The Fresh Idea Race

A Rouge Waver wrote in with a two-part question:

One of the many problems I'm encountering as a novice is coming up with a good story idea. I imagine it's one that plagues screenwriters at every level, but as a novice it looms large, that's for sure.

Join the crowd. Coming up with fresh ideas is, in my opinion, the only REAL challenge of being an aspiring screenwriter. All the other stuff - execution, i.e. what I talk about on TRW almost every day in one form or another - is something that screenwriters eventually get right through practice and repetition. Writing great character and dialogue, nailing structure, understanding theme and tone, developing voice, writing cinematic, kinetic action lines. That's all accessible for most aspirants. Of course, there's that ineffable innate talent thing and that's just god-given but still, you get my point. Execution and craft can, for the most part, be learned.

But fresh ideas - that's tough. In this week's New Yorker, there is a really great article about Tony Gilroy (MICHAEL CLAYTON, DUPLICITY, etc.) and here is a section I thought fascinating and depressing:

Gilroy believes that the writer and the moviegoing public are engaged in a cognitive arms race. As the audience grows savvier, the screenwriter has to invent new reversals - madder music and stronger wine. Perhaps the most famous reversal in film was written by William Goldman...in MARATHON MAN. Laurence Olivier, a sadistic Nazi dentist, is drilling into Dustin Hoffman's mouth, trying to force him to disclose the location of a stash of diamonds. "Is it safe?" he keeps asking. Suddenly, William Devane sweeps in to rescue him and spirits Hoffman away. In the subsequent car ride, Devane starts asking questions; he wants to know where the diamonds are. After a few minutes, Hoffman's eyes grow wide: Devane and Olivier are in league! "Thirty years ago when Goldman wrote it, the reversal in MARATHON MAN was fresh," Gilroy says. "But it must have been used now 4000 times." This is the problem that new movies must solve. As Gilroy says, "How do you write a reversal that uses the audience's expectations in a new way? You have to write to their accumulated knowledge."

Now, in this passage, Gilroy is speaking specifically about reversals - but the same is true of coming up with fresh ideas - you must write to the audience's accumulated knowledge. Which is why the list of movies we were coming up with yesterday is important. Screenwriters need to be articulate in what has come before and what is going on now. Because audiences have literally seen every story that can be told at the movies already. They really have. But. Knowing that, it's not that you have to come up with an idea for something that has literally never been done (good luck with that, by the way) it's telling a story with your particular imprint, with your particular take on it - that is what you need to strive for. I believe there are infinite variations on each story and that's what keeps the doors open for you as you strive to come up with an original idea. You have to think about the meta story you want to tell - okay this is the story of a man needing to restore his pride and his dignity. Okay how about if that's a western? How about if we make the antagonist a wealthy landowner? Nah. How about we make the antagonist a dangerous outlaw? Yeah, okay - how about the story is not about the rancher trying to save his ranch but him accepting a job in order to save his ranch? What kind of job? How about if the job has to do with the outlaw? And we have 3:10 TO YUMA.

So it's being able to go from the meta to the details of your story. And it is in the details that you will find the specificity and the originality you are looking for. In FRENCH KISS the meta story is an uptight woman who falls for a rebel type. Yeah but he's a Frenchman. And the woman has to get on a plane and track down her fiance, who she thinks is cheating. And she sits right next to this crazy, stinky Frenchman - and they wind up falling in love. So the meta story is pretty familiar, yes, of course, but the specific details create a particularity we have not seen.

So when trying to come up with a good idea for a script, at first identify the meta. Then create details that have not been seen before. Use your store of knowledge about what has come before. If you're writing a romcom - you better have seen a truckload of romcoms so you are aware of what has been done. Ditto every other genre. This is why it is essential that screenwriters - woe are we - see a huge amount of movies. Pity the poor sucker who skips this step, thinking that he or she is just so brilliant that totally original ideas literally sprout from their brain regularly. No such luck. You have to do your homework. Identify which genre you'd like to write, noodle around with some ideas then test them - go through the mental files (if not physical files) of other movies in this genre and look for similarities and differences. How can your idea be the same but different?

And part two of this Waver's question:

I'm particularly attracted to movies like Babel, Traffic, and Syriana et al; those with multiple storylines and a common thread (although, I wasn't all that keen on Crash, too preachy I thought...okay, racism, I get it). But, how many scripts are you seeing that employ this technique? Would you tell me not to bother, it's been done to death? Or, would you say that it may be okay to pursue as a writing sample?

You know, for a while there, a couple years back, I saw TONS of scripts that were ensemble, braided storyline scripts just like BABEL, TRAFFIC and CRASH. A lot of writers got inspired by that. So on the one hand, I would say beware going for that - it's a very tough mini-genre to pull off and to pull off well, let me tell you that. The skill set involved is formidable. That said, because Hollywood is so counter-intuitive sometimes - I would always err on the side of writing what you are really, really passionate about. If that's what you want to write - go for it. If you can pull it off with excellence and originality, it will at minimum make a great sample. And who knows - it might just get you repped or even sold. An awareness that there was a spate of films of this nature relatively recently is of course key. I do not think writing this type of script is a slam dunk right now. I wouldn't do it, personally. That said, in my opinion, there is one truism in Hollywood that trumps them all and that is that nobody knows anything. So do what you will.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Top Three Sailor/Pirate Loglines

Okay Wavers, it's the moment you've been waiting for. I received TONS of loglines. Everything from the ridiculous to the sublime and back again. I received loglines that really, really don't work but that made me laugh very hard. I received loglines that were quite sober and dramatic but not particularly unique. So I came up with these three top nominees based on inventiveness, entertainment factor and well - I just liked these three the best. They stood out from the crowd. There were about three others besides these that I had to carefully consider but at the end of the day, this is what I chose:

Yellow Fever by Audrey McKenzie

When a notorious pirate seeks revenge on the Port of Savannah for the outbreak of yellow fever that decimated his crew, a sailor recuperating from the disease struggles to mount a defense and protect a young woman the frightened townspeople blame for the epidemic.

The Sailor by Michael Perri

After an extraterrestrial war forces a impotent human race to seek refuge in space, a rag tag ship and its crew attempts to evade a Pirate overlord bent on recapturing a stow away simply known as the “Sailor” with the ability to regenerate the human race.

