The Perfect 10
Writersroom's Unsolicited Roadshows are rolling across the country - but for those of you who aren't able to make it along, I'm rolling out our 'Perfect 10' session in ten weekly blogs (5 before Christmas, 5 after). To get your work read seriously, you need to hook the attention of the reader in the first 10 pages - and there are 10 crucial areas you need to think about.
Here's session one:
First of all, you need to KNOW your medium and format. If it's visual (TV, film), use pictures. If it's acoustic (radio), use sound. It sounds obvious - but it's often the case that we don't quite know what medium a script is for, and it's often the case that writers use visual directions in a radio script or make their TV script read like a stage play.
You need to CHOOSE THE RIGHT FORM for your story - not vice versa. When you have what you feel is a good idea, ask yourself these questions: What's the best place for this story to come to life? Which medium will best express the story you want to tell?
A script is a BLUEPRINT for a subsequent production process in which writers will not necessarily be heavily involved. A drama or comedy script has no literary merit or value in its own right. A script is there to be MADE.
SAY WHAT YOU MEAN. A reader can only go by what's in your script, so if there is something you want to say, say it clearly in dramatic/comic action. Writers sometimes say 'your reader didn't understand what my script was about'. But often it's that the writer hasn't been clear.
ONLY WRITE WHAT AN ACTOR CAN SHOW. Parentheses in the script where the writer explains the characters backstory, feelings and opinions are pointless. If there's something you need to express, then show it through the action and dialogue - through what an actor can play.
DON'T DIRECT FROM THE PAGE. Unless you are a writer-director, it's better to keep technical directions to a minimum. We don't need to know it's a tracking shot, dolly shot or smash cut - write the beats of what happens in the action of a scene, and leave the directorial stuff to the director.
When you know the medium and form, make us ENGAGE WITH THE FORM - and see if you can explore, challenge and subvert it. It takes practice and craft to master a form - if a writer can do that and then take it to the next level, they are the kind of writer in which producers will be interested.
So be INTELLIGENT. Be BOLD. And above all, be CLEAR.
If you have any questions on this session, i'll try to answer them over the coming week before session 2 goes up.
© MMX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~25~RS~)
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How important is the use of uppercase?
:)
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That's really interesting Paul, thank you. I have some slight disagreement with your blueprint paragraph, in the sense that I think good scripts are literature, and also that comedy writers are encouraged both to provide the blueprint and then build the aeroplane, about which I've gone into a bit more detail in my college blog below.
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i think writing is wikid!but there is no-were for me to put my work!
any ideas on where i can post it? send it? or just put it somewere. i don't know * tut tut tut* how difficult can it be to be a writer!
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Very interesting, Paul, so thanks.
I've sometimes seen BEAT written in-between speech. Does that just mean a pause?
Antonia
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abamcdabbi: If you want to write screenplays Trigger Street and Zoetrope both allow you to post your work to the web, where members of the public will give you notes on it. It's a good way to get feedback and improve as a writer.
We don't offer feedback services here, but once you have a completed script that is the absolute best that you can make it, send it to us and we'll take a look at it. It will take about four months for us to get back to you though, so start on the next one in the meantime.
Antoniablue: Yes, it's a short pause.
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Antonia in a screenplay a beat can mean the smallest part of a story, in terms of building it up. Beats/scenes/acts etc.
As Piers says in a teleplay, for want of a better word, a beat is a small pause but it is also worth bearing in mind the above definition. It's a small pause when something changes - usually emotionally for the characters within the scene. I'd use it sparingly. Sometimes in dialogue... the use of an elipsis works better.
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Very good. I also agree with Micheal about the blueprint thing. I've always had an "oh no, here we go again" moment when I hear people talk about scripts-as-blueprints. The general view is that the script is just a starting point from which the creative process can deviate if it serves the production. Yes, that's true - but blueprints are also created to be followed. Builders do not deviate from blueprints when they build a house (well, some do!). It's important to get the balance right. A writer has written these things to be shown, not deviated from. And I strongly disagree with the notion that writers may not be involved in the production process. In my experience, that's fatal in practice, and unjust in principle.
On the issue of directing from the page, I do and don't agree. The assumption is that writers need to use technical direction to direct the reader's eye. In fact, a skilled writer can indeed direct the reader's eye purely by the use of language, paragraph designation, sentence structure, story beats and so on. So, in that respect, I very much believe that a writer SHOULD aim to direct from the page, whether they intend to direct it or otherwise. The moment a reader stops "reading" and starts "seeing" a script, that script has jumped its first hurdle.
