This week we’re taking a breather from Writing Exercises. Instead, I wanted to share a really interesting video essay. As you know, I believe genre is meaningless, Heretic that I am, but Patrick H Willems has created a great video essay praising those filmmakers who started out making horror films with an absurd comedic edge to them, and crafted some of the most interesting blockbusters in recent years. Not necessarily full of screenwriting advice, but it’s a good reminder of how important it is that you remember what kind of tone and atmosphere you are aiming to evoke to those reading your screenplay:
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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
What better time than Halloween week to discuss fear- an important part of my Character Map eBook. Below is a short excerpt.
The Character’s Fear
There are nine specific types of fears which can drive characters’ actions.
At the deepest root of all these fears is: How the character believes he or she is or might become unloved or unlovable.
The character asks: “What must I hide or deny so that others will love and/or accept me? If others knew who I really am they would surely turn surely away from me.” This is the secret doubt or dread the character must face in order to live in his or her true self (instead of the false self of the mask). The character’s fear is that deep anxiety, worry, self-doubt of inner shame that prevents the character from making a Leap of Faith toward the true self. Indeed, it is only possible to be truly loved by taking the chance to be one’s self.
Indeed, it is only possible to be truly loved by taking the chance to be one’s self. It is only through honesty, openness, and vulnerability that intimacy can be built. Without such intimacy, there can be no real love.
Fear and Shame
A character’s fear is the greatest burden he or she carries. It is the yoke 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 disappointment or disgrace to others (and therefore could be or become unloved or un-loveable).
It is the unspoken reason the character truly believes he or she is (or could be) a disappointment or disgrace to others (and therefore could be or become unloved or un-loveable).
What secret fault or failing does your character hide? Does he or she ask— Am I unworthy of love? Will I ever deserve love? What must I do to win or work for love? What do I have to do to prove I am loveable? Will I always do or say the wrong thing? Am I such a failure or disappointment that I will never be loved?
Choose one of these questions and force your character to confront this issue in all his or her dealings with others— and especially with the antagonist. Force your character to risk everything in facing the fear behind the question. Unless your character faces his or her 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 exist.
Fear Drives All Conflict
Whenever you are having trouble with a scene, a sequence or an act, ask yourself— How is the character’s fear manifesting itself in this situation? How is the character denying, avoiding, camouflaging or hiding the fear? How is the character trying to cope with or manage the fear? How is the fear tempting the character to get into trouble? How is the character facing the fear? Or, how is the character surrendering to or personally manifesting the fear?
You can purchase The Character Map at the ETB store for more insights in creating a three-dimensional, engaging character that will help you craft the best character you can.
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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.
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Coraline is a creepy delight to behold. The visual world of the stop-motion animated story is rich with texture, fine detail and has a wonderful handcrafted quality. The direction builds an increasingly sinister but whimsical tone. A compelling emotional journey is what is sorely lacking here.
Coraline (voiced by Dakota Fanning) is a lonely, neglected middle-school aged girl. Her family has just moved to a new home far away from Coraline’s two best friends. Her parents (voiced by Terri Hatcher and John Hodgman) are busy writers who work for a garden catalog company but don’t garden themselves. They don’t like dirt. They are also parents. But they don’t seem to like family life. Nor do they enjoy their daughter’s company.
I didn’t get a sense that these busy writers are pressed for time on a particularly onerous short-term deadline but really wish they could be with their daughter to help her adjust to her new home. I never got the feeling Coraline was being to asked to pitch in during a difficult rough patch (or that she selfishly refused to help or understand her parents’ dilemma).
The lack of interest from or intimate contact with her parents seems to be the status quo. When Coraline speaks, her parents often don’t look at her. When they address her they rarely make eye-contact. She seems to be an irritating obstacle in their self-absorbed way. Mealtime is quick and unsatisfying. The family refrigerator is nearly empty and contains only random odds and ends which Coraline’s father cooks into a gelatinous mess.
Miraculously, an alternative reality appears. Coraline discovers a small secret door and follows a group of mice to an identical house. She is greeted warmly by her “other” parents. In this parallel home, her “other” mother cooks Coraline’s favorite foods. Her “other” father plays with her and the family has planted a garden with her face depicted in flowers. Her “other” parents dote on her. There is only one problem. Her “other” mother wants to replace Coraline’s eyes with buttons and she wants Coraline to stay forever in the alternative universe. Her warmth turns into obsessive possessiveness.
Coraline can escape by finding three magic balls hidden with her “other” neighbors (voiced by Ian McShane, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders). Here is where the problems start. Gathering the balls is an episodic exercise that is made easy with a magic “viewing stone” that quickly and effortlessly identifies each ball. The search doesn’t require Coraline to discover anything new about herself, meet a personal challenge or learn any kind of life lesson.
When Coraline finally escapes from the alternative universe she finds her real parents are trapped inside a snow globe. When they are freed they have no recollection of the experience. They have not changed in any way nor have they taken any lesson from the experience. Even worse, at the film’s climax it is Coraline’s friend Wybie (voiced by Robert Bailey Jr.), a lonely neighbor boy, who comes to the rescue and saves her. This deprives Coraline of final control over her destiny. What journey there is for her is co-opted by another character.
This is a splendid looking film without an emotional journey for its plucky heroine. The dilemmas posed and the obstacle to overcome aren’t personal. They are merely physical obstructions adding up to nothing much. The film’s message seems to be that no matter how neglectful or self-absorbed busy working parents are, they are better than a poke with a needle and buttons for eyes. There seems to be no middle ground between the obsessive “devouring” mother and the cold distant professional mom. Perhaps this is supposed to be a comforting message for parents who have no time for their children and use presents to substitute for attention. (Coraline’s mother buys her a pair of gloves as a rare token of affection but continues to be rather disengaged, impatient and abrupt right to end of the film.) The most important journey in any film is the emotional journey. The biggest obstacle to overcome should be yourself!
… (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.
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“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.
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