#@!!%

Long time, no post. I have been crazy busy for the last few months. Anytime I had an idea for a blog entry, I scribbled it on a sticky note. There were quite a few notes stacked up before they all got buried in work. I have now managed to clear my desk back down to the sticky note level, so I guess it's time to start posting.

I was going to ease in gently with comments on successful sitcom titles and Oscar nominees, but last night I read a script so painful, I have to start with a rant instead.

Out of every 100 scripts I read for my agency job, figure 10% are easy recommends. They might have a few issues, but the problems can be fixed and the good outweighs the bad. About 80% of the 100 scripts have something of value, but also serious issues. One has to decide if the problems can be fixed, and if the amount of good is worth the trouble.

Then there's the bottom 10%. These are the scripts written by people who do not grasp basic writing fundamentals. As in, people who have no idea what makes a story a story at a level one isn't sure can be taught. With these scripts, you want to tell the writer, "Stop now. You do not have what it takes. Do something else." Last night's script was one of those. And the f*cker had people and money attached.

Looking up the production company, I don't feel too horrified by the state of the industry. The writer owns the company – and he's planning to direct, too! It's possible the money comes from mom and dad. (Though if they gave it to me, I could put on a piece of performance art called "lazing around in front of my TV writing blog posts for the next twenty years" that would provide more entertainment value than their baby's script. But hey, it's their money.)

In honor of that script, and the Confidentiality Agreement that prevents me from going into details, I offer a new definition:

plot prod [plot prod]

–noun
1. An occurrence in a script clearly manufactured by the writer to drive the protagonist into an action he/she would otherwise have no reason to take, and without which the script would come to a screeching halt on page 11.

–antonym
1. plot point
The thing you should be writing instead.

Another pet peeve

Dear Writer,

If you find yourself typing the words "true to form," or "typically," or "as usual," or "as one might expect," or any such phrase – consider that you might be writing a CLICHE.

Then don't.

As soon as she opens her mouth, the movie is over

I love Cher. And I wish Christina Aguilera all the best -- yo, Staten Island! I also love Diablo Cody, Kristen Bell, Stanley Tucci, Alan Cumming and anything with sequins and fringe. But despite the fact that I have to be the target market for this movie, I am not going to see Burlesque on opening weekend. And possibly, not at all.

Seriously, I am the target market. But I've seen the trailer a few times and things don't look good. In the trailer, a plucky young ingenue heads to Los Angeles. She tries to get a job singing at a club. Cher, the club manager, blows her off. The plucky young ingenue gets onstage anyway. She's played by Christina Aguilera, so as soon as she opens her mouth, Cher is impressed. The girl gets the job and the movie is over. That's beginning, middle and end, right there in the trailer -- but not a compelling narrative filled with obstacles, conflict and stakes.

This is a problem with the entire awesomely-talented-but-somehow-still-struggling performer genre. It's one of the reasons many reviewers found Secretariat a bore. If you never saw the actual horse win the Belmont Stakes, watch the video now. For two minutes and twenty-four seconds, it's a gas. But who wants to watch the run-up to that race for two hours? I am also the target market for every horsey movie out there, but I still haven't seen Secretariat. The horse won the race in stunning fashion, but not in dramatically compelling fashion. Secretariat was an amazing horse with previous victories and terrific bloodlines from a successful stable. Everyone knew he was going to win the Belmont Stakes. A few other horses entered because money was on the line for place and show, but we're not talking real obstacles. To make this story dramatic, one would have to saddle the poor horsey with a drug or alcohol problem, an abusive stable mate or recurring nightmares of childhood trauma -- you know, the stuff we writers shove in such movies to make the stories of extraordinary talent rewarded slightly more compelling.

Perhaps there are real obstacles in Burlesque. There are none evident in the trailer, which seems to include the entire film. I hope this is another case of a marketing department screw-up and that the movie revolves around a different set of events never hinted at in the trailer. But I am dubious, and I will wait to see. Unfortunately, that might mean the film is gone from theaters before I make up my mind.

