Like a lot of writers, I'm cursed with perfectionism. It's hard for me to just leave something be. If a scene's not as sharp as it looks in my head, I'll sit with it all day. A few nights ago I woke up at 4 AM with the solution to a problem in a script I finished two years ago. I couldn't sleep until I wrote it down. I revise my loglines and synopses daily. Perfectionism has a good side, obviously. But perfection is overrated.
Perfectionism also has a price. It's why a lot of people either don't write, or never finish anything. It's why they never show their work around, and get good advice or new solutions. My first draft of my first script took well over a year to finish. I thought it was Shakespeare. I knew nuthin'.
I got around a lot of my perfectionism issues with the synopsis tool, which I've talked about before and may again. It's a heck of a lot easier to work out your ideas on a single page than in 120. Since it's easier, you might as well try new ideas out to see how they fly. You can afford to spend the day throwing mud at the wall.
Writing is circular and squirrel-ish and difficult, and just as you think you've nailed something down, the same problem will pop up elsewhere. It's like Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny around the rabbit holes. And this is why first drafts are so important.
In a first draft, you're still throwing mud at the wall. And you need to allow yourself to get a little messy and unpresentable if you're going to get anything to stick. There's going to be some atrocious dialogue. There's going to be jokes that you like, but that don't fit. You'll realize that, for gangsters, your characters spend an awful lot of time talking about their relationships and staring at the sea. For some reason it takes thirty pages to get two characters into a room together with their clothes off.
That's frequently what a first draft looks like. And it's a good thing, because all of those problems are actually answers if you look at them from the other way round. Nothing will make you think about easier ways than plodding through those thirty pages. You'll zap those pages, and suddenly she'll step off the bus and into his life. You'll look at your gangsters and realize what kind of script you want to write. That good joke that doesn't fit tells you where it might fit. The atrocious dialogue leads you straight to some really strong action.
And if you listen to what your first draft is telling you, you will probably end up changing most of it.
Embrace that. Throwing mud at the wall is more fun than the perfectionist in you ever had.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Quote of the Day
Found in CS Weekly..
"As you think about a character, to some extent what you're talking about is just the psychological makeup of the character -- what is he like and how does he relate to other characters. But then when you start to talk about 'What is his behavior?' in my mind that's where you get into the aspect of characterization. That's when you're into the dramatization, what the character does and what he says. That's his behavior. So, you have the psychology, and if you have some grasp on some fundamental psychological truths about the character, you want to leave yourself enough room to allow the behavior to evolve naturally. "
– Ted Elliott, screenwriter for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
"As you think about a character, to some extent what you're talking about is just the psychological makeup of the character -- what is he like and how does he relate to other characters. But then when you start to talk about 'What is his behavior?' in my mind that's where you get into the aspect of characterization. That's when you're into the dramatization, what the character does and what he says. That's his behavior. So, you have the psychology, and if you have some grasp on some fundamental psychological truths about the character, you want to leave yourself enough room to allow the behavior to evolve naturally. "
– Ted Elliott, screenwriter for Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Tarkovsky, Lebowski, and Us
I may be the only person ever to watch Andrei Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and the Coen Brothers' The Big Lebowski on the same night. Or the only one who lived to blog about it, at any rate.
The Sacrifice is an astonishing film. It's Art with a capital A. Everything about the film is thought through -- the camera, the use of color, the sound design, the way the shots are composed, the acting. There's a single long take at the end of a burning building which is utterly amazing. That he had the balls to try it makes the film worth watching.
It also breaks every rule of American screenwriting, from opening on a static close up of a murky Leonardo da Vinci painting under a full five-minute credit roll, which cuts to a dreamy monologue in Swedish about civilization, Nietzsche, and whether we can talk about hope that fills the next fifteen minutes. Tarkovsky followed up this crowd-pleasing combo with a long, meandering scene of a Swedish Shakespearean actor and his intellectual family and friends emoting about ennui and referencing 19th century literature before dinner. Then there's a nuclear war. So I guess he got that midpoint beat pretty much nailed.
The movie sounds fairly dreadful from an American screenwriter's standpoint. But it's actually incredibly gripping. Believe it or not. And maybe this post is just about reminding ourselves that there are other ways to do this. We can shoot a little higher.
