories need a longer setup, and if yours is like that, then here's the trick. Use a subplot during those first 20 minutes or whatever, to keep the audience's interest (see the Rocky/Adrian subplot above). Casablanca has many subplots to keep the audience interested until the inciting incident comes in at 32 minutes. But let me warn you: DO NOT make The Setup longer than it has to be. That means don't make it long because you have this great scene you need to get in. Don't make it long because you have so much exposition you have to spoon feed to the audience. You make it JUST LONG ENOUGH.

That brings me to one more point here...exposition. Not only does "show don't tell" apply, but "less is more" applies too. We don't need to know everything about your characters in the first few scenes of the movie. I repeat, we do not need to know everything about the characters in the first few scenes of a movie. In all the great films you'll ever see, there are moments well, well into the film where exposition keeps sprinkling out and we have those epiphanies of "ah, that's why x happened." If Johnny Appleseed is your protagonist, and he's a firefighter, unless you have a good reason for us to know that, we don't need to know Johnny's a firefighter in the first couple of scenes just because. We might never need to know, or we can find out later in the story. Give as little exposition as possible, and leave more for the rest of the film. The only information we need early on is the information that will get us to empathize with the protagonist, the information that will hook us and get us on board. And a hook doesn't equal what you're taught it is. Yes, a "hook" in the standard sense that all film people know, applies. But let's say you've got a great "hook", and the audience is now really interested in your story. But you don't get them to empathize with your character. Now they are going to feel cheated. Hook them with empathy.

The ONLY exception to the exposition/empathy rule is this: make sure we know enough about the characters so that when we see them doing something, we believe it. It doesn't have to be realistic, but part of The Setup is also about getting us to believe what we are seeing and are going to see for the rest of the film (or to disbelieve). That's the ONLY reason ANYTHING should be in the Setup other than what is needed to get empathy for your protagonist (although you could make the other characters look bad, and indirectly make your protagonist look better that way).

The Setup is about empathy, not exposition. Exposition is something you spread out through your entire screenplay, only giving the audience the information they have to have AT THAT MOMENT. Once your protagonist has empathy, on to the Inciting Incident.

 

[indietalk]

Wow, looks like you put a lot of work into this post, I thought I'd bump it.

 

[clive]

Two things you might want to think about:

1) Why would you need more than twelve pages to create empathy for your protagonist when, for instance, in a film like "Crash" Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco had to create empathy for over a dozen characters in less than two pages per character? (that's a rhetorical question, by the way)

The truth is, if the only criteria of getting the protagonist to the inciting incident was empathy, you could have the inciting incident on page one. And if that's the case, why would anyone hold back on the inciting incident past page twelve?

However, what's more important is to understand that if you need thirty pages to create empathy, then you've probably lost your audience... the reason the inciting incident is halfway through act one, in a four act structure, is because it works as a keystone for the first act. Prior to the inciting incident you're establishing the protagonist's ordinary world, after the inciting incident you're showing the protagonist's resistance to change... which in turn leads you to the first act break, which is where the protagonist undergoes the transformation from loner to wanderer.

As that first act break needs to happen about 25 pages into your script, if you throw the inciting incident too far in either direction, you distort the story arc.

This isn't to say that it can't be done... it's just not something I'd advise to anyone looking to either write a screenplay to sell, or to anyone making a film, who wishes to secure distribution.

2) You might want to spend some more time thinking about empathy... because rather than being the ways in which we define ourselves into social cultures and groups, in terms of a protagonist story arcs it's about universality.

The whole point of the monomyth is that it applies to everyone and not just subsets... and therefore the empathy has to be at a point where the vast majority of people, regardless of political or religious views, can feel that this person is representative of some aspect of them... in particular their inner heroic nature.

So, in real terms this is about core human values.

Now, this is one of the reasons that it's actual life experience, rather than technique that creates screenwriters... because there is no technique you can apply to teach someone how to write about core human values. It's something you can only do, if you spend enough time observing people... but more importantly than that, observing and understanding yourself.

In very real terms, we are all the templates of our own movies. Our characters are incapable of any degree of emotional intelligence that we don't posses ourselves.

And, this is where any advice on screenwriting always hits a brick wall, because it doesn't matter how many times a person writes... "you must create empathy for your protagonist" unless the writer has a highly evolved level of emotional intelligence the script is going to suck.

 

[VPTurner]

...

Now, this is one of the reasons that it's actual life experience, rather than technique that creates screenwriters... because there is no technique you can apply to teach someone how to write about core human values. It's something you can only do, if you spend enough time observing people... but more importantly than that, observing and understanding yourself.

In very real terms, we are all the templates of our own movies. Our characters are incapable of any degree of emotional intelligence that we don't posses ourselves.