A great new use for Facebook

I've been happily buried in three different projects, one of which involves considerable historical research about the Civil War. The Facebook advertising engine picked up on that research – they're watching our every move! – and suggested I "like" the daily updates from this site.

Damned if the advertising engine isn't right. I do like the updates. In fact, I think whoever came up with the idea of sending around a daily Facebook post on something of interest related to the Civil War that happened on the same day 150 years ago is freakin' brilliant. Way to go, unknown fellow historian!

Twenty four words you can't say in Final Draft

One of the last things I do before I consider a script ready to send out is run a global search for my personal list of proscribed words. These words are not forbidden because they are naughty – it's a script, fuck that – but because I use them too often.

We all have such words. Most of them stand in for the pauses we add to our everyday speech. We want pauses in our dialogue, so we stick 'em in there too. Problem is, different readers use different words for their pauses, and most readers add the pauses in their own heads and don't need those words. Though we sprinkle our everyday speech with well's, oh's and you know's, a page of dialogue studded with those words causes pain. As I mentioned in a previous post, dialogue needs to sound like real people talking – only better.

Everyone has their own habitual vocabulary. That's one of the ways literary forensic types determine disputed authorship. Though you should make your own list of dangerous words, here's my version:

Actually, usually, a lot, like, always, very, well, here, yeah, hey, ok/okay, maybe, just, oh, pretty, guess, more, quite, bit, you know, right, even, of course, so.

Though I search for every word, I don't remove every instance. People use these words. Dialogue without them might sound strange. But it's eye-opening to skip from instance to instance and realize how often the words pop up. Though I don't remove them all, I remove enough. Sometimes I get a page less script for my labor. Hey, that's actually worth it, you know?

Here's another note. While running this search, do a quick scan of every incidence of your/you're and make sure you've got them right. No, you are not ignorant for mixing them up – it's something your typing fingers do without consulting your brain. But you LOOK ignorant if they remain wrong in your finished draft.

In related news

I bought envelopes today for the first time in years. They were marked down to a ridiculously low price – two dollars and fifty cents for a box of two hundred and fifty resume-quality, rag bond, watermarked envelopes. I made the salesclerk check the price twice as I was sure she had made a mistake. She hadn't.

The marked down price makes sense, as I will probably not use two hundred and fifty envelopes for the rest of my life. I'm sure there were similar sales of audio cassettes, VHS tapes and typewriter ribbons in the last few decades, but honestly – who remembers?

In a burst of synchronicity, I will use those envelopes (okay, a few of those envelopes – seriously, two hundred and fifty?) to announce to the world my latest screenplay, Postal. Though, in an even more synchronous turn, I'm announcing it here, first. 'Cause I'm a product of the Internet age, and I can't wait for my own virtual reality headset. Facebook in 3D? Awesome.

Dude!

Here's a fun video of yesterday's storm excitement in New York City. Several folks in the comment section suggest these young men cannot be real New Yorkers as REAL New Yorkers would never show that level of excitement about anything.

There's truth in that.

Back in high school, I was on a harbor ferry when it was hit by a freighter in a dense fog. The boat tipped way over, one side was clearly bashed in and the PA system sounded like very nervous adults in a Charlie Brown special. As far as any of us knew, the boat was going down.

We tramped out on deck and yanked life vests out of their wooden racks. That was fun, 'cause you got break the wooden lath that held the vest in place. Breaking stuff is fun, even for blasé New Yorkers. Then we realized that the outside vests were filthy, and tramped back inside to retrieve nice clean vests from under the seats. And then... we all stood around holding our vests at dainty arm's length, pretending that nothing exciting was going on.

Sure, the ship might be about to pull a Titanic, but that's no reason to make evident one's distress by actually PUTTING ON THE DAMN VEST.

I haven't lived in New York in some time, but I still have trouble visibly displaying the level of excitement in this video – even when I'd like to. I went to Comic Com and thought the people geeking out over their favorite stars looked like they were having fun. But I just couldn't do it. I am a fan, but I'm a fan who was born and raised in NYC. I scream on the inside.

