Archive for February, 2010

Friday Q&A: Finding An Agent

Q: How do I find and select an agent to query?

A: Thanks for your question. Here are three ways to find agents to pitch:

1. The Hollywood Representation Directory lists agents and managers. You can research agents who represent writers in your genre.

2. Read trade publications (such as The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, Script Magazine, and Done Deal Pro) to learn about screenplay sales and the agents representing the projects and writers.

3. Attend industry conferences, film events, and pitch festivals where agents are speaking for the chance to connect with agents in-person.

Page-To-Screen: An Education

Author: Lynn Barber

Screenwriter: Nick Hornby

Logline: A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1960s suburban London, and how her life changes with the arrival of a playboy nearly twice her age.

Listen to an interview with screenwriter Nick Hornby at Creative Screenwriting

Download a free copy of the screenplay from Script Collector.

Screenwriters: How To Talk To A Novelist About Writing – Guest Post by Larry Brooks of StoryFix

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Dogs and cats.  Yankee fans and Red Sox fans.  Conservatives and liberals.  Studio projects and independent films.  We live in a divided global culture that thrives on tension and occasionally throws a punch.

Thank God we’re less concerned these days with race and sexual preference than we are with Team Edward versus Team Jacob.

But then there are screenwriters and novelists.

Over decades in this business I’ve never heard a screenwriter ripping on novelists.  But I have heard novelists deprecate the screenwriting trade as inferior to what they do.

Which is complete and utter nonsense.

Read on you’ll see why I say that.

To be honest, coming from someone who speaks both languages, I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a conversation between an established screenwriter and a successful novelist.  I’m not even sure I’ve been in a room where, beyond the novices attending a workshop, both parties were represented.

I’m sure it’s happened at the occasional award ceremony – let’s be clear, though, Dennis Lehane got zero air time when the movie made from his novel, Mystic River, rocked the 2003 Oscars, and received 41 other awards and 64 nominations – and perhaps a hallway discussion in which a novelist was chewing the leg off a writer/director for ruining his vision.

Never mind the seven-figure windfall the novelist had already spent thanks to the two-hundred-plus movie folk who labored to bring that vision to the screen.  Not the least of which was a screenwriter who had to convert the thing into a script, an instrument the novelist had never read, much less was deemed capable of writing.

But I digress.

This isn’t about taking sides or throwing printer cartridges.

It’s about exploring the screenwriter-novelist gap to see what value each side might offer the other, should such a conversation ever go down.

If it does, my guess is it’ll happen in a movie first.

I began my writing journey as a wannabe novelist, and I sucked at it.  It wasn’t until I studied screenwriting and wrote a few scripts that I understood why that was the case.  Screenwriting taught me that, even though I was an avid reader of novels, I knew absolutely nothing about storytelling.

Screenwriting can be humbling in that way.

It could then be argued that I sucked as a screenwriter, too, but I did score a few options and an 8-pack full of Nicholl Fellowship placements, including a week in L.A. with nine other finalists that included an afternoon with Frank Darabont.

Now that was cool.

But then fate threw me a curveball when I adapted one of my scripts into a novel – precisely the opposite of the traditional route – and before long I had a minor paperback bestseller (the USA Today list) on my hands and a career as a novelist unfolding before me.

Now, four novels and a ditched contract later, and as the creator of a successful instructional website for both novelists and screenwriters, I find myself saying two very congruent and insightful (if you’re a novelist) things:

-       Everything I learned about storytelling was gleaned from the study of screenwriting, and…

-       … the best thing a new novelist can do is to dive headfirst into screenwriting theory – beginning with Syd Field.

It’s All Storytelling

Screenwriters would be shocked at the nature of novel writing mentorship out there these days, both in print and in workshops.   Even Stephen King, writing in his memoir called On Writing, advises writers to (I paraphrase) just sit down and start writing, allowing the story to develop organically as they go.

Imagine David Keop doing that with Spielberg waiting by the phone with a shooting schedule on his laptop.

