Writing Screenplays, Satire and Novels

So, you think you’ve got a great idea for a story and want to share it with the world. Fame and riches await. Hey if J. K. Rowling can do it with a kid, a wand and a he-who-shall-not-be-named why not you? Maybe; maybe not. One thing is true, however: every successful writer was on the outside looking in at the initial stage of his/her career. And another thing is probably true: some one gave them some help to get their idea out of their head, onto paper, and into the hands of a publisher.

The purpose of this series is to share what I know about bringing a story to the place where it’s marketable. From what I’ve observed, there are many who would like to write a novel, short story, screen play or other creative format and simply don’t know what it takes. So, in writing this, I’m going to assume that you, the interested reader, have a great idea but no other experience. So, let’s explore the premise of the story, the great idea.

If you have a unique idea, don’t share it with others in general conversation. General conversation is not protected. If I overhear you and steal your idea, there’s little you can do about it. On the other hand, Wilson Dutcher, Mark Gallistl and I would never have been writing partners if we hadn’t been willing to share story ideas with each other. If you want to share, share with people you trust and who will help you.

Okay, you’ve got the idea. Step One: write it down. Don’t worry about the format. Keep it short and don’t worry about details. Some examples: Spider-Man: a young man is bitten by an exotic spider that transfers to him many of its abilities and powers. He learns to uses his strength, stealth and agility to fight crime. Lord of the Ring: through a series of improbable events, a young man (hobbit) inherits a ring linked to the mystic power of an evil lord. He and his friends must find a way into the evil lord’s lair in order to destroy the ring and save the world. The Birdcage: a young man raised by a gay couple falls in love with the daughter of a conservative senator. He wants her, and her parents, to meet his family but is convinced he will be ruined if his “parents” can’t pass for straight.

Step Two: is it a comedy or a drama, or a combination? Comedy and drama are not all that far apart. In a drama, the audience observes a story line that is meant to be taken seriously by the characters in the story and by the audience. The same story can be told as a comedy: the characters must think the story is serious while the audience separates from the characters, sensing in advance what is happening, and enjoying behavior that seems ridiculous or frivolous to the observer. Don’t confuse gag lines with comedy. Gag lines are found in drama as comic relief. Comedy and drama are the same: they differ only in the position the audience has to the narration. In drama, the audience learns what is happening at the same time, or after the characters do. In comedy, the audience knows in advance what is likely to take place before the characters catch on.

Let’s look at the above examples. Spider-Man is an action story told as a graphic serial and as a screenplay. Although the action is impossibly over the top, the authors intend to the audience to buy into the story as if it really could happen. Could it be told as a comedy? Of course. Peter Parker could have trouble with his suit, his web making apparatus, and his love life as a parody of spider-like properties. His suit refuses to Velcro shut at the worst time, he keeps squirting web juice when he doesn’t intend to (ripping open M. J’s blouse by mistake at the opening of an art gallery, for example), and he unintentionally wraps her in a cocoon when he’s kissing her. In The Birdcage, instead of finding a bumbling senator who is facing derision because his collaborator died in the arms of a black, under-age hooker, Val Goldman could be dealing with a senator from Florida who is intent on criminalizing homosexual behavior (as it used to be in England when Oscar Wilde was a prominent playwright).

Stories are built on conflict. Without conflict, there is no story. The protagonist, or hero (male or female) is beset with a problem or string of problems that he/she must overcome. The problem may be discovered, evolve or shift shape over time in the story, but at some point the problem must be so acute that it will either make or break the hero. The nature of the problem must be primal, striking to the very core of the hero’s emotional being. If Frodo and Spider-Man don’t succeed, their individual worlds will be destroyed. If Armand can’t pass for straight, Val will lose the love of his life.

Conflict can come from an individual, individuals, or circumstances. Spider-Man faces a series of over-the-top villains. Frodo faces a difficult problem, how to get the ring into volcano in the heart of Mordor; he really never has to confront Sauron. Val Goldman is facing his own assumption that Barbara’s parents will not approve of her marrying a man raised by gay partners; Senator Keeley is not the enemy as much as gay-bashing is in general.

Step Three: write down what single point of conflict that must be solved by the hero in your story. At this point you can think about the next steps. How will the conflict be presented, developed and evolve toward the climax? Who will help the hero; who will oppose him/her.

