Start with that picture in your mind

That’s how I begin writing; I have a picture that inspires me. It could be something like ‘three Knights on horseback on a hill overlooking a village’ or an ‘alien sitting in a restaurant looking at his watch as it countdowns to something.’ The point is, in the beginning there is very little to go on except this image but once I have it and it excites me enough I can start to ask questions about it.

Start asking questions

Questions are great for opening up the little material you have and expanding on it without you having to just think of stuff out of the blue.

Take the alien example above. I can ask questions such as:

• How did he get there?
• What’s his watch counting down to; is it the destruction of the earth?
• Does anyone recognise him?
• Where does he go after this?
• Is anyone chasing him?
• Meat or fish?

You get it anyway. What happens when I start asking these questions is that more images and ideas develop in my mind, some good, some not so good but a whole load of material will start to come together. It’s exciting at this point to think of the possibilities of the story; you can take it anywhere you want.

Follow the leads

Some of these new leads will inspire me again and form the basis of other scenes. At this point nothing should be discarded as it is too soon to decide or make judgements about what is relevant and not and what might be good in the long term. Later, much of this material may be discarded but for now every idea should be kept for possible eventual use.

Name the scenes

Now at this point I will separate what feels like different scenes and give them a short, one line description. Often they will not seem to link together in any feasible way but this again too early to question. If you try too hard to link scenes together before they are ready, you will only end up with a dull and ordinary script; due to the fact you are only using only remembered knowledge of how to write stories from what you’ve read, seen or done before. Your deeper mind will link your story together in far more interesting ways if you let it.

Don’t forget to start writing

The most important part of writing a screenplay is actually starting it! You have to follow an idea that excites you and that you feel you want to write about. It’s time to take that picture or line or whatever it is in your head and get it down onto paper. Don’t worry about a beginning, middle or an end just start with those images that inspire you and the rest will follow.

Again, dialogue is as much about what you omit as what you put in. It’s important to remember that in real life, very, very few people vocalise their thoughts word-for-word. Speech is a contraction of a thought process, often designed to evoke a response as much as it is to impart information; often speech is about disguising a thought process, diverting people away from what we think we may have given away with our eyes.

Which leads me to another point about being economical with dialogue: you need to LEAVE SPACE FOR THE ACTORS. Most writers are compelled to put every bit of information into the dialogue because they think in terms of the action having to be complete on paper, but this is simply not true. Think about the following:

Say two characters – who know each other well – are waiting for an important piece of plot to telephone them (another script-writing mistake, but we’ll come to that). When the phone finally rings, there’ll usually be a bit of dialogue along the lines of. “That’s our boy”, or something as one of them approaches the phone. It’s simply redundant (and stupid). All you need to indicate is that the characters exchange a look. If the actors are any good, the audience will know exactly what that look is communicating.

It maybe an old cliché, an actor saying he wants to cut a chunk of dialogue because he can say the same thing simply with his face, but like most clichés it’s actually true, a good actor really can impart a line or two’s worth of information with just a look – and doing it visually is always the better way; it is, after all, a visual medium. Now that may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised how many scripts don’t appear to reflect this.

And another cliché about dialogue is you should speak it out loud. This cannot be emphasised enough, because it’s the only way to work out if it has the correct rhythm to it. After all, if the writer can’t speak his own words comfortably, how the hell can he expect the actors to?

‘Mike Johnson’ is scriptwriter…yeah, he is.

On Writing (which is well worth a read) on the subject of story. He likens the process of fashioning a story to that of uncovering a specimen in archaeology, that you chip and brush away at the tiny fragments until finally you have uncovered a complete entity. I think he’s really right about this, because ALL STORIES SHOULD ADHERE TO THEIR OWN INTERNAL LOGIC. It’s one of the most widespread mistakes in script writing, and it largely involves making characters do things that they clearly wouldn’t do in reality (or even worse, in the reality you’ve set up).

You know what it’s like, watching a crap film, when a character suddenly does something outrageously stupid or completely out-of-character, and it’s all because the writer suddenly makes them do something for the sole reason that that the plot requires them do it – it is sheer laziness. This is what I mean about writing being a craft. If you want to do it, you have to adhere to the internal logic; and if you want a character to do something, you have to make it believable for him or her to do so.

