Tell Me Lies, Tell Me Sweet Little Lies

I thought it would be fun to respond to this post over at the Web of Lies and Deceit. Ignoring Greg's most recent ranting about the progress of his movie (love ya, man), you can just skip on down to the place where he starts talking about me.

That's what does my ego good.

First point:

I have been told twice in pitches that audiences don't like to be manipulated or misled.

I take great exception to that.

There are few things I like better than to be misled and manipulated when I am watching a film. Especially if it is done well. To be misled and manipulated poorly - well... For that there is no excuse. But when it is handled correctly - it is a great great feeling.

Now, I can see Greg's side of this point, but just to be a pain, I'm going to argue against him.

Manipulation is for only certain kinds of movies. Don't write me The Game when I ask you for a RomCom. It just doesn't fly. But even for movies that spin webs and trap viewers, there are two kinds of manipulation.

This is where I would normally warn you about spoilers to come, but we'll only be discussing old flicks here, so it's your own fault if you haven't seen them.

Since Greg cites The Sixth Sense, we'll go with that. The viewer is in the shoes of Bruce Willis' character for much of the movie. We know things when Bruce knows them. Everything that feels right and true to Bruce feels right and true to us. So when everything Bruce has heard and seen comes together at the end of the movie to produce the colossal explosion of the realization of his own death, the same explosion is happening in our heads.

That's some good manipulation, my friends.

But here's a situation where manipulation is mishandled. And it involves a classic I know you're all going to be upset that I'm attacking, but I don't care.

In Rear Window, a moment comes early in the movie, after Jimmy Stewart has already begun to suspect the salesman across the way of harboring evil intentions toward said salesman's wife, when Hitchcock opens a curtain, as it were, for the viewer. While Jimmy is dozing in his wheelchair, we see the salesman and his wife leave their apartment together. When Jimmy wakes up, the salesman is back sans wife.

Now is this or is this not a sure sign that, while Jimmy leaps to the conclusion that the wife is now lying six feet under, we the viewer are supposed to feel confident that something quite different has occurred? In every other mystery/suspense I've ever seen, such would surely be the case.

But not so. The salesman really did kill his wife.

Now, leaving aside all comment on the kind of movie where the thing the main character thinks is true really is true (Jimmy thinks the salesman killed his wife—and he did!), this is some mean manipulation on Hitchcock's part and one of the only fumbles I've ever seen from him. And it's a kind of manipulation that, in subtler form, you get with some frequency in poorly-written movies: tricking the viewer without tricking the hero.

There's one type of movie in which this is acceptable, and that is the anti-hero movie. Greg is currently working on a movie in which the main character turns out to be a liar. Thus the viewer must be deceived throughout, just as the people to whom the hero is telling his story are deceived.

But in other genres, the viewer should only be as manipulated as the hero is. Don't lie to me unless you're lying to the person I have identifed with in the story. For as long as I sit in that seat, I am that person, so I should feel what they feel, and nothing different.

Next time, since I went crazy long with this post, I'll respond to Greg's other contention, with which I disagree much more strongly.

Bad news for Greg over at the Web of Lies and Deceit. Wail and gnash your teeth, aspiring screenwriters. Soon this will be you.

But first, we've got to break story, yes? At least, that's where I am. As previously mentioned, my current concept is deep and expansive, offering multiple compelling possibilities for exploration. How to find the right ones?

On Thursday, Greg and I hashed through it for a second time, providing much more satisfactory results. At least now I have merely a lame version of a story I actually like as opposed to a perfectly watertight version of a story I was not really interested in telling.

Okay, "perfectly watertight" might be a bit of a stretch.

Now comes something I think all of us can appreciate: research.

Ah, Research, that blessed time when the writer may spend hours, if not days or weeks, reading books and magazines and short stories and wasting away time on the internet all in the name of acquiring a few facts or ideas for a project on which he is actually not doing any work at all. Truly, it is a joyous season in the story's life.

On Friday I went to the library and got three books full of mythology. I shall read them with great pleasure, all the while consoling myself that I am doing research. And that's only part one of research. That's just background and depth, baby. After that comes the actually Looking of Things Up and Making of Notes to produce the data one actually needs.

