Writing Exercises
After a holiday break, it time to start flexing those muscles again, with more writing exercises.
As well as a relevant video essay I’ve found, here’s a writing exercises to help kickstart your creative process. It’s exercises like this that form part of my One Hour Screenwriter course, which will help you write an entire feature film script in 22 weeks. You can purchase it at the shop here. You can also read testimonies here that show my methods have worked for many different writers.
This week, it’s time to get a room…
Describe a Room and How It Made You Feel.
Take a moment and describe a room you remember vividly from your childhood. What kind of room was it? What was in the room? Make a list as quickly as possible of all the physical details you remember.
Look in every corner in your mind’s eye. What do you see? What do you hear? Jot down memories, descriptions and objects as you remember them.
Write as rapidly as possible. Write in no particular order. Don’t worry about being creative, articulate or interesting. Just write!
Next, populate the room. Remember the individuals from your childhood who would come from and go to that room. How do they enter? How do they inhabit the space? What are they doing in the room? What do they want? What do you or others do in response?
Describe each person you remember in the room as clearly and specifically as you can.
Describe your reactions to those people. Are you glad they came or are you anxious for them to leave? Why?
Now have those people speak. What is are the replies or how are people answering one another? How do you feel about these people? Describe your interactions with as much detail as you can.
Continue to write and remember the time and place. Do the room and/or people in it spark any other memories from childhood or beyond? Do any of the objects in the room have a particular meaning or evoke specific feelings? Describe these in greater detail.
Write for about 10 minutes or until you have exhausted all your memories of the room and people in it. Dig deep to find the child you once were.
Now try writing this exercise from your main character’s perspective and concentrate on your character’s fears. Many of our deepest fears originate in childhood.
Can you use this exercise to further excavate your character’s fears? What did you discover? How can you use this material in your character present? How can you make those childhood fears active in the here and now?
How are those childhood fears activated in the immediate story as it unfolds in Act Two?
Video Essay of the week
Speaking of fear and details, relating to reactions, now you see it has a great video essay:
Let me know what you think of this week’s writing exercise by emailing me at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you as we go forward with more of these writing exercises. Next week, it’s time to end it all…
Until then, remember- all you need to do is Get Started and Keep Going!
– Laurie
Each type of film has an emotional structure, what we term alien invasion films, disaster films, horror films, are most often Power of Reason films.
It is always impossible to “understand” the inexplicable or the supernatural. Horrific, bizarre, or nightmarish occurrences cannot be explained, understood or approached in a rational manner.
For example, What is the answer for those stranded on the Lost mysterious island? How do they respond when chaos and terror repeatedly break into and disrupts their lives? In every episode of the highly-rated Season One of Lost, salvation comes through creating personal connections and developing more intimate relationships with each other.
Each inexplicable or horrific event brings the survivors closer to one another. They deepen their bonds and learn more about each other. Certainly, there are interpersonal conflicts among everyone stranded on the beach. But their experience tells them (and us) that in the face of chaos or horror all we have is each other. In fact, the early tagline of the show was: “Live together or die alone.”
Human connection is the only antidote to chaos and horror. People always cling closer together in the face chaos or disaster. We all live together or we die alone.
What contaminates, soils or infects us so that we lose our souls or our humanity? What is the difference between a man and a monster? How does the human become monstrous? How does the monstrous become human? What are limits of connectedness and intimacy? How do we become distanced or alienated from our emotions or the warmth of others? Those are some of the fundamental questions at the heart of the Power of Reason story.
Jack Shephard, on Lost, is a Power of Reason character. He wants to solve things logically but hits on the real theme of the show in this scene.
For more information on this Character Type and other Character Types click HERE
For more examples of all the character types, you can purchase my in-depth e-books at the ETB shop, or you can read more articles on all the “Power Of…” types including James Bond, Doctor Who, Batman and Sherlock Holmes, every Tuesday. There are also 9 pinterest boards full of character examples online. Check them out and let us know at [email protected] if you have any other suggestions.
]]>
… (W)e stand at the rich uncertain dawn of a new level of scientific innovation. The wireless technology we carry in our pockets today was the stuff of the science fiction in our youth. Our technological arrogance mirrors more and more the Wellsian dystopia of dissatisfaction, while allowing us to feel safe and connected at all times. We can call, see or hear almost anything and anyone no matter where we are. For most people then, the only remote place remains within. “Know thyself” we do not.”
The above quote is from Guillermo del Toro, the director of Pan’s Labyrinth, and author Chuck Hogan writing in The New York Times about the sudden spate of Vampire movies and television shows like HBO’s True Blood or all the variations on the Dracula tale.
