Location, Location, Location

Six miles to Exposition City.
Ten kilometers, using the metric system.

Professor Richard Walter of UCLA is a proponent of integrated screenplays. Namely, that every line, action, scene, and script tells us something about character as well as moves the story forward.

To paraphrase him, he discusses the extension of this idea to setting, and how far too many scenes are set in coffee shops and restaurants. Blake Snyder calls this idea "the pope in the pool."

Professor Tim Albaugh of UCLA and Hollins University tells us that the world of your film should create physical/plot and emotional/thematic conflict, including but not limited to affecting character (location can act as one, can define one, or establish stakes, etc.), mood/tone, plot complications, or even reflecting the story, itself.

I instruct my own students to always default, in their writing, to action. I tell them that if an action will perform the work of a line of dialogue, choose the action. Dialogue, I tell them, is one method of communicating to an audience, but it is not the only method, and not always the preferred method.

What I (and these instructors) are saying is that you should use the same line of thinking before writing your slugline. If you need to have a conversation between two characters, it's the easiest thing in the world to write:

INT. COFFEE SHOP - DAY
EXT. SIDEWALK CAFE - DAY
INT. CEO'S OFFICE - NIGHT

...for a meeting between two characters. But unless it's integrated, it's boring. We've seen it a thousand times. How many restaurant and coffee shop scenes have you seen? Too many. Just as you need to train yourself to think, "action over dialogue," you need to think, "integrated setting over non-integrated setting."

I'll use a few examples, starting with Snyder's "pope in the pool." Snyder states our goal: relay information while keeping audience attention. He relates a scene from the script, The Plot to Kill the Pope by George Englund, in which the audience is told that someone plans to kill the pope. However, instead of this scene taking place in a stuffy office or in a restaurant, it takes place at the Vatican swimming pool, with the pope in a bathing suit. It's a terrific, unusual image, and we're so entertained by it that the writer's job of slipping us expository information becomes that much easier.

Another great example comes from George Lucas's screenplay to Star Wars: Episode IV. Obi Wan throws the gauntlet at Luke's feet: "You must learn the ways of the force if you're to come with me to Alderaan." But the galaxy is a dangerous place, which we learn before even setting foot off of Tatooine. Make no mistake: Mos Eisley spaceport is a setting that screams integration. Like Luke, we're blindsided by scum and villainy. From catchy lounge music to scoundrel smugglers to aliens with the strangest-shaped heads in the universe, the expository information that flows into our brains through Han Solo and Obi Wan's negotiations is passed deftly under the cloak of the setting. Lucas doesn't merely tell us that Mos Eisley is dangerous: he shows us, from the stormtrooper guards at the gate to the bloody incident with the fellow who's wanted in twelve systems. By the time our heroes sit down over a drink, the setting has already been established as its own character.

In the opening scene of The Social Network, we're treated to a packed restaurant. However, this scene is assuredly integrated. Look no further than the line, "The reason we're able to sit here and drink right now is because you used to sleep with the door guy." Mark's entire outlook on his relationship and on social stratification is summed up in this line, and it could only be said in such a place, at such a time.

If two characters need to talk about something, if they have to tell us something, always show us something engaging, simultaneously. Have them doing something. Give them hobbies, habits, superstitions, and the like. In Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, we have two hitmen, having a conversation about fast food in Europe and foot massages, on their way to a hit. It could be a standard conversation, but there's something to see in every frame.

For reasons I can't recall, my favorite go-to example is to have a character conversation over a bike repair. It could be a conversation about anything, but having a character fixing a bike can show us a lot about the character as well as give us needed information in a way that's a bit sneaky, yet most effective. As Andrew Stanton of Pixar says, "The audience wants to work for their meal: they just don't want to know that they're doing it."

It takes work, however, to make the audience work, and a good place to start is with setting. Bring us there and show us what you have.

Selfishness Is a Virtue

Film hasn't been invented, yet. Why am I screenwriting?

Two things are required for a story: a character and a situation. The former must be complex, the latter should be simple. Both must be ironic. If it sounds easy, you're doing it wrong.

Over the course of a well-told story, a flawed, sympathetic, interesting protagonist struggles for what he/she wants more than anything, ultimately changing him/herself or inspiring change in others. Someone, over the course of your story, grows up. Films are, to borrow a phrase from author Philip Pullman, about the transition of "innocence into experience."

However, interesting ≠ likable. A protagonist does not need to be likable. However, if they're not likeable, they had better darn well be charismatic and interesting. And ideally, they've experienced an injustice or loss (i.e., they must be sympathetic). But this does not mean that they must be the nicest person in the room. Oftentimes, they're not.

Some of the best film characters have been anything but likable. The Godfather's Michael Corleone, There Will Be Blood's Daniel Plainview, Casablanca's Rick Blaine, Citizen Kane's Charles Foster Kane, A Clockwork Orange's Alex DeLarge, Amadeus's Antonio Salieri... each of these characters have displayed elements of selfishness and/or violence, but they're certainly interesting and complex.

A good place to start would be to imagine a conversation between two secondary characters about your protagonist. What would they say?

"He's a brilliant composer."

"He is, but his vanity will be his downfall."

Right there, we have two key attributes that lend considerable weight to characterization. A brilliant composer who is his own worst enemy. I'd go even further and say that every protagonist must in some way be selfish. Selfish does not mean dislikable, but by definition, an active protagonist is willing to move heaven and earth to obtain what he/she wants. Isn't that a bit selfish? A protagonist needs to sacrifice to make his/her plans come to fruition, but what if a protagonist, in his/her drive to the goal, ends up marginalizing or hurting others? A truly sympathetic protagonist should intentionally hurt no one other then him/herself, and oftentimes, the great irony of a protagonist is that the further they stretch toward their goal, the more they hurt themselves. In either case, in order to attain his/her goal, a protagonist will have some big decisions to make, and acting on such decisions will show us more about your character than anything you could otherwise tell us.

Some characters are selfish to the end. See Citizen Kane:

Some characters aren't. See Up:

But in both cases, there exist characters who need to make it over themselves. Your protagonist must start in a situation wherein they have a long way to go. Their own internal complexities are what make a potentially otherwise easy journey especially difficult. They might have a worthy antagonist to defeat, but first, they must slay their own selfish natures.

When Cameron Wasn't in Egypt Land

One of these four (car included) will not survive the day.

I recently re-watched John Hughes's Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It was my first time watching it in years, and I wasn't surprised to find myself seeing it through a more critical eye. Specifically, I realized that while Ferris is the titular and the most active character, his greatest acts are how he changes everyone around him: his ornery sister, his girlfriend, and most importantly, his anxious friend, Cameron.

Howard Suber has taught innumerable courses at UCLA. He is a gifted teacher of screenwriting, and I highly recommend his book, The Power of Film. In it, Suber writes, "There are two basic kinds of change in storytelling: of circumstances and of character." In changes of circumstances, he goes on to say, "the circumstances of the central character change, but by the film's end the characters are still essentially who they were in the beginning."

In changes of character, he says, "the central characters... are not only in greatly changed circumstances by the end of the film – they are not who they were at the beginning" and "Such changes of character are even more important than the changes in circumstances."

Ferris undergoes a change of circumstances. His grumpy principal, Ed Rooney, takes it upon himself to catch Ferris in the act of skipping school. And, for the first time, he does. It's a position in which Ferris has never before been. His own sister comments that everything works out for him. But on this day, it doesn't. Ferris is stuck in a situation that he can't escape on his own. The look in his eyes (and the script) when Rooney finally confronts him tells us so:

But of all the characters in the film, Cameron has the clearest change of character, the greatest barrier to overcome, and is, in my opinion, the most interesting character in the story. Where does he start? He won't even climb out of bed until Ferris annoys him enough to leave his own room. He says, "I can't handle anything: school, parents, the future." Where does he end up? Killing his father's prized car. It might be Ferris's day off, but it's Cameron who grows up.

How do you inject such a powerful emotional arc into your own stories?

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone goes from, "That's my family, Kay. It's not me" to "Just lie here, Pop. I'll take care of you, now. I'm with you now. I'm with you."

In Finding Nemo, Marlin goes from "You think you can do these things, but you can't, Nemo!" to "You're right. I know you can."

In The Shawshank Redemption, Red goes from, "Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane" to "I hope."

In Up, Carl goes from, "Stay away from our mailbox! I don't want you to touch it!" to "You know, it's just a house."

These are lines, of course, and they're not a bad place to start. But when it comes to really plotting out character arc, better still would be to find defining actions:

In The Graduate, Benjamin floats directionless in a swimming pool. In the end, he steals Elaine from her own wedding.