So much of my job is simply about making a story understandable on screen. For Tarkovsky, understandable was not enough. It had to be truthful. Truth is never simple. It doesn't present itself to us for neat, easy reading. There are no absolutes, which takes me back to the post about Jerry Falwell.
In the DVD extras, there's a very interesting scene on set. In the script, the actor is supposed to get down on his knees, and really pray for the first time in his life. The actor goes through the motions, and Tarkovsky does exactly what an American director wouldn't do. "Loosen up your body! No, it's too clear what you're trying to do. He shouldn't look like he's praying. He might be falling down because he's had too much to drink, or he's just exhausted." Tarkovsky actually wanted to make it murky. Why, because truth is more important than our understanding. Tarkovsky knows that, given the context, falling to your knees to pray includes a lot more than a simple actor's direction. There are many aspects to the simplest act, and as an artist he needs to capture that. This is what makes his films engrossing.
You won't get produced on the spec market following Tarkovsky's lead. But you will get some extraordinary moments that you never thought you'd see. Like what a man's face looks like when lust mixes with rejection and the realization the world won't be saved.
The Big Lebowski. You've probably seen it. It's a beautiful movie in a very different way. It's a monument to good American screenwriting. And I'm not sure that it really says that much less about humanity than Tarkovsky's film. It's the kind of script I'd teach from most days. But not today.
The Sacrifice is an astonishing film. It's Art with a capital A. Everything about the film is thought through -- the camera, the use of color, the sound design, the way the shots are composed, the acting. There's a single long take at the end of a burning building which is utterly amazing. That he had the balls to try it makes the film worth watching.
It also breaks every rule of American screenwriting, from opening on a static close up of a murky Leonardo da Vinci painting under a full five-minute credit roll, which cuts to a dreamy monologue in Swedish about civilization, Nietzsche, and whether we can talk about hope that fills the next fifteen minutes. Tarkovsky followed up this crowd-pleasing combo with a long, meandering scene of a Swedish Shakespearean actor and his intellectual family and friends emoting about ennui and referencing 19th century literature before dinner. Then there's a nuclear war. So I guess he got that midpoint beat pretty much nailed.
The movie sounds fairly dreadful from an American screenwriter's standpoint. But it's actually incredibly gripping. Believe it or not. And maybe this post is just about reminding ourselves that there are other ways to do this. We can shoot a little higher.
So much of my job is simply about making a story understandable on screen. For Tarkovsky, understandable was not enough. It had to be truthful. Truth is never simple. It doesn't present itself to us for neat, easy reading. There are no absolutes, which takes me back to the post about Jerry Falwell.
In the DVD extras, there's a very interesting scene on set. In the script, the actor is supposed to get down on his knees, and really pray for the first time in his life. The actor goes through the motions, and Tarkovsky does exactly what an American director wouldn't do. "Loosen up your body! No, it's too clear what you're trying to do. He shouldn't look like he's praying. He might be falling down because he's had too much to drink, or he's just exhausted." Tarkovsky actually wanted to make it murky. Why, because truth is more important than our understanding. Tarkovsky knows that, given the context, falling to your knees to pray includes a lot more than a simple actor's direction. There are many aspects to the simplest act, and as an artist he needs to capture that. This is what makes his films engrossing.
You won't get produced on the spec market following Tarkovsky's lead. But you will get some extraordinary moments that you never thought you'd see. Like what a man's face looks like when lust mixes with rejection and the realization the world won't be saved.
The Big Lebowski. You've probably seen it. It's a beautiful movie in a very different way. It's a monument to good American screenwriting. And I'm not sure that it really says that much less about humanity than Tarkovsky's film. It's the kind of script I'd teach from most days. But not today.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Scriptwrangler Mom-of-the-Week!
... goes to long-suffering mother of Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler and First Amendment rights advocate. It's not because she's suffered through the pinched, bitter glances of church ladies at the supermarket for the last three decades. It's not because she's responded with patience and aplomb when asked what Woody Harrelson is like as a son. Nope. Mother Flynt wins for this quote from her son:
"My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like."
Well, isn't that nice, you say. It's a lot more than nice. Let me explain. I found the quote in an article by Larry Flynt on Jerry Falwell's passing. The two spent years trading insults and lawsuits. But the uberpornmeister chooses to remember the brave and affectionate sides of Falwell -- just the stuff that surprised him when they finally met.
