(continued from here)

The principles I outline below hold true for at least nine out of ten movies coming out of Hollywood. And while you will undoubtedly think of exceptions, film adaptations that depart from these guidelines usually fail at the box office (The Lovely Bones), are made outside the Hollywood system (Precious), or are made by well-established writers, directors and/or stars who are given a good deal of freedom to push the boundaries of film structure (Julie and Julia). (And by the way, these rules are essential to consider before adapting a TRUE story to film as well.)

1. Commerciality is the major concern of film financiers.

Though publishers are obviously in business to turn a profit as well, there are hundreds of publishing houses turning out thousands of titles a year, while only about 150 movies a year are produced by the major studios, with an average production and distribution budget in excess of $100 million a picture. Such a huge cost creates a demand for movies that will reach the widest possible audience.

2. Movies must conform to a budget.

When the Mongol hordes come sweeping over the mountains in your novel, all you’ve added is excitement. When the same thing happens in your screenplay, you’ve added $13,000,000 to the budget of the film.

3. Genre is critical.

While novels can portray characters in just about any time or place, there is a strong prejudice in Hollywood that favors action movies, thrillers and comedies over musicals, period pieces, Westerns and dramas.

4. Movies have a prescribed length.

While novels can range from the almost-a-novelette size of Animal Farm to the epic sprawl of War and Peace, most movies last between ninety minutes and two hours, and their corresponding screenplays between 105 and 119 pages.

5. Movies portray a condensed period of time.

Most Hollywood movies take place over a period of hours, days or weeks – rarely months or years. The epic saga may work fine in fiction, where a reader can return to a book as often as necessary, but when an audience is there for a single sitting, they don’t want to watch characters grow old together.

6. The hero of a screenplay must pursue a single, visible goal with a clearly implied endpoint.

When an audience sits in a movie theater, they want to root for the main character of the film to accomplish some compelling desire. Whether it’s stopping the killer, escaping the volcano, winning the big game or capturing the heart of the hero’s true love, we must SEE this pursuit, and we must be able to imagine what success will look like on the screen.

The reason most Hollywood movies are easy to describe in a single sentence is because the plots are defined by the hero’s specific desire: “Fargo is about a pregnant policewoman from a small town in Minnesota who wants to catch a group of killers.” As we watch this film, we may not know if the hero will succeed, but we can imagine what success will look like.

Novels can involve a series of characters (Hawaii), can focus primarily on inner motivation and character arc (Ordinary People), or can present heroes who meander though a whole series of events, desires and conflicts (The Shipping News, The Kite Runner, etc.). But in a screenplay, the reader must know what specific finish line the hero is hoping to cross.

7. The conflicts a movie hero faces must also be visible.

While the hero of a screenplay may also grapple with inner conflicts and flaws, the primary obstacles she faces must come from other characters or forces of nature that prevent her from achieving what she wants.

8. Screenplays may only reveal what the audience will hear and see on the screen.

Manuscripts can include illustrations, footnotes, maps, fancy fonts and chapter headings. They can offer asides from the author, reveal the characters’ thoughts and feelings, and give the reader any historical or background information the author considers helpful or interesting. None of these things can be included in a script, unless it is revealed through action or dialogue.

9. Movies follow a strict structure.

Novels sometimes sprawl, meander and jump back and forth in time, but screenplays must conform to a rigid formula for plotting the story.

Among the many structural principles and devices a screenplay must employ are these basic rules: the hero must be introduced by page ten, where he will encounter some new opportunity; the hero must begin pursuing the specific desire that defines the story concept at the 25% mark; some major setback must be experienced at the three-quarter point, and the climax must clearly resolve the hero’s desire in the last ten minutes of the film.

10. When it comes to writing style, a screenwriter’s goal must be to create a movie in the reader’s mind…

…that is as fast, easy and enjoyable to read as possible.  So the qualities of style in the best literary fiction – an extensive vocabulary, rich, textured description, and the unique use of the language – should be AVOIDED when writing a script.

11. . Finally, when you write a screenplay, your work is not your own.

The publishing world still seems to offer some respect to the writer’s original vision. But if you’re a screenwriter, sooner or later your creation will be changed, sometimes mercilessly, as other artists attempt to transform it into film.

I know this last item isn’t about a difference in the writing itself. I just want you to be prepared for what awaits you if you decide to take the plunge into adaptation.

– Michael Hauge

-Michael Hauge

MICHAEL HAUGE is a story consultant, author and lecturer who works with screenwriters, novelists, filmmakers and executives. He has coached writers, producers, stars and directors on projects for Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Robert Downey, Jr., and Morgan Freeman, as well as for every major studio and network. He is currently on retainer with Will Smith’s company, Overbrook Productions, where he was involved in the development of I am Legend, Hancock and The Karate Kid. For more info on Michael, visit www.ScreenplayMastery.com.

