THE WRITE TOUCH

Don'ts 

What follows are reflections gathered over the two decades that I've worked in the TV/film industry as both a writer and a story editor, the latter on five network series  (please see résumé).  These are not the obvious things you find in any writing seminar or instruction manual. Such questions as: Is the premise believable? Are there credibility gaps? Is it visual? Are the characters believable, accessible, interesting?  All of these questions are worthwhile and obvious.  I'm going to pass along a few tips I learned while doing my job.  (By the way, I can't teach you to write.  It is impossible to impose artistic ability on someone.  Anybody who insists he/she can is a scoundrel.  What I can do, assuming you've got ability, is help you develop it.  If you avoid the list of "don'ts" below, it won't make a bad script good; but at least you will avoid wallowing in certain areas of clichéville.  Besides, it's free!

1)     Don’t tell jokes.

Unless there is some purpose other than just taking up space, and unless you’ve made up the joke, told it to nobody, and it’s hilarious, and unless it advances the plot somehow, avoid this unfortunate inclination that suggests the writer feels he needs to cover a transition or is simply killing time as if there were time to waste.

2)     Limit title of your story to seven words or fewer.

Ever heard of Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?  It’s the title of an early Dustin Hoffman film.  All you need do is look at the title to know that the script had problems.  If you can’t capture something of the essence of your story in under seven words, then you need to rethink your story.  Are you familiar with The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night Full of Rain?  I didn’t think so.  There’s a reason for this, and it’s the same reason that plagued Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?  I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking what about Doctor Strangelove: or How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb?  It’s simple.  What follows after the colon is a subtitle, which nobody referring to this film ever employs.  Finally, if your title is seven words or longer, it will be problematical fitting it on the marquee.  Titles matter.  They need to be brief and catchy.  It’s a good place to use a cliché or stock phrase if it is employed in a unique and metaphorical way.

While I’m on the subject of titles, there is another area to beware of: naming the story after the main character.  This is not foolproof.  We can all think of good books, films and plays named after the main character.  But I consider it uninventive and simply too easy.  Sometimes including the main character’s name in a phrase can be interesting.  The Lowdown and Dirty Joe Blow is more interesting than Joe Blow, is it not?
 

3)     Leave a lot of white.

Nearly as important as what you say is what you don’t say. Writing for the screen is more like writing  poetry than any other form of writing. Poets are imagists, masters of metaphor. It can do nothing but help you to read good poetry as a means of aiding your efforts to write narrative, concisely and cinematically which can only be enhanced by the implementation of metaphor.  It’s not uncommon for readers doing coverage to skip the narrative and just read the dialogue. But if you have something of the poet in your description, you’ll have an edge. Keep it brief; don’t have blocks of intimidating description confronting the beleaguered reader, especially on the first page. You need “a lot of white” there, i.e., dialogue. When you have a block  of narrative consisting of four or five sentences, make two paragraphs out of it.

4)     Don’t mess with movie “reality.”

“What do you think this is -– a movie?”  Or some form of that tired inquiry that was a cliché the first time  it was uttered, which must have been soon after the introduction of sound, upsets whatever reality you’ve managed to create. I don’t know why writers continue to dredge up this and other stock phrases.  Maybe they’re feeling insecure about their ability to bring drama to the page and making a negative comment about other films lends credibility to theirs.  Actually, the reverse is true.  We are taken out of the moment and have to find our way back in.  Precious time is lost; movie reality is a diaphanous veneer, easily torn.  There are  many distractions in a theater: somebody coughs; another stands up in front of you; a toddler starts  crying; teenagers yak as if they’re in a restaurant! These events are beyond your control. Don’t join in.
 

5)     Don’t stick your nose in where it’s not wanted.

The temptation to instruct the actor on how to read certain lines of dialogue is an imposition that no good actor wants or needs. Let him/her do their work, while you confine yourself to yours. While I’m at it, the same can be said of instructing your characters how to behave in certain situations. Good actors don’t want to be told how to react; therefore, all you need do is say,  “Joe reacts.”  I can think of instances where you may  have to give some instruction regarding how a character might behave, but they are few and far between.

6)     Movies move.

Too much time in one location can have a negative effect. The scene becomes static.  Three pages are the cut-off point. This isn’t inscribed in stone, but after three pages, start thinking about moving on. This rule does not apply to the stage, where language, spoken or sung, determines the extent to which the play succeeds. Language well spoken cannot hurt a film  but visual expression is just as, if not, more, important.

There are categories that writing manuals use to break down the components of the process.  For example, DIALOGUE.  Under this heading are the aspects of this important component: IS THE DIALOGUE CRISP?  Hmm.  One has to assume that if it isn't crisp, it wasn't through lack of effort.  In other words, if you've got a tin ear for dialogue, too bad.  Nobody's going to teach you how to make it crisp.  Not to worry yourself sick over this.  Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill both had tin ears and look what happened to them.

DOES EACH CHARACTER HAVE A DISTINCT VOICE?  This sounds almost theoretical.  I guess I understand the intent, but the fact of the matter is if you have to keep checking to see if everybody sounds the same, you'll probably lose your mind.

IS THE DIALOGUE BRIEF?  Ah, here's where advice can be helpful.  I, myself, tend to fall in love with my words.  Therefore, I have to go over and over the work, looking for ways and places to prune the dialogue without losing the desired impact.

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Whatever you decide to do, I wish you the best.  Don't allow a day to go by without writing something.  If you do let a day go by, feel terrible about it and promise it will never happen again.  Good luck.