Conceptual Synchronicity

(Spoilers: The Martian, Gravity, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Sicario, Spy)

Today I want to coin a term: Conceptual Synchronicity. I'm using this to describe when two parts of a story heighten each other.

I often discuss this in relation to the character/plot dynamic. The question we often ask is, “Why this character for this story?” There should be a core aspect of your main character that synchs up with your plot. You should ask yourself, who is the best character to be in this situation? Best could mean many things – it may be the character best qualified for the challenge, or the character worst qualified for the challenge, or the character whose core belief would be challenged by some aspect of the story.

Let’s look at some examples.

In The Martian (screenplay by Drew Goddard), Matt Watney is an accomplished scientist and an optimist. He is the only type of person who could survive being stranded on Mars with limited resources. The conceptual symmetry in this story is taking someone who is extremely competent, and then putting them in a situation that poses a challenge even to their competence.

This is somewhat the opposite approach to the one taken in Gravity (written by Alfonso & Jonas Cuaron). Though the situation is similar, in this story Ryan Stone is a neophyte astronaut who has lost purpose in her life. She is the least qualified astronaut (admittedly, still a highly qualified category of people) to survive a disaster in space. And the situation she finds herself in will challenge her to decide how badly she wants to live.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (story by George Lucas and Philip Kaufman, screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan) combines both approaches. Who is the most qualified person to race against Nazis on a hunt for the Ark of the Covenant? An archeologist who is skilled with a gun and bullwhip. But Indiana Jones also doesn’t believe in the religious/supernatural aspects of the object of the quest, making him in some ways the worst person for the job. Ultimately he will come to question his non-belief in the climax of the story.

Sicario (written by Taylor Sheridan) is about the moral grey areas in the war on drugs along the Mexican border. Who is the best character to put into that situation? Sheridan chose an ethical, by-the-book police officer. When this character is thrown into this morally ambiguous world, she will find it difficult to figure out the right thing to do.

In a completely different genre, Spy (written by Paul Feig) places a frumpy, unglamorous desk jockey into the world of espionage, getting humor from the fish-out-of-water situation. Feig has built a character completely unsuited to the James Bond-like environment (while still giving her enough skills to succeed).

Note that synchronicity doesn’t mean symmetry. Often the thing that gives you conceptual synchronicity is opposition. This can create dramatic irony (such as in Sicario) or comedic irony (such as in Spy).

The idea of conceptual synchronicity doesn’t just apply to the basic concept of your story. You should ask yourself what is the best/worst choice for every major story element. And the possibilities should be evaluated in relation to your other story elements. In Spy, they make the villain a beautiful, glamorous, sophisticated international arms dealer – the conceptual opposite of the heroine.

In The Martian, Watney’s improvisational problem solving and faith in his ability is contrasted with the bureaucrats back on Earth with their cautious risk analysis and PR concerns. The two approaches to the situation provide a conceptual synchronicity that adds thematic depth to the story.

You can apply this theory on a scene level as well. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, when Indiana Jones finds the Ark, it is in a room filled with snakes – his personal phobia. And in Sicario, when the lonely Kate finally pushes herself to try making a connection with a man, he betrays her, playing on her biggest insecurity.

In a way, the concept I’m calling conceptual synchronicity is simply asking yourself what is the most interesting choice in any situation, given the premise you’ve concocted. Making choices that resonate with other aspects of your story will increase the dramatic power of the entire script.


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The Trouble with Transitory Actions

(Spoilers: Nightcrawler, Interstellar, The Sixth Sense)

One of the challenges for less experienced writers is knowing whether an idea is going to generate enough story for a feature film. Something that sounds dramatic as a logline may not turn out to have the heft to sustain two hours of story. The problem is magnified in television where a series premise must sustain hour after hour of story.

Experienced writers, producers and development folk know one warning sign is when the logline is built around a “transitory action.”  A transitory action is one that only takes a second or two of screen time. It may suggest a larger story, but the nature of the ongoing action is unclear. Common transitory actions are things like deciding, realizing, discovering, choosing, admitting and learning.

So, for example, Nightcrawler (written by Dan Gilroy) could be described as: “A driven loner decides to become a crime photographer.” But that doesn’t really capture the action of the story. The character's decision only takes a second. The story is about his efforts to start a freelance crime photography business. In this case, the transitory action doesn’t allow for much conflict – the decision isn’t hard, it’s the execution of his plan. Often a logline with a transitory action will prompt a response of, “Okay, but then what happens?”

In other cases the transitory action seems dramatic because it contains high stakes, but it doesn’t imply any real plot. So Interstellar (written by Jonathan Nolan & Christopher Nolan) could be described as: “An astronaut must choose between his daughter and saving the planet.” That choice is significant, certainly, but what will it look like on film? Will we see the astronaut making pro and con lists? And of course the story of Interstellar isn’t really about Cooper making that choice, it's about what happens after he chooses.

Nightcrawler and Interstellar are existing movies which makes it easy to see how the transitory actions don’t capture the nature of the stories. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical story idea (which I’ve loosely lifted from King Lear):

When the owner of a large company dies, his youngest son must choose between his older brother and sister as they go to war for control of the company.

There is potential for a lot of conflict in the premise, but the choice that is the focus of the logline is a transitory action. Imagine trying to write the story of the youngest son making the choice. You could end up with scene after scene of the two other siblings trying to convince the main character to support them. It would probably get old fast, and the main character would be passive.

There are many ways to make this idea active. Here are a few:

When the owner of a large company dies, his youngest son must keep the company together as his older brother and sister go to war for control of the business.

When the owner of a large company dies, his youngest son struggles to make peace between his older brother and sister as they go to war for control of the company.

When the owner of a large company dies, his youngest son manipulates his older brother and sister into a war against each other in order to seize the company for himself.

When the owner of a large company dies, his youngest son suspects his father was murdered, and hunts for the truth as his older brother and sister go to war for control of the company.

Each of these are obviously very different – and that should be a clue as to why it’s important to avoid transitory actions. The choice or discovery or decision is usually the thing that sets the story in motion, not the story itself. In other cases, the choice or discovery or decision is a twist late in the film. In The Sixth Sense (written by M. Night Shyamalan), Malcolm discovers he's a ghost in the twist at the end, but that's not the action that drives the story. A logline for The Sixth Sense would focus on Malcolm's attempts to help Cole, not the surprise discovery.

As I said, television shows have even bigger requirements for ongoing action. In a close-ended (sometimes called procedural) show, you need an engine that will provide a new action for each episode, an action that will fill that episode. So in House, the doctors would need to investigate the life of a patient to find the source of a mysterious illness. Open-ended (sometimes called serialized) shows need even bigger actions, actions that will take dozens or even hundreds of hours. It takes the characters in Lost a long time to find a way off the island!

Creating a logline is an important way to test whether your ideas are viable. Make sure that the action of the logline is enough to sustain your story.

Bridesmaids Analysis 1 – Concept and Character

(Spoiler Alert: Bridesmaids)

For the next few weeks I am going to do an in-depth analysis of Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo). Why Bridesmaids? First of all, it was a big hit, grossing $169 million in the U.S. on an estimated budget of $32.5 million (according to IMDB). It was also critically well received, scoring 90% on Rotten Tomatoes (and 87% from top critics).

But perhaps most important, it was the rare original screenplay to be produced by Hollywood studios in the new franchise era. It certainly didn’t hurt that it was written by a movie star (Kristin Wiig) and directed by a renowned comedy director (Paul Feig). But you may recall that when the movie came out, female-driven comedies were not considered viable in Hollywood. Bridesmaids laid the groundwork for movies like Spy, Bad Teacher, and The Heat to get produced.

I want to start by looking at the movie on a conceptual level. A while back I proposed “Five Questions About Your Story to Answer Before You Start Writing.” I’ve since added a sixth question to my list (“What is the character doing to achieve their goal?”) I’m going to begin this series by answering those questions for Bridesmaids.

1. Who is the main character?

A: This one’s easy. It’s clearly Annie (played by Kristin Wiig). Though the movie's title is plural, this is not really an ensemble story. We start with Annie’s story well before any other bridesmaids are introduced, and we stay with Annie when she’s at odds with the group. Rarely do the other characters get solo scenes, while Annie has many.

2. Why do we care what happens to the main character?

A: We see right up front that Annie is a woman who is down on her luck but doing her best to keep her lover and her best friend happy. She’s an underdog with a good heart. Moreover, as the story develops, we learn she’s a talented baker and we see that she puts a lot of thought into her plans and gifts for her best friend, Lillian. That best friend is also critical – we see right away that these two women rely on each other and their friendship is something we can respect and admire.

Annie certainly has flaws. At times she’s weak and at other times downright unpleasant and thoughtless. But she is given enough likeable characteristics that we want to see her succeed. We also want to see Annie and Lillian maintain their bond, a bond that will be threatened by events in the story.

3. What does the main character want?

A: Annie wants a lot of things – she particularly wants a good romantic relationship (her current lover is a selfish jerk) and money (she’s broke and unemployed). But the want that drives her through this particular story is “to succeed as Lillian’s maid of honor.”

