#WritingAdviceWednesday – Writing Exercises: Silence Is Golden

#WritingAdviceWednesday – Media Fast

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#BeFabFriday – Pursuit of Perfection is Pointless

#BeFabFriday – Don’t let the perfect stand in the way of the good

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What’s Your World?

Victor Hugo

#BeFabFriday – Make your world real

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Advice from Pixar and a Few Thoughts of my Own

Pixar story artist Emma Coats has tweeted a series of “story basics” over the past month and a half — guidelines that she learned from her more senior colleagues on how to create appealing stories. My thoughts are in parenthesis.

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Day Two at eQuinoxe

When a script isn’t working well, isn’t as compelling a read as it should be or has some kind of emotional disconnect in the story the problem is usually the lack of a clear compelling and well-developed Want, Need or Price.

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Jumping Off a Cliff

I am always talking about characters taking a Leap of Faith in a story. But I have been a bit hesitant about making my own. The cliff I am contemplating right is moving to Europe to live and work for a year, possibly longer.

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How to Use Byron Katie’s Four Questions

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Yesterday I posted Byron Katie’s four questions.  These questions get at the fear and fearful thinking that causes personal suffering.  As many of you know the best definition of fear I have ever heard is:  “Fear is the anticipation of grief.”  Anticipating something often makes it true– That’s where the saying “a self-fulfilling prophecy” comes from. Here is how to use the questions in fictional character development:

1.  Is it true? Every character has a specific view of the world, of themselves and of their role in the role.  This is based on the person’s Character Type.  These beliefs and or philosophies limit the character in some profound way.  For example, a Power of Truth character believes that the world is fundamentally uncertain.  These characters believe life is filled with hidden pitfalls, secret agendas and you can’t really trust in or believe anything.

When operating out of fear these character doubt everyone and everything.  They don’t even trust themselves– second-guessing every decision, doubting themselves and others.  Mickey Sachs (Woody Allen)  in Hannah and Her Sisters at his most anxious neurotic state is a great comic example of the Power of Truth Character Type.  Mickey says:

“…I really hit bottom.  You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn’t want to go on living.  Now I happen to own this rifle which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed to my forehead.”
“And I remember thinking… I’m gonna kill myself.  Then I thought… What if I’m wrong? What if there is a God?  I mean after all, nobody really knows. But then I thought, no.  You know,  maybe is not good enough.  I want  certainty or nothing.”

“…I really hit bottom.  You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn’t want to go on living.  Now I happen to own this rifle which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed to my forehead.”

“And I remember thinking… I’m gonna kill myself.  Then I thought… What if I’m wrong? What if there is a God?  I mean after all, nobody really knows. But then I thought, no.  You know,  maybe is not good enough.  I want  certainty or nothing.”

Mickey nearly shoots himself but the gun slides off his forehead and he escapes in the resulting mayhem.  He  run into the street, walks for hours and then retreats into a movie theater where a Marx Brother’s movie is playing.

2: Can you absolutely know it’s true? In a climatic moment, Mickey realizes he can’t be absolutely certain there is no God.  He says:
“…I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down and, you know, the movie was a film that I’d seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and I always loved it.  And, you know, I’m watching these people up on the screen, and I started getting hooked on the film, you know?”
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“…And I started to think how can you even think of killing yourself? I mean, isn’t it so stupid?  Look at all the people up there on the screen.  You know, they’re real funny, and, and what if the worst is true?”
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“…What if there’s no God, and you only go around once and that’s it?  Well, you know, don’t you want to be part of the experience?  You know, what the hell, it’s not all a drag.”
3: How do you react—what happens—when you believe that thought? When Mickey believes there is no real certainty he fells anxious, depressed and self-destructive.  When he doubts everything he wants to kill himself.
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4: Who would you be without the thought? Without obsessing about certainty or the lack of it, Mickey can begin to enjoy his life, relax and be more open, fun-loving and tolerant of ambiguity.  He says:
I’m thinking to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life… searching for answers I’m never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts.  And… I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows.  I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that’s the best we have. And… then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.”
Absolutely nothing changed but Mickey’s attitude.   When he let go of his obsessive thoughts, based on his fears and narrow world view, he became more comfortable with uncertainty and more available to life and it’s enjoyments.
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Byron Katie’s process is another way of looking at the Leap of Faith described in the Character Map eBook.  Every character must, at some point, let go of their self-limiting view of the world and of themselves.  This is the only way to make the transformation that is so scary but so emotionally satisfying.

