The Making of a Screenplay: The Creative Process (Part 4)
Posted: May 16, 2016 Filed under: Movies, Screenwriting, Writing | Tags: creative process, Screenplays, Screenwriting, Writing, Writing Process 2 Comments
We’ve looked at how a screenplay goes from idea to beat sheet or outline in Part 1. And we’ve seen that the tools used to sell your screenplay, such as the logline and the pitch, are created before you ever start to actually write the script in Part 2. Last week, in Part 3, we looked at the type of research that goes into writing a screenplay. Today, I’d like to look another important step in creating a finished script.
Rewriting
The final step in completing any writing project is rewriting, or revising, to make sure that the finished piece you’re going to submit is the absolute best it can be. In literary writing, it’s called revision, and there may be several revisions before the piece is ready to be sent off in hopes of discovery. But you finish the first draft, before you start revising, or at least some writers do. Me, I’m a firm believer that the more things I fix as I go, the less I will have to fix later, so I do some revision during the writing process of the first draft. In screenwriting, it’s called is rewriting, and it actually takes place all the way through the writing process, which is more in sync with my writing style.
Once the draft for ACT I is finished, you look it over, get feedback from other screenwriters, if available, and then make changes and adjustments to the sections that aren’t working for whatever reason. You repeat the process when you’ve finished the draft up to the end of ACT II, but this time, you also watch to be sure that the two acts flow together well, in addition to ascertaining that ACT II works well. Again, after ACT III is finished, but on the final rewrite, you must be sure that it work as a whole, the flow of the beats are smooth and you’ve maintained a constant tone throughout. If you’ve done a good job on the prior revisions, there may be very little rewriting to do at this point, and it’s really just a matter of fine tuning your script.
For my thesis, I originally wanted to lead viewers through the story with a series of voice-overs by Bonnie, which included imagined journal entries and letters, as well as some of the poetry she actually wrote. I knew I wanted to do this from the start. However, on the last read through, my peers and my instructor brought it to my attention that the way my script was written, I stuck the poetry into scenes where I thought I wanted it, but the way it was written my audience would be looking at a blank screen while they listened to Bonnie’s voice-over, which was not the way I intended it to be.
The majority of my final rewrite was positioning these voice-overs, especially those with the poetry, some of which were quite long at strategic sections where they would seem to refer to what was happening in the story, and to keep the action going during them. In one scene that meant showing Bonnie writing the letter while the voice-over tells us what that letter said. That’s one that I had right. Other scenes needed to have the voice-over over the action, like a car chase. And in some, like at the end of ACT III, I needed the voice-over to play in sync with a montage of single snapshot scenes. There are different ways to write it, so that the voice-over is played the way I wanted it to in each case, and a good portion of my final rewrite consisted of tweaking the scenes with voice-over so they would play the way I wanted them to.
In the end, I came out with a screenplay that flows together well, tells the story I wanted to tell in a compelling and original way, and has a lot of commercial potential. Maybe someday you’ll see The Life and Times of Bonnie Parker on the marquee at the theater as you’re driving down the street.
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The Poetry of Jessy Randall Shows Us How to Laugh at Life
Posted: May 13, 2016 Filed under: Book Review, Poetry | Tags: Book Review, Jessy Randall, Poetry, Suicide Hotline Hold Music 1 Comment
Suicide Hotline Hold Music, by Colorado Springs poet, Jessy Randall, is a quirky collection of poetry and poetry comics which present a comic outlook on some life’s realities that makes the reader want to slap her forehead and exclaim, “Why didn’t I see that?!” Randall’s poems take on thier own unique individual forms, which utilize rhythm and emphasis to the fullest, giving her works a conversational tone, like an old friend pointing out oddities. In “A Different Kind of Stupid”, which was first published in Asimov’s, Randall gives us a fresh analysis of a well-known fairytale.
A Different Kind of Stupid
Rapunzel never compared the weight
of the witch and the prince. How dumb,
if she did. No, she was pregnant,
that’s how the witch found out.
So, a different kind of stupid, up there
in her tower. You could argue
she loved him, and sure, she may have,
but he was the only man she’d ever met.
What kind of love is that?
The stupidest thing of all is how the prince
left her up there, day after day. Some might say
he knew what he was doing, never bringing a rope.