The internal conflict central to “Know Thyself” is key to making any script work. Over the course of a really satisfying film or television show a character makes that risky and dangerous “voyage within.” A character’s internal obstacles and emotional journey rivets the audience much more so than any external or physical threat the character faces.
A character’s internal conflict should create the kind of personal choice that pushes the character to take actions that define what is most fundamentally important or true in a character’s life. The character should be forced to make a stark, definitive and active choice of one fundamental value over another.
As one value is ultimately chosen, the character negates or surrenders the other competing value. Competing values are neutral. They are a simple (often one word) expression of a fundamental truth or an ideal a person holds dear. No value is inherently better or worse than another. For example: Freedom and Security are two fundamental American values.
America sees itself as “the home of the brave and the land of the free.” Lady Liberty is an iconic symbol of the nation. But to survive, every nation (or character) must be secure in its person, property and borders. Security is also a fundamental American value, especially in these potentially very dangerous times. The question is: What happens when a character (or country) is forced to make starker and starker choices in favor of one value over (or to the exclusion of) another?
How much freedom are you willing to sacrifice or surrender in order to be secure? As citizens are pushed to give up more personal autonomy, liberty or privacy, when do they cease to be free?
Alternatively, how much security are you willing to sacrifice or surrender in order to be free? If civil libertarians too often thwart important safety measures, can a nation be adequately protected and its citizens secure? As the risk rises and a nation (or person) is pushed to the brink, it is forced to chose one value over the other. In a script, a series of choices should lead to a final definitive action that negates or eliminates one value in favor of another.
Any decision driven by fear is a bad decision. Fear clouds judgment and it shakes a character’s confidence in his or her higher nature. The price of fear is often the sacrifice of a character’s soul and his or her truest most authentic self. Any decision driven by faith ultimately leads the character closer to those “better angels of our nature.” But the price of faith is high. It can lead to the sacrifice of a character’s life. When a character makes a decision based on faith he or she looks fear in the face and does not blink. The character realizes that even if his or her worst fear is realized, he or she will be okay. A bedrock of peace and serenity accompanies the character even if the price is death.
For example: In A Tale of Two Cities, Sidney Carleton says (as he goes to the guillotine standing in for his friend): “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”
Although all characters struggle with external events and obstacles, the deepest conflicts and greatest battles are always within the character. The Character Map eBook help you chart the values and emotional tensions deep inside the character and how those tensions lead to his or her transformational choices.
]]>
“Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself.” Samuel Butler (English novelist, essayist and critic, 1835-1902). Truer words were never spoken. A character’s fear is the greatest burden he or she carries. It is the constant “static” the character cannot escape. It defines the secret shame that character never wants to face or acknowledge. It is the unspoken reason the character truly believes he or she is (or could be) a failure, a disappointment or a disgrace to others (and therefore could be or become unloved or un-lovable).
Force your character to risk everything in facing his or her fear. Unless your character faces the fear or secret shame, your character will never be free. Your character will constantly be forced to cling the mask and seek its “protection.” A character that hides a secret shame will never be able to live a truly authentic life. As long as that fear and shame is lurking in the background the character will always be its slave.
Love and fear are inextricably bound together. All your character’s worries and anxieties about love will cluster right at the root of his or her fear. Your character’s worries and concerns about love don’t just color his or her romantic relationships. They bled into every single relationship and interaction the character has with another human being in the story. These fears are especially intense in dealing with the antagonist. The smart antagonist deliberately plays on this fear to try to weaken or tempt your character to be his/her own worst enemy. In a story and in life any decision based on fear is the wrong decision.
Your character’s fear is your most important emotional tool as a writer. Anytime you get in trouble in a scene, a sequence or an act— go right to your character’s fear. How does this constant underlying static of anxiety or worry operate in the dramatic or comedic action of the story? Bring the character’s fear to the surface in every scene, every sequence and every act. Take every opportunity to make the character’s physical and emotional situation and entanglements play off the fear and magnify it.
Make fear wreak havoc with the character internally. Find a way to demonstrate this conflict externally through the character’s actions. Make the worst thing that could possibly happen to the character take place on successively deeper and more risky personal levels. Then show us what the character does in response. Remember: It is through action that a person’s true character is revealed.
Fear isn’t just a prime motivator of protagonists. When antagonists do evil deeds they are most often motivated by fear. Giving the audience an glimpse of the antagonist’s fear humanizes him or her and makes this character a more complex and fully realized individual.
The above is an excerpt from The One Hour Screenwriter eBook.
]]>