quoted – Page 3 – This Builds Character

Be Gentle With Yourself

For the last year or so, I’ve kept a book on hand called Mindfulness in Plain English. While it’s principally about meditation, there are several parts that I tend to apply to other things, as well.

Example:

Be gentle with yourself. Be kind to yourself. You may not be perfect, but you are all you’ve got to work with. The process of becoming who you will be begins first with the total acceptance of who you are.

Why might this be an important idea for a screenwriter to keep in mind?

You may not always get a scene exactly right on the first attempt, or make the deadlines you set for yourself, or nail that one cruicial line of dialogue right off the bat. It’s going to be difficult writing a solid script. It’s going to be difficult becoming the writer you want to be.

Don’t add to the challenges by deriding your efforts.

Adjectives Are Your Enemy

At a book signing, I asked Guillermo del Toro what advice he had for beginning screenwriters.

[With action and description], do not use adjectives. Use visuals. Use sound. Be very dry.

You should only be writing things you can show. If you have adjectives on the page, ask yourself, “How can I see this?”

What happens when you force yourself to avoid excessive adjectives and adverbs?

1. You take up less space with your text.

Cutting out adjectives cuts out words. You’re cutting down how many lines are in a paragraph and how many pages are in your screenplay. You’re speeding up the read.

If a script reads fast, it’s more likely to get read from start to finish.

2. You spend less time on minor details.

Do you need to say that this character wears a blue dress? If it’s not 100% necessary to the story that you define the color of the dress, and your script is fortunate enough to be produced, the color of that dress will be decided at the discretion of the director, the costume designer, and possibly the actor.

The hunt to remove adjectives will help you see exactly what details are integral to your story, and which ones can be excised without substantially changing the narrative.

You’re here to tell a story. Who is involved? What happens? What happens as a result of this? These are the things that are important. The more you fill your action and description lines with adjectives, the more you obscure the key elements of your story.

3. You replace generic actions and descriptions with clear imagery.

Think about what you picture when you read “Reginald looks around the room, clearly uncomfortable.” Compare that to your mental image of “Reginald glances around the room, fidgeting with his ascot.”

Both lines are attempting to communicate the same thing: We see Reginald behaving in a manner that suggests his discomfort. One line relies on an adjective to imply what will happen, where the second uses concrete nouns and verbs to show a specific picture of discomfort.

Keeping it specific and concrete is in your best interest. It suggests to the reader that you have a command of your characters. It suggests a specific behavior to an actor to incorporate into their performance. It helps to keep you focused on what can be clearly seen and heard.

Buy someone a drink

A few years ago, I attended a Q&A session featuring Paul Schraeder, and he offered a suggestion for a way to prepare yourself before diving into writing a script.

Pick a friend. Maybe two or three friends. Invite them out for a coffee, or to a bar. Somewhere you can talk without a lot of distraction. Let them know that if you can bend their ear for twenty or so minutes, the first round is on you.

Don’t pitch a thumbnail of the idea. Tell the story. Start from the beginning and work towards your end. Try not to paint in too broad of strokes. Get in to the nitty gritty of what you have. Again, tell the story.

Watch your listener. See where their attention shifts and at what points they ask questions. Do they need something clarified because they’re confused? Do they want to know more?

What you’re looking to see is if your story can keep the listener wondering what happens next. There’s a mildly sneaky test for this: Build to a cliffhanger, or some other dramatically tense point, then pause and excuse yourself to the restroom.

If they ask you what happens next when you return, you’re on the right track.