Precious tips from various books, articles and videos on writing and screenwriting.
I didn't keep notes on who wrote what, as this research was initially for myself (sorry). Also, I refer to the protagonist as “protag” or “he” because writing “protagonist” or “he/she” every time gets tiring.
Enjoy the wisdom!
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A.CHARACTERS
- If you were having a dinner party, would you invite your characters?
- Wanna find out who your character really is, fast and easy? Simple. Just answer this: what methods does he use? Character is action!
Names
- Differentiate the length of your main characters’ names to make them easier to distinguish and remember.
- “How do you name a fantasy character?” “That’s easy. You take two words that come to mind to describe that character, then put them together, and consider their sounds to make sure that they resonate properly.” Darth Vader, Mount Doom, Gandalf (gandr+alf=elf with a wand), Gollum=golem.
Characteristics
Fatal Flaw: The flaw must be specific. Otherwise, it’s a meaningless label.
Strengths: Introduce a character’s secret strength early, then have them use it to save something later on. / Having a strength doesn’t mean you’ll never mess up. / A strength can create consistency in a char’s personality.
Fear: Everyone fears the undermining of their strengths. / Overcoming fear: fear still exists, overcoming is the ability to face it without a defense mechanism for a shield or reversion to instincts. / “Thinking can’t overcome fear. Action will”
Backstory: How much background should you give a character? Only enough to make your reader—and you—believe in him.
Way of thought: Everyone must interpret things differently, out of different attitude or background. If all you have is a hammer, every problem is a nail. / It’s possible to have a weird world view (e.g. due to germ phobia, when one holds a blade at his throat he’s more worried if it’s clean)
Appearance: Is appearance / dress chosen or forced?
Fighting style: they should fight in unique styles that reflect who they are
Char arc: The main char’s beliefs should be so strong, that words alone won’t move them. You need to confront the antagonist for that, not just the partner. In true detective and se7en the partner’s views are opposite of the protag’s, but the antagonist’s beliefs are quite close to the protag’s. An extreme version of them, in a way.
Characterization: Think big. If your character’s chief virtue is his compassion, don’t just settle for having him pat a stray dog. Have him run into NYC traffic just to cross the street and see why a little girl is crying. /What do they do when no one’s looking? / List all keywords that describe your character and cross out all the non-interesting ones, till only 3-4 are left.
Flip character expectations on their head: e.g. Yoda from Star Wars. “I’m creating the greatest Jedi Warrior of all time. What is he like?” The first inclination is to make him tall, strong, and fearless. But Yoda is tiny, frail and annoying.
Who’s the best person to put in that situation? Heroes who: (1) offer the most conflict in the situation and (2) have the longest way to go, emotionally
Ego defense mechanisms: the masks chars wear to hide their inner selves. The chars themselves are completely unaware that they’re exhibiting defensive behaviors. The other chars (and the viewers) watch the heroes and become frustrated with their obliviousness to their own glaring problems.
Interesting types
“Romantic interest”: Just someone who makes the char act irrationally and unpredictably and exposes their weakness.
The eccentric: someone who feels a tremendous need to maintain his individuality. He has selected some limited aspect of life and living in which he holds unbendingly to his private standards.
The cool guy: We don’t want to get hurt, to be vulnerable. And that’s why we project coolness. That’s why we want to seem like we don’t give a fuck. But being cool isn’t emotional, dramatic or empathetic.
The anti-hero: They’re not out to save the world. They’re out to save themselves. They bring one tremendous strength to the table that traditional heroes don’t: they’re unpredictable.
The underdog: Everybody loves an underdog.
The unconventional teacher -> Audiences love the unorthodox teacher who does things his own way.
Villains
- When the char has something to learn from the villain, e.g. the villain is right but took things too far, it makes for a more dynamic and interesting story./ Advice from the antagonist to the hero may strengthen the lie they believe in.
- When your villain is shrouded in mystery for most of the book, you need a second antagonist.