The Entertainer by Elizabeth Ditty

When a Somali pirate with a secret fantasy of becoming an entertainer is sent onto a cruise ship disguised as a sailor, hijinks ensue on the high seas as he attempts to serve two masters: his duty and his dream.

Cast your votes by end of day, Monday February 9th.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Loglines and Premise Lines

Since the Kill Me With a Spork logline blog entry yesterday engendered a lively discussion I thought I'd do a part two. Now, for my money, the difference between a premise line and a logline is about 100 words. A LOGLINE is that super pithy iteration of the moving bits:

The set up:
character/flaw
situation/location

The complication:
crux of conflict, antagonist

and the BIG CHOICE or twist or sacrifice that makes me want to read your script NOW.

A premise line is the exact same thing only with more detail. The premise line is what you work on before you outline a beat sheet. In fact, if it works for you (and this is actually what I do) you can write a logline and once it really works and you like it, expand that into a premise line, adding more detail. If your premise line is one that anybody else could grasp instantly, you're on the right track. In other words, writing a 500 word premise line that only YOU get is not actually doing yourself a favor. You want clarity.

If you can focus on a premise line - and in reality, instead of someone giving you elements like "sailor" or "pirate" you'd start off with whatever element popped into your head as a story - you can TEST the idea by moving the bits around and changing up the character, the character flaw, the location, the genre, the time period, the antagonist, the m.o. of the antagonist and the big choice or sacrifice in the end. It really is like a flip book or Rubik's Cube. Click, click, click - look for a pleasing pattern. So maybe everything is really working out...except the character's flaw isn't really fueling the conflict in an active way. Or maybe the whole idea needs to be set in 1872. Or 10 years in the future.

While working on a premise line can feel confining - limit yourself to say 100 words - it's actually FREEING in the end. Does that make sense? You force a discipline on your story idea by making sure the moving bits create a compelling pattern (or narrative); and, in doing that, you now open yourself up to fun discoveries like - wow, this is a comedy!

So while you're working on your premise line to test your idea, you both force yourself to recognize and craft a specific, easy to articulate story and therefore define the Big Idea of the whole script AND you leave yourself open to allowing the unexpected in.

I can't say it often enough, the difference between a premise line and a logline is about 100 words (to over-simplify for the purpose of clarity). So once you have a premise line that you like - it really tickles you - it really seems to WORK - then comes the horrible task of showing it to a friend or two and wracking your brain to ensure nobody else has done this exact story or even anything too close for comfort. The least painful way to do this is to simply stare at your premise line and then write down three movies it reminds you of - IN ANY WAY.

Now: when did those movies come out? How did they do? Will your premise be compared to FATAL ATTRACTION? That can be fine if it's in the same vein - just as long as it's not actually the same story. Right? That make sense?

The great thing about working on a premise line is that it's fun, and you won't notice it but you are giving your writer's brain a GREAT workout every time.

If every writer got in the habit of working out a good premise line before writing the script, the number of scripts that just DON'T WORK would be reduced greatly. Think of it as exercise - of course you don't want to work out, you just want to look great at the party tonight, right? Am I right? But what's the reality there, Wavers? Everything that looks great - a person at a party, a sculpture, a garden, a movie - had a foundation of work beforehand. Right? Right.

So do the work ahead of time - and the best part is, we're making stuff up here, people. So while working with a premise line can at times feel frustrating, if you can just remember to be playful as you do it it'll pay off a thousandfold when you write your script: because you created a road map ahead of time, one that works and one that inspires joyfulness in yourself and that will show on the pages. I can't stress that enough; I can ALWAYS, 100% of the time, tell when a writer was having fun when they wrote the script. It leaps off the pages. And it is very powerful.

So much of screenwriting is totally counterintuitive; work HARD but have FUN. Be specific but OPEN YOURSELF UP. Planning carefully lays the foundation for jumping off and discovering something totally new and unexpected.

And don't forget the most powerful word when it comes to thinking about your idea and your character - WHY?

So go forth, be merry, work hard, develop some discipline and make me proud. Consider me your personal trainer. You're gonna look GREAT at the party.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

The Trick With Loglines

By now Wavers know that I have an aversion to over-intellectualizing screenwriting. There are so many books on the topic out there, and so many theories and metaphors (the elixir! the cave! save the cat! mini-movie! the pinch! the plot point! the arc! the flow! the thematic-narrative-thing-with-the thing!) that it can be ultimately overwhelming and confusing.

I did what most people do - learn all that stuff, forget it and just write a lot. And you'll find that what you've learned will then shape itself to what makes sense for YOU. Of course, at least one of you will then write a revolutionary new screenwriting book entitled: Save the Pinch! Because it came to you one night very late that the pinch must be saved and it was such a powerful epiphany of total clarity that you just had to share it with the world.

Let's talk about loglines. Baybee.

Normally loglines would be written AFTER the script is done, right? So a reader reads your script and generates a logline based on what he/she just read. So in our logline competition I asked Wavers to do something slightly counter-intuitive, which is to write a logline as if there were a script already written. Not easy to do, but a very fun exercise. The ability to write a logline based on thin air (or in this case, two words) stimulates your ability to recognize story and character combinations that MIGHT work as a screenplay. Whooo. I said "stimulates."

If you can write a decent logline - even a slightly silly, playful one - based on nothing but a couple of suggested elements, it's like playing with a Rubik's Cube; you learn how to take the given information and click it into a pattern that works. It's WAY good for your writer's brain.

So your logline needs to have:

A setup, a complication and a compelling* choice or sacrifice.

*what is compelling should be compelling to YOU and at least 12 other people.

The setup includes a main character and his or her deal: A pacifist Menonnite. An ambitious journalist. A paranoid PETA scientist.

The complication includes the situation in which the main character then finds him or herself: Is transferred to Dubai where he must manage a strip club. Gets an assignment to cover the World Mud Wrestling Competition. Is kidnapped and forced to concoct a formula that makes turkeys violent killers.

