Writer's Group: Your Script Family – The Script Lab

Writer's Group: Your Script Family – The Script Lab

Deadlines!

There’s nothing better than a deadline to get a writer to kick some screenplay butt, and if you’re like most script scribes (A-list writers working on assignments for major studio pictures not included), it’s hard to stay on track for self-imposed deadlines. Three months become six months, which turn into a year, and you’re still not finished with the stinking first draft! Not to mention, once you do finish, you must embark on the arduous task of getting feedback.

So, what’s the solution? Create a writer’s group. Six members is ideal, both men and women. If you meet once a month, you’ll present new material twice a year: that’s two features! Not too shabby. You’ll also read ten original spec scripts a year, providing critical feedback each time.

This is no hollow exercise, because you can often learn more about screenwriting by helping others solve their script problems, and those lessons taught will be parlayed into better writing of your own.

If you’re straight out of film school, putting together a group is easy. If not, use craigslist, social networking, or any platform really to make it happen. Virtual groups are okay (which may be the only option for the geographically isolated writer), but the best option is to find writers in the same local area, so you can literally sit down together and workshop.

Your Hero: Top Ten Rules – The Script Lab

The most important character in your screenplay is your protagonist: your hero. It's her story. We hope and fear for her. She' the interesting somebody who wants something badly and is having trouble getting it. Without your hero, there is no story. But when creating that unforgettable protagonist, you must know the whole package - the entire iceberg - which is no easy task, but follow these Ten Key Rules and you'll sculpt a hero that breaks the mold.

1. You must create an interesting protagonist, one that your audience will want to watch, hope, and fear for.

2. We don’t have to feel sympathetic toward him/her (although it is a great help), but we must at the very least feel empathy.

3. We love to see characters acting bravely, so it is not only what the character is trying to accomplish that makes us cheer for him or her, but it’s the lengths he/she is willing to go to get it. Make sure the lengths are far. We want a journey. 

4. Know your main character. His/her dreams, wants, desires must be there on page one. Ask how we identify with, relate to, or are fascinated with him/her. 

5. A central character cannot exist without conflict. Make sure you have enough obstacles (internal and external) that your character must face.

6. Your main character must have a weakness (hopefully many). They are often oblivious of these weaknesses, or in denial, or constantly trying to hide from themselves. 

7. Attack your main character at his/her weakest spot, and he/she will show things about him/herself that he/she doesn’t want to reveal. 

8. Your main character should not be aware of the full dimensions of the theme at the beginning of the story, but he/she will learn. 

9. Think of your main character unfavorably. This will make them believable and more human. 

10. Change. Make sure your characters learn as they go. How does he change? What does she learn? How is he/she becoming someone different.

Voice over narration

“God help you if you use voice-over in your work, my friends. God help you! That’s flaccid, sloppy writing. Any idiot can write voice-over narration to explain the thoughts of a character.” So says screenwriting guru Robert McKee (played by Brian Cox) in Adaptation.

I agree… almost.

If you’re just starting out, yes: avoid voice-over in all circumstances. You must first learn how to write an effective screenplay without V.O. before you can understand how to use it successfully. Film is a visual medium, and it’s the screenwriter’s job to show the story, not simply tell it through narration.

It would be unfair, however, to say V.O. is never a useful tool, but the beginning screenwriter is not skilled enough to know how to use it effectively, and the probability of forcing us through the story with unnecessary or jolting narration is high.

The skilled screenwriter, on the other hand, can craft wonders when executing V.O. properly. Consider William Holden’s cynical, beyond the grave narration in Sunset Boulevard, Morgan Freeman’s smooth and harmonious tone in The Shawshank Redemption, Robert De Niro’s increasingly disturbed mind in Taxi Driver, or Edward Norton’s razor-edge delivery in Fight Club. These films are great examples of exemplary voice-over use because the writers are careful not to describe what the audience already sees. Rookie mistake.

When using V.O., it’s paramount that you create layers and let the audience add it up.

Script Tip: Voice Over Narration

VOICE OVER
c 2005 by William C. Martell
You may have noticed that SIN CITY has voice over narration. It fits the film's pulpy roots - the old Film Noirs of the 1940s and Roman Noirs of the 1930s and 1940s. Tough guy stuff. But wait - isn't Voice Over Narration one of the two big no-nos in screenwriting? Shouldn't someone from the Film Police take Robert Rodriguez out and shoot him? Shouldn't he at least be kicked out of Hollywood (or Austin)?
The reason why everyone says "Never use flashbacks or voice over narration" is that most of the time they are used wrong. 95% of the scripts they read with flashbacks and voice over narration suck because

the writer used both techniques to plug plot holes with a big chunk of verbal or visual exposition. The problem is, some of the greatets movies ever made have voice over - what would SUNSET BLVD be like without that "typical monkey funeral" narration?
One of my all time favorite undiscover flicks, PULP starring Michael Caine, uses voice over narration. It's about a novelist who writes tough guy action books, who takes a job writing the memoirs of a real mobster... and the narration is pure tough guy pulp - all of the cliches. What makes the film funny is that the tough guy narration is at counterpoint to the reality of the wimpy novelist. Like every other bookworm, he's not exactly an action hero. Often the narration describes him beating the heck out of the bad guys, while the picture shows the bad guys beating the heck out of the hero! And that's where the much of film's humor comes from. To remove the narration would remove much of the humor and kill the film! The story would still work,

