CHAPTER 11

SCENE-WRITING EXERCISES

One challenge the professional writer faces is climbing into situations and characters to which he or she may not immediately relate. This takes effort and research, but the truly imaginative writer should be able to discover something gripping and vital in almost any character and circumstance.

The game in this chapter was inspired by the random access methods of the I Ching. To generate a short scene-writing exercise you can either simply pick the ingredients you want or, more interestingly, create them haphazardly by a lottery method. This will challenge you to develop ideas flexibly and spontaneously and to venture beyond autobiography.

A class or workshop facing writing problems together will quickly move into interesting discussions about the demands that arise. Much useful learning can come from these, as well as a greater trust and closeness among writers. Successful writers often work in partnerships or teams, and who knows, this exercise might just be the beginning of that experience.

SKILLS

• Writing to preset form and ingredients, as a series screenwriter would
• Working beyond concepts of self and autobiography
• Creating credible people in interesting predicaments
• Working consciously in a genre
• Creating within a time constraint
• Controlling where the scene crisis, or high point, is placed
• Creating a beat or beats
• Making a setting organic to character(s) and situation
• Orchestrating a conflict
• Handling time
• Expressing a theme
• Writing dialogue in the characters' own voices
• Delivering some sort of impact
• Experiencing the reactions of an audience of fellow writers
• Contributing as a critic to someone else's work
• Working with other writers on common problems and perceptions
• Rewriting
• Extending the original idea to a subsequent scene

ASSESSMENT

Use Assessment 11–1 Scene Writing in Appendix 1.

TO PLAY

H and T in the second column of the following table signify heads and tails, so HHT means the coins you threw came up as two heads and one tail. If you throw an unlisted coin combination, make a free choice for that section.

For a random scene-writing assignment:

1. Write down any number between 1 and 30.
2. Starting at item 1 in the left column, toss the appropriate number of coins to get a selection. Write down what you get.
3. Continue onward doing the same thing for items 2 through 10, gathering parameters for a piece of writing.
4. For item 11, use the title for your scene that corresponds with the random number you wrote down in step 1.

You can see that my assignment leaves open whom the second character is (maybe his father or mother or a girlfriend) and where they happen to be late at night (a car sinking into a bog, a police station, halfway up Mount Everest). As a writer I can choose blatant melodrama and lower the challenge, or I can do something more unexpected that takes more invention.

Write the final in standard screenplay form, but work out the action in treatment form first if that's easier.

SCENE-WRITING GAME

When your first draft is finished:

• Put it away for a day or two.
• Re-read it.
• Read it out loud, acting the movements and speaking the dialogue (if there is any), and time the whole scene. If it's under-length, develop it. If it's too long, prune.
• Write more drafts.
• Wherever possible, replace dialogue with action.
• Contract dialogue wherever you can, even by a syllable.
• Contract body copy wherever you can, even by a syllable.

Now go to Appendix 1 and use Assessment Form 11–1 to rate your own work; have an honest critic in the class rate it, too. Compare the two sets of ratings.

DISCUSSION

How did your assessment match that of a critic's? Try to be a tough but fair judge when you assess someone else's work and be ready to explain your values. If you don't know each other well enough to be candid, score scenes as a group, and then have a diplomatic group spokesperson deliver the group's verdicts. No one person will feel responsible, and the writer will get a true audience reaction.

Numerical totals matter less than discussion about aspects that scored exceptionally high or low. Discuss the points raised by the assessment form, then ask the following:

• Could readers see the scene every step of the way in their mind's eye?
• Did it falter anywhere?
• Did they find the characters interesting, and if so, why?
• Did the scene have dramatic tension, and what generated it?
• What is the likely backstory for the scene?
• Does the scene suggest where the story might go next?

WRITER'S NOTES

Take notes of everything your critics say and work at being completely receptive. This is your audience, and your role now is not to argue or explain because you've had your say in the scene you wrote. Listen with an open mind and absorb what your audience wants to tell you.

This qualitative feedback, and seeing how readers' reactions matched your intentions while writing, are the springboard from which to develop better drafts.

GOING FURTHER

Wait a day or two to let the critical reaction to your writing settle. Now write the following:

• A second draft that addresses only the criticism that you found constructive and convincing.
• The scene that follows (involving one or more of the original characters).

REVIEW

• What was gained and what was lost in the second draft of the original scene?
• How much did audience reaction play a part in helping the second draft develop?
• How successful was the new scene?
• How organically did the second scene grow out of the first?
• What is most helpful in a critic for the writer, and what is least helpful?

