If current trends hold, the future’s great American novels will be movies or TV series. Film fully exploits sight and sound as well as action and dialogue, and—unlike video games—it requires little time or effort to participate in a complete story.
Hollywood would be helpless without the imagination and craft of the not-so-famous people who spin narratives and sparkling dialogue out of thin air. Many screenwriters are self-taught, some graduate from fancy film schools (*cough* USC *cough*), and some are also novelists (see: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ian McEwan).
The vast majority never get a film career going, and those who do are usually hired guns with little job security and less creative freedom than you’d think. And the odds against the ultimate dream—seeing your original spec script produced and in wide release—are astronomical.
HAN SOLO
Never tell me the odds!
Anyone hoping to write a screenplay has a plethora of guides to choose from. In developing my World War II feature drama, I have read many. Here are some highlights, notable for their actionable advice.
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by Syd Field
This is the OG screenwriting how-to, the first to lay out how screenwriting differs from every other form. Field explains that while novels delve into interior life (an individual’s thoughts) and stage plays deal with interpersonal relationships, screenplays are devoted to showing external events. If the audience can’t hear or see it, it doesn’t happen and therefore doesn’t belong in the document. Like everyone, he talks a bit about format; it’s easier to buy Final Draft to do it for you.
Field introduces the uninitiated to the elegance of the three-act structure—25% setup, 50% muddle, 25% resolution. Once you know this, you will see it everywhere. Formulas work. About every other page Field rails at you to create a sympathetic protagonist who overcomes increasingly difficult obstacles in order to achieve a stated goal. If your story has no spine, no progression, and no pass/fail stakes, it’s not a movie.
Save the Cat: The Last Book on Screenwriting You’ll Ever Need by Blake Snyder
I dismissed this book on first glance. I mean, there’s an outlandish claim and a cat on the cover. When I realized how many of Snyder’s concepts and turns of phrase have become mainstream, I swallowed my crow and got on with it.
Like the theory of gravity, Snyder’s insights into story structure and genre conventions are obvious…once you know them. He explains that categories like “romantic comedy” and “drama” are of no help when the screenwriter is trying to beat out her story. What is useful is his whole new taxonomy of genres. You’ve got “Superhero,” the extraordinary person in ordinary circumstances: Captain America or John Nash in A Beautiful Mind. There’s “Out of the Bottle” (a wish or a curse that has to be resolved): Groundhog Day and every body-switch comedy ever. “Institutionalized” gives you a backstage pass to life in a specialized group, whether that’s the Mafia in The Godfather trilogy, or the Army, or a sports team. Each of Snyder’s genres has its own conventions that have to be obeyed (“Institutionalized” needs both a Company Man and a Newbie) or else the story don’t work.
This essential primer helped me recognize why certain stories don’t connect with me—bleh, “Monster in the House”—while I’ll always throw my money at “Dude with a Problem” (ordinary person in life-threatening circumstances): Schindler’s List and Die Hard.
Tough Love Screenwriting by John Jarrell
Jarrell brings something completely new to the screenwriting how-to: the ins and outs of what it’s like to work in Hollywood once you’ve got representation and/or sold your first script. How do you pitch a story idea to an executive? What’s involved a development deal? What are the expectations for my first draft and how do I deal with notes?
He also offers solid gold advice on how to insure you get credit for the story you wrote. Oh, you didn’t know that you lose all creative control over your script once you sell it? Oh yes, it will get handed off to another writer who will proceed to change absolutely everything about it so that he can get the credit instead. Credit is what gets you industry recognition (“The Academy Award for the best adapted screenplay goes to…) and credit gets you PAID in residuals and other goodies for the rest of your life. Jarrell has served many times on the arbitration panel that convenes whenever a Writer’s Guild member wishes to dispute credit attribution. This is inside baseball but wow, good to know.
Writing Screenplays that Sell by Michael Hauge
Hauge has a lot to say about keeping the active protagonist’s goal (win/stop/escape/deliver/retrieve) visible throughout the film. The outer motivation must seem impossible and the story will be over when it’s achieved (or not). Ideally, the opening and ending images of the film will show your hero “before” and “after” her life-changing ordeal.
If a screenwriter wants to work with a true story or historical events, her allegiance must be with conventions and demands of a screenplay, not with the “truth”—it’s not a documentary. The opposition must be represented by a single nemesis (not a collective noun such as “the FBI”) who will throw down with the hero at the climax or thereabouts.
The Wall Will Tell You: The Forensics of Screenwriting by Hampton Francher
The writer of Blade Runner adopts the form of Zen koans for his advice. Each bit of wisdom is a sentence or two at most—no paragraphs for you. The chapter organization attempts to group like with like. The title comes from his advice to…stare at a wall while visualizing a scene to see whether it works. To my knowledge I have yet to apply anything from it but it’s probably because I’m not a genius. Fascinating anyhow.
Recommended for aspiring screenwriters. Read Screenplay and Save the Cat before typing FADE IN.