In As Good as it Gets, Melvin Udall goes from shoving a dog down a garbage chute to demonstrating care and compassion for said dog.

In Jurassic Park, Dr. Alan Grant goes from threatening a child to saving children.

In Ferris Bueller, Cameron goes from bedridden to car-killer.

Cameron starts in Egypt. He makes it to his Promised Land, and it's better than anything for which Ferris could've prepared him. If you're not sure what to do with your character, then having a clear idea as to where they start and where they end is a great way to begin the process.

Trial by Writer

"My writing and my coffee could be stronger."

I've run and been a member of a few screenwriting workshop groups, the sole intent of each has been to meet, commiserate over the craft, and most importantly, to read and review our own work. Ideally, we'd point out the strengths of each piece as well as heap upon it as much constructive criticism as possible, with the intent to improve a work.

I'm a firm believer that if you workshop your work with more writers, your work will become better. You'll hear what's working and what isn't. You'll come across new ideas that you can make your own. There's really no downside. However, the double-edged sword inherent regards knowing which advice is good advice, and, perhaps more importantly, knowing that constructive criticism is not an attack.

A first draft will never be perfect. Period. I don't care if you're a Nobel Prize, Man Booker, Newbery, Academy Award, or Pulitzer winner. Your favorite author or screenwriter, I promise you, takes dozens, sometimes scores, sometimes more, drafts to turn what he/she is trying to say into what he/she says.

We are writers. We dare to take emotions and describe them with mere words. It takes more than a first draft to effectively accomplish that.

I ran a group screenwriting meeting about a year ago, during which a young woman brought in a dozen pages of her own script. The content doesn't really matter for this story. After reading her pages in-group, the dozen of us around the table discussed what we liked about her characterizations, her story, and the conflict. She thanked us for our input.

Then, different writers suggested that she remove a scene, cut down a long stretch of dialogue, and end another scene differently. There was general agreement among those assembled that this might help the work and focus it stronger onto her main story.

She defended each critique, point by point, as if to the death. "But she tells us in that scene how she's been hurt in the past!" "But that dialogue sets up another conversation for later on!" "But she has to say how angry she is, otherwise how will we know?"

To sum up the criticism, we were challenging her to make the same points more effectively and concisely. Avoid redundancy. Show, don't tell. Granted, not all advice is good advice, but to assume that all advice misses the mark, misses the point.

Being a good writer means more than simply completing draft after draft. Unless you're writing only for yourself, it means writing for an audience, which means that your work will be evaluated. If not by other writers, then by agents, managers, editors, producers, actors, investors, directors, and the public. You might write alone, but your work, by design, is hopefully destined for anything but obscurity. Making it onto the bestseller list or the screen means exposing it to other people along the way: other creatives, marketers, and potential buyers. A reputation as a writer is hard enough to establish: a reputation as a writer who doesn't take constructive criticism can kill a career.

I can't tell you that all advice is good, but I extol as wise whoever takes criticism and makes it his or her own. And it's not enough to expect that your work will be torn up a bit. Desire it. Your favorite writers often work with editors to make their work even better. You've written for so long about characters who undergo a trial by fire and emerge stronger. Why should your own experience be any different?

The Problem with Argo

The line for Epcot is insane.

I enjoyed Ben Affleck's Argo, Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty, and Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran's 24, formerly on Fox. These three properties have a bit in common:

1. They include some of the best suspense writing of the past dozen years.
2. I probably won't ever watch them again.

It comes down to character. It's fun to watch characters change. I could watch Pixar's Up once a week. Tom Hooper's Les Miserables, also. The difference I'm talking about is one regarding plot-driven vs. character-driven. Reactive vs. active. And when I refer to active, I don't mean just physically. A storyteller knows that the physical journey (the trip to Iran to free the Americans, the hunt for Bin Laden, stopping a bomb) is only half the story. The other half is the emotional component: how does Carl Fredricksen change over the course of Up? How does Jean Valjean change in Les Miserables?

Slate critic Dana Stevens writes that Ben Affleck's Tony Mendez, "...remains something of an emotional cipher, and not in a mysterious way, just in a dull one... The night before Mendez and the houseguests make their big break for the airport, Affleck gives us a dusk-to-dawn montage of Mendez alone in his hotel room, smoking cigarettes and drinking whiskey as he wrestles with whether or not to go through with the plan. With the right actor, this wordless interlude could have made for a powerful existential mini-drama: the dark night of the CIA-agent soul. Instead, it just sort of felt like watching Ben Affleck get hammered."

I'd say that it's even more than picking the right actor. The bit about Mendez "taking a break" from his wife and child seems tacked on, and resolves itself so quickly in the end that one is forced to wonder if it was written by the same writer. How is Mendez a lackluster father? Why does he need to "take a break" from his family? How do his actions in Iran help him realize that his son needs him as a role model? They don't. He has a job. He does it. The end. The film is entertaining, but you already know how it ends. There's a plot in Argo, but it lacks a theme. What's Argo trying to tell us? Something about courage, I'd guess, but for who's sake? Mendez is driven, but why? For himself? His son? His country? We simply don't know why he does what he does. We just know that he does it, and while it's suspenseful, a potential flat performance comes out of a flat character.

There's a similar issue at work in Zero Dark Thirty. Like Argo, the direction, cinematography, and production design are notably tight. But I'm looking at this through screenwriting glasses, and the view dismays.

Jessica Chastain plays firebrand CIA operative Maya. Detroit News critic Tom Long says, "Here's how good an actress Jessica Chastain is: She can make a hero out of nobody... Chastain is basically working with nothing here: We have no insights into Maya's background, her personal life, her inner turmoils, nothing."

The plot question of Zero is, "Will Maya catch Bin Laden?" The thematic question, the emotional component is... do you know? Because I don't. Maya's obsessed with finding Bin Laden. That's all the information we have about her. Sure, her friend Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) dies in a terrorist attack (mid-film) and that strengthens Maya's resolve... but Maya's already firing on all cylinders, by then. Does her friend's death change anything? No, it doesn't. Maya was already treating the hunt like a personal crusade, so much so that when it does become a personal crusade, the energy level, already high, doesn't creep much higher.

Did Maya lose someone in the 9/11 attacks? Does she come from a family of federal operatives, and she was never good enough for her father? What drives her? What drives Tony Mendez in Argo? What drives Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in 24?

They work for the government: it's their job to be driven, to catch the bad guys. But not everyone is drawn to that line of work, and the people who are appear endlessly fascinating to those of us on the outside. Look at the success of a show like Dick Wolf's Law and Order. Of course, Law and Order is also plot-driven. It's the process that interests us, as opposed to the people.

Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are films about processes. In the midst of all their suspense, people take a back seat.

To me, at least, people are more fascinating. I'm not saying that every film should be just about character or just about story.

I'm saying that every film should be just about both.

Three Ways to Introduce Your Protagonist

She'll be back.

I recently read a first draft script from a promising writer about a young woman battling hormone-drenched desires while growing up in a conservative, religious environment. The very first scene in which we encounter the young woman, she's masturbating in a school bathroom. While it's an eyebrow-raising introduction to the character, I ultimately advised the writer against it.

When it comes to introducing your protagonist, there's a fine line to walk for any writer. Here are three things to keep in mind:


1. Your Character vs. the World.

The first introduction to a character is crucial, and it usually comes around the same time as our introduction to the world you've created. Some writers establish the world first. Some establish the character first. My advice is to establish both at once. Show the fishbowl along with the fish. How is your character at once a part of and at the same time separate from the world of your film? How do they see things? How do their friends/family/coworkers see them? Alan Ball's American Beauty script does a fantastic job of setting up Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) and the world of the film within the film's first five minutes. We not only have a good handle on how Lester perceives himself, but also how those around him perceive him. "Both my wife and daughter think I'm this gigantic loser. And they're right. I have lost something." He spends the rest of the film clawing to grab it back.


2. Avoid the Gratuitous.

Opening up on a masturbation scene will attract viewer attention like a lightning rod. That's good if you're going for attention, in the same way that opening on a gruesome murder is a good way to go for attention. However, consider the opening to any episode of Law and Order: there's an illegal act, which is oftentimes shocking, but the act itself is only as shocking as the context in which it appears. Why else do we spend the rest of the episode clamoring for justice? We care about those who have been wronged, and we want justice served.

Even in a film like Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Volume One, the opening scene, a blood-spattered bride on a chapel floor, is full of character, story, and context. Check out the dialogue for that scene:

We have one shot, and it's a disturbing one, at that. It's dark, violent, and grabs our attention immediately. It's iconic. But it's more than a beaten woman, shot on a floor. We learn so many things about the woman and her assailant in this scene that, if we don't mind the violence, we can't help but tune in for the remaining minutes of volumes one and two. This scene sets up so much, but ultimately, it forces us to ask two questions:

A. Why does a man who commits such a sadistic act consider himself, instead, masochistic?

B. What's the deal with the baby?

The two films are about a woman who seeks revenge for her own attempted murder and the apparent murder of her unborn child. The first scene of the first film tells us everything we need to know. It grabs attention, tells us a lot about the characters, and moves the story forward. It's a lot to do, but you absolutely must do it.


