Top Ten Reasons to Write with a Partner by Claudia Johnson & Matt Stevens

This article posted with permission from The Writers Store. (http://writersstore.com)

Want to double your chance for success in this business? If so, we strongly suggest you write with a partner. Yes, you have to find the right person, and when you start selling your scripts, you’ll split the money, but we, and the successful script partners we’ve talked to, agree that the advantages of sharing the writing far outweigh the disadvantages of sharing the bottom line. It would take a book (and we wrote it!) to explore all the reasons to write with a partner, so we’ve assembled the consensus Top Ten, as follows:

10. It’s a dog-eat-dog business ’ and vice versa ’ but when you write with a partner, there’s always one person in town looking out for your interests. As you well know, the misery curve for screenwriters is legendary. Conventional wisdom says it takes five to ten years to learn the craft of screenwriting, and five to ten screenplays before you finally sell one. There are exceptions, of course, keeping hope alive that perhaps, just perhaps, writing screenplays is easy.

It isn’t.

And getting a screenplay produced is even harder. Screenplays are like sperm ’ there’s a one-in-a-million chance they’ll get made. Nicole Yorkin & Dawn Prestwich (Judging Amy; The Education of Max Bickford) spent their first four years writing scripts that didn’t sell. The Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary; Stuck on You) spent nine years hawking their screenplays before they made their first film. So we all have to find ways to keep discouragement from overcoming determination.

‘Sometimes we both get down at the same time,’ says Janet Scott Batchler, who writes with her husband, Lee (Batman Forever). ‘It just works that way. Sometimes we sort of pull each other through’ Nobody hits a thousand. We just have to keep reminding each other of that.’

It may be a cold world out there for screenwriters, but one of the best ways to stay warm is collaboration.

9. Writing is lonely. It doesn’t have to be (and it isn’t if you write with a partner). Husband and wife Andrew Schneider & Diane Frolov (Northern Exposure) both had successful solo careers, but after more than a decade of writing together, they wouldn’t consider writing alone. ‘Now it would be almost inconceivable for me to be a solo writer,’ Schneider tells Written By. ‘It seems like such a lonely, hopeless position to be in.’

Matt Manfredi & Phil Hay (crazy/beautiful) agree. ‘I can’t think of a screenplay that I would want to write by myself,’ Hay tells us. ‘It would be very lonely and upsetting.’

We’ve written screenplays alone, and we’ve written screenplays together, and we’re not going back. But for our money ’ and experience ’ Jim Taylor, who wrote Citizen Rut and About Schmidt with Alexander Payne, says it best. ‘Writing with Alexander at my side is much more pleasurable than working on my own,’ he tells us. Or, as he tells Scenario, ‘Just the writing process itself, of writing on my own, is very unpleasant and unproductive, and it’s just no fun.’

8. Two imaginations really are better than one. In Which Lie Did I Tell? William Goldman grouses about the way the Farrelly brothers and the Coen brothers collaborate on their screenplays. They write too quickly. They break the rules. They write without knowing ’ or outlining ’ their story. They deliberately get themselves into a corner with their stories, then take a few days or a week or even a month off until they find a way out. Goldman insists there’s madness in their method, but he grudgingly admits that for them it works.

‘Okay,’ Goldman says, ‘my theory as to why it works for them is simplicity itself: numbers’because there are two of them. I can’t do it that way. If I get into a dark place, I can’t say to my writing partner, ‘Here, fix the
f[]er.’ There’s only me, trapped helpless in my pit, no way out.’

We all know what Goldman is talking about. That trapped, helpless feeling. Your story gets stuck in the corner. You think, ‘No escape.’ But if you write with a partner, you help each other figure it out ’ and find your way out of the ‘dark place.’

7. Collaboration leads to better brainstorming. We’re all told to be bold (there’s magic in it), but being bold while brainstorming is easier when you write with a partner. Why? Instant feedback. When you write alone, you’re your own worst critic. You question your work and judgment. But a co-writer can see the potential in ideas you might otherwise shoot down. This feedback energizes and encourages experimentation. Defeats defeatism. Promotes enthusiasm.

This contagion of enthusiasm (derived from the Latin en theos, ‘with God,’ in case you doubted it was divine) means more excitement about the screenplay you’re writing. And, as you bounce ideas back and forth (‘creative ping-pong,’ we call it), the excitement increases. It’s working ’ no, playing ’ together that makes breakthroughs happen.

But all the enthusiasm in the world is no substitute for actually doing the writing. Developing productive work habits. And having a partner helps here, too. A writing workout partner’

6. A writing workout partner helps you stay focused and productive.
‘You have to show up because the other guy’s showing up,’ says Robert Ramsey, who collaborates with Matthew Stone (Big Trouble; Intolerable Cruelty). ‘Matt’s going to the office, I gotta get there. Otherwise, I would probably be the least productive person on earth.’

Jim Taylor agrees. ‘Having an appointed time to show up for work and someone whom you are accountable to on a daily basis makes each workday more productive,’ he says. ‘When one of us gets tired or discouraged, the other one can take over and keep things going. Plus, Alexander is a great cook.’

Partners also bring different work habits to the collaboration, and they often improve over time. When we started writing our first screenplay, we tried to write once a week (Claudia’s idea), but this wasn’t frequent enough to create a productive momentum. Things picked up when we started to write every day (Matt’s better idea).

