39 Steps to Better Screenwriting. Paul Chitlik

apply to romantic comedies? Biographies? Action/adventure? Yes. It’s when the central character has to eat dirt and run across Manhattan and beg for forgiveness in a romcom; it’s when the biopic protagonist faces his greatest challenge; it’s when the action hero faces down the villain and the big fight takes place. If you keep your audience waiting for 60 minutes, you might as well kiss your word of mouth goodbye. The story will drag. It’s impossible to sustain a 60-minute final act. If you don’t think I’m right, go see Artificial Intelligence again.

      If you find that you have too much in the last act, the likelihood is that much of that material should have occurred before the low point. Move it to the second act. If that doesn’t do it, cut like mad. Keep the balance.

      Step 7

      Conflict and Scene Construction

      In my seminars, I usually mention two or three times per session that there must be conflict in every scene because it’s the one thing that new writers almost universally forget. In expository scenes, they just figure that getting the information out there is enough, but it’s not really. The basic rule (and this is one of the few rules in screenwriting) is that there must be conflict in every scene.

      The element most new (and many experienced) screenwriters leave out of their scenes is conflict. Without conflict, there is no drama. Without drama (even in a comedy), there is no story. Without conflict, there is no movement. No change. Conflict is the key element of the scene.

      The central characteristic, the one element that every scene needs, is conflict.

      Okay, I have said it more than three times, which is the minimum number of repetitions for something to sink in. I’ll probably do it again by the end of the chapter, just in case.

      Just as there are barriers (conflict) for the protagonist to overcome over the length of the film, so, too, there are smaller conflicts in each scene. In the beginning of a scene, somebody wants something. Somebody else either tries to prevent him from getting that, or wants something in opposition. The scene, then, is about the struggle. Learning what each one (or more) wants is the beginning of the scene. The struggle to get it is the middle. One or the other wins the struggle. That’s the end of the scene. Somebody’s got to win, somebody’s got to lose. Even in a comedy. Especially in a comedy.

      Every major player in a scene has an objective — he/she wants something. Usually, each character wants something different. Hence the conflict.

      We must also know what the emotion of that character is at the beginning of the scene, what his/her attitude is, what’s his long term goal. There’s a helluva difference between a scene that starts off with everyone pissed off at each other from the get go and one that starts with laughter. If you know your characters, you’ll know what their emotions are at the beginning of the scene — are they happy, sad, angry? — and what will happen to them during the scene. Unless they have cause to change (they may or may not), they should maintain that emotion throughout the scene. Actors look at scenes this way (or the good ones do), and they look for hints the writer has given them.

      We also need to know what the subject and purpose of the scene is. Yes, it’s to move the story forward, first and foremost. But it may also be to shed some light on a character, to reveal information, to provide an obstacle. Know what you want to get across with your scene.

      Then, and most importantly, know what each character in your scene wants to achieve. There’s the writer’s objective and the character’s objective. If you know exactly what each character wants and how he needs to try to achieve that, you will achieve your writer’s objective as well.

      How do you do that in a scene which is wholly expository? Use exposition as ammunition. Aaron Sorkin is a master at this, as anyone who watched The West Wing knows. How many times did we see two characters walking down a hallway arguing about something, trying to prove their point, while at the same time giving the audience a shit load of exposition? Rhetorical question. Answer — hundreds. There was a lot of data to be thrown at the viewer. If you don’t do it in an interesting way, it will cause the viewer to “click!” to another channel.

      Same for a movie.

      What about a love scene? Is there conflict in that?

      Ever been in love? Of course there’s conflict there. One person wants to move at a certain pace, the other has a different pace in mind. One wants to be on top, the other prefers that position. One wants to go to bed, the other can’t wait for the bed. You figure it out, but, trust me, the more conflict in the love scene, the hotter it’s going to be so long as they both want to be in a love scene. Again, you need to know your characters. And a thwarted love scene is also interesting and moves the story in a different way.

      So, no matter what the purpose of the scene is — to move the story or to delineate character — and no matter what the writer’s objective is, the single most important element of a scene is conflict. No conflict, no scene.

      Step 8

      Details

      Writers like to think that details don’t matter, but they matter a great deal when what you have to express yourself are twenty-six letters, a handful of punctuation marks, and a blank screen. If one of those lands in the wrong spot, you could have a big misunderstanding, not at all what you intended, or a disaster.

      Many punctuation warnings start with a sentence something like this: “Let’s eat Grandma.” Or, it could be this: “Let’s eat, Grandma.” The comma makes all the difference in the world, so a detail like a comma is important.

      Spelling is also important as some people would have a hard time eoyj s drmyrmvr ;olr yjod/ (would have a hard time with a sentence like this.). The difference between what you couldn’t read and what you could was my fingers were placed one letter over on the keyboard from where they should have been. Small detail, and I’m sure you would never do such a thing, right? But it happens, which is why proofreading is so important.

      Another thing which seems elementary (and should have been taken care of in elementary school in this computer age) is that when submitting your work electronically, you should put your name in the filename. As a professor in a major film school, I often see this for a filename: beatsheet.

      Okay, whose beatsheet is that? If I download two or three like that, what happens to the first one? It gets erased and I never see it. So, when learning or when submitting to an agent or a producer, always put your name and the title of the script in the filename.

      Then, crazily enough, students often don’t even put their names on their scripts, whether submitted as a whole or just some pages. Why not? Because they figure I’ll know who sent them from the filename. See above.

      And even if I know from the filename, once they get bunched in my “to read” folder, and they have no name on them, to whom do I attribute them?

      So, always, always, put your name in the filename and your name on the inside of the file, preferably on a title page, but at least on the first page of script. Think about it. If there is no name on the script that you send to a producer who has hired you to do a script, they can’t give you credit. No credit, no pay. No pay, and the dream goes up in smoke.

      There are more details to remember. Incorrect sluglines. Format in general. And deadlines. Contact information on your title page (no Writers Guild of America registration on the title page … but register it nonetheless).

      My students get penalized if they’re late with a script. So do professional writers. How? By creating a bad reputation. By seeming to be difficult to work with. If you’re writing a freelance sitcom script and you’re late, you could interrupt a very precise schedule. Do it once, and you may not get the chance to do it again. Do it twice and I guarantee you won’t be able to do it a third time.

      Just