3. Show Us Their Uniqueness and Specific Problem.

Your protagonist sticks out. We're following him/her as opposed to his/her friends, parents, teachers, and so on.

So why are we doing that? What makes your character notable? It needs to be more than, "they're the only one who masturbates in the school lavatory." What will make your character unique is indeed what they do, but also why they do it. Why does Lester Burnham pursue the affections of a cheerleader? Why does Tony Stark seek to keep his own company's weapons out of the hands of terrorists in Iron Man? Why does Rick Blaine seek to use the letters of transit as leverage in Casablanca?

Your character is larger than life: he or she is the very best at something or the very worst at something. This is why we're following this character as opposed to another. Furthermore, your character has two problems: the first being the internal, thematic dilemma - what your character needs to do to become a better person. Then, there's the external, plot issue - what your character must do to fix unfortunate external circumstances. How your specific character grapples with both of these creates your entire story.

Regardless of what your character fights internally and externally, you have to show these to your audience as quickly as possible. Not to jam it down their throats, but to create a need to know and most importantly, a need to care. Andrew Stanton of Pixar calls this the number one commandment of storytelling: make me care. Within the first 10 pages of your feature, if we don't care, you've lost us. Tarantino does it in 30 seconds in Kill Bill.

You can do it, too.

This Changes Everything

"Sorry, but your father's in another castle."

One of the most recent scripts I've read was about the frontman for a Christian rock group who secretly snorts coke, drinks, and womanizes. A fun, ironic character, to be sure. Of course, he's his own worst enemy and winds up losing everything and teaching kids' choir in suburbia. At the end of the film, he picks up on one particular child's considerable talents and steals an original song from him in an effort to relaunch his career.

There was plenty of conflict between the protagonist and his bandmates, his fans, the priest at his church, and the choir kids. What, then, was the problem?

At issue was the fact that this guy started out being vain, selfish, and dislikable. He ended up as... well, vain, selfish, and dislikable. There are plenty of reasons behind why audiences go to see films: the visual effects, if it's based on an existing franchise with a built-in audience, a particular actor, and so on.

But I maintain that there's only one reason as to why audiences like a given story, whether high-budget studio or low-budget indie:

Character transition.

Over the course of your entire narrative (macrocosmic) and in every scene (microcosmic), your character must change. They cannot leave a scene, emotionally, the same way in which they entered it. They cannot leave your script, emotionally, the same way, either.

Look at Star Wars. In episodes IV through VI, Luke goes from country farmboy to savior of the galaxy and possessor of great wisdom. From angry and impulsive to cautious and measured. From hasty to responsible. Luke undergoes experiences, shakily walks the path of wisdom, then turns around and offers that wisdom to others. A nice, clean arc. Audiences like arcs.

In episodes I through III, however, we meet Luke's father, Anakin. Anakin starts out as angry, narcissistic, and whiny. In episode II, he's angry, narcissistic, whiny, and homicidal. In episode III, he's angry, narcissistic, whiny, and genocidal. Anakin doesn't arc. Sure, the new trilogy was a commercial blockbuster, but because of the built-in Star Wars brand. If episode I came out first and you had no further context, would the franchise have been taken seriously? How would you have convinced your friends to go see a film about a little boy and his six-foot, floppy-eared, frog friend trying to fight an army of droids?

To step back for a moment, consider that an audience, knowingly or not, projects itself onto your protagonist. A viewer can't help it. It's normal and natural. Whether a film, play, or novel, we instinctively search out bits of information about your protagonist that tell us, "I'm just like you. I want to be better than what I am."

By extension, I posit that it's far easier for your audience to like your protagonist, indeed to project themselves onto and invest themselves in the plight of your protagonist, if you make them relatable. How better to make a character relatable than to change them. And not only to change them, but to change their outlook on something to which we all relate.

The Harry Potter series is about a young man coming to terms with his own mortality. Will he master himself or fall prey to fear, as his nemesis has?

The Lord of the Rings series is about a young Hobbit coming to terms with desire. Will he master himself or fall prey to it, as his nemesis has?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is about a young man coming to terms with the inevitability of how relationships change. Will he accept it or give up, as his former girlfriend apparently has?

The Shawshank Redemption is about a falsely convicted felon attempting to maintain hope in a hopeless situation. Will he keep it alive or give up, as the warden and guards want him to do?

If your plot question is whether your protagonist will succeed in his/her physical journey, your thematic question is: will your protagonist grow?

If you want to write something commercially (and critically) successful, your characters must change. Simple as that.

Three Attributes Your Protagonist Must Have

The bench was reserved for someone named, "Wet Paint."

I was giving coverage to a colleague's short science fiction screenplay just recently, when I noticed something missing. There was plenty of action, suspense, and conflict. It told a good, ironic tale about the dangers of drug abuse (in space). However, the more I read it, the more I found myself simply not identifying with the protagonist. I didn't like her. And it didn't have to be that way.

Whether a screenplay, stage play, novel, video game, or short story, there are fundamental character attributes that you must include. These are:


1. A Goal

Too many writers fall into the, "I'm just writing a character study" trap. If you'd like your story to be at all engaging, then you must give your protagonist a tangible goal. A noun. And not just any noun will do. Their goal must be the single most important noun that they have ever pursued in their life, and what's more, the audience must be made to see why it's as important to your protagonist as it is.

In Casablanca Rick wants Ilsa. In American Beauty, Lester wants Angela. In Finding Nemo, Marlin wants Nemo. In Up, Carl wants to move his house to Paradise Falls. In Star Wars, Luke wants to save the princess. In Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, Harold and Kumar want to go to White Castle. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana wants the Holy Grail.

Characters need goals that spur them into action. The goal is the physical (as opposed to emotional) finish line. But as mentioned, we need to understand why these goals are important to the protagonist. The larger component of goal pursuit is the idea of emotional healing. Characters are hurt, and their pursuit of these goals, in their minds, will help them feel better.

Ilsa broke Rick's heart. Lester's wife, daughter, and employer give him no respect. Marlin lost most of his family. Carl lost his wife before he could keep a life-long promise to her. Luke couldn't protect his family. Harold and Kumar are dominated by parental expectations. Indiana has daddy issues. Across the board, we're dealing with characters who have issues. "Troubled people become people in trouble," as UCLA/Hollins screenwriting professor Tim Albaugh says.

What also helps to humanize them?


2. A Flaw

Perfect characters are boring. Your characters can't simply be victims. In some way, however small, your character must also be a victimizer. A little bit selfish. A little bit pigheaded. A little bit creepy. In a word, your character needs to be human.

Rick's wounded heart prevents him from giving Ilsa and her husband the letters of transit. Lester's a lousy role model and a creep. Marlin's a suffocating parent, overprotective to a fault. Carl resorts to violence when a construction worker touches his mailbox. Luke has a lot of anger within him. Harold and Kumar are layabout stoners. Indiana Jones wants to please his un-please-able father.

Not only are these characters flawed, but they see the world through their flaws. Their flaws are often their main characteristic, and it's through their flaws that they act. It's what needs to be fixed, so that these characters can end the script at a stage of completion, as having acquired wisdom. Wisdom with which they did not start out.

Every story is a coming-of-age story.


3. Compassion

Blake Snyder calls it "saving the cat." I call it common sense. Your character must be likable. Note that I didn't say "friendly" or "huggable." The Social Network's Mark Zuckerberg, There Will Be Blood's Daniel Plainview, and Citizen Kane's Charles Foster Kane are not your friends. However, they're the most interesting characters in the room. They have a deep dimensionality and rich complexity, and somewhere, deep down, they do have a soft spot for something. In Network, Mark just wants his girlfriend back. In Blood, Daniel just wants the family he never had. In Kane, Kane pines for the childhood that was denied him.

Despite how callous and selfish these characters are, who can't relate to what motivates them? True, we don't endorse their methods for doing it, but we understand how circumstances and psychology have forced their hands. How can you make a murderer sympathetic? Or a drug abuser? Or a pedophile? Just ask Dexter Morgan in James Manos, Jr.'s Dexter series, or Mark Renton in Danny Boyle's Trainspotting, or Ronnie McGorvey in Todd Field's Little Children. These characters, though more than occasionally reprehensible, evoke audience sympathy.