Brian Helgeland & Curtis Hanson remain virtual opposites when it comes to work habits ’ Helgeland needs to know he has two months to write without interruption; Hanson works ‘in whatever way works’ ’ but working together on L.A. Confidential pulled them through the tough patches, they tell Written By. As Helgeland so beautifully puts it, ‘When there was no wind, we rowed.’

5. Complementing (and complimenting) each other leads to stronger scripts. Talk to any successful screenwriting team, and they can tell you, chapter and verse, what they have in common. There’s no doubt ’ these similar sensibilities are crucial for you and your partner. But your differences ’ the creative yin-yang ’ are just as important. It is this combination, this complementarity that gives each collaboration its unique richness and range of experience, knowledge, and talent to tap.

In Written By, Jack Herrguth describes how he and Seanne Kemp Kovach (Sister, Sister) complement one another. ‘The fact that I’m a man and she’s a woman, I’m white and she’s African American brings different points of view to our partnership that enriches it.’

Like Herrguth & Kovach, we’re different genders. But male/female is only the beginning of our differences: urban/rural, single/married, no children/children, pessimist/optimist, good dancer/bad dancer, pop culture/literature, actor/playwright, neurotic/Zen (Matt’s suggestion).

We complement each other, too, with individual strengths as screenwriters: visual/verbal, character detail/character arc, scene/structure, dialog/description, shtick/depth, first draft/revision. This doesn’t mean we don’t share the work, but we often defer to each other’s expertise. It’s a nice safety net. When we hit a snag, we can turn to the expert and say, as Goldman so delicately put it, ‘Fix the f[ ]er.’

4. Writing with a partner improves mental health (and it’s cheaper than antidepressants). It’s no wonder we’ve all got therapists and gurus on speed dial. Anxiety is so rampant in writers (especially women, but men suffer, too ’ just ask Matt) that a recent conference sponsored by the Institute for Psychoanalytic Training and Research was devoted to finding ways to assuage it. One of the strategies that the conference predicted would be most successful was an effective creativity support group.

Writing with a partner is having your own creativity support group. As Aaron Ruben (Caesar’s Hour) tells us, ‘It takes the terror out of being in the room with that sheet of paper and typewriter and not one word is there.’
That terror is all too common. ‘Every time, my first day of writing I think, I can’t do this,’ confides Andrew Reich, who co-writes and co-executive produces Friends with Ted Cohen. ‘I’m a fake. I’m gonna get found out this time that I really suck. One of the things I’ve learned in collaboration is to trust Ted when he says, ‘This is good enough.’ I trust that.’

Anxiety may attach to any creative project, but writing with a partner, we’ve found, is the best antidote. When we work together, we keep each other from sliding into self-doubt, the slough of despond, by cracking each other up. In fact, for us, laughter is the heart of the art of maintaining mental health when we work together. Because, like brainstorming, laughter is hard to do on your own. It’s a social act that connects us to others. And satisfying the human need for connection is one of the reasons laughter increases mental ’ and physical ’ health.

‘After you laugh, you go into a relaxed state,’ explains John Morreall, president of Humor Works Seminars in Tampa, Florida. ‘Your blood pressure and heart rate drop below normal, so you feel profoundly relaxed. Laughter also indirectly stimulates endorphins, the brain’s natural painkillers.’ More to the point for screenwriters, laughter makes us more creative. ‘Humor loosens up the mental gears. It encourages out-of-the-ordinary ways of looking at things.’ WD40 for the creative wheels. But what happens when those wheels screech to a halt? Which brings us to’

3. A partner can help you conquer writer’s block. Without co-writer Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio (Shrek; Pirates of the Caribbean) claims to have ‘a permanent case of writer’s block,’ as he says on their Web site, Wordplayer.com. His recommendation? ‘Get a writing partner, so there’s somebody other than yourself you don’t want to let down.’
Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski (The People vs. Larry Flynt) agree. ‘The thing with writer’s block with teams is that it’s more embarrassing because it’s two people staring at the wall for hours and not a sound being spoken,’ Alexander tells us. ‘It’s more humiliating because if a guy’s alone and staring at a computer and doesn’t know what to do, he’ll just go off and make a sandwich or turn on the TV.’

‘It’s hard to masturbate when Scott’s around,’ Karaszewski says, laughing.

Others take a less, um, hands-on approach.

‘You just call up the other person or go talk to the other person, and you deal with the problem,’ says Nick Kazan (Matilda, with Robin Swicord). ‘And the problem usually goes away. Something that would keep you stuck and perhaps deeply depressed for a week or two is going to evaporate in a matter of minutes. So it’s a great solace.’

2. Collaborating makes you a better writer (and maybe a better person).
Most teams tell us that working together has made them better people. Less ego-involved and controlling. More open and trusting. The long-term effect of writing with someone else, we and others have found, is far more profound than expected. It’s humanizing. We’ve learned to accept and welcome our differences and most of our idiosyncrasies.

‘I think it makes us very tolerant people,’ Dawn Prestwich says. ‘It makes us understand the human condition a little bit better because we have such an intimate view of it.’ And since the best scripts are about the human condition, what better way to learn to write better scripts?

As we said, the rewards of collaboration often transcend success. Many script partners found success on their own, but it wasn’t until they wrote with each other that they found real fulfillment.
‘What we do together has been not just professionally but personally very nourishing,’ Lowell Ganz says about his long, luminous career with Babaloo Mandel (City Slickers; Parenthood), ‘to have done it with, and to still be doing it, together.’

