Strike Tales

Ever wonder what your favorite writers did while they weren't writing 'Heroes'?

"I began the strike with lofty plans to write a novel, which soon turned into a novella, which then turned into 13 solid weeks of playing "Guitar Hero III" in my underpants."

Creation Loves Constraint

I saw Once again today. What a marvelous little film. It's a musical. It's Irish. It's made for under $100K.

It's nominated for an Oscar.

It's competing against films made for five hundred times as much money. In a way, those other films are at a terrible disadvantage. When you've got that much money, and that many interests fighting for supremacy, it's hard to shoot a good story. You're showcasing too much. You're selling too much.

With a $100K, you have your story and not much more. It's got to be stripped down and direct. It has to be evocative. It has to invite the audience into the characters.

So often when I'm struggling with a scene, I realize that I'm trying to tell the audience everything about the characters at once. I'll put in a nice little touch that tells us what's going on. Then I'll go back and underline it. Then something else looks out of balance, so I'll get clever with that. Then I need an extra line of dialogue as well. Then I go for a walk because I'm frustrated.

When I get home, I either throw the scene out and look for the simple solution -- one scene idea that speaks immediately and tells us all we need to know. Often it's there, but something the best scene is no scene at all. What's great about a good story is how the audience builds it in their own head.

With a $100 million budget, you can't afford to take that risk. You need to drill that sucker into the audience. There needs to be one clear meaning, no matter how banal, that keeps the audience contented as consumers. And that's a heavy burden when you're trying to tell a story that matters.

So many novice screenwriters are hell-bent on winning a competition and then landing the big development deal and all that stuff. I've evaluated so many scripts that are at a real beginner stage. When we're done, they tell me they'll be sending it off to Spielberg next, and how soon should they expect to hear from him?

You probably have just as good a chance sending a mock up of a new car idea to General Motors. This is a business, and you're not going to get anywhere without a lot of hard work and a subprime mortgage on your soul.

Of course, if you want to get to the Oscars, it's probably easier to tell a simple, great story.

No Country For Old Men

*Spoiler Alert* If you haven't seen this movie, don't read the post yet. Put your coat on and go see the movie. I've seen it three times now, and I need to discuss it.

I am fascinated with this movie. When it first came out, acclaim for the movie was more or less universal. But once the buzz factor started to ebb, voices of dissent started to rise up. Screenwriters' sites and discussion groups are full of conflict over the film. Writers either love it or hate it. What side of the debate you fall on says a lot about how you approach writing.

Those who hate it are almost universally dissatisfied with the ending. It simply isn't the big Hollywood thriller ending that they're looking for. The script very carefully lays out a kind of cat and mouse game between the protagonist, Llewelyn Moss, and the grim reaper figure, Anton Chigurh. And then, well, somebody else kills Moss. There's no final showdown between the good guy and the bad guy. There's no victory. To some viewers this feels like a betrayal. To others, it's deeply affecting.

There's a great deal to talk about in this movie, but in this post I'm going to focus on the one big lesson I think writers can take from this movie:

All rules on how to build story elements, from plot structure to characters, are tools. They don't magically tell you what the story is. They help you find it.

No Country For Old Men is adapted from a novel by Cormac McCarthy. The book is not a thriller. It doesn't have a neat three act structure like a screenplay. Ninety percent of writers and studios adapting the book would turn it into a thriller. The Coen Brothers knew better.

This is a movie about old men. For me, the Ed Tom Bell character, played by Tommy Lee Jones, provides the unity and the true three-act structure to the piece. But, like the rest of us, he's watching this fascinating cat and mouse game. And he knows he's outgunned. This is no country for old men. In the words of his father, "You can't stop what's coming. It's not all about you. That's vanity." It's a horrifying message delivered without flinching.

There's a thriller inside No Country For Old Men. But the movie's not a thriller in itself. It uses and plays with our expectations to take us somewhere deeper. How do they do this?

From the standpoint of structure, there's a carefully laid out, very Coen Brothers kind of cat and mouse game being played. I think it climaxes in the scene where Moss wounds Chigurh in El Paso. That's your big chase scene if you're looking for it. There's still forty minutes of film to go, of course.

At that point, the Coen Brothers systematically start to deny your expectations. The Woody Harrelson character, who came in incredibly late, is killed incredibly early. Even more emphatic is the way we cease to actually see the murders. Chigurh keeps killing, but there's no need. It's not about that. Humor starts bubbling up through the cracks. Llewelyn Moss tells Chigurh he's coming after him, but well... he doesn't.

Before he can even get started, he's killed by Mexican gangsters. We don't see this murder either -- just the result. The murder comes out of left field -- basically the result of a comic scene with his mother-in-law. Chigurh himself is late to the scene.