Despicable acts by sympathetic characters. The ones we relate to the most remind us, in some way, of mistakes we've made: promises broken, friends hurt, opportunities lost.

If nothing else, the best protagonists remind us that no matter how awful we've been, we can always be better.

Make sure your protagonist figures that out.

Three Ways to Fix a Broken Story

"Harry, we think your first draft needs work."

Being human is something we all somehow manage, daily. Writing about the human experience, though, is so very difficult. To construct a tale that artfully blends universal archetypes with your personal voice is quite possibly one of life's greatest challenges. It's right up there with controlling the weather or finding a table at Serendipity in Manhattan without a four-hour wait.

You've written your first draft. It took you weeks/months/years. It feels great to be done. Congratulations!

But a first draft is not brilliance. It's not even great. It's a first draft. A plot draft. It isn't the completed puzzle. It's the puzzle pieces, dumped out of the box and onto your floor.

Your work still needs work. Bestselling children's author Avi wrote over 50 drafts of his first chapter for Crispin: The Cross of Lead. That first chapter is only a few pages long. It's not that he didn't find the right words on the first try: it's that he eventually found the right words.

When advising my students with regards to editing, I posit that bigger problems ought to be fixed before smaller ones. Applied to your writing, these are the three areas I'd focus on, first and foremost:


1. Character Transition

This is the big secret. This is why we download ebooks, watch films, and see plays. In a word: change. We like watching a character start in one place and end up in another, emotionally. Watching someone, invested with human characteristics, struggle and fight to become better than what they are at the beginning of your story – that's why good stories are as popular as they are. Look at storytelling's biggest triumphs:

The Shawshank Redemption, a story of convicted murderer Ellis Redding (Morgan Freeman), his fellow inmate Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) and their transition from hopelessness to hope.

Harry Potter, a story of a young man, tempted by power and the lure of immortality, who ultimately accepts the fact that he will one day die.

American Beauty, the tale of Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a (self-styled) loser, and his transition to being a good father and role model, a veritable winner.

The Phantom of the Opera, among the most successful plays in history, is the story of a tortured musical genius transitioning from a life without compassion to finally forging a single, meaningful human connection.

It's not an accident that emotional transition is the soul of your piece, whether novel, short story, screenplay, or otherwise. Static characters are lame. The most compelling Indiana Jones films (Raiders and Last Crusade) are the ones in which Indiana learns something important about himself and demonstrates it at the end (i.e., repairing his relationship with his father).

Never, ever discount character transition. If a character doesn't change over the course of your work, then he or she must at least be challenged to change in every scene, and also change everyone around them (see The Social Network or Patton).


2. Conflict

You're not writing a biography about who your characters have been: you're spinning a yarn about who they are and will be. That's why your audience needs quick, efficient backstory and exposition. The trouble is how best to sneak that in while not seeming to.

Is your exposition integrated with the action, or does your story pause for it? If it pauses, it runs the risk of drawing attention to itself, and audiences know when the writer is feeding them exposition. Oh, how bitter the taste of blatant exposition.

While character transition plots your character over the entire arc of your story, the best way to tell us what your character is all about, at any given point in time, is conflict. Conflict within, and conflict without. Conflict between your character and the antagonist. Conflict between your character and his/her family. His/her friends. His/her pets. There is never enough conflict, and that suggestion alone seems to cause problems for some writers.

The most common excuse I hear is, "But my protagonist is friends with this other character! How can there be conflict between them?"

If you have real-life friends, you've very likely had real-life conflict with those friends. You can still be friends and have conflict. In fact, the strength of friendships is best defined when conflict hits. If they run at the first sign of stormy weather, then are they really your friend?

Look at Alan Grant (Sam Neill) and Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern) in Jurassic Park. They're a team. They work together. They're attracted to each other. But screenwriter David Koepp still packs in conflict:

It's good-natured, sure, but it's conflict and we learn a lot about both characters in a very small space of time. Alan Grant doesn't like kids, he's dismissive, he might be cheap, and he's smart. Ellie Sattler likes him, she likes kids, likes to tease, and is also intelligent. We see what binds these two together, what might drive them apart, the fact that they're both good friends, and it's all done through conflict. Every scene and interaction in your story must have it. Period.


3. Archetypal Story

Your characters must be relatable, and transition and conflict go leagues in making your audience care for them. But what about their quest? Their external story? What are they setting off to do? Granted, members of your target audience have likely never been romanced by a vampire, had to throw a powerful ring into a volcano, or constructed an iron man suit, so how will you make the cares of your characters into the cares of your audience?

Keep the stakes and story archetypal. My go-to examples for this are Pixar's Finding Nemo and Up. In Nemo our protagonist, Marlin, loses 400 family members in the first five minutes. In Up, our protagonist spends a lifetime with his spouse and loses her within the first 15. When I pause the films at this point and turn to my students, there's not a dry eye in the house, and I can guarantee you that none of them have ever lost 400 family members or spent a lifetime with a spouse.

Or, in the case of Harry Potter, our protagonist learns that he's a powerful wizard, and it's his destiny to defeat the greatest dark sorcerer who has ever lived.

How do we relate to this? How can we possibly?

These stories are successful because they deftly handle the archetypes. Namely, what is it that all humans have in common? We all know what it's like to desire something or someone. We all know what it's like to love and be loved, to fear death, to want to protect ourselves and those around us.

These must be the stakes of your story. These must be what your story's really about. Granted, you might not have lost 400 family members or even a spouse, but your audience will know what it feels like to have lost someone close. Your audience may not be wizards, but they will know what it's like to fear death. If you're writing a romance, then remember that everyone in your audience has "the one who got away."

That's what the best storytellers tap. It's not just the story of their characters: it's your story. The story of everyone. We all know love, loss, death, self-preservation, and desire. That's what it means to be human.

Whatever your character wants must somehow be tied in to what everyone wants.

*

On the next pass of your novel, script, play, or what-have-you, make sure that you've baked these tenets into your work. To remind us of ourselves while simultaneously taking us away is the daunting task ahead of every storyteller, but it's something you can and must certainly accomplish.

Put Desire in its Place

"I've brought you a goal. Sorry I was late."

I read a second draft of a short script earlier today. In it, three drunk, high, college students state their mission for the evening: to score.

The first scene of the script is set at their apartment as they prepare for the evening. The second scene takes place at a party, where said scoring almost-but-not-quite takes place, because, as aforementioned, we're dealing with three drunk, high, college dudes.

In the third scene, the three are pulled over and narrowly escape incarceration when the two conscious friends use their stoned, intoxicated state as an advantage, telling the cop, "We were speeding to bring our [unconscious] friend here to the hospital." The cop lets them go, and they continue on their way, having used their own flaws as an advantage to escape the law.

Assume that each of the three main male characters are well-delineated, that they're distinct from each other, and that they're funny.

What's wrong with this picture?

Well, what's their plot goal? To score. When do they accomplish/not accomplish it? In the middle of the script! Everything they're working towards, their main goal for even leaving the house that night, it's all wrapped up by scene two. They fail at it, and we're left wondering why the rest of the film is there.

My main point is to caution away the blossoming screenwriter from the following:

1. Letting your protagonist acquire that which he/she desires too early.
2. Telling us what said protagonist wants too late.

If your character has a goal (as your character should), then state it as soon as possible. Make it clear. Once it's stated, each of their remaining actions in your script must, in your character's mind, claw them closer to that goal. However, you, as the writer, must keep your protagonist away from his/her goal for as long as possible.

My story note to the writer was to switch the scenes of the pull-over and the arrival at the party. Show the college guys preparing, then show them being pulled over for speeding (being in a rush to score), and then show them arriving. They struggled, they fought, they made it.

Then, when they finally make it to the party, the place where their goal may be attained, that's not when to rest on your laurels and give them their reward, no questions asked. Goodness no.

You thought that readying for the night back at the apartment was tough? You thought that being pulled over meant curtains? Well once these guys meet up with what it is they want, that moment must explode out the biggest plot point. That's the scene to which your audience is most looking forward. Don't disappoint them! These guys fight every challenge they can (themselves, external forces) to make it to this party... only once they make it there, the most unexpected, dramatic event of all has to happen. Something less anticlimactic than, "The girls reject them," something less predictable than, "The girls are men," and something less passive/absurd than, "There's a gas leak and the whole party explodes."

What will happen?

Well, that's up to you, as the writer, to decide. Whatever it is, the pointers I'd give you would be to ensure that your main characters be at the center of it. Preferably the cause of it. Maybe these guys strike out, light up a bong to drown their sorrows, end up lighting the place on fire, and then have to end up saving the very girls who gave them the cold shoulder, one page prior. That's ironic. That's active. That's fun to watch. They transition from deadbeats to heroes in short order.