The compelling choice/sacrifice might be something like: But when he falls in love with a Persian stripper on the lam, he must choose between his non-violent ways or the love of his life. But when one wrestler drops out, threatening the worldwide simulcast, he must either get in the ring to save the event or report the sensational flop and win journalism's highest award. But when a turkey that only he can stop attacks the President of the United States, he must choose between his lifelong ethics and the life of the leader of the free world.

Now let's throw in an antagonist: A ruthless sheik. A ruthless newspaper editor. A sociopathic turkey farmer.

Okay so these are all ridiculous examples - but it's like one of those flip books for kids where you turn the page and the chicken has a dinosaur head. And now it has human legs. And so forth. So if you take the ridiculous examples above and put them together:

When a pacifist Menonnite is transferred to Dubai where he manages a strip club, he falls in love with a Persian stripper who just happens to be on the lam from a ruthless sheik who'll stop at nothing to get her back. Now he must choose between his pacifist ways and the love of his life.

So do you see how the italicized bits are the moving parts? Can you see that a "pacifist" might make a good choice of a flaw here? Can you see where that's going to arc this character? Can you see an ethical choice for him? Remain a pacifist or screw that and go get the girl. So this guy's gonna change. But the fun of this is that maybe it would be more interesting if this Mennonite were actually a kick-boxing champ. Maybe it would be more interesting if he fell in love with a ruthless sheik. What if the antagonist were the Persian stripper? See how you can move the parts around? Maybe it's not Dubai, it's Philadelphia. Or Anchorage in 1872. It's almost endless. But the moving bits have to have a fulcrum point - a relationship to one another.

Okay let's take another one:

An ambitious journalist is assigned to cover the World Mud Wrestling Competition but when one wrestler drops out, threatening the world-wide simulcast, he must either defy his boss, a ruthless newspaper editor bent on notoriety and get in the ring to save the event or report the sensational flop and win journalism's most prestigious award.

So again the moving bits have a relationship to one another. The flaw (or as I academically referred to it earlier - the deal) of the main character is going to SUCK in the situation you choose. So an ambitious journalist assigned to cover the inauguration of the new president of Zimbabwe (please, god) isn't really going to be up against much, is he? No, that's a pretty cool assignment. I mean, we could complicate that but let's choose the situation that is going to have the MOST suckage for that character. Ambition. Mud wrestling. Terrific.

And so forth.

What can kill your logline would include, but not not be limited, to:

Too broad a flaw for your main character
Too small, unoriginal and uncompelling a situation
Lack of an antagonist
Lack of some kind of big choice or sacrifice
Generic language; platitudes e.g., "must choose between love and peace."

So this is the kind of thing one might see which signals DO NOT READ THIS SCRIPT:

A college graduate gets the job of his dreams, falls in love and learns that love is more important than ambition.

I kid you not, Wavers, I read scripts in which that an approximate upshot of the script. Where's the freaking antagonist? What's the main character's flaw? What dream job? What ambition? Just kill me with a spork and do it now.

Now get back to work.

"Suckage," "moving bits," "deal" and "kill me with a spork" are all copyrighted and the exclusive intellectual property of The Rouge Wave and will be featured in the upcoming book: Kill Me With a Spork: The Importance of Moving Bits and Deal in a Script Without Suckage. Order early.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Writing a Logline Sucks

Yeah, you read that right. Writing a logline sucks. But like organizing your receipts for taxes, cleaning up what the dog harked up and visiting your mother-in-law, it's a necessary evil.

First of all, there really has been a bit of a blur between the definitions of a premise line and a logline. I tend to go with the distinction that a logline is what describes your script within the industry. Meaning, a reader will write a logline of your script. Executives will ask what it is. Loglines might appear in brief descriptions of scripts online, in competitions or in the trades. It's brief, it's not particularly sexy, but it sums up the script. A premise line is a bit longer and this is a tool for you, the writer, as you are working on your script. A logline should be one or two brief sentences. A premise line can be three or four sentences. The premise line is what you the writer use as you are fleshing out your story - it might change 13 times. The logline is the end result to describe the script that is already written. Let's keep this particular conversation focused on loglines rather than premise lines - a summing up of your script AFTER it's written.

Now. We all know that summing up our scripts in two or three sentences is a horrible thing to have to do. I can't leave out the part about the crazy janitor! Oh, oh and the thing - that sequence, with the big chase scene? Or how Teo tells Liz he loves her in the coffee shop? No, no and no.

When you are a production company reader you have to generate loglines quickly, easily and often. And of course, with practice, you get pretty darn good at it. One of the key ingredients to getting to do it quickly and easily is of course repetition. Readers also don't care that much how poetic the logline is: A group of teenaged werewolves terrorize a Nova Scotia village until a legendary polar bear drives them off. Done. I'm just writing a very quick upshot.

Wait, wait, back up - didn't I just say that loglines are what readers generate? So let them do it, loglines are for suckers! Oh how nice it would be if that were true.

The ability to rattle off a quick logline as an entree to discussing your script is a great thing to be able to do on every level. You might be at a party. You might meet someone who can help you. But more importantly - perhaps most importantly - being able to state a logline for what you've written (or are continuing to work on) helps you gain clarity as a writer.

But gaining this type of overview clarity is hard and it takes practice. It's like playing Scrabble, doing a Rubik's Cube, doing a crossword puzzle and juggling all at the same time. See, we writers have weird brains. Can anyone really dispute that? We think in concentric circles. We think in details. We think in moments and bits of dialogue and the fact that this scene takes place at the dawn. With a soft rain falling. But we have to ask ourselves to shift gears into the macro. Because nobody likes to talk to a writer who lacks the ability to FREAKING UPSHOT THE SCRIPT.

Nothing glazes eyes over faster than hearing this from a writer, after having asked what their script is about: Well, okay. It's about this guy. Wait - no, a guy and his wife, right? And they're bank robbers. So they rob this bank and - wait - no, back up, okay they live in Nebraska and have two kids but then he gets laid off so they - wait - okay so they got married really young, right? And... So here's what's happening in my head as you are now what I consider babbling: I am eyeing the bar behind you. Should I get a mojito? I am looking for any escape route. Oh LOOK - canapes! I'll do anything to get out of this long, boring, circuitous conversation. That's not exactly the effect you were going for, as the writer.