- Write a scene that rules your bad guy out as a suspect.
-Your villain should encounter obstacles too. Audiences aren’t used to villains having obstacles, so it’s shocking.
- A deceitful villain: There’s something inherently evil about a villain going back on his word.
- Try: A hero teaming up with a former enemy to take on an even bigger enemy.
- Consider giving the main goal to your villain
Likability/emotion
There are two basic ways to make one likable: “save the cat” moments (he does something likable) and “kick the owner” (beat him down)
-Kick the owner: (1) Injustice. Suffers for something he didn’t do. (2) Make him good but tempted by evil. It’s a struggle the readers can relate to. (3) Suffering a tough break in life, such as a handicap or disability. Disability = anything that pushes the char at a seemingly permanent disadvantage in the world. (4) Relativity: pit them against someone way worse than them. (5) Facing an inner struggle. The char isn’t trying to make a change, but doesn’t know how to handle a burden. Sometimes he doesn’t even know he’s burdened.
-Save the cat: (1) Avoid generic “likable character moments.” Your “likable character moment” works best when it’s a natural extension of your hero. For example, a doctor risks everything to cure a boy. (2) Bravery. Characters should be courageous to be liked. Don’t try to make virtue take the place of courage. (3) Caring. Any major character must have the ability to care. He needn’t be aware that he feels that way: it must simply be strong enough to move him. Even better if the caring is unassuming. A true caregiver doesn’t stop to think how kind he’s being. (4) Unconditionally loves his child. (5) Save someone we care about (not a random guy) (6) Sticks up for his friends.
- Notes: If the protag soon makes a bad choice, make him likable first. It’s far easier to create empathy right away than to erase negativity.
Sympathy = the feeling you have from an external position, your own reaction to someone else’s situation. Empathy = sharing their reaction.
Show intense expression of inner feelings. E.g. slapping himself as self-punishment, or screaming in joy after an achievement.
Why people can’t relate
- Char/arc not clearly conveyed.
- Char functions throughout the plot alone (Succeeds or fails by himself. Lacks is a meaningful relationship)
-The reader has to get to know your characters, watch them laugh and struggle, before the twister hits the farm. Don't rush it. Real feeling needs time to play out so that the audience can experience and process it. When you have the emotion, play it for real, and see where it takes you in the scene.
- The single biggest mistake writers make while creating chars is that they think of the hero and all other chars as separate individuals. The result isn’t only a weak hero, but also cardboard opponents and even weaker minor characters.
Friendships
Use rituals, bonding moments, inner jokes to sell friendships.
Sometimes people who are not overly friendly turn out to be the best of friends.
Sometimes people who are not overly friendly turn out to be the best of friends.
Secrets
Encouraged by environments of: (1) competitiveness, (2) oppressiveness, (3) unpredictability.
Secrets are powerful because they control you. Very often, the problem with a secret isn’t the content, but what you must do to keep it secret.
Equations
Attention -> interest (emotion/imagination) -> desire (talking about sth the reader can relate to)-> action
Need = fear = lie ->repeat
Stimulus -> internalization ->response: [Sam pierced a sausage with his fork.// "How dare he steal my lunch? I’m fed up with this!" // Joe snatched the fork out of Sam’s hand.] - Write thoughts before physical response
B. PLOT CORE + MECHANICS
Theme
Theme’s an active exploration of an idea, a question. A theory is posited, an argument explored, and a conclusion reached.
The simplest themes are usually the best - latch onto something simple and powerful!
Theme beats logic. Groundhog Day and Tootsie have similar armatures: When the protagonists use their inside info to get the object of their desire into bed, it doesn't work. In both cases the plan should work, but doesn't, because it isn't right thematically. Also, in Groundhog Day it's never explained why the protag keeps living the same day over and over again: but the audience gets that it's because the protag needs to fix his behavior.