Novelists don’t think structurally, they don’t know what a plot point is (they do have some semblance of the inciting incident, but for the most part they have no idea where it goes).  Some of them ascribe to what they call pantsing – seat of the pants storytelling without a plan or even an ending in mind – defending it as the only true creative methodology a writer can and should adopt.

Let’s just say I’m excited to spread the word.  Call it a wide open market niche that’s screaming for clarity.
Again, I digress.

A Story by Any Other Name

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that screenwriters are better storytellers than novelists.  But I will say, and unequivocally so, that screenwriters have better tools, clearer models and more defined expectations for their stories than do novelists, all of it learned and practiced from Day One.

What I’ve discovered, and thankfully so, since it defines my mission in this little corner of the writing guru field, is that they are very much alike once you stop comparing how the manuscript pages look so drastically different.

In fact, three-act movie structure translates almost precisely to a 4-part novel structure, simply by dividing our Act II confrontation in half, resulting in a Part 2 response/hero-as-wanderer quartile, then a mid-point context-shifting transitional moment, followed by a Part 3 attack/hero-as-warrior quartile.
The rest of it, most especially the story planning process that allows a story to fall into the right places and contexts as it bleeds from the forehead of the writer, is directly transferable and extraordinarily liberating for novelists who thought Stephen King knew everything.

But what, I sometimes ponder, does the novelist have to offer the screenwriter?

Especially if the objective isn’t to become a novelist, per se, but rather, to gift the screenwriter with some value-adding perspective in the same way that screenwriters have done for novelists?

Tough question.  Because, to be honest, there isn’t much.

But there is one thing, and it’s killer.

We screenwriters know – and try to ignore – that if we put too much fancy stage direction into a script we’ll get hate mail from directors and just possibly be banned from the set once we sell the damn thing.

And so we write sparsely, pointing the director toward a mood, a look, a moment, without being terribly succinct in the process.

Novelists, on the other hand, get to be the director of the stories they write.  They must deliver mood and ambiance through the use of words that deliver nuance, and in doing so they bring every bit the aesthetic passion and detail that a cranky director and a van full of set designers and wardrobe mistresses bring to the party.

And in doing so, they have only one tool – their words.  No lighting, no improvising actors, no green screen effects and editing magic.  It’s all on the page.

Whereas a script is a blueprint for a performance, a novel is the performance.

So what can we learn from those so burdened – or privileged, your call – with this responsibility?

We, as masters of a visual medium, can learn the value and storytelling power of language.  The essence of sub-text, implication and energy that a single word or short phrase can convey.

The only common ground in this regard is dialogue – novelists and screenwriters have the exact same work to do whenever a character opens their mouth.  But the novelist also gets to play the speaker like a puppeteer, imbuing her or him with meaningful expression and body language and tone.

Try that in a script and actors like John Malkovich will punch you in the mouth.

Imagine if a novelist with the literary chops of a Dennis Lehane or a Colin Harrison had a crack at your script.  How might they say it differently?  How would they seek to make the most of a moment – that’s all we have in a script, a real-time moment – that carries so much storytelling clout in only a few well-rendered syllables?

In the script for Avatar, on page 116, Cameron writes in stage direction: “The shack descends from the sky like a gift from the gods.”  He could have said, “The helicopter slowly lowers the shack to the ground,” but he chose to go all novelist on the reader for that quick moment.

Now, he’s James Cameron, and he’s probably the type of director who would shoot any screenwriter who tried to overstep in that fashion.  But he said so much with so few words in that line, and the bold screenwriter can take a cue from this approach and imbue their own stories with the same level of metaphoric visualization, using language that speaks volumes to a director needing to see it on the page.

The idea is to spoon-feed the moment to the director and actors in a way that allows them to comprehend your vision, rather than ram it at them.  It’s a subtle art, but precisely the one the novelist faces each time they describe something or create a dramatic moment.

I’ll grant you, there isn’t much the screenwriter can learn from the novelist.