4. What is the main character doing to get what they want?

A: Annie is trying to do an excellent job with her maid of honor duties, which include helping pick out dresses, throwing a shower, and throwing a bachelorette party. It’s important for the main character to actively pursue their goal. These duties give Annie something to do to “succeed as Lillian’s maid of honor,” something that is visible on screen that will allow us to judge her progress toward her goal.

5. What is at stake for the main character?

A: There are two big stakes for Annie: her best friend and her pride. Success means she keeps her friend and can be proud of herself. Failure means she might lose her friend and be humiliated. Big stakes mean the story matters. (I’ll look more in depth at how these stakes are established in future posts.)

6. What is the main thing that stands in the way of the main character achieving their goal?

A: Annie’s main obstacle is Helen, Lillian’s beautiful, wealthy, elegant new friend. Helen is the antagonist. And Helen has her own want – to become Lillian’s new best friend. This want puts her in direct conflict with Annie. This set-up is sometimes called “mutually exclusive goals.” Give two characters goals that are mutually exclusive and watch the drama emerge. Helen doesn’t have to be evil (though she does do some morally questionable things) for there to be conflict.

Note that Annie has some other obstacles as well – notably her lack of money and, at one point, her fear of flying. But there is one primary obstacle thwarting her success throughout the story: Helen.

As you can see, Bridesmaids has good, solid answers to all of my Six Questions. This tells us what the movie is on a conceptual level, which will help us analyze the structure and character development. And having this strong conceptual base helped the screenwriters craft a solid script, whether they verbalized the questions the way I do or not.

7 Questions for Better Scenes

You’ve got your outline all worked out and you’re writing your first draft. You sit down and prepare to write the next scene. What should you be thinking about? Is there any special preparation or planning? Or do you just dive in and start imagining stuff?

I don’t believe in over-planning scenes. That risks creating wooden dialogue or characters acting to fulfill plot points. I like to keep a little spontaneity in the process. But diving right in tends to result in underdeveloped scenes that move too linearly to the story goal. So I spend a little time developing ideas freehand on a piece of paper (I like freehand because the tactile nature of pen and paper seems to spur creativity, and I like to be able to circle things, draw arrows, etc.)

When I’m developing the scene I ask myself several questions:

1. What is the purpose of this scene in the screenplay? Is it a major plot point? The introduction of a character? A story revelation? A character revelation? A scene of preparation? A scene of aftermath? Exposition? Of course it may be more than one of these – should be more than one, most often. If I can’t identify the purpose of the scene, it probably means it doesn't belong in the script.

2. How does the scene change things? In other words, how has the story progressed at the end of the scene? This is closely related to question 1. The obvious reason to identify these things is to make sure you accomplish the goal of the scene. But there’s another reason: if I know how the scene has to end, I’ll often start the scene so that it appears to be heading in another direction. This will give me the opportunity to include a twist and keep the scene from feeling predictable or perfunctory.

3. What do the characters want? The main character of the scene (not necessarily the main character of the movie) should have an urgent want to give the scene drama. But the others characters should also have their own goals for the scene. If you can put some of these goals in opposition to each other, all the better.

4. What is the character doing to get what they want? The character needs to be taking action to achieve their goal. This action could be in the form of dialogue, of course. The character could be seducing or deceiving or threatening the other characters – that’s still active. But the thing the character is doing to achieve their goal is what will drive the scene forward. (They may ultimately try multiple things to get what they want - see question 6.)

5. What stands in the way of the character achieving their goal? Often this is another character’s want (and the other character’s action to achieve that want). But if not, I will make sure there are obstacles in the environment or situation or even internally within the character.

If you know what the characters want, what they are trying to do to achieve those goals, and what stands in their way, then your characters will practically write the scene for you. But there are a couple other things I like to ask myself to get the most out of the scene:

6. When does the character change their approach? Often in good scenes the character will realize their initial approach – the thing they are doing to achieve their goal – is not working, and they will change that approach. They try harder, dig deeper, take bigger risks.

7. What could happen? Finally I just brainstorm a bunch of ideas of things that can happen in the scene. I won’t necessarily use them all. But often I’ll come up with some great idea that I wouldn’t necessarily have had if I simply wrote the scene as it came to me. (See last week's post on brainstorming.)

A note here on what I mean when I say scene: In film, a technical scene is a discrete unit of action in a single location in continuous time. If the location changes – even if the character walks from one room of a house to another – or if there’s a break in time, that’s a different technical scene. It requires a new slug line.

But from a storytelling standpoint it’s useful to think of scenes as a single unit of dramatic action – what I call a “dramatic scene." A dramatic scene may, of course, take place in a single technical scene. But sometimes in film we spread a dramatic scene over several technical scenes (or more rarely set more than one dramatic scene in a single technical scene). That means every technical scene does not have to contain an entire dramatic scene that changes the story and has a twist and so on, as long as it’s part of a dramatic scene that does.

Not every scene is a big dramatic scene, either. Sometimes we just need to drop in a short scene to establish a bit of exposition or plant something for a bigger dramatic scene. But if you go more than ten pages without a good, well-developed dramatic scene, you will lose reader/audience engagement.

So take some planning time to get the most drama from your big scenes.

The Art of Brainstorming

There’s a technique some stand-up comedians and comedy writers use to develop their joke writing skills. Every day they open the newspaper (or whatever news website they prefer) and find a current event. They then write ten jokes about that current event. They repeat this with ten other current events, resulting in one hundred jokes. Some then choose ten of those jokes to submit to one of the late night talk shows that buy jokes, while stand-ups might choose one joke out of the hundred to work into their act. Others do the exercise simply for practice.

The theory here is that trying to craft a single perfect joke will cause you to freeze up. Our writer brains work in two modes: creative and critic. In order to free the creative mode, you need to turn off the critic. So the joke writer focuses on quantity rather than quality. (That inner critic isn’t bad – you’ve got to turn it back on when you evaluate the results of the brainstorm process.)

Many comedians find the first three jokes that they come up with will be the same ones everyone else would come up with. But the professional comedian can’t just tell the same jokes everyone else does. Jokes four, five and six will be original – but awful. Around joke seven or eight is where they’ll get a really original, really good joke. Things often start to go downhill from there, but sometimes joke ten ends up being a winner. The goal is to push the comedian beyond the first thing that pops into their mind to get to something insightful and personal.

Screenwriters need to find similar ways to apply brainstorming techniques to their process.

I attended Wonder-Con this year, and one of the panels I went to was “Inside the Writers’ Room,” a panel of television writers. There, panelist Steve Holland from The Big Bang Theory mentioned that they had a bunch of white boards in the writers’ room, one of which was labeled “Shit That Could Happen.” Whenever they had an idea for a story, they would go to the board and start thinking of shit that could happen. If they filled up the board, it meant the idea was probably good enough to be an episode.

The same technique can be useful in the early stages of feature film development. You’ve got an idea – a character, a dilemma, and a situation. What could happen? Start coming up with ideas. If you can fill up several pages of possible incident and event, then the premise is probably large enough for a feature film. If you have difficulty even filling a page, it’s probably an indication that you will run out of steam in the middle of act two. The idea just may not be big enough. (There are other considerations for choosing an idea as well, of course.)

You won’t necessarily use all of the ideas you come up with. In fact, one of the tenets of brainstorming is that you should only select the very best ideas. This is what turns off your inner critic: you allow yourself to write down bad ideas. Go for quantity. Then select the quality that bubbles out.

Another thing to ask when developing your idea: “Given this premise, what do I want to see in this movie?” Imagine you are a viewer watching the trailer for your movie. You’re intrigued so you head off to the theater. What are you expecting to see? What would disappoint you if it weren’t in the movie? Make sure you deliver these things. It can also be helpful to pitch your log line to friends and ask them what they would want to see in such a movie.

Brainstorming is also a useful technique to employ before writing the first draft of a scene. Before diving in, ask yourself, “What could happen?” List every possible idea for fun events or twists or lines of dialogue you can think of. Remember, the goal is not to use them all; it’s to push yourself beyond the first thing that comes to mind.

Like professional comedians, the professional screenwriter can’t just write the same scene anyone else would. You have to find that cool thing that nobody else would have thought of. That’s your “voice” as a writer, and it’s the only thing of value that you really have in this business.

Action vs. Decision

(Spoilers: The Matrix)

Last week I read short treatments for feature film projects from my screenwriting students at Art Center College of Design. I discovered that I was giving a lot of feedback relating to the issue of action vs. decision, so I decided to address the topic in this week’s blog post.

The easiest way to illustrate the difference – and the potential pitfall it creates – between decision and action is in loglines. (I won’t use actual student loglines as that would violate their privacy). So, let’s say you have a logline like:

A lonely cop starts dating a criminal and must choose between his girlfriend and his job.

Or

When an ambitious man from an impoverished family discovers his boss is embezzling from the investment company where they work, he must decide between alerting the SEC or blackmailing his boss.