Armature
The armature is your point. Your story is sculpted around this point. The first thing you must do to get your point across is to understand what you want to say. I know that sounds simple and obvious, but I almost never meet writers who know what they want to say. Mostly what they want is to say something deep and profound that no one has ever said before, but they don't know what that is. Or they want to say a thousand things in one story, not realizing that to say too much is to say nothing at all.
I don't believe that audiences care much about the genre of a story; they just want to be moved in some way. And they respond over and over again to stories with an armature. Every decision you make should be based on the idea of dramatizing your armature idea. You are a slave to your story, not a master. Your characters, places, scenes, and sequences must be built around the armature. Think of it more as making discoveries rather than decisions. You will then find yourself looking for things that illustrate your point. If you do this, your work will be stronger and more focused.
The masculine and the feminine
Masculine elements = external, feminine = internal. Without equal, or close to equal, parts, your story is unbalanced. Stories that are seen as "cheap"are often overly feminine or overly masculine. Masculine traits are anything that moves the story forward externally. For example, Character A, a policeman, finds out that the murderer in the case he's investigating is another cop. That is a masculine element. The murdering cop is Character A's best friend and once risked his life to save Character A. This is a female element.
Films and books that are more feminine usually do better among critics and intellectuals, but seldom bring in a wide audience. They are often called "character- driven." Critics will often believe that these stories are too "smart" for the masses. Video gamers, mainstream comic book readers or creators, and action film fans tend to fall in the masculine category.
A climax is the bringing together of the masculine and feminine elements that shows the character's change, or lack thereof. We can see how much a character has changed based on how they respond under pressure.
Scene structure
-The more powerful the engine of your story, the less structure matters. (The Empire Strikes Back has a wonky structure. There’s no true main character. The villain is dictating the action. The first act extends beyond 40 minutes. Yet it has a hell of a story engine: a massive chase. )
-Tip: Make sure each successive goal in your story gets bigger.
- An emotional change must occur in every scene. + - / - + / + - …
- Tell them what you're going to tell them. Tell them. Tell them what you told them. = the three acts.
- You should seldom provide a happy answer to the scene question. Ideally, to keep readers involved and worried, the scene should answer the question with a bad development. Whatever your viewpoint character wants, he must not get it at the end of the scene. For if he does, he has suddenly become happy... story tension relaxes... the reader goes to sleep... and your story has failed.
- The beginning of the scene should frame what the whole scene is about. The scene should then funnel down to a single point, with the most important word or line of dialogue stated last.
- Emotional color wheel -> we need all the emotions. A lust scene, a frustration scene, a scary one etc. Try playing some of your scenes for a different emotion instead of the current one (with same ups, downs and result)
- Stakes alone aren’t enough to set a tone. Comedies often involve high stakes. The tone is less about what happens and more about how you say it.
- The final fight is rarely about the fight itself. It’s about your hero overcoming his flaw.
Prologues
The prologue exists for stuff that can’t be communicated effectively early in the main narrative, but is still crucial to the developments later in the story. The prologue must be short.
Deus Ex Machina exceptions
(1) When the character saving your hero completes his character arc in the process / If a character accepts responsibility for his mistakes. We’re so happy that he’s overcome his flaw, we don’t notice that our hero’s been saved by someone else.
(2) Deus Ex Machina can be used if the character who saves your hero places him in a worse situation than the one he was just in.
(3) Deus Ex Machina works best if it’s the point of the story (engagement in the idea of faith).
Mystery
- In a mystery, revelation only works if it arises from information already known. What’s new is the perspective, and that change in perspective is usually triggered by something that doesn’t mean to.
- A good procedural has four to six mysteries that must be overcome before the final mystery can be solved. Fewer - your story will feel thin. More - it will feel dense.
- A good procedural has four to six mysteries that must be overcome before the final mystery can be solved. Fewer - your story will feel thin. More - it will feel dense.
Conflict and PAIN
-When your chars are stuck up a tree and can’t climb down because there are rabid wolves waiting at the bottom, throw rocks at your chars. When your char is at his most vulnerable, put him in the place he least wants to be. And never let your guilty party off the hook.