So far, we haven’t written anything. We didn’t start writing the story. We haven’t considered setting, characterization, plot development or many other facets that must be explored. We haven’t decided on a format. All we have done is to pick a problem, a person who must solve it and decided if we intend the audience to take it seriously. It doesn’t seem like a lot but it is. Blake Snyder in Save The Cat, a must-read work on screen writing, devotes a whole chapter on writing the log line, the basic sentence that describes the story’s plot line and temperament. I believe that many stories that fail the audience fail because the basic problem presented is muddy, and believe me, there are plenty of novels, short stories and screenplays that could have been markedly better had the author been clear about the overall concept of the story.

Return to “Screenwriting” for other pages that continue this topic.

Before you start forming your story, think about what the characters in it will be like. You have a story in mind; therefore you already have an idea who it is that will carry out the events that make up the plot. Most of my students begin their narratives by bringing a character on stage, have the character do something, and say the lines that are appropriate to the scene. Unfortunately, that approach does not provide the richness that the story can achieve. When Wilson and Mark suggest the addition of a character, they usually begin by saying what sort of person the character is.

In Matter of Coincidence, Mark suggested we include a young woman, Tina Nix, in the ensemble. When he came up with the idea, he knew why he wanted her in the story but not much else. The lead character, Linzey, needed a confidante with whom she could talk about her growing attraction to Josh, the protagonist. In lesser hands, Tina would simply be someone Linzey’s age who Linzey would know for some logical reason—a neighbor, co-worker, or relative. Instead, Mark gave us a complete back-story for Tina, a Goth who lives on the edge of life, a quick witted flake who thinks her life is firmly in place when, in reality, it is spinning in a million directions. Immediately, Wilson and I knew this person: she never shops in a mall, preferring odd boutiques and second hand stores. Her dress is edgy and eclectic. Her conversation is quirky, laced with illogical metaphors directed by her off-center view of life. She is instantly appealing in her down-the-rabbit-hole demeanor. All of this was presented in a scene Mark wrote centering on her reaction to her boy friend coming home from a fishing trip, a scene that developed her character but was not directly in the plot line planned for the story.

Tina is a supporting character that is one version of many possible sidekicks. A sidekick is used to allow a lead character to have someone to discuss the problems the lead character must solve in order to bring the story to its climactic end. The Goth, girl on the edge is a variant of a stereotype instantly familiar to the audience. She is totally opposite of the well-grounded Linzey who is often appalled by the screwball events she is drug into. (In Bringing Up Baby, Katherine Hepburn’s character created the mess that drove the story and Carey Grant was the unwilling schlemiel drawn into it. In AMOC, Linzey is the Carey Grant character.)

There are a host of stereotypes available to writers: The shy, timid bumbling fellow that always gets things wrong—Don Knotts in every role he played; The smart, easily influenced character that slowly slides into a hell of his own making—Harry Osborn in Spider-Man; The thickishly loyal friend who follows the lead without question or hope of glory—Samwise in Lord of the Ring. Stereotypes are not necessarily linked to race or ethnicity, but they can be, and they are often drawn in sharp contract to the lead with whom they are linked. One would not pick a sharp-tongued, clever, outside-of-the-rules sidekick for Eddie Murphy in the Beverly Hills Cop series. Eddie Murphy’s character already has those traits. Once won over to the BHC quest, Judge Reinhold’s ‘Billy’ Rosewood provides the perfect foil for Murphy’s brand of sassy humor.

Characterization is never static. Audiences want to see how the characters change and develop in relation to the themes explored by the film’s story. Stories that do not proved character development usually fall flat. We are entertained by the details we learn about the characters as the story unfolds. In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, we discover that Butch has never shot anyone until they are confronted by the federalies in Bolivia. Backed up against a gorge as a posse hired by the Union Pacific is tracking them—the only way out requiring that they jump into the river hundreds of feet below—Sundance admits that he can’t swim. By the end of the story, Butch has run out of ideas that will allow the duo to escape and Sundance knows that he may not survive no matter how well he can shoot his gun. Etta, the school teacher attracted to the excitement Butch and Sundance create, has learned that the antidote she has chosen to spice up her boring existence—the glamour and exhilaration of the outlaw life—has a price she cannot pay.

