:: Character Breakdown
:: Bad TV Teaches Lessons
:: What is ‘Voice’?
:: Creating Memorable Characters
:: Don’t Leave Your Ending to the End
:: How to Write an Omniscient Narrator

Script Perfection

:: Embrace Your Inner Weirdo
:: Writers Diet Test. Is Your Sentence Construction Flabby or Fit?
:: 7 Essential Habits for Writers
:: Screenplay Formatting
:: A Guide to Scriptwriting Essentials
:: Your Moral Vision

Pitching & Selling

:: How to Write a Better Logline
:: Receiving Screenwriting Notes
:: Why 2nd Best Isn’t Good Enough
:: Tips for Subbing to Mags
:: Don’t Forget to get Your Screenplay Reviewed!
:: Script Feedback Advice

Best of the Rest

:: 10 of the Most Powerful Female Characters in Literature
:: The Geographic and Chronological Layout of Middle Earth
:: A New Trailer for DreamWorks’ Rise of the Guardians
:: Actors: How to Give Notes to Writers
:: An Amazing Behind-The-Scenes Look at the Animation Behind John Carter
:: The Treatment – Interviews with Industry Bigshots
:: Tim Burton Brings us a Story Form His Own High-School Nightmares
:: John Cleese talks Creativity
:: 5 Tips for Directing Children
:: Ethereal New Banner for The Hobbit
:: A Pedantic Take on the Physics of The Hulk
:: The Dark Knight Rises Wows Fans at Early Screening
_______________________________

With thanks to Jamie C. and Brooke Trezise.

Enjoy!

Karel

Jamie Campbell

Jamie Campbell is an author, screenwriter, and television addict.

Jamie is proud to be an Editor for The Story Department.

Her latest series Project Integrate is out now.

jamiecampbell.com.au

Look at it like this: how many unique ideas does one have in a day? Truly original ideas, such that you’re the first human being to conceive it?

For most of us, the answer is: none.

We may never have a truly unique idea in our life. And that’s OK.

Imagine if every human being on this planet would contribute exactly one original idea to the Grand Ideas Pool… That would make about 5 billion added over the past fifty years, or more than three ever second. Unlikely? Maybe.

To create and communicate meaning, we repeat, rehash improve and repurpose existing ideas. We don’t have to re-invent the wheel. We have to innovate.

We are effectively surrounded by an infinite number of ideas.

Look around you: every object is a collection of hundreds, possibly thousands of different ideas packaged together. The window I’m looking through combines the 4,500 year old craft of glass-making with several modern industrial techniques of glass-making and fitting. To build the laptop I’m writing this on, thousands of ideas had to be packaged.

As filmmakers, we’re after concepts that may not be truly unique, but original enough to (re-)distribute, possibly to a new audience.

What may work is something people haven’t heard for a long time, or never before in this context. The idea needs to be in some way or other refreshing or exciting to be worth spreading.  Which movies spring to mind?

Now we’ve redefined the concept of ‘originality’ you’ll find that you will have original ideas quite often. You may have such an insight every week or possibly every day. Are you using it?

But how do you decide whether an idea is really worth pursuing?

Challenge yourself immediately to see if you can come up with anything similar but better. Write it down and revisit it tomorrow. Test it on some trusted people and see if they get excited.

Got a great idea? Now execute it. Ideas are cheap.

Screenwriters are not in the business of selling ideas. They sell scripts.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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I would prefer to leave such quantification aside for a moment and rather look into what these structural elements need to achieve.

For the inciting incident, here is my most important conclusion:

The inciting incident is a major event happening to the protagonist, never an action or decision by the protagonist.

When before I stated that the inciting incident must be a ‘deus ex machina’, I was wrong. Although it may seem so for our hero, it can but doesn’t need to be an act of God. But in any case it must be beyond the control of the protagonist.

To demonstrate that an action by the protagonist cannot work as an inciting incident, let’s look at two films that had a lot going for them but still failed to break out at the box office.