Both of these might sound like viable movie premises – and they could in fact be turned into viable movies. But as they stand they are problematic because they both focus on decisions instead of actions. The trouble is, a decision is transitory – it takes only a moment. What will occupy the rest of the movie? Words like “choose” or “decide” should raise red flags in your log line.

It would be slightly better to say the character “wrestles with” their choice or decision. That could take time. But what will we see on screen? Will they be looking out the window in contemplation for an hour? Maybe they’ll make a pro and con list. Neither is visual or filmic.

In a logline, you need to indicate some kind of action that could plausibly fill at least an hour of the movie (the set-up will usually account for 20-30 minutes of screen time, and your ending – not typically part of the logline – will fill some additional time.) What would the above loglines look like if they focused on action? Let’s try the cop romance first:

A lonely cop falls in love with a criminal and must protect his girlfriend from his partner’s investigation.

Now we have a sense of what the main character will be doing through the movie – trying to secretly foil an investigation. It implies scenes and plot points and, most importantly, ongoing conflict. It’s an idea that can be developed. Now let’s try the embezzlement story:

When an ambitious man from an impoverished family discovers his boss is embezzling from the investment company where they work, he uses the information to gain power, but is threatened when the SEC investigates.

Now we understand what the action of the story will be. Our main character will be blackmailing his boss while avoiding the SEC investigators. To illustrate why this is important, let me show another way you could develop this idea:

An ambitious man from an impoverished family fights discrimination to work his way up to an executive job at an investment firm – only to discover his mentor is embezzling from the company.

The action in this version is focused on the main character fighting discrimination and working up through the company. The embezzlement is phrased to suggest it’s a twist that comes near the end. The action element in a logline usually tells us what act two will be about. In the first active version of this idea, act two will be about blackmailing, while in the second version it will be about rising through the ranks of the company. (You may think one sounds more dramatic than the other – all action is not created equal. That’s part of the point. Make sure the action of your logline suggests the most dramatic version of your idea.)

It’s not that decisions can’t be part of the logline, it’s that they should set up ongoing action. So you could rephrase the cop logline as:

When a lonely cop falls in love with a criminal, he chooses to hide her identity from his partner. But as the investigation continues, he must make greater and greater moral compromises to protect his girlfriend.

In this version we've added back in the internal struggle the cop is engaged in – his decision(s) – but we’ve used it to set up ongoing actions – protecting his girlfriend, making moral compromises.

Let’s move on from loglines now and consider the role of action and decisions in developing the full story. Decisions are great tools for writers because they reveal character. Often, we illustrate the character arc by showing the character making different decisions in similar situations. On a most basic level, consider all the romantic comedies that involve love triangles. In the beginning, the heroine may choose one guy (the wrong guy), while in the end she chooses another (the right guy), thus showing that she has learned something about love.

In a way, most stories could be said to consist of characters making decisions that lead them to taking action, which puts them in a situation to make a new decision, which will lead to more action. Your story needs both. Decision points change the direction of the story (often they correspond to act breaks). Action provides the material for the scenes that follow.

We can see this clearly in The Matrix (written by Andy & Lana Wachowski):

• Neo makes a decision not to listen to Morpheus’ instructions over the phone. As a result he is arrested and interrogated by the agents (action).
• Later he chooses to take the red pill – a different decision than he made earlier. This leads to the action of his awakening in the real world, his training, and his visit to the Oracle.
• After Morpheus is captured and the team narrowly escapes Cypher’s betrayal, Neo makes the decision to try to rescue Morpheus rather than pull the plug on him. This leads to the action of the rescue attempt.
• And then Neo makes the decision to turn and face Smith despite all the advice he’s received to the contrary. This leads to the action of the final confrontation and Neo becoming “the One.”

Neo makes other decisions in the movie, of course, but you can see how these big choices lead to action that is the actual content of the movie.

You usually don’t want a decision or choice to end the conflict. Rather, it should introduce new conflict. So in a romantic comedy, just because the heroine chooses a different guy at the end of the movie, that choice shouldn’t immediately give her happily-ever-after. Typically she then has to win that guy over. She has to take action based on her decision. And that task should not be easy.

So decisions and action work together to create story. The most common problem in early story development is the writer identifies the decisions but not the action. Decisions can sound dramatic in a logline or short treatment, but if you don’t identify the action that follows, then you may discover nothing is really happening when you try to develop your concept into a screenplay.

EDITED TO ADD: Other dangerous words are "realizes," "learns," and "discovers." All are transitory - what action do they lead to?

How to Use Subplots

(Spoilers: Little Miss Sunshine, Almost Famous, Whiplash, Guardians of the Galaxy)

When we discuss story structure, most of our attention naturally focuses on the main plot line. And this is good – it’s the main plot line that forms the skeleton of the story. But often writers don’t put much thought into their subplots and the way those subplots can support the themes of the story.

Supporting the theme of the movie is one of the primary uses of a subplot. Often subplots will illustrate alternate paths or approaches to the central theme. One way of doing this is to create characters with a different point of view on the key thematic issue of the movie.

Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) provides a great example of this. Thematically, the story is about what it means to be a “winner.” The main character, Richard, establishes his point of view in one of his very first lines when he says: “There are two kinds of people in the world, winners and losers.” Before he’s willing to pack the family off to California, he tells Olive there’s no point in entering a contest unless she thinks she can win. And Richard firmly believes anyone can be a winner if they have the right mindset and commitment – in fact he’s planning a business based on telling people how to become winners.

The other characters in the story provide alternate perspectives. Olive mimics the poses of beauty pageant winners in her introduction, indicating her desire to be a beauty queen. However, at the end we discover she’s actually more interested in the joy of the competition than victory.

Dwayne is committed to his goal of being a pilot with single-minded purpose. However his dream is destroyed by something completely out of his control, exposing the flaw in Richard’s belief that the key to winning comes from attitude.

Uncle Frank represents a loser, someone who has given up on life. Grandpa’s point of view is that you should enjoy life and not worry about winning and losing. And Sheryl is the counterpoint, the practical one trying to hold the family together day by day. She isn’t concerned with being a winner, she’s just trying to get by.

Each of these characters provides a subplot that illuminates the thematic elements of the film.

Oscar nominated Whiplash (written by Damien Chazelle) explores the commitment and sacrifice required to be great, and the fine line between abuse and mentorship. The main plot line involves Andrew and his teacher, Fletcher, a cruel mentor who believes abuse is necessary to craft great musicians.

One of the main subplots involves Andrew’s family, particularly his father, who represents another perspective. Andrew’s father is loving and supportive, and is horrified at Fletcher’s treatment of Andrew. We definitely like the father better than Fletcher. However, the father is also a failed writer. And there’s a telling family dinner scene where another young man is being lauded for football accomplishments that Andrew calls out as mediocre. So the family subplot serves as a warning of what can happen if one lauds mediocrity. Because it provides a glimpse of a warm and supportive world, but also a trap that could undermine Andrew’s goals, it creates complexity in the theme.

There’s another subplot involving Andrew’s girlfriend. Ultimately Andrew breaks up with her because he feels she will become a distraction. This narrative thread shows us a potential alternative to Andrew’s choices. He could be in a happy relationship if he chose. The girlfriend subplot also illustrates an aspect of Andrew’s character – how much he’s willing to sacrifice for his goal. This is another use of subplots. They can add dimension to the character.

In Guardians of the Galaxy (screenplay by James Gunn and Nicole Perlman) Quill’s character has a subplot about his mother’s death and a cassette tape she left him. This gives us character insight that humanizes the character and adds vulnerability. Though Quill is a charming, wisecracking thief we enjoy spending time with, it’s the subplot about his mother that really engages our emotion. (In fact, all of the characters that comprise our team of heroes have similar back-stories that create vulnerability and sympathy.)

One other common use of subplots is as a catalyst for the character arc. For example, the main plot of Almost Famous (written by Cameron Crowe) is about William wanting to be a rock journalist. His problem is that he’s too worshipful of the rock stars to be objective. He isn’t heeding his mentor’s advice to be “truthful and merciless.”

There’s a romantic subplot in the movie between William and Penny Lane. Penny Lane’s character serves many purposes – to explain the world of rock and roll to William, to add vulnerability and heart – but it’s the treatment of Penny by the rock stars that finally disillusions William enough to be truthful and merciless. Penny is the catalyst for William’s growth.

Subplots will have their own three-act structure, though it won’t usually run at the same pace as the main storyline. Some subplots won’t start until after Act One. Many will wrap up before the end of Act Two so that Act Three can focus on the main storyline.

Once you’ve outlined the main structure of the movie, it can be useful to examine your subplots and figure out what purpose they can serve. Perhaps you’ll need to adjust a subplot to more fully explore your thematic ground. Perhaps a minor character with no purpose can be given a purpose.

And then you should outline the subplots, making sure you have a clear beginning, middle and end, and identifying where those fall in the script. If you use the common index card technique to outline your stories, you might find it helpful to use cards of different colors for the subplots. That will allow you to see how the subplot scenes integrate with the main plot.

Your subplots can do a lot for your story. Don’t waste them!

