Writing Creative Writing: Essays from the Field - Rishma Dunlop, Daniel Scott Tysdal, Priscila Uppal 2016
It’s all about structure: the craft of screenwriting
Writing creative writing pedagogy
PEGGY THOMPSON
Fade In
Studying screenwriting is, to my way of thinking, a great way for a writer in any genre to get comfortable with plot and story.
As a guiding principle, we follow the professional model as closely as possible in my workshop. And I don’t mean the professional model of sitting around in your pajamas at home — a legitimate professional model as far I’m concerned, but we have to make compromises for the university. So we gather in a classroom and do what people do in the world of screen-based media: pitch, outline, write a first draft, polish, and then pitch again. And we discuss how our pitches have evolved. By the end of term, the screenwriters have completed all of these steps with one or more projects.
In my undergrad classes, writers tend to work with the short film form (we get a good number of film production undergrads who are shooting their screenplays); in grad screen classes they work on anything from television to webisodes, shorts or features.
We diverge in our practice from fiction workshops, where discussion of the material takes place without the writer speaking until the end. In my workshops we work as we would in an ideal writers’ room, with the writer clarifying and others questioning. And we always read at least some of the script out loud — perhaps the most effective way of helping students figure out what isn’t working in a script, because they hear problems immediately.
Teaching screenwriting to creative writing majors is like coaching elite athletes in literary cross-training. Athletes cross-train by working in different sports with the goal of improving overall performance: a basketball player might train in distance running and tennis to sharpen her game. While images of elite athletic training may seem incongruous in our small, dusty enclave where the main activity is sitting in a building where the cleaning code is Benign Neglect, nonetheless, that’s what we do. So when novelists, stage writers, poets, and graphic novel students come to screenwriting, to continue the cross-training metaphor, they find that by working in the area they don’t usually work in, their overall skill set improves.
The element of story that gets most student novelists and short fiction writers stuck, and most screenwriting students, too, is plot. The joy and the horror of writing for screen is that screen is nothing but plot, action, and form. And plot. All right, it’s other things as well — characters, image, theme, dialogue, conflict and thwarted desires, secrets, climaxes, reversals, and more climaxes. Screenwriting is a story-eating beastie that needs constant feeding.
Here’s an old saying about the difference between story and plot, attributed to E.M. Forster:
The king died and then the queen died (story).
The king died and then the queen died of grief (plot).
That doesn’t sound like a plot to me. In fact, with that plot, one may well end up with the “Passive Protagonist” problem, which challenges all screenwriters at one time or another. So let’s try it again, as story and movie plot:
The king died and then the queen died (story).
The king was murdered and then the queen tracked down the perpetrators, killed each and every one, and became a beloved monarch to her whole country (movie plot).
And, of course, studying screenwriting also prepares students for a life of writing in screen-based media, a goal of many writers-in-training. When serious screenwriters go on to work in film, television, and Web-based media, their writing is strengthened by cross-training in fiction, graphic forms, radio, non-fiction, and poetry.
The challenge with the cross-training and multi-genre approach is that in any workshop there may be students who have made films, often a number of very successful films, working alongside students who have never written a word for screen — and, for that matter, seldom see a film. We meet this challenge by allowing everyone to work at their own pace, but we all follow the same steps, starting with The Pitch.
The Pitch: Why It Works
A major part of the work of creating a screenplay is conceptualizing the film, which means thinking about the story, the characters, the setting, and so on. It also requires research, such as identifying an audience or demographic. What’s the genre, or genres? Who pays to see a film in that genre? How does it do in the marketplace? What’s the theoretical budget (revenue and expenses)? Is this a film for festivals? If it’s a feature, do you hope for a theatrical release? I like to get screenwriters thinking like filmmakers.
Some students are determined to write for the LA market. Others are very interested in the low- or no-budget categories of Canadian independent film, and some fall in between. All of these are fine — as long as the students do their research.
Then I ask students to pitch.