The following logline of Somersault, from a document published by the Australian Film Commission, claims to contain the film’s starting event. It says:

A teenage girl runs away from home, hoping to find herself through love, but the people she meets are as lost as she is.

If the girl running away from home is the starting event, (i.e. the inciting incident), this is not a strong enough trigger for the story. But are we missing something? Why does she run from home? This is what we find on iMDB:

Heidi, 15, runs away from home after her mom sees her kissing mom’s boyfriend.

That, to me, reads like a pretty powerful inciting incident to the mother’s character. Not to the girl, because she started it in the first place.

McKee is absolutely right when he says the inciting incident should force the protagonist to act.

If the cause of the girl’s running away is not important enough to mention in the logline, it is probably not big enough to kick off the story. And the audience wouldn’t get the point that the story has effectively started. Such a ‘soft launch’ of a film should be avoided at all cost.

Similarly, in what I believe to be the inciting incident of LUCKY YOU, Eric Bana’s character decides to bet all he has (i.e. the pawn ticket of his mother’s wedding ring) in a game of poker against his dad. When he loses, I feel it was his own mistake and he could have avoided it. It is not strong enough to start the movie.

Both films performed relatively poorly, given the exposure they had at the time of release. It certainly was not just because their weak inciting incidents, but I do believe it might have had something to do with that.

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Still you will need to get through the hurdle of the paperwork. Before getting access to tax payer’s money, a rather large amount of boxes needs to be ticked. Still, these application forms are usually not as daunting as they look.

If you have studied the questions in the application and there are still questions left, it often pays to pick up the phone and ask the people in the development department directly.

However, the most important elements of any application package for a new screenplay are the following:

– the screenplay
– the logline and/or one-paragraph synopsis
– the synopsis
– the three-page outline
– the development notes

If you are confident that you have a good story, it is paramount to make sure each of these four is in prime shape. Let’s look at them in further detail.

SCREENPLAY

ALL scripts are read. To my knowledge, this is where the first selection occurs.
This means you the screenplay’s presentation is extremely important. To improve a reader’s experience and keep the focus on the story, your script needs to be as perfect as you can get it. Proper format, no typos, ‘lots of white’ etc.

It is true that if you have a formally deficient screenplay but a rock solid story, you will ultimately find the money. If you have a dead-boring story written in a perfect, super polished screenplay, no-one will care. Still, your script may be eliminated from a funding round just because it looks un-professional.

The external reader in charge of making the first selection may decide that if you are not disciplined to even get something as simple as the format right, you are not serious about screenwriting in the first place.

LOGLINE

It tells in only a few words what your story is about. Twenty-five-words-or-less, ideally. If you can’t do this, most likely any future sales people will have trouble pitching your story.

The logline is a one sentence or one paragraph summary of your story, sometimes called the elevator pitch. Clever writers have used this tool during development and now is the time for the world to admire the brilliant gem.

The logline is so powerful, it doesn’t just tell us what the story is about, it also demonstrates your clarity in terms of vision and plot.

Think of it like this: if you give the people deciding on development or production investment the most powerful, exciting line summarising your story, you can almost be sure your story will pop in their minds before any others. You have already half won the money.

SYNOPSIS

Even if the synopsis is not used for the first elimination, a badly written synopsis will most likely throw you out of the race at some point. Once a first selection is made, readers will need to refresh their minds and in stead of re-reading the entire script, they may look at the synopsis in stead. If yours is sloppy and uninspiring, this may reflect on the discussions about the script in the shortlisting stage.

I am of the opinion that significant tax money could be saved if funding agencies would behave like the rest of the film industry and make a selection based on the synopsis first. It is a time-efficient and highly reliable tool to assess the story in a reasonable level of detail without the need to read for hours. A badly constructed story can be a good read but ultimately it may waste everyone’s time.

Finally, one page is one page. Don’t cheat. If necessary, cut out all subplots and focus purely on the protagonist’s journey.

