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Tweaking, Polishing, Adhering to Structure

unk-the-skunkSo I’ve been working on a script that I’ve been coddling for a couple of years now… I finished a huge rewrite on it that tapped out at 188 pages… LOL. Yeah, I know… Trust me, I know… Way too long.

In recent conversations, I ended up discussing the script and there seemed to be some interest in it so for the last couple of weeks I’ve been cutting the hell out of it… As of today, page length sits at 155 pages… And the good news is that everything I’ve cut thus far was simple fluff that wasn’t needed.

In other words, I have the same script just tighter… But still way too long. I more or less promised it to a few producers before the end of the month so here I am whittling it down to size.

I have a method to my madness that many have emailed me about asking how I do it… Not that it matters how I do it because it will certainly be different from how YOU do it but that’s not the point… The point is that maybe reading about HOW somebody else does it just might conjure up some change and or hopefully, an improvement in your method to make it just a little easier.

I tend to write fast and loose… Meaning that I let my characters run free. It’s not that I don’t use structure… I do. But I look at my structure more as a corral for the wild horses and what do wild horses do when they’re stuck inside a corral?

They want to get the hell outta there.

So do my characters.

I know I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating… You’ve got to know your characters. I get a lot of email about writer’s block. I never really experience writer’s block anymore… Sure, I used to.

A long, long, long, time ago.

And then on that last day I actually experienced it, it occurred to me that I might not know what comes next in my story because my character sure as hell didn’t know what to do next. I took that concept and ran with it… I made the character bio from HELL thinking that it would certainly solve all my problems…

It didn’t.

Fuck. Now what? I happened to have been reading a book at the time and as I was reading later that night, I somehow inserted my Protagonist into the book — substituted him for the book’s protagonist and when I did that — basically day dreaming in the middle of the night, something MAGICAL happened.

My Protagonist did things DIFFERENTLY from the book’s protagonist… Wow. It blew me away. It was like I had tapped in to some huge secret. A secret that gave me CHILLS and GOOSEBUMPS. A secret that I didn’t have anyone to share it with… The best kind of secret… LOL.

As I kept reading through the book, I jotted down some notes about my Protagonist being in the same situation… I basically, just did some clustering-type notes. Cause and effect based on what I knew of my Protagonist at the moment. Sure enough, my Protagonst tackled these events WAY DIFFERENTLY than the guy in the book… LOL. From there, I went to earlier chapters to see if this concept would hold up and again, my Protagonist continued to WOW me with the way he handled the obstacles in the book.

I remember closing the book and WONDERING if this might work with a movie… I had rented THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR from THE WHEREHOUSE on VHS… We’re talking early 80s here. I popped the cassette into the player and started watching the movie with pen, paper, and remote in my hand. It took me 6 hours to get through that movie… Substituting my Protagonist for Country Bob… You know him as Robert Redford.

I got so into that exercise that it was now daylight outside… I had even more clustered notes on how my Protagonist would have handled Mr. Redford’s role in the movie… Way different. I KNEW I was onto something so I picked up a newspaper and tried the same exercise by reading the headlines of stories that caught my attention and then inserting my Protagonist into the story to see how he’d react.

It worked.

I repeated the process with television shows I watched… I repeated the process with people I knew. Family members. Before I knew it, I had just under 20 pages of notes about my protagonist and really, NONE of these notes were about MY STORY and how my Protagonist would deal with MY STORY but still, something felt right about the exercise.

Then I crashed… Slept for something like 12 hours — woke up and sat down at my yard sale purchased IBM manual typewriter to continue writing…

What happened? I never looked back… I wrote like a madman all that day and into the night… Somehow, the exercise caused my Protagonist to grow in ways I didn’t even realize… I had put him in enough situations over the last 24 hours where he had to make his own decisions on what to do next that when I came back to MY STORY, he was raring to go. And go he did… All those little plot twists that I had made up beforehand, my Protagonist handled them with ease… LOL. Oh no… He had major difficulties handling the obstacles that I tossed in front of him but at least the decisions being made on how to handle those obstacles were HIS and NOT MINE.

