Five pages.

That’s what you get. You spend six months on that spec screenplay and the reader at the agency-manager-prodco-contest is giving five lousy pages before he makes a judgement.

It’s an outrage! Blame it on Attention-Deficit-Disorder, the Twitterverse, the 24/7 news cycle…but guess what?

A good reader can recognize a poorly written script within five pages or less. Sometimes it can be seen on Page 1.

Here are a couple of traps to avoid:

• BE AN ADVERB & ADJECTIVE HATER

“The Chow Chow sadly waddles up the plush scarlet-carpeted, serpentine-twisting rug, woefully stopping under the plumb Ming Dynasty vase, dumbly lifting his hind leg…”

You’re writing a screenplay, not the Great American novel. That means not killing the reader with purple prose. Just because you can write effective adjectives and adverbs doesn’t mean you should. When it comes to pumping up screen direction, ask yourself: Do I need it?

How do you know if you need it? Ask: How does it advance character or plot?

It’s Page 1 and you’ve got that Chow doing his business on the purple plush carpet. I know you’re going to be able to tell me how this advances the protagonist’s character, right?

This is not to say you can never use an adverb or adjective. You just have to pick your spots.  If it’s a scene where a character grabs a coffee at Starbucks, as a reader, I really, really don’t care about the faux fireplace flame warming the caramel brulee latte drinkers. If, however, my protagonist has been estranged from his father for a decade, some extra detail about the scene where they reunite would be welcome.

See the difference? Be an adjective and adverb hater.

• AVOID BEATS AND PAUSES

You want your screenplay to be a visual experience. You want the reader to see the movie in your mind. Using parenthetical beats and pauses looks clunky, mechanical. It takes me out of the read, out of the visualizing of your movie. Use ellipses instead. Those three dots are a time tested method to indicate pause.

• THE NAME DISEASE

“Abe Lincoln, I had no idea you were so obsessed with vampires…”

“Petey, bro, how many times can one dude see The Hangover 2?”

“Sheldon, I thought I told you to take the garbage out. Oh, and Sheldon, don’t forget, recycle!”

Are you using character names in dialogue too often? If so, you’ve got the name disease. This is a lazy writing habit. Did you use Petey’s name in dialogue three times on a single page? Cut some, or all of them. When you’re talking to someone in real life who you know, how often do you use their name?

• KEEP VERBS ACTIVE

Hayley is playing on the monkey bars.

Billy is swinging on the swing set.

Active verbs are more direct, more assertive, and ultimately easier on the reader’s eye.

Hayley plays on the monkey bars.

Billy swings on the swing set.

Ditch the passive writing. And while we’re talking verbs…

• PICK BETTER VERBS

Jimmy slowly walks down the stairs.

Anyone can write that! Want your script to stand out? Do a full spell check and proofread, yes. While you’re at it, pink highlight EVERY VERB in your script. Are they strong, action verbs? Can you make them stronger? Challenge yourself.  Pick better verbs.

Jimmy ambles-rambles-limps-saunters-wanders-stumbles-hobbles down the stairs.

Anything but walks slowly!

Lastly, and perhaps most important:

• FIND THE PROTAGONIST

Please don’t make the reader guess on who they’re supposed to be following. Find your protagonist as soon as possible. Does that mean we have to see the protagonist in Page 1 Scene 1? Of course not. There are no absolutes, no always or never in screenwriting.

In general though, as a reader, I’ll take clarity over confusion. When you introduce seven named characters in the first five pages and make me guess who the story is about, it leaves me wondering. And if by page 10 I’m still wondering who the story is about, well, it’s not ideal.

Find your protagonist quickly.

• ON DEALING WITH ACTORS

Christopher Nolan, Sophia Coppola, Spike Lee, Charlie Kaufman, Quentin Tarantino. The list of fabulous writer-directors who are known to work well with actors is looong.

Alas, I’m not on it.

My background is theater so you wouldn’t think it so. It’s hard for playwrights to come to film, to discover that the priority pyramid is upside-down. Nobody is worshiping the sanctity of your words.

One recalls Samuel Beckett and Play, placing his actors in urns. U-R-N-S! Ultimate writer control. Get in the urn, look straight ahead, read my words!