THREE PAGE OUTLINE

Here you can go into more detail about any side-characters and their journeys. If the synopsis suffered in terms of its style because of the struggle to get the essential plot points in, here you can be more evocative. Give us a flavour of the genre of the film by using expressive language. However, this is still not a treatment: no dialogue or detailed description.

DEVELOPMENT NOTES

Honesty first. Know your strengths and weaknesses. Don’t over-sell. Be clear about what you want to achieve in the next draft. The development notes are hugely important and in all fairness, it is not really an area where you can be on your own. It always pays to hire a professional to look over the application materials as the competition is fierce and many of your competitors will have worked through their submission with the help of a script consultant.

These notes should provide the SWOT Analysis of your work. Why do you believe it will attract millions of viewers? Why is it worth spending money on further development? And most importantly: what are you intending to do next? For a writer, it is hard to judge the merits of your own work. Here you will need help from an experienced reader, another writer or a script editor.

One more piece of advice: start writing these documents EARLY. Don’t wait until the last days before the deadline. Not only will you save yourself the stress and the danger of having documents riddled with typos. When you have the time to let your application materials rest for a week, two, three, you will have time to write another seriously improved draft. You will pick up on weaknesses you didn’t see in the first place. The final result will be 200% better.

Back to work. Good luck!

Screenplay Checklist (Premium) >>

Learn From Other People’s Mistakes >>

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Toula’s family has exactly three traditional values – “Marry a Greek boy, have Greek babies, and feed everyone.” When she falls in love with a sweet, but WASPy guy, Toula struggles to get her family to accept her fiance, while she comes to terms with her own heritage. (4/5: outer + inner)

A young man and woman from different social classes fall in love aboard an ill-fated voyage at sea. (4/5)

When a Roman general is betrayed and his family murdered by a corrupt prince, he comes to Rome as a gladiator to seek his revenge. (3/5: no inner, opposite of what it really is “‘ restore justice)

An older man is forced to deal with an ambiguous future after he enters retirement and his wife passes away. Ultimately, he finds hope as he comes to terms with his daughter’s marriage and his own life. (3/5)

A comedic portrayal of a young and broke Shakespeare who falls in love with a woman, inspiring him to write “Romeo and Juliet.” (2/5: no antagonism, only real life hook)

A journey of self-discovery by a brilliant mathematician once he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He eventually triumphs over tragedy and receives the Nobel Prize.

An Epic tale of a 1940s New York Mafia family and their struggle to protect their empire, as the leadership switches from the father to his youngest son.

A meek and alienated little boy finds a stranded extraterrestrial and has find the courage to defy authorities to help the alien return to its home planet.

A boxer (hero) with a loser mentality (flaw) is offered a chance by the world champ (opponent) to fight for the title (lifechanging event) but, with the help of his lover (ally) must learn to see himself as a winner before he can step into the ring (battle). “Rocky.”

A jaded (flaw) WWII casino owner (hero) in Nazi-occupied Morocco sees his former lover (opponent) arrive (lifechanging event), accompanied by her husband (ally) whose heroism forces the hero to choose between his cynicism, his feeling for his ex-lover, and his once-strong feelings of patriotism (battle). “Casablanca.”

When a pathologically deceitful attorney gets zapped by his son’s birthday wish, he learns that he can no longer tell a lie even when he tries, so he must now win the biggest case of his career by being honest.

back to start >>

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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It is not a tagline. It is not really a one-paragraph synopsis either. (and it’s definitely not a slug line)

The Australian Film Commission says:

“filmmakers are often asked to supply a one sentence version of their film story. This one sentence should give the most concentrated version possible of the story, or at least its key event.”

This definition is – to say the least – problematic. Do you know what a story’s ‘key event’ is? I don’t.