But what there is – this visual power of language – can separate you from the spec script crowd.

Simply by bringing a literary sensibility to your pages, without crossing the line toward directing the movie, you’ll give the reader more visceral and powerful experience, you’ll make them feel you.

So while I’m busy pointing novelists to Syd Field and even my own work on the subject of story structure, consider picking up a credible paperback and doing a little analytical reading of your own.  You’ll see what you already know in the structure, and you might just get something else you can use.

You may begin to immerse yourself in the descriptive power of words.

So if you ever see a novelist at a workshop or a premiere, be nice.  They don’t know it yet, but they owe you all a huge debt of gratitude for paving the way to the illumination of story structure and visual empowerment in their storytelling.

Just don’t tell them how much there is to made in screenwriting, they may never speak to you again.

Larry Brooks is the creator of Storyfix.com.  His new novel, Whisper of the Seventh Thunder, comes out in March 2010.  He is also adapting the novel to a screenplay.

Book-To-Film: Weekly Adaptation Sales & Options (2.23.10)

TUNNELS

Genre: Children’s Fantasy

Author: Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams

Screenwriters: Simon Sandquist and Joel Bergvall

Logline: A 14-year-old boy, who is driven by a fascination of the buried past, is drawn into a subterranean world dominated by a sinister, vicious race called the Styx, after his archaeologist father suddenly goes missing.

TREASURE ISLAND

(Remake)

Genre: Action Adventure

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

Screenwriter: Niall Johnson

Logline: The classic story set in the 19^th century revolves around pirates, buried gold, and the relationship between Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins.

THE GARDEN OF BETRAYAL

Genre: Drama Thriller

Author: Lee Vance

Screenwriter: Not Announced

Logline: Centers on an international conspiracy and the struggle to control global oil and energy.

Friday Q&A: The Correct Use of an Ellipsis

Q: What is the correct use of an ellipsis? – Lauri Clark

A: Thanks for your question Lauri. There are only two correct uses for an ellipsis in screenwriting:

1. To indicate that a character’s dialogue has trailed off
“Before you leave, I just want to say… “

2. To indicate that a character’s dialogue is mid-speech.
“… In other news, Mayor McDonald was re-elected today.”

The correct formatting for an ellipsis is three periods followed by a single space.

Page-To-Screen: Crazy Heart

Author: Thomas Cobb

Screenwriter: Scott Cooper

Logline: A faded country music musician is forced to reassess his dysfunctional life during a doomed romance that also inspires him.

Read an interview with director/screenwriter Scott Cooper from the WGA.

Download a free copy of the script from My PDF Scripts

Book-To-Film: Weekly Adaptation Sales & Options (2.16.10)

THE TERMINAL SPY: A TRUE STORY OF ESPIONAGE, BETRAYAL, AND MURDER

Genre: Mystery Drama

Author: Alan Cowell

Screenwriters: David Scarpa and Mike Newell

Logline: In 2006, ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko is poisoned by polonium-210. As he lies dying in a London hospital, he accuses Russian President Vladimir Putin of being responsible for his murder. This mysterious and perplexing crime of the post-Col War era triggers an international investigation and diplomatic tension between Russian and London officials.

HEIST SOCIETY

Genre: Thriller

Author: Ally Carter

Screenwriter: Shauna Cross

Logline: A young woman who hails from an extended family of cat burglars and master thieves leaves her illicit life behind, but when her father becomes the prime suspect behind a mobster’s missing art collection, she assembles a crew to track down the art and steal it back.

SHIVER

Genre: Supernatural Romance

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Screenwriter: Nick Pustay

Logline: A bittersweet romance takes place between a teen girl and a boy who turns into a wolf each winter. As the temperature drops, the race to keep him human begins.

DUNE

(Remake)

Genre: Science Fiction

author: Frank Herbert

Screenwriter: Chase Palmer

Logline: Set on the remote desert planet of Arrakis, the one planet that produces the interstellar’s sole source of the spice Melange, an empire wide power struggle begins over the control of the spice.