As for these guys, native New Yorkers or not, they are a perfect example of why writers should write realistic dialogue – but never real dialogue. DUDE!? A tornado is touching down in Brooklyn and that's the best you can do? Well, yeah, in real life, that is about the best anyone manages.

No protagonist is an island, entire of itself

In a previous post, I described a common failure in the scripts I am asked to read – the script crammed with compelling supporting characters that features an oddly unfocused protagonist. I have since decided that an opposite problem also exists.

I recently read a script in which the protagonist was a beautifully detailed creation with a gaping hole in his life and choices looming ahead. But despite all that lovely story-engine work, the script remained stuck in place. There were needs, but no real obstacles. There were choices, but no real costs. The writer was only interested in the protagonist and had only bothered to develop the protagonist's story. Without equally needy and choosy supporting characters, the story lacked all conflict.

I would say this is an obvious point, but this is not the first such script I've read. Not by a lot. Perhaps it's obvious to me from my years as an actor. There's an old joke about the actor who played the doctor in the first production of Streetcar Named Desire. The character is barely a cameo role – the doctor only appears in the final pages to lead Blanche DuBois off to the nut house. Before the opening, a reporter who knew nothing about the play asked this actor what it was about. "It's about this doctor, see," the actor earnestly replied, "and he meets this lady who wants to depend on him. And he really wants to help, but he's torn, because..." and so on. You get the joke. There are no small parts, only small actors, blah, blah, blah. Trust me, when you're in one of those small parts, this joke is funny. But like many an old cliche, it's also true.

There are no small parts for writers, either – and we have to play ALL the parts. Every character must need something and must face choices. They must be the stars of their own little movies, so when the protagonist's movie gets in their way – hello, conflict!

And... I'm back.

Been a while, huh?

As a follow-up to the last post, my computer did not die permanently – but it was an expensive can of Fresca. My multiple keyboards and I soldiered on and the impossible deadline turned out to be possible. The draft is finished. The trusted readers have returned their verdicts. One more quick buff and polish and I get to put this baby to bed.

But first, THIS baby needs to go to bed. Tomorrow I will post something nice and long to make up for the drought. See you then.

When troubles come, they come in pretty blue cans

I haven't posted in a few days as I'm under an impossible deadline – which caused me to knock over a can of Fresca and soak my laptop keyboard, because that's the sort of crap that happens as soon as you have an impossible deadline. I do not blame the Fresca. I blame the deadline.

It is every bit as hard as you might think to write a script without functioning DELETE and RETURN keys. The nice boys at the Mac shop were out of keyboards, of course. They swear a new one will be in tomorrow. In the meantime, I am the rock god of writing, with one keyboard plopped on top of another and hands everywhere. It's a terrible way to write, but I bet it looks cool.

I will be happy when this is over. And I may have news, to boot.

Darlings, dead

Way, way back in the day when I first spun the idea that turned into the script I'm currently re-writing, I wrote a single scene. I don't usually start that way: I'm more of a beat/outline/draft writer. But the scene came to me in an insistent rush while I was out for a run (and did not have a piece of paper handy – why does that always happen?) and it seemed to contain the beating heart of the movie I wanted to write. I raced home and scribbled it on a sheet of paper. That scene became my favorite thing on the beat sheet, my favorite thing in the outline, and my favorite thing in every draft since.

Guess what I just cut?

Here's why I don't need that scene anymore: yes, it still contains the beating heart of the movie. But now, SO DOES THE REST OF THE SCRIPT. That once lovely scene is now freakin' obvious. Goodbye.

Oo – this feels good. Let's see what else I can cut...

Tour de narrative

If one can recognize – and sympathize with – the protagonist as the person who gets dumped on in Act One, then Andy Schleck is now the protagonist of the 2010 Tour de France. Stage 15 is a little late for Act One, but at least I know who to root for in the stages that remain. Ride, skinny boy – ride!