But at long last, one must actually sit down and pound out a draft, sad as it may seem. And I'm hoping I can at least get a start on that before leaving the country in two weeks. On the other hand, maybe it would be better to not interrupt the flow once started. We'll see how it goes.

Next Episode: why mythology is important.

How to Write While Sleeping

I'm through my first week at the new job. Haven't gotten so much writing done, but actually more than I expected, so thus far my plan is working. Mwaahahahaha!!!

I haven't done much because in addition to having to adapt my body to sleeping during the day, I am trying to finish up projects and tie off loose ends at the church where I [used to] work. This means I've been sleeping six hours or less each day and working non-stop. I slept for 1.5 hours today. No lie.

But once I was through with my two days of training and had the nights to myself, I tried to get a second start on plotting out my next script, which for the moment I am referring to as "The Hero Script."

I plotted this out once already and went over it with Greg, but I didn't really like it, Greg didn't really like it, and I just felt it wasn't doing justice to the concept. It's a big concept with multiple thematic possibilities, and Wednesday night I started exploring those possibilities to find the one that would actually become the movie.

Thursday morning I staved off sleep for a few hours more to meet with Greg, and I told him what I'm about to tell the rest of you.

Let me note in advance that I'm aware of the pathetic pretentiousness that is the following sentence:

This movie wants to be a trilogy.

Now I'm aware that this puts me in bad standing on the Fantasy Novelist's Exam, and I can't think of anything sadder than being so incapable of coming up with a plot for a movie that you switch to plotting three movies, but I stand by what I said.

This movie wants to be a trilogy.

So having endured Greg's attempts to talk me out of such foolishness, last night I began making notes about the three different movies. But let me just say, in mitigation, that I took one scrap of Greg's comments to heart, viz., that I should figure out which one of the three was the one I most wanted to do, and do that one first.

Fortunately, it's Part One of the trilogy.

So I wrote down as many notes as I could currently think of for Parts Two and Three (in nice columns in my spiral), and then started to dwell on Part One.

Unfortunately, this was c. 4:30 in the a.m., right about the time I hit the only-four-hours-of-sleep wall. It's kind of completely against the point of the job to fall asleep, so I had to stop pretending to think about the Hero movie (while actually repeatedly nodding off) and switch to reading The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which I gleefully discovered among the scant library at the House. So far, it's everything I expected. But that's beside the point.

After a full night of work, followed by an almost-full day of work punctuated with the aformentioned 1.5 hours of nap on the couch in my office at the church, I went to help my small group work on one of our houses (floor sanding makes much dust). When I couldn't really remain upright anymore, I drove home and watched Suspect Zero. Rather an interesting movie for the kind of script I'm starting at the moment. Worth a viewing, although don't get too excited about the Ben Kingsley. If he had done any acting in this movie, I'm sure it would have been wonderful, as usual. But he wasn't allowed to, so he had to stick to looking mysterious and threatening. Which he does well.

I've held off going to sleep because I want to get out of the habit of sleeping at night, but it's getting about time to let my body have it's way, so I'm not going to stick around here talking to you people.

Can You Believe They're Going to Pay Me to Write?!

I got the new job about which I posted several days ago. As of this afternoon, I officially am employed by Lifeline Youth and Family Services as a Youth Treatment Specialist. I start work tonight.

It's true that Lifeline pays mostly in thanks, so I'm taking quite the substantial pay cut, but this is a third-shift job where I will do practically nothing. Thus I will be able to spend almost eight hours every night writing. For the first time in my life, I won't have to use spare time on career-building. Gnash your teeth in envy, jealous fellow scribes!!

Now we have to see if this new freedom results in actual scripts, not to mention improvement in my skills and advancement of my career.

People who live around here know that there's a particular job that I really, really want.

For those who don't: There's a particular job that I really, really want.

Tomorrow I have an interview for it. Those who pray, pray that I get this.

I'll let you know how it goes.

I got my next script plotted!! Aaahhhahahahahahahaha!!!

Well sure, it blows right now. But tomorrow I'm going to talk to Greg about it, and he's a genius. So soon it will be amazing, you'll see!

Of course, I'll have to actually write it then, but let's not discuss that right now.