Please don’t mistake me: I love actors. Some of the greatest experiences in my life has been the reinterpretation of my writing, taking it to mysterious and majestic places I had never conceived. Sometimes there are divine accidents, sometimes the chemistry doesn’t happen, and there’s precious little magic.

As a director I have fallen short of understanding the acting process. Some need coddling, some need an ass-kicking. Wells said the trick is to “make love” to your actors.

The screenwriter isn’t coddled. No one’s there  to give you validation, raspberry bonbons or even Reese’s Pieces.

Still, if you’re a writer-director, taking an acting class is essential. Also, make a short or two. Anything to get you on the set, to get a feeling for the acting process.  Learn how to motivate them, to see how they approach a scene. The Actor’s Journey is a complicated one, requiring study.

• MOTIVATION TO WRITE
  

You want to say something, you go about saying it. If only it were that easy…

Life intrudes. So many distractions– work, family. Like Bugs said: “Another day, another carrot.”

If you commit to write a screenplay, it’s got to be a priority. You have to drive yourself. Often times it’s the lack of time and/or energy (see below) that stops you. Other times you just kinda…lose your way. I would suggest…

Examine the reasons why you’re writing. What motivates you? Money? Legacy? A need to tell a great story?

The dollar can motivate. Landlord wants his at the end of month, sure. Bukowski said he wrote better after eating a porterhouse steak than a nickel candy bar. Meaning: Suffering for your art is highly overrated. On the other hand, if you’re only in it for the $$$, you’re bound for a let-down. Any idea how many people write screenplays vs. how many WGA members are making it this year? The best writing is found at the core of emotion, something central to you that translates into universal truth.  You must be all in. Go in full, or not at all.

• THE LINUS BLANKET

Got an email asking me about writer’s block. I’ve never had writer’s block. Because I’ve got my Linus Blanket:

Outlining, for me, is a Linus Blanket. You might not need it, but you feel better with it wrapped around you. So, how does one outline? The Old School/Syd Field Method is to write out every scene of your movie on 3-by-5  index cards, place the cards on a table in sequential order, and then begin the vetting process of determining that every scene is necessary. You break it down by Act 1-2-3. Double-check the order of your scenes. Is it logical? Is it inevitable? Does it make sense? Is your movie compelling, void of fat, relentless?

I personally outline (though not in Syd Field-style, and not because Syd says I must do so). At Chicago Filmmakers or Columbia College, and with every client I work with, the screenwriter has the option to outline or not. This is about process. Your process. What process do you feel most comfortable with as a writer? Maybe you want discovery, you don’t want to know exactly what happens. One writer described it as taking a vacation and knowing not only every road you’ll drive but every twist in the road ahead of time. Some writers are more intuitive, the last thing they want to do is kill the spontaneous writing impulse by outlining.

Not me. I need my Linus Blanket!”

Pure Fear, of course. Totally irrational. Though I have seen people paint themselves into a corner. “My characters will determine plot, not some pre-conceived notion!” “The character s will speak to me!” I applaud their organic approach, then get an email two months later saying the characters stopped talking to them on page 72. What then?

• ENERGY

One more email came in about subject not often discussed, but incredibly important:  Energy. Meaning: What energy are you bringing to your writing? This has to do process—how many times a week do you write? What time of day? How many hours each session? There is no one right answer for these questions. Just as there are day people and night people, the time of day you pick isn’t the key—it’s the energy you bring to writing. I have a friend who wakes a 5:30am, is writing by 6 for two hours before heading to his 9-5 day job. He functions best this way. Another comes home from the 9-5, cooks a meal, maybe runs a couple miles, pulls out a six-pack and gets to work at 10pm when the household is quiet. Some people are weekend warriors, not even touching the script during the week. Some write 1 hour a day, 7 days a week. Some write 4 hours a pop a 2 or 3X. Some are weekend warriors, not even touching the script during the week. Some can close a door and steal valuable erergy at work. When you write is as critical as what you write. You have to bring good A- Energy to this. How you do that depends on your situation. Sometimes your feeling blocked might be entirely a case of poor energy. How do you know if you should shut it down for the night? Staring at the page for an hour might qualify (and haven’t we all been there!) looking for a solution and absolutely nothing coming. Time to shut it down.  Live to fight another day. Know thyself. Day person? Night? Find the time. Max out the A-Energy.

• WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW

Do I write from personal experience? Sure. Dialogue from daily, real-world insanity can’t be beat. Try this exercise: Write down something you hear this week. On the subway, on the line at Target…you’ll know it when you hear it. Check out the repetition, the interruption, cursing, lost thought, imbecility, dialects. These are hard to create from scratch.

Does that mean you have to be a murderer to write a murderer? Of course not. But it might explain why a 19 year-old at Columbia College might have trouble finding a short film subject. Lack of real-world experience never helps a writer. Do you have to go through hell in a relationship to write about one? Not necessarily. But as Bukowski said, it doesn’t hurt.

A student of mine was a Marine interrogator. When she wrote a war piece on Afghanistan. Yes, there were interrogation scenes and they were helped by her expertise. But that’s not why she wrote the script. She had something to say about the war, it was her passion. So, bottom line, write what you know.

Although…

Recall the scribe who said: “You think your life will make an interesting movie. Trust me, it won’t.”

• WITHHOLDING INFORMATION

Hitchcock defined suspense:

“Suppose there’s a bomb hidden in a room and it’s set to go off at one o’clock. If the audience doesn’t know the bomb is there, it explodes, there’s a big boom, and the audience says, ‘What the heck was that?’

But if the audience does know about the bomb—if they know exactly where the bomb is hidden and exactly when it will go off—that’s when you create suspense. Someone goes to open the cupboard where the bomb is hidden…but at the last moment, someone else calls the first person away. Someone comes in and invites everybody to go outside to play croquet…but nobody’s interested. A dog starts sniffing about the cupboard…but the dog’s owner says, “Bad boy!” and pulls the dog away. The tension builds each time it looks like someone might find the bomb, or convince everybody to leave the room safely. By the time one o’clock rolls around, the whole audience is on the edge of its collective seat.”

So much of storytelling is about withholding information. Who has the information? When do you give the audience the information? Knowing when to give and when to hold back is the essence of suspense. But that isn’t the only genre where this applies. Withholding information is as important for romantic comedy as mystery. What you don’t want is exposition. Anyone can have the husband blather on about his cheating wife. Fellini shows the man playfully following a dog, turning a corner to find his wife kissing a strange man.

Where do the twists/reveals/surprises happen in your story? Have you outlined, thought it all out? Did you provide red herrings, false leads? Understand when to give, and when to withhold information.

• THE DOUBLE BIND

Put your protagonist in a double bind. If he does X, something bad happens. If he does Y, it’s worse. Force them to choose…

This is an impossible situation, with true and terrible stakes. How characters react is why we go to movies. Putting ourselves into that brutal, ridiculous, hilarious moment with them. DeNiro in Deer Hunter, not wanting to die but stepping in to play Russian Roulette because– if he doesn’t– Christopher Walken will die. Or Godfather 2, when Michael realizes that Freddy has betrayed him ( in the Cuban nightclub). Watching Pacino’s face, his “heart broken”, having to decide if he will kill his own brother or not.

Do you have a gut-ripper like this? What does your POV character have to lose? What does she love? How does her inner journey and fears conflict with what the story forces her to do? How far will she go? Where’s your double bind?

• THE PAGE 1 SET PIECE SCENE

Five pages! It’s been drummed into your head. That’s all you have to keep the reader’s attention. Took you 8 months to rewrite the freakin’ thing but you’ve got all of five pages to make it happen or it’s the recycle pile for you. Terrific. So how do you stand out? Do you go for the home run and try something outrageous?

The first five pages should establish four things: World, Tone, Key Characters, and Conflict. You also know that two people talking over a table for the first five pages of the movie is not visual. It would be suicide to start your movie with a single five page Interior dialogue scene, right?

Then you watch Inglorious Basterds and watch Tarantino take not five, but ten minutes for the opening set piece…

Suicidal? Not if you can pull it off. With so many spec scripts seeking the light of day, maybe taking a risk is the way to go.