And the Number One Reason to Write with a Partner (drumroll, please’) is best articulated by Ted Elliott of Elliott & Rossio, one of the most successful teams writing today. ‘As you struggle as writers to perfect your craft,’ he says, ‘schlepping from studio to studio trying to make that elusive sale or capture that dream assignment, as you wend your way over the freeways that link Hollywood to Burbank, and Beverly Hills to Century City, there is a final, overwhelming way in which a writing partner can be beneficial. Two words:

1. Carpool Lane.

More About the Authors:
Claudia Johnson & Matt Stevens are the co-authors of ‘Script Partners,’ the marriage manual for collaborators. Claudia is also the author of ‘Stifled Laughter,’ nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the inaugural P.E.N./Newman’s Own First Amendment Award, and the popular film school text, ‘Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect.’ Other awards include the American National Theater and Academy West Award and the Warner Brothers Scriptwriting Award. Matt is a writer/producer who has sold both fiction and documentary projects. He writes about film for E! Online and contributes to other new media outlets. As a director, his short films have screened at national and international festivals and won numerous awards, including the Student Emmy for best comedy. Two of their co-written scripts were finalists for the Sundance Screenwriters Lab.

Claudia Johnson & Matt Stevens are the co-authors of “Script Partners,” the marriage manual for collaborators, available at the Writers Store. More info about our authors can be found at the end of their article. Claudia is the author of another favorite book: Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect

© 2007 The Writers’ Computer Store®, LLC All Rights Reserved.

The Real Key to a Writer’s Success by James Bonnet

This article posted with permission from The Writers Store. (http://writersstore.com)

We all know how incredibly hard it is to get a screenplay produced. We have all heard talk about all the great scripts out there that never got made. And that might be true. But why is it true? If you have a professionally crafted screenplay, one with obvious commercial potential, which has never been produced, the real problem might be that someone got discouraged and dropped the ball. After your work is of a professional quality, perseverance is the key to success. It doesn’t really make sense to ever be discouraged or deflected by criticism, rejection or a slammed door. It’s just part of the game. If an agent or producer doesn’t like your work and rejects it ’ it means absolutely nothing, if your work is of a professional quality. And that is the issue I’m addressing in this article. But let’s start at the beginning and ask:

How do you get your work to a professional quality?

You begin by recognizing that storymaking is an art form. It requires a special knowledge, a serious commitment, dedication, a thick skin, and lots of hard work. This is true whether you are a screenwriter or a novelist.

It would not occur to most people to write a classical symphony without any musical education. But a surprising number of people think they can write a screenplay without any training at all. This may have something to do with the fact that a lot of our thinking is in visual terms and most of us have fragments of films coursing through our imaginations. It may also have to do with the fact that we instinctively know a good story when we see one. That seems to be part of our hard wiring. But knowing a good story and being able to create one are two very different things.

When I was twelve my Uncle Budd gave me a recording of Verdi’s opera, Rigoletto, as a gift. I was so taken by the incredible music and emotionally arousing arias that I wanted to write an opera myself, despite the fact that I didn’t know the first thing about music or singing, and the only Italian word I knew was pizza. Somewhat conscious of my shortcomings, but determined to succeed, I went to a bookstore and bought an Italian-English dictionary, and that very day began writing the libretto. I never got that opera produced, by the way. Should I be shocked? I don’t think so.

Ninety percent of all screenplays submitted to Hollywood are written by complete novices, mariners who are lost at sea without any hope of reaching their destination. In short, if you plan to be a professional, you need to have special knowledge.

For one thing, you need to have a special knowledge about story. Story is at the heart of all the different media and all the different genres. And if you plan to write, produce or direct films, it’s important that you learn as much about story as you can. The market for great stories is vast. There are, in fact, six billion people in this world with a desperate need for real stories, which isn’t being met. And Hollywood, at the moment, really can’t deliver. Out of the 400 or so feature films produced each year, fewer than ten, in my humble opinion, are worth seeing. You have, in truth, an entire industry manufacturing something it doesn’t understand. What the Industry doesn’t understand is story. If you take the trouble to learn what a story really is, it will give you a tremendous advantage.

To help you accomplish that, you have to understand the concept of metaphor. Great stories are visual metaphors. They are a symbolic language. Their different characters, places, actions and objects make an important psychological connection and together create a kind of collective dream, which has the same relation to society as a whole that the ordinary dream has to the individual. They both use the same archetypal symbols but the meanings hidden in great stories are universal, whereas the meanings hidden in dreams are personal. A great story gets much of its power from the metaphors, which express these archetypes, and you should have a working knowledge of this phenomenon so you can control it, put it into your work, and deeply affect the audience you’re trying to reach.

You also have to become skilled in the ways of the creative process. When we work with creative processes, the creative decisions we make are governed by positive and negative intuitive feelings. That’s how we know what works, by how we feel about our ideas. Well, what’s behind those feelings? Where do those feelings come from? What is going on when you are making creative decisions? You need to have a working knowledge of that, too.

You also need to understand what a high concept, great idea is, and how to create one, so you can ’ with just a few words ’ intrigue the people you are trying to interest in your work. Creating a high concept implies an ability to formulate your idea into its most powerful and concise form ’ to make it as short and as marvelous as possible. In order to do that you have to come to terms with what your story is really about. In order to do that, you not only have to understand all of the important structural elements of your story, you have to get at the very essence of your story; and to do that, you have to come to terms with the threat, which is the cause of the problem, which is the central event of your story. Master this art and, at any given moment, you will be only one great idea away from success.