Make a Plan

Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That’s not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

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John Updike – Writing Routine

An interviewer asked Updike, about his writing routine: You’ve said that it was fairly easy to write the Rabbit books. Do you write methodically? Do you have a schedule that you stick to? Updike answers with a full explanation of his routine

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John Updike – Novel to Movie Adaptations

When looking for a novel to adapt, look for a story that has a strong external narrative. Find a story in which a character’s actions lead to specific external consequences with real impact and which effect important transformation in the character or others.

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Stick To It – Reward Yourself

Nick Schenk scored big with Gran Torino after over ten years of struggle, rejection and near-misses. How does someone– anyone– keep motivated in the face of impossible odds, daunting circumstances and a crushing lack of validation. Here’s how.

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Writing Routine

I discovered a great website that discusses how various writers and artists approach their work and organize their day. Below is a discussion of the simple method Anthony Trollope used to write forty-nine novels in thirty-five years!

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Third Cocktail Question

cocktail-party ETBScreenwritingFinishing up with the third cocktail question: “Would you like to hear a great idea for a movie?”  For some reason, when people know you are a screenwriter they feel compelled to tell you their story or ask your opinion on their idea.

As you are listening, realize you are sitting in the place of a beleaguered studio executive.  What can you learn from this experience?

Always listen to the idea carefully because it’s a great opportunity to learn two of the most valuable lessons about pitching.  Pretend you listen to screenplay ideas for a living.

First, notice the person isn’t nervous.  They are simply sharing something that they are interested in and feel  passionate about.  They are hoping you will like the idea but the fun is in just communicating the it.  That is the greatest lesson of pitching.  Don’t go into a pitch meeting with the expectation or desire to sell the pitch.  Just enjoy sharing your story.  That goes a long way in eliminating nervousness.  Have fun.  Make it fascinating cocktail conversation.

Second, keep it short and punchy.  You want a strong opening, a series of interesting complications and a satisfying payoff.  That’s it.  Any more than ten to fifteen minutes is overkill.  Einstein once said”  “If you can’t explain it briefly and simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”  And he was talking about physics!  The best thing you can get anyone to say in a meeting is: “Tell me more.”  Then you have permission and the interest and attention to elaborate.  You don’t want someone looking at the watch and thinking:  “Get to the point already.”

Isn’t that what anyone wants in a cocktail conversation:  A fun story that is mercifully short.  Get in. Get out.  Leave them wanting more.

Ugly Betty

ugly-bettyA Successful and Proven Format

The Ugly Betty (Yo soy, Betty la Fea) telenovela has translated successfully around the world and the recent American version garnered Golden Globe, People’s Choice, and Writers Guild Awards for best new series as well as a best actress Golden Globe for America Ferrera.

What makes the Ugly Betty format so successful with audiences world-wide? How can the US show avoid the story problems and resulting audience downturn that bedeviled the equally popular Lost and Desperate Housewives in their second seasons? This month I’ll look at the challenges Ugly Betty faces going forward.

Ugly Betty (Yo soy, Betty la Fea) is about the two lives of Betty Suarez, a bright but beauty challenged college graduate. She lands a job with the ultra slick Mode Magazine in New York City but lives with her struggling Mexican-American family in Queens. Betty commutes between these two very different worlds.

The Danger: Repeating the Mistakes of Lost and Desperate Housewives

Lost and Desperate Housewives were also highly original shows on ABC that had acclaimed premiere seasons. In the second season neither show stayed true to the essential story elements that initially captivated viewers. Straying from their emotional cores defused the power of each show. As a result, each show lost viewers and dropped in the ratings in its second season.

Is Ugly Betty in danger of repeating that mistake as its first season draws to a close? What are the first signs of this potentially problematic trend?

According to Nielsen numbers, the pilot started the show off at a high of 16.09 million viewers. Ugly Betty then settled comfortably into the 13+ million to 14+ million viewer range. In the last four episodes viewers have slid generally downward, dipping to 10.80, to 10.50, and 9.5 million viewers respectively then up slightly to 9.6 million viewers.

Does this signal growing dissatisfaction as viewers tune out? Why might the audience be disengaging from the show? How can this be corrected?  Here is my analysis:

1. Identify the Classic Story Elements

Betty is portrayed as a Power of Love character in the series. (In my view of television and film there are Nine Character Types, each with their own internal values, worldviews and emotional journeys.) 

Stories driven by the Power of Love (and all love stories, romantic and otherwise) are about assimilation.

Immigration stories are also assimilation stories: whether it is a story of Algerian immigrants in France, Indian families in Britain, Mexican immigrants in the US, or rural workers migrating to city jobs in China. These stories start the same way all love stories start— the two parties can’t stand each other! They view each other with mutual dislike and suspicion.