Of course, the dumping upon is merely the situation that helps establish the protagonist’s status. We still need a story… what will Andy choose to do next? Will he dig in and claw back those precious eight seconds? Will he accept former friend Contador’s hotel room apology? Will he whine about it and drop further back – in which case, I'll stop rooting for him.

Speaking of which, someone should have offered Lance Armstrong a rewrite after his early stage disasters. He could easily have been the protagonist, but he ignored the clearly heroic choice laid before him. Lance might be out of contention, but teammate Levi Leipheimer clings to a spot near the top. How wonderful would it have been if the great Lance Armstrong had declared, as his farewell Tour slipped away, "This one is for all the teammates I've had over the years." The world would have set aside any reservations they ever had about the guy if Lance Armstrong had pulled a Bull Durham during his remaining two weeks in the sport, and sacrificed his own glory to drag Levi onto the podium in Paris. Of course, that hasn't happened. And perhaps the sort of man who can win seven championships in a row is not the sort of man who will EVER sacrifice himself for a teammate. But hey, it would have been nice.

Slate has an interesting article on our deep-seated desire to root for the underdog. Though the article offers several semi-scientific reasons, the writer suggests that part of our tendency to root for the guy who isn't winning actually traces back to the narratives all around us – a bit of self-fulfilling prophesy for us writers:

When you think about horse racing, which comes to mind first: Seabiscuit's underdog victory in the 1938 Pimlico Special or Cool Coal Man's unremarkable loss at the 2008 Kentucky Derby? … And consider all the other underdogs in our culture—from the Bible, from literature, and from every sports movie ever made. It's no accident that we remember the Titans...

Show and tell

Show don't tell, show don't tell, yeah yeah yeah – we are all good little writers. We know this. We have it tattooed on our wrists for easy reference.

But here's a twist. Much of the time, when I watch television, I don't watch it. It's on, and I'm listening. I look up every now and then to check in, but I'm also sorting mail, washing dishes, reading magazines, or even – as right now – tapping away at my computer.

I read an article once that had statistics on this sort of thing. The article claimed lots of people don't watch watch television, they only sorta watch. I tried to find that article for your reference, because I hate it when people say, "I read an article once" as if that meant anything, but when I googled people who listen but don't watch television I got a lot of people bragging about how they don't watch television. I hate that, too.

Anyway... where was I?

Right. Watching television, mostly with my ears. The television in question is the Tour de France daily coverage on Versus. Lance Armstrong's new ad for the Nissan Leaf electric car plays heavily during the commercial breaks. Here's the voiceover script for the ad:

In twenty years of cycling, even when I was ahead, I was always behind. Behind cars. Behind trucks. Behind... those guys. Tailpipe after tailpipe, after tailpipe. Until now. The one hundred percent electric, no tailpipe, Nissan Leaf. Innovation for the planet. Innovation for all.

The ad is quite clear – when you see it. Tailpipes spew smoke and Lance coughs and one understands that "until now" refers to the tailpipes and the smoke and that Lance is still behind the cars, they're just not spewing smoke in his face anymore. But the first time I saw the ad, I didn't really see it – I only heard it. And I heard something quite different.

THE AD QUITE CLEARLY STATES THAT THE NISSAN LEAF IS SO DANG SLOW THAT A GUY ON A BICYCLE WILL NEVER HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT RIDING BEHIND IT AGAIN.

I think this is not what the good folks at TBWA/Chiat/Day had in mind. These are the people behind the Justin Long/John Hodgman MAC ads. These are good writers. And the Leaf ad is a good ad, as long as you watch it. Which I didn't. And according to that article I couldn't find, a lot of other people won't either.

So definitely show, but make sure you aren't telling something completely different at the same time.

Yo-ho-ho and a really good point

Here I go linking to John August again. I was planning to comment myself on the not-exactly-upside but not-entirely-downside of Hollywood's rush to develop non-narrative property titles, be they board games, toys or theme park rides.