-Be it snakes or relationships, show what the char fears and how much. Then, make them face it.
-Drama is built on the reversal of a fortune… which reversal is caused by the character.
-Have your villain take something personal away from your hero.
-Have them say “boy, sure I love my job, I don’t know what I’d do without it” then fire them.
-Take a character who hates something more than anything, then put him in a situation where he must pretend to love it.
-Just like with Jesus, it’s important for us to know that the character is not, through some miracle, spared the pain of the “crucifixion”. The story's power lies in the idea that he suffered just as you or I would have.
-If I walk down the street and a track drives by and splatters me with mud, that’s not conflict, just a crappy thing that happened. If it happened as I was on my way to attend an interview for my dream job, that’s a conflict. If I have 3 hungry kids and spent every last penny on my outfit for this interview, then a truck splatters me with mud: now we have a movie!
- Agitator: The scene agitator introduces a distracting element that makes things a little (or a lot) more difficult for your hero. If Joe is having an argument with his wife, a scene agitator might be their daughter, who keeps popping in to ask them to kill a spider in her bedroom. Have one of your characters enter the room just as the other character is getting ready to leave. Or bad weather causing extra conflict.
Misdirection
Write a scene in which it looks like terrible things are going to happen. Then you use comedy or other distractions to downplay the danger and relax the reader. Following that, you pick up tension again by bringing in the expected conflict, but from an unexpected direction.
- If you have a twist ending, write an earlier scene(s) that makes that twist seem impossible.
- The bait and switch: Convince the audience that they know where the scene is going, then pull the rug out from under them at the last second.
Saving Good Stuff for Later
1. Write down the key elements of the thing you want to hide.
2. Split them up.
C.EXPOSITION + SUBTEXT
- Find ways to dramatize the exposition. Tie it to a critical moment of imagery. It makes it more memorable because the main feature of the scene isn’t the exposition, but the demonstration of that exposition.
- Revealing exposition earlier in the story is one method to help the reader empathize with the character. Revealing backstory later in the narrative helps to create intrigue.
- Memorable and interesting exposition almost never exists in a vacuum. So it can be more effective to use the 1st chapter to establish the immersive context in which exposition can later be introduced, rather than spouting exposition itself.
-Trust your reader. Not everything needs to be explained. If you really know something, and breathe life into it, they’ll know it too.
Mistakes
-Does a character suddenly present new, disturbing information with no foreshadowing?
-Too much or too little info is being revealed (by the characters or the scene)
-The main characters reveal too much or nothing about themselves
-Plot elements need to be explained over and over again
-Does the exposition help establish a sense of predictability / consistency in the narrative by making the resolution to conflict more satisfying?
Delivering exposition
- For narration to work well, it has to have a specific voice and add another dimension to the story.
- The Jumparound Device - Certain stories are complicated due to their size and scope. The “jumparound device” helps you navigate these stories via a guide, an operator of sorts. The jumparound device in Avatar is Jake Sulley’s video diary. With it, we can jump across huge chunks of time, with the diary helping bridge the gaps. There are many jumparound devices available: Voice-over (Braveheart), a separate storyline (Titanic), a person reading a book (The Princess Bride).
- Résumé Moment - One of the quickest ways to convey hero backstory.” a situation where a character reads off a list of your hero’s achievements via a “résumé.”
- Rarely should characters reveal their own backstory - Most people don’t willingly go into the deepest, darkest recesses of their past via long monologues. Have another character force backstory out of your character.
- Hide backstory inside a threat / argument / conflict
- The audience’s threshold for exposition is inversely proportional to how cool the exposition is
- Use yours characters’ wardrobe to tell us who he/she is
- Pets are another way you can add incidents and elements.
- Interaction with the environment. Everyone’s personality dictates how they interact with the space around them and its contents. Not all is about interaction with people.