You could add in a final gag with the cop who pulled them over. He arrives to investigate the fire, he sees these same guys from before, and chases them off - ultimately giving us the final irony, that in their hurry to make it to the party to score, they end up not scoring at all. But at least they grabbed the girls' numbers. Etc.

This sort of situation comes up more often than you'd think. Indiana Jones spends most of Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom, and The Last Crusade seeking the ark, sankara stones, and grail, respectively. But in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull he grabs the skull in the middle of the story. He then spends the rest of the film with a new goal, which is to keep it out of the hands of the Russians. But once the main goal is accomplished, are we all that interested? There's some good action scenes, but a good action scene does not a compelling film make. He goes from someone who wanted something to someone who has something that he has to keep from everyone else. The first story, the search, the hunt, was far more interesting. Indiana remains Indiana, and no one really changes.

On the flip side, goals can sometimes be unstated until way too far into the film. This year's critical darling, Beasts of the Southern Wild, runs like a documentary until about 70 minutes in, when Hushpuppy decides to seek out her mother. Why she didn't try to seek her out any earlier is anyone's guess, but the film, despite being packed with conflict, essentially shows us a series of slice-of-life vignettes, with no real sense of character goals, until it's time to look for mom, far later into the film than it should be. I realize I'm likely in the minority on this, but for me, it makes the difference between a one-time theater watch and a later purchase, or even repeat viewing as a rental. Once was enough.

Bottom line: tell us what your protagonist wants as soon as possible. Then, force them into trying to obtain it. And lastly, keep them from acquiring it for as long as possible. Keep us guessing. Ask more questions than you answer. Your audience will thank you for it.

What's more, I'll even buy your film and watch it over and over again.

Eight Character Development Steps

I've taken classes where instructors assign character biographies. At first, to me, it seemed that writing a character bio was a waste of time: who cares if your protagonist was picked last for soccer games throughout middle school? Your film is about the way he is now, a 30-something architect and father who stands to lose everything after a business rival sabotages his latest and greatest building plans. What does one have to do with the other?

"It bestows immortality and tastes like rich, chocolate Ovaltine."

Screenwriter D. B. Gilles, who was an instructor of mine as an undergrad, writes that some storytellers start out with a killer story idea:

"The Holy Grail has been found, and the Nazis are after it."
"A prison break."
"A pauper finds a magic lamp."

...and others come up with the character first:

"An overprotective father who's lost his entire family except for one son."
"A cynical, world-weary nightclub owner in Morocco."
"A college dropout crushed by suicidal guilt after the death of his older brother."

There's no one "right" way to write (although there are plenty of wrong ways), and so as a writer, you can work either way, as befits your style.

However, I've found more and more that if you're starting from square one, having just a little bit of information about your character will essentially dictate your entire story arc. Put another way, if you can answer the following eight questions about your character, then you'll be well on your way to placing that character into a compelling, evocative story before you even type FADE IN:


1. What are they best at/worst at?

What UCLA/Hollins's Tim Albaugh calls, "Larger than life." What makes your character amazing? What is their skill set that sets them apart? Is it an asset or a liability? How is it integrated (i.e., how will it come into play over the course of your narrative)? What makes your character interesting from the beginning?


2. What is their greatest tangible desire?

What's the plot goal? The grail? Nemo? Ilsa Lund? Moving a house to Paradise Falls? What does your protagonist want more than anything else, something that he/she will move heaven and earth to attain? This must be something tangible, and not an abstract concept like "love," "respect," or "success." If they're after these things, then you must show a physical representation of it. Something that has a clear before and after moment: "Now that I've won the girl, I've found love," or "Now that I've found the grail, my father will respect me."


3. What is their greatest fear?

This question sets up what it is that your character must face. Whatever it is that they fear the most has to be an ever-hanging sword above their head. If they don't like spiders, they have to face the biggest, ugliest spider they've ever seen. If they fear solitude, then force them to confront their loneliness. This is where you dream up an ideal antagonist for your main character. Whoever it is they face off against must somehow evoke that of which your lead role is the most terrified. It's fun to watch people move past their fears. So will it be with your protagonist.


4. What are the stakes?

Blake Snyder calls these primal. He even goes as far as to say that your protagonist must somehow always be facing death. Death can be a metaphor for something else (there are things that are worse than death, after all), but whatever represents the worst possible outcome for your character must be omnipresent. In Up, if Carl doesn't move his house to Paradise Falls within three days, he won't make it there, and the single greatest promise he made to his late wife will remain forever unfulfilled (which would be tantamount to an emotional death, rather than physical). Donnie Darko has a month to save the universe from destruction. In Casablanca, the outcome of World War II might depend on whether or not Rick Blaine gives the letters of transit to his former lover and her husband. This must be a big deal. Somehow or other, lives must be at stake. If your protagonist fails, his/her life will be forever and irrevocably changed for the worse.


5. What is the wound?

Your character needs to have missed the boat on something. An opportunity to be the bigger person needs to have come their way, and in not taking it, tragedy struck. In Braveheart William Wallace's inaction in the beginning leads to the slaughter or his wife. In Finding Nemo, Marlin loses 400 family members in seconds. Ilsa walked out on Rick in Casablanca. This answers the questions, "Why is this character the way he/she is?" Why is Wallace such a ruthless war leader? Why is Marlin such a suffocating parent? Why is Rick so cynical? Have you ever played with a baby? They're lumps of happiness. Fast forward 20 years and they've become judgmental, self-centered, and selfish. What the hell happened? That's your wound.


6. What is their main flaw?

Perfect characters are boring. We like watching characters who are complex puzzles because we are complex puzzles, ourselves. As such, your character's biggest flaw must not only be intrinsically linked with their wound, but it also must shine forth as the character's defining characteristic. Whatever their flaw is, they must be wearing it on their sleeve in each and every scene. It tells them who to befriend, where to go, what to do, how to act. Their flaw defines them, and they spend the rest of your film trying to transcend it and define themselves.


7. How are they sympathetic?

The best characters remind us of ourselves, and as such they must deal with universal themes: love, loss, reaching for a goal, and so on. Everyone, from China to Brazil to Nigeria to Poland to Baltimore, everyone knows what it's like to have loved somebody or lost somebody. We all know what it's like to be jealous, to feel pain, to aspire to be greater. The most successful franchises deal with these themes. Your characters must remind us of ourselves. They must be underdogs. We need to want to see them win, because we want to see ourselves win.


8. Who are their allies?

Aesop said, "You're judged by the company you keep." Who are the sorts with whom your character kicks back? Who are his/her friends? How do they compliment your protagonist without being another version of your protagonist? How are they opposites? Why are they friends? What needs do they have that the other fills? How do these relationships change over the course of the film? They have to. They must be twisted, strained, and pushed to the breaking point. Sometimes, allies become enemies. Sometimes, allies remind protagonists of what they're fighting for. Regardless, as a film is the crisis point of your character's life, it must also represent, in extreme fashion, the crisis point of these relationships.


If you can answer these questions about your character, then you're much further along into telling us who they are, what motivates them, what actions they'll take, what they want, and why we want them to win it. In short, you'll be that much closer to a film. You can do it!

Actions Speak Louder Than

"Do or do not. But if you do, kick butt at it."

I'm teaching a class on writing the short subject this semester. I relish the chance to face a room full of former-mes and essentially tell them, "You must unlearn what you have learned."

NYU Professor Mick Stern, my very first screenwriting teacher, would always ask me, "Where's the conflict?"

I'd reply, "Right there! In my script!"

He'd counter, "Not enough!"

It took me 10 years to figure out what he meant, and I still have lots to learn. I give my students plenty of advice and adages I've picked up throughout the years (although picking up advice is far different from internalizing it!) but one of my favorites, one that the storytelling masters at Pixar have down to a T, is the idea of actions speaking louder than words, which is really a subheading under "show, don't tell."

My favorite two love stories to compare are to be found within Andrew Stanton's WALL-E and George Lucas's Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith. Two love stories, both set in a futuristic setting, both involving space travel. Similarities end there. The only way that we know how WALL-E feels about the sleek EVE is by studying what he does. Twenty minutes in, I'm far more convinced that the love between these two robots is genuine than I've been about any other love story I've seen, before or since.

Contrast that with whiny, selfish, narcissistic Anakin Skywalker, who can't stop telling everyone how angry he is, and yet we're still meant to believe that his girlfriend, Amidala, still has a crush on a "misunderstood" guy who happens to butcher children.

Let me make it clear: one of these methods creates franchises. The other one perpetuates them, without necessarily adding anything new.