This collection of poetry makes complicated issues seem simple and manageable. The poems allow us to laugh at ourselves and at life, reminding us of times forgotten and left behind. Their innocent nature reminds us of the people we once were.
I give Suicide Hotline Hold Music 3 Quills. 
Kaye Lynne Booth does honest book reviews on Writing to be Read and she never charges for them. Have a book you’d like reviewed? Contact Kaye at kayebooth(at)yahoo(dot)com.
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Weekly Writing Memo: Word Choice is Everything
Posted: May 11, 2016 Filed under: Fiction, Screenwriting, Uncategorized, Weekly Writing Memo, Writing, Writing Tips 2 Comments
Whether you’re writing a screenplay, fiction, or non-fiction, the words you choose to tell your story are vital to relaying meaning to your audience. Word choices set tone, establish character, relay plot, create tension, draw the audience in, and much, much more. The wrong word used in a story, even in a screenplay, can completely change the meaning of what is happening.
In a screenplay, words are used to portray information for how the film should be produced. A bad word decision can take a serious scene and turn it comedic, ruining what the writer intended. In a fiction or non-fiction novel, poor word choices can lead to lack of clarity, lack of character or plot development, and even boredom in the audience. There are a lot of ways you can use word choice to enhance your story, but some of the most common ones are:
Setting the Tone
The way you write about what is happening in the story creates the tone for the story. If you use slang instead of proper terms, it can create a more laid back feel to the story. If you use vague language to describe something technical, it creates confusion and the explanation can lose meaning. Similarly, if you use a lot of words when one will do, it can make the story feel muddled and like it is rambling without purpose.
The key is, you have to decide what the tone you’re going for in your writing before you get too far into telling your story. If you’re going for something light in tone, then the way you write about events, and the words you use to describe them, will change. For example, if you want to describe a dead body and you want it to be serious, you would keep things more technical or focused on the circumstances or scene:
“The woman’s body spilled across the mattress, arms askew and eyes hidden behind movie-star sunglasses. Blood poured from the gunshot in her chest, dripping into a puddle on the floor.”
If you want to make it a scene with a lighter tone, you’d talk about the scene in a different way, and focus on different things:
“The woman sprawled across the mattress like she was sunbathing with her clothes on. Her eyes were masked behind large sunglasses, not that there was any life left in them to be hidden.”
The first example is more serious, focusing on the wound and the damage. The second example lightens things somewhat by comparing the body to something light (a sunbather), and by the narrator having an attitude and being flippant about the body’s eyes being lifeless.
If you look at the first example you’ll also notice I used the word “body” to describe the woman, while I used nothing but “woman” in the second example. This word choice changes the tone as well. In the first, the word “body” draws attention to the fact that someone is dead and immediately sets a more serious tone. The lack of any indication that the woman is dead until the end of the second example helps create the lighter tone.
The tone is set by the words you choose to use, and how you choose to use them, but also remember that sometimes it’s the words you choose NOT to use that matter.
Improving Dialogue
The purpose of dialogue in story is to do two things, to establish character and to further the plot. Every word your characters speak tells the audience something about your character. Do they use slang instead of proper speech? Do they use the wrongs words to describe something? Do they use a lot of words to say something simple?
Whenever you write a character’s dialogue, focus on who that character is and make sure that the dialogue is true to them. If they didn’t graduate high school, they’re most likely not going to speak like a PhD. If they are from a foreign country, they may slip in foreign words now and then. Whoever your character is should come out in their speech, so always figure out each characters’ distinct speaking traits before writing so you can stay consistent.
When using dialogue to further plot, you also need to consider word choice. If you spell things out simply—“I want the diamond or I’ll kill you”—then the dialogue is kind of boring. It’s too straightforward. If, however, you have the threat come out in a different way, such as the classic—“we have ways of making you talk.” It leads to the audience having a different experience.
The vague language leaves room for the imagination to go off and come up with all sorts of possibilities for how the person will be made to talk. In most cases, it’s always better to find a way for characters to say things without them saying “I want this” because most people in real life don’t say directly what they want. People ramble, they beat around the bush, and they play games, so your characters should as well.
Enhancing Descriptions
The words you use to write your descriptions are one of the most important elements of your story. If you use weak or vague words to describe parts of your story it can lead to a lack of clarity and take away from the vividness of your story.
For example, if you say “Mary took a very long walk to the park. She was tired.” It’s not a very interesting sentence, and it’s also kind of vague. What does long mean? A mile? Two miles? A few blocks? How tired is Mary?