Also, be sure to pick a project that is truly worthy of your time and talents. Nine out of ten ideas that you try out will be duds and you’ll lose interest in them. Keep working until you find something that has real power, something that’s really worth your time that can sustain your interest for a year or so. And don’t try to outguess or make the grade in Hollywood. Hollywood is not set up to develop talent, it’s set up to exploit success. Explore the things you really want to write about and do those things in such a way that Hollywood can’t resist them. Do something really significant and they will hunt you down.

After you’ve found your story and can express it as a great idea, then field-test it. It is important to put your work out there to be tested. You won’t know for sure that you’re tapping into something powerful and universal until you have that confirmed by outside sources. So you need to develop personal relationships with knowledgeable people you can trust to give you an honest reaction. That’s not easy to do and it takes time, but it needs to be done. You will learn things about your work that way which you could never figure out on your own.

After you’ve assimilated that feedback, develop your ideas into a twenty-page treatment or oral pitch and get feedback on that. And when you’ve assimilated those results, write a first draft or extended treatment and put that out there. Keep doing this until it’s finished. There’s no limit to the number of drafts. It’s an evolutionary process and you should take the time to get it right.

When you’re finally finished, then really get your work out into the marketplace. And this is where you take to heart the idea that once your work is of a professional quality, perseverance is the key to success. Which is another way of saying, you never give up until you make it happen.

Many, many scripts have been turned down all over town, but then became major successes because of somebody’s persistence. It took more than seven years to get Forrest Gump made into a film and at least nine years to get Shakespeare in Love produced. The same is true for novelists. Harry Potter was rejected by many publishers and so was Dr. Seuss’ first book, The Cat in the Hat, which was rejected twenty times before it found a publisher. But the king of them all was F. Scott Fitzgerald. He received one hundred and twenty-six pink slips from publishers rejecting his first novel, The Other Side of Paradise. The one hundred and twenty-seventh publisher accepted it, and it was an overnight success. So you shouldn’t start feeling discouraged until you’ve been rejected at least that many times.

And, if you are a novelist, keep in mind that your hardcover book only has to appeal to one in a hundred readers to become a bestseller. That means that ninety-nine out of a hundred potential readers can completely ignore or dislike your work and you can still be a best-selling author. The same is true of agents, producers or publishers. One in a hundred is enough to launch a career.

During a conversation with the musical director of a recent project, I mentioned that I love Beethoven’s music. He said, ‘I don’t like his music very much. He’s not one of my favorites.’ Now, he is entitled to his opinion. I would never dispute that ’ but what does that actually say about Beethoven’s music? Does it mean that Beethoven is not really the genius music connoisseurs believe he is? Or does it mean that Beethoven is still great but no artist will ever please everybody?

So what does it really mean when your script or novel is rejected by an agent or producer? Nothing. It means absolutely nothing. It just means that people come in all tastes and sizes and different artists appeal to different tastes and you need to persist until you find the people who share your chemistry and your vision. You persevere until you find the allies who will help you find the agents who will help you find the producers who will help you find the financiers who will help you get your work to the public. It takes a lot of effort but they’re out there. How many people do you have to filter through to discover a new fast friend? Hundreds. It’s the same with producers, agents or financiers. It’s always a numbers game. If your work is of a professional quality, and they don’t like it, it means absolutely nothing. You keep looking. You just keep going until you make it happen.

James Bonnet, founder of Storymaking.com, was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the Writer’s Guild of America and has acted in or written more than forty television shows and features. The radical new ideas about story in his book, Stealing Fire from the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers And Filmmakers, and his seminar, Storymaking: The Master Class, have a major impact on writers in all media.

© 2007 The Writers’ Computer Store®, LLC All Rights Reserved.

What’s Wrong With The Three Act Structure by James Bonnet

This article posted with permission from The Writers Store. (http://writersstore.com)

The three act structure is not a story structure. You can’t find it in myths and legends or other great stories of the past and you can’t find it in nature. So why is it being applied to the screenplay or the story of a film? It’s a good question because it makes no sense. And my very strong recommendation in this article will be that you avoid thinking in act structure terms when creating a story or story film.

The three (four, five, six, or seven) act structures are the arbitrary divisions of the principal (or main) action of the story into a number of parts ’ a legacy from the theatre and applicable today only to the theatre or television shows which have commercial breaks. If you write a movie for television, it will have seven acts. Why? Because it has seven commercial breaks. And you will be asked to insert something intriguing at the end of each act to lure the audience back after the break. But that has nothing to do with story.

The Greeks had no act structure in their plays. The plays had one act. The Romans had five acts. It’s arbitrary. It appeared in plays because of the need to have intermissions. People can’t sit for three hours in a theatre listening to an auditory experience without taking a break or going to the restroom. It appears in television shows because they want to have commercial breaks so they can sell something. None of which has anything to do with story.

A two hour feature film shown in a movie theatre is a continuous action. There are no intermissions. It’s one continuous act-less event which revolves around a problem. A much better way to look at a story, when you are creating one, is not through any arbitrary division into acts but through the eyes of that problem, which is the central event and the heart of a great story’s structure.

