The Third Draft

I was offered the opportunity to pitch my script in front of a live audience, and silly me--I took it. There's a long-running play-reading series here in Paris called Moving Parts, and I was allotted 10 minutes before one of the plays. So up I got in front of about 30 people, most of them writers or actors, and pitched.

Well. The good news is I did it.

The bad news is nobody liked the story.

I see this as a three-part problem.

First, I was pitching a genre piece to Parisian expats, who tend to be literary in their tastes.  Already the genre was a bad fit, and my pitch emphasized the dark and creepy setting. Lesson learned: Do my homework before pitching a producer. If they're not looking for what I have, I might as well spare us all the agony.

Secondly, I wanted to be respectful of the time limit (this was, after all, the playwright's evening), so I left out the anecdote about how I came to write the story. Unfortunately, that was my chance to explain the more unusual elements in the script and involve the audience more. Lesson learned: never skip the set up.

Third, although I thought I had trimmed to the bare bones, the pitch was still too detailed. Too heavy on plot line, too light on emotional moments. Big mistake. Huge. Lesson learned: A pitch is about selling the story--not  telling the story. And selling is all about emotions.

 (It could also be that the story sucks. Always a possibility. I'm looking at a rewrite.)

So there you have it.  I'm more nervous  than ever, despite having been told by a former Hollywood studio executive that I was in control and professional. (Huzzah! I cling to that as my one small consolation.)  But while it wasn't fun, it was  useful, and I  know my next pitch will benefit from having bombed in front of a live audience. A big thank you to Stephanie Campion of Moving Parts for creating such a safe space to fail and grow!

Susannah and I had another Skype session this past Sunday. Our conversations focus on marketing, but we also swap scripts and bounce concepts off of one another. This past session was a little more diffuse than the others. We've both set a few things in motion, and are either waiting to hear back or a little unclear about our next steps. So we worked on trying to clarify our course of action at least until the next time we spoke. By the end of the call, Susannah said that she's already done more this year to market her scripts than last year. I realized so had I.

In my last post, film composer Rob Gokee  commented on how well I seem to multitask. I've certainly improved my ability to juggle, but it still remains too easy to drop those balls that are not essential--that is, anything without a deadline. The fact that Susannah is eagerly awaiting to hear what I've done since we last talked two weeks ago forces me to keep the marketing ball in play. For me, having to be accountable to somebody else really helps.

I'd love to hear from others. Any tips or strategies for staying motivated and on track?

Thanks to the feedback I received on my latest script, I was able to figure out how to strengthen the story and bring out deeper nuances. Besides fellow screenwriters, I showed the script to a select group of friends and acquaintance. I love having a diverse readership. As is often the case, one of the most helpful comments I received came from a non-writer. A psychologist friend of mine felt my protagonist was too depressed.

Depressed? Hmm. That had not been my desire. I saw her as driven by a loss that haunts her, not incapacitated by depression. My friend was able to articulate why she felt this very concisely, and in the process she opened a new level of awareness for me--that of a character's "affect."

I'm still new to the idea of affect myself, but if I had to sum up my current understanding, I'd say that, in psychology, affect refers to those feelings and emotions that can be observed in a person. (More on this concept here: http://www.bookrags.com/Affect_(psychology) I recommend reading up on affect--I know I certainly will.)

A writer might have told me my character was too flat, possibly too passive. But once I understood what my friend meant by affect, I could see what was missing. I was able to fix the problem on a story level without resorting to bodily gestures, facial expressions, or forced  dialogue. I'm very happy with the result.

The script is finally ready to go out to agents. That process will begin forthwith.

I sent my latest script to 7 readers, and while I wait for their notes, I've started outlining my next concept. This new idea was inspired by a recent week in New York with my family, and it's shaping up as an outrageous comedy. I think it has great potential, so I'm very excited about it.

But more importantly, moving on to my next project before my current one has been completed keeps me from getting too precious about any one script. By juggling projects at different stages of development, I guarantee that I'll always have something to work on. As a result, I'm too busy to worry about when or if the notes will come back or how much people will love or hate my script. This is by far the best method I know of for keeping writer's block at bay. I highly recommend it.

Anybody else have any suggestions for dealing with writer's block? I'd love to hear them!

When it comes to showing and telling in spec scripts, the rule of thumb among professionals is: don't write anything you can't see on screen.

Sure, it's a smart rule. But produced scripts include lines such as these:

"[The realization] hits her like a ton of bricks."
     -- My Best Friend's Wedding (Ron Bass)

"Vivian dislikes this guy on sight."
     -- Pretty Woman (Jonathan Lawton, Stephen Metcalfe)

"Andy is taken aback at this question. Although he's friendly with them, they never invite him out to social engagements."
     -- 40 Year-Old Virgin (Judd Apatow, Steve Carell)

How can you film a realization hitting like a ton of bricks? How can we visualize, in one reaction shot, Andy's entire social history with his co-workers? How can you reconcile the abstract rule of thumb with the examples from actual scripts?

As a spec writer, you should always strive to think of unique actions and lines of dialogue that fit your story and your characters. If you hit upon the perfect showing action, everyone will understand your character better, including the script readers, the director, and the actors themselves. This is the proper value of the "show don't tell" rule.

Like all rules, however, it allows room for some exceptions, as we see in the examples above.

If you're a writer on assignment, or if you have a proven track record, or if you're a writer-director, you can do pretty much as you please.

Even if you're writing on spec, you have more leeway than you think. A little telling at the right moments can go a long way. In my opinion, telling us "John reacts, shocked" is much better than showing us a cliché action such as "John gasps." If your story is weak, however, and you start propping it up with a lot of telling, then you're in trouble.

Some instances of telling can be transformed into a sort of showing. "She gasps, the realization hitting her like a ton of bricks." "Vivian's expression clearly indicates she dislikes this guy on sight." Problem is, the extra words make the writing a little too loose. You’ll need to choose, line by line, how loose or how tight you’ll want your writing to be.
 
I recently organized a series of staged screenplay readings. To be in the presence of actual actors reading my lines was a revelation. Suddenly it seemed painfully silly to tell the actors how to do their jobs. Preparing the scripts for performance, I crossed out all the “showing” actor directions—things like eyes shifting, jaws dropping, shrugs, and so on. I can now understand how most “telling” instructions on produced scripts are ignored on set or even cut by the director and the actors.
 
You might as well delete these instructions yourself. Make it a rule to show, not tell; and make it a rule never to take a rule too strictly.