Aside from boring the hell out of potential contacts, a writer who cannot rattle off a quick logline to describe their script is in trouble. Because if you can't sum up your script quickly, it's likely the case that the script is not in terrific shape. The higher the concept of your script, the more exact the execution, the more intimate you the writer are with the narrative and character arcs - the easier it is to summarize quite briefly.

It could be that you need to practice. Go ahead - rattle off your logline. Can you do it in two sentences? Remember - I'm only talking about the macro overview. It is useful to practice rattling off a logline before, during and after writing your script. It keeps you centered. It's your compass rose.

Again - crucial distinction here - I am NOT talking about a premise line (which we shall revisit later this week), we are talking about a logline - so I'm not super concerned with the old rules of having to mention the antagonist, main character flaw, etc. If you CAN get across the genre, the main character's flaw and the antagonist all within that one sentence, Willy Wonka and a chocolate river to you - that's GREAT. But don't be super concerned about that right now.

For this initial exercise, I'm asking Wavers to push the pause button today and jot down a simple logline. If you can't do it - try again. And again. And then if you still can't sum up your script that quickly, you may need to diagnose just why that is. Do you have a BOSH script? (bunch of stuff happens). Generating a logline is like a doctor being able to give you the quick upshot: You have the measles. Great - I can work with that.

Naturally, if the spine of your story is simpler, it will be easier to sum up. But in any event, you should still be able to give me the freaking upshot already: A bank robbing couple from Nebraska go on a spree and become folk heroes. Okay, I can grok that pretty quickly. That's all I wanted, a quick thumbnail so I can tell my boss that this script might be something we should read for our production company.

Now I know what you're thinking and I know this because pretty much all writers try this excuse at one time or another: But my script isn't so simple! It's complex and full of nuance and detail and MY script is far, far above simplistic pablum and defies a brief overview! You know what, I have bad news for you - these are bullshits. Your script might be complex, it might be full of detail but somewhere in there, you DO have a spine of your story. And you need to be able to pull that out, hang it up in front of the class and point to it. Basically this is the story of...what?

Learning how to summarize your script in one or two brief sentences can feel like torture. But it's good for you - trust me. Take a minute today and write a logline for your script. I know you're going to hate it, that's a given - but can you do it? Practice makes perfect. Generate loglines for movies you see or scripts you read. Generate loglines for ideas you have. Generate loglines for old scripts you've written. Keep at it and soon you'll find that your logline muscles will grow.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Kurt Vonnegut and Story Graphs

A very dear friend lent me A Man Without a Country, a sort of memoir/musing hybrid by Kurt Vonnegut and I read it in one sitting yesterday evening. It was a Friday evening and I had opportunities to do other things but once I picked up the book I couldn't put it down. What a delightful read. Vonnegut muses on life, fossil fuels, writing and the fact that "We are here on earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different." And this - I love this: "What you can become is the miracle you were born to be through the work that you do."

I was especially delighted by the story graphs in Chapter Three. They are so basic and make such sense. The Kafka graph made me laugh. Start low. Proceed downward...to infinity. For those of you who may not have seen these graphs, click HERE and enjoy. Kurt Vonnegut passed away in April, 2007 and I just have to say that Kurt is up in heaven now. That's something he found very funny and I just had to say it.

Have a lovely weekend, Wavers and don't forget about the bulletin board items of yesterday. I'm too lazy to type that all again but click HERE to refresh your memory - Script Department Table Read, Creative Screenwriting Expo and of course, the latest short scene competition right here on the Rouge Wave.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

The Two Most Powerful Words: What If

QUICK REMINDER: Table Read tonight, 7:30pm at the Attic Theater at 5429 W. Washington Blvd., LA, 90016. If you'd like to come, please RSVP HERE.

***

So often we writers get stuck in our stories. We get married to some of the things we set up. It HAS to be a hot air balloon get-away because that's what I envisioned when I first came up with the story. This couple HAS to have known each other since high school. The story is set in Philadelphia. It just is. And then, when we get frustrated, because something isn't working, it's like bashing our heads against a concrete wall. We get stuck.

What we need to do is get out two sticks of dynamite, one labeled "what" and the other labeled "if". Ignite those two words and blow your story UP. What IF the couple knew each other since high school and then learned they were actually siblings separated at birth? No, that's weird. Okay, what IF they found out they'd been seeing the same therapist? Eh. What IF one of them was having an affair with the therapist? No, no, what if they only met on page negative ten and hadn't known each other for years? What if this story isn't set in Philadelphia but in Miami? What if it's a jet ski get-away, not a hot air balloon get-away? What if this story is set in 1952 not the present? What if this whole script is actually a western? A sci-fi story? A horror story?

Nothing is more freeing than blowing your story out and asking some "what if" questions of it. Sometimes this is very hard to do and we need help. If you know other writers, throw a "what if" brainstorming session for your story. Invite a friend over, have some beer and pretzels, open your mind and just start what-iffing.

I had a friend over last night and we discussed this particular topic. I made up a horrible logline, not unlike loglines I see with some regularity: a bunch of college buddies get drunk one night and overturn a car. Really - I see scripts in which that's pretty much the story. And it's usually based on a true story that to the person involved, was pretty hilarious at the time. There's not much story there, as you can see. But, my friend said, what IF the car that they overturned belonged to the president of the university they are attending? What if the university president's daughter is dating one of the guys? What if this is law school and these buddies were about to graduate? What if the car itself as a 1955 Silver Cloud Rolls Royce? That had a bag of money in the trunk? Is this a comedy or a thriller? It could go either direction at this point. But now we have taken a "dude, it was so funny that time me and my friends flipped some dude's car when we were in college" script and begun to explore some interesting possibilities to write a unique story. Or at least some kind of story rather than a script which is a year in the life of some dude when he went to college. I pale when I think how often I see scripts about like that. For real.

Almost any story can be what-iffed to a better place. But you have to be willing to go to the ridiculous before you find what works. What if my main character is a talking ape? Okay, ha ha, very funny. But for real, what if my main character took a DNA test and inexplicably high amounts of Neanderthal genes were found? Whoa. Maybe that works, maybe that's insane. But you have to be willing to play with the details because it is those details that can both lock us up and free us through our willingness to change them. Just because, for four drafts now, this couple knew each other since high school doesn't mean that in this draft they have not. What does that open up in this story? Maybe everything. Maybe nothing.