I will pull no punches here. I think Falwell was a despicable man. I was a gay man in New York City in the 1980's and 90's. I watched entire circles of friends die while this fool preached it was a sin to educate young people on how to protect themselves, or to inhibit the spread of HIV in any way whatsoever, for that matter. He made millions demonizing people. He blamed gay people for 911. I could go on. I won't. This blog's about screenwriting.
How would I go about writing a Jerry Falwell character? I would start with the article "Larry Flynt: My Friend, Jerry Falwell." No matter how despicable a character someone is, you still have to understand them to portray them. People are rarely 100% evil. Characters that are 100% evil are rarely plausible, and a very bad way of engaging an audience. There's just no internal conflict to power the plot. If your hero is up against one of these guys, there's often a problem with the climax being anti-climactic. The paper tiger just falls over.
When actors start working on a role, they typically do what's called finding the "positive goal". It's what makes a character do what he does. For a good character, it's often fairly straightforward. But negative characters have positive goals too. Say an actor has to play an abusive husband. It's one thing to say he hits her because he's abusive. It's a much more productive realization for the actor to see that he hits her because he's trying to save his marriage. Or to keep his kids from learning the wrong lesson. He's wrong in what he does. He's wrong in how he does it. He's a despicable man. But now he's acting from a standpoint that a human can understand. And that makes him a lot more memorable, a lot more evil.
As screenwriters, we have to overcome a fair amount of revulsion to give that positive goal to characters we dislike. But if we don't, then the actor won't be able to find it. We have to take a risk to build a character flexible enough to carry our message through everyone's creative process. Jerry Falwell was an unstoppable force (until recently). How do I understand that unstoppable trait? It's not that he wanted to oppress homosexuals, demonize liberals and keep women locked up and pregnant. It's his positive goal. In his own eyes, he was doing god's work. In his eyes, he wasn't hurting anybody. He was showing the way to eternal life. How does a good screenwriter get the truer portrait of Jerry Falwell? It's in my own interest as a screenwriter to look deeper. Doesn't matter if my character is Jerry Falwell, Hannibal Lecter, or Spiderman.
Germany produced its first major film portraying Hitler in 2004. It's called The Downfall (Der Untergang). The DVD contains a priceless interview with Bruno Ganz, the actor who played Hitler. Ganz hates Hitler no less than any other German. He feels that deep shame of him that has shaped German identity for decades. He refused the part until he realized he could make a semblance of sense of the evil by doing the job of an actor: finding Hitler's positive goal.
Hitler loved having kids around. Hitler was apparently something of a dream boss to his secretaries, even when he's executing his generals and bombs are raining down on the bunker. Why? Because they represented to him everything he was fighting for -- the good, moral, upstanding German. The traits are not the point of the movie at all. They are there to make the evil he did feel real, plausible, and resonant within a film. Suddenly Hitler is a human being, and not this dark cloud hanging over history. It's f***ing chilling and unforgettable and horrible.
Our media conditions us to put people into a box immediately. Even if they deserve that box, it's not necessarily a good thing for a writer to do. Embrace that ambivalence. It will reward you. What's your antagonist's positive goal?
"My mother always told me that no matter how repugnant you find a person, when you meet them face to face you will always find something about them to like."
Well, isn't that nice, you say. It's a lot more than nice. Let me explain. I found the quote in an article by Larry Flynt on Jerry Falwell's passing. The two spent years trading insults and lawsuits. But the uberpornmeister chooses to remember the brave and affectionate sides of Falwell -- just the stuff that surprised him when they finally met.
I will pull no punches here. I think Falwell was a despicable man. I was a gay man in New York City in the 1980's and 90's. I watched entire circles of friends die while this fool preached it was a sin to educate young people on how to protect themselves, or to inhibit the spread of HIV in any way whatsoever, for that matter. He made millions demonizing people. He blamed gay people for 911. I could go on. I won't. This blog's about screenwriting.
How would I go about writing a Jerry Falwell character? I would start with the article "Larry Flynt: My Friend, Jerry Falwell." No matter how despicable a character someone is, you still have to understand them to portray them. People are rarely 100% evil. Characters that are 100% evil are rarely plausible, and a very bad way of engaging an audience. There's just no internal conflict to power the plot. If your hero is up against one of these guys, there's often a problem with the climax being anti-climactic. The paper tiger just falls over.
