Confessions of a Film School Screenwriter---

Each point is valid, valuable and well stated. Thanks for sharing.  

"The stronger the imagination, the less imaginary the results."--Rabindranath Tagore

Yeah, it is hard to take ctique. I agree don't be so defensive.

What I find is if the writer has to explain why they think the material works, then it clearly doesn't.

A lot of films are relying on making an intellectual connection, but fail on making an emotional connection. I sit there watching the film thinking, gee I know I ought to feel a certain way because I've seen this scene a dozen times before in different movies, but I am not emotionqally moved. 

A friend was discussing his screenplay, and there was a pivotal moment. To illustrate his idea which a few of us told him wsan't working, he did something he knew would offend me. So hooray, he pissed me off to show me the emotion of the scene. The point he didn't understand was that I understood what he was trying to accomplish, he just wasn't accomplishing it in his script.

Ben White (back on OTL)suggested when crituiiqing to use terms such as "stronger" or "Weaker" as opposed to "Good" or "Bad", to make it easier to have your crituiqing heard.

Steven Gladstone

Director/Cinematographer

http://www.gladstonefilms.com

 
Great advice here, I promoted it to the front page.

I count myself among those who are more interested (at least for the time being!) in being a screenwriter than being a director. Everything you said rings true to me. Let me ask you, have you read the book called STORY by Robert McKee? What do you think of it?

One of the things he says, is that ... when you ask someone to read your script, in reality, you're asking for a day of their lives. And he said, friends will come back to you, and say "I liked this and that scene, but I felt the rest was a little loose, etc". So then you'll go and do a re-write, and keep the scenes they liked, and then ask for another day of their lives to read the script again, and the feedback is the same "glad you kept this and that scene! I loved those! but the rest felt a little this or a little that, bla bla bla" and it can go on for-freaking-ever until you lose your friends :)

So instead, what he recommends is: write the outline of the story first. Become familiar with it, become the foremost expert in that world first, and in the characters that live there. Then, instead of asking your friend for a day of their lives to read a script, just ask for 10 minutes to let you pitch the story to them. 10 minutes should do, you tell your three acts, and the end. McKee says... your friend should remain silent for a little while, then just say "wow" and remain silent again. Those are the only stories worth writing, he says. Everything else, we've already seen too much of. So then, once you get that reaction, and nothing less, thats when you sit down and follow your outline and write, re-write and write again, but the story is already complete in your head, you're just putting it to paper and maybe letting it develop a little in the process but no more, you're not crawling in the dark anymore wondering what comes next.

I'm paraphrasing, he just said something like that :) 

... THANK YOU!

I’ve have read bits and pieces of STORY over the years.  I think that he is absolutely rightabout outlines.  Generally, wepitch our screenplays to classmates and professors based on outlines. Then were-pitch every subsequent outline revision.  Without fail, the stronger the outline, the stronger thepitch.  I kind of think of it likethis: the outline is our carrot tolure people in and our script is the stick we use to hit them over the headand take their money.  If your outline works, your story will be so much easier to write.  It will also be more fun. 

www.smokefilledrooms.com

Great advice. I had to read about 4 books to learn what you posted in a couple paragraphs. Of course, the theories of screenwriting are endless.

On new idea/advice I picked up on my last read was to write the entire script all the way through before doing any revisions.

This trivia on Stallone is interesting:

[Explaining to The New York Times how he wrote the script for Rocky (1976) in three days] I'm astounded by people who take 18 years to write something. That's how long it took that guy [Gustave Flaubert] to write "Madame Bovary". And was that ever on the best-seller list? No. It was a lousy book and it made a lousy movie.

JOHN MEREDITH

WWW.MEREDITHFILMS.COM

 
Don't get me wrong by what I'm about to say. After all, I do believe writing classes do have a certain value. Good classes and groups can help you learn to critique your own work and find areas of improvement. Hearing different perspectives on your material and bouncing ideas back and forth can further improve writing skills. Such classes can also instill a sense of discipline to your writing habits.  One of those habbits--  outlining.

But all that said, I spent 4 years in college leaning to write... and ever since then trying to unlearn it.  

The structures and conventions of screen writing can be learned. The same with novels. All very nice, but the meat of writing comes from life experience, and getting into the muck of human existence and relationships and characters. That stuff cannot be taught in a classroom-- it must be lived.

Great writers get into the shit of life. The thick of it. Then they push the limits of convention, often breaking the conventions entirely.

Why are so many great writers drunks?  Because they live one the edge of the abyss, where life can seem a pointless and bullshit exercise.  They constantly flirt with jumping into the abyss and so must temper these thoughts with a healthy dose of liquid pain remover.

Above and beyond that, I'd have to add that writing is a very strange job. It demands that you know about life and the way people behave, yet, on the other hand, it demands that you spend the majority of your time in solitude putting this knowledge into words and stories. The whole process sort of defies logic.

Personally I prefer writers with a keen edge and lots of attitude. Being timid has no place in writing good material. Kevin Smith will probably never be known for story structure, which is okay, because he has interesting characters who have a lot to say about life and how we relate to one and other. And he fuses it all together with a healthy dose of in-your-face attitude. Put another way, he's not shy when it comes to saying what he means. Usually with a lot of f-bombs. (that would be the word "fuck" as opposed to f#@k. People use the word fuck frequently in the world today and we as writers cannot be afraid to write it down on paper).

That's my 2 cent rant. ...worth about what you paid for it. 

Gonzo is a way of life.

I often post a lot of my work online in hopes to recieve criticism. It helps to hear what things people have a problem with, how else would you improve upon it?

One time though on a community I used to be a part of, some guy was bashing me for a couple of screenplays I shared online. "Brendan, don't post your work here on this website unless its close to a finished product! You're making yourself out to be a fool!" That's one of the only times I came across someone who wasn't very helpful.