Be willing to blow your story out with some what if's. A different era, genre, or simply a significant detail can take what was not really working and elevate it to a whole new level. I have heard tell of writers working on comedies who suddenly discovered they were actually writing a thriller. And suddenly, everything came together and was brought to a whole new - and totally different level.

Here is a hilarious video which illustrates my point hilariously:

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

The Old Left Hook

By PJ McIlvaine

“Hi Julie, I noticed on your blog you mentioned requests for topics. I did a search and couldn't find anything of real great length on THE HOOK or CATALYIST moment in a script. I think it's obviously underrated and can break material before it’s even begun. " - Daniel

When Julie first asked me to write on this subject, I must admit, I had a brain fart. Staying up three nights straight to plot out a climax (on a script, people, get your minds out of the gutter) will do that to a person. As it turns out, Daniel is a pal of mine, so I e-mailed him to ask if what he meant was what I refer to as the INCITING INCIDENT, or as my good old mother exclaims while she’s watching her Lifetime movies, UH-OH!

Yep, turns out we’re all on the same page, despite all the different catch phrases. Men are from Mars, Women are from Hagen Daaz.

Well, this is my take on the HOOK and/or CATALYST issue. It can be on the first page or the twentieth, the sooner the better most say, but whatever it is, it has to be there, and it better be a good one if you expect to keep the reader turning the page. Otherwise, you might as well pen a boring book report or a methodical grocery list. It has to propel the script, to launch it---the unmistakable, uh-oh moment where you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.

It can be as simple as a woman walking into a bar ( Casablanca ); a bunch of money grubbing tourists trying to outrace each other to find that great big W in the sky (It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World); or when a shallow advertising bon vivant is mistakenly kidnapped (North By Northwest).

When we first meet Rick, the affable bar owner with a shady past, he’s going about his business, meeting and greeting patrons and just generally minding his own P&Q’s. He’s a man without a country. There’s a war going on, the world is in turmoil, but you wouldn’t know it from Rick’s stone faced demeanor. And then, out of the proverbial blue, a woman enters Rick’s Place. We don’t know who she is, where she comes from. She could’ve fallen out of the sky for all we know. But when she walks in and she and Rick lock eyes, its fireworks, it’s an earthquake, it’s an erupting volcano, and all because this beautiful woman walked into a bar. She could’ve have strolled into any bar, any place…but no, she had to walk into Rick’s.

Speaking of earthquakes, what would you do if you were driving along on a lovely afternoon and you saw a speeding car careen off a mountain road? Being the Good Samaritan that I know you are, naturally, you’d stop the car, like a half dozen others, and go attend to Jimmy Durante, broken on the rocks, about to take his last breath, and then he gasps out some nonsensical story about buried money. Everyone stares at him and go yeah, right, and I’m King Henry VIII. He dies, the police arrive, and everyone goes back in their cars and drive away. Yet the old coot’s story tugs and nags and chews and then you realize that the other cars are going faster and faster and you wonder, hmmm, what the hell are they up to? Everyone stops and tries to come to an equitable division of this still to be found money, but it becomes painfully clear that Ethel Merman isn’t going to settle for beans. Jonathan Winters and Mickey Rooney slowly back toward their vehicles and within seconds, the madcap race, the chase, which is going to destroy half of Southern California, is on. Now what if Jimmy Durante’s car hadn’t veered off the road? And what if you hadn’t stopped? It makes me sick to my stomach just to think about it.
Now we’re in Manhattan, it’s a beautiful day on Madison Avenue, and advertising exec Roger O. Thornhill, carefree, insouciant, a confirmed rake after being divorced several times, is on his way to a liquid meeting at the Plaza Hotel. Instead of gin on the rocks, Thornhill is mistaken for a spy and kidnapped and what do you know, this vain and superficial lunk eventually winds up hanging by a nose on Mr. Rushmore and getting married for what appears to be the last time. I’m getting ahead of myself. Back at the Plaza, what if the case of mistaken identity had just been an innocent mishap that only resulted in Thornhill being late to join his mother at the opera house?

I tell you what you’d have...a not very exciting movie.

And yes, there are exceptions that we can quibble about until dinosaurs roam the earth again. For example, in one black and white classic, a case could be made that the hook was when the blonde bombshell hightailed it out of town with forty thousand dollars safely tucked inside her purse. I beg to differ. I say it’s when the blonde bombshell, cold, tired and hungry, turned off the highway and got out at the Bates Motel.

Mother never had it so good.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Tackling the Logline

Rouge Waver Mike Scherer comments: The biggest bugg-a-boo I have is creating an effective logline. Very hard. Harder than writing the actual script.

Heeeelllllllp!

Mike, you aren't alone. Many writers find loglines very challenging. I've gotten pretty good at it not only from having to write them daily for clients (not my own work, so easier, but good training) but from having attended the Writer's Boot Camp where, for the first several weeks, there was a strong focus on pithy reductions. And by that I do not mean lemon curd.

A cornerstone of my take on screenwriting - doing it, teaching it and living it - is that a writer has to use both the micro and macro view of the material at all times. Zoom in. Zoom out. Picture a person working on a vast quilt - peering closely at the stitches in their hands, glancing over three squares to the left to see how the flow of the pattern is doing, and then standing up, stepping back and, hands on hips, looking at the whole quilt. That's what writers need to be doing all the time. Zoom in. Zoom out. Micro and macro.

For many writers, the logline is something to work on after the script is already written. Cardinal sin in my book. The logline should have been the compass rose all along. But I get ahead of myself. What commonly happens is that writers get way too enmeshed in the micro page-work and write a logline like this:

A civil war vet has a failing ranch and someone threatens to cut off the water and he doesn't know what to do and then they burn down his barn and he's really upset and then he gets a proposition, to help escort a dangerous criminal to the train station on time and they'll pay him $200 but on the very first night out the criminal kills someone and he realizes he's in pretty deep and then......

Please kill me now. Just. Kill me.

How about the freaking upshot already??

A desperate man with a failing ranch gets in too deep when he accepts $200 to escort a murderous outlaw with a devoted gang to the train station on time to stand trial.