A title is not the most binding straitjacket around. A title might specify a genre or setting, but the story remains wide open. A movie based on a toy might seem silly, but it will only BE silly if the creators make it so.

For a master class on how not to make silly movies, listen to the writers' commentary track on the Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl DVD. The final pair of writers explain their process in great detail and one understands why the movie turned out so well – and how it could have gone wrong so easily.

Even if you aren't interested in why it was the superior choice to make Commodore Norrington a priggish good guy – but still a good guy – listen to the track anyway. Seriously, how freakin' awesome is it that a movie based on a theme park ride includes a writers' commentary track?!

[I've linked above to the Blu-ray edition. Amazon no longer lists the 2-disc DVD version on which I listened to the commentary track. Anyone know if the Blu-ray version includes the same tracks?]

Ouch

I just realized I took the same easy road I've inveighed against time and again. The original sketch of my current project called for the hero to make a disastrously wrong choice at the end of act one. I backtracked almost immediately from that I idea. In my defense, I was encouraged to remove the disastrous choice to make the hero more "likeable." Screw that; I have no defense. I know better. Woody in Toy Story is not likeable because he's a good guy; he's likeable because he does something terrible – and fights like hell to fix it.

Every comment on my script since the change has involved some form of, "I don't get what the protagonist is fighting for." Of course you don't. He's fighting to fix the idiotic mistake he was supposed to make in act one.

I have now fixed the outline and I feel so much better... now that my protagonist feels so much worse.

Crying all the way to the bank

Short and sweet, via John August: "The protagonist is the character that suffers the most."

I'm going to add my own footnote: emotional/existential suffering counts more than physical. A lot more – though it is nice to give your hero a good Indiana Jones-style beat down every now and then.

I've commented before that many otherwise talented writers seem unable to apply this to semi-autobiographical protagonists. In the latest flurry of script reading, I've noticed a corollary. Many otherwise talented writers seem unable to apply this to characters written for stars.

I recently read a buddy cop script in which one of the two leads was written for a particular attachment. The star role was clearly intended as a weightier, showier, more memorable part than the second lead – Riggs, not Murtaugh. Unfortunately, unlike Lethal Weapon writer Shane Black, who dumped piles of crap on Riggs, this writer tiptoed daintily around his star. The character got all the great lines and stood up bravely for all the right things, but nothing ever got to him. The villain threatened the star with a gun, but never with deep, heartfelt, I-just-can't-go-on-style loss. The guy got beat up a few times, but he never really suffered.

Go ahead and hurt your stars. Give Mr. or Ms. Above The Title something to love, then take it away. Be merciless. They won't hold it against you. Heck, actors love that stuff anyway.

And if you need extra incentive, remember how much they're going to earn from all that suffering you endured writing the thing.

Steady as she goes, Mr. Sulu

IT has arrived. The smartest-looking desk chair on earth. By the end of the week, I expect IT to be writing my scripts for me.

Anyone else think this looks like Captain Kirk's chair?



A little, right? The wide armrests, if nothing else. By the way, the original Kirk chair sold at auction for $304,750. Which makes IT seem almost cheap. Almost.

Moving targets

As a reader, one often gets scripts in which an eager writer has specified the brand, and even the particular model, of every prop, car, electronic device and beverage touched by the protagonist. Here's a note to my fellow writers: don't do this.

First, unless the writer gives equal attention to character and plot details – which the people who write this sort of thing never do, preferring to use brands as a kind of hip shorthand – the script starts to resemble a catalog. Readers do not recommend catalogs for further development.

Second, though brand specificity shows that the writer has an "eye for marketing" – guess who else has an eye for marketing? Marketing departments. Though they might appreciate plot-important phones, cars and beverages, they aren't particularly fond of limited options.

Third – and this is the big one no one seems to think of – unless the writer is willing to track down every copy of the script every three months and update all the model names and numbers, that hip shorthand quickly deteriorates. Phones and bar orders that seemed cutting edge when the script was written, cause the reader to sneeringly check the copyright date a few months down the line. Consumer cool is an ever-moving target. Phones come and go, but well written character arcs, thorny choices and intriguing flaws are forever.