I'm still reading those same old questions here (and elsewhere) such as "What is a beat?" and "When do you use capitals?". The answers to both those questions and ALL questions on such topics can be found by reading scripts. It staggers me how so many aspiring writers don't do this.
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Thanks, Mr P.
I am reading scripts, Matt C, and sometimes writers differ in what they mean, so that's why I asked the question.
Another writer said Beat meant a significant part of the story, or a big change, which is a bit different to the explanation here. So sorry if you find us 'aspiring' writers a nusiance, but we are just that: 'aspring' and the more answers we get from questions we ask, can only be a good thing.
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Stop staggering Matt C people with think you are drunk again. A careful read of the uppercase question in context of the article above it, might lead one to decide that someone, who should know better, probably had his tongue in his cheek.
:)
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Actually, it means both. The wonders of the English language.
Trivia time: the use of the word beat as a moment for a turning point in a script comes from Constantin Stanislavski, acting teacher, and creator of what eventually became method acting.
As part of analysing each script, Stanislavski advised actors to break them down into what he called bits, each of which contains one objective for the character. When a character changes what they're doing, the bit was end.
But Mr Stanislavski, so the story goes, had a rather strong russian accent. Thus the use of the word beat to describe a point in a story.
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Piers, how dare you use the word 'Actually' when I have already pointed out both uses of the word above!
Including a funny story and quoting the man - whose book is on my shelf and has never been read - let's you off the hook however.
:)
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MichealJacob: broad sweeping statements are there to be disagreed with! my point really is to remember that the script isn't a literary end in itself, it's the start of the process
Matt C: following on, what I mean is that brand new writers should expect to have to hand over their script to the people that will make it happen. I agree all writers should be as involved as they can - but they should also be ready for it to take on a new life that they won't be able to control. And directing from the page - direct the story, absolutely, but I'd say don't direct the camera. I think there's a difference.
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Actually the point is you kind of do direct the camera Paul you just don't do it with technical directions. It's very important that screenwriter have a strong visual sense - so that the writing brings the images into the readers head. For example she might write
UNABLE TO HOLD THEM BACK ANY LONGER, TEARS STREAM DOWN HER FACE.
The director will have to go in close to film this. And in the readers mind that image is a close up. As you say what you don't want to write is clunky technical stuff like CUT TO: etc in the stage directions.
So the job is absolutely to put pictures in people minds, whilst still maintaining that willing suspension of disbelief that appropriates poetic art etc. This is, again, absolutely a literary skill. It's hard as we all know. The stage directions shouldn't be technical, they shouldn't be a novel but with the minimum of words and the maximum of impact they should powerfully contextualise both the setting and the action that takes place within it. So it's more poetry than novel (try) in that sense but a literary skill to be developed nonetheless. You shouldn't be thinking that as you are reading the script, much like you shouldn't be admiring the craft of camera shots when watching a film but it should be there anyway.
:)
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MisterP: You ninja'd me. :)
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It's because I have extremely hairy, hobbit like feet.
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MisterP: absolutely, and eloquently put. I agree there's lots of things one shouldn't do when reading scripts - though in practice, it's hard to bat away distractions, especially when they are often unnecessary.
writersbrock: I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm really just boiling down into big, bold, broad statements things that come up time and again in our work here. Actually, I like to think I'm a very nice and generous person to work with. (But of course you'd have to ask someone else to corroborate this...) I don't sit in meetings with writers speaking in UPPER CASE so didactically. But - at the sharp end we inhabit here, we know that many people do want to know simple things, simply expressed.
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...and of course, I am hoping to provoke a bit of debate by these postings!
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Well I'm a big fan of PAUSE - SHORT PAUSE/LONG PAUSE etc. Please don't tell me I can't use that now, or shouldn't (I won't stop using it anyway). BEAT seems an awfully poncy word to use, are you sure that's standard now? I used to read a lot of playscripts and I don't recall coming across the word BEAT, even in the American stuff, and you'd expect that sort of language there. No, not changing. You'll have to make do with PAUSE in that room of yours Paul, at least from me. BEAT! I ask you!
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thank you very much, I read your page and found it very useful. However, is there any special formatt of insight you can give me for writing scripts for animation.
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