When we see Moss dead, it's a huge shock to the system. My heart just crumbles each time. The reason, I think, is good screenwriting on the level of character. Every screenwriter knows that you have to engage a very clear, simple strategy for maintaining audience engagement in your main character. The Coen Brothers are masters of this, of course. And they do a tremendous job with Moss. In his first series of scenes, he shows us how to watch the movie -- how to enjoy it. Follow the blood tracks on the ground. Read the clues. He's not a good character or a bad character. He's ambivalent. As Ed Tom Bell puts it, he could be involved in drug running, but it doesn't sound like him. He's just a human being -- good and bad rolled up into one. This makes his role as the underdog uncommonly affecting.

He's us. And while the real main character here is Ed Tom Bell. The Coens know we're watching Moss. The decision to take him away from the viewer, to force us to reevaluate the whole story through different eyes right at the end, is deeply dislocating. And it's incredibly effective for 90% of viewers. As you search for the thread -- for the meaning of the story -- Ed Tom Bell steps to the foreground and delivers his carefully laid out message straight to your undefended heart.

There's true passion here. A true need to communicate. Listen for this when you write. You don't always feel it in yourself, but it's there.

Film Susu

A few months ago I gave an interview to a new indie film website named filmsusu.com. The interview was pleasant enough. Just really, really short. Like 30 seconds long. I expounded on screenwriting in response to one fairly vague question. And then we were done, apparently.

I went to the website the other day to see if it was up. To my surprise, access to this interview is now a benefit of 'premium membership', along with another interview and 'technical and creative support'. If readers of this blog are seriously considering dropping forty bucks on the chance to hear me... they should know I'll gladly answer emails for free.

Toward a Fractal Theory of Screenwriting

I've been sitting on my students for the last few weeks to build their toolkits, which are lists of elements that they know about their story. They know what the unity is. That is a tool. They know their conceit (well, they better). Conceit is a tool for solving script problems. They've learned how to define a character through an essential conflict that's locked into the overall plot. They've learned to balance character palettes and all that. They know the basic beats of the 3-act structure. My sense is that the toolkit idea is a little hokey for them -- it's all so simple, in a way. Who needs to break it down so much? Takes the fun out of it, right? Next class is where it all gets complex and fun again. And they'll want the toolkit to get there.

A fractal is a geometric shape that looks the same no matter the scale you view it at. Crystals form in fractal shapes. So do cows, apparently:


And so do stories. Any good screenwriter knows that a strong story looks like itself no matter how you look at it. The overall three-act structure resonates like a crystal. Its structure is replicated in all the smaller beats. Within the beats, the three-act structure plays itself out, and with each vibration on every level, the story becomes more and more significant, whole, and moving. Wow, dude. No really.

There's nothing stoner about this. An experienced screenwriter thinks about this stuff. A good writer builds it in. You start with a good overall structure, and some strong conflict to drive the character. But then you continue, driving down through into the microscopic worlds that blow up into whole universes also known as good scenes.

When we watch a movie, we expect to find those resonances there. There's a tendency to think through them, but you only get so far without keeping the elements that define your script on the tip of your mind. And that's what separates the good stories from the ones you forget. Some need to resonate. Some make us resonate. And some make us want to check our email.

There's a method behind keeping things simple and carefully laid out. There's also a madness. A really joyful, wonderful madness.

Kismet

Kismet is that wonderful property of fate that typifies successful projects. You know when a project has kismet. You definitely know when it does not. Kismet is probably what dragged me out from behind my desk and away from my very serious prose and brought me back into connection with actual human beings through screenwriting. Kismet means that everything works together. Everything somehow fits.

I fell into my first screenwriting job with next to zero experience. I knew how to write, but I didn't know how to write drama. I was used to being in complete control of what I wrote. I hadn't dealt with actors before. I hadn't had to describe every little thing I wanted to do to the director, and again to the producer who wants to be the writer, and the wardrobe guy. And so on. It's incredibly humbling. Your characters suddenly talk back to you. They have flesh. And you can't gloss over what you don't really understand about them. I was lucky enough to be fascinated by it and not overwhelmed or dismissive or lacking in confidence.

At the time, I really thought that kismet was something that just happened. You hoped it was there, but there was no way to invoke it. You had to patiently stand by and hope that the director saw the same thing the actors did. You had to hope that the production designer could figure it out. There was something both frustrating and magical about working with actors. They don't deliver lines the way they should. But then they'll just nail a glance, or simply be there, in a way that explains the whole scene.

Now that I'm a bit older, I've learned that kismet is something you do your best to lay into a script. You sow the seeds. I've learned two paths to kismet. The first is being obvious. Being incredibly obvious. Everyone is on the same page because everything is as simple and basic as possible.

There's something to this, of course. Things need to be simple and clear as they encounter a variety of different people doing a variety of different things to the script. But obvious is also boring.