There is a clash of cultures, attitudes and beliefs. Each party fears the other will somehow overwhelm or destroy their core identity. This is what is at issue with banning of Muslim headscarves in France, controversies about Spanish language usage in the US and economic turmoil in China.

Power of Love stories ask, as Ugly Betty asks: How much must I change, adjust or compromise to accommodate you (or to fit into your culture) before I totally lose myself? How much can I demand that you adjust, change or compromise to accommodate me, before you lose who you are?

In Ugly Betty our heroine enters the epitome of Anglo culture and its defining arbiter of beauty and success, Mode Magazine. She comes armed with her Mexican immigrant values of family, community, hard work and sacrifice. Two sets of cultures, attitudes and beliefs immediately are at war.

Over the course of an assimilation story (or a love story) the parties are continually forced together and, as they are compelled to deal with each other, they exchange gifts. Each has something the other lacks or offers something new or really useful to the mix.

In Ugly Betty, Mode Magazine offers Betty a gateway into the dominant Anglo culture and all the success, status, wealth and acceptance that assimilation brings (the American Dream). Betty brings honesty, authenticity, devotion to family and real care for others to a world that has lost much of its heart and soul.

2. Sharpen the Central Focus

The central focus of Ugly Betty should be Betty herself. Supporting cast should do just that—support Betty’s story. The show is not about Daniel Meade’s (Eric Mabius) struggle to accept his brother’s new identity, Daniel’s desire to hold onto his position at Mode Magazine or a murder mystery. These storylines are only of interest if they push Betty’s story forward.

Every member of the audience looks at the world and sees himself or herself at its center. That’s why even ensemble shows should have one individual who is at the center of the story’s emotional universe. (Carrie Bradshaw, played by Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City or Ray Barone, played by Ray Romano, in Everybody Loves Raymond). That person should define the world and the emotional playing field for all the other characters.

Betty is our heroine. The audience identifies her as the center of this story universe. Every plot line, dramatic twist or comedic situation should revolve around or reflect back on Betty. Each circumstance and situation should sharpen and clarify her essential dilemma and further illuminate her emotional journey. If a storyline does not do that it should be reframed or jettisoned as quickly as possible.

The transgender story of Alexis Meade, (Alexander Spencer Meade) played by Elizabeth Penn Payne currently is a distraction. As this story line pulls emotional focus away from Betty, the audience’s connection with her journey weakens and they begin to lose interest in the show. It doesn’t matter how outrageous, surprising, or interesting this storyline is, unless it reveals Betty’s journey more clearly, it is a diversion that dilutes the emotional focus of the show.

3. Clarify the Core Story Questions

All story elements in Ugly Betty should help to spotlight Betty’s internal conflict. The problems at issue for Betty are the classic quandaries in any Power of Love story (or any story about assimilation, romance or partnership). These questions are:

Who I am vs. Who you want me to be?

How much of myself should I change to be accepted or to get along with you?

How much should I expect you to change?

What happens if I grow and change too much?

What happens if I don’t grow and change enough?

Will others tolerate my transformation or reject me?

What will I sacrifice for love or friendship?

Will you still need (or love) me if you aren’t dependent on me?

How independent and self-sufficient should I be?

Mode will change Betty and Betty will change the people at Mode. How much can each change before their core identities are lost? As Betty changes how does this create conflict within herself and within her family, who may not recognize, like, or want to accept the changed Betty?

This transformational struggle is why we tune in. It is a story as old as time. It is the universal bedtime story about the country mouse and the city mouse. Once this process of change begins, things can never be as they were. You can’t unring the bell. You can’t go back again.

4. Aim for the Heart

One of the best things about Ugly Betty is also potentially its greatest weakness. Mode’s glamorous setting and outrageous style is a fresh and funny counterpoint to Betty’s struggling family and her working class world in Queens. Her warm, genuine and caring character is wonderfully showcased against the cold, artificial and ultra-competitive world of Mode.

A show’s tone is always a question of balance. Right now it seems that the balance is straying too far off the mark. Too high a premium seems to be placed on outrageous behavior and outlandish situations. When humor is based on situations, the situations have to continually get crazier to keep raising the stakes.

As the show becomes more flamboyant and more camp the tone threatens to overshadow and overwhelm the show’s sincerity and heart. Humor that is generated by extreme circumstances or bizarre situations doesn’t dig deep. It settles for the easy laugh and, over time, can seem cartoonish.

It is Betty the audience cares most about. Her appealing warmth, generosity and authenticity are the reasons the audience tunes in week after week. They want to know her better and are eager to see how it will all work out for her.