In The Silence of the Lambs, a serial killer is on the loose, and that is the problem that has to be resolved. In Gladiator, a tyrant has usurped the Roman Empire, preventing the restoration of the Republic. In The Sixth Sense, a murdered child psychologist is stuck in limbo and the spirits of dead people are haunting a little boy’s mind. In Independence Day, aliens have invaded the Earth. In Star Wars, the Evil Empire has taken possession of the galaxy. In The Iliad, not to be mistaken for a movie called Troy, the Greek army is being decimated because their best warrior has dropped out of the fight. In King Arthur, the kingdom is in a state of anarchy and has to be reunified. In Harry Potter, Voldemort is trying to take possession of the Wizard World. In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron, a very similar dark force, is trying to take possession of Middle Earth. In Ordinary People, a young boy is suicidal. In The Exorcist, it’s a problem of demonic possession. In Jaws it’s a shark problem. In The Mummy it’s a mummy problem. In The Perfect Storm it’s a weather problem. In Jurassic Park it’s a dinosaur problem. In Traffic it’s a drug problem. In Armageddon it’s an asteroid problem. In Erin Brockovich it’s an environmental problem. Each of these stories and hundreds of others I could name all revolve around a problem that has to be resolved.

And what need is there to think of these events as having three acts? None.

What use would it be to think in terms of three parts (or acts) when creating a story like A Beautiful Mind ’ which, if you wanted to divide it into parts, clearly has five parts and not three. In the first part, Russell Crowe is a genius mathematician, in the second part, he is a spy; in the third part we discover the first two parts were a delusion and that he is really mentally ill (the problem); in the fourth part, a first effort is made to solve that problem which fails; and in the fifth part, a second effort is made to solve that problem which succeeds. How would it help to impose a three act structure? It wouldn’t.

What good would a three (four or five) act structure do if you were writing a novel ’ the DaVinci Code, for instance? If you really want to gauge how irrelevant act structure is to a story, try to apply it to a novel. It makes absolutely no sense.

You quickly realize the idea is absurd. It has nothing to do with story. But the screenplay which becomes a story film is a story in the same way that the novel is a story. The spine and structure of both are essentially the same. This is true of the great myths, legends, fairytales, as well as the classics and modern blockbusters. They all have the same basic structure. (See my previous eZine articles: Beyond Theme: Story’s New Unified Field (Parts I, II, III); The Essence of Story; and Conquering The High Concept (Parts I & II) .

Story has adopted these problem-solving structures from real life. From real serial killers that have to be caught, real terrible diseases that have to be cured, real lost or kidnapped children who have to be found, and real man-eating sharks that have to be destroyed. The principals of dramatic action are the laws of problem solving action in real life artistically treated ’ and the actions that solve these problems in real life don’t contain a three act structure.

So why impose that oddity on a story which is destined to be filmed? Perhaps it’s happening because it makes story structure seem simple, which it is not. You can work with the three act structure for twenty years and still not make a story come out right.

What is the alternative? In my opinion, it makes much more sense when you’re creating a story to be thinking in terms of the natural structure of the problem which has two main parts: the action that created it and the action that will resolve it. The action that creates the problem is called the inciting action and the action that resolves the problem is called the principle action. The threat, which is the driving force of the inciting action, be that a villain, an asteroid, a shark, etc., is the cause the problem. The anti-threat, which is the driving force of the principal action, be that a protagonist or a hero, is the one who opposes the threat and solves the problem. Either of these actions will acquire the components of the classical structure if there is resistance ’ which is to say if there is sufficient resistance, there will be complications, a crisis, the need for a climactic action to resolve the crisis, and a resolution.

In Harry Potter, Voldemort is the threat that creates the problem. He is also the main source of resistance that creates the complications and crises, and the need for climactic actions to resolve the crises whenever Harry attempts to solve the problems Voldemort creates. In The Silence of the Lambs, Buffalo Bill is the threat that causes the problem and also the main source of resistance creates the classical structure when Jodie Foster tries to track him down. In The Lord of the Rings, Sauron is the threat that is causing the problem and is also the main source of resistance that creates the complications, crises, etc. when Frodo and his little Fellowship try to solve the problem by destroying the Ring of Power.

Aristotle’s classical structure, which is the dominant feature of this structure, can stand alone. All of the structures you might find in the act are already built into the problem solving action that encounters resistance, namely: conflict, complications, crises (turning points) climax and resolution. It is, in fact, the structure of any problem solving action (real or fiction) that encounters resistance. From there, the natural thing to do is divide the principal, problem solving action into scenes, which are the ideal units of action to reveal these larger, essential actions.

After the story is created, of course, you can divide the action into any number of parts that you like, but it’s counterproductive to think in those terms at the story’s inception. In other words, you shouldn’t be using act structure to lay out or create the story.

However, if you need to use the three act structure because you’re pitching an idea to someone who only speaks that language, then follow Aristotle and translate the idea of three acts into a beginning, a middle, and an end and you’ll be able to communicate with them. Then, if you’re asked: what is the first act? Tell them how the story begins (which is really what they want to know) and make it as intriguing as possible. If asked: what is the second act? Tell them what’s happening in the middle of the story (which includes the main crisis of the dominant plot) and make it as stressful as possible. If asked about the third act, tell them what the climax of the story is (and make that as exciting as possible) ’ and finally how the story is resolved ’ and make that as satisfying as possible.

To conclude, what I’m saying is this: when you’re creating a story, you should put aside the archaic notion of three acts and focus on the natural structures surrounding the problem, which is the central event and heart of your story.

My next eZine article, The Novel vs. The Screenplay will explore the relative merits of writing in those mediums.

James Bonnet was elected twice to the Board of Directors of the Writer’s Guild of America and has written or acted in more than forty television shows and features. The radical new ideas about story in his book Stealing Fire from the Gods: A Dynamic New Story Model For Writers And Filmmakers are having a major impact on writers in all media.