• photo credit  frankenstein: bog_king
  
• photo credit  reader: ethermoon
  
• photo credit book & lens: y. obukhov

Many fiction writers, at one point or another, consider adapting their own work into film. Because both novelists and screenwriters use characters to tell fictional stories, and since both wish to reach the widest possible audience with their work, it may seem logical to assume the transition is a natural one.

Consider the wide gulf that
separates these two forms of fiction.

But before you begin such a difficult and often disappointing endeavor, stop to consider the wide gulf that separates these two forms of fiction.

The next time you’re in a book store, look over the section marked “Cinema” and you’ll see that almost every successful motion picture based on an original screenplay has been “novelized,” but only a small percentage of successful novels have been adapted into film.

This situation exists because screenwriters must conform to very narrowly defined rules and parameters, while novelists have much greater latitude in the ways they can tell their stories.

Only a small percentage of successful
novels have been adapted into film.

Novels may follow the structure that movies do, so the film to fiction transition is fairly straightforward. But movies must conform to a number of rules that novels don’t have to, so the adaptation process becomes very difficult, and the result is often a film that pleases neither the audience nor those who loved the original work.

Before you can adapt a novel into screenplay form, you must accept the fact that, no matter how much you love the original work, YOU MUST ELIMINATE ALL THOSE ELEMENTS WHICH DO NOT CONFORM TO THE RULES OF SCREENWRITING.

The result is often a film that pleases neither the audience
nor those who loved the original work.

This can be painfully hard, but the process is essential to creating a movie that will reach a mass audience.

(Continued next week)

-Michael Hauge

photo credits: Hyokano and Tant C

MICHAEL HAUGE is a story consultant, author and lecturer who works with screenwriters, novelists, filmmakers and executives. He has coached writers, producers, stars and directors on projects for Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Robert Downey, Jr., and Morgan Freeman, as well as for every major studio and network. He is currently on retainer with Will Smith’s company, Overbrook Productions, where he was involved in the development of I am Legend, Hancock and The Karate Kid. For more info on Michael, visit www.ScreenplayMastery.com.

I want to cover something basic – something that always sounds simple, but which is one of the most difficult principles for most new screenwriters to truly understand and apply to their stories.

For my entire career as a screenwriting instructor, author and consultant, I have held a single guiding principle: the essential component of all successful movies is the hero’s pursuit of a compelling desire.

In this column I want to examine this principle more closely, and discuss the specific elements that define what I refer to in my lectures and my book Writing Screenplays That Sell as outer motivation.

Your primary goal as a screenwriter must be to elicit emotion in the reader and the audience. Whatever else you hope to achieve with your script – money, fame, artistry, a celebration of humanity or an enlightened, empowered audience – you will do so only when you keep the movie or TV audience emotionally involved with your story. And you will only be given the opportunity to reach an audience if the people in power are emotionally involved as they read your screenplay.

Without giving your hero some compelling desire to pursue, your story will have no forward movement

This necessary emotional involvement is realized only when the audience experiences the events of your story through your characters. Without giving your hero some compelling desire to pursue, your story will have no forward movement, your audience will have nothing to root for, and your reader will have no compelling reason to keep turning the pages of your script.

It is this necessary desire that defines your story concept. Ask someone what INDEPENDENCE DAY is about, and they’ll probably say something like, “It’s about a group of people trying to stop an alien invasion.” Or read the log lines for movies and TV episodes in TV Guide. Almost all of them state or imply the primary desires the heroes will pursue.

Certain qualities distinguish an effective outer motivation and insure its potential for creating an emotional experience:

1. The desire must be visible. I use the term OUTER MOTIVATION because it is outwardly apparent to the audience as they watch the action on the screen. Whether it’s stopping Mr. Smith and saving the world in The Matrix Revolutions, reuniting with his high school dream girl in There’s Something About Mary, or Finding Nemo in that film, the heroes of those films are doing things to achieve their desires, not simply revealing themselves through dialogue.

In other words, outer motivation does not involve the desire for invisible, inner qualities like success, love, belonging, greed, revenge or self-worth. Any one of these might provide a reason your hero is pursuing her visible goal, but it’s not the goal itself.

In the movie In The Line Of Fire, Frank Horrigan wants desperately to make up for a moment of cowardice and hesitation early in his career. But this need doesn’t give the story a plot, it only justifies the real outer motivation: to stop the assassin from killing the current President.

2. The desire must have a clearly implied endpoint. Not only do we see the hero pursue the goal throughout the movie, we can easily envision what achieving the goal will look like. We know when we watch Con Air that we will ultimately see a showdown between the hero and the villain. We may not know all the details, or exactly where and how it will occur, but we know that the outcome will resolve the story.