“For example, here is a one sentence plot premise for Somersault: “A teenage girl runs away from home, hoping to find herself through love, but the people she meets are as lost as she is…”

If this is the best logline possible for this film, the film does not have a story. There may be some sort of an inner journey but that is not enough for a successful film. The AFC document continues:

“This sentence is one way to describe what happens in Somersault. In this case, it gives us the starting event, implies further events and states the protagonist’s predicament.”

The writer of this statement should not give advice to filmmakers. Not only is it confusing, it is plain wrong. ‘A teenage girl runs away from home’ is most definitely NOT a ‘starting event’. It is a deliberate action by that character, therefore it can not qualify for a strong inciting incident.

The Unknown Screenwriter (Unk) has a far more useful definition:

“Protagonist’s main character trait + Protagonist’s main function + main story conflict + central question + Antagonist or forces of antagonism + Protagonist’s goal and arc”

I found this for Gladiator, which is a perfect example of the above:

“The brave General Maximus, heir to the throne, is stripped from his powers and made a fugitive slave by his arch rival Commodus. In order to restore the power of the Roman Senate and avenge the murder of Marcus Aurelius he will have to fight and survive as a gladiator and ultimately confront Commodus.”

Because we have two sentences, it is not the ideal logline. But with some work, you can tighten this further without losing the essence:

“When the brave General Maximus is made a fugitive slave, he has to fight as a gladiator to confront his arch rival Commodus and restore the power of the senate.”

Unk also calls it a compass logline because:

“it’s the logline I create before I ever ever start writing. It always leads the way for me. It keeps me on track when I get off track and I tend to get off track ALL THE FUCKIN’ TIME.”

Next: Examples of loglines >>

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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Because during development, things can change.

Of course McKee is right.

The creative process is unpredictable and you know where you start but you don’t know where you’ll end.

Really?

If you are assuming things can change SO much you will have a different logline, you may have a problem. You may not really have a story (yet).

The logline says exactly what your story is, in its purest and simplest form. It states what story you are trying to tell. If that changes, you are basically writing a different movie altogether.

One of the most exciting projects I have worked on had a problem in terms of its structure and POV. Numerous discussions with the writer lead to ever improving versions of synopsis and step outline. But we didn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel for quite a while.

One day the writer sent me a new synopsis and at the bottom of the page he had written a logline.

That day not only did we know we had a strong story, the development process suddenly found a clear direction.

Next: What is a logline? (Premium ) >>

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

“an overt focus on structure may be to the detriment of the script overall. He prefers to discuss scripts using more generic terms such as beginning, middle and end. The hero’s journey (a la Campbell and Vogler) should be approached warily.”

Not only does it show a grave lack of understanding of the depth and importance of the Hero’s Journey, it goes directly against most forms of successful storytelling.

I find it a dangerous statement, as aspiring screenwriters may have taken it as sound advice from a working screenwriter. The fact that it hasn’t sparked more controversy in the industry is another symptom of a film industry lacking a genuine storytelling culture.

On the other hand, Karin Altmann’s views on script editing are completely in line with those held by successful professionals around the world.

The following article, containing the quote, was reprinted with the kind permission of ScreenHub.

NSC 2007 – Script Editing
by: Anne Richey
Screen Hub – Monday 22 October, 2007

The first draft’s done. The characters are in place, and the story has been established along with what you would like to say. Except for maybe that character – that scene – the way the story is resolved – Time to call in a script editor.

The next question is who do you choose? With places like the AFC unable to recommend script editors to you, the best way is probably to ask around, and to find a script editor with the style you will best respond to. And their styles do vary.

To illustrate this point, Keith Thompson and Karin Altmann outlined the different methods they use to assist the writer to improve the script.

Keith Thompson, script editor on more than 20 produced feature films and five or six mini series, takes a very fluid approach. He considers his role to be the editor of the writer, not the script. He looks for a way for the writer to find the truth in what they are writing, whether through getting to know the characters better, preventing self-censorship, or any of the variety of other hurdles which the writer must find their way over.