ANIMAL RESCUE

(From the book Boston Noir)

Genre: Mystery Drama

Author: Dennis Lehane

Screenwriter: Dennis Lehane

Logline: A bartender finds a pit bull that is believed to have committed a murder.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS

(Remake)

Genre: Action Adventure

Author: Alexander Dumas

Screenwriter: Peter Straughan

Logline: D’Artagnan joins forces with three veteran musketeers to stop the evil plans of the villainous Cardinal Richelieu.

TURN OF THE CENTURY

Genre: Satire

Author: Kurt Anderson

Screenwriters: Peter Bogdanovich and Parish Rahbar

Logline: Set in February 2000, a Manhattan power couple with three children tries to manage their trouble marriage.

Act Two – How To Fix Common Problems

Most problems in Act Two result from:

1. Lack of Focus
The story lacks clarity or wanders off course causing the reader to become confused about what is going on and why.

2. Insufficient Momentum
There’s not enough energy – the story drags and stalls out instead of moving forward.

TIPS FOR FIXING ACT II PROBLEMS:

1. Develop a Solid Structure & Present a Clear Set Up In Act One
A solid foundation (including all the necessary components, turning points, crisis, and so on) and a clear, focused direction keep the story on track allowing the reader or audience to easily follow along as Act Two unfolds.

2. Create a Strong First Turning Point
A strong first turning point will go a long way to help push the movement forward as the story enters the second act.

3. Use Action
It goes-without-saying (but I’ll say it anyway), you want to keep your characters acting instead of talking – use complications, obstacles, and reversals to infuse Act II with energy.

4. Keep Your Three Storylines Progressing
The A (external problem), B (internal conflict), and C (relationship issue) storylines should continue to develop – but not be resolved until Act III.

5. Use Cause-and-Effect Scenes
Cause-and-effect scenes – A happens and causes B to result, which then causes C, and on and on – create conflict and action, and give the story direction and momentum.

6. Design Scene Sequences for Clarity and Movement
A sequence is a series of scenes (usually two to five) that are linked together and build toward a common goal. Linking related scenes that rise in tension creates momentum and keeps the second act moving forward.

YOUR TURN: Are there areas in Act II where you can substitute action points for dialogue? Are you using scene sequences to add energy to the second act? Is the story focused or does it wander? Does the first turning point pull the reader into the second act and create momentum? Are the A, B, and C storylines progressing throughout Act II?

Already completed your first draft? Looking for professional guidance to ensure a productive rewrite? I offer comprehensive script evaluation, including an analysis and diagnosis of a script’s weaknesses, detailed development notes to solve underlying problems and enhance the script’s natural strengths, and a story map to guide you effectively and efficiently through the revision process. Want to learn how to write your first script or adapt a book into a screenplay? I’m committed to helping you achieve your writing goals. My online writing classes provide a focused structure and assignments that produce tangible results.

Friday Q&A: Tracking Boards

Q: I keep hearing about “tracking boards”. What is a tracking board and should I care?

A: Thanks for your question. Tracking Boards are online sites used by film executives and script readers to track spec scripts, and share and discuss information. Tracking boards may help screenwriters by providing more exposure for their work however, a screenplay that receives negative feedback may hurt the writer and the script’s chances for sale. Access to tracking boards was once exclusive to the industry, but today screenwriters have the opportunity to follow boards, such as TrackingB ($79/year) and The Tracking Board ($49/year).

Page-To-Screen: Sherlock Holmes

Author: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Screenwriter: Michael Robert Johnson and Anthony Peckham and Simon Kinberg

Logline: Detective Sherlock Holmes and his stalwart partner Watson engage in a battle of wits and brawn with a nemesis whose plot is a threat to all of England

Screenwriter Simon Kinberg answers questions about writing and adapting Sherlock Holmes at StoryLink.

Download a free copy of the screenplay from Script Collector.

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