When you write a screenplay, you are taking the reader on a journey. But this isn’t one of those trips where you jump in the car and say, “Let’s just go for a drive and see where we end up.” In a movie, you are subconsciously telling the audience, “I’m taking you to this specific destination. I won’t tell you all the roadblocks we’ll encounter, or all the sights you’ll see along the way, but I promise that when the movie is over, you’ll be here.”

Think of your movie as a race. Your hero is trying desperately to reach the finish line before some other character or force of nature can stop her. If you don’t tell audience where the finish line is, how will they know what to root for? How will they even know when the movie’s over? (Yes, I know the credits will come on, but how exciting is that?)

It’s your hero’s burning passion
that will draw readers into your screenplay.

This is another way that outer motivation is distinguished from some inner desire for self-worth – what I term INNER MOTIVATION. It’s fine if your hero wants acceptance, for example, but how will the audience know he’s achieved it unless you link that acceptance to some visible outer motivation we can anticipate? In Amadeus, a jealous Salieri wants to get revenge (invisible) on God for making Mozart a musical genius. This instills in him a visible desire to destroy Mozart. It is murdering Mozart that drives the story forward, gives it a clearly defined endpoint, and keeps the audience emotionally involved.

3. Your hero must desperately want the desire. If your main character is only mildly interested in achieving their outer motivation, how can you expect the audience to care whether they win it or not? It’s your hero’s burning passion that will draw readers into your screenplay, and will make the outcome of vital importance to them as well.

4. Your hero must actively pursue the desire. Your characters can’t simply sit around talking about how much they’d like to have money, success or the love of a beautiful woman. They must take control of their lives and use every ounce of strength, courage and intelligence they have to rob the bank, stop the serial killer or win the love of the prom queen.

Nor can your hero simply observe other characters pursue a goal, or allow others to pursue them without reacting. By definition, the hero is the character whose desire defines the plot of the movie.

Passive heroes destroy interest and emotion. How can we root for someone who takes no action? Your protagonist can be passive at the beginning of your script, but before too long, he has to declare, “I WANT THAT!” and go after his desire.

4. It must be within your hero’s power to achieve her desire. You never want your hero to wait to be rescued, in any sense of the word. If she’s pursued by a killer, trapped in a mineshaft, or cornered by dinosaurs, she can’t wait helplessly for the Mounties to arrive.

This is why very few successful movies are about elections, beauty pageants or the Pillsbury Bake-Off: the outcome of such situations is determined by voters or judges, not by the one pursuing the prize. (Yeah, yeah, I know, Miss Congeniality was about a beauty pageant. But what was her Outer Motivation? To stop the killer – not to be picked as the winner.)

It must be within your hero’s power to achieve her desire. You never want your hero to wait to be rescued, in any sense of the word

The exception to this principle is the courtroom drama, where a judge or jury ultimately decides whether the hero wins or loses. But notice that in most successful legal dramas, such as A Few Good Men, Class Action or Runaway Jury, the verdict is preceded by a scene where the hero confronts an antagonistic witness, reveals key evidence, or makes an impassioned plea that transforms the outcome into a foregone conclusion.

5. Your hero must put everything on the line to achieve the desire. Again, the more passionate, determined and courageous your hero is in pursuit of his quest, the greater the audience’s own emotional involvement, and the greater their elation when he succeeds.

This principle is fairly evident in action movies and thrillers like Terminator 3, X Men 2 or Panic Room, where heroes put their lives on the line to save the world, stop the bad guys or escape from danger. But it’s also true in any successful love story or comedy. The Robin Williams character in The Birdcage risks embarrassment, humiliation, self-esteem, the loss of his lover and the loss of his own son’s love and happiness in his attempt to convince his future in-laws that he’s a straight man.

And in romantic comedies and love stories like Sleepless In Seattle, Good Will Hunting and As Good As It Gets, the heroes must take the greatest emotional risk of all: exposing themselves to rejection, fear and pain as they let go of identities that have brought them a lifetime of protection. But they find the courage to put everything on the line as they pursue their love and their destiny.

6. Your hero’s desire must be resolved at the climax of the film. You may add ambiguous elements to your story, and even leave your hero with an uncertain future. But you must resolve both the Outer and Inner Motivations by the end of the film. Your reader and audience have spent two hours rooting for your hero to achieve these compelling desires. You can’t now leave them hanging and expect your script to either advance your career or transform your audience.

-Michael Hauge

MICHAEL HAUGE is a story consultant, author and lecturer who works with screenwriters, novelists, filmmakers and executives. He has coached writers, producers, stars and directors on projects for Will Smith, Julia Roberts, Robert Downey, Jr., and Morgan Freeman, as well as for every major studio and network. He is currently on retainer with Will Smith’s company, Overbrook Productions, where he was involved in the development of I am Legend, Hancock and The Karate Kid. For more info on Michael, visit www.ScreenplayMastery.com.