In order to find the truth in the script, the writer must first reach a place where they can recognise what the script is about, and just as importantly, why they should be the one to write the story rather than anyone else, Taking this kind of psychological approach creates a less defensive atmosphere where the writer feels more confident in developing the script further.

Importantly, the script editor should not make suggestions about the script, but rather, encourage the writer on a path to finding the answers for themselves. The aim of the game is to emphasise the good and reduce the bad.

Keith is wary of scripting how-to books, believing that they hold the potential for all movies to end up looking the same. Similarly, an overt focus on structure may be to the detriment of the script overall. He prefers to discuss scripts using more generic terms such as beginning, middle and end. The hero’s journey (a la Campbell and Vogler) should be approached warily.

Unlike Karin Altmann’s approach, he also prefers to avoid the use of cards to work out the structure of a script. He prefers overall to avoid theory and stick to encouraging the writer and developing the script. Karin takes a structuralist approach in a similar way to Robert McKee, starting with the logline, premise, one pager, treatment and then on to developing the script. While Keith agreed that this does work in some cases, he certainly doesn’t believe that it works in all. His theory is that sometimes people need to work out the script while writing it, particularly the first draft.

Engaging in weekly meetings with the writers he’s working with, his role is more that of an encouraging spectator, facilitating ways for the writer to achieve the right outcome. As people only get one chance to read a script for the first time, Keith uses a colour code method for the first draft read-though notes, with a different colour once he knows what the story is about and how it ends. He finds it to be a helpful way of differentiating what should be worked on, depending on the perspective taken,

Karin Altmann’s approach is far more analytical and mechanical. She believes that a script editor shouldn’t get involved with the first draft, and that the script editor’s purpose in the ensuing drafts is to assist the writer’s internal judge. To her, the script editor’s role is to identify not solve problems, and it is not their place to provide scenes, lines or dialogue. They should always remember that they are the script editor, not the collaborator.

Script editors really take the role that producers and directors should be taking if they were better trained at the role, as they have an ongoing investment in making the project as viable as possible. She believes that as time goes on, and more training is developed in the industry, script editor role will gradually disappear, replaced by others with a vested interest in the film.

When editing, she tends to focus on the story more than the writer. She wants to know not only what the story is about, and why the writer is doing it, she also wants to know what the story is really about and why the writer is really doing it. When reading a script for the first time, she likes to imagine it as though watching a movie. On the second read, she uses the one-line scene breakdown method. She finds this to be the best way to determine the strengths of the emotional logic, rhythm and narrative logic. It help in identifying the gaps between the intention and the result, and provides a strategy for moving forward.

Ultimately, the script editor is the servant of the story, not the writer or the producer. They identify the places where the script is in need of resolution, and provide the writer with the pathways to achieving a better script, rather than rewriting it on their behalf. Stop banging your head against the keyboard when trying to move forward with your next draft. A good script editor is all you need.

Anne Richey
Anne Richey is a writer with an engaging demeanor, a systematic approach to organisation, and a criminal mind.

(Reprinted with kind permission of ScreenHub)

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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What I had read was a great short novel. Brilliant prose, lively detail and sharp dialogue. But the story didn’t work because we would not care for the protagonist. This is a typical mistake: confusing a good script with a good story. Beware of the ‘good read’. Or as my best friend Chris always says: “Armaggedon was a good read too.” In the case of this Australian hopeful, the story was told from a protagonist without any clear objective. Ironically, a character close to the protagonist would have much better fitted that role without the need to significantly change the premise.

The joy of the ‘good read’ is truly a danger and one of many reasons why you don’t rely on friends for script feedback, even if they work in the film industry. I have heard of aspiring screenwriters asking advice from assistant directors, decorators production managers. Although like everybody in our industry, these people SHOULD have a notion, in reality they hardly ever do. (As a matter of fact, a lot of decision-makers don’t have a clue either.I could give you a recent example of a script where even the writer admitted ‘there was no story’. Still he got the money to develop it. Develop what? The novel? I won’t name the example or I would be dead. Fact is that the writer in question ironises about this reality when he says that

“to get your hands on delicious development money you don’t have to have a great script, it only has to be a little ‘better’ than the norm. And if you can do that with no story…good times.”

