You Don’t Make Me Feel
Emotion that is. How come? You’re a fucking writer but you won’t fucking GO there. Why? What are you afraid of? Maybe YOU don’t know how to feel. That would certainly explain why YOU don’t make me feel…
Anything.
You’re so caught up in creating some GAG that you forgot to make me feel anything about your story… Your characters. Your screenplay.
Seems simple enough yet the majority of the SHIT I read these days never makes me feel…
Anything.
No anger. No sadness. No NOTHING.
Did you FORGET? Did you get so caught up in creating some kind of WHAMMO every ten pages that you forgot to elicit some kind of emotion from me?
Fuck yeah you did. Did you know that even Joel Silver likes emotion?
But hey… It’s only MY opinion. Maybe we’re just not as passionate today as we used to be back in the day… LOL.
Or…
Maybe we just don’t give a shit.
You think you have conflict because you’ve shown me two characters with differing opinions… Is that the NEW conflict? Sure, I see passive-aggressive behavior just about everywhere I turn these days but I sure as SHIT don’t want to pay $7 or more for the privilege (?) of seeing it on the big screen.
Or on NetFlix.
Conflict is supposed to elicit an emotional response in the reader if he or she reads it or the viewer if he or she views it. Combine REAL conflict with visuals and sound and WHOA… You’ve got my attention.
Or maybe you don’t even know what fucking CONFLICT is. That really wouldn’t surprise me in this day and age where everyone strives to pursue WIN-WIN or political correctness resolutions even though their own agendas are most certainly behind both.
In other words… It’s all bullshit.
I guess what really has me rethinking this is Hollywood. Maybe they’re to blame in more ways than one… Some of the very best screenplays to have been made into movies over the past 50 plus years were screenplays that got rejected time and time again…
Why?
Well guess the fuck what?
Too much emotion! Too much conflict! The initial idiots that read these screenplays got too scared that these same emotions — GOOD OR BAD — would most likely be elicited in prospective movie goers IF of course, the script ever made it to the screen.
So they PASSED.
And then the next one passed. And the next and the next but eventually, these screenplays find a home and they did very well because they elicited EMOTION. They make the reader and then of course the audience member actually FEEL SOMETHING.
Hollywood is afraid, plain and simple. Afraid to take a chance or risk anyone feeling anything too extreme. Of course there will be exceptions to the rule and for those extremely rare exceptions, I THANK WHOMEVER had the fucking balls to get the project off the ground.
Seriously.
But these movies sure aren’t coming to my theater(s) very frequently. Yeah, I guess SHIT rolls downhill… Hollywood makes emotionless tripe for the most part so WE end up imitating the ever enlarging piece of shit rolling down the hill.
Cool.
I got it now.
Unk
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26 Responses to “You Don’t Make Me Feel”
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Guilty. Now I have to re-read my screenplay again before I send it out.
No. That’s not the whole story. At least, not for me.
Emotion is the point, the goal, the whole reason for Story. Agreed.
Conflict is how you draw out the emotion, how you force the audience to take sides, how you raise the stakes. You want the audience to be screaming out, “Don’t do it. She’s going to hurt you,” or “Go for it! Geez, can’t you fucking see?”
But for this writer, the characters are real. They have a separate existence and they speak to me. “Speak” is way too tame. They haunt me. They argue with me. I feel for them, yet I have to make them blind to what’s coming, so they will fall into the trap, so that they will blunder on when the audience is shouting, “No!”
That’s the challenge: the emotions are too real for me to just manipulate the characters to suit plot conventions. That’s my cross.
Or maybe it’s just that I’m chickenshit.
Hey Unk,
Could you list some screenplays which was an emotional read ?
Any spec scripts on the net that was an emotional ride?
And to the full-time and part-time Studio Readers out there, I got a question for you. You ever read a script that made you cry?
I thought the script Twilight did it for me.
Just another issue to bring up: during school and teh grinding out of a few screenplays, we’d frequently have the discussion about sincerity vs. sarcasm as the voice of currently produced movies. For some reason, modern audiences don’t react well from blanket sincerity.
