Chapter One
Prelude
Learning to write screenplays might be
compared to learning Zen archery. At least it is a
good analogy.
The diligent practice of Zen archery, like
many of the martial arts, produces some remarkable
skills. Leaving aside the spiritual aspirations (and
the question of whether such aspirations are actually
attained or not through this practice), one certainly
cannot argue with the accuracy of the flight of an
arrow.
The goal of Zen archery is for a man to
become detached from his weapon so that he is able to
focus fully on the target.
The development of a Zen master archer
involves great attention to technique, great devotion
to exact form. But ultimately the aim is for the
archer to be able to forget technique, forget the bow,
forget the draw of the arrow, and put his entire
concentration onto the target.
To achieve this, the Zen archer painstakingly
learns technique. He learns the exact stance, the
precise breathing, the specific movements with which
the powerful Zen bow is drawn and the arrow released.
Each of these are studied and practiced until they
become almost second nature. The archer can do it all
flawlessly without having to think about it.
Eventually, the archer's mind is almost
unaware of his actions. It is focused in riveted
concentration on the target, his spirit is almost
burned into the destination of his shot-- "to be one
with it" Zen monks say--so that the arrow is guided by
his mind. The bow and the technique of aiming and
shooting are but an inconsequential necessity.
As a screenwriter, one studies and practices
technique to be able to forget technique, to reach a
point where he can use it almost unconsciously to give
power to his storytelling through film.
Why Spend Time Learning The Tools of Your Craft?
The reason one writes a fictional screenplay
is to interest audiences in a story, to keep them
interested throughout, and to make them feel and think
certain things. In a broad sense we call it
entertainment. But this is open to misinterpretation
if entertainment is considered to be simply keeping
people amused.
Gone With The Wind, which for decades held
the record as the top grossing film of all time, would
be severely short-changed if it was described simply as
a "feel good" movie. It did not just present a story
designed to make audiences laugh and enjoy themselves.
Rather it offered a chance for the audience to share in
the joys, anger, grief, frustrations and hopes of its
characters in a meaningful way.
A screenwriter's job is to create an
experience for people which they will consider
valuable. It has been said many times that a
screenwriter is first and foremost a storyteller.
The only reason to learn how to write a
screenplay is so you can do a better job of telling a
story through the medium of film. (And by film in this
book, I include television, video and all motion
pictures--pictures that move.)
Learning the craft of screenwriting is really
learning the rules and the tricks of the trade that
help you make your film a valuable experience for the
audience.
The techniques of screenwriting are
essentially only tools to be used to create those
effects you want to create for an audience. These
tools have been developed by the many writers who have
gone before you.
Many modern writers who study screenwriting
techniques never realize that all they are studying are
tools which will help them tell their story better.
Instead, screenwriting is too often taught
authoritatively as "a formula."
The problem with the formula approach is that
every story is different. How each screenwriting tool
should be employed to best tell a particular story
depends a great deal on the story itself.
If a writer doesn't think of techniques and
form as tools, if he only thinks in terms of "formula,"
that is all he will end up with--formula scripts
usually with little originality or freshness.
Audiences grow weary of seeing the same old things
again and again.
Like all devices, the tools of screenwriting
can be used poorly or well. This is what craftsmanship
is all about--using tools well.
The first step in learning to use these tools
is to study exactly what they are and how they have
been used--the role they can play in having the desired
effect on the audience.
In studying scriptwriting, one is learning to
compose a symphony of action, characters, motives,
conflicts, and dialogue. Just as a composer would have
to know what each instrument can do before he could
compose a musical symphony, so a good screenwriter
needs a keen appreciation of the various tools or
techniques available to him.
Every successful film does not utilize every
tool in the same way. Picking the right tool for the
right job and using it appropriately is also a part of
craftsmanship.
If one thinks that one can use a system to
write a film without a real understanding of the tools
being employed, all one is going to write are formula
films. And I believe that sooner or later, the
formulas will let one down.
What a writer does with the tools of the
screenwriting trade is, of course, up to him (or her).
What stories a screenwriter tells and the reasons why
he wants to tell them is his business.
But how well a writer tell his stories
through the medium of film--well that depends largely
on his screenwriting craft. And this really means how
well he understands and can use the tools of
screenwriting.
#####
Breaking The Rules
Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller is one
of the most famous stage plays of the century. It has
even been filmed with Dustin Hoffman in the lead role.
The first version of this play that Miller wrote broke
rules on every page. After an experienced producer saw
it, he suggested to Miller that he study Ibsen until
technique was automatic. Miller not only did this but
wrote an Ibsen-style play: All My Sons. Then he
rewrote Death of a Salesman. The result was a great
play that also broke the rules, but in a competent and
skilled manner.