Instead, you could say something more specific: “Mary walked the three miles to the park from her house. By the time she returned home, she was sure she could sleep for a month.” It’s not the best pair of sentences in the world, but it’s more descriptive than the first version. The point is, the language you use can relay a lot of information, and if you use vague words like “long, beautiful, tall, smart, etc” then you are missing out on opportunities to create a clearer picture for your audience.
Ultimately, all your audience has to rely on for understanding your story is what you give them, so give them the best that you can.
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The Making of a Screenplay: The Creative Process (Part 3)
Posted: May 9, 2016 Filed under: Movies, Screenwriting, Writing | Tags: Movies, research, Screenplays, Screenwriting, Writing 3 Comments
Many students of literary writing issue moans and groans when it comes time to do the research for their book. After all we’re writers, not researchers, right? But the fact is, that in order to write the story, even though it may be fictional, you half to know your stuff, and with literature, that could mean being familiar with the time period you’re writing about, or when certain items or words came into use, or being familiar with the place in which your book is set. If you’re writing a science fiction novel, you must at least be somewhat familiar with the science of the technologies you’re writing about, and even in fantasy works, you must be familiar with what the fantasy creatures you’re writing about are capable of.
It’s no different in screenwriting. You need to be familiar with the time period and location your screenplay takes place in, as well as being familiar with what the tropes are for your genre and what has been done that is similar to your story. But, I haven’t heard screenwriters complaining, maybe because the research is a little bit different than literary research. In fact, research in screenwritng can be fun.
In Parts 1, I talked about how the story goes from idea to beat sheet and/or outline. In Part 2, I described the tools used to sell a screenplay. Now, let’s look at the research that goes into a screenplay, and don’t shy away, because in screenwriting, the research is the fun part.
Research
Both literary writing and screenwriting require research. The type and extent of research required depends on what you’re writing. I watched every documentary on Bonnie and Clyde that I could find, as well as every DIY film on YouTube I could find, in order to get a feel for who these two people were. This helped a lot in determining what their bios would look like and how they would be portrayed in the film. I also visited websites with information on them and websites on the depression era, where I picked up slang from the 20s, which I salted my screenplay with to give it the proper feel.
But there’s a different kind of research you do in screenwriting, in addition to the research mentioned above. In screenwriting, you examine movies that are similar to yours in some way to learn what’s been done, and what worked and what didn’t. Sometimes you may chose a movie just because it has a scene similar to one you’re trying to do and you want to see how they went about it. This is one of the neatest things about screenwriting, you get to sit around and watch movies and call it work.
For my thesis, obviously any fictional portrayals of the outlaw couple needed to be on my list, but I also wanted to watch other gangster type movies to get a feel for the lifestyle, and the era. I watched biographical pictures to learn how they make real life events fit into the screenplay formula, and buddy love films to see how they allow one character to lead another into things, without portraying the leading character as a villain. It was amazing when I realized the different things I learned from each one.
Movie List
- Bonnie and Clyde, 1967, written by David Newman and Robert Benton – this was the original movie that we all think of when we think of the outlaw couple. It glamourizes Bonnie and Clyde, what they did and how they lived, and portrayed them as cold, blood-thirsty killers. This was not how I wanted to portray them, and I didn’t want to do what had already been done, so this film showed me what I didn’t want to do.
- Bonnie and Clyde 2013 miniseries on the History channel – this portrayal of the couple really played up the cold blooded killer image of all of them, Blanche and Buck, as well as Bonnie and Clyde, and it’s a ruthlessness that I don’t believe was truly there. Again, I learned what not to do. I wanted my screenplay to be very different from this.
- Donnie Brasco, 1997, adapted by Paul Attanatio from the book by Joseph D. Pistone and Richard Woodley– I found this to be one of the best mob movies I had ever seen. I was truly impressed with the craftsmanship seen in this film. I chose it because of the similar situation, getting caught up in circumstance and events beyond the character’s control.
- Black Mass, 2015, written by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth – Not only is this film a crime drama, but it is a bio-pic, based on the true story of the criminal career of mobster Whitey Bulger. The similarity here was found in the way the character Whitey Bulger rationalized his actions, which I considered when having Bonnie rationalize her actions, and what she was willing to do in order to be with Clyde. I also looked at this film in regards to how they set the events to the beats in the film.