I’ll make the example very basic. Say, at a particular juncture in the events, that your main character has a choice of three different avenues to pursue: now the lazy way is simply to have him choose the route – avenue 3 – that leads him to the desired climax of the story, but in real life (i.e. internal logic) it’s not so simple, there may be a variety of reason why avenues 1 or 2 may be taken. The best way to adhere to logic is instead of making him decide which route to take, find reasons that actually prevent him from taking avenues 1 or 2.

Just remember to listen to your characters, if you understand them enough, they will tell you which way the story is going to go next; and be prepared, because it’s often in an entirely different direction to the one you thought you were taking. This is one of the reasons why the rigidity of the “three-act structure” or the card system can work against you, because sometimes you need to hear your characters speaking before you know what will happen next.

To be fair, a lot of this can be worked out when your first draft is complete and you’re going back through it.

As your first draft will more than likely be from the point of view of the main character, it’s important to go through it again making different “passes” for different characters. By that I mean going right through the script and looking at the all events from the point of view of each minor character. This is the best way of finding out whether or not they’re behaving realistically; finding out if – when someone responds to the hero with the reply “yes, that’s not a problem” – the real response is actually, “are you crazy? They know where my wife and children live!”.

A lot of this comes down to really getting to know your characters and the worlds they inhabit – in their own heads and beyond. Most of them are simply versions of you who have been through different experiences. But don’t mistake this difference. Say, for example, you have a character who suddenly gets a gun pointed into their face; if that person is a soldier, or a bodyguard or an armed robber, they’re going to act differently than if they are a teacher or singer; and if they are the latter, they’re going to turn cold, feel faint and possibly shit themselves. Just because they are your heroes, you can’t fake bravado in the face of cold reality, it just won’t wash.

Mike Johnson is a scriptwriter

A lot of people have a desire to write but just don’t know where to begin.

1. I’m not ready.
2. I’m too busy.
3. I don’t have all the answers yet.
4. I’m not a writer.

Well if you have had an idea swimming around inside you for a while then you are definitely ready, so that’s no 1 gone.

Being too busy is a reality for many of us but we could probably all find a little time each day; there are plenty of books available on time management.

You’ll never have all the answers at the start and this is true of any new task or skill you want to learn. It’s called the fear of making a mistake, wanting it to be perfect, wanting not to fail. If we give in to this one we will never start anything.

Do you think you’re not writer? Well maybe so because not everyone can be but have you tried yet? Or is it just another way of not starting? You won’t know you’re a writer until you’ve written lots and lots. And here’s the rub – the more we do something, the better we get at it: so you can scrub number 4 too.

Let’s look at ways to begin at the beginning.

Have you heard that old chestnut, “a thousand mile journey starts with a single step”? I’m sure you have. Writing is just like that. You can dance around the issue for years but until you sit down and write the story you’ve always wanted to write, it just won’t happen.

The best place to begin is wherever you are now. Make some space in your life and dedicate it to your writing. Find a physical place to work where you won’t be disturbed and begin to make it a habit to go there and write, even if it’s only half an hour a day. Have a pen and paper waiting there or set up your computer so it’s ready to go.

Write constantly for that period and don’t worry if it’ not great quality material. We want to write a first draft, not a finished masterpiece.

If you write a page a day that would be 365 pages a year and that’s a good sized novel! A screenplay is much shorter than that. Half a page a day would hit around the 180 page mark. That could be two first draft screenplays! Can you imagine how satisfying it would be to have 180 pages of your own writing sitting on your desk?

Well, at the start, aim for a ninety page script. With motivation, you can probably write three to four script pages a day. Then you could have a screenplay drafted in one month!

What if you don’t have a story yet?

If you only have one scene in your head, then write it down. Do not wait for inspiration to give you the rest of the story before you write.

