Screenwriting

The Power Of Love Character

Get your Valentine’s Day cards out, bring on the chocolate hearts, and strew rose petals where you may—It’s February! It’s fitting that we take a look at the Power of Love character in this month’s newsletter. Thanks for sticking with me as I revive my monthly mailbox musings.

What is a Power of Love character?

I’m using those words as a “term of art.” A term of art is a word or phrase with a precise meaning in a particular subject area. In the Emotional Toolbox Approach, the Power of Love is the name of a combination of emotional forces that drives a particular Character Type through a story.

I’m gonna make you love me

Power of Love characters believe that if they make themselves indispensable and/or irresistible, the other person will need them and be obliged to love them. Love is a mutual obligation. This might be stated: “I’ve done everything for you. I sacrificed and slaved for you. I made you who you are. You owe me.” Or, in the case of a spouse or lover: “I gave you the best years of my life. You owe me.”

An iron fist in a velvet glove

On a paper valentine, it says simply and powerfully, “Be Mine.” Possessiveness and passive/aggressive domination can be a toxic hallmark of these characters. These Dark Side Power of Love characters want to control, prevail, gain dominance, or conquer another’s heart.
They see their own value reflected in the eyes of their love object. Their philosophy might be stated: “You’re nothing without me. (And I feel I am nothing without you.)”

Who are these people?

A character driven by the Power of Love is often a long-suffering best friend, a great mentor, an over-zealous parent, a beleaguered assistant, or someone who tirelessly pushes another forward in a story. At their worst, these characters are stalkers, jealous lovers, crushingly caring parents, needy spouses, clingy co-dependents, or self-pitying martyrs for love.
Let’s look at both sides of this Character Type in the Netflix series You and the Apple + series Ted Lasso.

You

The first season of You is a Netflix series that veers from a millennial meet-cute Rom-Com to a creepy cyber security stalker tale. The show is based on Caroline Kepnes’ novel.

Aspiring writer Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) meets mild- mannered bookstore manager Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley). Joe falls head-over-heels in love but struggles to escape the “Friend Zone.”

Joe weasels his way into Beck’s private life. Her social network settings are sloppy and easily opened. He follows her nights out, learns her plans, discovers her yearnings, and knows her insecurities around her rich girlfriends. He is especially interested in their snarky comments made about him.

Joe pursues a careful, steady courtship of Beck. He earns her trust and encourages her talent. Her snooty friends don’t stand a chance in the face of his charm offensive and sly skullduggery. Joe stops at nothing to remove the obstacles that keep Beck from loving him.

Love me or else

Joe is a toxic Power of Love character. He lavishes his attention and affection on Beck to exercise control, prevail, gain dominance, and conquer her heart. These characters see their value reflected in their love object’s eyes. Their philosophy might be stated: “You’re nothing without me. (And I feel I am nothing without you.)”

Joe is a compelling Power of Love male lead. He is soft, gentle, and compliant on the outside—but made of strong, even steely, stuff on the inside, with a heavy added dose of the dangerous psychopath.

Ted Lasso

The Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso evolved from a group of spots NBC Sports ran to promote English football (soccer). The title character, Ted Lasso (Jason Sudeikis), is an American college football coach from Kansas who—inexplicably— is hired to manage a Premier League team in London. The antagonistic squad hates his energetic “go team” American bullshit, and fans chant “wanker” at him everywhere he goes.

Ted arrives in London with boundless optimism but fully understanding that, technically, he is completely unqualified to coach the last-place AFC Richmond football team. In true Power of Love fashion, coaching isn’t about brilliant strategy, understanding all the arcane rules of the game, or the history of the most famous players; it’s about helping his players “be the best versions of themselves on and off the field.”

He’s aided in this mission by his best friend, Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt), and slyly sabotaged by Richmond’s new owner, Rebecca (Hannah Waddingham). She inherited the team in a bitter divorce and hires Ted to get back at her nasty, philandering ex-husband (Anthony Head) by destroying his beloved team.

No one expects Ted’s kindness and persistence to elevate everyone in the team’s orbit. Ted leads by pushing others forward and putting the team first. His compassion, humility, enlightened discipline, and common decency change everyone around him.