The higher path to kismet has to do with finding a sweet spot where everyone can do their best work. Each individual, no matter how small his or her role, wants to shine. Knowing this fact about your reader is key.

If you write for a director, think about what will entice them to excel. Think about what they want to shoot. Nine times out of ten you'll find more action, more drama, and more entertainment for the audience. In the tenth instance, you're probably working with a director who likes boring, talky stuff.

This is where you sow the seeds of kismet for the other filmmakers to reap. Your job is to make the overall skeleton of the story deeply, profoundly dynamic. You are building the overall structure that keeps everyone's assumptions on the same page. The first block in the foundation has to be a strong and clear character desire. We know what the scene is for. We know how it fits into the overall plot. The second keystone is probably use of setting. Having the story present on the set in the shape of a prop is incredibly useful. The third keystone is probably a nice tight edit. I'm getting into the 'probably' range here. It's probably a little foolish to rank kismet-related tasks. Every aspect of a script deserves to be sown with kismet.

I try to do all these things with others in mind. I try to stay both in my own head, but open to other thoughts as I go along.

Many new writers don't have access to directors or knowledge of production. That's okay. Imagine you do. Build your own director in your head. Start using actors -- even the ones you'll never actually know. Very soon you'll stop worrying about whether to furrow their brow in an action line, and start worrying about making the story as dynamic, original, and enticing as possible.

Symmetry and Contrast, Unity and Conflict

Ask a prose writer what they think about screenwriters, and they're liable to respond with a harumph, a scoff, or a snort. Perhaps even a chortle. Whence this skepticism?

Many prose writers have dabbled in screenwriting, and it left them cold. There's very little room for their internal monologues. They're suddenly constrained by things like budget and audience and feasibility. Many prose writers, myself included, are infatuated with a stream of words, and how it can build up references and resonances and unique meaning. What starts out as something linear can spontaneously arrange itself into a cathedral of meaning somehow independent of time or space. There's just a beautiful new structure slowly turning in the mind of the reader. But you can't do that in a script, at least in the same way. You can't derive all from a stream of words. Naturally that bugs the shit out of prose writers.

Jeanette Winterson is the latest in that vein, upsetting British screenwriters with a recent comment about In the Valley of Elah: “Script?! There IS no script! It’s just more of that dreadful VISUAL WRITING which is gradually taking over from real writing.”

"Real" writing is, of course, prose. "That dreadful visual writing" is, well, drama. It's hard to underline just how different these two spheres are. Back in ancient Greece we each had our own god. No longer. Now we have Ms. Winterson, a very emphatically smart person, confusing the two, and finding screenwriting coming up short.

So today I want to talk about some aesthetic principles that go back to the Greeks -- some basics of visual aesthetics that are too often overlooked by ALL writers.

SYMMETRY is the quality of balance in an artwork. It's the relationship of an object to itself. Something is symmetrical if you can fold it down a line that passes through its middle, and have both sides line up with each other.

It's an essential element of unity. It tells a viewer if a piece is whole and complete. It allows a viewer to make judgments about the work. And, of course, it lets them know where they are in it.

How does this intersect with the plot structure of a script. At the center of the work we find, of course, the midpoint. Usually this is where the main character finds him or herself thrown from the frying pan into the fire. This is where a whole new level of danger and risk comes into the plot.

On the far ends of the script, we have the introduction and the resolution. In a very standard view of script structure, you'll find just inside those book ends, the inciting event and the battle scene, respectively.

What does symmetry tell us here? There can and should be parallels drawn between these stages of the script. Take the opening and the resolution: they are both equilibriums. They are relatively static states. They correspond. A writer can *build up* those correspondences as a way of underlining the contrasts between them. This is why a character breaks down in a shitty car all alone on a pre-dawn stretch of freeway in the opening, and ends up driving into the sunset with the mechanic/love object in the same car, now souped up and running smooooth.

Similarly, you've can look for symmetries between your battle scene and your inciting incident to enhance your dreadful visual writing. Often we know what the battle scene looks like better than how we get our character out of balance and into the plot. A battle scene can tell you how the inciting incident might look. Some elements will be parallel, while others will mark the dramatic distance by contrasting each other.

To make this useful, break your scenes down. Know what's actually there, on screen. If your battle scene takes place on the city square, then your inciting incident may well take place there too. Or maybe it takes place in the opposite of the city square -- say, just outside the city walls, with the other freaks. If your battle scene is all about singing until the girl falls in love with you, then maybe your inciting incident has to do with singing your way out of the heart of the same girl, or singing yourself into meeting her. Or whatever. If your battle scene is an actual battle as intricate as a chess game, then maybe your inciting incident is a chess game.

There's no science here. This is a heuristic -- something to try out to see if it's productive. There's no right answer -- just a good place to look.