We can argue this point of course… As I was the writer and of course, the Protagonist was simply doing what I was writing down… In other words, it all comes from ME so is it really the Protagonist making his own decisions?

Oh HELL YEAH.

This process is about as close to getting paranormal as I can describe… It’s as if you’re channeling these characters. They are growing into unique beings and making all their own decisions and best of all, it’s about as ORGANIC as you can get.

But back to structure… LOL. Needless to say, in order for the entities behind the curtain to say the words, “We want to turn your script into a movie!” — You GOTS to have structure. Letting your characters run amok is fine but often, they become a lot like US… i.e., they take their time before they make their decisions… They do whatever they can do without actually making a decision… They avoid making a decision… You name it — they do it. And all this ORGANIC PROCESS can easily equal a couple of hundred pages of screenplay…

Maybe more.

So your wild horses got out and ran like the wind… You ran after them and wrote down what they did… Cool. But they’re tired now… All out of ideas because your story is OVER.

Now what?

Back to the corral… Structure. The STORY… THE REAL STORY is somewhere in those ORGANIC PAGES and NOW it’s your job to DIG THEM OUT and structure them into a story — spec screenplay — that sells.

And to me… This is actually the easy part because I already had a real loose outline I was working from but not corraling my horses with… Now it’s time to go back to the drawing board of your structure and mold your organic story into a more structured story but guess what? The organic feeling is still there… The feeling that these characters are real and not cliché, stereotypical, or boring.

That means that you can NOW implement all the stuff you’ve been reading about in screenwriting books and articles… Take each scene that you’ve written organically and compress it. Cut out the beginning of the scene and start the scene further into it… Cut the ending of the scene… Cut it on a cool piece of dialogue or character action that leaves us wondering a bit. Take that material that you’ve cut from both the beginning and end and see if you move some of it into the middle of scene. Cut out the excessive dialogue and shorten the conversations. Analyze the ON THE NOSE dialogue and come up with subtext to give the dialogue deeper meaning.

That’s pass number 1.

Pass number 2 takes longer because you’ve done a lot of tightening already and CERTAINLY, you can’t improve upon what you’ve just accomplished… LOL.

Bullshit.

Repeat the process… Be brutal! Remember, you should still have your original screenplay sitting on your hard drive and if you’re smart, you’ve emailed it to yourself and have a copy or three sitting around just in case that catastrophe happens and you lose what you’re working on. A lot of screenwriters have a hard time cutting stuff they really love but I’m here to tell you that if it does not have anything to do with MOVING THE STORY FORWARD, cut it. If for no other reason than the experience itself, CUT IT. Once you cut stuff you love a few times, IT GETS EASIER…

Doesn’t everything?

Pass number 2 should be even MORE brutal than pass number 1… Pass number 1 is just a simple precursor to pass number 2. It’s prep work for the REAL CUTTING… LOL. It’s an exercise to get you used to looking at your script in a completely different way… Pass number 1 is hard because you’re close to the characters and even closer to the story but remember, it’s time to corral the wild horses.

Pass number 1 gets you USED to cutting the material but let’s face it… You’re out of your comfort zone because you love your screenplay even though it’s longer than hell… And maybe, just maybe, if you cut a little here and a little there — by the time it’s all said and done, you’ll have cut it down to size and left almost all of the good stuff in.

Nope.

You’re still LONG… Pass number 2 covers the same ground only THIS TIME AROUND, you’re paying a hell of a lot more attention to the material… Take those awesome 1 line action paragraphs and place them at the bottom of the paragraph above it or at the top of the paragraph below it. Cut the wordiness so that you’re simply telling us what happens AS IT HAPPENS. Cut your prose. That was great for the organic draft but it’s corral time… After you make that sale, you can be as Quentin Tarantino and Shane Black as you want.

Get rid of the passive sentence structure… Not only is passive voice wordy but turning it into active voice makes your writing STRONGER. Get completely rid of those action paragraphs that you simply do not need. That cool character that you made up and ran with for a page or two that really doesn’t move the story forward needs to be ASSASSINATED.

Kill him. KILL HIM NOW.