How to Know if Your Idea is Marketable

My friend and fellow screenwriter Paul Guay (Liar Liar, Heartbreakers) has a Venn diagram he uses to determine whether a spec script idea is worth his time. There are three circles on the diagram – the ideas he loves, the ideas he thinks he can do well, and the ideas he thinks he can sell. He only wants to put in time and energy on the ideas that fall in the intersection of these three circles. (I might add a fourth circle – whether the idea will advance my brand/reputation.)

It takes a lot of time and energy to write a spec script. Why would you want to invest that time on an idea you don’t love? And why would you want to invest that time on an idea that you can’t sell?

It’s pretty easy to figure out whether you love an idea, and only a little harder to figure out if it’s something you can do well. However it can be quite tricky to figure out if an idea is something you can sell.

Here’s an exercise that can help: Think of five movies that are similar to yours in terms of genre, tone and scope that have been released in the last three years. Go ahead, do it now.

If you have difficulty coming up with five movies, it may be an indication that there isn’t really a market for that type of movie. (It could also be an indication that you haven’t really developed your idea enough.) Perhaps you should move on to a new idea.

If you were able to come up with five movies, you’re not done yet.

Do you love all the movies on your list? If not, it could be an indication that you aren’t working in the right genre. You should really love the type of movie you're trying to write. Try coming up with replacements for any movies on your list that you didn’t like.

Now, dig a little deeper into your analysis by asking these questions:

Were the movies successful? Don’t rely on your impression or memory, check boxofficemojo.com. And don’t just look at gross, compare gross to budget (also available on boxofficemojo). Generally, a movie has to gross at least 2.5 times its budget worldwide to be profitable. Not all five of your movies have to be hits, but if none of them were, it might be a bad sign for your idea.

Now it gets a little trickier. You will have to do some subjective analysis, and you will be tempted to reach conclusions that support the idea you want to write. Try to be as clear eyed as possible as you ask:

What do the five movies have in common? Are they all star vehicles? Are they all within a certain budget range? Do they all have the same rating? Are they all set in a contemporary time period? If your concept does not share the things the five movies have in common, it could be a warning sign. You might want to adjust your idea (for example, if you were envisioning an R rated movie but all five comparison movies were PG-13, consider toning yours down). Or, maybe the movies weren't as similar to your idea as you first thought. You might need to find five different movies to justify sticking with your approach.

(Edited to add: Additionally, if all of the movies you picked are based on underlying material, it might be a warning that your idea will be a tough sell if it's an original story.)

The Same but Different

Now, ask yourself how your idea is different from the five. There is good different and bad different. Bad is when you are ignoring a factor that was relevant to the other movies’ success (e.g. they all had movie star leads while you envision an ensemble). Good is when your idea has something fresh and original about it that is compelling.

Hollywood is not famous for originality and risk taking, but it isn’t looking for carbon copy movies either. If your idea is marketable, there will likely be hundreds of similar scripts floating around at the same time. How is yours fresh? What are you adding to the genre? Again, it can’t be so different than you lose what is marketable about the type of movie, but it has to be different enough that it will interest fans of that type of movie.

This type of analysis is helpful to prevent you from wasting time on an idea that has no potential for selling, or to allow you to adjust your idea in a more marketable direction before you start writing. However, remember that marketability is only one circle on Paul’s Venn diagram. You also need to love the idea and feel you can write it well. If the idea doesn’t fit the sweet spot, it is probably worth spending time looking for a new idea.

And before you get too enamored with the fact that you found the perfect idea, read this post on the value of ideas.

Five Questions About Your Story to Answer Before You Start Writing

Movie ideas typically don’t pop into screenwriter’s heads as fully formed, complete and compelling log lines. Rather, they tend to grow from some initial inspiration, sometimes taking years to really gel.

Perhaps you encounter an interesting person that would make a great character, or read about a technological advance that might be the basis of a science fiction story, or come across an unusual environment that would be a good setting for a dramatic tale. Then you noodle with this inspiration over time, possibly combining it with other ideas, until it comes into focus. If you’re like me, you may fill pages with notes and ideas and research as you explore the terrain of your story. Finally, one day the core concept emerges and you can start to outline.

Except it can be difficult to know if that core concept has really developed enough to be a complete and compelling story. Start writing too early, and you set yourself up for frustration and multiple drafts spent just figuring out what the story actually is. For many writers, this can end up in an abandoned screenplay and months or even years of wasted effort.

This is why it’s helpful to craft a great log line before you start outlining. If you aren’t able to craft a great log line, you haven’t really cracked your story yet. It’s why it’s also helpful to work up a pitch for your idea before you write it. Creating a good pitch forces you to figure out what your idea is really about and exposes any holes. It also allows you to bounce the story off trusted friends to get feedback.

But that still doesn’t really explain how you know whether your idea is fully baked. There are five questions to which you should be able to provide good answers that will tell you if your idea’s ready. I’ll get to what I mean by “good” answers in a moment. Here are the questions:

1. Who is the main character?

2. Why do we care what happens to them?

3. What do they want?

4. What is at stake for them?

5. What is the main thing that stands in the way of them achieving their goal?

Let’s look at these one at a time:

Who is the main character?

Structurally there is one main character in every story. Even if it’s an ensemble piece or buddy film, there will be one main character among two or more major characters. The main character is the one whose decisions are driving the action of the story. In a buddy or ensemble movie, you can pick which character is going to be the main character for structural purposes. Even if you don’t believe me on this (although I’m right), pick only one character for this exercise.

Why do we care what happens to them?

It’s not a given that we will care what happens to your main character. And we only care about your story to the extent we care about the main character. This doesn’t mean they have to be likeable or heroic – there are plenty of great, popular, successful films with main characters who are unlikeable and un-heroic. Of course if your character is likeable and heroic, then you’ve answered this question and your job is done. It’s certainly easier to go that route, which is why most characters fit this mold. (Note that simply being a “regular guy” does not make a character likeable.)

If you’re dealing with a character we don’t naturally root for, then you have to figure out why we care what happens to them. There are ways to make this work. We’ll root for an unlikeable character if we support their goal. A petty thief who’s trying to bring down a vicious crime lord who killed the thief’s brother is a sympathetic character even if he isn’t likeable. Or sometimes the unlikeable character will be responsible for a likeable character – like in The Professional (screenplay by Jacques Audiard & Michel Audiard & Georges Lautner), when the hit man takes in a young girl whose parents were murdered. Answering the next two questions can help you figure out why we might root for your character.

What do they want?

People want all kinds of things all at the same time. You might want to be a great screenwriter and also want a sandwich. We’re talking here about the want that is driving the character through the story. It’s what your story is about. The petty thief may want a date with the waitress at the corner coffee shop, but if your story is about him getting revenge, then that is the want we’re focusing on.

What makes the answer to this question good is if the want is specific, significant and visual. It’s hard to write a story about a character who wants something vague, like “fulfillment” or “happiness.” We all want that stuff – but what does it mean to this character? You need to have a clear, specific goal. We need to be able to see on screen when they have or haven’t achieved it. We can see whether the boy got the girl or the criminal escaped prison or the cop caught the bad guy. We can see if Alan Turing cracked the Enigma code or if Martin Luther King, Jr. got the Voting Rights Act passed.

What’s at stake for them?

This is what we mean by a significant want. What does achieving this goal, or failing to achieve it, mean to the character? How will it affect their life? If it doesn’t have an impact, why should we care? We’re looking for big stakes, but what we mean by this is stakes that are really important to the character. Finding a little boy lost on a train can be bigger stakes than saving the world. Make sure the outcome of your story matters to the character. It should really be the most important thing in their lives – otherwise, why are you telling this story? (Note that this is why it's very difficult to do stories that end up being "all just a dream" - why does it matter once the character wakes up?)

What is the main thing standing in the way of them achieving their goal?

This is the obstacle to the character’s success. There may be many obstacles - should be, in fact - but you should be able to identify the one major obstacle that must be overcome. Often this is an antagonist, another character in the story that doesn’t want the main character to succeed for some reason. It could also be a situation. Much more difficult, the primary obstacle could be internal – some character flaw our hero must overcome. (Often heroes must overcome a character flaw, but typically this isn’t the main obstacle.) If this main obstacle is good, it will then generate many smaller obstacles.

A good obstacle will be something that takes an hour or more of screen time to overcome. This obstacle is going to be the focus of most of the scenes in acts two and three, and it can't get repetitive. The solution can’t be simple or transitory. That’s why antagonists make such good obstacles – they act and react to the main character's actions. And defeating the obstacle should require action on the part of the character. It’s difficult to make a film about a character not doing things. Also, the obstacle should be challenging. We measure our heroes by the size of the obstacles they overcome. Finally, the best obstacles play against the main character’s weaknesses.

You may be tempted to accept mediocre answers to these questions. Don’t. It will only lead to problems when you start outlining your story. Make sure you are absolutely confident you have good answers to these questions before you commit to the story.

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Want to work on your pitching skills? Check out The Hollywood Pitching Bible.

How Original Is Your Idea?

Reader D Brian Weller recently asked me, “How can a writer know an idea hasn’t been done before?”