Ohhhhhh now we've boiled YUMA down to it's most entertaining essence. Few details embellish this logline, just the upshot.

And that's what readers are asked to do when they write loglines: UPSHOT PLEASE.

But a logline you are writing needs to be a little sexier than the upshot only. Not longer, just sexier. Here's the logline a reader would mostly likely jot out for YUMA:

A failing rancher escorts a dangerous criminal to the train station.

Upshot and upshot only. But the one I used as an example earlier is closer to what you the writer would write as you represent your script when submitting.

A desperate man with a failing ranch gets in too deep when he accepts $200 to escort a murderous outlaw with a devoted gang to the train station on time to stand trial.

So let's look at that logline again. Is the genre clear - yeah, rancher, outlaw, got it. Who is the antagonist? Murderous outlaw, devoted gang, got it. Ticking clock? Train station on time. Main character and flaw? Desperate man with failing ranch. Crux of the conflict? Accepts $200 to escort murderous outlaw.

So like a dragonfly in the garden, we flew over the meadow of the script and alighted only on the key moments, the brightest flowers, the UPSHOT.

In my opinion, many writers struggle with their logline for two reasons - they don't practice doing it enough (exercise to follow) and they are writing the logline AFTER they wrote the script and, the biggest, worst culprit of all - the script they are trying to logline is too dense, confusing and meandering to really have a big upshot. And that is the worst thing of all.

I recommend working on a logline (or premise, actually, in this usage, I'll 'splain momentarily) before you outline your script. Then continue to amend the logline or outline as needed. You really shouldn't write your logline AFTER the script is done. Again, the logline should have been your compass rose all along.

It's kinda like a pyramid:

Logline
Premise
Outline
Script

So yeah, it's pretty damn tough to write a logline when boiling down the essence of the script has never entered your mind until page 86.

The difference between a premise and a logline is this: A premise is simply a longer version of the logline, maybe a paragraph, that is for YOUR use, YOU the writer, as you work on your outline. The premise can and will change often as you are shaping your story. And yes, there's room for spontaneity, if you change something on your pages post outline, yes, tweak the premise and loglines to reflect that change.

So what are the components of a good logline, whether you are being a Rouge Wave ROCK STAR and writing the log and premise before writing the script or being a goofball and attempting to write them to describe a script you've already written?

A good logline should include:

The main character and his or her flaw-weakness-downfall
(Desperate man, failing ranch)

The antagonist and his or her general m.o.
(Dangerous outlaw, devoted gang, trial a no-go)

Set up
(Failing ranch, wounded pride, needs $$$ for winter)

Complication/Crux of the conflict
Gets in too deep
train on time
devoted gang

So here is a fun exercise to practice writing loglines. This is something we used to do at the Writer's Boot Camp, I forget what they called the exercise.

By the way, these can be and are, obviously, silly, guys, but this exercise has real value because you might just find a good story doing a silly exercise, but you also will be building and toning the muscles of cobbling a story together from the macro view.

Make a list of main characters and flaws/problems:

Desperate rancher
Broke, alcoholic divorcee
Greedy, lying store manager
Self-centered, washed up rock star

Now make a list of antagonists:

Cruel and shrewd divorce lawyer
Dangerous outlaw
Demonic spirit
Mentally unstable fan

Now a list of ticking clocks:

Crossing the state line before the wedding
Making it to Burning Man on time for the concert
Making it to the train on time to stand trial
Sealing the crack in the time-space continuum before Satan finds out

Now a list of set ups:

Gets drunk and sleeps with her soon-to-be brother-in law
Is too high to show up for an audition and gets kicked out of the band
Can't make payments on the ranch, water gets cut off
Escapes from hell after throwing a demonic party and rupturing the time/space continuum

And a list of the crux of conflict:

Okay, I've officially run out of steam over my coffee here - you guys can take over from here. But are you getting the point? Like those flip books when we were kids, where your animal could have the head of an ostrich and the body of a bear and the feet of an alligator? Mix and match. Mess around with jotting down these loglines components and then taking the components and writing a logline. Just do it - have fun.

In fact - the Rouge Waver who can come up with the pithiest, most entertaining, I might actually see that movie logline, using the components above wins a lifetime supply of cupcakes. Any takers?

And Mike, if you still have questions, send them to me and we'll do loglines part II, III and IV if we have to. But the upshot is this: it ain't easy, so don't beat yourself up. It takes practice and lots of it.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Premise Testing Question

Rouge Waver Rico asked if the Wave-inatrix could provide a premise test "...for a recent hit film so we get an idea of what a good one should look like? Maybe Superbad?"

And being a smart gal and one for sharing the love, I passed that question along to Margaux:

Rico,That’s a fair request, and a good one for me, Margaux, the Rouge Wave/Script Whisperer co-poster.This hit list from the Wave-inatrix is a great document to help you, the writer, with your process. And the key thing to remember here is that there is a lot of prep work that can be done with your script before you even get to your script pages. Theoretically, prep work (or development work as the pros would call it) should save you a headache or seven down the road.This document can also be a good brainstorming tool, where maybe your answers will be longer as you are still making a few decisions. However, as you really boil your long-winded answers down, before you start writing pages, you would want these answers to be as concise as possible. You might need this document to help with a decision later into your script, and if you don’t have a clear, concise answer jotted down there, that vagueness could translate into your pages.

Alright, I know you requested SUPERBAD as an example. I agree that SUPERBAD was a terrific movie, and a well-written one. For these purposes, however, I would prefer to breakdown the recent 3:10 to YUMA. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, DO IT NOW! I will stand behind my theory that 3:10 to YUMA is the best written film of the year thus far. (Although, I will also admit to having never seen the original version.)

Title: 3:10 to YUMA

Premise line: A down-on-his-luck rancher accepts the job of escorting a notorious criminal to a jail-bound train, but when the criminal’s cohorts try to save him and the simple job becomes a death wish, the rancher risks it all to keep his word and deliver the criminal to his train.

Genre: Western

Hook: Updated movie; bringing a classic Western to modern audiences.

Theme: Respect is earned, not bought.

World (location/situation): Post-Civil War Arizona

Main Character: Dan Evans (Christian Bale)

Wants/Needs: Deliver Ben Wade to his train and collect the $200/ Needs respect from his family, especially his oldest son.