- Dillinger, 1973, written and directed by John Millius – Not only is this a bio-pic, but they make mention of Bonnie and Clyde in this movie, which gave me the idea to make mention of Dillinger and other well-known gangsters of the time in my own screenplay as a means of marking the time period.
- Scarface, 1983, written by Oliver Stone – This is an excellent movie, but I didn’t take a lot away from it which could be used in my screenplay. Bonnie and Clyde weren’t anywhere near the big time criminal that character Tony Montana a.k.a. Scarface, was in this bio-pic.
- The Untouchables, 1981, written by David Mamet – This movie gave me a feel for the times, and the public sentiment towards the criminal element which was prominent in the times.
- Public Enemies, 2009, written by Michael Mann, Ronan Bennett and Ann Biderman – This is a period film that was set in the same time period as my own screenplay. It deals with the gangster subculture of the times, of which Bonnie and Clyde ran on the fringes.
- Thelma & Louise, 1991, written by Callie Khouri – This buddy love is similar in circumstance to my screenplay in that the protagonist gets swept up in the circumstances, and that the circumstances were created by the choices the protagonist makes, and that they both die in the end.
- The Falcon and the Snowman, 1985, from the book, The Falcon and the Snowman: A Story of True Friends and Espionage, by Robert Lindsay and adapted by Steven Zaillian – I viewed this movie for some of the same reasons I viewed Thelma & Louise. The protagonists gets caught up in circumstances of their own creation, brought about by the choices that they made, which send them on a downward spiral. Plus it is a biographical film, based on a true story.
- Natural Born Killers, 1994, written by Quentin Tarantino and revised by David Veloz – Although this movie is very bizarre, the protagonists are lovers on a crime spree. Like previous portrayals of Bonnie & Clyde, these two are portrayed as cold-blooded killers, ruthless, killing for the fun of it. That is not the story I wanted to tell, therefore this movie showed me more of what I did not want to do in my own screenplay.
- Blow, 2001, adapted by David McKenna and Nick Cassavetes from the book by Bruce Porter, Blow: How a Small Town Boy Made $100 Million with the Medellín Cocaine Cartel and Lost It All – This is a biographical film of cocaine smuggler Gorge Jung, so I was looking at how the events were shaped to make up the beats of the movie, and it is another story where the protagonist gets caught up in the criminal elements due to the choices made, and their life spins out of control in a downward spiral.
- Coal Miner’s Daughter, 1980, written by George Vecsey as an adaption of the biography of country singer, Loretta Lynn – In this film I was looking for how the events were molded into the beat sheet formula of screenplay, as well as the romance elements.
- What’s Love Got to do with It?, 1993, adapted by Kate Lanier from the book I, Tina, by Tina Turner and Kurt Loder – This biographical film tells the story of how Tina Turner found the courage to break out of an abusive relationship. What I took away from this film was the way that Tina rationalized staying with her husband, Ike, how she kept telling herself that things would change, which is very similar to how my Bonnie rationalizes staying with Clyde, first believing he will change and go straight, and when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen she allowed herself to believe they would go away to California.
Of course, this type of research, the fun stuff, has its equivalent in literary writing. It’s always good to read books in your genre to see what’s out there and know the tropes. The real difference is that in literature, the author is always trying to come up with a totally original idea, but in screenwriting, its acceptable, in fact encouraged, to use movies that have already been done successfully in describing what your movie is about in the logline or pitch, where you explain how your movie is the same as (a movie that’s already out there), but different. It is common practice in Hollywood, apparently, to describe your movie or television series as: (Title of existing movie) with a twist. For example, I described the pilot series that I wrote, titled Unhappily Ever After, as “A reverse Once Upon a Time combined with a humorous Into the Woods.” You can tell a lot about my pilot series from that, but I’ll have to save that for another post.
The point here is, in screenwriting it’s okay to do the same story someone else has done, as long as you give it some kind of twist to set it apart from the rest. For my thesis, I told the story from Bonnie’s perspective and that made it a very different movie from the other portrayals of the same story.
Next week we’ll take a look at the last step in creating the finished screenplay, rewriting. A screenwriter rewrites constantly, for as many drafts as it takes to get the desired results and make her screenplay tell the story she wants to tell, the way she wants to tell it.