- Use a character who doesn’t know (effective, but not interesting or memorable) > Trick 1: refusal of the char to accept the suggestions about the truth, until he faces it. > Trick 2: Using an unknowledgeable perspective char who’s personally affected by learning the exposition helps the reader care about the info.
- Reveal slowly, make it look like a reward. The main character and the reader or audience are connected by the mutual effort of trying to figure out what’s going on. Placing obstacles to the narrative to get to the exposition or framing it as a mystery the reader has to uncover, feels the exposition feel more like a reward or payoff.
- Dull info can be delivered in the context of a shocking, dramatic or humorous scene, to distract the reader from the exposition.
- Way of making the reader put 2+2 together: connect a habit with a result, then show only the habit to indicate the result and make it happen in the viewer’s imagination.
Subtext
-Subtext = what someone says vs what they mean (The chars are rarely straightforward about what bothers them)
-Subtext is all in the setup. The situation creates it. Asking “is this seat taken?” has a different meaning if you’re looking at a dangerous-looking biker or an attractive member of the opposite sex. Once you establish that two characters hate each other, for instance, all you need to do is put them in the same room together and have them talk about the weather—the audience will do most of your work for you. A fight has occurred between 2 people? Have them talk about anything BUT the fight. If handled right, the audience will get it.
-Have the char’s actions at odds with what they’re saying, e.g. “I’m not afraid”
Worldbuilding
-In the first Star Wars, when Luke Skywalker sees the Millennium Falcon for the first time. After it was revealed, a hush came over the audience as they took in the magnificent ship. Then Luke exclaims, "What a piece of junk!" The crowd erupted with laughter, because that's not at all what we were thinking. This was George Lucas's world and we knew nothing about it. There is no way we would have known that the ship was considered a piece of junk without that clever bit of dialogue.
- Environmental exposition is closely tied to imagery and can communicate anything, but is particularly effective in subtly establishing setting, tone and elements of your worldbuilding not central to your main narrative. What’s important in environmental exposition is what you chose to highlight for the reader. Sometimes, leaving a lot of ambiguity or reading between the lines gives this sense of a wider world out there without having to explain it, and allowing the reader that creativity to imagine what’s it like can make your world more immersive.
D.COMMUNICATION
Tension-builders
-Creepiness is anxiety aroused by the ambiguity of whether there’s something to fear or not, and/or by the ambiguity of the precise nature of the threat.
-Crosscutting = we specifically intercut between the characters in conflict. The characters are on a collision course. Suspense builds as the two move closer to each other.
-The Impossible-to-Come-Back-From-Scenario - Bring your character down so low that success seems impossible. We’ll be desperate to see how they come back!
-Suspense from subtext disagreement: 2 people proposing 2 different routes of action: Uncompromising characters promise conflict.
-Hints of danger. E.g. Sounds intensify fear / The setting isolates the char from friends or help / Dangerous Props (guns e.t.c.) / Fearful Responses
Use similes to describe the innocuous to something ominous (e.g. red = danger, black= death)
Bad weather causes conflict
The char makes mistakes that make the reader uneasy
Clothing - you feel a lot more vulnerable when you’re not wearing it. Have your character take off his shoes and or coat, to really make him seem vulnerable.
Doors are mental barriers. Linger on the door and give a hint of trouble. Door closing behind - inability to return. Every step through a door is a step away from safety
Microtension
The evidence of conflicting emotions (however small) under the surface. Small questions that get answered a few lines later, raised through implication, foreshadowing and dissonance. Must be mostly unnoticed but ever present. The subtle friction between the chars. The word choice that sets us on edge. The dynamic hint that something is out of balance. Microtension is needed in high-conflict passages for zap, but also lets “slow parts” remain taut and engaging. Detected by how reading makes us feel.
Foreshadowing
How to tell a good story? A pledge = a promise to the audience that, at some point in the future, something interesting will happen. Make them curious about what’s next. Deny them putting the book down.
