Welcome back to Writing Exercises! Hope you enjoyed the last few weeks of Halloween fun and Community-themed content, but now it’s back to the writing gym!
As well as a relevant video essay I’ve found, I’m giving you writing exercises to use if you’re keen to either explore and experiment or need some motivations to start a new script or novel.
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 a variety of writers.
This week, you’ll be writing about talking:
Create Distinctive Speech Patterns
Each of your characters should have a distinctive way of speaking. A reader should be able to tell who is talking by the dialogue alone, without necessarily looking at the character’s name. Check out Talk Like a Gangster on Types Tuesday.
Use the following exercise to practice creating a distinctive “voice” for each of your characters.
First, find a physical practice subject. Cut out a series of comic strips (all featuring the same characters) from your local newspaper, buy a comic book, or find a series of comics on the web. Use comic strip characters you don’t know well but which interest you visually.
Block out or white out the dialogue in the individual speech bubbles. Photocopy the story panels with the now blank bubbles.
Look at the visual element of the comic, without the words. Note the style and tone of the drawings. Re-imagine the characters and story. Make it your own.
Fill in the blank speech bubbles with your own imaginary dialogue. Find a different rhythm and sentence construction for each character. Make your characters’ speech patterns reflect how they look visually.
Is one character’s speech more verbose and flowery than another? Is another character crisper and minimal in the way he or she speaks? Does one character joke in order to make a point? Does another preach and scold? Does another always try to impress?
Experiment with different speaking styles. Be consistent in creating each individual character’s way of communicating. Make each character’s speech pattern reflect that specific person.
Can you make the visual images work with the dialogue? Can you use the visuals as an interesting counterpoint or contrast to what is being said?
What happens when characters have a serious discussion in a silly setting? What happens if they have a silly argument in a serious setting? How can you reveal character by small discussions or ridiculous disputes that reflect much deeper underlying concerns?
For example, create an argument about taking out the kitchen trash. Make the deeper underlying concern about a larger issue in the relationship or a more fundamental personal dissatisfaction between the two.
Now how can you apply these principles to the characters in your screenplay? How can you make each of your characters’ speech patterns more distinctive?
How do their speech patterns reflect their individual personalities? How does it match or is it at odds with their physical appearance?
How can you use setting or location to underscore, be a counterpoint or comment on the discussion?
How can your characters reveal themselves by the mundane or foolish things they argue about? How does the argument reflect larger disagreements?
Video Essay of the Week
How Characters communicate tells us everything about them, from how to talk to others and also how they express themselves (or avoid exposing themselves.
We communicate with family members in a different way to friends than with enemies, for example. This excellent video essay talks us through the different ways three brothers communicate on the road-trip of a lifetime in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited:
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, we’ll be writing about… nothing…
Until then, remember- all you need to do is Get Started and Keep Going!
– Laurie
Power of Will characters fear showing any sign of weakness or vulnerability. They fear that remorse, compassion, empathy, compromise or forgiveness leaves them soft and open to possible attack by others. These characters believe there is no mercy in the jungle that is the world. There is only survival of the fittest. The biggest, toughest, meanest dog wins. Might makes right. Demand what you want and back it up with a big gun. Case in point, John Wayne in the 1948 movie Red River:
These characters speak in a manner that is:
Confident, Robust, Lusty, Passionate, Direct, Bold, Commanding, Incendiary, Ebullient, Decisive, Strong, Energetic, Aggressive, Powerful , Authoritative, Assertive, Forceful, Magnetic, Unyielding, Larger-Than-Life
They can be in speech and action:
Brutal/Brutish, Rash, Impulsive, Thuggish, Exploitive, Reckless, Controlling, Implacable, Territorial, Vindictive, Confrontational, Cruel, Loutish, Pugnacious, Dictatorial, Paranoid, Obstinate, Predatory, Belligerent, Oppressive, Autocratic, Bellicose, Savage
These are all action words. Put “to be” in front of any of these words and you have what the character plays in any scene. If the character is not playing one of these actions in a scene it’s probably a good idea to rethink the scene and its objective.
For more on Power of Will Character, both heroes and villains 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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Time Magazine has compiled a montage of some of the greatest one liners and famous catch phrases in movie history. Watch them here and remember your favorites–
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The King’s Speech has been a major come-from-behind winner in the 2011 Academy Awards. The film was nominated for 12 Oscars. Predicting it’s impressive Oscar success, the film took the SAG award for best ensemble cast and Colin Firth, the film’s star, won for Best Actor. The DGA named the film’s director, Tom Hooper as Best Director and the Producers Guild named the film the Best Picture, beating out early favorites The Black Swan and The Social Network. The film swept the BAFTA awards in London. And it brought home Oscars for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director and Best Picture.