Of course this is of great concern to screenwriters. But the short answer is, you can’t, really. In fact, with tens of thousands of people out there writing spec screenplays, there’s a pretty good chance at least a few of them are working on very similar ideas to yours right now. Every movie that comes out inevitably gets sued by two or three people who are convinced the producers stole their script. The writers always lose those lawsuits. Always.*

I’m not saying nobody ever steals an idea in Hollywood, but in the vast, vast, vast majority of these cases, a writer simply couldn’t accept that someone else had the same idea as them. I guarantee you, no matter how original you think your idea is, at least three other screenwriters are working on something similar.

It can, of course, be pretty depressing than to be a few weeks away from finishing a spec only to read about a sale in the trades of a script with the exact same idea. Unfortunately it happens.

That said, you do need to make an effort to make sure there wasn’t a movie already made on your idea. There’s no quick way to discover this. However, you should be watching everything you can in the genre you’re writing. If you’re writing science fiction, you should be watching every science fiction movie that comes out and working your way through the catalog of science fiction movies on DVD. If you’re writing horror, you should be seeing everything horror you can. Also reading books and comic books and seeing plays in your genre. (This is one often unmentioned reasons to work in a single genre… switching around requires you to do considerably more homework and research.) I would also recommend using a source like Done Deal Pro to keep track of what has sold recently.

There have been so many movies made (and books published and plays performed, etc.) that there really are no original ideas anymore, at least not good ones. But the originality of an idea is a little overrated. You don’t want to have a logline that immediately brings to mind another movie, of course, but it’s really the development and execution of the idea that counts.

Sometimes it’s a matter of identifying what’s original in your own idea. The Hangover (written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore) is about a bachelor party gone bad, an idea that was also the basis of Bachelor Party (story by Bob Israel, screenplay by Bob & Neal Israel and Pat Proft). If you presented The Hangover as:

A raunchy comedy about a bachelor party that goes horribly awry.

It will sound derivative. What’s original is the search for the groom aspect. That’s the new element. So a better log line for The Hangover would be:

A raunchy comedy about five friends who go to Vegas for a bachelor party and lose the groom. The four groomsmen must retrace their steps and find the groom in time for the wedding.

You’ll notice that it’s the specific details that make the idea seem original. This may seem obvious when analyzing an existing high concept film, but I see many writers who don’t take the time to identify the core details that are crucial to the originality of their concept. They either make a generic log line (such as the first one above), or they overload their log line with non-core detail. But identifying the core, specific, original details of your idea will help ensure you develop your script to emphasize these elements. Spend time on this before you start writing!

Often good movies come from adding a twist to a common or even cliché idea. Alien (story by Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett, screenplay by Dan O’Bannon) took the monster movie and set it in space. Frequently the best way to ad a fresh spin is through the main character. Bridesmaids (written by Kristen Wiig & Annie Mumolo) did the bachelor party comedy seen in movies like Bachelor Party and The Hangover, but made the main characters women. Suddenly a tired idea was fresh. Attack the Block (written by Joe Cornish) is about an alien invasion – something we’ve seen a million times – but the heroes are street thugs. How original!

In 1981, Dragonslayer (written by Hal Barwood & Matthew Robbins) made a cliché story idea of a hero rescuing a princess from a dragon fresh by making the hero the wizard’s inexperienced apprentice rather than the wizard himself. Twenty years later Shrek (screenplay by Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Joe Stillman and Roger S.H. Schulman) told the same story but made the hero a grumpy ogre, a traditional villain in most fairy tails.

Die Hard (screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza) did both a twist on the genre and an unexpected main character. At the time, action movies were globe-trotting adventures with heavily armed, indestructible, superheroic main characters. Die Hard contained the action in a single location and gave us a hero that was unarmed, overmatched and bled when he was hurt.

But the bigger point is that Alien, Bridesmaids, Atack the Block, Dragonslayer, Shrek and Die Hard succeeded because they were good, at least in terms of what they were attempting to do. A good idea poorly executed will do nothing. So do your research, identify the original core details of your idea, and, most importantly, write well!

(If you’re interested in more on this topic, see this post on The Value of an Idea)

*You may be thinking of the Art Buchwald Coming to America lawsuit. He actually won breach-of-contract, not copyright infringement. He had a contract with Paramount that if they made a movie based on the idea, he would be compensated. Or maybe you’re thinking about The Matrix case. That’s a myth based on an inaccurate newspaper article. See: http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/matrix.asp

Establishing the Rules

The audience will believe anything you tell them.

At least, they’ll believe anything you tell them about the world of your story. Do people in this world break into song and dance numbers with total strangers? Are there vampires and werewolves? Do people have spaceships with artificial gravity that travel faster than the speed of light? Are there mutants who put on costumes and fight crime? Dragons and elves and magic rings?

The audience will accept all of that and just about anything else you tell them – as long as you establish these elements early. This is known as suspension of disbelief. The audience agrees to accept the fictions you present them in return for a good story. So at the beginning of your movie the audience is trying to figure out what the world of the story is and how it works.

But the audience won’t stay open to anything forever. At some point they want to feel like they understand the rules of the world. Usually that seems to happen about ten or fifteen minutes into the movie. After that, it’s very difficult to introduce new elements that are not recognizable parts of the real world that we know.

Imagine if in the middle of Die Hard (screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza) John McLane cast a magic spell. Ridiculous, right? But we have no problem with Harry Potter using magic. It would be weird, however, if a spaceship full of aliens landed on Hogwarts campus. But in Star Wars (written by George Lucas) a spaceship full of aliens doesn’t seem the list bit strange.

Why? Because in Harry Potter we’re told right up front that this is a world with magic, just as in Star Wars we learn aliens are commonplace in the first few minutes of the movie. If at the beginning of Die Hard it were established that this is a world where wizards exist (a la Harry Potter) and John McLane was one of them, we wouldn’t blink when he cast a spell (and it would be a very different movie!)

So it’s important that, if you’re introducing any element that isn’t a familiar part of the world we know, you establish that element early. You also need to clearly define the rules of that element – and then abide by those rules. If you’re using vampires, are your vampires repelled by crosses? Do they need to be invited in before they can enter a house? How do they work, exactly?

The audience has to understand what the characters can and  cannot do, otherwise there’s no way to judge how much jeopardy they’re in. The audience also has to understand what is and isn’t possible in this world. In a world where anything can happen, nothing matters.

You need to be careful to avoid the sense that you’re “cheating.” If in act three your hero suddenly reveals a super power we never knew he had to escape a situation, the audience will feel like the writer couldn’t figure out any other solution. Audiences are savvy. They expect writers to play by the rules of the world they set out.

Sometimes, however, it’s necessary to hold off giving all the details of your fantastical element. But you still have to let the audience know something fantastical is coming and set up a reasonable arena for that element.

This is one of the reasons The Matrix (written by Andy & Lana Wachowski) opens with the prologue of Trinity encountering Agent Smith. Neo – and the audience – isn’t going to learn that what we perceive as reality is actually a computer simulation until over thirty minutes into the movie. If we were given no hint of this possibility, then it could seem silly when it is finally revealed.

The Trinity prologue tells the audience something is strange about this world. We don’t know what, but we are implicitly promised an eventual explanation. As long as that explanation eventually comes – and makes sense – we’re willing to go with the strangeness for a while.

Similarly, in The Sixth Sense (written by M. Night Shyamalan), Cole doesn’t say “I see dead people” until almost halfway through the movie. But there are hints that something supernatural is going on. There’s an important scene very early in the movie where Cole’s mother, in one continuous shot, leaves the kitchen, gets something from the laundry room, and returns to the kitchen to see all the cabinet doors and drawers opened. She asks Cole if he was looking for something, but we know he could never have done that himself in the few seconds she was out of the room. Something strange is going on – and ghosts are a reasonable explanation.

Sometimes you need to be concerned about rules even when you’re doing a realistically grounded story. This happens when you are dealing with an aspect of the world that is not completely familiar. Let’s say you’re writing about virologists fighting a global pandemic. You will probably need to explain to the audience how viruses work and what the virologists can and can’t do to fight them.

That’s because the rules aren’t about getting the audience to believe the impossible, they’re about setting out the context of the story. It doesn’t matter whether something can happen in the real world, it matters whether the audience knows it’s possible in your story world.

Though the audience will believe anything, it’s best to keep the rules as simple as possible. The more complex your fantastical element, the more you risk confusion in the audience. It’s one of the reasons filmmakers so often fall back on common mythical creatures like vampires and zombies. Even though many stories contain slight variations on the rules of those creatures, we all understand the basic concepts. It’s then easier to explain your version of the creature to the audience.

Audiences aren’t the only ones who care about the rules. Hollywood producers and development execs are obsessed with them. If you aren’t 100% clear about how your fantastical elements work, expect a lot of questions and consternation.

This can be particularly challenging when you’re pitching. You usually have to set aside a little time after you’ve given your log line to explain the rules of your world. And here’s where simplicity is again your friend. The rules are boring – they keep you from the story. If you keep the rules simple, they won’t get in the way of the good stuff.