Make it Better

When I grow up, I'm going to be in development.

Okay, I'm not. I'm going to be a screenwriter. We all know this is the goal.

But for the past couple days, I've felt kind of like I'm in development. For those unacquianted, development people are the ones who seek out scripts and develop them to the point where they can be good movies. That's a super-simplified definition, but it's not the point right now, so bite me.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of reading a script by David. I gave him lots of mean notes, all the things I could think of that were wrong with his story. Today I spent all day thinking about his script and his characters and their various intertwining plotlines, and I just finished a ginormous long email full of more notes, but positive ones this time.

This is starting to become a trend.

Because a couple weeks ago, I did the exact same thing with a script by Blair. I read his stuff, told him lots of mean things, and then sat on it for half a week before straightening out his story in my head and emailing him a bunch of what I hope were helpful suggestions, thereby causing him to remove the pins from his little Ryan voodoo doll.

I quite enjoy this process. Probably too much, as it leads me to spend two hours writing an email to someone and another 20 minutes blogging about it. I should be writing instead, slacker that I am. But it's not only a fun process; it's an incredibly constructive habit for a screenwriter.

Reading scripts that aren't done, that you know need input and therefore could be seriously impacted if you come through with something intelligent, is a great challenge. It exercises the story muscles in your brain to be able to look at a story objectively (something next to impossible with one's own work) and figure out what it needs to really make it shine.

I do this with movies as well as with unproduced scripts. Let's face it: most movies aren't that great. I can enjoy them, but there will be nagging little thoughts in the back of my head, telling me why I shouldn't. In some cases, such as the movie I watched on Friday, the nagging is so great that I find myself actually rewriting the movie as I watch it.

I know only a few of the people reading this are screenwriters, but I'll bet this applies to almost anything you might be passionate about doing. Watch other people doing it, or examine the finished work, and figure out what you would do instead. How could it be better? Do this whenever you have the opportunity. Just don't be like me, and let it keep you from actually practicing your passion.

Stale, Flat and Unprofitable

This hasn't been the greatest week for writing. I'm shifting my daily schedule around, and the shift is only temporary. Soon my life will have to be restructured yet again. So far the weekend has been consumed with small group stuff and car-fixing adventures, and that's not the same thing as writing.

But I did get some notes on my script from a couple people. One person (you know who you are - :) - ) in particular said a lot of things about the story as it now stands, and while many of them made sense and in fact agreed with what Greg had already said, some of the comments seemed completely unbelievable to me.

My story centers around a conflict between a husband and wife, and issues of the value of relationships in opposition to other concerns. And many of the notes I received yesterday showed that the person who was giving them had, against all expectation, sided with the wrong person in the story.

Now, I did a sanity check last night with a group of both men and women, and I was correct in thinking that everyone I know sides with the correct character in my story. So I was put slightly more at ease about that. But here is a comment that really kind of threw me (paraphrased):

"They both just act so immature; I wanted to slap them both in the last scene."

Now, by way of enlightenment, the person giving me these notes belongs to an older generation than both me and the two characters in question. So it is quite possible that these characters could be behaving in a way that is true to life but still seems immature to someone older.

But this brings up a point that this guy emphasizes: People don't have to like your characters; they just have to care what happens to them.

So maybe it's okay that this person thinks my characters behave immaturely. Even if it's true, it's not necessarily a problem; sometimes people are immature. The fact that someone is sufficiently emotionally connected to my characters to be irritated by their immaturity is almost a good sign.

What was more alarming was this question: "So, you actually intended the main character to have a flat personality?"

Now, I haven't figured out how this character can be both annoyingly immature and, concurrently, lacking in personality. I'm sure it's possible. But it's very worrying, because this character is definitely not supposed to be flat. He's a programmer-geek experiencing feelings of isolation compounded by guilt for both controllable and uncontrollable failures as a husband.

If after all my musings on his character, all my subtly-developed setup of his situation, all my careful tweaking of his dialogue, and all my well-crafted interactions with other characters, all I've arrived at is "annoyingly immature," I'm about to have serious rewrite issues.

There were other equally provocative notes I got from this particular person (thanks!)—not equally as troubling, but definitely requiring attention and care. So while I still plan to hold out for notes from Blair before resuming work on this monster, it's definitely maintaining a nagging foothold in my consciousness.