Flaw: Cowardice (disguised as being too polite.)

Age/stage of life: Broke and broken.

Antagonist: Ben Wade (Russel Crowe)motivation/goals: Do anything to not get on the train to Yuma/ Out psyche Dan Evans.

Set up or inciting incident: Dan runs into Ben Wade in the middle of a hijacking, and loses his horses to Ben, and adds to his son’s disdain for him.

1st act break event: Dan Evans joins the crew to deliver Ben Wade to the Yuma train.

Midpoint reversal: Ben Wade escapes.2nd act break event: Ben’s crew offers money to anyone who will shoot Ben’s escorts.

Ticking Clock: Gotta make the 3:10 to Yuma train.

Showdown or Climactic Scene: The train arrives, and the final push to get Ben on the train.

How does this story fit into the current zeitgeist?: How do you do what’s necessary to survive and maintain your integrity in a harsh world?

What age is the audience for this story idea?: Adults/ Baby Boomers

What is universally resonant about this story?: How hard will you fight for what’s right?

Approximate Budget: Around $50 million.

List Three Movies which are in ANY way similar: Unforgiven, The Fugitive, Silence of the Lambs.

When was each released?: See BoxOfficeMojo

What was the box office?: See BoxOfficeMojo

Hope that example was helpful, Rico. I always recommend doing one of these premise tests for a movie similar to your own script. It often helps to see what genre conventions might be regularly occurring, and also a great way to make sure you’re not too similar to something else.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Logline vs. Premise Line

shecanfilmit asks a good question, apropos of Premise Line Testing, and that is what is the difference between a logline and a premise line. I have seen and heard really disparate opinions of the definitions and differences between the two but here is how I personally define the two:

Logline: an after-the-fact, very short description of your script. It's a very brief thumbnail, it ain't poetic, it's not really a big selling tool, it just nutshells the concept of your script very briefly.

Premise line: a tool for you, the writer, as you are developing your idea. Closer to two or even three sentences. Mentions the genre, main character, antagonist and crux of the conflict. When your script is done and your premise line is very sexy and defined, it actually can be a selling tool in a pitch meeting because it elaborates and articulates your story more than a log.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Premise Testing

The Wave-inatrix was lucky enough to spend the entire day with a Rouge Waver and dear friend who'd flown all the way to Los Angeles from Toronto to participate in the Venice Film Festival. What a fun filled day! As we lunched at the Daily Grill on Hollywood Blvd. at the Kodak Theater, I shared something with my friend that she instantly wanted to jot down on her napkin and that is something I have shared before on the Rouge Wave - the idea of asking some questions of your brand-new premise to make sure it's sound. Kick the tires, in other words, before you get 38 pages in and start banging your head against the wall because your souffle is coming up flat.

Here is a worksheet I would recommend using for every premise you come up with. Simply fill it out in pencil and voila, watch the skeleton of your story come together.


Title:

Premise line:

Genre:

Hook:

Theme:

World (location/situation):

Main Character:
Wants/Needs
Flaw
Age/stage of life

Antagonist:
motivation/goals:

Set up or inciting incident:

1st act break event:

Midpoint reversal:

2nd act break event:

Ticking Clock:

Showdown or Climactic Scene:

How does this story fit into the current zeitgeist?

What age is the audience for this story idea?

What is universally resonant about this story?

Approximate Budget:

List Three Movies which are in ANY way similar:
When was each released?
What was the box office?

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Pitch Before You Write

Usually when we think of pitching, we imagine that our amazing script is already either completely done or mostly done and that we are pitching it to a potential buyer. Rouge Wavers, take the concept of pitching, reinvent it and make it your own. In other words, pitch your script idea to yourself. Does the idea really make sense? Does it honestly sound like ninety-plus minutes of entertainment?

Pitching your story idea is a great way to find out if you’ve got a story worth telling – before you waste one-hundred twelve pages telling it.

Pitching your idea first in the mirror and then to trusted friends can help test the waters but it’s also a way for you to test yourself: can you articulate your idea pithily, including the points of focus usually included in a pitch? Can you articulate the Main Idea of your story?

Pitching and writing down your premise is a way of testing your idea for entertainment value and looking for holes or problems before you spend too much time actually writing the script.

The benefits of looking at it this way are numerous and obvious. Many writers (and I used to do this too) just sort of get whiff of the muse and start writing. And they’re really into it too; buckets of coffee and emergency chocolate are consumed, six consecutive days pass with no shower, the phone goes unanswered and the dog ate the cat. Then it’s time to get feedback on this piece of absolute perfection and the response is usually wha-?

When an executive is hearing a pitch these are some of the things he or she is listening for; things that will be encoded into your pitch, whether you did it consciously or not:

The Big (main) Idea
The commercial potential
The budget and genre
Casting ideas or inspiration

So put yourself in the exec’s shoes. You are a procurer of material. You have heavy-weights breathing down your neck, your last movie tanked, you’re paying ridiculous amounts of alimony and you have three meetings after your lunch meeting. Now you have about four minutes to hear a pitch. And you are thinking: Is the idea fresh? Does it have a great hook? Can I see the poster? Does it sound like a money-maker, star-vehicle or Oscar material? Is this worth setting up meetings for? Is this going to be the script that is going to rocket me into the next level of my career?

As a writer, you are aware, dear Rouge Wavers, that getting a Golden Idea out of your head and onto the page is a commitment of months. Who would knowingly write something that is going to die a painful death on somebody’s doorstep?

There are some preventative steps to keep ourselves in check so that our Golden Idea doesn’t run away with us only to leave us jilted and bewildered several months later. Developing your idea before committing to pages can save time, printer cartridges, buckets of coffee and the embittered feeling of futility and failure for which there is not yet a sufficiently ha-ha funny Hallmark card.

Write your idea down in the form of a one or two-sentence premise line. Limit yourself to 50 words. Don’t worry, this doesn’t have to be pretty, this is just for you. Keep it simple.

Now ask that premise line –

What is the Big Idea?
Who is the main character?
Who is the antagonist?
What is the main crux of the conflict noted here?
Is the big climactic moment or choice here somewhere?
Is the genre clear?