He is the most positive version of the Power of Love leader. He is a true mentor, a man sensitive to those around him, who empowers everyone in his purview. He always has the good of the team at heart and teaches his players to be as selfless and dedicated as he is.

Just Do It!

Did your New Year’s resolutions include finishing that passion project? Any writing project is daunting. Going from the first blank page to 100 screenplay pages or 300 novel pages is a huge challenge. But the answer to “How do you eat an elephant?” is, one bite at a time. The way to accomplish any goal is incremental progress. Get started and keep going.

Robert Collier, one of the first self-help authors, said: “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”

Be consistent. Be diligent
Get started. Keep going

When I was a student in the UCLA Master’s in Screenwriting program (oh so many years ago) we had 10 weeks to go from blank page to finished first draft. The way I could meet that deadline time after time was to write 5 pages a day. Just 5 pages. Everyday. I never had to pull all-nighters or hand in an unfinished draft. I was a full-time student then. Five pages may be too much for someone working full time.

So here is a workable alternative:

Have a bite sized manageable writing schedule
Set a modest daily goal — set aside one hour a day to write
Leave yourself a starting place
When you hit your one hour goal, stop. Stop even if you’re in the middle of a bit of dialogue. Especially if you’re in the middle of character back and forth. That way, when you sit down the next day, you have a jumping off place to give you a push.
Press on with the real job
Research isn’t writing. When you come to a factual or an information gap, don’t Google it and fall down the inevitable rabbit hole. When you have finished that first draft, type “QC” where the missing bit should go, as in “The Sonora Desert, all QC miles of it, stretched before him”. A quick search through your document for “QC” will tell you what fact-checking to do or missing information to fill in.
Head down and butt in chair
Forget advice about finding the right atmosphere to inspire you … You can put up with noise/silence/kids/discomfort/hunger for one hour. (For those 60 minutes all you do is write and don’t allow ANY distractions in) Set a timer and point to it if someone wants to interrupt you.
Get help to realize your goal
I believe so deeply in this approach I wrote an online course that helps writers finish a first draft writing just one hour a day. I started with the presumption that most people using the course had busy work lives, active families, and ongoing social obligations.

But everyone, no matter how busy, can block out one hour a day.

The course is a step by step guide. You have a specific assignment each day. There is screenwriting information, video lessons, and all the material you need each day.

To learn more about The One Hour Screenwriter eCourse click HERE

ETB Laurie Hutzler Screenwriting

THE VISUAL WORLD 3

PART 3

THE WORLD OF THE RIVER

Rivers are roads in or roads out. They are places of passage and symbolize a
journey. One never knows what is behind the next bend. It could be calm
clear waters or churning treacherous rapids. Friends and foes appear
unexpectedly along the way. Sometimes it’s hard to know which is which.

DELIVERANCE and THE RIVER WILD both depict the dangers of a river
journey.

Navigating the river requires hard work and but also allows time for floating
free. The river world is a place of rhythm and flow. The object here is the
journey rather than the destination.

THE WORLD OF HOUSE AND HOME

House and home is the first world we know as children. Home is the center
of our universe. It is the central space of human drama. Everything we
know about love we learn here first. Everything we know about conflict and
violence we first discover here.

There are two kinds of houses—warm and cold. A warm house is a place
of happy memories. It is a nostalgic place, a place where we are accepted
and loved. A warm house is bright and happy. The glowing kitchen is the
heart of this kind of home. It is open and friendly.

The cold house is often a trap or prison. It can be a place of cruelty and of horror.
This is a house where terrible secrets are kept and/or where its inhabitants are
hunted or haunted. The cold house is dark and dreary. It is a closed and often
claustrophobic place.

Inside the house certain spaces have deeper meanings and symbolic
significance.

The attic is a place of the past. It is a place where valuables and unexpected
treasure is hidden. The attic is a repository of memories and old keepsakes.
It can also be a place where we leave our past behind and struggle toward
the future. Artist and writers often create in attic or garret spaces. The attic
is a place of make-believe and imagination. It can also be a place of
madness—where family secrets are hidden or locked away.

The cellar is a place where things are buried. Cellars are dark, dank, scary
places. They are often where monsters lurk. A cellar is often is a place of
ugly secrets, torture and/or darkness.