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“The Road Has Eyes” takes readers on a unique and entertaining journey
Posted: May 6, 2016 Filed under: Book Review, Nonfiction | Tags: Art Rosch, Book Review, Books, Nonfiction, The Road Has Eyes 4 Comments
The Road Has Eyes – A Relationship, An RV and A Wild Ride Through Indian Country by Art Rosch is much more than a travel journal. It’s a memoir of a journey, both physical and spiritual, across country and into a new and different way of life. It begins in a relic RV that got them where they were headed, amidst mega doses of anxiety, then moves into a more modern RV that brings them back across the country to settle in to a new, downsized way of life. Along the way, readers get to know the author and his quirky companion, who traces her Native American heritage and links psychically with feral cats and other animals.
The tale is obviously told from an honest and heartfelt perspective, with a relaxed tone that’s easy to read. Rosch’s down to earth sensibilities and ability to see the humor in things, including himself, make this commentary on humanity a fun and amusing read. I found this book to be very entertaining, evoking more than a few chuckles as the pages turned. I can’t wait to start reading another of Rosch’s books, Confessions of an Honest Man. Check back here for my review on that one. I give The Road Has Eyes – A Relationship, An RV and A Wild Ride Through Indian Country four quills.
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Discouragement or Motivation?
Posted: May 5, 2016 Filed under: Western, Writing | Tags: agents, Delilah, publishers, Rejection, Western, Writing 6 Comments
I finished the final draft of Delilah last month. Normally, in anticipation of its completion, I would scour my Writer’s Market in search of publishers and/or agents that might be in the market for a western novel with a tough, spunky female protagonist and make a list of places to send it out to. But, I pitched Delilah to a publisher I felt would be a perfect fit for this manuscript last summer at the Write the Rockies Conference in Gunnison, and got an invitation to send the manuscript when it was completed. That in itself was amazing, because you usually don’t pitch a manuscript that isn’t complete, but I was doing the pitch for practice, and I actually felt like I’d bungled it pretty badly. My perception of my performance must have been wrong, because the invitation to query was forthcoming.
At any rate, I didn’t make the usual list of submissions for Delilah, because I knew where she was going, and I just knew this publisher was going to make an offer. Instead, I spent my time preparing for submission. I wrote a synopsis and query letter, and prepared a brief excerpt to include. So, as soon as the final revisions were completed, I sent off my query.
I also sent a query to an agent I thought might be good to represent me, using Delilah to entice them. I sent it off on April 21, and on April 29 I received the rejection. Man that was fast. I found it disheartening. I know I have to expect rejections, probably a lot of them, and I’ve had many on other works which I’ve been shopping. In my graduate classes at Western State, they warned us to expect them, and taught us to use them as motivation to get it back out to the next perspective publisher or agent. And, you know, that’s exactly what I’ve done regarding all the other works I’ve sent out. So, why is this rejection any different?
I think it was the speed with which I received this rejection, barely a week, which took me aback. You wait for responses from publishers and agents for weeks, sometimes even months. That’s why you send out simultaneous submissions whenever possible. Get your work read by as many possible avenues of publication as possible. It’s common practice, although some calls for submissions specify that they do not accept simultaneous submissions. (If you think about it, it’s pretty selfish of a publisher to do this, expecting to allow them to consider your work exclusively, when it takes so long for them to respond.) This rejection came from an agent, not a publisher, but I wasn’t expecting a reply so quickly. I didn’t feel like they’d even had time to read what I’d submitted.
I’ve worked on Delilah on and off for four years. I could have finished her sooner, but with school and my freelancing, and holding down a full time job, I wasn’t able to work on her, like I did on my thesis, which I wrote in full within six months, (but that’s another story, for another day). Actually, I had a completed draft of Delilah in that amount of time, but the revisions turned it into a whole other story. It’s true. The final manuscript of Delilah tells a different story than the one I set out to tell originally. I have enough cut scenes from the first draft to almost make up another whole book, which I might do, if Delilah finds a home and does well.
So the question remains, why have I not sent Delilah out to more than one publisher? Why do I have this certainty within me that she will find a home with this one publishing house that I submitted to first? I know this isn’t a realistic expectation and I’m probably setting myself up for disappointment. I do. So, why don’t I treat this novel like my other works? And why did the first rejection from an agent hit me so hard? Maybe because I have put so much of my heart into Delilah, but I think you have to put your heart into any work of creativity in order for it to be truly good. I don’t know what’s so special about this novel, but I know Delilah is special. I feel it. If I find a publisher for her, you can read it and then, you’ll know it, too.