Once you begin writing with excitement and enthusiasm you will be desperate to get this story out of the dark recesses of your mind. You will find, with uncanny regularity, different and usable ideas popping into your head. Creativity begins to work when you do. Once you commit yourself to the task in hand, your intuition will begin to nudge your consciousness with mysterious and connected notions. Only when you start to move forward, will your best script ideas follow. The good stuff never makes an appearance while you carry around a lukewarm desire to write something.

Persistent focus on writing will pay huge dividends and it won’t feel like work. Once that story takes hold, you will be excited and passionate and have a keen edge to your thoughts and your ideas. Put pen to paper today!

Check out these posts: How to write a screenplay: Start with the picture in your head, How to write a screenplay: Kick start your script, How to write a screenplay: Freewriting to unleash your creativity and How to write a screenplay: 7 tips for writing a great screenplay.

Log line

A log-line is a single line summarising the entire script or story. It should be dynamic and pack a punch for listeners. This is the ‘big concept’ moment. If someone likes this first pitch they’re likely to want to hear more so make sure it has the ‘wow’ factor.

Synopsis

Summarising the story in present tense is the purpose of the synopsis. It consists of anything between one paragraph and one or two pages. It is good practice to have different versions available, not only for pitching to others but also for yourself; there’s nothing better than being able to rattle off different length versions of your own story without the ‘ums’, ‘errs’ and ‘well it’s kinda like this’.

Step-outline

Here, your story is told in a series of steps. You describe each scene and its action in one or two sentences. Step-outlines are terrific for building up the stages of your story without yet having to fill in all the details. You can then shuffle your short scenes around endlessly as you progress.

Step-outlines are often written on index cards which gives you the advantage of being able to lay them out in front of you and re-arrange scenes at will as new scenes are created. This physical accessibility is often an extremely helpful and freeing tool for the writer at the point when the monitor screen has become an unforgiving and unimpressed tyrant.

Robert McKee, in his classic book ‘Story’, states that ‘the writer never shows his step-outline to people because it’s a tool, too cryptic for anyone but the writer to follow’ (Story, Methuen 1999, pg.413). Once you have the entire script in this format it is a great foundation from which to pitch your story to any interested parties.

Treatment

Every scene is developed into paragraphs and told as if it is happening in the present tense. The action is expanded and described in more detail than the one or two sentence step-outline but only what the audience would see and hear. Dialogue is summarised or excluded, except for occasional important lines.

A treatment will generally be between ten and twenty pages and is often used as a tool for raising financial baking and/or interest in the future film.

If you are ambitious and thorough, a treatment can be anything up to one hundred pages of fully fleshed out story, covering all the elements of the plot or idea. This is a short story format, almost the beginnings of a novel. If you go down this route, you can bet that any script developed from a long treatment will be a good deal more solid, coherent and thought-through.

‘Free-writing’ is one technique that should be used by the screenwriter on a consistent basis and not just for those moments when you are absolutely stuck or desperate.

What is free-writing?

Free-writing is the very simple technique of writing down whatever comes into your mind for a set period of time, say, about five minutes and no more. You do this without censoring yourself, which means you don’t stop after one sentence and make a judgement about how good that sentence is or whether it is worth continuing with. Forget all that until you have filled up half a page, or better still a page.

• Take an idea that you have in your mind; maybe about a scene or a character.
• Pick several keywords that relate to the idea or concept that you want to write about. For example, you have a sci-fi concept, so you decide on: planet, ship, and turbulence. It could be anything.
• Pick something that excites you. Remember we are trying to get those creative juices flowing so it has to be something that you can feel motivated about and this exercise is all about getting past your own critical censor. It is a good idea to incorporate the keywords into sentences when you start the exercise. Even though you have just plucked them from the ‘Ether ‘, using them somewhere in your following free-write will give you the initial direction you need.

So now you start writing and don’t hold back and don’t worry about the words coming out. How hard is that for five minutes?

What if everything I write is gibberish?

Just keep on letting all that subconscious material tumble out. Don’t judge your work or apply any critical process to what you’re doing until the end of the exercise. The idea is that letting this constant flow of words and ideas spill out onto the page is a way of bypassing the conscious, critical mind and letting the creative imagination have full reign.