In a short story or novel, great attention is paid to the physical description of each character. What do they look like, how are they dressed, how do they walk, and what would they eat are details given to the reader to flesh out the individuality of each character presented. In the most visual of mediums, screenwriting, we rarely provide anything but the most general description. Character isn’t developed by how one looks or what they eat, the details of life that we tend to cling to. Character is developed by the intonation of dialogue, by the choices made by the character in the course of the storyline, and by the adherence of a character’s presentation given the character’s back-story. We constantly ask ourselves what a character would actually do, given the events we are writing. This can get to be a bit odd at times. It is easy to answer what a Paul Newman’s construction worker might do in Nobody’s Fool, but even then, it can be surprising. When chasing down his wayward friend, Rub, who would have guessed that Sully would drive his pickup on the sidewalk? The stubborn adherence to one’s view of life, the unwillingness to compromise, his laws-be-damned attitude that is central to Sully’s personality is deftly presented the minute that he abandons the road and drives on the sidewalk. Sully’s character is revealed by what he does much more than what is said about him.

Audiences want characters that are immediately identifiable, with whom they have an immediate reaction. For example, we know that Bill Macy’s character in Fargo is doomed by his personal ineptitude long before the events of the story play out. Fargo is brilliant because the scheme-gone-sour plot develops from the characterizations chosen by the Coen’s not just from the story itself. I always feel cheated when I see a movie in which I am forced to keep the characters distinguished by their physical appearance rather than by their characterization. How many times have you been disappointed by a story simply because you didn’t feel that the character shown would do what the story required them to do? What was Johnny Depp playing in Willie Wonka? Was his WW reticent, a bit innocent, oddly cunning or what? I couldn’t tell. Gene Wilder’s WW was far clearer, a man who knows more than he says, a world weary individual tired of insincerity and pop-psychology.

I am suggesting that, as writers, we need to know who our characters are, what sort of individuals they are in the world outside of the story we are showing, before we allow them to come on stage and take their turn.

A student submitted the following question for discussion to my colleague, Larry Guest, for one of the college classes he teaches. The question was: What is the relationship between character, plot and setting? The student also provided an answer for the question he submitted, suggesting that character determines plot and setting. Larry reminded him that a writer cannot simply dump a character into any setting and expect the plot to develop, and yet, there’s a grain of truth in what the student said. To a great extent, character is the means by which plot develops.

My good friend Joan Newcomb, an avid reader, reviewer—if it’s any good, Joan has read it—is a novelist and author of children’s stories. Joan usually begins a story because of something a character has said or because a character’s personality strikes her as unique and interesting. She simply follows where her character takes her. Joan’s technique works for her, but it is not how most writers structure plot. Indeed, most of us think of a plot line first and then develop characters to fit the story.

Regardless of the inspiration that lead to the primary story concept, the initial step in writing plot is to determine what it is that the protagonist must overcome. The author’s first chore is to think up a single, ultimate event that will allow the hero to either succeed and return to an ordinary world or fail, exiting the stage while the audience writhes in cathartic relief that the poor slob’s agony is finally over. At the end of Hamlet the audience has been imbued with more superlative word-smithing than seems possible; but, truth told, many of us are simply counting the bodies and are happy we got out alive.

Plot demands that we take our leading character and move that individual out of their ordinary experience. We must present the protagonist with another character, a concept, an enemy or a task that propels and bedevils him/her. We must pile the problems on until there is a single event that will make or break our hero. For example, in The Wrestler Randy has to deal with a broken body, a child that refuses to rethink their shattered relationship, and the fact that continuing in the only vocation that he loves will eventually kill him. Randy is a train wreck that manages to keep rolling down the track of self-destruction. The audience is cheated seeing his end, however: instead, his end is suggested as he climbs the ropes one more time to crush his opponent. It is his will to do so that is fascinating, a will that is both admirable and horrifying simultaneously. The plot is developed directly as Randy confronts his flaws, flaws that define him and make him interesting, particularly when one realizes that as brutal as he is as a wrestler, he is essentially a gentle person.

“How does one do this,” you ask. “How does one come up with the great, climatic idea?” I don’t know. It’s the one thing that no teacher, no colleague, no mentor or anyone else can give you. The great idea, the unique entertaining concept, is nearly the only writing skill that cannot be taught. If you have the great idea, all the rest can be supplied. If you don’t, then everything else is virtually worthless.