One of the first assignments I give in any writing class is to write a complete screen story, with conflict (usually about two or three pages) without including any dialogue. All emotions, feelings, inclinations, thoughts, and so on, must be somehow internalized through action. Show us how much he loves her. Show us if she can't stand him. And so on.

The default I try to instill in my students is, "Think first, 'How can I show this through an action, rather through dialogue?'" Too many Aaron Sorkin and Quentin Tarantino fans think that dialogue is the always best way to move story forward and tell us something about the characters.

It's not always the best way.

It's a way. It's a tool in your writer's bag of tricks. However, it's a tool just like voice-overs, flashbacks, montages, and parallel action. It's an option, and not always the best one. Just because it works sometimes doesn't mean that it should be your go-to default move every time you need to transmit information to the audience.

In Pixar's Up, Carl Fredricksen loves Ellie. In WALL-E, WALL-E loves EVE. Do either of those characters ever, once, in either of those films, actually say, "I love you"?

They don't. Not once.

Because of their actions, they don't need to say it. They know how they feel about each other.

More importantly, as the audience, so do we.

Cut!

It takes a second to toss a ring into a volcano.

Editing (\ˈe-dət-iŋ\): a curious act that simultaneously inflicts pain and pleasure.

I'm a big fan of what UCLA professor Richard Walter refers to as integration. This is the idea that your script, your scenes, your actions, your dialogue, everything, must accomplish two tasks:

1. Tell us more about the character.
2. Move the story forward.

Walter posits that if a script is integrated from start to finish, then that's a huge step in the right direction. I agree, and I'd like to couple that with an idea that fellow UCLA professor Hal Ackerman shared in a recent lecture that I had the pleasure of attending.

Ackerman stated that when a U.S. president is elected for a second term, he asks his entire cabinet to submit their resignations. The president then approves or rejects the resignations, depending on whether or not he wants them in his second-term cabinet. Ackerman then extrapolated this anecdote to apply to a screenplay. "Each scene must submit its resignation," he said, "and justify its continued existence in your script."

Well said. Like Michelangelo, who freed David from a block of marble, or da Vinci, who produced the Mona Lisa from a just-right amount of oil paint, or Peter Jackson, whose rough cut of The Return of the King was fabled to be over six hours long – if you write, you create. That's certain.

However, inherent in writing, inherent in artistry, and just as important, is the ability, indeed, the duty to destroy.

Or, as professor/screenwriter Mari Kornhauser bluntly states, "Sometimes, you have to kill your babies" (after Faulkner).

For your voice to shine through your work as purely as possible, you must edit. Being an artist means knowing what to take out, as much as it means knowing what to put in.

Or, as classical pianist Artur Schnabel said, "The notes I handle no better than many pianists. But the pauses between the notes ah, that is where the art resides."

It's not just about choosing sublime words. It's knowing when to remove certain sublime words to make your work even better.

In most of the early-draft scripts I see, the biggest issue is the unnecessary inclusion of what Professor Tim Albaugh calls "the movie outside your movie." I read a draft recently that included a sequence with a young man leaving his art studio, heading out of the building, going to the train station, catching a train, sitting on the train, walking from the terminus station to his house, and finally entering his house.

My notes to the writer were, "What does this tell us about the character? How are we engaged? What invests us in this train ride so strongly that necessitates our seeing it? Why couldn't he simply leave the studio and arrive home? It's implied that he had to transport himself there."

That's an easy one. It's a lot tougher when you have to cut an action-filled or dialogue-heavy scene. First drafts are called first drafts for a reason. Screenwriter David Koepp (Spider-Man, The Lost World, Carlito's Way) said, "I'm successful because I can tolerate 17 drafts." From what I hear, 17 drafts is on the lower end of things. Expect to do more.

Screenwriter and friend Kelly Fullerton has a helpful formula. It boils down to, "A character wants something, but X, Y, and Z stand in his/her way." The trick is to tell that story as simply as possible. Simple story, complex characters.

Each line, action, and scene exists in your script for a reason. As soon as that reason's accomplished, move on to the next scene. Don't take 10 pages to say what you can say in half a page. Look up the Buddha's Flower Sermon, for an even more poignant example. Wisdom without words.

Less is more.

Embrace the Fear

"I'll build my castle here. It shall be made of awesome."

There's a difference between people and characters, just as there's a difference between real-people-speak and film dialogue. UCLA's Richard Walter asks, "Is that line of dialogue worth paying money for?" and he's right. People who say that a certain film's characters "talk just like how real people talk," are only fooled into thinking so. Ever see The Social Network? Or Game of Thrones? No one is as witty as Tyrion Lannister. That's what makes him Tyrion Lannister.

Another important point to make is that your characters, in addition to being fun to listen to, must also be fun to watch, and rarely is a character more fun to watch than when they're embroiled in conflict, and ever the more so if that conflict is representative of your character's greatest fear.

Before you set pen to paper, it's a damn good idea to know what your character fears the most. Screenwriter Blake Snyder called these primal motivations: "survival, hunger, sex, protection of loved ones, or fear of death." What, at its most fundamental level, does your character set out to do?

And ultimately, what does your character fear the most? What stands in his or her way? What conspires to defeat them at every turn? If you're a writer, you have to know the answers to these questions.

A character's reaction to his or her greatest fear is to see their flaw in action.

Examples:

Unsuccessful screenwriter Joe Gillis, in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, fears a one-way trip back to Dayton, Ohio, where he'd likely spend the rest of his days in obscurity, covering local funerals for the paper. His flaw kicks in when we see how wealth goes to his head, how he pushes away those who love him the most. His desperation to be somebody, his flaw, lead to his actions to pursue success from a questionable source.

Headstrong Jedi Anakin Skywalker, in George Lucas's Star Wars saga has plenty of flaws, the greatest of which we see in action as he commits mass murder to prevent his wife's death. His inability to accept that everything dies (foreshadowed rather strongly at the death of his mother) causes his ultimately doomed attempt to save his wife.

In Christopher Nolan's Inception, information thief Dom Cobb fears never seeing his children again, so he takes on the riskiest mission of his career despite his self-doubt, due to the guilt that dogs him over his own wife's death while performing a similar operation. His doubt manifests itself as the film's primary antagonist, the memory of his deceased wife, who appears at the most inconvenient times while he invades the dreams of others.

Silent film actor George Valentin, in Michel Hazanavicius's The Artist, betrays his flaw, excessive pride, after the birth of talking pictures sidelines him. He stubbornly remains locked in a world that he believes should cater to him, as opposed to the way the world actually works. He refuses opportunity after opportunity, and hastens his own downward spiral.

If you underscore your characters' greatest fears, you will generate motivation for the defining actions they go on to perform in your story. If you set up the odds just right, they'll want nothing more than to prove to themselves, the world, and you, that they can do it.

Good Bad Guys

"I only just met you. Should we be dancing this close?"

Good writing is about characters in conflict with other characters. This typically leads to a protagonist (a sympathetic, flawed, window through whom we experience the story) up against an antagonist, who opposes the protagonist at every turn.

The first thing you need to expunge from your mind, as a writer, is the idea of the "bad guy." No one wakes up in the morning and says, "You know what? I'm going to be positively evil today." All actions that a person performs are usually justified from that person's own frame of cultural reference and point of view. What's good for one person might be bad for another. Or, to quote Six Feet Under episode Out, Out, Brief Candle, "Everything's bad for something."

Sympathetic, flawed protagonists need sympathetic, flawed antagonists. It might seem counter-intuitive, but you absolutely must make your antagonists somehow relatable. Not every antagonist is (Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park, or Palpatine in Star Wars) but the most effective ones, the most tragic ones, are:

Charles Muntz in Up is driven to murder in order to catch an exotic bird and clear his name. Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight wants retribution after his disfigurement and the death of his paramour. Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard can't let go of her glory days as a silent film actress and is willing to do anything to return to the spotlight.

Regardless of how relatable an antagonist is, they all share one thing in common: they all want to possess something. They all want stuff. They won't let go. Antagonists sure are selfish.

But in some way, shape, or form, we're all selfish. Good antagonists merely take this to the extreme.

Tim Albaugh of UCLA and Hollins puts it succinctly: "A villain doesn't know when to stop." By extension, a hero does. A hero learns the wisdom that the antagonist lacks (or ignores) and winds up on top at the crucial moment.

The best adversaries are the ones who represent a darker version of the hero him/herself. If you're a fan of mythology and the archetypes inherent (see Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, and Christopher Vogler), then you already know a fair amount about the Shadow archetype. There's no "bad guy" archetype per se, although there's a Shadow. Literally, area of darkness. The anti-protagonist (not antihero), the shadow can value itself over others, or put others in danger to save itself or to achieve its ends. Selfish, greedy, obsessed. Many protagonists (in fact, the best) possess aspects of the Shadow. Remember Luke Skywalker fighting himself in the cave on Dagobah? Or Frodo screaming at Sam that the One Ring was his own responsibility? Or Amadeus calling Italians "musical idiots"?