Pass number 3… Your Pièce de résistance… This is it… You only have 20 more pages to cut. By NOW you KNOW what you can cut and still have basically the same story… You didn’t cut this material before because you were HOPING BEYOND HOPE that you wouldn’t have to cut it. After all, this is all GOOD SHIT, right? It’s these little things you kept passing up that makes YOUR writing unique, right?

Cut it.

Go back to your structure and figure out what doesn’t really need to be there… Maybe your Protagonist’s ordinary world is too long… Cut it. Maybe his or her introduction is too long… Cut it. Maybe you can somehow combine the two… Cut and combine. Is your mid point REALLY your MID POINT? If not, cut it. Is your ending too long? Did you end your story and get outta Dodge? If not, CUT IT.

I like to take pass number three and cross reference my screenplay with my outline and structure that I use… Because now it’s time to get ruthless. And guess what? People in the business can see RUTHLESS in your work and most of them admire it so don’t be afraid to be ruthless.

Take that last pass and see where your script goes awry… And cut those areas down so they fit into a good solid structure. You’ll still have much if not all of your organic writing because remember… Organic comes from the characters and the decisions you allow them to make… All you’re doing NOW is rearranging them into a solid structure very much like what a movie editor does with a movie that’s all over the map.

Be brutal… You’ll always have your original masterpiece and if you really LOVE IT THAT MUCH, take that long ass draft and turn it into a novel… Those long drafts make outstanding book outlines.

Unk




Saturday: 22 August 2009|1152|Under Screenwriting

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16 Responses to “Tweaking, Polishing, Adhering to Structure”

  1. A.M.Arno on Saturday: 22 August 2009|1200

    Unk – this is incredible food for thought!

  2. Christian H. on Saturday: 22 August 2009|1342

    Interesting piece. I haven’t really had too much problem with corraling my characters. Even scenes can get wacked at a moment’s notice.

    I’ve found through the bunch I’ve started, finished or moved to a later slot, I always measure time with my outline using a “sequence” method. Each sequence averages 2 pages – forced – and each genre has its own – calculated – number of sequences (comedy – 45; drama – 50 to 60; action\thriller – 45 to 50).

    Of course, I had the advantage of people like you before I really started a lot of scripts so I MADE myself adhere to certain “structure for structure.” Or something.

    I mean I’ve killed enough characters to be considered sadistic. And that’s not counting ones who get to stay in the story and die anyway. :-)

  3. michael on Saturday: 22 August 2009|1656

    at last!…a common sense approach to those of us that know about structure/templates/etc…but have itchy fingers

    thank you, unk…a million times, thank you!

  4. Joshua James on Saturday: 22 August 2009|1733

    I do what you do with protags, put them into different movies and books (usually different genres, like Dirty Harry in SOME LIKE IT HOT) but more often than not, put them into my own life and see the different choices they’ll make (in my head, of course).

  5. Joshua James on Saturday: 22 August 2009|1737

    I’m on pass seven of my current script, close to a reading draft … first draft was 144 pages long, down to 139 (after first pass) 129, 123 and today, 119 … and I ain’t done yet. I hope to cut at least 3 more pages if possible, before I give it out.

    Oh and that thing we talked about?

    It’s right at the bottom of page twelve, just like the Doctor ordered.

    Thanks man,

  6. Karel on Sunday: 23 August 2009|0515

    Hi Unk,

    Great stuff. It seems to be consistent with my belief that once you have an idea of your character, creating the story is about brainstorming EVENTS and their resulting SITUATIONS. The character’s actions follow more or less ‘automatically’.

    But those various sources you give to go to TEST your Hero, that’s just awesome.

    Dirty Harry in Some Like it Hot. Now THAT is hot!! (LOL)

  7. Script Doctor Eric on Sunday: 23 August 2009|1704

    “A lot of screenwriters have a hard time cutting stuff they really love but I’m here to tell you that if it does not have anything to do with MOVING THE STORY FORWARD, cut it. If for no other reason than the experience itself, CUT IT. Once you cut stuff you love a few times, IT GETS EASIER…”

    Love it. Totally agree: good screenwriting takes good editing.

    I’m beginning to think most things do.