Don’t be tempted to write for longer periods like this. Free-writing is a short burst activity which you can do over and over again, as often as you want but just make sure you have a break in between sessions.

Often, when we have been sat at our desk or computer most of the day and have written one paragraph, it is because we are putting too much pressure on ourselves to come up with perfect material and the perfect script from scratch. This is an easy trap to fall into and one of the main reasons for it, is the belief that the harder we think with our conscious mind, the better the lines will be. But, there is no point in spending hours or days on a few lines when we have the rest of the story to write. Of course, we will need our brilliant, critical faculty for those times when we have written tons of material that then needs pruning and shaping but you can’t be a perfectionist with the first few drafts of a screenplay. You have to get it written and fleshed out. If you take too long about it, the original and fresh idea you had may start to seem stale and lacking in life. Once the majority of your film is written and the big picture is in place then all those smaller details can be attended to.

Here is a list of some of the important aspects you need to think about when writing that killer script:

1. Originality.
2. Opening with a bang.
3. Believable characters.
4. Emotion.
5. Real dialogue.
6. Pace.
7. Trim the fat.

Now let us look at these in more depth:

Originality

What is this story? Are zombies taking over the world? Is a super-spy taking on mastermind criminals? What about high school kids dancing and singing? Is your story original? Now, this is a big ask as originality is hard to do. Most stories are familiar in some form or other due to mythical and legendary archetypes, legends and outlines. Heroes and villains, ghosts and demons pervade our unconscious. It’s in our DNA and race memory from all those years of sitting round a camp-fire eating woolly mammoths drizzled with berry juice.

Most new stories fit into a pattern of sorts. This is fine. We are never going to run out of new ways to construct stories. But how do we add new elements, twists, differences that give us something fresh? That depends on you and your idea. Just don’t do a rehash job but try and bring your own voice to whatever story you are telling. Everyone has a unique perspective and has experienced the world in a singular and original way since birth, so use that.

Open with a bang

Let’s imagine for a moment that by some stroke of luck your 90 pages have landed in the lap of a producer who can make it happen. None of his or her lackeys are available to read it as they’ve all been fired due to the economic crisis or moved to Bollywood or into the porn industry. So now the boss is about to read your script. Will they read a page or two at the beginning? Maybe a few pages more? Will they go to the middle read some there or maybe flick through, getting an idea about the script and whether it is worth spending more time on? Perhaps they will just flick to the back page and read the ending.

The key is to grab them in the first few pages. This will engender a small amount of latitude and goodwill which will raise expectations and keep the producer motivated, hoping to find some more good stuff. So if you can, open with a bang. That means drama, violence, emotive situations; anything that will engage a reader. Of course, with such a great start, you will have to keep up the standard up all the way through!

Believable characters

Is it a cartoon? Well, even a good cartoon has believable characters that are ‘believable’ within their own world. That is the world we buy into and we will only buy into it if we feel these people and characters are realistic. Let’s say you want to write a gangster film. Do you know any gangsters or does everything you know about gangsters come from watching gangster films? In this case, I’ll bet that the final film won’t be very good or original. What if you don’t know about aspects of your character’s lives? Whatever your subject, a little bit of research can go a long way. Research is easier than ever to do now thanks to the god-like presence of the search engines. There are no excuses for failing in the quest for believability. Believability comes through three-dimensional characterizations that have strengths, flaws and everything in-between. Make sure your important characters are fully fleshed out. Following on from this is:

Emotion

We need to care about someone, anyone. An audience or viewer or reader wants to be engaged in a story. This cannot happen through events or action sequences alone. It can only happen through characters that we care about. A character whether they are good or bad, hero or anti-hero, must engage our emotions and our feelings. It can be a character that we dislike or love to bits. They just have to make us feel something! Aim for this in your story and you are half way there. Real emotion can come through:

Real dialogue

Make it real by transplanting how you would speak with people you know in real or imagined situations. This doesn’t mean put in ever ‘um’ and ‘err’ or every one speaks with your local accent. It means remembering that real people are feeling something all the time when they are interacting with other human beings. They don’t necessarily say what’s on their mind either, in fact they hardly ever do. A lot of things are left unsaid. Are you writing a cartoon? If not then avoid cartoon-ish, clichéd and one dimensional dialogue.