And, this is where any advice on screenwriting always hits a brick wall, because it doesn't matter how many times a person writes... "you must create empathy for your protagonist" unless the writer has a highly evolved level of emotional intelligence the script is going to suck.

I cannot agree more on this. Your summation fits perfectly into my situation.

I just turned 40 last week. I began studying screenwriting with many of the same books and techniques described by Jijenji when I was in my early 20s. I had every book (and still have them) I could get my hands on, everything from Syd Field to Linda Segar to Michael Hauge and way beyond. Yes, I own Trottier's book, too. I am pretty sure that by now I have read almost every book ever written on screenwriting from how to write it to how NOT to write it. I must have spent thousands of dollars on books over the last 20 years covering all aspects of film and television production with an emphasis on writing. And I just added a couple more to my collection this week: "The Hollywood Standard" by Christopher Riley and "Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters" by Michael Tierno. I'm reading these on the heels of an absolute gem of a book by John Truby, "The Anatomy of Story - 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller". But I am not just reading them. I am studying them, spending quality time with them, and committing them to memory so the thoughts within become second nature and an integral part of my own thoughts.

And I am still learning. I do not believe this learning process ever stops. Every day, I run across something I thought I knew well only to find another angle. Several books and articles came out in the last four or five years while I was on hiatus that changed the way I look at things. And Filmy's 4 act structure was one of them.

One can argue that reading is just another form of writer's block. And it probably is for me at the moment. But every time I find another revelation, another mystery uncovered, through reading the experiences of those who have come before me, I feel justified. There IS a wizard behind the curtain. And I am close to seeing the whites of his eyes.

Could I have written a great screenplay in my twenties? I thought I could. After a couple of years of study and countless drafts, I turned out a ~120 page script that was beautifully formatted, nicely structured into the 3 act paradigm with a good balance of action and dialogue and pacing. But it sucked. You know why? Everything in it was cliche'. I didn't write something I knew because I was too young to know anything about life. My only references aside from movies and video games were the people around me whom I didn't take careful enough time to truly get to know. That was my life as a teenager: arcades and movie theaters (well, a healthy dose of Dungeons & Dragons slipped in there, too). But I always had a knack for words on paper and have always been a visual thinker, so screenwriting seemed a natural progression.

In the immortal words of Yoda, "You must unlearn what you have learned". This is my mantra today. Even Syd Field has abandoned much of what he taught when I first started learning.

I now have 20 more years of emotions and experiences on which to draw to bring depth to my characters. I read a long time ago that some of the best writers are in their mid to late thirties. Now I know why. I've had some pretty screwed up life changing experiences that would make for some great cinema.

 

[Jijenji]

Wow, so sorry Clive and Vince, I did not realize this thread had been replied to...and yet I usually check in a few times a week. Again, my apologies.

Two things you might want to think about:

1) Why would you need more than twelve pages to create empathy for your protagonist when, for instance, in a film like "Crash" Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco had to create empathy for over a dozen characters in less than two pages per character? (that's a rhetorical question, by the way)

The truth is, if the only criteria of getting the protagonist to the inciting incident was empathy, you could have the inciting incident on page one. And if that's the case, why would anyone hold back on the inciting incident past page twelve?

I think it really depends on the type of film.

I really find there are two types of films. One where the events take center stage and the characters play an important, supportive role. And the other, where the characters dominate, and the events play the supportive, yet still valuable role.

Now of course, both events and character arc are very important in each story. But are they equal? In an action film for instance, you're going to have more emphasis on the action. In a coming-of-age story, more emphasis on character arc.

In a horror movie, it's the horror people come to see. So the inciting incident, whether it's the first killing or whatever, probably comes right away, in the very first scene. But in other films, there needs to be a deeper connection between audience and protagonist in order to empathize with and understand the character's psyche.

Still in other films, the audience might be predisposed to a prejudice against the protagonist. Not just typical prejudices, necessarily (although that can certainly happen too). But any prejudice. There are many examples where screenwriters have used "tricks" (for lack of a better word) to gain empathy.

Longer set-ups are probably only applicable in more serious films. They are absolutely not necessary though. It just depends.

However, what's more important is to understand that if you need thirty pages to create empathy, then you've probably lost your audience... the reason the inciting incident is halfway through act one, in a four act structure, is because it works as a keystone for the first act. Prior to the inciting incident you're establishing the protagonist's ordinary world, after the inciting incident you're showing the protagonist's resistance to change... which in turn leads you to the first act break, which is where the protagonist undergoes the transformation from loner to wanderer.

As that first act break needs to happen about 25 pages into your script, if you throw the inciting incident too far in either direction, you distort the story arc.