    -Eric

  8. emily blake on Sunday: 23 August 2009|2030

    Dude.

    You should write a book.

  9. E.C. Henry on Monday: 24 August 2009|0958

    Unk,

    Great post! And congradulations on all the interest you’re getting on the script you’re honing. Hope all your hard work pays off.

    I just completed work on a very long biblical adaptation of the story of Saul and David; the first two kings of Israel. Worked on the 1st draft for roughly a year! Apdatation into scenes, an outline, SOME research, and wrote first drafts. Those two scripts weighed in at 176/282 pages respectfully. Wild horses indeed!! After I wrote those two drafts I took a month and a half off and wrote a romantic comedy, THEN got back and widdled both stories down to 118/114 pages respectfully — and hopefully still kept the table legs of a ballanced story! (That’s out for coverage right now, we’ll see…) Page count down to respectabiltiy took about a month.

    Anyway, I totally respect your process of writing. Wild horses coralled? I think most writers can relate to that analogy. Thanks for sharing. Feeling your characters come alive is one of the coolest things about writing. I don’t feel EVERY character, but I have felt a couple of mine come alive. Probably the most interesting ever being a heavy-set high school senior girl in a script I wrote several years back entittled, “Revenge of the Fat Chicks.” Feeling the pain and joys of someone SO DIFFERENT from who I am was a real revelation for me.

    And I second Emily’s notion; you should write a book.

    - E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA

  10. Chris J. Scurria on Tuesday: 25 August 2009|0104

    Hey, Unk. I haven’t read your blog in a while. Reading this post, I have NO CLUE why I haven’t been reading it lately. Kudos!

    One thing I have learned about writing from some great teachers in the past is that there is no such thing as a perfect draft. You can make the story maybe two or three more times over and then find something that you could have done better, that you could have missed.

    One thing I learned from you is that while writing each scene the writer must think: “What is the point of this scene?” That one is important writers. . . and I think it helps.

    Kudos again Unk! God bless

    c s

  11. Mike on Tuesday: 25 August 2009|0251

    Unk,

    What’s with the ‘UNK THE SKUNK’?

    Keep Writing!
    Mike

  12. Chris on Monday: 31 August 2009|0528

    I love the ‘putting your character in other stories idea’.

    Damn. It’s like one of those ideas that when you hear it you feel like you should have been doing it all along.

    I’m going to have great fun and learn a lot from this. Thanks for the tip!

  13. Joacim on Monday: 31 August 2009|0751

    Hello Unk
    You have written some good stuff here.
    The character-evolving-theme suits very well for lyric writing as well.

    - Joacim

  14. todd on Thursday: 3 September 2009|1614

    Hi Unk:

    I am writing screenplays….first time. i am kind of confused by the “it has to move the story forward” mantra.

    so many films i enjoy (I just saw young frankenstein so let’s use that one) have scenes that don’t really move “the story” (that is the very core story) forward. Yet the movie is good and rich and covers multiple stories and characters…do you mean move ONE of the stories forward? it seems that there is a main story, and then sub stories in every good movie.

    look forward to a response — i enjoy your enthusiasm on this blog.
    todd

  15. Unk on Friday: 4 September 2009|1330

    todd,

    Sure, I will LUMP in ANY of the stories… They need to move forward.

    Trust me… I know you’ve seen movies that do not do this but that’s the name of the game when it comes to being produced…

    On this site, I’m talking mainly about writing and selling a spec script. If you want professionals to take you seriously, all your scenes need to move the story forward in way or another.

    The good news is that it’s actually EASY to do both… Write a scene that moves the story forward yet doesn’t actually FEEL like it really does.

    Unfortunately, I don’t have nearly enough room to write about it here.

    Unk

  16. Nicholas on Tuesday: 8 September 2009|1945

    The first draft of my second script was 229 pages long. By the forth, and as of now final, it was 164. Still way too long. After getting dinged out of the Nicholls with it (which I knew would happen) I realized that I would instead turn it into a novel.

    I still have the original 229 page first draft, so of course I will use that. I mean, I practically already have the novel written.

    And I know that I will have to try that thing with characters, because I don’t know a thing about my protagonist.

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