But on a positive note, the windows in my car all work now. Take that, screenwriting career!

Some Love

A few days ago I responded to an open invitation for guest bloggers from Church Marketing Sucks. Today they posted this piece by yours truly.

How can I leverage this free publicity (term loosely used to describe literally tens of readers) to advance my screenwriting career?

Other Eyes

There's a scene in Out of the Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis, in which the main character arrives on a strange planet. When he steps out of the spacecraft that brought him, he looks around at the vista before him, and all he see are masses of blended color; he can't make out any objects. Eventually, his eyes adjust so that he has a context in which to recognize his surroundings, but at first his brain is unable to decipher what his eyes are taking in.



When the first draft of my script came out, it wasn't so good. It needed lots of work, so for the second draft I moved all kinds of scenes around, wrote uncounted new pages and scenes, and generally changed the entire landscape.

I didn't give the second draft to any of my trusted readers, because I thought there were probably still things I could do to it. So whether you consider what I'm doing right now the second draft, the third draft or just another pass, it hasn't had anyone else's eyes on it since the sucky first draft.

Oh sure, I've given scenes to Greg, but they were just scenes, with no context. No one would be able to tell anything from them except whether they were well-written scenes. And I'm not just shooting for well-written scenes. We need a cohesive whole movie here, my friends.

Not only has no one else seen it, I can barely even say I've seen it. I've been so busy inspecting the details, moving single objects around, focusing on minutiae, that the thing as a whole is starting to just become a swirling mass of color. I'm too close to it to be able to see what it looks like.

So tonight the final pass should be done, and tomorrow I will get it out to the few who were unable to dodge quickly enough. Maybe if I get some other eyes on it, and get some distance from it myself, it will start to make sense again. And then: improve, improve, improve.

Discipline

One summer when I was in college, I wanted to lose 25 pounds, so I decided I would go running every day. I mapped out a mile in my neighborhood and forced myself to go running as soon as I got home from work, at which time, by the way, it would be, like, 90 degrees outside.

I hate running.

But I kept doing it every day, and I lost a bunch of weight, and I even kept doing it when I went back to school. I was in the mandatory health class by that time, so that worked out. I eventually quit because I got super-busy, but I had kept it up for about six months by that time.

And I liked it.

Sometimes, on a much smaller scale, writing is like this for me. Not the actual process, because I like that part. I like writing. But sometimes it's the last thing I'll actually do. I can find a million things to do before I get to writing, even though I actually like it quite a lot.

When I was doing the first and second drafts of this script, I didn't have this problem. I'd gotten disciplined enough that I was now ignoring other things (including my health) so I could write more. But I got sick, and I didn't write for two weeks, and now all my discipline is gone.

So even though I have barely anything to do on what I hesitate to even call a third draft, I'm crawling along. Last night I trolled along through MySpace looking for other people who graduated from my college. I wrote to people from high school. Then I went to bed.

I need someone to kick me. Thank goodness I'm meeting with my writing "group" tomorrow.

Clueless Characters

Had a mostly-swell weekend with the folks, who came on Wednesday. The part before the weekend would have been swell, but I was still pretty sick. Today I learned that I can actually put eyedrops in by myself.

Feeling good about myself because I bought the new Ben Folds that I'd been procrastinating about at the same time I bought this old classic Fleming and John. Great stuff—you should really check it out.

Have now not written in over two weeks. I better get on it, or I might start to lose the drive.

Watched Clueless tonight with the Small-ers. First time seeing this 1995 classic. Fun stuff. Brittany Murphy with a New York accent.

Clueless is a great movie for people like me, who struggle with character. It's based on a Jane Austen book, so it's rife with characters, and Amy Heckerling had to help the audience keep all those kids straight. So in addition to the typical teen-movie stereotypes, she came up with some pretty sparkling ways to make her characters stand out.

Making the misleading love interest a 50s crooner-type was completely genius. And then he's gay. You can't make this stuff up.

