Tom Vaughan

Why Subtext is Overrated.

Why Subtext is Overrated.

Subtext is usually positioned as something evasive that requires talent and nuance to capture. Another one of those elusive things people like to wield as a weapon to make themselves feel better and writers feel worse.

Use It Or Lose It.

Use It Or Lose It.

I want to discuss little visual actions we didn't intend to be emotional, but could. These tend to be discoveries and can be a lot of fun. In these cases, it's not whether the line of action takes up too much space, but whether it takes up ENOUGH space to really work, and therefore be worth keeping.

What Emotion Are You Going For?

What Emotion Are You Going For?

One of the primary principles of my rewriting is the question, "What is the emotion I want to evoke here?" It's a simple question. I wrote a line. Either dialogue or an action line. There should be no useless words, so I ask myself, what is this line's purpose?

The Humble CUT TO:

The Humble CUT TO:

The goal of the screenplay is to evoke the emotional experience of seeing the movie. Anything that gets in the way of that, I avoid. I want the reader to envision the film and react emotionally rather than engage with the script as some technical document.

When to describe the character in detail

When to describe the character in detail

This week I want to talk about when to describe a character you just introduced. How we describe them is an excellent topic, too, but well covered by others. I’ll save my take on it for another time. Today is about WHEN.

How To Evoke A Shot List In Your Screenwriting

How To Evoke A Shot List In Your Screenwriting

Many people repeat, "Don't direct your screenplay," when they should just be saying, "Don't use camera angles." But you should be directing on the page.

You Must Direct On The Page

You Must Direct On The Page

Let's give a few folks the benefit of the doubt, and maybe they don't understand what they're saying. What they actually mean is, “Don’t use camera angles” and they’re just kind of repeating what they’re told as, "don't direct the script."

The Ordinary World Does Not Mean Boring

The Ordinary World Does Not Mean Boring

Do not let “ordinary” fool you. We do not want to see someone’s alarm go off and a character wake up to an “ordinary day.”

Character-focused stories are easier with plot-focused dramatic questions.

Character-focused stories are easier with plot-focused dramatic questions.

I want to dive a little deeper into the dramatic question and the importance of how we frame it.

It's Never Too Late To Do The Most Important Thing

It's Never Too Late To Do The Most Important Thing

One of the benefits of being a practitioner and not an academic is that the definitions I’ve sculpted over twenty years of teaching seek less to classify things and more to help us execute them properly.

Don’t start with theme. Let it come to you.

Don’t start with theme. Let it come to you.

Writers love to talk about theme. Academics, too. It comes up often. A story’s themes can unify and deepen the emotional reaction and those layers can make the work feel “elevated.” For writers and other artists, this is awfully seductive. It really does inflate our self-importance.

Small Things That Make A Difference

Small Things That Make A Difference

Small things matter, because the small things add up. I am a strong believer in writing's cumulative effect over any kind of duration.