Of course all of this requires that you know the rules of your world. If they are vague in your head they will be vague to the audience. Be specific and clear. And then let the story take over.

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Note: In the comments section of my last post, How to Pitch at a Pitch Fest, Signe Olnyk clarified some ways in which The Great American PitchFest is different than previous pitchfests I’ve been involved with. If you’re planning to attend that event, it’s worth reading. Most of my advice still applies – you should be doing a short teaser pitch for an existing screenplay, and you should endeavor to create a professional impression.

Three Signs Your Idea Isn't Fully Baked

(SPOILERS: Some Like It Hot, The King’s Speech, Her, Gravity)

I find young writers are often far too eager to rush on to the first draft without a fully developed story. Truth is, I find that in more experienced writers as well. In fact, when I get to the end of my first draft, I often wish I’d spent a little more time on my outline!

Generally the longer one has been writing, the more time one will spend making sure the idea is fully baked. Why? Because whenever you move too fast into the first draft, you will end up having to do huge changes in the second draft. Sometimes you even have to throw away large sections of the script – sections you may have spent weeks or months writing. It is even possible to discover the idea was fatally flawed to begin with and you have to throw out the entire project! Do this a few times and you will become devoted to proper idea development and outlining.

Here are three signs that your idea needs a little more time in the oven:

1. Is your idea exhausted by the end of act one? It is common to see scripts where everything interesting appears in the first 30 pages or the first 60 pages, and then the rest of the story just plays out as expected with diminishing entertainment returns. Your initial concept will probably give you plenty of material for your first act, since the first act will be the set up of this concept. If the concept is good, it should give you another 15-30 pages of scenes that exploit the ideas it encompasses. But without another element or twist beyond the premise, stories tend to lose steam by the middle of the script.

In Some Like It Hot (story by R. Thoeren & M. Logan, screenplay by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond) the first half of the movie is about Joe and Jerry disguising themselves as women to escape the mob. This generates lots of fun, character development and scene ideas. But when this concept exhausts itself in the middle of the film, Joe dons a new disguise – a millionaire oil heir – in an attempt to seduce Sugar, and Jerry starts his relationship with the older millionaire, providing many new interesting conflicts and scenes.

Good movies expand on the initial concept with new ideas. In The King’s Speech (screenplay by David Seidler), the hero’s brother abdicates, leaving the hero as heir, and then later his therapist’s credentials are revealed to be fake. In Her (written by Spike Jones) Theodore learns Samantha has relationships with other operating systems, turning his conception of their relationship on its head. In Gravity (written by Alfonso & Jonas Cuaron) Matt is killed, leaving Ryan to find a way back on her own. Each of these examples spins the respective story in a new direction.

If you don’t have such a twist or new element or spin, you need to keep developing your premise.

2. Do you know both the external story – the plot – and the internal story – the character arc? Good stories operate on two levels. In Some Like It Hot the external story is about Joe and Jerry trying to pass themselves off as women, with Joe’s seduction of Sugar constituting a subplot. But Joe also has an internal journey – he goes from womanizer to genuinely loving Sugar, from selfishness to sacrificing his own interests for hers.

In The King’s Speech the external journey is about the eventual King George overcoming a speech impediment while the internal journey is about him gaining the self-confidence to rule. In Her the external story is Theodore’s romance with an operating system while the internal journey is about him overcoming his depression at the failure of his marriage. In Gravity the external story is Ryan’s quest for survival while the internal journey is about her letting go of her grief and embracing a will to live.

Notice in all these cases the internal and external are related thematically. If you find you are missing one of these journeys (usually it’s the internal) then consider how the themes you are already dealing with could also be explored either internally or externally, as needed. (This post might help.)

3. Another warning sign I often see in inexperienced writers’ outlines is a third act that is really a denouement rather than an act. This occurs when the main conflict is essentially resolved at the end of act two and act three is simply showing us how everything ended up. There ought to be a radical change from the end of act two to the end of the story – either from failure to success or success to failure. (This is why the end of act two is sometimes called the “lowest moment” – because most stories have happy endings.)

If your act three is simply playing out the outcome of the end of act two, you most likely have improperly structured your story. It could be as simple as you’ve misidentified where the act break is. Though acts are theoretical, improperly analyzing your act breaks can still cause you problems even if the order of plot points is correct. Proper analysis helps you spread your story beats most dramatically across the length of your script. Remember, the third act should be the most exciting part of your story! If it’s not, you probably need to restructure.

Alternatively, you might have simply not given your characters a real lowest (or highest) moment at the end of act two. In this case your story will be predictable. This happens because writers fall in love with their main characters and it can be difficult to really make things hard on them. But if success is easy it isn’t dramatic. Whatever your resolution is, success or failure, at the end of act two that outcome should appear nearly impossible.

When checking your ideas to see if they are really ready, you have to keep an objective eye. But if you do it will make your first draft – and your second draft – much easier to write.

Finding Viable Movie Ideas

Where do you get your ideas? It’s a question asked frequently of writers. Personally, I don’t find it hard to come up with ideas. I see movie ideas everywhere because I’m looking for them. If my job were to design airplanes, I would probably get ideas for airplanes all the time. But I don’t because I’m not thinking about that.

Once you’re an established screenwriter you will probably spend most of your time working on ideas that you didn’t originate. You’ll be adapting material or rewriting other people's scripts. That’s what most of the paid work in Hollywood is. But when you’re starting out, you’ll have to write original scripts to get people’s attention. And many working writers like to continue writing original scripts on spec whenever they have the time. So the bottom line is you will need to have some good ideas for movie stories.

If you’re having trouble coming up with story ideas, my first recommendation is to carry around a notebook. You probably have more ideas than you realize, you just don’t remember them. Whenever you read or hear something interesting, meet an interesting person, or hear an unusual bit of dialogue, jot it down in the notebook. Soon you will train yourself to be on the lookout for great ideas for stories, characters, scenes and dialogue.

There’s an old saying – write what you know. Your own life and experiences can be a good source of stories. But you don’t have to develop stories that way. I believe “write what you know” actually means you should write characters with identifiable human emotions, emotions that you yourself have felt. That’s true regardless of whether your character lives a life much like yours, whether they live in the distant past in a far away country, or whether they live in a fantastical, imaginary world.

What you should really be asking yourself is what you’re interested in. For example, I’m interested in SCUBA diving and Antarctica. I combined those two interests to write one of my best scripts – an action adventure about cold-water divers in Antarctica.

Now I’ve never actually done cold-water diving in Antarctica, and I’ve certainly never had to fight terrorists as my characters did. So it was then up to me to find the aspects of the characters’ experience I could relate to. That became the emotional heart of the story. For all the rest, there’s research.

After I have an initial idea, next comes creative development. I’ll add other ideas to the core idea, possibly doing some brainstorming or research. This can take weeks or years. I collect all the little bits of information in a file. Sometimes I’ll end up combining two ideas that I didn’t immediately put together. Eventually, a story will start to coalesce in my mind. I’ll know the main character, their dilemma, and how it will resolve. I’ll also have some good ideas for cool scenes and events.

However not every idea is going to be worthy of turning into a screenplay. There are three major criteria I use to judge whether an idea is worth that level of effort.

The first is whether I really, truly love the idea. And I won’t know the answer to that right away. Just like in romance, some ideas you fall in love with and some are just infatuations. You need to pick the ones you love, because you will be working on them for several months, and often several years. I don’t commit to any idea until I’ve "dated" it for at least several weeks to make sure the initial interest doesn’t wear off. By the same token, if I find myself continually thinking about an idea I had a year ago, it probably merits attention.

The second criterion is does the idea fit with the brand I’m trying to build as a screenwriter. You want to have an identity in the business, and a voice as an artist. Every once in a while I’ll get an idea for, say, a courtroom drama. It might be a very good idea for a courtroom drama, but that’s not the kind of movie I really want to make. So it probably isn’t in my long-term interest to pursue it. I have plenty of ideas; I can find one that better fits my brand.

Finally, the idea has to be commercially viable. Why would I spend half a year on something I know won’t sell? This means it has to be the kind of movie somebody out there is actually making. I might have a fantastic idea for a western, and I might want to make that part of my brand, but the only westerns that have been produced in the last decade came from A-list filmmakers. This business is hard… why make it harder?

At any given time I will probably have a few ideas that match all three criteria slowly simmering in my mind. I’ll gradually develop them as treatments or outlines. But before I move on to writing the first draft, I need to make sure the idea is fully baked. This can be harder than it sounds. Next week I’ll discuss what makes an idea ready for the first draft.

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In other news, Ken Aguado and I will be doing a lecture on the art of the two-minute pitch at The Great American Pitchfest on June 21st. If you’re interested in attending, I will be tweeting a discount code on Saturday, May 24th, between 4 and 5 pm that's good for 10% off. You can follow me on Twitter at @dougeboch (if you don’t already), or if you don’t use Twitter, you can check the feed on the home page of my website.