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The Making of a Screenplay: The Creative Process (Part 2)
Posted: May 2, 2016 Filed under: Screenwriting, Writing | Tags: beat sheet, character bios, character triangles, creative process, logline, pitch, Screenwriting, treatment, Writing 4 Comments
Last week in Part 1, I explored story origins, and the tools you use to shape an idea into a movie plot with a beat sheet. Now I’ll talk about tools, like the step outline, which are used to convince others to read and hopefully, buy your screenplay.
The Pitch
One big difference between screenwriting and literary writing is the way they handle the pitch. While in literary writing, they teach us to do the pitch for our story only when we’re close to having a finished product to sell to an agent or publisher, in screenwriting you write the pitch from the idea, before you ever start writing the actual script. This is because of the difference in the pitch itself, for in literature, your pitch is usually written and submitted in the form of a query, in screenwriting, you must be able to talk about your movie in a brief one line description and in expanded forms that explore more depth and detail, so writing pitches is something we practice a lot. The thing is, often after all the revisions and rewrites, the final product turns out to be something different from what you were pitching. Until I figured out how to write this movie from Bonnie’s perspective, I was just pitching the same movie everybody already knows.
It was during the time I was trying to get my pitch right that the title changed. I had been referring to The Life and Times of Bonnie and Clyde, until I finally figured out that this was really Bonnie’s story, from Bonnie’s perspective. I’d been saying it all along, claiming that was what set my story apart from all the rest, but I hadn’t been doing it. I was still looking at it from the perspective of the two of them as a couple. While I couldn’t change the real life events to fit the formula, I could show different events that gave the story a different perspective, and even a different tone, starting with the title.
In both literary writing and in screenwriting, your pitch is your calling card. It’s your key to the kingdom of either publishing, or production, and it must reach out and grab the reader’s attention and hold it, making them want to know more. They’ll see the pitch first, and it has to tempt them to continue on and read your script or manuscript, and that’s a goal that every writer understands.
The Treatment
A treatment is the outline for your script. It tells everything you want an interested buyer to know about your script. My treatment starts with my logline. A logline is a one to two sentence description of a movie or television series. As a rule, it’s 25 words or less, but it can be presented in longer paragraph form. My logline for The Life and Times of Bonnie Parker is: “The Life and Times of Bonnie Parker is the tragic story of a young woman in the depression era who falls in love with a petty criminal, and is caught up in a whirlwind of lawlessness in their struggle to survive. When theft turns to murder, they’re swept into a life on the road which can only lead to tragedy.”
Character Triangles
Character triangles are one thing that actually works in literature a well as in screenwriting. Every character in every story ever written or thought of has a want or desire which motivates them to take action and move the story forward. Likewise, every character has a fear or flaw, which stands in the way of achieving whatever it is that motivates them, and obstacle to achieving their goal, which must be overcome. And, once their flaw has been overcome, a transformation takes place and the character is changed, creating a character arc for your story. At this point we usually learn what it is that the character actually needs, which is usually something different from what the character’s want is, but it’s achievement must be acquired to achieve the completion of the character arc. The need might be a lesson learned, or self-discovery of an aspect of their personality they were unaware of, but it’s always an inner need. As a general rule, the character’s desire is usually an external want, while the need is internal. This applies to storytelling of any type. It works when applied to both literary writing and screenwriting.
My instructor and screenwriting advisor, J.S. Mayank, always has us determine the character triangles for at least two or three of the main characters before we try to write, because he believes that if you have your triangles figured out, the rest will fall into place. Triangles are an area I have a lot of difficulty with for some reason, and I usually make several shots at it before I get it right. My triangle for Bonnie looked like this:
Want: To be with Clyde
Fear/Flaw: Abandonment
Need: Self-reliance
Unfortunately, Bonnie never achieves her need.
Also included in your treatment are character bios for at least two or three of the main characters. In storytelling of any kind you must know your characters well. It’s a secret to writing well-rounded characters who readers or viewers can relate to. Characters without background, feel flat and two-dimensional. For my characters, the bios are already written, since they are true life characters, but I still had to write a sketch that tells how I see them.