© 2007 The Writers’ Computer Store®, LLC All Rights Reserved.

Do You Really Want to be a Screenwriter? by Michael Hauge

This article posted with permission from The Writers Store. (http://writersstore.com)

Almost every writer and every serious film fan at one time or another has at least considered writing a screenplay. Lured by the power of the big (or small) screen, and by stories of all the fame, success, awards and big, big money that other screenwriters have achieved, they get seduced by the fantasy of Hollywood.

Now no doubt some of you reading these words have already achieved a career in the industry. But my guess is that most of you are still at the ‘breaking in’ stage and are wondering if writing for movies or television is a silly pipe dream—or is truly worth considering. I’d like to help you answer that question by discussing some of the realities of the movie and television business and offering both the right and the wrong motives for pursuing Hollywood.

Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Screenwriter?

I’ve been teaching screenwriting classes and seminars for more than fifteen years, and I’ve worked with thousands of movie and television writers at various stages of their careers. But, whenever I’m with a group of would-be filmmakers hoping to launch their careers, I encounter two different myths about the Hollywood obstacle course that both lead to disappointment.

The first misconception is that Hollywood is an easy path to fame and fortune. Perhaps a writer watches some brainless TV show and concludes that anybody with the I.Q. of corn could write drivel like that. Then she reads about how Joe Esterhasz sold a spec script for slightly more than the gross national product of Portugal, while she’s wondering how long she can get by on her $25 check from ‘Big Rig Monthly’ for her article on mud flaps. And then some polite, but chicken-hearted, publisher tries to let her down easy by saying that her 873-page manuscript about the Millard Fillmore White House years would be much better as a movie. So before you know it, she’s typing ‘FADE IN.’

She has fallen victim to the erroneous belief that writing a movie is no harder than watching one. She thinks that everybody who sells a script will be a millionaire and that because movies and TV shows are plentiful, relatively short and frequently mediocre, there really are no rules, standards or professional skills to worry about. In other words, that screenwriting is easy.

Not True.

The other, more destructive, myth about screenwriting is just the opposite: a writer hears about the thousands of unproduced, unsold, unoptioned, unread and unopened screenplays floating around Hollywood and decides that his dream is absurd. Friends, loved ones and failed screenwriters will be happy to reinforce this belief with loads of anecdotes and statistics: everybody in Los Angeles is working on a script; it’s not what you know, it’s who you know; every writer in Hollywood gets ripped off; you have to live in Southern California; you have to be a young white male; and even if you could break in, writing movies is obviously a ridiculous, pointless, demeaning and hopeless pursuit for any serious writer to consider. In other words, screenwriting is impossible.

Not True Either.

The first myth described above ignores the years of pain, struggle and failure that precedes (and sometimes precludes) success for most working screenwriters. But, the second myth ignores the fact that about a hundred and fifty feature films, plus more than fifty TV movies and seventy weekly series are produced each year by the major studios and networks. And, for every film produced, an average of at least five scripts are developed and paid for. And these figures don’t include non-primetime and cable television or the numerous markets for independent, educational, industrial, religious and adult movies and TV. Somebody must be writing all those stories.

Screenwriting, like any other form of professional writing, is a specific, learnable craft that requires study, talent, training, practice and an immense level of commitment. It is at various times frustrating, exciting, fulfilling, exhausting, lucrative, unfair, depressing, ego- gratifying and fun. And, it has a clearly defined set of standards, rules, parameters and methods for achieving both artistic and commercial success.

So, to decide if you want to commit your life to this particular path, ignore both the fantasies of wealth and fame and the prophets of doom and, instead, ask yourself exactly why you want to write movies or television.

The Wrong Reasons to Want to Be a Screenwriter

Screenwriting is not a wise career path if you’re choosing it for any of these reasons:

1. The Money
Pursuing screenwriting because an occasional spec script sells for a million dollars is like studying hotel/motel management because Donald Trump has a big yacht. Starving screenwriters are no happier than starving poets, and if the big bucks are your only goal, by the time (if ever) you get there, the trip won’t have been worth it.

2. You Want to Weave Magic With Words
If your love of writing is based on the beauty, texture, breadth and majesty of the English language, you’ll be much happier as a poet, novelist or essayist. Screenwriting ‘style’ is much closer to that of ad copy, comic books and the sports pages than it is to great literature.

3. You Want the Respect that Comes with Being an Acclaimed Artist
Dream on. Once you sell your screenplay, it probably will be re-written by someone else (often several others) until it’s unrecognizable. You’re usually persona non grata while the movie is being shot, and neither the status nor the financial reward given the average screenwriter is anywhere close to proportionate to his or her contribution to the film. If you want real respect in Hollywood, become a maitre d’.

4. You Have a Strong Visual Sense
I’m not even sure what this means, but I hear it all the time, and, if anything, I think it’s detrimental to successful screenwriting. Sure you want to picture what is going on on the screen, but the important talent is the ability to turn action into words. If you think only in pictures and are very right-brained, pursuing a career in production design, cinematography or directing might make more sense.

5. You Want to Adapt Your Own Novel (or Play or Life Story)
This is hard to accept, I know, but trust me: if your novel or play wasn’t published or produced in its original form, it’s extremely unlikely it’s going to work as a movie. And, by now, you’re much too emotionally attached to your original story. You will never be objective enough about it to make the numerous changes necessary for it to become a commercial script.