We all have some Shadow in us. The antagonist merely features this archetype closer to the surface than his/her heroic qualities. What I recommend is that you give them solid reasons for being that way.

Harvey Dent becomes an antagonist, but we understand what drove him to the depths of obsession and madness. We don't applaud what he does, but we understand why he feels the need to do it. What UCLA's Hal Ackerman refers to as intimacy. In The Lord of the Rings, while Sauron isn't too relatable, Gollum certainly is. Nearly desire incarnate, he fights (or pretends to fight) a losing war against a want that's tormented him for 500 years. Or look at Robert Mitchum's creepy portrayal of Harry Powell in The Night of the Hunter. He's a misogynistic serial killer, but he operates according to his own belief system and moral code, which he believes comes directly from God. Or Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the relentless hitman in No Country for Old Men. He's a machine, a tool, with a task: go there, get this, remove anyone who stops you. It's an extreme version of anyone who is given a task at which failure is not an option. Even he has his own set of rules. We don't necessarily endorse what these antagonists do, but we understand why circumstances forced them to be who they are.

Consider this: it's been said that we dislike the people we dislike because they remind us of something we don't like about ourselves. Otherwise, we'd be indifferent.

Christopher Nolan, when asked about Batman's antagonists, said, "[Batman’s] best adversaries are the ones who represent some other, darker direction he could have chosen."

The best bad guys are, in essence, your good guys, but having surrendered to their flaw. Charles Muntz in Pixar's Up is unable to let go of a dream, and it's this rigid state that dooms him. Up's protagonist, Carl Fredricksen learns how to let go, and he turns out just fine. The Dark Knight's Joker is a version of Batman who has lost faith in humanity: "When the chips are down, these... civilized people, they'll eat each other. See, I'm not a monster. I'm just ahead of the curve."

The best antagonists aren't monsters, either. They're obsessed and unwilling to let go. They're human. Sometimes, that means that they're you or me.

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Screenwriters

"Gimmie five for seven habits."

Stephen Covey, author of the widely-read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, has passed away at the age of 79. Inspired by his desire to make the world a better place, I've assembled the following list. It's my hope that the advice herein is applicable to all writers, regardless of medium. Starting with number seven:


7. Insert Emotional Transition

Whether a novel, short story, or screenplay, your character needs to start in one emotional place and end in another. Their way of looking at the world must fundamentally change. Or, at the very least, be challenged every step of the way (Such as in Citizen Kane, Patton, or The Social Network). Innocence to experience.

In Pixar's Up, Carl Fredricksen transitions from a fellow who's willing to clock a guy over the head for touching a mailbox to a hero who dismisses the loss of his house with, "It's just a house." The Carl at the end of Up is not the Carl at the beginning, and we love him all the more.

Some characters, such as James Bond and Indiana Jones, don't always change per se, but the most compelling characters do. The most memorable characters do. The most human, the most effective – do. We love stories because of emotional transition. Characters who change remind us that human nature is a struggle between stagnation and adaptation to new circumstances.


6. Keep Goals Tangible

Love. Success. Dignity. Noble pursuits. Human pursuits. Abstractions.

What personifies these for your characters? It's not enough for your character to want love, success, or dignity. They have to want something specific, something tangible. Something that stands for that which they feel is lacking in their lives. Something tangible is something of which you can take a photo. A lovely white robot (Pixar's WALL-E). A cheerleader (Alan Ball's American Beauty). A holy grail (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). Your character's goal must be tangible. In striving for a tangible element, what they want, they discover what it is that they need.

WALL-E learns that love requires sacrifice. Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey) learns to be a better father. Indiana Jones learns how to let go, to accept that death is inevitable. In pursuing the want, your protagonist receives what they need. Pursuit of the tangible leads to the intangible lesson: wisdom, which is typically far more valuable than whatever it is that your character set out to nab in the first place.


5. Make it Character-Driven

There's a difference between events occurring because you, the writer want them to, and because your characters want them to. Look at Twister: the characters are researching what happens inside of an F5-class tornado. So what happens? An F5 conveniently hits nearby. It needs to happen, so the writer writes it in. Simple.

"I thought this was a film about a contortionist party game!"

Now, look at Iron Man. Everything that happens in that film is as a direct result of something that Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) has done. The terrorists are using Stark weapons? Because Stark Industries sold them to terrorists. Stark Industries stock takes a nosedive? Because Tony Stark announces that he's no longer making weapons. Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) creates his Iron Monger suit and attempts to kill Tony? Because Tony uses the Iron Man suit to defeat the very terrorists from whom Stane stands to make a giant war-profiteering windfall.

Things must happen because the characters make them happen, not because the writer needs them to happen. That's the difference between passive characters and active characters. Active characters make things happen and deal with the consequences. Passive characters have things happen to them. In The Wizard of Oz the tornado happens to Dorothy, but she's caught in it in the first place because she selfishly ran away from home. Once in Oz, it's up to her to save the land and herself, to go from selfish to unselfish. Her actions make it happen.


4. Incorporate Pervasive Conflict

UCLA and Hollins professor Tim Albaugh says, "No one wants to see 'The Village of the Happy Nice People.'" He's right. The best character development, the best exposition, the best story – it comes out of conflict. Remember that old phrase, "You never know what a person's really like until they're put under major pressure"? Your job is to put your characters under major pressure. Show us what they're really like, who they are. Conflict needs to be in every scene you write. Period.

Conflict doesn't necessarily mean screams and violence. A good writer can incorporate conflict into a scene in subtle, implicit ways. Look at Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin's screenplay to the 1949 Adam's Rib, starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. The attorney couple in this film loves each other very much, but they're constantly at each other's throats in little, under-the-skin ways. Each of them wants something from the other, and they each know which buttons to press.

Or, look at Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) discuss Jules's new career aspirations. "I'm going to walk the earth," Jules says. Vincent laughs, "Jules, you're going to be a bum." Two good friends, but with radically different worldviews. One makes an impassioned defense of the life that he wants while the other one pokes holes in the reasoning behind it. Plenty of conflict, but nary a raised voice. We learn more about both characters the entire time, and may not even realize it. Exposition at its best: through conflict.


3. Use Your Voice

This is another point that Tim Albaugh hammers home. Nothing is more interesting to a human being than other human beings. Case in point: watch the news. Whether about the latest celebrity/political/royal scandal, ratings don't lie. Infotainment is no joke. We're passionately interested in the doings of others. We shake our heads at them, we applaud them, and we judge them. In doing so, we learn more about what it means to be human, to be ourselves. Everyone has a story, a life experience, a wisdom gained. How do you see the world? What's a truth through which you see things, judge things, interact with things?

Here are some examples: Stanley Kubrick's voice, in each of his films, tells us, "The human condition is ironic. Humankind is its own worst enemy: you can take the human out of the jungle, but you can't take the animal urges out of the human."

Alan Ball (American Beauty, Six Feet Under, True Blood) has a voice that says, "Enjoy life while you can. We're all going to leave it sooner than we'd like."

Alfred Hitchcock's voice is concerned with the uncanny: turning the familiar (a favorite uncle, neighbors, a motel clerk) on its head and making them into objects of dread (Shadow of a Doubt, Rear Window, and Psycho, respectively).

These artists have voices that permeate each of their works. We're drawn to their works because each voice tells us about the artist and ourselves. Should your own work be any different?


2. Make a Writing Schedule

This one courtesy of UCLA's Hal Ackerman. My very favorite line from Ronald D. Moore and Brannon Braga's screenplay to Star Trek: Generations is Scotty's "If something's that important to you, you make the time."

Great philosophy, not just to apply to writing, but to apply to life, isn't it?

You could be a CEO, an IT professional, a waiter, a retail district manager, or a stay-at-home parent. I don't care what you do, so long as you carve out time, daily, to write. The President of the United States can make the time to be with his family, despite his responsibilities. You can make the time to write. Morning, afternoon, night, whenever it is. Turn off your phone, tell your family that you're working, and do it.


1. Stick to a Writing Schedule

This one, again, courtesy of Hal Ackerman. You can have a degree in writing. You can teach writing. You can read every piece of classic literature and/or every Academy-nominated screenplay from the past 50 years.

It will all be worthless if you do not write.