The Pitch: What It Is
The pitch is a short, persuasive verbal sales talk tossed out at producers, funders, and distributors — and, after the film is done, the press. So the writer or filmmaker may be pitching a project before it exists, or long after it’s done, or both. Most pitches are short. In our workshops we bring them in at three minutes, about the time you’d have to pitch someone at a film festival or a market such as the Toronto International Film Festival or the Banff International Television Festival.
The Pitch: How It’s Structured
· Compliment the person you’re pitching on their work (do your homework).
· Introduce yourself.
· Say why you’re passionate about this story and how it began for you.
· Give a brief overview of the story: beginning, middle, end.
· Describe the tone. For television, what Canadian network would this show be on? For theatrical release, which distributor would it best suit?
· Say how this project would benefit the person you’re pitching.
· Name the key people on your team to date.
· Finish by giving the person a way to follow up.
Once we’ve all pitched — and regardless of class size, we do all the pitches in one two-hour class — we move on to cards or outline.
Cards/Beat Sheet/Outline/Treatment
I prefer cards. I have the student put a header on each card, such as EXT. FOREST DAY, and what happens in each scene in the screenplay, which is still being visualized. There is no dialogue, and the action is boiled down to a sentence or two. The student presents the cards in class out on a table, and the rest of us stand around and look. If we feel it helps, we move the cards around and add more of our own.
A beat sheet is similar. It has numbers and a brief description of each scene, but it’s written in note/text on paper. A beat sheet tracks the emotional moments of each scene and is extremely useful. A treatment is more detailed and is written out as prose.
What’s difficult about this phase is that the student has to try to work out the overall arc of a film story. Many writers, myself included, prefer to work organically and let the story and the characters work it out. But in the professional world of screen-based media, or trans-media, deadlines are assigned and kept, and begun with cards, or a beat sheet, or an outline, or a treatment. This is particularly true in television, where speed is the order of the day, every day.
When a student lays down cards, she reads out what happens in each scene. If she has written prose, the class will read it out while the student listens, going around the table with each person reading a few sentences out loud. Reading out loud resolves much student/writer resistance to revising. Once a writer hears her work, she hears many of its problems.
First Draft
I’ve been teaching screenwriting since 1995. Before that, I was a screenwriter of short films, two feature films (The Lotus Eaters and Better Than Chocolate), and television programs (The Beachcombers, Weird Homes, Da Vinci’s Inquest, and others). I’ve worked in both documentary and fiction. I’m also a producer and have written for the stage, radio, and print. I’ve also acted and directed. I still do most of these things. In my various workshops at the University of British Columbia, I teach writing short films, writing feature films, and writing television scripts — both original to the student and specs. (A spec script is a screenplay for an existing series written within the storylines of the current season.) For each genre I give different advice.
Short Film
Ten to twelve pages is often the ideal length for a short film in a festival. If your idea is strong enough, you will be able to describe the dramatic storyline and provide vivid descriptions of your characters in two or three sentences. Choose a situation and a story that can be told entirely within about twelve minutes. You must be very selective with the topic to make it fit. Get to the heart of the characters as quickly as possible. This is a major key to a successful short film. The film must have a hook, or (for lack of a better word) a gimmick — an interesting and unique element, ideally a visual one. There must be a twist/reversal at the end.
Television — Original or Spec Script
I advise my students to write a show or spec script for a current or recent half-hour program, such as Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, or Community. Hour-longs and originals are also acceptable, but students who write a spec script have a better chance of finishing it in one semester.
It may seem counterintuitive, but they will experience great breakthroughs in their writing when they write for a show with characters they know and formats they’re familiar with. Freed from the work of creating a whole universe, they can apply their ideas to an existing infrastructure, mirroring the show and discovering how plots are put together.
In this class, too, we begin with the pitch, and then cards, beat sheets, or outlines, which must be prepared in the format the show uses. Students have to analyze the series they’re writing for, and identify and count the scenes in each act. Is there a teaser at the beginning? Is there a kicker at the end? Suddenly the form cracks open and is no longer mysterious. Because the characters are familiar and strong, students can focus on plot and form. And they tend to have breakthroughs in those areas, which are the most complex to teach and learn.