One kid's a skater-stoner. Oh sure, I know what you're thinking: "That is sooo 90s." Well, to be fair, this was the 90s. But in addition to the stereotype, Heckerling also made the guy an overenthusiastic stupid-human-trickster with a gift for spills. The fact that he later turns out to be a stunningly cool skater is just icing.

Brittany Murphy plays the pretty ugly girl. You know the one I mean. But she also has a super-thick New York accent. For no reason. And she swears more than everyone else put together.

Alicia Silverstone's Emma (actually Cher in this movie: go figure) is fairly true to form. But for purposes of the plot, she's unfashionably a virgin. So is her best friend. I mean, come on, this is the mid-90s! Sexually-inexperienced teens are supposed to be a thing of the past in movies by this time. But not here. Genius.

Draft Delayed

So here's why I haven't done a thing to my script since last posting.

I finished my draft last Tuesday and gave myself the rest of the week off from writing. I'd been sick, and I was planning to go away for a weekend to a wedding. Besides, I wanted to get some distance from the script so my next take would be a little fresher.

On Sunday, illness #2 came along.

Four days later, I have finally found a doctor and gotten checked. I have pharyngitis and conjunctivitis, so I'll be down for another couple days, probably.

Grrrr.

I'm really looking forward to getting back to my characters—maybe this will make me appreciate writing more (if possible).

In the meantime, I read a couple things people tossed my way. One was an old TV script by Charlie Kaufman, courtesy of Jane Espenson (Good), and the other was a short written by I don't know who, which a friend of a friend is thinking about producing this summer (Not Good). I haven't been doing the screenwriting thing for long, but I've already noticed a tendency on many people's part to shop things around for inspection by anyone who shows interest. Maybe I'll develop this habit soon.

Sweater Threads

So for the three of you have been wondering, the house is pretty much fixed (hurray for good water), and the rewrite has been finished and emailed to the interested party.

I don't think he's too interested, because he seems to be leaning toward doing a short rather than a feature, but the whole situation gave me good motivation to finish the draft, so I'm not complaining at all.

This draft was the second, and it was significant. I've never done a second pass at a script before. (I tend to lose faith in my own work before I even get there.) So this was my first encounter with the phenomenon that I shall henceforth refer to as "Pulling at the Sweater Thread."

That is, every time you make a seemingly small change, it will force you to change five other things you hadn't previously realized would be impacted.

For example, I decided that one of the characters should be met several pages earlier than she was in the original draft. Hours later, I found that I had been forced to write a completely new scene with that character and the hero, as well as moving several of the hero's other scenes around into a completely different order. I then had to change a bunch of scene transitions that now didn't make any sense, and finally drag in a much later scene that seemed to want to go there.

Needless to say, my script is quite different now. Same movie. Even, same basic plot. But better: more concise, more structured, and with better character development.

Of course, the outline is now so different that when I tried to pitch it to someone yesterday, I couldn't even remember where all the beats went. Thank goodness it was only Greg, and not someone who is actually part of the development process (as if I would know someone like that, anyway).

I give myself the rest of the week off, and then it's draft-three time. Already making mental notes for it, because I can't help myself.

Fixing Houses and Scripts

So, kids: dilemma of the moment.

No, wait: setup.

Last week, when I was meeting with my writing group (and by group I mean myself and this guy), Greg told me he'd pitched my current(!) script to a friend of his who might be making a super-low-budget feature this summer. Since my script is super-low-budget, Greg passed me this guy's phone number, and I gave him a buzz.

I warned him that the script was in the middle of quite the intensive rewrite, such that if I gave it to him in its current form, it would make no sense. He said, "That's okay; I won't have time to read it until next week, anyway. But if you could send me a one-page synopsis, that'd be great. And then you can just send the whole thing when you finish it."

Well, okay then.

I sent him the synopsis (which, by the way, is more like journalism than screenwriting ever should be), and went back to the rewrite.

Now here's the thing about the rewrite. Originally, I had no intention of finishing it by Monday. No intention at all. So there was this instant mild-panic mode that came over me. But to complicate matters, today is the day when I must fix my stupid broken water softener and water heater. It's going to be quite the plumbing-fest hereabouts.

Anyway, this weekend I have both a house and a script to fix. I want to have this rewrite into at least an intelligible form by Tuesday at the latest. Wish me luck.