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE is the ultimate cold house horror movie.
THE FABLEMANS is a warm house movie filled with love and eccentricity but
no small amount of tension and conflict.

COMBINED WORLDS

The most powerful worlds can be combinations. For example: The city can
be depicted as a jungle—a place of rot and decay where men hunt and kill
each other. Or it can be depicted as the ocean surface—the rooftops maybe
placid but below lurk all kinds of conflict, turmoil and danger waiting to trap
or devour us.

The city can be viewed as an island, as Manhattan physically is.
The island/city is a place both magical and nightmarish. Cities can be
depicted as a mountain world. A city might be a vertical place of majestic
heights where the mighty look down on the lowly. This is a place where
rich stronghold tower above the poverty and oppression below. The city
might also be a small dot on the open plains where civilization is purchased
at the expense of freedom and wide-open spaces.

THE SEASONS

Summer is a time of equilibrium. It is a time of utopia—it is always summer
in Camelot. Summer is a lush time. It is a time of beauty and golden
sunlight. Summertime is when “the living is easy.”

Autumn is a time of harvest—when crops are gathered into the barn as stores
against the coming of winter. It is a time of waning days and fading
sunlight. Autumn often is the time when the hero falls. It is when opponents
often attack. Autumn usually signals the end of things—when the best days
are behind us, and only bleakness lies ahead.

Winter is the lowest time of the year. In winter, the hero is closest to death.
Winter is an arid, frozen time. All hope is lost. The world seems dark, and
everything hovers on the edge of extinction.

Spring is the time when hope is reborn. In spring, we shed our skin and begin
life anew. A new equilibrium is achieved. A new order is restored. The hero
rises again or is reborn at some higher level. Spring is the time of
resurrection and the renewal of all things.

Anti-seasonal structures can often be used to create dynamic opposites by
contrasting traditional cycles with the dramatic developments in the story.

For example—marriage in winter (what does this mean—are the darkest
days behind us?) Perhaps the hero falls at the height of summer (is he
destroyed at the height of his powers and waiting to be reborn when he can
turn his greatest weakness into his greatest strength?) Playing against
seasonal cycles offers a rich and potent way to depict the emotional
undercurrents in the story.

Use the visual world to deepen and enhance your story and short-hand its
underlying themes. Cue the audience as to how your protagonist “sees” his/her
world and him/herself and use the visual world to express the protagonist’s
emotional state. The visual world should be as unique as the protagonist
him/herself.

ETB Laurie Hutzler Screenwriting

THE VISUAL WORLD 2

PART 2

THE DESERT WORLD

The desert is a world of stark beauty and contradiction. It is a place of death
and dying and a place of revelation and inspiration. It offers cool oasis and
cruel mirage. Characters find personal growth here through isolation. The
desert world is a place of personal testing and inner contemplation. It is
where visions appear. But can they be trusted? The desert is also a place of
shifting sands—where men can easily lose their way and wander in circles.
The desert is a place of temptation. Souls can be won or lost here.

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA is the granddaddy of sweeping desert epics. DUNE is
a more recent example.

THE WORLD OF ICE

The frozen world is a physical mirror image of the desert world. Characters
are hardened by experience and trial here. It is a place where only the strong
survive. It is not necessarily a place characters go alone to be tested. Survival
here often depends upon the help of others. This is a place where there is no
warmth except that within the human heart.

Cooperation is the key to survival in the frigid world of THE DAY AFTER
TOMORROW. The same is the case in George Clooney’s MIDNIGHT SKY.

THE OCEAN SURFACE

The surface of the ocean is an uncharted wasteland, like desert and the frozen
world of ice. The object on the ocean surface is to get across. Hidden
danger lurks just below. One could be swallowed up at any time or attacked
without warning.

This is a place surrounded by water where the greatest danger is often the
lack of what is so abundant. Water that is usable is the ocean’s scarcest
commodity. It is a place where one tests oneself against nature-where one
feels very small and yet flings oneself against the might of God.

THE LIFE OF PI is a great example. As is THE PERFECT STORM.