Then comes the actual treatment, or outline, which tells what happens in your movie beat by beat. I like to write mine like a beat sheet, placing each scene in the beat it should be under. Some beats may have more than one scene, but with the formulaic nature of screenwriting, it’s fairly easy to label each beat once you have all the scenes laid out.
Again, there were a lot of revisions and changes in the rewrite, so my original treatment was different in many ways from how the final product turned out. Some scenes were thrown out and replaced by others, some scenes were just tossed out, and some scenes were added where I felt they were needed. The necessity of a revised treatment once the final screenplay is completed is obvious.
These are the tools of persuasion, or explanation which are used to try to sell a screenplay. Next week in Part 3, I’ll take a look at the research that goes into writing a screenplay. It’s the fun part, so don’t miss it.
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The Making of a Screenplay: The Creative Process (Part 1)
Posted: April 25, 2016 Filed under: Screenwriting, Writing | Tags: beat sheet, creative process, Screenwriting, step outline, Writing 6 Comments
Writing for the screen is very different from literary writing, but there are also many similarities. Although my thesis project, The Life and Times of Bonnie Parker, is for the screenwriting emphasis, I obtained the first emphasis for my M.F.A. in Creative Writing in genre fiction, so I tend to make comparisons with my literary experiences naturally. Screenwriting is visual, whereas literature employs the use of all five senses. Screenwriting is also much more formulaic. Where literature tells us we must have a beginning, middle, and end, and we must throw a climax in there somewhere, screenwriting outlines all the beats and tells us approximately where each one should fall within your script. I think you get the idea. What you’re about to read is what goes into the creative process of writing a full length feature screenplay, from a literary perspective.
Story Origins
My thesis project, The Life and Times of Bonnie Parker, is based on the true life story of 1930’s bank robbers, Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker. It’s not an idea I brilliantly plucked from the idea tree that grows in the backyard of my mind, but rather a different version of a story that’s been told many times before. It is the result of viewing the 1967 film, Bonnie and Clyde, with Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, as well as numerous documentaries on the couple and their infamous crime spree. From my research, as I compared the many conflicting stories and the different portrayals of this story, it occurred to me, that really, this was a tragic love story, a contemporary Romeo and Juliet, but no one had ever shown that side of it. Their story had always been portrayed with car chases and shoot outs, glamourizing the gangster life, but to me, that wasn’t what Bonnie and Clyde were about. Hence, the idea was born to tell the story of Bonnie and Clyde from Bonnie’s perspective, the story of a young girl caught up in the circumstance of the times, willing to anything for the man she loved, including die for him.
The Beat Sheet
As I mentioned, screenwriting is very formulaic. So, where in literary writing you make an outline before you start writing your novel or book, in screenwriting, you create a beat sheet before you start. The beat sheet outlines each event which propels your story forward, and as I also mentioned each beat is supposed to occur at a certain point within the script.
Now here’s where I had a lot of difficulty, because true life events seldom conform to the formulaic sequence of a screenplay. The story of Bonnie and Clyde was no different. Because of this, and because I still thought of their story as the crime spree they embarked on between 1932 and 1934, the beat sheet I created turned out to be different in many ways from the final script. Once I began looking at things from Bonnie’s perspective, it turned into a very different movie.
Step Outline
In addition to this, a screenwriter must also be able to do a step outline, which chronicles each scene, step by step, very similar to a chapter outline for a literary work. While the beats can be noted in the step outline, this is not the same as the beat sheet.
There’s a lot more that goes into writing a screenplay, but this is how you get started. The beat sheet is a tool for your own use, while the Step Outline is a tool you use to convince a producer or director to buy your screenplay and hopefully, make a movie out of it. Next week, in Part 2 of Making a Screenplay, we’ll talk more about the tools you use to sell your screenplay.
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Weekly Writing Memo: 4 Ways to Establish Tone
Posted: April 20, 2016 Filed under: Fiction, Uncategorized, Weekly Writing Memo, Writing, Writing Tips | Tags: Creative Fiction, Fiction, Writing 1 Comment
Tone is one of the basic elements within a story. It sets the mood for the audience, and gives context and meaning to the story. Every element within a story works together to set the tone, so it’s important to stay conscious of your choices when writing. If you set the wrong tone for your story, it could turn a comedic story dark, or a serious story comedic. So how do you establish tone in a way that is consistent, and useful?