How To Become A Screenwriter
Screenwriters aren't born, they are made.
To a large degree they make themselves.
Mainly they do this through writing and
writing. And then writing some more.
Or more exactly, they write and then study
how other writers have handled the same kind of
problems. Then they write some more. Study and write.
Study and write. Study and write.
Almost every screenwriter who has made it in
Hollywood--perhaps with the exception of successful
novelists and playwrights who have learned the art of
dramatic writing through their other work--has a drawer
or trunk stuffed with scripts, completed ones and the
beginnings of others. It is all work they probably
once thought wonderful. Now, if they have developed as
writers, most of it usually makes them cringe.
Filling that drawer or trunk is part of the
process of learning the craft of screenwriting. These
pages which a screenwriter--or any writer for that
matter--has diligently sweated over are a kind of right
of passage. And every experienced writer knows it.
No one expects a painter to suddenly pick up
a paintbrush and start painting masterpieces. No one
setting out to become a good painter believes he is
going to sell his first canvases for a million dollars
a pop.
Yet many would-be screenwriters will sit down
and write a first script absolutely convinced that it
is going to be snatched up by the first producer they
persuade to read it, that it will be raced into
production to become the next blockbuster hit. Strange
when you think about it.
But then the whole writing business is a
little strange.
Hemingway and The Aspiring Writer
(As Told by Hemingway)
Aspiring Young Writer: What do you mean by good writing
as opposed to bad writing?
Ernest Hemingway: Good writing is true writing. If a
man is making a story up it will be true in proportion
to the amount of knowledge of life that he has and how
conscientious he is; so that when he makes something up
it is as it would truly be...
Aspiring Young Writer: What books should a writer have
to read?
Hemingway: He should have read everything so he knows
what he has to beat.
Aspiring Young Writer: He can't have read everything.
Hemingway: I don't say what he can. I say what he
should. Of course he can't...
#####
WRITER AS CREATOR
A writer must be a creator first and a technician
second. If he does not desire to tell stories, he
will never be much of a success as a story teller.
- Frederick Palmer
# # # # # #
What Is Entertainment?
People watch most films to be entertained.
Therefore the subject of "entertainment"
deserves a little thought.
The word entertainment comes from the Latin
"tenare" which means "to grab" or "to hold." If you
grab and hold an audience, you are entertaining them.
An examination of most people's lives
reveals, from beginning to end, struggle and conflict--
sometimes pleasant and agreeable, sometimes bitter and
heartbreaking. But always there is struggle and
conflict.
Few men ever reach all the goals which they
set out to achieve. Somewhere along the way they
usually lose the aspirations and ideals of their youth.
Too few of the dreams of success and accomplishment
come true completely. So always, men and women have
turned to history, song and story, to fable and legend,
to epic and saga, fiction and drama, that they might
visualize success and achievement and share the
emotions of others--real or fictional.
People occasionally need to be lifted out of
themselves. This happens when they have the
opportunity to experience the trials and suffering, the
adventure and mystery, the victories and defeats of
people with whom they can identify in some way.
We call it entertainment--but when it comes
to film, it is often something more than simple
amusement or diversion.
After a couple of hours in a darkened movie
theater or before a television set watching a quality
movie, people take back something into their own lives.
Often what they gain can't even be specifically defined
in any precise way--but nevertheless they feel the
experience has had value.
To entertain the screenwriter must arouse the
emotions of the audience. And a mass audience responds
to emotion rather than intellect.
So a writer entertains by arousing the
emotions and thus touching the lives of other people
and effecting them in some meaningful way. And if he
is fully successful, he grabs and holds them from the
start to the end of a film.
The screenwriter who writes only to provide a
meaningless diversion will not accomplish much.
# # # # #
Josefina Niggli explained it very succinctly:
"Before we learn technique, we are fools. While we are
learning it, we are cripples. After we've learned it
and it has become automatic we don't have to think of
it any more, we can begin to be artists.
"If this sounds complicated, let us consider a
cabinetmaker who has never learned to use a saw. He
may be talented, and by guess and gosh, may produce one
lovely table. But can he make a second table equally
as good? The ability to repeat is the test of an
artist. Hence a cabinet maker is a fool not to learn
how to use a saw. Eventually he sets himself to
learning all the tricks (the rules) of sawing. But he
has to concentrate so much on angle of placement that
he can't concentrate on the important thing: the table
he wants to make. Hence, he's a cripple. But after
weeks of practice, he learns to use that saw as an
extension of his own hand. Now he can turn all his
attention to the image of the finished table in his
mind. Thus, at last, he begins to be a fine
cabinetmaker."