CHECKLIST FOR PART 3: WRITING AND STORY DEVELOPMENT

The points and recommendations summarized here are only those most salient. Some are commonly overlooked. To find them or anything else, go to the Table of Contents at the beginning of this part or try the index at the back of the book.

Writing as a process

• What creative limitations does this project require?
• Investigate what differing techniques and permutations of characters can offer by doing the game-of-chance writing assignments (Chapter 11).
• Write sparely and leave actions open for the actors to interpret.
• Know what the characters are trying to do or get every step of the way.
• What is each character's major conflict?
• Use dialogue as the vehicle for action with one character acting on another.
• Try writing a step outline first, rather than a screenplay.
• First drafts are dreadful.
• Write no matter what.
• Circle among screenplay, step outline, and premise, and revise each as necessary.
• Don't be afraid to write by association: Let things happen and see where they lead.
• Really make us see the characters.
• Work to create a mood.
• Write visually and behaviorally, which is where the cinema excels.
• Write for the silent screen and let yourself resort to dialogue later.
• Distill a dramatic premise for the piece and one for each scene.
• Don't produce characters just as you need them; write them so they function earlier.
• Pitch your idea to anyone who'll listen. You'll learn a lot from their reactions.
• Make your audience laugh, make them cry, but make them wait (for explanations).
• Keep the audience in suspense and anticipation about as much as possible (but not past the point of patience).
• Never use a line where an action could function just as well.
• Don't cave in to critics. Wait to see what you feel is true.

The screenplay

• To begin with, write and direct your own short works, 3–10 minutes maximum.
• Choose subjects you really care about, but avoid autobiography unless you have at least 5 years' distance on the events.
• Look for a reliable, compatible writing collaborator.
• Write about what calls to you, and write about what you need to explore.
• First work on a step outline; do not write a script straight away.
• Start developing the premise once you have the events mapped out.
• Rewrite the piece as successive drafts.
• Just keep writing and rewriting regularly; don't wait for inspiration.
• Work on your characters first and foremost. Interesting characters are bound, sooner or later, to develop into a good story if you let them.
• Aim to tell a good story—don't set out to preach or advocate ideas.
• Look for actions or objects that can function as a ruling image or a symbol of something larger embedded in the scene or story.
• Practice pitching your idea (describing it briefly and well).
• Use standard screenplay or split screen formats only for your final drafts.
• Write behaviorally, as if for the silent screen, and allow yourself to add dialogue later.
• What do you want your audience to feel, and what do you want them to think?
• How well does the screenplay pose questions for the audience to solve?
• How open is the screenplay for the audience to think, listen (sound design), and hypothesize solutions to questions that arise?
• Create a version of the script with a third column that details what the Observer (and therefore the audience) must notice.
• Write a premise.
• Write a treatment. You may solve problems in writing the treatment that lead you back to a rewrite of the screenplay.
• Test out your screenplay with a dramatic reading and a critique session. You may learn something important.
• Take part in script readings and critique sessions of other people's work so you know how you want to handle such a session for your work.

Adapting a book, play, or short story

• Adapting anything well known presents many problems, and you will probably have to stay faithful to the original.
• Cutting and compressing are always acceptable.
• A free adaptation is more courageous, if the piece warrants it in translating to the screen.
• Short stories often make great adaptations, but get copyright clearance and make sure you are choosing for cinematic, not literary, reasons.
• You can base a film on adaptations or improvisations from your actors' lives.
• A documentary approach involving research can be a potent way of laying the foundations for a good script.

Story development

• Early versions of stories always need development.
• Make sure you begin with an up-to-date step outline.
• Classify your tale according to the nearest basic dramatic theme and situation, as well as any myths, legends, or folk tales that parallel yours.
• Put the outline of your screenplay next to its archetypal collaterals and see what you can learn from an outline of the other work.
• Most stories are forms of journey, so check your piece against the archetypal Hero's Journey steps.
• Make sure major characters have interesting character flaws and contradictions.
• Be ready to alter scenes to make better use of the actors.
• Apply the scene assessment criteria (Appendix 1: Assessment 11–1).
• Submit your work to as many objective readers as you can, making sure they don't lose their objectivity by reading more than one or two drafts.
• Make sure you can live with the representations in your script and you don't violate your own ethics and standards.

Fundraising

• Put together a prospectus complete with photographs; you will be surprised what you discover when you set out to sell something.
• See if you can raise some funds; begin with family members if need be.