Not that anyone should have an emotionless script, but not all conflicts that fit the definition will play as emotional to an audience. It’s hard to ad real feeling that transcends the page through sincerity.
Just watched Crimson Tide the other day. Hadn’t seen it in the longest time.
I forgot how good it was.
Back to back to back to back impossible choices for the characters.
No right or wrong solution. But somehow the characters have to find a way through every conflict. F@#$ing amazing.
Isn’t it emotional enough to see a robot change into a car…and then back into a robot!?! Gosh, what do you want from a movie, anyway? :)
I think it’s because everyone is after the flawed protag with a character arc rather than a “hero” who is placed in varying emotional situations.
It’s says to me that too many writers are looking for the money and not the improvement of the art. Of course everyone wants to make money but the way there is through the improvement of the art.
I’ve been around here for around two years and what I notice everywhere is that too many writers want someone to tell them what to do, but YOUR opinion has to be the basis of the story.
Everyone has been in a sad situation, a happy situation, a scary situation… art does imitate life.
And hey I’m not saying I know anything, but I have an opinion. Most of these situations will write themselves as you develop your character-story.
I’m actually working on a Character Interaction post as a followup to the Active Reactive dialog post. I think it’ll help me think about conflict and tension in terms of the characters and what pushes their buttons.
That’s the key I think: Pushing People’s Buttons. Your characters all have pet peeves – you make them up – and they should reflect theme or situation.
@James, yeah I just watched that the other night. It’s a great example of what I call juxtaposed banalities. On the one hand, Capt. would call the drill, the XO wouldn’t. Because of the life and death situation the tension is ratcheted especially with the “combatants” locked in a submarine (small area with no way out).
Anyway, congratulations to me as my first sale – a short – is in preproduction. I’m a little behind my schedule but admittedly I’ve been doing too much theory and day job. Can’t stop the day job and theory is getting me what I hoped: Respect from other writers as a serious film maker.
Well, back to work.
Don’t let the bastards get you down.
The diagram in Unk’s text made me think of the enneagram. It’s a centuries old personality tool that examines traits and emotional drivers. It’s one of those things that you absorb generally but can apply in a more nuanced way. I’ve found the emotional drivers especially helpful. Check it out. Another tool for the toolkit.
Off topic, but… Visions of Light, the cinematography doc. was on cable here this weekend and it was so great to see so many films praised and deconstructed in such a condensed package. Great seeing it again.
Right on, unk. Disaffected society=disaffected marketing geniuses=emotionally stunted entertainment. Try this one from The Story Spot. See how it grabs you: Creating Emotion. There is a Better Way”.
I’m sorry, okay?
Great. Now I’m sad.
Hey Unk,
Are all upcoming and great screenwriters emotionally complicated?
Totally off topic but somehow not, I just found a new paradigm in Movie Outline. Maybe it’s old in that it’s how I’ve always done it but now I don’t need a scrap of paper.
I even got a $99 discount for XMas because I downloaded a trial.
It’s even more flexible with changing types (dialog to action)
I really love the SHOT which is a secondary slug. It even imports from FD7 well.
Hopefully it’ll help me find even more emotion.
First, please understand that I am NOT patting myself on the back. I have a long way to go in screenwriting…Trust me!
However, I did post my first script on the net and received critiques…some good, some…well??
One said that a particular scene made her cry. I have to tell you that was the best compliment anyone could have given me.
Emotions? Yeah, I get it!
I want to thank you. All of your posts about emotion have helped me. I find it amazing that one of the most elements that should be in a script is not talked about in screenwriting books. That says something about the method I initially used to study screenwriting.
Could you tell me what the diagram you used in your post is called and/or where I can find it? Some of the emotions listed I never considered to be an emotion. I think there’s a lot more I need to learn.
[...] UNK says it’s your duty to move us. Emotions, you know? [...]
Mildred,
It’s called “Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions.” Google it.
All the best,
RML
I feel that that is the reason some people come to see a movie. They may wonder, “Why do I care for the person on the screen?” or maybe, “Why SHOULD I care. . .?”
I think people who want emotion should check out The Bridge to Terabithia. The film may be for mostly kids but the story takes a sudden turn that may make you think twice about thinking it is a Chronicles of Narnia wannabe or ripoff. It is surprising how the film can affect someone.