- Language in Narration
The language you use to tell the story plays a huge part in setting the tone. Every word you use has a connotation to is, and if you choose the wrong word you can create conflicting tones within your story. For example, if you describe a dead body in an insulting or amusing way, then it takes a serious element and makes light of it which sets either a comedic or flippant. If you’re trying to write a serious mystery, than setting this kind of tone could be damaging to the story.
The key to figuring out what sort of language to use is to figure out who your narrator is. Are they a comedic person? Sardonic? Serious? They’re the one telling the story, so things should be described in their words. They set the tone of the story. If you want a serious story, a hardened detective story or something, then you need to tell the story from a hardened detective’s point of view and have him describe things as a hardened detective would do.
Another element to keep in mind for narration is the choice of phrases used. Part of tone is setting the time period for the story, and if you use phrases that are common slang when writing something like a period story, then you run the risk of ruining the tone. So be aware of slang and usage of idioms and such as well.
- Character’s Speech
How your characters talk helps set the tone of the story. Are they all fast talkers and quick witted like in Gilmore Girls or The West Wing? Do they make dirty jokes like Ryan Reynolds in Deadpool? The way characters talk and interact with each other creates a tone for the story and tells the audience how they should be interpreting a scene. If none of them are taking the problems of the story seriously, then the audience will see no reason to take it seriously.
- Setting
Where your story takes place can change a story completely. If you look at the show Burn Notice, it has a light and humorous tone about it which is fitting for its location being Miami. If, however, Burn Notice was set in some place like Chicago, it would become a much darker and more serious series. Chicago and Miami have very different personalities, and such distinctions would change the behaviors of the characters living there.
For your story, always be conscious of the setting and what it says about the story and the characters. Do you want a setting that complements your story, or a something you can contrast your story against? How will your character be different because of their setting? How will the plot have to be different? The important thing is to consider the setting carefully, because it doesn’t just impact the tone, but the story and characters as well.
- Antagonists, Conflicts, and Solutions
The antagonist in a story, and the conflicts the protagonist have to go up against are something else that set the tone of the story. If the antagonist is someone the audience can’t take seriously, then it’s going to give the story a comedic tone. If the problems or conflicts the protagonist comes up against are simplistic or easy to solve, then they can give the story a young adult or children’s story tone.
Think about the villain and conflicts of the story and ask yourself what they say about your story. If you’re writing a serious story, then your characters need serious problems. If you’re writing a comedic story, you can have serious problems but how they are handles has to be comedic. The tone is established through how the conflicts are handled, and the types of conflicts or antagonists, as well as through how the protagonist interacts and handles them both.
Final Notes:
Every choice you make when writing contributes to the tone of the story. Without the proper tone, a story can fall flat and not work. If you don’t believe me, look at some of your favorite stories, be them movies or books, and see how they’d be different if their tones were shifted. Would that comedy still be funny? Would the action movie still be exciting? Figure out how the things listed above are portrayed in whatever story you chose, and see how they helped set the tone for the story. The more you analyze how it’s been done before, the easier it’ll be for you to do it yourself.
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“Cogling”: A Delightful Steampunk Journey
Posted: April 17, 2016 Filed under: Book Review, Speculative Fiction, Steampunk, Young Adult 3 Comments
As my introduction to the steampunk genre and I must say I found Cogling, by Jordan Elizabeth a pleasing surprise. The story telling is strong, descriptions vivid, and characters who are realistic and likeable. Elizabeth has created a magical fantasy world in which readers are drawn in and easily immersed.
When Edna’s younger brother Harrison is stolen by hags and replaced with an enchanted mechanical replica, or cogling, Edna will stop at nothing to get him back. She enlists the help of a pickpocket street boy, Ike, who has knowledge of the hags and a few secrets, to aide her in her quest. Ike’s not the only one with secrets, for Edna harbors a secret of her own, one she’s afraid to admit, even to herself.
In their efforts to free Edna’s brother, they uncover a plot to annihilate the humans and the race is on to expose the hags’ evil plot to the king. When they arrive at the castle, they learn that Mother Sambucus and the other hags have infiltrated the entire Royal Court with their wretched coglings. Edna, Ike and their friends are captured once more, with no recourse except escape, in order to bring down the hags and save the kingdom.
Jordan Elizabeth is a talented New York author, whose other works include Escape from Witchwood Hallow, Treasure Darkly, Born of Treasure, several short story anthologies, and her newest novel, Goat Children.
I give Coglings Four Quills. 
