The Perfect 10
Here's instalment two...
GET THE STORY GOING
Not getting the story going is a big problem with many of the scripts I have read. It's always hard to gauge just how much or little an audience really needs to know. It's hard to know the best point at which to start your story - and different people will disagree vociferously about this. But what I do think is this:
You need to know your story - and then be bold with it. By 'know your story', I mean know what it is you are trying to do, what effect you are trying to have on an audience. It often seems from their scripts that writers aren't sure, or perhaps just lack the faith to make a firm decision and go with it. But the clearer are about what you want the story to do, the easier it will be to know how to get the story going.
Hook the attention from the outset. Reel us in straight away. Don't wait. Yes, the kind and genre of story you are telling will determine the tone and manner in which you do this. But you still need to do it. The more multi-stranded your story, and the larger the cast of characters, the harder this will be. But FIVE DAYS is an excellent example where a TV serial opening very quietly but surely and deliberately draws you in through seemingly episodic but precisely chosen moments.
Hit the ground running. This doesn't mean start with an action sequence. It means, start your story on page one. It's often very useful and effective to cut straight into the action, to open in the middle of an event, conflict or moment.
And the best way to do this is to show characters in action. Again, not an action sequence. But actively being themselves, making decisions, being active - doing things. And doing small things is 'action' so long as they are significant things that express the character and feed into the story that follows.
Try not to consciously preface, set up or introduce the characters and world. If you are showing your characters in engaging action - whether it's a sitcom, feature film or radio drama - then we are getting to know your characters and world in the best way possible. But if you are easing us into the characters and world before or outside the action of the main story, then they just won't hook the attention so well.
Beware obvious exposition and backstory. This is, of course, easier said than done. But audiences are much more capable of piecing together information and going with the flow than we usually think. If it's important in the story, then it should come out in the story. Don't shoe-horn information in - find an action, conflict or incident that shows it.
And I look forward to seeing the debate that follows...
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For what it's worth Paul, I think this is an extremely useful and practical series of posts.
You certainly got some flak with the last instalment (!) but the way I see it, rules are absolutely there to be broken - but you can't break them without knowing what you're doing first.
As an aspiring script writer I'm not arrogant enough to presume I already know it all and the truth is, a script is worth nothing until it's shot. These guidelines help people to get there and it's enormously helpful.
Thanks
(c:
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I'd like to echo the comments of the previous post. It's not long ago that script writing with the BBC was a closed off world for any new writers, so to ignore this kind of information is foolish. I wonder how many talented writers with good ideas have failed due to break through due to their inability to accept advice such as this. Many thanks Paul, it's a check list that can only help to improve the scripts of open minded writers.
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These are fairly fundamental and should be known to most aspiring writers already, but it is good to be reminded of them from time to time. This kind of thing is particularly useful when you want to take stock of where you are with a project and are trying to identify what works and what needs more attention.
Quite timely this second installment, because I think the opening episode of Survivors doesn't stand up too well against it. I personally found it quite watchable but at the same time kept thinking it fell a long way short of what one might have expected about a drama about the end of humanity. It was oddly undramatic. Mystery Man's excellent blog talks about a crisis in screenwriting because the art of suspense appears to have been lost, and that seems a reasonable assessment of Survivors.
I don't think people would be fretting about the age and race mix of the cast if it was a ripping good story. The fact that they are suggests that it is failing to really engage the audience, and I'd say the fault begins with the first thing in your list - knowing when to begin the story.
In Battlestar Galactica humankind (ok, a fictional, different humankind) was virtually wiped out, and it was thrilling. In Survivors we got a fairly cursory run-through of the stages of the disaster, but it seemed to be purely a mechanism to introduce character (half of whom were going to die anyway, of none of which we'd spent long enough to care one way or the other). Such a half-hearted treatment might as well have been done away with, and it would have been dramatically more compelling and intriguing to have started with the inciting incident to have already taken place before the start of episode one. Start with Abby Grant waking up recovered, wondering what the heck has gone on, finding her dead husband who'd been keeping a vigil etc.
As you say, "Don't wait."
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terraling
those are excellent points, i wondered what was wrong with it as I was getting quite bored
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Good, sound advice. Thanks.
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terraling you are absolutely right - i read the survivors script before i watched the show and i have to say my mind was dragging whilst reading the script.
I have to say it was worse when i was watching the episode cause i wasn't brought into the show by the actors. I was looking forward to survivors because it is a fantastic concept could be very Lord of the Flies which is a fantastic book.
I think it started at the wrong point or the actors weren't cast right but i think the main point was where it started.
Paul, i'm enjoying these posts of yours. I think the start is the hardest because you have to find the right starting point - sometimes you don't need the backstory - you need to get to the point of the story.
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I think the middle can be hardest. I tend to start really well, then wonder where the heck it's leading me. Usually, something will click into palce, thankfully.
Endings can be a bit of a headache, too.
Great posts.
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AntoniaBlue - i agree with you, i hate endings especially writing reports for Uni. I've never got the hang of the endings.
The only good ending i've ever written was the ending that wasn't meant to be the end.
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scienceworld, I bet that ending just evolved, and it's so good when that happens. In one way you want to tie up the loose ends, but not make it too contrived, or unbelievable, or perfect.
I tend to let it stew, then something will just 'come'. I quite like ambiguous endings, where the listener has to make up his or her own mind. But it has to be at least an ending that leaves the listener satified, I think, even whe it's a it ambiguous.
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