The same holds true for your own life experiences (or those of your grandparents). Yes, your life has been thrilling, painful, passionate, moving and glorious for you. But, I’m afraid the mass audience really isn’t interested.

(It’s fine to draw on your own experiences, but only to provide an arena for a fictional story. And if you want to be both a novelist and screenwriter, choose separate stories that are best suited to each medium. Just don’t mix the two until someone offers you money to adapt your work into script form.)

6. You Want to Improve the Quality of Movies
If you don’t like the stuff that’s coming out of Hollywood nowadays, and you find yourself gravitating to foreign films and Fred Astaire festivals at the local Cineplex, or if you don’t see at least one current American movie a month, then screenwriting probably isn’t for you.

I don’t think you’ll ever be very happy pursuing a career in an industry you don’t like. And you won’t be able to change Hollywood. The most you can hope for is to write the best screenplays you can within the parameters of the system. Or else blaze your own trail outside the mainstream arena with low budget, independent films. But success there, which is even tougher to achieve, still requires a basic love for the movies.

The Right Reasons to Want to Be a Screenwriter

1. The Money
Yes, I know I just said that untold wealth is the wrong reason for pursuing screenwriting. But if money isn’t your only motive, and you know you want to write, then you can probably make more as a steadily working screenwriter than with any other form of writing. Just remember that it’s a package deal, and all of the other rules and obstacles are included.

2. You Get to Tell Stories
If creating unique, captivating characters and taking them over seemingly insurmountable obstacles to achieve visible, bigger-than-life goals is the kind of writing that thrills you, then you should consider movie writing.

3. You Love the Movies (and/or Television)
You not only love seeing them, you relish the challenge of staying within a rigid formula and creating a visual story that is original, thoughtful and emotionally captivating.

4. You’ll Reach a Huge Audience
More people saw last week’s episode of ‘The West Wing’ than have read ‘Gone With the Wind’. Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?

5. You Love to Write
Screenwriting may not employ all the big words in the dictionary, but you still get to spend your day lost in the power of language.

In summary, if you’re wondering whether to begin (or continue) your pursuit of screenwriting, forget both the defeatist statistics and the dreams of glory and riches. And omit the word ‘easy’ from your vocabulary entirely; there is NO form of professional writing or filmmaking worth pursuing because it’s easy. Instead, ask yourself if your joy will come from within the process of sitting every day at your computer and creating a story for the big or small screen.

If the answer is truly ‘yes’ and your motives match those listed above, then close the door, fire up your computer and start writing.

MICHAEL HAUGE is a Hollywood script consultant, screenwriter and lecturer, and is the author of the award- winning book ‘Writing Screenplays That Sell’, now in its 23rd printing for HarperCollins.

If you’re interested in Michael’s script critique and consultation service, please call 1-800-477-1947 or email mhauge@juno.com.

© 2007 The Writers’ Computer Store®, LLC All Rights Reserved.

No Limitations: The Screenwriter as Writer

One of the myths of the motion picture industry states that screenwriters only write for the big or small screen. Somehow writers become entrenched in this head-messing idea. “My screenplay didn’t sell”…”my agent hasn’t called”…”Oh, My God, what will I do?”…”Do I have to go back to (choose your option) ‘waiting tables’ ‘working construction’ ‘become an accountant’?”

Sheer, unadulterated nonsense.

Some of the most prolific film and television writers have gone on to create memorable theater and profound fiction. In a number of instances, playwrights and novelists have transitioned to film and television.

Larry Gelbart, one of the creative geniuses behind the long-running television series “MAS*H”, wrote the Broadway farce “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and the Broadway musical “City of Angels”. Woody Allen began as a comedian and joke writer and continues creating films as well as writing short stories, books and plays. Pulitzer Prize winning playwright David Mamet went from stage to film, published novels and created series for television. Before he wrote screenplays, William Goldman published several novels and had plays produced on Broadway. Herman Wouk wrote gags for the Fred Allen radio show before he won renown as the writer of “The Caine Mutiny”, “Marjorie Morningstar” and “Winds of War” among others.

Of course the way a story is written depends on the medium. Motion pictures and television rely on the visual. It’s difficult to get inside someone’s head unless you’re into voice over narratives or Shakespearean soliloquies. The interior character has to be represented by exterior actions, reactions and dialogue.

Novels and short stories, on the other hand, can delve into the workings of the mind and the psyche painting pictures for the readers of the interiority of characters as well as the environment in which they exist. While you can rely on art directors to create the ambience of a motion picture, the author of a novel must be his or her own art director creating an environment that intrigues and draws in the reader.

Okay, it’s difficult to switch gears. But if you have written a damned good screenplay and can’t sell it, why not turn it into prose? Why limit yourself to one medium when you have a world of art and literature at your feet? The incredible desire to write one hell of a story for the screen indicates that it has within it the seeds of a great novel or play.

Consider how many films have been produced based on novels, especially Victorian and Edwardian novels. Why do they work and why are they so valued? Because most of them have intrinsic cinematic values. Read Austen, Dickens, the Brontës, Howard and the others. They evoke wonderful imagery, dramatic and humorous dialogue, intriguing characters, motivation, psychological insights, and most of all great structure.

That screenplay gathering dust on your shelf is gold. A story good enough for you to spend months developing has potential far beyond the large or small screen. Consider the upside: the author of a book doesn’t have to worry about some producer or director taking over the manuscript and manipulating it so that it has no resemblance to your intentions. Plays are the same. The ultimate authority when it comes to making edits belongs to the writer as his or her sole right.

