My friend had a rough writing day the other day. She had a moment of disappointment that she wasn’t writing projects that are more high-concept and commercial. I reminded her that we can only write what we love. That’s the best we can do. Sometimes we just have to write what we love just because […]
Archive | Story
If It Doesn’t Buy You Something, Take It Out
By Monica on July 29, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
The more I write and the more I read, I find I return to this mantra again and again: If it doesn’t buy you something, take it out. Screenplay beats to me are a commodity. You have to buy the beats in the beginning of your story to cash them in later on in the […]
Screenplay Openings: Most Beginnings Are Overwritten
By Monica on July 28, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
This article follows up on Screenplay: The Importance of the First Five Pages. In the last batch of scripts I read for one of the screenwriting competitions, I would say about 30% of the screenplays had beginnings that were overwritten. It’s not uncommon. In several cases, the real story didn’t start to pick up until […]
Subject Matter: Sci-Fi Writers Beware
Science fiction is complicated to write. You have to create a believable world that is rich and full of detail with no breaks in logic in a limited pagecount, hit the genre conventions and then write a smart story on top of that. Also, it can’t be something we’ve seen before – it has to […]
Clarity Above All
By Monica on July 23, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
There is no shame in being absolutely clear with your beats. In fact, I am that reader who is likely to not get something if it isn’t on the page. You should assume that if it’s not clear on the page, your reader is not going to get it. If you hint at something but […]
Subject Matter: Don’t Write About Writers or Hollywood, Please
By Monica on July 21, 2009 in Character, Genre, Logical World, Process, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Uncategorized
Today I’ve read a couple of stories about Hollywood aspirings – aspiring writers, directors, actors, etc. In this reading season I’ve probably read a number of these kinds of scripts. Please, people, no. Don’t do it. Ninety nine times out of one hundred, your life as an aspiring writer isn’t interesting enough to warrant a […]
Screenplay: The Importance of the First Five Pages
By Monica on July 20, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Formatting, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
The opening five pages of your screenplay give me a ton of information about the breadth and scope of your project. As with the opening of a novel or any other literary work, the opening of your screenplay should be a microcosm of the world of your script. It’s the first taste – but as […]
What Happened to the Inciting Incident?
You’d be surprised – I have been – but a very high number of scripts I’m reading don’t have inciting incidents. I am getting to page 15, page 20, page 30, and there’s really no defined story. I would say that this is in about 25% of the scripts I’m reading. Obviously, these scripts are […]
The Small Character Drama: Life or Death Stakes
By Monica on July 16, 2009 in Character, Genre, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Subject Matter, Uncategorized
I’m not someone who generally loves small indie movies that blow some minor human drama into a hysteria for the ages. I love real stories – stories with action, externalized drama, physical obstacles, where something transformative happens. To me, most small character dramas that I read don’t offer up enough dramatic stakes to warrant a […]
Look at It From the Reader’s Perspective…
By Monica on July 15, 2009 in Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
I just got through another big push of scripts. There were a handful of recommends, but overall many of them were dismal. When writing, just get the words down on the page. Get through that first draft. But, then rewrite. Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite. As you get closer to the time you’re going to send your […]
The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations
I attended a seminar years ago with Jeff Kitchen wherein he passed out a xeroxed sheet of the thirty-six dramatic situations as identified by Geroges Polti, culled from the original French-language book, which was written in the 19th century. I didn’t understand much else from his talk (it was a lot of fancy jargon to […]
Do Your Homework: Watch AFI’s Top 100 List Films
By Monica on July 7, 2009 in Beat Sheet, Character, Genre, Location, Logical World, Process, Story, Theme, Tone, Uncategorized
If you’re writing screenplays, it’s very important to know the field. You should be watching movies in the theatre now and also studying previously released films. Here is a wonderful basic list of the great movies, which you should see to have a basic understanding of our industry. In addition, you should endeavor to watch […]
Screenwriting Basics: The Importance of Tone
Tone is an excellent tool with which to underscore the genre of your screenplay. For me as a reader, both the genre and tone should be abundantly clear from page one. If it’s not abundantly clear by page two, you’re likely in trouble. I use “tone” to this end, as defined by Merriam-Webster.com: “general character, […]
Screenwriting Basics: The Importance of Theme
By Monica on July 6, 2009 in Character, Process, Screenwriting Competitions, Story, Theme, Uncategorized
A reader asked me to write something about theme, as it is possibly the most nebulous component of good writing and yet arguably the most important. Theme, to me, is the soul of the piece. It’s a part of the unspoken meaning to each of the scenes that is continually omnipresent. Most scripts I read […]
Breaking Story: The Six Major Beats
Generally, when people begin the outline process or look more specifically at the structure of any given script, they look closely at the six beats. In film school, it was explained to us that these are the major “tent pole” story points – the major points of story upon which you hang the rest of […]