Pace

Readers want to turn the page. Is your script dawdling like a fat, limping tortoise when it should be up and running like a hare with a jet pack? Pace is created by organizing your scenes in the right order and increasing the energy of the story toward the climax. Cut dialogue that isn’t needed. Cut all superfluous description. Let the readers’ imagination do the work spurred on by your brief but highly efficient and perfect scene setting. Don’t be tempted to put in any film or stage ‘directions’ it’s a mistake; they are not needed at all and can be added later.

Trim the fat

Get rid of scenes that don’t need to be there. They may be great scenes on their own or perhaps part of another story altogether, but if they don’t move the story forward in any way – they must go. If you were writing a novel you might be able to leave them but you’re not writing a novel. A screenplay must always be ‘efficient’. Unnecessary scenes will only slow you down, like carrying extra baggage when running a marathon. Often there are scenes which may have had a point in the early draft stage but now just fester and lie there doing nothing and all you want to do is say ‘hey get the f**k out of here, I’m working my ass off and you’re doing nothing!’ Be strict with every scene that you have written.

Bear in mind these tips and you should be on the way to writing a killer script.

1. You have seen a competition for new film ideas or scripts so you thought you would enter.
2. You fancy giving writing a go.
3. You want to direct your own film from your own idea.
4. You have a great idea you don’t think anyone else has done before.
5. You’re a control freak who can’t stand anyone else taking the glory so you do everything yourself.

All of these reasons are valid and will provide the necessary first burst of energy to begin this gargantuan task. And it is a big undertaking. People do write scripts in record time but it’s not the norm. A good solid screenplay with well-rounded characters, interesting sub-plots as well as a convincing and engaging main story takes time and effort.

Why does it take so much time?

After you have exhausted the initial store of ideas that have propelled you to write in the first place, you will be left with only a skeleton framework or outline. You may have a few scenes. There may be the first signs of characters appearing and the beginnings of the big plot but they will lack the ‘flesh’ that keeps a reader turning the page and a page turner is what you want!

Who is going to read this?

As you write you should always be asking yourself the question, ‘would someone reading this want to turn the page? Are they interested enough to carry on?’ It may be a something you believe in because you have written it but then you’re biased aren’t you? If it hasn’t got the necessary pace for an uncommitted reader then it’s not working. But pace is something that will come later on with progressive drafts.

This is your first draft and it will always be missing essential elements but that’s ok, it’s a first draft, that’s what it’s for. They’re usually crap but it’s crap with possibilities.

I’m sure there will be plenty of nuggets of potential good stuff in there. These are the rich ‘veins’ of material that you will be mining in the following weeks and months. But to begin with these are weak threads and embryonic ideas that have been born in the creative cauldron of your wonderful brain and they will need nurturing and gentle conjuring from the hidden depths.

Your first draft can be anything from a few pages to tens of pages. You can write long hand or type it up or invest in some scriptwriting software which will automatically format your work for you. ‘Final Draft’ or Movie Magic are good choices and pretty much industry standard, although a little pricey. It’s unlikely whether it would be up to ninety or so pages when you first start. Don’t try to do that. It will only be mostly rubbish that you will end up revising anyway.

The way to move forward from your initial scatter gun collection of material is to start working on the scenes that most excite you. They will most probably contain the essence of the idea that got you started and they will be the easiest to focus on. This is important in the early stages if you are new to scriptwriting. It is all too easy for a beginner to give up on a story having only written a dozen or so pages because they don’t have a strategy for carrying on the writing impulse when inspiration dries up.

Getting past this means harnessing your emotional energy and you do that by working on the scenes that are the most fun and that engage your creative imagination. Your motivation will be kept at a high level and other plot-lines, thoughts and strands will start to come through. This way, by listening to your own intuitive voice, you will be able to more fully express the individuality of your own ideas and create a unique and non-formulaic screenplay.