• WHY I HATE ROMCOMS

I’ll catch grief for this. Yeah, I’m a romcom hater. I’m not the only one, either…

I like what Ebert said in a recent review of the movie Couples Retreat: “The concluding scenes are agonizing in the way they march through the stages dictated by an ages-old formula. We know all four couples must arrive at a crisis. We know their situations must appear dire. We expect a transitional event during which they realize the true nature of their feelings… We expect sincere confessions of deep feelings. And we know there must be a jolly conclusion that wrap everything up.”

There’s formula and there’s formula. It’s hard to get beyond the predictability of this genre. Also, the lack of stakes…

Our heroine wants to go back for her 10th High School anniversary but has no one in her life. She hires a hunk to pose as her man so all her old high-school friends will never know the terrible truth! She falls for the hunk—of course—and consequences ensue. She couldn’t admit she didn’t have anyone in her life because, well, she just couldn’t!

Yuck.

Format isn’t sexy.

I’d recommend you study it only under special circumstances: Like, you want to sell your script.

Object Lesson 4: Learn the rules. Then learn how to break the rules.

Use professional software. Final Draft and Movie Magic are best. Free programs exist: www.celtx.com is the Columbia Film & Video School broke-ass student program of choice. Generally fine, it has a glitch or two (dialogue can drop off at page end, short pages, etc.) Please don’t use Word.

Read screenplays. There are thousands available online. Start with www.script-o-rama.com or www.simplyscripts.com Fan of Alien 3? (Ok, nobody’s a fan of Alien 3, but if you were…I’m just sayin’…) You could go to Drew’s and find the William Gibson draft, two revised drafts, and a pair of “unused drafts.” Grab the Director’s cut DVD, curl up with some Orville Redenbacher’s Kettle Korn and check out what 17 drafts have wrought.

When studying scripts, you’ll notice something: There are as many styles as writers. A Woody Allen script looks different than a Charlie Kaufman script. Star Wars looks nothing like Sin City, which bears small resemblance to Dark Knight. Being a student of screenwriting craft means reading screenplays. Want to hone your own style? Read screenplays.

Here are some general guidelines:

SCENE HEADINGS: Every scene opens with a scene heading. Is the scene indoors? Use INT. Outdoors is EXT. Follow this with location. INT. ROOM, EXT. STREET. Be as specific as possible with your locations. Next comes time of day. I mostly keep to these five: DAY, NIGHT, CONTINUOUS, LATER, and SAME. I am not a fan of EARLY AFTERNOON, TWILIGHT, or DAWN. The only reason you’d say INT. ROOM- 7:01AM, is if it’s necessary to plot, otherwise keep it simple: DAY, NIGHT, LATER, SAME, CONTINUOUS.

SCENE HEADING USES:

Use a scene heading when you change time or location.

Use a scene heading when you indicate a flashback, montage, time frame, or a dream sequence.

INT. JIM’S HOUSE- DAY (1962)

INT. JIM’S JOINT- NIGHT (FLASHBACK)

INT. JIM’S PLACE- DAY (DREAM SEQUENCE)

SECONDARY SCENE HEADINGS: Use these if you cut to multiple areas within a single location. Like this…

Using secondary scene headings you can cut between different groups within the same room…

SCREEN DIRECTION: BASICS

In Forrest Gump-ese: Some people call them action lines. Some people call it body copy. Others call it narrative description.

Here, we’ll call it screen direction.

When you think about it, aside from the scene headings, there are only two parts to a screenplay: Screen Direction and Dialogue.

What is screen direction? At its most basic level, screen direction is what the camera sees. Let me start with what is not screen direction…

The non-visual is not screen direction. “Sandy realizes….” “Wally thinks…” How can the camera see someone thinking? If a giant light bulb appears over his head, write it in. If he’s sitting on the dock of the bay thinking, all the camera can see is him sitting on the dock of the bay. In general, just describe the visual, what the camera sees.

Notice I said “in general.” There is another component to writing good screen direction which we’ll get to shortly. This leads us to the legal department’s favorite saying:

Object Lesson 5: There is no one single way to write a screenplay.

Pros cheat. We’ll go over ways they break the rules, but first let’s learn the rules. Ok?