Feature Film
The student who undertakes a feature-length screenplay faces the ultimate challenge: three-act structure. It may take her a few years to finish a screenplay, or the work may go much more quickly. I could easily write an entire chapter on three-act structure, whose complexities never cease to delight and challenge.
In teaching it, I use a template I’ve put together over the years, a combination of approaches inspired by Emma Thompson, Aristotle, Margaret Mehring, John Yorke, and various blogs and videos (John August, BAFTA, and others), and the granddaddy of all structure goodness, Lajos Egri. A word of warning about Lajos Egri: his book The Art of Dramatic Writing was written for the theatre and took me ten years to read. However, it is used by many in the industry. His analysis of how to build a dramatic climax is both brilliant and correct — with a dash of Blake Snyder and Robert McKee.
In my lecture classes, I screen a film and discuss the story points in my template as we go. The films I use include Babe, The Sixth Sense, Juno, and even, in one lengthy class, Star Wars.
· Act 1: Inciting Incident — approximately 1—5 minutes in. An event that kicks off the story. The First Turning Point occurs approximately 17—25 minutes in. The story is under way. We have met our main characters, including the antagonist(s), we understand the premise of the story and film, and an action happens that spins us into …
· Act 2: Stakes and conflict continue to build. Halfway through Act 2 (50—60 pages in), about halfway through the film, the stakes get even higher and the conflict with the antagonist(s) intensifies further. Action then builds to the Second Act Climax or Second Act Turning Point, a reveal of information that leads to a crisis for the protagonist, out of which the protagonist takes action, and we spin into …
· Act 3: In the Third Act Climax, another reveal of information creates a crisis for the protagonist, out of which the protagonist again takes action — usually face to face with the antagonist, who has had their own reveal of information.
· Resolution (can be very brief).
· Obligatory Scene reiterating the theme of the story, either visually or in language (can be anywhere in Act 3).
· Final Image.
To demonstrate the Three-Act Structure, I use the movie Babe for several reasons. It’s a film for both children and adults, it’s funny, it was nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Adapted Screenplay, and it has a wonderful structure.
In Act 1 a narrator tells us the theme: “This is a tale about an unprejudiced heart and how it changed our valley forever. There was a time, not so long ago, when pigs were afforded no respect, except by other pigs. They lived their whole lives in a cruel and sunless world.” Babe, like most comedies, is a film about changing the social order: a pig can be a sheep dog. Act 1 establishes the theme — the plot — the main character, and the style of the film. It presents the main character with a problem that he will spend the entire film solving.
Near the beginning is the Inciting Incident, the event that sets the story in motion. In Babe this occurs when Babe is taken to the fair and won by Farmer Hoggett … and then taken home to Hoggett’s farm where he learns that every animal has a place in the social order. And his place is in the barn. And his job is to eat.
The First Turning Point occurs at the end of the first act. It begins when Babe and Ferdinand the duck do not heed the command to never go inside the house. They do.
In Act 2 there are several key points — the Mid-Point, the Hidden Information, the Crisis, a.k.a. the Second Turning Point (or plot point). What drives Act 2 is conflict — conflict between characters and the situations they find themselves in. These conflicts stem from the themes, dilemmas, and desires established in the first act.
Babe and Ferdinand enter the house so that Ferdinand can steal the alarm clock that has usurped his position on the farm as a kind of rooster who wakes the farm every morning. The alarm clock renders Ferdinand obsolete and thus condemns him to the dinner table. Babe and Ferdinand are caught, of course, and Babe, too, seems doomed to be dinner sooner than planned. The first half of Act 2 of Babe centres on the theme of the film: Babe’s destiny, his place in the social order as food. Through a wily trick of Farmer Hoggett’s, Babe is saved from being eaten at Christmas. And then on Christmas Day Babe unwittingly points the way to his own salvation.