When actors start working on a role, they typically do what's called finding the "positive goal". It's what makes a character do what he does. For a good character, it's often fairly straightforward. But negative characters have positive goals too. Say an actor has to play an abusive husband. It's one thing to say he hits her because he's abusive. It's a much more productive realization for the actor to see that he hits her because he's trying to save his marriage. Or to keep his kids from learning the wrong lesson. He's wrong in what he does. He's wrong in how he does it. He's a despicable man. But now he's acting from a standpoint that a human can understand. And that makes him a lot more memorable, a lot more evil.
As screenwriters, we have to overcome a fair amount of revulsion to give that positive goal to characters we dislike. But if we don't, then the actor won't be able to find it. We have to take a risk to build a character flexible enough to carry our message through everyone's creative process. Jerry Falwell was an unstoppable force (until recently). How do I understand that unstoppable trait? It's not that he wanted to oppress homosexuals, demonize liberals and keep women locked up and pregnant. It's his positive goal. In his own eyes, he was doing god's work. In his eyes, he wasn't hurting anybody. He was showing the way to eternal life. How does a good screenwriter get the truer portrait of Jerry Falwell? It's in my own interest as a screenwriter to look deeper. Doesn't matter if my character is Jerry Falwell, Hannibal Lecter, or Spiderman.
Germany produced its first major film portraying Hitler in 2004. It's called The Downfall (Der Untergang). The DVD contains a priceless interview with Bruno Ganz, the actor who played Hitler. Ganz hates Hitler no less than any other German. He feels that deep shame of him that has shaped German identity for decades. He refused the part until he realized he could make a semblance of sense of the evil by doing the job of an actor: finding Hitler's positive goal.
Hitler loved having kids around. Hitler was apparently something of a dream boss to his secretaries, even when he's executing his generals and bombs are raining down on the bunker. Why? Because they represented to him everything he was fighting for -- the good, moral, upstanding German. The traits are not the point of the movie at all. They are there to make the evil he did feel real, plausible, and resonant within a film. Suddenly Hitler is a human being, and not this dark cloud hanging over history. It's f***ing chilling and unforgettable and horrible.
Our media conditions us to put people into a box immediately. Even if they deserve that box, it's not necessarily a good thing for a writer to do. Embrace that ambivalence. It will reward you. What's your antagonist's positive goal?
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Conversation continued..
A client of mine had a great follow-up on the last post. He noted that a lot of people aren't really listening to what the other party says. For them, conversation is more or less a way of making their statement -- dominating the other party, or impressing, or whatever else. And guess what? A conversation like that probably would have a lot of exposition. They WILL tell friends about facts that are already understood between them. They WILL lay out the basic relationships. They will repeat a son's achievements. They will rub a friend's nose in the basic problems of a friendship.
Sometimes exposition is inevitable. And there are ways to make it feel natural. The key here is the same as with any dialogue: context. So the tip for today comes courtesy of my client and buddy, Doc:
Explore your characters for traits that help you communicate necessary exposition. Are they the kind of character who never listens? Are they boastful? Dominating? Do they repeat themselves? Do they like rubbing people's noses in their mistakes? Are they dying for a chance to do it to another character? Let 'em!
Sometimes exposition is inevitable. And there are ways to make it feel natural. The key here is the same as with any dialogue: context. So the tip for today comes courtesy of my client and buddy, Doc:
Explore your characters for traits that help you communicate necessary exposition. Are they the kind of character who never listens? Are they boastful? Dominating? Do they repeat themselves? Do they like rubbing people's noses in their mistakes? Are they dying for a chance to do it to another character? Let 'em!
Friday, May 18, 2007
Context and Conversation
Let's talk about real life for a moment. Have you ever staged a conversation? Ever heard someone talking on the phone nearby, and realized that the conversation was staged for your benefit? Maybe when you were 8, and hijacked your sister into a conversation about what you want for Christmas and why you're so deserving, and all the good things you did. Or when you're sixteen, and you overhear your parents talking about the evils of smoking, and how good parents listen rather than judge, at least if you come to them sooner rather than later. Maybe the midle manager sitting next to the pretty girl on the morning train, who loudly moves millions of dollars with a simple phone call.