Foreshadowing acts as connective tissue in the narrative, linking the 1st, 2nd and 3rd act by creating an expectation for the reader for the dramatic moments that take place in each of them.
COMPARE / CONTRAST / JUXTAPOSITION
Have a measuring stick for everything. Set up why events matter if you want the audience to fill the gaps.
- Use symbols of 2 different worlds side-by-side to indicate choice.
- Tell them the plan... so that they’ll know what will go wrong. Show the “ordinary world” of the characters at the beginning of the story, so that we’ll know how different things are later on. In general, tell them what’s normal so that they’ll know what’s bad or surprising.
- We must know how much a girl likes a guy, otherwise who cares if he tells her to leave or not?
- One of the things sacrifice does is allow audience members to see the sincerity of a character's change. It gives them a yardstick by which to measure growth.
- Give the audience info about what a character needs, so that we know what they’re hinting at.
- If a character cares about something enough, no matter how mundane, we’ll care too.
- In Thelma & Louise, the title characters are packing for a two-day holiday to the mountains. Here’s the way Thelma packs: She grabs everything in sight, then throws and stuffs it into the suitcase. She pulls open her cosmetics drawer and empties the contents into the suitcase. Pulls open another drawer of clothes, dumps it into the already bulging suitcase. And that, we see, is the way she lives. Contrast this visually to the way Louise packs. They’re going away for two days, so she takes two pairs of pants, two blouses, two bras, one bathrobe, two sweaters, two pairs of socks, throws in another pair just for good measure, closes her suitcase, wipes clean the single glass in her spotless kitchen sink, and leaves. One is messy, the other is neat, and it certainly reflects who they are in terms of their relationship with the men in their lives.
- Clones: Characters that mirror the protagonist in some way, and show what he is or could become. Often a character will have a problem that is then mirrored by a patient. If a doctor has a drinking problem, for instance, the next thing you know she is treating a drunk driver. With that, she, and we, see what might happen if the character doesn't change her ways. In The Wizard of Oz, all three of Dorothy's companions are clones. The gollum is Frodo’s clone.
- Set up your stakes ahead of time. The downsizing meetings in Office Space work because the stakes are high: people’s jobs are on the line. But that doesn’t work unless we’ve established how much those jobs mean.
- Whenever an item associated with one char is taken, or given to another char, it’s meaningful.
Irony
- The most powerful form of dramatic irony is the kind where we know our hero is in danger, but they do not.
- Ironic titles usually do well with readers. Also, people always remember ironic characters!
- There’s nothing more fun than watching a bunch of tough guys who think they’re about to kick our character’s ass, when we know they’re about to get their asses kicked instead.
Melodrama
- “Melodrama” is really “monodrama.” In other words, it’s “hitting the same emotional beat over and over again.”
- To identify the melodrama: are they all at the same pitch? Do they brim with the highest possible drama? (Or, conversely, are they ordinary, lacking any drama? Lack of drama can be equally damaging.)
- Dramatic moments - is there a buildup to them, a letdown? Is there an arc? Is there contrast?
- Look for dramatic turns of events in your plot and examine the surrounding dialogue. Are you compensating for your lack of a dramatic plot twist by stuffing your dialogue with drama? Remember: Even the most dramatic moments may have shockingly common dialogue—in fact this is often preferable, the contrast causing more of a surprise than a dramatic line would. For instance, a boy holding a gun to his head might say to his mother, "You've ruined my life! You've led me to this! I have nowhere left to turn! I have no other choice!" or he might just say, "Thanks, Mom"
- In drama, comedy is your best friend. You need comedy to balance out your drama, or you have melodrama.
- How to transition out of melodramatic scenes quickly: have a surprise of some sort jolt your characters out of their solemn state.
- “Cheesy is one of the words banned in my world. I’m tired of sincerity being something we have to be afraid of doing” If your story is sincere enough, nothing is cheesy.
Pace
-Treat your story like a roller coaster. Your pace should always be changing.