What a difference from motion pictures and television where the ultimate copyright owner is not the writer, but the producer or the studio that buys it. There’s an axiom that after you sell a screenplay “they can paint it green” and almost every screen and television writer can tell tales where producers and/or directors changed the lead character’s gender or switched locations or flipped time periods

Of course selling your screenplay and seeing it produced is an emotional high. Everyone reading this wants to make the big killing. But take a look at reality (as difficult as that is).

If you do sell your screenplay chances are the contract may have a large dollar figure attached. Let’s assume you will be paid $250,000. I use this figure because it seems like a goodly sum of cash. Note that in the Writers Guild Schedule of Minimum payments the minimum payment for an original high-budget screenplay (anything with a budget exceeding five million) at this writing is $102,980. Let’s assume your agent does manage to get you an over scale payment. Most contracts are step deals. You’ll receive part of the payment up front, another payment when you deliver the rewrite, and the final payment when it goes to principal photography. The process may take three to four years before it comes to fruition. Assuming the final payment for your screenplay is $250,000, after four years you will have earned $62,500 a year less agent commissions, taxes, etc. Starting salaries for first year attorneys are about $125,000 a year. Therefore, writing for the screen or television is not going to make you rich unless, according to Writers Guild statistics, you happen to be in the one-tenth of the ten percent who earn a living at the craft.

The answer to all this, of course, is belief in yourself as a writer who has the potential for creating insightful stories. Those stories may become motion pictures or end up on one of the premium cable channels. If they don’t, there’s no reason to give up on them. Leap at the opportunity to adapt your screenplays for other media.

As a writer with a long career in television, I faced the very same dilemma. One of my screenplays was always received with a great deal of enthusiasm. So much so, that I received assignments based on it. Unfortunately, no one wanted to produce it. A friend recommended that I turn it into a novel for children. It was published by a mainstream publisher and has sold over one-third of a million copies. No one told me I had to change it. No one leaned over my shoulder staring at my computer to make sure I satisfied his or her idea of what the story should be.

Once I had that experience, I took another story and adapted it as a novel. It too was published and has sold well. A producer read it and optioned it and I wrote a new screenplay for which I was paid. I have done the same with two other screenplays and publishers have expressed interest in them.

Of course I’m still writing screenplays – as well as novels and plays all of which have been produced. I call myself a writer because I write. For screenwriting students it’s critical to keep writing – screenplays, journals, essays, short stories, novels, poetry all develop creativity and help germinate ideas that find their way onto paper. If you do that, you have the right to call yourself a writer – or perhaps an author.

The economical screenwriter

Back when I used to run a touring theater company, there was only one rule regarding the amount of furniture and props for any given performance: If It Doesn’t Fit in the Car, It’s Not Going. (Fortunately, I was also penning all the plays the troupe performed so I had some control over the situation.)

This sense of economy carries over into my lectures and classes for aspiring screenwriters, reinforcing the philosophy that if no one is going to mention why there is a moosehead above the mantle, maybe that moosehead really doesn’t need to be there. Little did I know at the time that I was laying the groundwork for my eventual segue into writing for film…and the necessity to craft a good story that can succeed on the strength of its plot, not the weightiness of its budget.

A case in point was the adaptation of my Scottish time travel, The Spellbox, to a feature length script for an independent producer. Aside from the challenge of compressing 400+ pages to 120, there were scenes which I purposely omitted in deference to what it would ultimately cost to execute them (i.e., a banquet in which the Great Hall is set on fire). Anything which involves destruction of sets, utilization of stunt people, or more insurance is going to drive up the price tag of a movie.

Video School

For writers who have yet to get their scripts over the transom and their foot in thedoor, such items can be a red flag to producers whose coffers are not quite Cameron-esque. While everyone hungers to write a cast-of-thousands epic with a wealth of elaborate sets and technical glitz, the reality is that the lower the author can keep the script’s production costs, the higher the chances of a sale.

The bottom line is that it’s easier to add in the glitz later than to have the crux of your plot contingent on its being present in the first draft.

Can your own script pass the following ten-point economy test?

1.Contemporary storylines are generally less costly than period pieces.
2.Fires, floods, earthquakes, volcanos, explosions—while many disasters can now be computer-generated, those that can’t are going to cost money.
3.Do you really need those swarming crowds? Even though they’re paid scale for just taking up space, they’re still an expense.
4.Anything with animals—especially trained ones—could be a big-ticket item.
5.Exterior scenes leave the crew at the mercy of time, season and weather, as opposed to interior shots which will look exactly the same whether it’s 3 a.m. in the dead of winter or 7:30 on a summer night.
6.Night scenes are more expensive to film than scenes in daylight.
7.Are your car chases/crashes necessary or just gratuitous? Vehicular mayhem can put a sizable dent in the budget.
8.Going on location is pricier than staying on a soundstage, especially the travel factor.
9.Specifying that “Mel Gibson has to be in this movie or it simply won’t work” probably isn’t a compelling pitch.
10.Every time the equipment gets moved, the cash register dings. Try to minimize your locations so multiple scenes can be shot at one time.

Former actress/director Christina Hamlett is a professional script consultant whose credits to date include 25 books, 122 plays and musicals, and 5 optioned feature films. She is also a ghostwriter for The Penn Group in Manhattan. Her latest MWP title, Screenwriting for Teens is targeted to high school students who want to learn how to write film shorts.

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