By opening the gate so Ferdinand can escape his fate and the farm, Babe receives what the mythologist Joseph Campbell calls “the call to adventure.” Babe slips out into the sheep pasture and saves a number of sheep from being stolen. This gives Farmer Hoggett the idea that Babe could be something other than food. He could be a sheep dog, or a sheep pig, as it were. And this leads us directly to the Mid-Point.
Halfway through the second act comes the Mid-Point: the time in the film when the story crystallizes. Nothing new will be introduced after this point; everything will complicate, develop, and complete. The Mid-Point is a sequence of extreme intensity. At the Mid-Point of Babe, after Babe has saved the sheep, Farmer Hoggett takes him out into the sheep pasture to begin his “training and initiation,” again, steps from Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. There, Babe takes the first steps toward becoming a “sheep pig.”
The second half of Act 2 builds to a series of developments, conflicts, and crises, which lead to the climax. In Babe these include Rex the head dog sliding into viciousness and depression over Babe taking over his job. When a vet sedates Rex, the problem becomes further exacerbated. Now he can no longer do his job at all, thus opening the door for Babe to become even more of a sheep pig. This sequence contains both conflict and complications.
A further complication develops when wild dogs attack the sheep and Farmer Hoggett thinks that Babe has killed one of his sheep. Babe is saved in the nick of time, but this incident reinforces the theme of the film. It would appear that Babe has stepped out of his place (by killing a sheep) and will be punished by death. But Babe is saved for the second time. Then Mrs. Hoggett leaves for the Regional Fair and Farmer Hoggett enters Babe in competition in the Sheep Dog Trials.
We have a reversal in which Babe replaces the cat by being brought into the house — the traditional home of the cat. But the cat, seeking revenge, drops a piece of hidden information that leads to another crisis. The cat tells Babe that pigs are food and that Babe is, in fact, pork. Everyone, of course, has known this all along. Everyone except Babe.
This leads to the final crisis. Babe is shattered emotionally and runs away into a raging storm and almost dies — for the third time. Rex finds Babe and an antagonist becomes an ally. Farmer Hoggett saves Babe, and thus the crisis paves the way for the climax. This sequence is the Second Turning Point, or the Second Act Climax, and also the end of the second act.
In Act 3 there are several key points — the Third Act Climax(es), the Resolution, the Obligatory Scene, and the Final Image. The Second Turning Point brings us to the climax, which is actually a series of escalating climaxes, often each is preceded by a piece of hidden information.
Act 3 of Babe takes place at the Sheep Dog Trials. The final piece of hidden information is retrieved by Rex. It is the password that enables Babe to get the sheep, whom he doesn’t know, to co-operate: “Baa Ram Ewe.” The climax is the trial itself. After first being denied entry into the trials, Babe wins.
There is very little resolution in Babe, but there is some. We are treated to a brief glimpse of all the central characters responding to the victory. The Resolution is followed by the Obligatory Scene in which the theme of the film is restated. It occurs in Babe when Farmer Hoggett says, “That’ll do, Pig.” The final image of Babe is of Babe. Perfectly appropriate. Who or what else would we rather see?
Babe is a comedy. As a genre, comedy challenges the status quo. And in Babe, the status quo of “some animals are meant to be eaten” is transformed into “we can be more than we are meant to be.”
Marshall McLuhan famously said that current technology uses the form of previous technology. Following that premise, we understand that the past technology of the three-act feature films of today are the well-made plays of Ibsen and Chekhov, which evolved from the five-act plays of Shakespeare.
And so the question challenging filmmakers is: Does form define content, or does content define form? Some writers say that screenwriting is only form. I don’t think that’s entirely true. I like to think that there’s hard form — which is critical in genre work like action films — and soft form, more suitable to what we might call art-house films. And whoever knows form can always subvert it.
There are many more elements of screenplay that a writer must learn: the meaning of tone, images, theme, character; the revision process; the collaborative process; and more. But the basics of screenplay described here are the foundation of any strong script. The student who masters them will have a solid footing as she takes the next steps.