Good writers are educated. Good writers read. I posit that the very best education you will receive, on your way to becoming a great writer, will be through the trials and errors you make on your own work on a daily basis. Dreamers dream. Doers do. Write 10 pages, even if it's crap. You can always turn crap into gold. With nothing, you can do nothing. Write every day. Ten pages. One page. A line. It doesn't matter. The entire entertainment culture is fueled by content. As an entertainment professional, you have no excuse to not be creating content constantly. If 99% of it is garbage, then at least you've written 1% of something amazing. That's a good start. If you can do it 1% of the time, then it only takes practice to start doing it 2% of the time, and upwards from there.



Have any other ideas for good writing practices or habits? Please share in the comments.

Your Characters Are Messed Up

"I hate people. But I adore these window dressings."

UCLA and Hollins screenwriting professor Tim Albaugh says, "Films are about troubled people becoming people in trouble." It's not enough for something to come along and disrupt your character's idyllic life. Your character needs to have personal, internal issues from page one. To put it another way, it's one thing for a situation to be engaging. It's something else for the characters within that situation to also be sympathetic constructs.

It's the difference between, "An octogenarian wants to move his house to Paradise Falls" and "A cantankerous but good-hearted octogenarian wants to move his house to Paradise Falls to keep a lifelong promise he made to his late wife: a promise he believes he broke."

To put it simply, if your story is only about the plot, then you're doing it wrong. Your story must be about the characters. Their actions (or inactions) are what set the plot in motion. Your characters are what make the plot engaging. When people ask you what your story's about, start with the characters.

There's a difference between saying, "It's a film about a dinosaur theme park" and "It's a film about people trapped in a dinosaur theme park." Going even further, Jurassic Park tells a lot of stories, but focuses mainly on Dr. Alan Grant (Sam Neill). He goes from a guy who threatens children to one who lets two kids fall asleep on him. He transitions from bully to protector. It's fun to watch dinosaurs eat people, but the film is a success not because we care about how many people the dinosaurs eat, but because we want to see Dr. Grant, the guy least likely to go out of his way to save a child, protect little Lex and Tim and make it out alive.

A prominent paleontologist who doesn't like kids must protect two children from certain death. That's Jurassic Park without a single mention of dinosaurs. But at its heart, it's what the film is all about. It's why the film isn't simply a two-hour montage of dinosaurs doing their dinosaur thing.

Troubled people to people in trouble. Your character must be a train wreck in some way, shape, or form. In previous examples, I've touched on Finding Nemo's Marlin, The Social Network's Mark Zuckerberg, and The Shawshank Redemption's Andy Dufresne. They all wind up in trouble, but you'll note that it's because in each case, they're already troubled.

Marlin's overprotective to a fault. Mark is status-obsessed. Andy isn't good at expressing himself. Each of these personal troubles drop their respective character into hot water, which becomes the plot. Your characters' own troubles, quirks, psychoses, and so on, must be front and center: their defining characteristic.

To create a successful story, your characters must be messed up.

Look at Paul Anderson's remarkable script for There Will Be Blood. Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) is a loner. He's estranged from his family. He's hinted to be impotent. He has a violent temper. He has a very soft spot for children. He's really messed up. He's really complex. And he's impossibly fun to watch. You can't turn away from this guy. He's the sort of character that actors want to play, the sort of character who, if well-played, could easily net someone an Academy Award. Who he is informs what he does, which thenceforth drives the story.

The fact is: audiences love a train wreck. The more of a paragon your character, the closer they stretch to perfect, the more boring they are. Characters who are a mess of issues, self-doubts, and self-conflict, are endlessly fun to watch. Audiences love a struggle, and it's fun to watch messed-up people struggle out of messed-up situations.

It reminds us of ourselves.

Crumple Writer's Block

"This IS my mother's laptop."

UCLA screenwriting program head and personal acquaintance Richard Walter says, "All writers hate to write; all writers love having written."

In his worthy-of-your-dollars recent book, Essentials of Screenwriting, Walter relates an anecdote about speaking to various writers during a strike, and how one of them, when confronted with a blank page, would look out a window and promise himself to start writing only after an unreasonable number of cars with Nebraska plates drove past.

What I think Walter means is that writing forces us to confront self-doubt, and that's never fun. I have yet to meet a writer who isn't plagued by such. Is this a good line? Could it be better? If I change it, will it lose its charm? How do I know when I'm done with a scene? Will it resonate with the audience?

Children's author Avi (Crispin: The Cross of Lead, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, The Secret School) wrote over 50 drafts of the first chapter of Crispin. That first chapter is a mere two pages long.

I wrote three specs last year and have completed two and a half first drafts so far this year. It wasn't easy. A student in an intermediate film production class I teach asked me how I battle writer's block. To be sure, it's a great question. However, I believe that I have an answer for it:

Don't set an ambitious writing goal.

Pushing yourself or forcing inspiration will make you resent the process. Bad writing and frustration comes out of resentment. Instead, start small. Don't say, "I'm going to write 15 pages today!" Instead, make your goal, "I'm going to write one line of dialogue."

That's it. Your goal is to merely write one thing. Anything. However concise or imperfect. Progress is progress, after all. If you make that your goal and hit it, then I promise you two things:

1. It won't satisfy you.
2. You'll want to write another line. Then another. Then another.

As writers, we have enough stacked against us. Don't set yourself up for a situation in which you fall short. Set yourself up for a situation in which you'll succeed in spades. On the day you make something simple your goal, you will blow yourself away at how productive you can be. By the time you've sailed through 10 pages, you'll suddenly recall that your initial goal was to write only one line.

You'll love having done that.

Why I Love The Big Lebowski

Whether you know the type or are the type, at the mere mention of the name, "Lebowski," you are guaranteed a deluge of verbatim quotes, all of which have something to do with a rug that really ties the room together. How has a film about a stoner who really misses his floor dressing captured our imaginations?

It hit me like a bowling ball during my last viewing of the film, likely my 100th:

1. Assholes are fun to watch.
2. Every character in The Big Lebowski is an asshole.

Walter, being perfectly calm.

We feel strongly about assholes because they impact us strongly. They're strong characters, in some way, shape, or form. There needs to be a concrete reason to call someone an asshole, and without a doubt, every character in the film who effects the plot is worthy of the moniker.

Now, I don't mean the garden-variety, "He's such a jerk!" kind of asshole. Not everyone in the film is a jerk. The Dude, himself, isn't a jerk, and neither is Maude Lebowski or Marty (Dude's landlord). There are different types of assholes, but rest assured that every character in the film is an asshole subspecies: self-centered, short-sighted, oblivious, dislikeable, inflammatory, or some combination of the above.

These aren't the sorts of characters we want to be, and yet we still fill out Internet personality tests about them, all the same. What kind of asshole are you?

The Dude: Has a "fuck it" attitude that he must transcend to set things right, which he does. He's really the only character who transitions from asshole to decent human being. Remember, he walks away from Jeffrey Lebowski in the beginning of the film, only to actively confront him at the end.

Walter: Greedy, violent, uses his veteran status as carte blanche to bulldoze through pacifists, coffee breaks, the disabled, and a touching eulogy.

Donnie: Oblivious. "I am the walrus." "Your phone's ringin', Dude!" "His name's Lebowski? That's your name, Dude!" Not an asshole on purpose, but a wise-ass, at the least. Out of his element, most of the time.

Brant: Self-important boot-licker. Loves what he does a little too much.

Jeffrey (The Big) Lebowski: Embezzler, cantankerous, arrogant. Know anyone like this?

Bunnie: Greedy, runaway, leaves town without telling anyone, precipitating the film's central conflict.

Jesus: Pedophile.

Marty (Dude's landlord): Self-centered. Has a one-man dance quintet.

Larry: Car thief, punk.

Maude Lebowski: Manipulative, self-centered. Wants to raise a child with no input (or, perhaps, inkling) from the father.

Jackie Treehorn: Corrupt pornographer, hires incompetent thugs to do his dirty work.

Nihilists: Hypocrites, the lot. "Where's the money, Lebowski?" "It's not fair!"

The Stranger: He doesn't so much effect the plot as he does comment on it from afar. He's more narrator than character, so I don't count him in this crowd.


Most of these characters, in turn, are also users. Walter takes advantage of the kidnap situation and calls the ransom money, "ours." Brant uses his position as Lebowski manor castellian, mirroring his boss's every mood, to gain the only respect he's likely to ever have in life. The nihilists take advantage of Bunnie's absence, as does Jeffrey Lebowski, himself. Most everyone uses the Dude for something. All the Dude wants is his rug back.

Jackie Treehorn himself spouts the film's motto, and the quintessential rallying cry of the asshole: "I want mine." The Stranger, in his opening narration, calls Los Angeles County a lazy place. The Big Lebowski is a collection of lazy, greedy assholes, all of whom want something from someone else by expending minimum effort. No one's perfect, and they're all deeply flawed. They're great characters. Is it any wonder, then, that we keep going back, over the line?