THE ISLAND WORLD

An island is an isolated plot of land with a clear boundary. It is surround by
an often uncharted sea. There are unlimited possibilities here. An island can
be heaven or hell, paradise or death sentence, a place of magical beauty or
terrible nightmare. Both wonderful creatures and terrible monsters can
inhabit an island.

The island world is a place of mystery. One can enter a different reality
here. An island is a natural place and an abstraction. A person can find
him/herself alone on an island, even in the middle of a crowd—an island can
be a state of mind.

In CAST AWAY, Tom Hanks survives loneliness and isolation. JURASSIC
PARK is a zoo of monsters.

THE MOUNTAIN WORLD

The mountain world is a place of awesome height and majesty. It often is a
place of revelation and inspiration. One goes to the mountain to seek
answers. The mountain world requires great courage and physical strength.

TOUCHING THE VOID is about hard choices and moral questions in the
mountain world.

A mountain is a vertical world—a place of hierarchy and privileged position.
On the mountaintop one can look down on those below. It is a citadel of
strength. The mountain world can be a stronghold to keep others out.
Tyranny and oppression is possible from on high. Kings live on
mountaintops so do gods and monsters.

In THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, Sauron lives on the mountaintop in his
quest to subjugate all of Middle Earth.

THE WORLD OF THE PLAINS

The world of the prairie and plains is a very American world. It is a place of
open vistas and clear views. You can see someone coming from miles away.
This is a place of freedom and unlimited opportunity.

Everyone can be equal here. Anyone can make a claim here and put down
roots. This is a place where people work hard to subdue nature. Towns can
be built and civilization established. The land can be tamed by the plow.

This is also a place of conflict. How will the land be divided? Who wants
fences, and who wants free open spaces? The plains are a fertile area for the
clash between the price of progress and the price of freedom.

DANCES WITH WOLVES and the more recent KILLERS OF THE FLOWER
MOON are both about battles with indigenous people over land and resources.

To be continued in PART 3

ETB Laurie Hutzler Screenwriting

THE VISUAL WORLD 1

PART 1

This is a three (3) part series exploring the visual world of a film.

The visual world of a film is not just the place the protagonist happens to be.
It is a physical metaphor for the arc of the protagonist’s character.

The visual world cues the audience as to how your protagonist “sees” his/world
and him/herself. It expresses the emotional state of the protagonist. It
should be as unique as the protagonist him/herself. The visual world should
develop and become more detailed as we learn more about the protagonist
and as his/her character develops.

Even a film set in a familiar city can do this. For example: The New York
City of MANHATTAN or YOU’VE GOT MAIL is very different from the
New York City of TAXI DRIVER or BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. More
recently the New York of IN THE HEIGHTS couldn’t be more different than A
QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE.

The best films condense the visual world of the film to as small an area as
possible. These films construct a single unified space surrounded by some
kind of hypothetical “wall” which separates the action from everything else.

This area must be large enough for diversity and conflict but contained
enough to heighten and concentrate the action. Good games require
manageable, clearly defined playing fields.

There is also rich symbolic value inherent in different types of visual worlds.
Used wisely, this symbolism will heighten and deepen the richness of a
story.

THE OCEAN WORLD

Water is the most powerful medium of suspension. The ocean world is a
weightless world. Time moves at a different pace here. Light is dim and
liquid. It is a dreamlike place. The ocean depths are places of our deepest
fears. This world contains hidden dangers and sunken treasure. Bizarre or
prehistoric creatures still roam free. It is a place of the past—ancient
Atlantis, old shipwrecks and sunken civilizations lie hidden on the ocean
floor.

Both JAWS and OPEN WATER certainly use the implacable terror of the deep to
great effect.

THE WORLD OF OUTER SPACE

Outer space is a world of the imagination. It is a place of unlimited
diversity—any kind of terrain and any kind of creature can exist here. This
is a world of infinite adventure. The physical rules of our world don’t apply.
Time/space logic is altered here. Outer space can be a place of the future or
a place of the past. It can be a place of potential utopia or hellish
oppression.

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is the great granddaddy of modern interstellar movies.
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY takes a psychedelic view of space.