-Sounds: Using irrelevant eerie background noises, such as the shutters banging against the frame, is a nice way to slow the pace without lowering the suspense.
- Sometimes you can cover a longer period of time by using a montage. Show how things change over time.
Comedy
-How do you make a character amusing? You replace reader assumptions with offbeat alternatives. Then, you call attention to this alternative in such a manner that the reader or auditor abruptly becomes aware of both its contrast with and its similarity to the norm.
- Laughter is the noise a person makes when he or she attains release from the tyranny of the “should.”
- Misunderstanding = great comedy. Awkwardness helps, too. And ironic situations always lead to funny scenes.
- Use the humor moment when things feel hopeless.
- An insult that isn’t funny isn’t good enough.
- Tell the truth - the truth is funny. Raiders of the Lost Ark has a great example of truth in it. There is a scene in which a scary opponent who dazzles us with dangerous-looking swordsmanship, confronts Indiana Jones. I remember sitting in the theater on the edge of my seat, expecting an exciting action sequence. But instead, Indy calmly pulls out his gun and shoots the man dead.
E. DIALOGUE
- Is what they’re saying interesting enough that you’d want to keep eavesdropping?
-Dialogue is 2 things: what your char says and how. 20% words, 80% context. Dialogue itself means nothing without the situation around it. And how do you write good dialogue? You pay as much attention to feelings as to words.
-Frame = all the unstated beliefs that give context to any interaction. The words we say e.t.c
-Structure the scene around the char goals and let the dialogue evolve naturally from these goals.
-The reader shouldn’t be the primary audience, the one for whom the words are being spoken.
-Hook words for faster dialogue: “I’m going to work” ”To work?” ”Yes, to work” ”To work on what?” ”What needs to be done?” “The work”
-Present your invented words in-context, to get the reader to invent their meaning.
-Get rid of questions that require only a short answer. Instead, use open-ended questions that expose more about your character.
-Create a code of speech for groups of characters helps identify them and show bonding. People who work together use common phrases.
- Memorable dialogue lines sum up one’s personality and attitude.
- What morals/priorities can shape a char’s opinion into something more entertaining?
- How one’s attitude and background may change the meaning of what they hear?
- Characters should speak differently around different people.
- Dialogue isn’t conversation, it’s rarely communication. It’s the miscommunication that makes things interesting. Chars can’t read each other’s minds. So good dialogue contains misunderstandings. Example: anti-dialogue: thinking they’re having a conversation, actually wrapped up in their own little world. Another technique is to give your chars different assumptions -> non-linear and unpredictable dialogue.
- The lack of direct response can be a sign of intimacy, ironically.
- Don’t add stuff into the dialogue for the sake of energy/tension.
- Say the opposite: scared people tend to say how unafraid they are. We tend to hide our vulnerabilities in front of others -> often our dialogue is what we wish were true, but the opposite of the truth. And sometimes we say “white lies” for social reasons (no, those jeans don’t make you look fat)
- Silence = Pain. Conflict. Resolve. Silence is the response. An essential part of all screenwriting is finding places where silence works better than words.
-Inner dialogue must not be too self-aware. Most real people aren’t self-aware enough to realize they have problems. Also, in real life, inner dialogue is often active, as a response to ongoing events, instead of narrative.
F. FIXING
How to translate critiques
• If you hear the same critique from three or more people, listen to it. But keep in mind they might be describing the symptom, not the disease.
• If someone doesn't understand what is going on in your story, that is worth listening to.
• If someone loses interest in your story, it is worth finding out where.
Judging your own work
-Just worry about the craft and the art will take care of itself.
-Understand that you are only as good as you are today, and don't beat yourself up. You'll get better.
- There are only three areas where you can have a problem: Plot, Character, and Structure. Focus on them.
- What was it that originally attracted me to the story? And what kind of a story did I end up writing? Identify what you love about it (great rewriting is often about more fully exploiting what’s on a script, rather than about fixing problems) Find your favorite scenes, then figure out the major turns first.