What does that conversation sound like?
"Well, you're my wife, so you've known me for a long time, and I may be hot under the collar at times, but you know I care more about my kids."
"You're serious? I made a cool million before the market even opened? I just wish I had a beautiful woman to take to the Hamptons with me this weekend."
"WOW, you cleaned the whole garage? You must be a devoted and deserving son." "I am a deserving son, Jane. A damn good one who doesn't get enough respect in this family."
When I overhear conversations like this, I turn pale. Beads of sweat trickle down my forehead. It's happened -- there's a rip in the space-time continuum, and these poor people are stuck in the first draft of a screenplay!
Humans are programmed to understand social context. We can't not do it. Reading context is part of our evolution. And when it's not present in a conversation, it sticks out like a sore thumb. When's the last time a 10-year-old sister was interested in her brother's hard work? Why is the millionaire telling his secretary about his love life? Is the father worried that the woman next to him has forgotten she's his wife?
Many writers start and end by writing dialogue. It figures large on the printed page, so it seems natural. But dialogue is a huge trap for screenwriters. If you concentrate on dialogue alone, you'll never get to what makes a script feel natural and comfortable to a viewer.
What it does do is allow you to engage themes directly, and writers will often run miles with that.
-- Maybe Johnny's smoking because he thinks we don't care about him.
-- But we love him so much! If only we could tell him... then maybe he wouldn't smoke!
-- Don't say it!
-- I'm sorry, I have to say it! I was the sixth of seven kids, and I promised myself that Johnny would never know what it feels like to be neglected like I was! So I had the abortion!
-- You can't blame Johnny for the abortion.
-- I don't! I blame you!
-- NO!!!
Not infrequently the writer of this stuff thinks they've plumbed the depths of human consciousness. But hand it to a group of actors, and you'll inevitably hear the word 'turd'.
Everyone writes turds like this sooner or later. How do you avoid it? Two cues.
1. LISTEN. Listen to conversations on the bus. Listen to how your family talks. Write down a transcript in your head. What's it look like? Elliptical. Unfocused. You knew exactly what they were talking about. But it's not so clear as a transcript. Why? Because you've taken away the context. That's what dialogue looks like. That's how the middle class family with the angry mom and smoking son talk.
2. Go to your own scenes. Look for the turds. Don't hate yourself. Don't agonize. But start the editing process in a creative way. Build in context by:
-- Thinking of exacty where the character is at that moment. What happened in the last scene? Are they angry? Hungry? Horny? Bored?
-- Replace at least one line of dialogue with a visual cue.
-- Replace at least one line of dialogue with an action.
-- Listen to what your choices tell you about your story, and repeat the process.
What does that conversation sound like?
"Well, you're my wife, so you've known me for a long time, and I may be hot under the collar at times, but you know I care more about my kids."
"You're serious? I made a cool million before the market even opened? I just wish I had a beautiful woman to take to the Hamptons with me this weekend."
"WOW, you cleaned the whole garage? You must be a devoted and deserving son." "I am a deserving son, Jane. A damn good one who doesn't get enough respect in this family."
When I overhear conversations like this, I turn pale. Beads of sweat trickle down my forehead. It's happened -- there's a rip in the space-time continuum, and these poor people are stuck in the first draft of a screenplay!
Humans are programmed to understand social context. We can't not do it. Reading context is part of our evolution. And when it's not present in a conversation, it sticks out like a sore thumb. When's the last time a 10-year-old sister was interested in her brother's hard work? Why is the millionaire telling his secretary about his love life? Is the father worried that the woman next to him has forgotten she's his wife?
Many writers start and end by writing dialogue. It figures large on the printed page, so it seems natural. But dialogue is a huge trap for screenwriters. If you concentrate on dialogue alone, you'll never get to what makes a script feel natural and comfortable to a viewer.
What it does do is allow you to engage themes directly, and writers will often run miles with that.
-- Maybe Johnny's smoking because he thinks we don't care about him.
-- But we love him so much! If only we could tell him... then maybe he wouldn't smoke!
-- Don't say it!
-- I'm sorry, I have to say it! I was the sixth of seven kids, and I promised myself that Johnny would never know what it feels like to be neglected like I was! So I had the abortion!
-- You can't blame Johnny for the abortion.