I just find that there are stories where you can't just jump in. Many deeper dramas have inciting incidents that go past the half hour point. In fact, I'm sure we could name many great movies. I am absolutely not saying that every great movie should have an inciting incident that far into it. But if we were to point out any number of classic films, do you think the author should've put the inciting incident on page 9 instead of page 32, etc.? (rhetorical)

Now I see there is a problem for the newcoming writer. Of course, lets say they have a phenomenal idea and start writing a script. They write and write and write and find their Act I goes past 25-30 pages (given all of the above), they pace the film properly, and they wind up with a 130-140 page script. Now many would say they have no chance of getting their script read, which may be true. But should they abandon their idea, or write an inferior script to make up for that? I don't know, but I think it's a valid question. Perhaps I'm naive, but I believe anyone with a REALLY good script can get it into the right hands, regardless. I believe the Godfather Part II was well over 3 hours...again, not written by an unknown and I'm just going to the far extreme to make a point that if some unknown writer wrote a script of that quality (not likely but you never know) and wound up at even 150 pages or whatever, I'm sure it would have a way of getting noticed.

Of course, for the new writer, none of this probably applies, because the vast majority of new writers would not be writing the kind of scripts that require a longer set-up. And those that try are likely to fail because these kinds of stories are far beyond their abilities.

2) You might want to spend some more time thinking about empathy... because rather than being the ways in which we define ourselves into social cultures and groups, in terms of a protagonist story arcs it's about universality.

The whole point of the monomyth is that it applies to everyone and not just subsets... and therefore the empathy has to be at a point where the vast majority of people, regardless of political or religious views, can feel that this person is representative of some aspect of them... in particular their inner heroic nature.

So, in real terms this is about core human values.

Now, this is one of the reasons that it's actual life experience, rather than technique that creates screenwriters... because there is no technique you can apply to teach someone how to write about core human values. It's something you can only do, if you spend enough time observing people... but more importantly than that, observing and understanding yourself.

In very real terms, we are all the templates of our own movies. Our characters are incapable of any degree of emotional intelligence that we don't posses ourselves.

And, this is where any advice on screenwriting always hits a brick wall, because it doesn't matter how many times a person writes... "you must create empathy for your protagonist" unless the writer has a highly evolved level of emotional intelligence the script is going to suck.

I agree with all of your points regarding universality. I believe in the original post I was talking about that. Too often people think of characterization as what is needed to make a character empathetic...someone to get behind. But characterization is not universal. Its purpose is to make a character unique and identifiable. But character itself is universal. All of us have the same emotions. We may embrace some more than others differently as individuals, but we've all pretty much felt the same things in our lives, give or take. When a character does something that shows who they really are on the inside, that's where universality comes into play.

I cannot agree more on this. Your summation fits perfectly into my situation.

I just turned 40 last week. I began studying screenwriting with many of the same books and techniques described by Jijenji when I was in my early 20s. I had every book (and still have them) I could get my hands on, everything from Syd Field to Linda Segar to Michael Hauge and way beyond. Yes, I own Trottier's book, too. I am pretty sure that by now I have read almost every book ever written on screenwriting from how to write it to how NOT to write it. I must have spent thousands of dollars on books over the last 20 years covering all aspects of film and television production with an emphasis on writing. And I just added a couple more to my collection this week: "The Hollywood Standard" by Christopher Riley and "Aristotle's Poetics for Screenwriters" by Michael Tierno. I'm reading these on the heels of an absolute gem of a book by John Truby, "The Anatomy of Story - 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller". But I am not just reading them. I am studying them, spending quality time with them, and committing them to memory so the thoughts within become second nature and an integral part of my own thoughts.

And I am still learning. I do not believe this learning process ever stops. Every day, I run across something I thought I knew well only to find another angle. Several books and articles came out in the last four or five years while I was on hiatus that changed the way I look at things. And Filmy's 4 act structure was one of them.

I now have 20 more years of emotions and experiences on which to draw to bring depth to my characters. I read a long time ago that some of the best writers are in their mid to late thirties. Now I know why. I've had some pretty screwed up life changing experiences that would make for some great cinema.

Vince, I am with you on the books...I don't have nearly as many as you, I'm sure, but the few that I do have I have re-read and taken notes on them honestly and still refer back to them occasionally. I learn new things on here as well. Learning is one of life's constants.

I am 26 now, and while I'd written some small literary things and poetry in my teens and twenties, the thought of being a screenwriter had never even crossed my mind once until last winter. I'd always wanted to a write a book one day, if I could ever get around to it.

Then one night studying (or procrastinating rather) I had a movie scene play out vividly in my mind. From nowhere, and again I'd never contemplated screenwriting in my life. Then another scene. That night, I began this journey and have been working on my script since last winter...doing some pre-writing on other ideas as well.

And in hindsight, I started out not too well. It's taken a lot of research this year to improve to a point where I feel confident that technically, I'm becoming more and more capable. To be sure, I have to re-write A LOT though, even as I go.

I am in my first year right now, hopefully the first of many to come!