-Avoid creating a laundry list of problems.
-Fix a plotty plot (when the plot’s overly complex) by focusing on the key relationship. The best part of most movies is their key relationships.
-Does tension come from an honest conflict between the characters or is it artificial, with no particular explanation?
- Am I storytelling here? Or am I showing off?
- If you’re defending, you’re pretending.
- Yes, theme is important. Character. Symbolism. However, none of it matters unless you’re entertaining the reader first. Ask yourself: “Is this scene entertaining?” If it’s not, change it.
- Fail it if it’s boring to write.
- If it sounds like writing, rewrite it.
G.OTHER
General advice
- Confusion kills curiosity. Obvious is mandatory. Your reader is going to be careless, lazy, in a hurry, distracted, and none too patient when reading your copy. Being too obvious is the least of your problems. Being obscure may rank near the top.
- Your responsibility as a storyteller is to be a good teacher, not a good preacher. If you only talk about what you want to say, you are only proselytizing. But if you show your audience through demonstration, it will learn, seemingly, on its own. Not only that, but its members will learn it more thoroughly.
- Simplicity and brevity are important in writing, but not as important as vividness. Also, the more specific you get, the more vivid you get.
- Story element: songs can contain information like a map and are easily recalled. So if you know the words to a particular song, you can, for instance, find water in an unfamiliar area because you know the song for that area.
- The myth of genre: Good drama doesn't understand the boundaries of genre. Genre is concerned with the external. Some stories have been told in completely different genres with only cosmetic changes.
- Good Stories, Good Business - The good folks at Pixar are almost exclusively concerned with story. They will work on a scene for months only to throw it out if it doesn't enhance the story. And they have nothing but hit films under their belts.
- The thing that most people don't understand is that well-crafted stories never go out of style. The 1939 version of The Wizard of Oz still enthrals adults and children alike. Only one thing makes a classic—a good story that speaks to the truth of being human.
- A puppy would expend excess energy to perform simple tasks. This results in those floppy movements we associate with young mammals. In contrast, adult animals are more economical. Writers with the least experience and skill think that the more complicated something is, the better. But their work comes off clumsy and unfocused. If you want to come off like a mature writer, be precise.
- Drop hints, not constant shockers
- Don’t avoid embarrassing moments
- Don’t consider yourself too smart, bring your writing down to earth where your readers are
- Don’t try to stand out of the crowd: avoid crowds altogether. / The best way to get approval is not to need it.
-Having a character easily see through propaganda when others can’t, can be jarring. It’s important to remember propaganda becomes less effective when people can freely research events themselves.
- Change: empires go through changes, in borders, religion, politics, economy, and culture, and it’s important to show these changes in the environment with evidence of that past (e.g. remains of old institutions / beliefs)
- Most writers are afraid to put something so personal down on paper. We think that it is a window into our own personal lives, and we don't want to be judged by it. But here's the big secret: we are all the same. The more you dip into your own behavior, good or bad, the more others will see themselves, and you will fade into the background.
Tips from Hayao Miyazaki
- Sometimes, you show something the char doesn’t seem to care about, because the audience cares enough to wander and ask.
- Sometimes, we don’t need a deep char, but just a little girl staring straight forward, in an ambivalent train ride to an unknown place.
- Hayao has said that he never makes movies where there’s an explicit protagonist and antagonist, because that’s not how the world works. “The concept of portraying evil and then destroying it—I know this is considered mainstream, but I think it is rotten. This idea that whenever something evil happens someone particular can be blamed and punished for it, in life and in politics, is hopeless.”
- "Making films is all about—as soon as you're finished—continually regretting what you've done.”
- "Logic is using the front part of the brain, that's all. But you can't make a film with logic. Or if you look at it differently, everybody can make a film with logic. But my way is to not use logic."
- "Entertaining a group of people is no better or worse than entertaining just one person and making that individual happy."
