Every Wednesday, I share a short newsletter that lists the ideas I’ve been particularly struck by that week. They can be big or small, philosophical or practical.
The following post is a quick round-up of the screenwriting tips I've found most insightful:
ROBERT MCKEE
Have the worst happen to your characters, and let it transform them for the better.
This one is from Robert McKee's 'Character':
Two related questions to ask when working on a story.
1- What is the worst possible thing that could happen to your character?
2- How could it become the best possible thing to happen to them?
SCRIPTSHADOW
No average protagonists.
Recently I've been revisiting the ScriptShadow website, which breaks down the most touted and unproduced screenplays and analyzes what works and what doesn't.
This line stood out to me:
“A movie can survive an average plot. It cannot survive an average protagonist.”
SHANE BLACK
The Haystack Game.
This week, I came across 'The Haystack Game'.
It's another writing tool devised by Shane Black (screenwriter of Lethal Weapon, The Nice Guys, and Iron Man 3).
Basically, it's a way to keep the audience guessing what will happen next:
"...every time you give something you take it away. And you twist things constantly. And you go, oh my God they're safe-- oh, oh, they're not safe"
It's described very simply in this blog post.
CHRISTOPHER NOLAN
Don't tell the audience what to think.
I enjoyed seeing Christopher Nolan take home some little gold statuettes recently. Here's a few lines from a recent interview he did on something that's increasingly important:
"For me [...] cinema can never be didactic, because as soon as it tells you what to think, you reject the art, you reject the storytelling. You see that a lot, particularly this time of year. It’s like people want movies to be able to send messages. But the truth is, I’m with whichever mogul who said, ‘Call Western Union if you want to send a message.’ In taking on Oppenheimer’s story, I don’t think there’s anyone who thinks that nuclear weapons are a good thing, so there’s not much point in telling the audience that.”
I'm fairly convinced that nuclear weapons are bad.
I'm also increasingly convinced that nuclear energy might need to be reconsidered as a potential solution to fossil fuel reliance.
But I won't shove that down your throat either.
PETER GOULD / VINCE GILLIGAN
Use the whole buffalo.
In terms of pace and how it unfolds, Better Call Saul is definitely a slow burn. But in terms of writing craft, it's certainly up there with the greatest TV shows of all time.
The Breaking Bad spin-off actually ranked higher than the original on The Hollywood Reporter's 50 Best TV Shows of the 21st Century list recently too... controversial.
I loved this quote from a recent interview with the creators, where they discussed their approach to mapping out story for the last two seasons.
The interviewer credits them with 'using the whole buffalo' noting how they will reach back into what they have already established in the world of the show in order to find the seeds of where to go next.
Peter Gould credits this technique to co-creator Vince Gilligan:
"...instead of always looking forward to what you think you want to have happen, look back and try to understand the show that you've already got,"
It makes the next steps feel more organic, rather than looking out ahead the whole time, just inventing wilder places to go.
FRANKLIN LEONARD
Go big, and write ambitiously.
I listened to a great Team Deakins episode with Franklin Leonard, founder of The Black List, the annual survey of Hollywood's best-liked, but as yet unproduced screenplays.
He outlined what he wants to see in a script himself:
"...often the scripts that I read are just not ambitious enough [...] I'd much rather see something that says 'okay, I'm going big on this one and I'm going to go big in the sense of telling exactly the story I want to write'. It's got to have a point of view, it has something to say about the world, and it's got to be entertaining,"