-- I don't! I blame you!
-- NO!!!
Not infrequently the writer of this stuff thinks they've plumbed the depths of human consciousness. But hand it to a group of actors, and you'll inevitably hear the word 'turd'.
Everyone writes turds like this sooner or later. How do you avoid it? Two cues.
1. LISTEN. Listen to conversations on the bus. Listen to how your family talks. Write down a transcript in your head. What's it look like? Elliptical. Unfocused. You knew exactly what they were talking about. But it's not so clear as a transcript. Why? Because you've taken away the context. That's what dialogue looks like. That's how the middle class family with the angry mom and smoking son talk.
2. Go to your own scenes. Look for the turds. Don't hate yourself. Don't agonize. But start the editing process in a creative way. Build in context by:
-- Thinking of exacty where the character is at that moment. What happened in the last scene? Are they angry? Hungry? Horny? Bored?
-- Replace at least one line of dialogue with a visual cue.
-- Replace at least one line of dialogue with an action.
-- Listen to what your choices tell you about your story, and repeat the process.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Loglining
I'm still learning to blog. It's a hard format. Just about the only thing that works consistently is a concrete example. So here goes.
I've blogged before about the script that is presently kicking my ass. The main character is more or less me as a teenager. I've found a very strong mediation and genre choice so I'm sufficiently distanced from the material to actually let me subconscious get involved. I'm not going to describe it too directly, but the basic set up is a shy 15-year-old in a stand off with the U.S. Army.
For a fresh reader, what's appealing about this set up is the apparent mismatch. What's intriguing to a fresh reader is how I might make that mismatch work. What's not appealing is that I've set my main character against the U.S. Army in a script targeted at a mass market. The army is supposed to be the good guys.
How do I think about this issue? Logline.
For a long time I tried finessing small details, trying to show how the kid defending his fantasy world is in the right, and the army is in the wrong (but it's still okay for the guy buying the popcorn). I thought about changing the market, but that would require making it a much lower budget film. Couldn't make that work.
Meanwhile, the main issue for me as a writer was that the main character, who's supposed to be a screwed up, closeted, crypto-Christian adolescent who spends his days drawing pictures, was actually turning all Spielberg on me. Boring. Standard. Too easy.
Loglining (did I just create a verb?) helped me figure out the sympathy issue. The U.S. Army can open up the big guns, even on a 15-year-old, if they're defending us. All I have to do to make this set up work: the kid's playing offense, not defense. How do I keep him sympathetic? I don't want to describe my script online. It's enough to say that no one actually controls their fantasy world.
Maybe loglining is just as important as the logline itself. I've written at least fifty loglines for this script. I'll write fifty more before I'm done. I have no doubt it will teach me something about the script every time.
I've blogged before about the script that is presently kicking my ass. The main character is more or less me as a teenager. I've found a very strong mediation and genre choice so I'm sufficiently distanced from the material to actually let me subconscious get involved. I'm not going to describe it too directly, but the basic set up is a shy 15-year-old in a stand off with the U.S. Army.
For a fresh reader, what's appealing about this set up is the apparent mismatch. What's intriguing to a fresh reader is how I might make that mismatch work. What's not appealing is that I've set my main character against the U.S. Army in a script targeted at a mass market. The army is supposed to be the good guys.
How do I think about this issue? Logline.
For a long time I tried finessing small details, trying to show how the kid defending his fantasy world is in the right, and the army is in the wrong (but it's still okay for the guy buying the popcorn). I thought about changing the market, but that would require making it a much lower budget film. Couldn't make that work.
Meanwhile, the main issue for me as a writer was that the main character, who's supposed to be a screwed up, closeted, crypto-Christian adolescent who spends his days drawing pictures, was actually turning all Spielberg on me. Boring. Standard. Too easy.
Loglining (did I just create a verb?) helped me figure out the sympathy issue. The U.S. Army can open up the big guns, even on a 15-year-old, if they're defending us. All I have to do to make this set up work: the kid's playing offense, not defense. How do I keep him sympathetic? I don't want to describe my script online. It's enough to say that no one actually controls their fantasy world.
Maybe loglining is just as important as the logline itself. I've written at least fifty loglines for this script. I'll write fifty more before I'm done. I have no doubt it will teach me something about the script every time.
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