How to Write a Treatment

Today I want to discuss treatments. To do this, I first need to define what a treatment is, which is difficult because they are so varied. On the most basic level, a treatment is a prose description of a screenplay you intend to write. It may contain a few lines of important dialogue, but mostly it summarizes the story.

Many screenwriters do treatments as part of their personal story development process. I also like to write a treatment between my first draft and second draft, to refocus on the big picture and better evaluate what I need to change. Since these treatments are for personal use, they can be done in any format and length you like.

However other treatments are done for business/selling purposes. These are the kinds of treatments I’m going to focus on today.

Please understand, it is rare to sell a treatment in the way that you might sell a screenplay. However, you might use a treatment to support a pitch (a “leave behind”) or as part of a package presented to investors for an independent film. It is also not unusual to have a “treatment step” in your contract if you sell an original idea. This means you will turn a treatment in to the buyers before moving to first draft so they can make sure you’re heading in the right direction and give you notes. At least that's the idea.

The first question you'll probably have is length. Typically these types of treatments run between four and ten pages, though some go longer. James Cameron’s treatment for The Terminator runs 48 pages and is almost literally the screenplay without dialogue. If I have a treatment step in a contract, the first thing I will do is discuss with the producers and executives what they are expecting. For pitch leave-behinds, I recommend doing no more than a single page – more of a summary than a treatment, really.

Often a treatment will start with a short overview of the basic concept of the film. Here is the overview that begins Simon Kinberg’s five-page treatment for Mr. and Mrs. Smith:

"MR AND MRS. SMITH" is a sexy, stylized action-comedy that’s a duel-to-the-death between the world’s top two assassins... who happen to be husband and wife, hired to kill each other. In hunting each other, their dying marriage turns into a passionate love affair, as they go toe-to-toe, playing cat and mouse... and slowly falling back in love in the process -- seeing, understanding, appreciating each other for the very first time—in the midst of battle.

Their process is really like the process of marriage therapy, which is intended to help a couple: initiate, interact, communicate, compromise, adapt, and ultimately fall in love. Through their hunt, they have to do these same things—because these are also the primary skills an assassin uses with a mark: initiating, interacting, compromising, and adapting to the target.

Tonally, the film should be a collision of different genres—action, romance, comedy, even social (suburban) satire. The world of the Smiths is slightly hyperreal, mischievous, and always dangerous.

As you can see, Kinberg is laying out the concept for the film with an emphasis on tone and style. There is also a sense of the thematic underpinnings of the story, and the writer’s approach to the concept.

This may or may not be followed by short descriptions of the major characters. Then, you would launch into a summary of the story, which makes up the bulk of the treatment. Many treatments just launch right into the story with no overview or character descriptions.

If you intend to show the treatment to a producer, executive, or really anyone, I would highly recommend that you consider this a selling document, more akin to a pitch than an outline – even if you've already gotten the job of writing the script. If you simply recite dry plot points, your treatment will not capture the drama, humor, excitement and wit of the final screenplay. If you are using the treatment as a sales tool, this will definitely not help you make the sale. If you are submitting the treatment as part of a step deal, it could scare the buyers into thinking you are going wildly off course. They may respond with panicked notes that actually do take the project off course. The blame will lie with you for not properly conveying and promoting your vision for the film.

So you have to use good, evocative prose – like a novel. Here is a good example from Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio’s eleven page treatment for The Mask of Zorro:

Montero's homecoming is a huge, pomp-and-circumstance event. Torches light the beach as Montero steps off the boat, welcomed by important, influential men who nonetheless defer to Montero: he is a monarch returning home.

In the crowd, Diego focuses on Montero. He moves toward him as Montero greets his welcoming party. A knife appears in Diego's hand. Murder in his eye. He closes in --

A voice calls "Father!" Diego and Montero turn. Elena steps through the crowd. Diego instantly recognizes her. She moves past him, into Montero's arms. Calls him 'Father' again. Diego's resolve disappears. He is devastated. The knife slips from his fingers. He realizes Elena loves Montero. He cannot just kill him in front of her. Diego turns, vanishes.

Being longer, The Mask of Zorro treatment naturally goes into some detail. Let’s look at another excerpt from the shorter Mr. & Mrs. Smith treatment that condenses the story more:

What follows through the second act is basically a heightened, charged game of “cat and mouse,” with John and Jane hunting each other through the maze of Manhattan. In terms of marriage therapy, they’ve initiated. And now they’re interacting and communicating. As they hunt, they have to pay attention to each other for the first time—and in doing so, they slowly come to understand and appreciate each other, rediscovering the passion they once had. They’re like two master artists excited by each other’s work, pushing each other to be better, faster, stronger—and learning each other’s moves in the process—really learning about each other.

See how both these treatments bring the arcs and conflicts of the story to vivid life? You may also notice how they focus on the characters and their journey. This is important. Just like a movie (or a screenplay or a pitch) we enter the story through character. It is why we care about what happens. You have to get us invested in the character and tell the story from their point of view.

Look at how this excerpt from Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski’s three-page treatment for The People vs. Larry Flynt keeps the emphasis on the main character even as it moves through a large chunk of the story very quickly:

1978. While entering the Atlanta courthouse, [Larry] is shot. Eight months in the hospital. Larry’s in incredible pain. His intestine gets removed. Nobody is ever arrested in the shooting. Larry babbles endless conspiracy theories behind who gunned him down: JFK, FBI, KKK, Charles Keating, the Mob.... Finally he can’t handle his day-to-day existence, and he puts Althea in charge of the corporation. Then Larry starts taking massive drugs for the pain, disappearing into a dark miserable haze....

1983. Larry emerges from the darkness.., and five years have invisibly passed. It’s now a different era—Reagan’s in office. Larry has surgery to sever the nerves to his legs. He’ll never walk again, but the pain will be gone. He kicks the drugs and is now revitalized, but with a horribly changed vision of the country: America turned its back on him. He doesn’t believe in the dream anymore.

Summarizing your story in this exciting, character focused way is not only good salesmanship; it will help you with your writing. It will force you to step back from all the details of your plot and really examine what is exciting, interesting and emotionally engaging in your story. Even if you only write a treatment for yourself, I recommend writing the most compelling version you can.

There are other terms for documents that are similar to treatments. A one-page treatment is often called a “summary.” A “step outline” is a treatment that breaks down every scene with a slug line. They tend to be longer and more fully developed. A “scriptment” is a hybrid – a treatment with some sections of the story fully delineated in screenplay form (I’ve even seen one that included some storyboards). I’m actually not quite sure why anybody would do a scriptment – at that point I’d just write the whole screenplay – but they seem to be more popular these days.

Whatever form and format your treatment takes, the goal is still the same: tell your story in the most compelling way possible.

Decoding the DNA of Your Story

Producer Ken Aguado, my co-author on The Hollywood Pitching Bible, likes to say that loglines are the DNA of the movie. Usually he’s talking about the pitching process – how the logline has to capture the essence of the story so that it intrigues the listener. And then of course the story has to deliver on the promise of that logline. That’s why it’s the DNA – it contains the seed of the whole thing.

But this concept is also important for writing your screenplay. If you don’t have a clear understanding of the core essence of your story, then it is all too easy to wander around and get lost on narrative side streets. It seems obvious that you would understand your own concept, but I’ve seen many screenplays that have failed to follow through on the promise of the initial idea.

Let’s pause to define terms. A logline is a one or two sentence statement of your concept that is about 25 - 30 words long. A good logline is one that captures the thrust of the story and what makes that story compelling – in other words, what’s cool about the idea.

Usually a logline is not the starting point of a story idea in a writer’s mind. I haven’t heard too many screenwriters say a logline popped fully-formed into their head from which they then built a story. No, usually we are inspired by an idea for a situation or a character or a setting or a cool scene. One of these ideas leads to another, and we slowly gather mental material until a story starts to take shape.

But before you start writing that first draft, you should boil the story down to a core concept, a logline. Understanding the DNA of your story will help you decide which of the other ideas fit and which should be tossed or saved for a later story.

Easy to say, harder to do.

To figure out the essence of your story, there are a few things to consider. What is the most interesting and cool aspect of your premise? What made you want to write this story? What is the major dilemma and the biggest obstacle the character will face? What will the bulk of the action on screen be about?

Lets take an example. Imagine you were writing a logline for Liar Liar (written by Paul Guay & Stephen Mazur). Here are three possibilities:

1. Liar Liar is the story of a boy who uses a birthday wish to get his workaholic father’s attention.

2. Liar Liar is the story of a sleazy lawyer who is forced by his son’s birthday wish to tell the truth for 24 hours.

3. Liar Liar is the story of a sleazy lawyer who has to win a divorce case despite a curse.

All are accurate. All are functional loglines for a movie. Only the second captures the DNA of Liar Liar. What’s interesting about the story of Liar Liar is the idea of a sleazy lawyer being forced to tell the truth. That’s what most of the action is about. Of course you could write a script based on one of the other loglines, but it would come out a very different movie.