it just wouldn't be *funny*. The resulting film would be a semi-serious

movie about a writer who gets in over his head with the mob... and a mob hit man - the late, great Al Letari dressed as a nun - is tracking him down.
So - is voice over a good thing or a bad thing? If Billy Wilder can use

it in classics like SUNSET BLVD and DOUBLE INDEMNITY, why can't the rest of us? Is it something that only working pros can use? Or must we give up our DGA & WGA cards and move to Texas if we want to use VO narration?
It's easier for some Guru to say "Never use voice over narration" than it is to explain WHY you shouldn't use voice over in most cases but SHOULD use voice over in other cases. This is complicated, may be difficult to understand at first, but here goes:
1) Voice Over and Flash Backs are STYLES - that is, they don't just pop

up here and there in the story. The entire story uses flashbacks or voice over. SUNSET BLVD is a narrated movie - the whole thing has a voice over. Same with THE OPPOSITE OF SEX. The voice over doesn't just pop up in the middle of the film. Look at any of those great films that

use voice over narration and you'll note that the *whole film* is narrated. One of the indicators that VO is being used to plug a plot hole is when it only pops up here and there - right where the plot holes are. Hmm, that's kind of suspicious! If you find yourself only needing the narration here and there, you are probably using it for evil rather than good and you should probably just get rid of it.
2) Voice Over isn't used to tell the story, it's used to comment on the

story already being told through actions and dialogue. Remember, film is a *visual* medium. That doesn't mean dialogue is unimportant. But if

you aren't using the picture part to tell the story, you're wasting film. You don't want a big chunk of narrative exposition telling your story, you want the audience to *experience* your story through what the characters SAY and DO. If the narration is telling us the story, what makes it a movie? Why don't you just stand in front of an audience

and *read* the narration? Skip the whole film thing. Moving pictures are stories told through *moving pictures*. Don't tell us with the narration, show us - let us see and hear what happens.
3) You should be able to remove Voice Over Narration and the entirescript still makes perfect sense. We still understand every character's
motivations, we still understand the connections and relationships between characters, we still understand what happens. The script doesn't *need* the voice over narration - you aren't using it as a crutch or to cover up story problems. Narration is often mis-used as a way to get inside a character's head - it's thought balloons. The problem with using narration to get inside a character's head is that it isn't *visceral* - it's intellectual. Words have to be processed by the audience - we have to convert the words into feelings.

They aren't actual feelings. If I show you a man kicking a puppy, *you* create the feelings yourself. *You* experience the feelings. No processiong required. So you want to find ways to convert thoughts and feelings into *experiences* rather than just have the character tell you about them. Make the story FIRST HAND instead of something related verbally. You want to make sure you are using the narration for the right reasons. If you're using narration to hide lazy writing, you're better off just getting rid of it.

If you *can't* get rid of the narration and

still have a script that works, your script doesn't work... fix the danged script!
4) Voice over is never used to plug plot holes... One of the reasonswhy Voice Over Narration has a bad name is that it's often used to "fix" screwed up films. When they used to have a film where the story didn't make any sense, or they had to chop a half hour out of the middle of he story for running time, or the film had some other big problem; the studio would try to fix it with narration. They were plugging holes. So Voice Over Narration became one of those signs thaat

a movie sucked, along with no critic screenings and the words "Starring

Ben Affleck". Though so many *great* films use narration, there are probably many many more bad ones that do. So when a producer sees narration in your script they may worry the narration might be seen as a negative. Why buy a script with a negative element?
5) Voice Over adds an ADDITIONAL LAYER to the story. Think of it as the

icing on the cake. It's not the cake. You can eat the cake without the icing, but it's even better *with* the icing.
6) Voice Over is often used with book ended stories - where we beginafter the story is over and flash back to the story in progress. AMERICAN BEAUTY does this very well. Again - you could remove the Voice

Over from AMERICAN BEAUTY and the story would still make perfect sense.. We just wouldn't have Lester's funny commentary on the story. Same thing with PULP: we'd still get the whole story of novelist Michael Caine writing a gangster's tell-all biography and meeting up with other mosbeters who would rather he not *tell all*, but we'd miss the comedy that comes from the contrast between the tough guy Caine imagines himself as, and the wimpy writer he really is. SUNSET BLVD would work perfectly... but we wouldn't get William Holden's sarcastic commentary on the film biz. That commentary is an additional layer - it's icing on the cake.
7) Your Voice Over better be damned funny... who wants a cake spoiledby crappy icing? If the Voice Over doesn't make an already great script

even better, it's best to just leave it out. If the narration isn't making a great story even better, it's just taking up space, isn't it? Because Voice Over is never REQUIRED TO TELL THE STORY a Voice Over that doesn't really kick ass is adding weakness to a perfectly good story. It will drag your whole script down! So make sure your narration

*rocks*! Make sure it's as good as Billy Wilder's narration in SUNSET BLVD. If it isn't as good as Wilder's - get rid of it!
Voice Over Narration isn't evil. It can be used by new screenwriters as

well as old pros. The problem is, narration can be used for good or for

evil. Using it the wrong way makes your script suck really bad - and we

don't want that. So use it with caution. Make sure you are using voice over narration for the right reasons - to add that additional layer to your script. Don't give in to the dark side!
For more script tips:
http://www.ScriptSecrets.Net
1) What is the best use of VO Narration in a film?
2) What is the worst use?
3) What are exceptions - movies that have VO Narration that addsnothing, but plugs plot holes... and works?