THE JUNGLE WORLD

The jungle is a place of rot and riot. Here the dead decompose as nature
runs rampant over the fallen corpses. Order breaks down here and chaos
eats away at the civilized world. Man can never tame the jungle. Here,
chaos is always more powerful here than control.

The jungle is a place of disease, delirium and madness. It’s a world where
animals eat other animals and where the most civilized men can be reduced
to animals. The natural order is kill or be killed.

APOCALYPSE NOW best exemplifies the horror, rot, and chaos of the jungle as a
metaphor for the War in Vietnam.

It’s impossible to gain perspective here. Things are too tangled and
twisted—logic is obscured and choked like trees overrun by vines. In the
jungle world, we can only see a short way ahead. Death and destruction
lurk, unseen, right in front of us. It is a place of unexpected terror and
invisible enemies.

THE FOREST WORLD

The Forest is a wild place but it is tamer than the jungle. This is a place
where people get lost and can’t find their way. It is a dark place. Danger is
everywhere. Wild beasts wait in the shadows with red eyes and bared fangs.

Ghosts live here and haunting often occurs in the forest world. The forest is
a place of the past. It is the world of ancient fairytales. Fear comes from the
mind of the person lost there as often from any actual danger encountered.

INTO THE WOODS is a great example of the enchanted forest. BLAIR WITCH
PROJECT chillingly expresses the horror and myth of the woods.

To be continued in PART 2

ETB Laurie Hutzler Screenwriting

Pen, Paper, and Personalities

“The Jack Benny Show,” written by long-time Benny writer, heck, long time radio and television writer, Milt Josefsberg. (Google Milt for his wonderful history) is a wonderful read.
Here’s what Milt has to say about writers (in 1977 but still true today). He is discussing the writers employed by Jack over the years, but it applies far more broadly (you know Milt is talking about YOU!)

Quoting from Chapter 13:

“Writers come in all ages, religions, creeds, sexes, intermediate sexes, sizes, and temperaments. Moreover, their modes of living and writing styles vary. I know several who can only write from midnight to dawn after everyone else is asleep. There are morning writers and afternoon writers. Also, some write with stereo sets blasting, while others demand deep silence. Some write in short hand, some in longhand, some use a typewriter, and some can only dictate to secretaries.

“There are the pacers, the starers, the sitters, the nibblers, the eaters, the abstainers, the drinkers, and dozens of others. Some can only function in sparsely furnished offices, while others must be surrounded by sybaritic splendor. Some have offices in their homes; others don’t feel at home in their homes.

“Most of them combine incompatible giant-sized egos with nerve-racking insecurity complexes. Ten learned critics could tell a novelist that he has created a masterpiece, but then if his gardener were to say, “I don’t like the book too much,” the writer’s week would be ruined.

“Writing is an art and not a science, and as is true in all of the arts, each of us has his own tastes. Perhaps you recall the story of the man who brought a lady friend to a party, and this lady was difficult to describe. Her nose was off-center, her mouth was slit vertically down her face instead of horizontally, one eye was two inches lower than the other, and both of her ears were on the same side of her head. The man introduced this weird woman to a friend whose countenance betrayed his shocked appearance at her bizarre face. Her escort indignantly said to this man, ‘What’s the matter-you don’t like Picasso?’

“In the same vein, what I think is funny you may regard as tragic. It’s a matter of taste.

“Some writer once remarked ‘The deadliest enemy of the writer is that first empty page staring him in the face.’ Dorothy Parker is reputed to have said, ‘I hate writing. I love having written.’

When any network or advertising executive criticized one of Fred Allen’s scripts, he’d say, ‘Where were you when the pages were empty?’

“Writers don’t confine their work exclusively to offices, either at studios or in their homes. A writer’s brain is always working. I know of writers who have gotten excellent ideas while playing golf, fishing, walking, watching movies, or even sleeping. I know that my wife Hilda still hasn’t forgiven me because once, at a most intimate moment, I broke into wild laughter at a script idea that popped into my head.

“Not only that, but wives never fully understand their writing husbands’ creative habits (and vice versa). A woman (man) can be married to a writer for fifty years and still not understand that when she (he) walks into his office and sees him (her) staring out of a window, he (she) is actually working.”

Milt Josefsberg