Say you can answer all those questions to your satisfaction. Now ask yourself some more questions:

Is this a star vehicle?
Is this a Friday night movie or a Sunday matinee?
What is the theme of this story idea?
How does it fit into the zeitgeist two years from now?
Would this appeal to a wide audience?

At first, you might not be able to answer any of these questions to your satisfaction. That’s okay – this is the process. It’s called Idea Testing. Nobody is grading this, nobody even knows that you’re doing this with only one green sock on. The point is that writers who learn to develop habits and tools for testing their ideas before writing the script will develop a skill set and a discipline which will serve them very well down the line.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

Loglines versus Premise lines

Writers often get confused about the difference between a logline and a premise line. The word logline gets bandied about so much that it’s become a bit of a catch-all.

In the Wave-inatrix’s view, a logline is the very short summary of the plot, usually only used on the top of coverage reports or as the shorthand for industry professionals.

A huge shark terrorizes a town.
A little boy can see dead people.
Tourists are kidnapped so their organs can be harvested
A young woman becomes a mule for Columbian drug dealers
A young man under house arrest sees crimes happening next door
An actor dresses as a woman, gets cast in a soap opera and becomes a star
An unlikely horse becomes a champion race horse and media darling

Loglines are brief encapsulations of the script. I have walked down the hall of production companies and had an exec pull me aside and say – hey, you know that script you just read, BLAM FRANCISCO? What was it about? And I have to cough up a quick sentence: A chemist's experiment gets out of control and San Francisco is blown into the stratosphere.

Loglines are a tool to quickly describe a script but not necessarily to sell it or to be useful to the writer beyond that.

A premise line is a completely different animal and is primarily for the writer’s use, whether in developing the story or in selling it in a pitch or query letter. A premise line is generally a one or two-sentence description of the story with a beginning, middle and an end. It should definitely include the main character, the antagonist and the main source of conflict. If the premise is for selling purposes, end it with a cliff hanger. If it’s for you, the writer, you can be a bit more detailed. Sometimes writers will have many iterations of the same premise line:

One for development
One for a query letter
One for a competition application
One that will grow into a pitch.

The premise line initially is only for you, the writer. It can be as messy, disorganized, stupid and derivative as you like. At first. It is a tool; it is meant to be stretched and pinched and beat up. Jump up and down all over that thing. Prove to yourself that you really have a good idea.

Writing a good logline is pretty simple and the more you do it the easier it gets. Writing a good premise line for a query or pitch is an art form unto itself. It reminds me of haiku a little bit: write the most descriptive couple of sentences in the least amount of words. Choose words with the most “oomph”, words that really wring out of your premise the most exciting, dangerous, scary or romantic feelings you are trying to convey.

Many writers complain loudly about having to distill their idea or completed script into a premise line. How can they describe the script in so few words?!
Writing a good premise line is, in the Wave-inatrix’s opinion, really the test of your mettle as a writer. We are wordsmiths, after all; language is our business. We tell the best lies, we exaggerate about what happened at the party, we write fabulously entertaining emails and letters – so we can write a great premise line. Your sale might just hinge on it.

Let's review:

A logline is a very brief summary.
A premise line is a tool for development and later, a tool for selling.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.

The Hook

One of the first things an agent, manager or executive will ask of your material is “what’s the hook”? You may have wondered what the heck that is. The definition seems to vary by person but the upshot is that the hook is something about the script that is centrally very simple, very cool and very original. There are many different types of hooks but here are some likely suspects:


Character hook: James Bond, Shrek, Austin Powers, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Bonnie & Clyde, Psycho, Batman, Annie Hall, Taxi Driver, Sexy Beast, Pulp Fiction, When Harry met Sally, Clueless. Think of this as the "you talkin' to me?" category. Movies that carry a character hook are movies in which the central character is so unique that movie-goers remember that particular character for a long time, quoting him or her, etc.

Plot hook: The 6th Sense, Identity, Gattica, Jaws, Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain, Saw, Speed, Terminator, The Island, Jurrasic Park, The Ring, Purple Rose of Cairo, 28 Days. Think of this as the "I see dead people" category. Movies that have a plot hook are movies that have a central plot or plot twist that we have literally not seen before; a giant shark terrorizes a town, two gay cowboys have a love affair, a bus that will explode if it goes under 60mph, a video tape that if you watch, you'll die 7 days later.

Cinematic and craft hooks: Memento, the Matrix, Crouching tiger, Jesus' Son, Trainspotting, Sexy Beast, Pulp Fiction, The Ring, The 5th Dimension. Think of this as the "bullet time" category. These are movies that have a really unique look or narrative methodology that we have not seen before. A stylized look, CG effects, super-saturated footage, jumps in time; but more than simply a look or a narrative style, the execution is intrinsic to telling the story. It's not frosting; it is a delivery system without which the story wouldn't be the same.

…You'll notice some titles appear under more than one category. True enough. If you can get your script to carry all three hooks? You are golden. But that's hard to do. That said, writers should strive to come up with a hook, that I can tell you. Because having a hook is golden, my friends, it will move your script from the bottom to the top of the stack, it will get you meetings and it might even get you sold.

Don’t despair if you don’t feel as if your current script has a hook. Don’t shoehorn absurd hooks into your coming-of-age drama by making the main character a Siamese twin – just to be different. Let the hook come to you in an organic way. But remember this: coming-of-age, romcom, horror, thriller, fantasy – whatever the genre is, seriously every story has already been told. So how can you set your script apart? By lending to it your unique voice and by looking for creative opportunities to make a familiar story paradigm different enough in its details to provide unique entertainment. Audiences crave that which they are familiar with – there are genre expectations without which your movie will not succeed. It’s not always the what – it’s the how.

As you work through your idea, ask yourself: when an agent, manager or executive asks you what the hook is – what will you say? If right at the moment, the answer is a fish-eye stare, that’s okay. What opportunities lie within your story to create a unique hook? You may have to cast about for awhile to find something that really works but the rewards for you and for your script can be huge; fish or cut bait, Wavers. Aspire to create a hook that will net you one big, drooling executive - and a WGA membership card.

If you enjoyed this post, follow me on Twitter or subscribe via RSS.