THE WISE AND THE NOT SO WISE

As somebody who takes the craft very seriously, I’m sometimes frustrated to see how people who should know better send out confusing messages. Now take this quote, which I found on a web site claiming to give story advice and tips to writers:

“As for the content of your screenplay; structure counts, usually. Have a clear Act I, II, and III. Try to hook the reader on the first page! Make the first five (or ten pages at most) be Act I, wherein you introduce all the main characters and show the reader the who, what, where, when and why of your story. Notice that I said SHOW. Telling is not so good. Film is a visual medium and you should actually be writing a FILM, not a script. Act II is the rest of the story, where you build on what you started, and it climaxes at the clear end of Act II. Act III should be five or ten (max) pages, where all loose ends are tied up and all conflicts are resolved.”

I must admit I had never heard of the Ten Minutes First Act. And the second act being “where you build on what you started“. How can you be more vague? You know what is REALLY frightening? The person talking is the director of an internationally renowned film festival. And as for: “structure counts, usually”… The festival director is probably hoping of getting the new KOYAANISQATSI.

Let me counterbalance the nonsense with a solid quote from Chris Vogler, the man behind The Writer’s Journey. This time not about the ‘big structure’ or the Journey Stages but about scenes:

“A scene is a business deal. It may not involve money but it will always involve some change in the contract between characters or in the balance of power. It’s a transaction, in which two or more people enter with one kind of deal between them, and negotiate or battle until a new deal has been cut, at which point the scene should end. It could be the reversal of a power structure. The underdog seizes power by blackmail. Or it could be the forging of a new alliance or enmity. Two people who hated each other make a new deal to work together in a threatening situation. A boy asks a girl out and she accepts or rejects his offer. Two gangsters make an alliance to rub out a rival. A mob forces a sheriff to turn a man over for lynching. The meat of the scene is the negotiation to arrive at the new deal, and when the deal is cut, the scene is over, period. “

THE POWER OF A PARADIGM SHIFT

Years ago a good friend returned from L.A. where he had attended a much hyped screenwriting seminar. The speaker made a point by asking the room who would visualise the scenes while writing. I agreed with my friend’s astonishment when he reported that only half of the writers raised their hands. What were the others thinking? What idiots to believe you can actually write movies without thinking visually???

I have come to fundamentally change my view on this. Did Alan Ball necessarily think visually when he wrote SIX FEET UNDER? Or AMERICAN BEAUTY? The last boasts wonderfully visual scenes but most of the script’s power lies entirely not on its visual level. We do indeed need visible elements to show character subtext, but not necessarily a visual context. Think about CRASH or more recently THE LIVES OF OTHERS. On what level do these movies make an impact?

Whether a movie works or not, is decided on an entirely different, almost abstract and non-visual level. Until a late draft, a screenwriter doesn’t always need to visualise. And you can take this right through to very visual action flicks such as DIE HARD, THE FUGITIVE or even SPIDER-MAN. Visual elements such as setting, time of day, camera angles etc. could have been easily replaced without really changing the story. They might have even worked without the eye candy but they surely wouldn’t have without the character drama underneath.

Recently I was recommended THE SEVEN HABITS OF HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE. Early in the book Stephen Covey speaks about the Paradigm Shift. (Beware: this Paradigm has nothing to do with Syd Field.) It’s about looking at something from a specific angle and (not) seeing what others see. I found this concept very similar to reading text vs. reading subtext. I had been reading screenplays on the surface for years before it most literally ‘clicked’ in my head; it felt as if a ‘sixth sense’ had switched on, as if I was suddenly reading with an infrared eye.

