"A few ideas important to me. Before writing Fade In:A. I should be able to verbally tell the story I'm about to write in two-minute, five-minute, ten-minute versions. My primary goal is to get an audience swept along in the story. I read the listeners' face and body language...if they don't really want to know what happens next, I find another story.
B. I need to know generally where I'm going with my story, but give myself the room for discovery along the way (but am always specifically clear about my destination--the end).
C. I make sure to identify the central idea or theme of the piece and think of it as the aortic vein--that from which all flows.
D. I cannot write a story that doesn't have a personal emotional resonance and a locus where the screen story and my own story meet.
E. I aspire for a balance between the universal and the unique--the most successful films exist on familiar landscapes (genres), but make you feel like you've never been there before.
F. Movies are short for moving pictures...I try to tell the story with character behavior and action. If I wanted to dramatize a story through dialogue, I would write a play.
G. Once started, I never look back--the ever-present rewrite critic perched on my shoulder is the biggest obstacle in getting to those magic words Fade Out.
H. The ratio of the time I talk or read about writing to the time I actually write is about 1:1000."
-- from the book "Why We Write"
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Three points really stuck with me after I read this piece this morning:
A. I should be able to verbally tell the story I'm about to write in two-minute, five-minute, ten-minute versions. My primary goal is to get an audience swept along in the story. I read the listeners' face and body language...if they don't really want to know what happens next, I find another story.
What a great idea to help flesh out your outline. Think about how we discuss movies with our friends and coworkers. We tell brief, intermediate and long versions of the storyline. The best movies always get the long versions.
D. I cannot write a story that doesn't have a personal emotional resonance and a locus where the screen story and my own story meet.
It seems self evident, but how can you write with the quality we all aspire too without the story causing an intense emotion to rise within you every time you think about it? And the only way that happens is when you share the emotion of the story, why else would comedies be so big a slice of the pie? We all love to laugh.
E. I aspire for a balance between the universal and the unique--the most successful films exist on familiar landscapes (genres), but make you feel like you've never been there before.
Think about your favorite movies, they do this and do it well. How many people stayed out of the water during the summer of Jaws? A thriller/horror movie in WATER, some people were even rumored to have given up baths for showers! Star Wars was not just another SciFi/fantasy film. I don’t think many people looked up at that stars after seeing the movie without thinking that there were other WORLDS out there, not just aliens. Slumdog Millionaire introduced us to a new view of growing up surrounded by slums that most of us never had. Jamal had a literal million rupee education – all from the streets of the poorest parts of India.
This was a particularly valuable Screenwriting 101. Thanks!
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