I think every writer who has a heart beating inside him or her should make the effort to put something together so the viewer will start to feel, start to have their heartstringed tugged. . . because Unk is right; they give us the wrong impression on what a film is. I feel they care more about the dime than making the viewer pull out a tissue or get angry at the conflict or make the person feel. . .
. . . we’re humans after all. . . we should be able to know how we feel.
God bless all the screenwriters trying to make a difference.
If a story is an argument for how to deal with a problem then emotion is only half of the answer. For a solution to be complete it has to be both emotionally and logically convincing. It is our mammalian brain, the limbic system that processes emotions and not the neo cortex, the brain that we humans invested so much in developing. That thing of left and rightness.
Clearly stories that don’t provide adequate engagement of an approriate amount of both logic and emotion cannot provide any sense of reality within their own rules. And that means that the third brain, the bureaucrat, the reptilian fossil atop our spinal colmun will object to the lack of coherence.
And, simple as 1-2-3 that means we’ll say the story is crap!
I hear ya, UNK, I want to be swept away by something, whether it’s a read or a film. Playing with my emotions, as in me wondering if something of value is ever going to happen, is just a burn.
Hey Brian and Unk,
Just wondering, any script from the Black List 2009 that had that “sept away” feeling?. You know, an engaging and emotional read.
Looking for a couple of good scripts to read in the New Year.
Best,
Phoenix
@Phoenix
My fav for the year is Reitman’s “Up in the Air”, the film released on Christmas, not sure if it’s on the list, but it should be.
Emotional, but not in a tear-jerking sense, it’s about a hired hatchet-man for companies, who considers the airport his primary residence. It’s quick, quirky, the writing flows naturally and is very funny. If you’ve spent any time on a plane you’ll want to read it. Most of it was shot right down the street from my old place in St. Louis, so I’ve been following things since earlier this year.
UNK is the man for scripts to read though, I just poke around when I can.
PDF by clicking on the title, here –
http://www.simplyscripts.com/2009/12/24/up-in-the-air/
[...] over to The Unknown Screenwriter for an impassioned plea to screenwriters to dig deep down and unearth their emotional cahones. UNK [...]
Well, I’m not a screenwriter but a novelist. However, the principles that govern good fiction writing also apply, obviously, to good screenwriting. It’s all part of the timeless human tradition of storytelling. The only difference is the genre.
Conflict and the human emotions it dredges up is vital to any story. No conflict, no drama. Drama can easily do without comedy but all comedy has some element of drama and the necessary conflict it it. This is something that everybody from Tolstoy down to the hack who wrote the teleplay for that sitcom you saw last night understands.
And you’re right, Unk, not a lot of novice writers (and I’m also speaking of neophyte novelists) understand that emotion is not something you throw in during the revision but has to be organic to the plot, especially if it’s a character-driven rather than an event-driven story. We go to the theater for different reasons. Some go for the spectacle, others go for the catharsis, mothers out of curiosity and still others because they’re curious. But at the heart of it all is human emotion because, as any writer can tell you, the one subject that fascinates humans moreso than any other is… other people. And we rightfully expect to have the same emotions as us, even if they’re not real.
I have a theory. We are an increasingly wretched society of narcissistic sadists. Human suffering, shallow lives, poor parenting, and moral bankruptcy are reality entertainment. Shame is a punchline and dysfunction is the joke.
Bottom line: the more desensitized we are to human emotion, the less able we are to invoke it.
Well said. The last draft on my screenplay totally upped the ante on my antagonist – almost to the point of risking my audience having sympathy for him. Anything less seems shallow and trite.
Above, I made reference to the “Up in the Air”, which won best screenplay at the Critic’s Choice and Golden Globes. Just after that I found out about the battle over the screenplay credit.
It was hard to get a grip — did Reitman just want center stage, or was Turner some nut who had jumped the stage? Pretty bizarre on T.V.
Here’s their explanation, finally.
http://www.hollywood.com/news/Reitman_Turner_Address_Bad_Blood_Rumors_Over_Up_in_the_Air_Credit/6639861