The Big Picture - Four Throughlines
After focusing the last two weeks on Act 1 and Act 2, I want to talk about the big picture.
If you've taken any of my classes, you know I emphasize simplifying the process whenever we can.
How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Act 2
It is the last Tuesday of July and, therefore, the last entry in our unofficial series on character. Last week we covered character in the opening pages, and now I want to take you to one of my favorite topics... Act 2.
Define The Character Early
We are still on character and dialogue this month, but today it's just character.
And specifically, character in the first ten pages.
We all know how crucial the opening of our screenplay is. We hear it again and again.
How To Make Characters Distinguish Themselves
You've heard the note before, "All the characters sound the same!"
The idea here is that each character should have a different sound to their speech.
I think it's an easy note to make.
Most Important Aspect Of Supporting Characters
We can mistakenly think world-building is solely the domain of sci-fi and fantasy. It is not. It refers to the entire domain of our story, whether that's a far-away planet or the single-location home of an indie-comedy.
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.
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?
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 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
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
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
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."