The film tells the story of the unusual and very deep friendship between Prince Albert, the Duke of York (and later King George VI) played by Colin Firth and his Australian-born speech therapist, Lionel Logue, played by Geoffry Rush.
Prince Albert has a debilitating stammer which prevents him from speaking in public and makes any public interaction pure agony. All his life, he is able to retreat into the background and live in the shadow of his more polished, confident and gregarious elder brother Edward, Duke of Cornwall and Prince of Wales played by Guy Pearce.
When Albert and Edward’s father, King George V dies, Edward ascends to the throne. Only three months into his accession, and before he is crowned, Edward causes a constitutional crisis by proposing marriage to the American socialite Wallis Simpson.
Simpson was unacceptable because she divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second. She was still married when Edward proposed. Edward abdicates the throne in order to “marry the woman I love.”
With World War II looming in the background, The King’s Speech provides an interesting conflict of Character Types. We see the best and worst examples of the Power of Conscience and the Power of Idealism.
Albert is a Power of Conscience character. He rules by moral authority. Here he describes his power: If I am King, where is my power? Can I declare war? Form a government? Levy a tax? No! And yet I am the seat of all (moral) authority because they think that when I speak, I speak for them.
Like all Power of Conscience characters, Albert is driven by duty, responsibility and a powerful desire to do the right thing whatever the personal cost. In order to serve his subjects well he must sacrifice his dignity, be willing to act spontaneously and playfully in order to follow his therapist’s unconventional treatment.
Albert must absolutely humiliate himself while with Logue and perform seemly ridiculous exercises that have him barking swear words, making unseemly trills and other noises, jumping around and flapping about in complete abandon. In making the leap of faith to let go of his stiff reserve and sense of propriety, Albert overcomes his impediment and is able to speak to and for his people during Britain’s “darkest hour.”
Albert’s emotional journey in The King’s Speech is very similar to that of his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, played by Helen Mirren in The Queen. (I’ve written about that film here) The monarchs in each film are reserved, formal and rather retiring, shy and stiff. Each has to sacrifice his/her dignity and sense of propriety in order to do what their subjects need. In both cases, this need boils down to a speech.
Albert, as King George VI, must tell his people they are at war with Germany and rally them emotionally for the difficulties and sacrifices that lie ahead. Queen Elizabeth must address her subjects’ emotional needs after Princess Diana’s tragic death. The Queen believes that mourning is a private affair. She refused to speak publicly, until Tony Blair as played by Michael Sheen, convinces her that her subjects’ emotional needs must take preference over her own dignity, reserve and sense of proper conduct.
A less attractive Power of Conscience character in The King’s Speech, is Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury, played by Derek Jacobi. He is outraged by the King’s unconventional therapist.
The proper formal Archbishop does his best to discredit Lionel Logue, because Logue doesn’t have the proper credentials. The therapist is an undignified colonial with no accredited training. For a brief time Albert is tempted to abandon his treatment.
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Lionel Logue is a Power of Idealism character. He is eccentric, flamboyant and passionate about what he does. He flies in the face of conformity and authority and has no use for the conventional wisdom of the time.
These characters want to find their special place in the world, be extraordinary in what they do, be called to some great destiny (which certainly was the case here) or make a lasting artistic impression. They are misfits, mavericks and rebels.
Lionel Logue: (as Albert lights a cigarette) Please don’t do that.
Albert: I’m sorry?
Lionel Logue: I believe sucking smoke into your lungs will kill you.
Albert: My physicians say it relaxes the throat.
Lionel Logue: They’re idiots.
Albert: They’ve all been knighted.
Lionel Logue: Makes it official then.
Logue also insists on complete equality with the royal Albert. Like all Power of Idealism characters Logue believes in personal freedom and autonomy and is unwilling to bow to anyone.
Albert’s brother Edward displays the narcissistic, dramatic and self-involved aspects of the Power of Idealism character. He is consumed with his passionate affair with Wallis Simpson. He wants to be free and refuses to bow to duty, his advisors or the government ministers. Instead, he makes the bold operatic romantic gesture and abdicates his throne in favor of “the woman I love.” He leaves the throne to Albert who, in the end, was just what Britain needed.
The King’s Speech is a wonderful film with brilliantly drawn Power of Conscience and Power of Idealism characters in constant tension and conflict. Read the full article on The Queen here.
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