I once heard Doug Liman talking about directing Mr. & Mrs. Smith (written by Simon Kinberg). He said he realized the core thematic concept of the movie was, “Being a spy is easy, being married is hard.” This mantra affected every choice he made. For example, in the minivan car chase, he kept the camera inside the minivan where the two characters were arguing about their marriage. The action part of the scene was mainly viewed through the windows behind them. This is the opposite of how most car chases are filmed, but it fit with the core DNA of this particular movie.

Another question to ask is: what will the main action of act two be? That’s the bulk of your movie. Your logline should reflect that (and your act two should reflect your logline). For example, is Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) the story of a girl competing in a beauty pageant or a family on a road trip?

If you chose the former, then act two should be about the pageant. Your logline might be something like, “A little girl dreams of being a beauty queen, but doesn’t fit in with the creepy, polished contestants at a child pageant.” And if you gave that logline, people would expect a script mainly set in the world of child pageants, not in a yellow van.

Michael Arndt chose to write a movie about a family road trip. So an appropriate logline for the actual Little Miss Sunshine would be something like, “A dysfunctional family takes a road trip so their youngest daughter can compete in a pageant. As one disaster follows another, they learn how to support each other.”

When you start boiling stories down to a handful of words, one problem is they start to sound a lot alike. To combat this, make the details as specific as possible. Also, it’s hard to come up with originality in plot. Usually what makes a premise original is the character. For example, imagine you were creating a logline for Pacific Rim (story by Travis Beacham, screenplay by Travis Beacham & Guillermo del Toro). You might say:

“Pacific Rim is the story of giant robots defending Earth from giant monsters from another dimension.”

The problem isn’t that that logline is inaccurate or that it fails to capture the main thrust of the movie, it’s that robots fighting monsters sounds like something we’ve seen before. It sounds like an old B movie, or about a thousand different Anime films. It also feels mechanical and uninvolving, something only hardcore geeks would like. But what if instead you made the logline:

“Pacific Rim is about a soldier, grieving over the death of his brother, who must face his fears so he can pilot a giant robot when huge monsters invade Earth.”

Now you’re starting to get to a story that sounds original and emotional. (In my opinion, the movie did a poor job delivering on this concept, but the problem was in the execution, not the premise.)

Creating a good logline is not easy. It can take a lot of thought and revision. You really have to dig into your story and figure out which version of the idea you want to tell. But once you have a good logline, you can move forward confident you know the DNA of your screenplay.

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Speaking of The Hollywood Pitching Bible, check out the trailer we made.

Writing True Stories When We Know the Ending

(SPOILERS: Titanic, Valkyrie, Captain Phillips, 42)

Basing a movie on true events immediately heightens our interest in the story. That’s probably why so many awards season movies are based on true events (this year 12 Years a Slave, Captain Phillips, American Hustle, 42, Lone Survivor and The Butler are just a few examples). If the story is obscure enough – such as with 12 Years a Slave (screenplay by John Ridley) – we might not know what happened and watch to find out how it comes out. But what if you’re writing about well-known events?

Stories where we know the ending can still be good and popular. But you can’t make the dramatic question of the movie be about the well-known outcome. For example, Titanic (written by James Cameron) was widely mocked when it was announced. “Why would anybody watch that? We already know the boat sinks!” Of course, when it was released it became the most popular movie of all time.

Why? Because it wasn’t about whether or not the boat sank. Cameron used the backdrop of the Titanic to tell a love story. The dramatic question was, “Will Jack and Rose end up together?” We didn’t know the answer to that question.

The movie Valkyrie (written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander) wasn’t nearly as successful, partly because the dramatic question was about whether the attempt to assassinate Hitler would be successful. But we already knew it wouldn’t, so the suspense scenes weren’t very suspenseful. (Even if you weren’t familiar with this story, you probably know that Hitler committed suicide in his bunker with the allies closing in.)

When developing a movie based on well-known events, you have to find the story within the story. Is there something interesting that is not widely known? You should think about what drew you to the material in the first place. What is the thematic element that intrigues you? Can you build a compelling story using the true events to illuminate this thematic idea in a fresh way?

For example, everybody knows that Lincoln freed the slaves. The movie Lincoln (screenplay by Tony Kushner), however, revealed the political maneuvering required to achieve that goal. It explored the pressure on Lincoln to accept a lesser step, and on Lincoln’s own self doubts about the constitutionality of what he was doing. These nuances were unfamiliar to most of the audience.

The best place to look for this is in the character. For example, 42 (written by Brian Helgeland) tells the story of Jackie Robinson, the first black player in Major League Baseball. But we know how that story comes out. We know about racism and we know Robinson was successful. We know baseball became integrated.

What the movie shows us is Robinson’s struggle to resist fighting back when he was attacked. He’s set up as a strong, proud, somewhat short-tempered man. But when he was recruited to the Dodgers, Branch Rickey knew that he would be taunted and that if he reacted violently, all people would remember was that a black man had been violent. The story within the story here is how hard Robinson had to work to overcome his understandable instinct to defend himself.

Similarly, if you follow the news at all, you probably thought you knew how Captain Phillips (screenplay by Billy Ray) ends. But if you see the movie, the ending is powerful and surprising – because it is more about the emotional impact of this experience on Phillips than on whether he physically survives. That’s the story within the story. Captain Phillips also reveals the motivations and life of the pirates, something most people are not as familiar with. (Even so, the movie is a little slow to get going because we're mostly just waiting for the attack we know is coming.)

After watching Valkyrie, I thought one solution to their problem would be to change the main character. Valkyrie tells the story of Claus von Stauffenberg, the organizer of the attempted coup. But von Stauffenberg decides at the very beginning that Hitler is bad for Germany and has to be stopped. And he never wavers in this belief throughout the movie. Thus the question became, “Will von Stauffenberg’s coup succeed?” – a question we knew the answer to.

However there was another character, General Fromm, whose story was much more interesting. He thought Hitler was bad for Germany, but struggled with whether he could betray the legitimate leader of his country, a country he loved. A very compelling movie could have been made about Fromm’s struggle, with the dramatic question: “Will he join the plot or not?”

Digging into the internal struggle of a character is a good way to bring a new perspective on a true story that we already think we know. It allows you to explore the meaning of the events rather than just what happened. And if you’re going to tell a familiar story, you better have a new perspective on what it all means.

Coincidence

There's a saying in screenwriting: coincidence that make your character's life more difficult is okay; coincidence that makes their life easier is bad.

Consider the example of a hero being chased through a ravine by bad guys. Imagine if a boulder suddenly toppled from the cliffs and blocked the bad guys, allowing the hero to escape. It seems weak - a contrivance to get the hero out of a tough spot. However if the boulder fell in front of the hero, trapping him with the bad guys and making his situation worse, it feels like good drama.

This is because on some subconscious level the audience is aware that someone is crafting this story. But they don't want to see the hand of that storyteller at work. There are unwritten rules that the audience expects the storyteller to abide by. A coincidence that saves the hero feels like the storyteller wrote themselves into a situation and couldn't figure a way out, so they made something random happen to solve their problem. It feels like cheating. If the writer is allowed to let anything happen at any time then there can be no tension.

That type of coincidence is pretty easy to spot. More insidious is when a story element is a little too convenient. It exists to make the writer's life easier rather than growing organically out of the premise. But sometimes it's possible to turn these types of coincidences into strong plot points.

That's a little confusing in the abstract. Let me give an example of what I mean. One benefit of teaching is that it gives me ample inspiration for blog posts. Recently a student turned in an outline where when the hero meets the villain, they discover they are old high school classmates. I asked why that was and the student said, "I wanted them to know each other so the hero would trust the villain."

That's a valid idea, but it's imposing the relationship on the characters because of a plot need, rather than growing the plot out of the relationship between the characters. Thus it seems a little convenient.

I suggested that maybe the high school relationship between the characters could be the reason they come together. Maybe the villain was seeking out this old classmate, rather than running into them coincidentally.

My student's eyes lit up. She immediately began spinning a backstory of high school jealousy and rejection. Suddenly there was a whole new subtext to her main story. A weakness had just become a strength. 

In good stories plot should grow out of the character's goals and relationships. But of course you need certain things to happen in order for your story to work. When you discover something happens in your story just because you, the writer, needs it to, try to think of a reason based in a character's goals for the plot point.

Let's go back to our falling boulder idea. The audience may accept a random boulder trapping the hero. It makes the scene more dramatic and exciting. But what if one of the villain's henchmen pushed the boulder down? Maybe they had been eavesdropping on the hero and knew his planned route. That feels more satisfying, doesn't it? Even when you could get away with a coincidence, motivating it with character is better.

The exception to this rule is when the entire story is based on some kind of random event. In these cases the randomness is part of the thematic underpinnings of the story. For example, what happens when a regular kid finds a bag of money? Or when two musicians witness a mob hit? Or when a businessman is mistaken for a criminal? The audience is willing to buy one "miracle" to set up the story. But every plot point after that should grow out of that random event and the characters. 

In real life random things happen all the time. But in drama we want things to progress logically. Thus the saying, "Truth is stranger than fiction." So turn your coincidences into plot points based on character motivation. It might just enliven your whole story.