Switching on the understanding of this subtextual level is a skill writers, just like producers or directors, need to develop before they can become successful. It is just as essential as switching on your desk light at night to read.

THE LOGLINE

“A logline is a one-sentence summary of your script. It’s the short blurb in TV guides that tells you what a movie is about and helps you decide if you’re interested in seeing it. It’s the grabber that excites your interest.” (-Scriptologis.Com)

.

The logline shouldn’t be confused with the tagline (marketing one-liner for the poster) or even slugline (“EXT. KAREL’S OFFICE – DAY”).

Once I believed you can only write your story’s logline when you have finished your script and even the one page synopsis. Until then, it may not even be clear what the story is about.

Here are a few good reasons why you should start thinking of the logline earlier. First of all: a good logline is a good indication that you have a story. If after a few drafts you still can’t find a logline that captures what your movie is about, you really need to think hard about the story again. Secondly: it will become an essential selling tool for your script. A strong logline will give you the confidence that you have a story: you’ll be able to pitch it with passion! In both senses the logline does pretty much what I promote about the synopsis in my consultancy services: it helps you improve AND sell the story. All that with the economy of one simple sentence.

I am currently working as a consultant on an amazing high concept story with some major story issues. It is always nerve-wrecking having to break the news that to unleash its potential, a story needs to be significantly reworked. But when I found out the writer had already written a logline expressing exactly what I believed the story should deliver, I sighed: we were on the same wavelength.

The moment you find a logline expressing your intentions, you have found an invaluable tool to stay on track. It could be the road map saving you from disaster. If the logline is selling and you stay true to it during the writing of the draft, chances are you will have a selling story.

THE $5 SCRIPT SOFTWARE: ASHAMPOO’S TEXTMAKER:

I recently had a computer scare when it looked my four year old laptop was about to die. That would have been a disaster in a few ways, not the least because I recently bought a – legitimate – OEM version of Office Standard. I lose my laptop, I lose that.

No wonder I was interested when recently I received an offer to an elegant software program called ‘Textmaker’, which does everything I use MS Word for. Only for $4.99 only. And legitimate. If you are looking for a good quality text processor, which is BTW faster than MS Word and whose license won’t expire if your computer dies, have a look here:

https://www.ashampoo.com

I believe the offers on these newsletters remain open for at least 1 purchase per customer.

BEATS VS. TURNING POINTS

While working on a step outline with one of my clients, it bothered me a number of scenes ended in the exact same way: the protagonist would respond to a situation by rejection or reluctance to respond.

None of these scenes really ended in a plot point, there was no hook nor change to the story’s direction. So I didn’t find the scenes’ ending strong enough and almost suggested to cut them altogether. Still, the point the writer was trying to make about the protagonist was a valid one: it gave us important information we would need later in the story.

The solution we came up with: keep the protagonist’s reaction as a scene beat but work towards a stronger scene ending by creating a new plot point for each in order to turn the scene, create anticipation and propel it into the next one. Not an easy task but ultimately better than cutting.

THE QUIZ

As part of a Google Adwords campaign I’ve created a quiz about the craft and – to a lesser extent – history of screenwriting. If one or two questions are a matter of opinion rather than fact, you will find the answers in The Story Dept. Twenty challenges, definitely not for beginners (and neither is this blog, apparently) but essential knowledge for whomever is serious about the craft. Anyway, if you consider yourself an expert, or at least intermediate level writer, you shouldn’t be intimidated. Click through until the very end of the quiz and you’ll land back on the OZZYWOOD web site after seeing all the right answers. Have fun!

https://ozzywood.com/quiz

Karel FG Segers

Karel Segers wrote his first produced screenplay at age 17. Today he is a story analyst with experience in acquisition, development and production. He has trained students worldwide, and worked with half a dozen Academy Award nominees. Karel speaks more European languages than he has fingers on his left hand, which he is still trying to find a use for in his hometown of Sydney, Australia. The languages, not the fingers.

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