We're Just Ordinary People...

Hello Mortals

You Suck at Screenwriting” so let’s waste some of my precious time to try and fix it.

So First Off, I suck at keeping up with this Blog. With that said, I really do not think I have that many readers to begin with just yet, but I got the gut feeling that they are going to be coming in sooner than later or it could just be the sensation of thousands of fury fists punching at my stomach after I tell them how much they suck at screenwriting. And you thought I was going to say what I had to eat today, which happened to be a Turkey Sandwich.

Any who…

I have been reading a couple of scripts here and there from the site “TriggerStreet” and have been noticing the same problems with all of them. They don’t really have either one or two things and those things would happen to be Dilemma and Subtext.

Let’s Begin with Dilemma…

There is an incredible book by Jeff Kitchen called “Writing a Great Movie”, he goes through the movies Training Day, Minority Report so on and so forth and he tells you when it is a good time to let the Dilemma occur, right around the Crisis point of the story where the protagonist has to make a decision and lunge toward it. I on the other hand will give two examples for free.

In the movie “Broadcast News”, Jane Craig played by Holly Hunter must make the decision to go on the plane with Tom Grunick (William Hurt) or not and whatever she chooses, she eventually will lose something.

In the movie “Ordinary People”, Calvin Jarret played by Donald Sutherland who finds out that his wife hates his son, and again he has to make a very tough choice he is going to have to lose something no matter what he does.

These are the certain jobs we have as Screenwriters to provide for our characters so we can find out who they are when they are under pressure.

Subtext

It’s not what you say, but how you say it.

I see a lot of screenwriters that say everything that is on their mind right than and there. I am not sure about everyone else, but I never say everything that is on my mind and I know for damn sure that girls never say what’s on their mind. I’m not fluent to Girl Talk but I can pick up on things here and there. There was a certain thing that Billy Ray said that I liked which went along the lines of…

I want you to say to me, “I’m really glad you’re home” and when you say it, mean I love you…the actor said it.

Now say it and mean I hate you …the actor again said the line and he said it totally differently.

Now say it and mean I’m really glad you’re home because you’re my drug dealer and I’ve been Jones … and than they would say it that way.

Dialogue never changes, but what’s in the wryly (parenthesis) as so; makes all the difference. Which also gives room for an actor to act and it really is the thing that marks bad dialogue from good dialogue with the absence of Subtext.

When I read Subtext and Dilemma I thoroughly enjoy reading the material and am at the end of my seat, as I would be if I see it on a big screen. So try to focus on those two things to improve on your screenwriting, but until you do so…

“You Suck at Screenwriting”.