The tone and style of the show is only useful if it makes Betty seem more “real” and makes her personal dilemmas feel more urgent. Betty needs to drive the show and not merely react to the outrageous goings-on.

5. Amp Up Family Conflict

The comedy in the show should come from true conflict between the characters.. A huge opportunity is being missed in the Suarez household. Outside of a few brief confrontations, no one has any serious issues with each other. There are great potential battles to be fought in Queens.

When Betty leaves her working class neighborhood and enters the glamorous world of her professional career, her family is proud of her. But they must also be keenly aware that she is leaving them behind in the most fundamental way. Betty will inevitably be changed by her experiences. Even in the most loving families this change causes feelings of inadequacy, loss, rejection, resentment and jealousy in those left behind.

Changes in Betty should trigger changes in her family. What happens if Hilda, played by Ana Ortiz, or her son Justin, played by Mark Indelicato, steps up and takes Betty’s place in the family? Betty will feel those same feelings of inadequacy rejection, loss, resentment and jealousy her family is experiencing. Betty’s role in the family was always as a caregiver. What happens when the role passes to someone else—because she isn’t there to fill it? Who is Betty Suarez then?

It is a mistake to make the Suarez family Betty’s safe haven. It takes endless comedic possibilities off the table. Comedy comes from pain. (“If it don’t hurt it ain’t funny”). If Betty is beleaguered on all sides it makes her situation much more painful and much funnier. Comedy makes characters more vulnerable. Betty is not at risk enough with her family.

In general, acceptance comes much too easily in this family. The Suarez family is more tolerant and well adjusted than any family I’ve ever met. The audience’s families are much more difficult and dysfunctional. Comedy comes from conflict.

Acceptance in real families comes hard and at a very high emotional price. People really have to struggle to accept things, people or situations they don’t understand, didn’t plan for or didn’t want in the first place. The more the Suarez family struggles with acceptance issues between all members of the family the more painful and the funnier the story will be.

6. Strengthen the Pull of Queens

Betty needs a strong love interest in Queens. She needs to meet a man who represents all the things she would miss if she leaves the neighborhood lifestyle behind. This love interest should be an appealing, warm-hearted and a hunky kind of guy. He should also be the kind of guy who would feel tremendously uncomfortable and completely out-of-place in her professional world.

Arthur, played by Kevin Sussman, had the discomfort factor but he wasn’t a strong enough pull on Betty’s affections. He was geeky, jealous and unfaithful. Choosing her career and losing Arthur was never a heart-breakingly difficult choice for Betty.

What would happen if Betty met and fell in love with another neighborhood guy, a wonderful salt of the earth kind of man cast in her father’s mold? Losing a guy like that could be a heart-breakingly difficult choice. Such a man could represent a real threat to Betty’s professional aspirations and could provide a strong argument to find less demanding work closer to home.

Would Betty give up a wonderful loving marriage, children and a comfy Queens home of her own for a career at Mode? Would she try to have both? What happens if there is a crisis with Daniel and a crisis with the man she loved?

These choices could provide an endless source of conflict and comedy. Right now there are no strong, compelling and believable counter-forces pulling Betty away from Mode and back toward Queens. Betty’s new possible love interest, Henry, played by Christopher Gorham, pulls Betty toward the world of Mode, not away from it.

7. Make it Specific

The show seems to define the Suarez family generically as Latino. Very little is made of the fact that the family is Mexican-American. There are rich comedic possibilities to be mined in fully exploring the foibles and follies of that very particular identity. Why bland their background out?

Why be generic when you can be specific? What makes Mexican Americans funny as opposed to what makes Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Colombians or Guatemalans funny? Why not exploit the rivalries, prejudices, reputations and stereotypes that exist between diverse Spanish speaking people? Great writing is about specificity. A great comedic opportunity is being missed here. Even better– It is one that is fresh to network television.

8. Shore Up the Audience

Ugly Betty is a wonderful show that can easily reverse any potential downturn. The show can gracefully sidestep the mistakes that rattled Lost and Desperate Housewives second season ratings. What Ugly Betty needs to do is to fully explore the show’s fundamental story questions, keep Betty front and center in any plot twist or story complication, make the tone secondary to the show’s heart and fully mine all the natural conflict on both sides of Betty’s world. Do that and the audience will keep coming back for more next season and beyond.

A very successful long-running Power of Love story was Everybody Loves Raymond. In that show, Ray also moved between two worlds. He was pulled between the world of his childhood family (and his mother’s demands and expectations) and the world of his own adult family (and his wife’s demands and expectations). Raymond was besieged on both sides for almost 10 years. The show was one of the most critically acclaimed sit-coms of its time.