Surprise!

It occurs to me that the story I told in yesterday's post provides an example of another of ScriptShadow's twelve points. As a bonus, this point is one of my favorite things to see a writer pull off in a script.

Number 8 – SURPRISE!

Surprise applies to more than plot twists. It's also a powerful character tool. I love it when the wrong person surprises everyone and says the right thing – thereby making previously obvious choices difficult.

In The Piano, the heroine believes true intimates should be able to read each other's mind. The right man never manages the trick while his finger-chopping rival succeeds. The heroine is surprised – and forced to reevaluate her choices.

In Sleepless In Seattle, Bill Pullman's schlubby fiancé seems destined for dumping. He turns the tables, stands up for himself, and dumps Meg Ryan instead. Sure, Meg winds up with Tom at the top of the Empire State Building. But her once obvious choice is tinged with surprise – and a little bittersweet regret.

The otherwise mediocre film Waitress contains a wonderful, unexpected scene – worth the price of admission on its own. At the film's climax, the brutal husband learns that his wife has secretly plotted to leave him. The audience – and the wife – expect an abusive confrontation. Instead, the guy throws himself on his knees and tells his wife every tender word of love she has longed to hear. He's still the wrong guy, in a major way. But the protagonist's clear path is suddenly not so clear – which is unsurprisingly, exactly what one wants in a drama.

Two stories

I enjoyed ScriptShadow's recent post on How To Write A Great Script. The twelve points seem like basic, obvious stuff. But most of the scripts I read fail on exactly these points. I guess they aren't so obvious.

One of the biggest issues I've found in scripts involves a combination of numbers 3 (a main character we want to root for), 6 (conflict), 7 (obstacles) and 11 (heart). Far too many writers resist making things difficult for their protagonists – they resist giving the protagonists difficult choices (7); they resist pitting those protagonists against equally compelling antagonists (6); they resist making their protagonists wrong at crucial moments – even though WE ALL KNOW that flaws are the best way to make protagonists more human-slash-likable (3); and in the end, they resist making their protagonists suffer the consequences of their mistakes (11).

I can't use examples from recent scripts I've read (confidentiality agreement, natch), so I'll offer a real life story instead:

When I was in college, I worked in the dorm kitchens. At one point, I was assigned to assist an older employee who had returned to her job after a stroke. I worked as hard as I could since the woman needed my help to keep her job and qualify for her union pension. When my time assisting the woman ended, she threw me a surprise celebratory breakfast, presented me with a family heirloom brooch, hugged me tearfully and told me that she thought of me as the daughter she never had.

Isn't that a nice story? It's also boring as hell. And uninformative. You learn nothing about me, the protagonist, from that story – and you probably don't care to. Now let's see what happens when we add a little 3, 6, 7 and 11 to the story (which is how things went down in real life, by the way):

I started the job with all kinds of warm, fuzzy feelings but quickly found out that the old lady was a BITCH. She was MEAN. She only had one functional hand, but that thing was a CLAW. When she wasn't grabbing me and yanking me around, she hit me with her cane. Seriously – she HIT ME. She hovered over me all the time, making derogatory comments about everything I did. Nothing was ever good enough for her. After a month of misery I could no longer drag myself to work. I went tearfully to the office and told them that even if the old woman might lose her pension, I still couldn't take the abuse. I begged to be reassigned, and, mercifully, they complied.

On the day I left, my tormenter turned into my fairy godmother. She threw that celebratory breakfast, presented me with the heirloom brooch, hugged me tearfully and told me that I was the daughter she had never had – and explained that if she had ever been hard on me it was because she knew I could take it and use it to achieve great things. She would be proud of me to the end of her days. Sniff. And CRAP. The old witch had a motive and everything. I still took the transfer, but every time I look at that brooch I feel like shit. And I kind of deserve to feel like shit.

But YOU like me a little more now, dontcha? :-)