So, where did the dgm boys come up with their ideas which we, and hopefully the next producer we talk to, deem to be great? Wilson and Mark have always had an interest in the Civil War and post civil war era. They were fascinated with the idea that the only known survivor of the battle at the Little Big Horn Valley was a teen age Crow guide. A Matter of Coincidence came out of a recurring fascination Wilson has with the way groups of people interact in unusual settings, in this case, initially a gay bar where a guy that isn’t gay hangs out. Our director of photography, Jon Neeley, had an idea for a short film about an unusual mugging that eventually sprawled into the script we are currently finishing for production in April or May. Another comedy we’re writing came about because my wife, Jen, said something that was crunched in the air between her mouth and my writing partner Mark Gallistl’s ear. She repeated it, and out came a weird phrase, “three days bad cheese”. I wrote the outline for that one, and off we went after Mark took my initial idea and moved it half way around the world.

Ideas come out of observation. The cliché is: being a good listener is one of the greatest of skills. It isn’t a cliché, and the difficulty with it is that we don’t teach “listening”.

Once the idea is discovered, I’m a firm believer that structure is of paramount importance in developing the idea. If you want to write a screenplay, Blake Snyder’s Save The Cat is the most important guide to use. If a story is told in time orientation, it will begin with the so-called normative state in which nothing odd is happening. Most of the time we condense this in screen writing for an opening image that sets the tone and theme of the story. Knowing in advance what the climax is, complication is formed that presents a series of problems and opportunities for the hero that will lead inevitably to the climax. In Victor Victoria, Victoria Grant is a starving coloratura in Paris who, in stealing a meal at a seedy Montmartre bistro, meets Toddy who suggest the cross-dressing transgendered persona “Victor” who becomes an overnight celebrity, and therein creates the complication since Victor falls in love with King Marchand, a very straight nightclub owner. Here again, Hans Hoemberg who provided the concept and Blake Edwards who wrote the script simply followed the natural progression of problems that such a situation suggests. Plot is developed out of character.

Now, back to the Cat. Pay attention to the three-act concept: the “A” story is simply a statement in action of the basic plot problem that is presented in the first act. Act two takes the characters away from the basic plot in the “B” story that allows the characters to interact, allows the writer to present the back story, and creates a setting for other concepts to be developed that present depth to the main problem presented in the “A” story. The third act brings the conflict closer to the protagonist, entrapping our hero in a quagmire of difficulties that are narrowed to the climax. King Marchand will lose his nightclub to the mob because he is engaged in a homosexual relationship with Victor unless Victoria will come forward and prove that she is, indeed a woman. Using the beat sheet provided by Blake Snyder allows the author to make certain that the underlying structure of the story supports the characters and leads the audience in a satisfying journey through the complication to the climax. Structure isn’t story, but many a good story has been weakened because the author ignored an important structural component.

A clear distinction should be made between plot points and scenes. A plot point is the working unit of the plot line: certain things have to take place at specific points in the story if the story is to have a cohesive structure. Each plot point is developed with a scene or scenes that are shaped by the conventions of the genre used. In screenwriting scenes have only two components: statements of action for the actors to follow and dialogue. Novels and short stories have descriptions of the scene and narrative comment in addition to action lines and dialogue.

Basic structure begins with an opening section in which the hero and the main characters are introduced, the tone of the story is set and the specific details of the genre are provided (the old west in Winchester ‘73, the ore mines of Io in Outland, the rainforest of Africa in King Solomon’s Mine, for example). The first act introduces the problem that the hero must solve, provides a catalyst that propels the hero to confront the problem, debates the options open for the characters to deal with the problem and builds to a transition point for the second act. In Lord of the Ring (the film, not the novel), in the first act we meet Gandolf, Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin. We learn that a magic ring created by the evil lord Sauron must be destroyed in a molten pool of lava in the heart of Sauron’s kingdom. The difficulty of getting from the Shire to Mordor provides the events that form the complication of the story.

In the second act, we meet all of the other characters with their individual subplots. Gimli has lost one half of his people in a war between the Orcs and dwarves in Moria. Aragorn is a half man, half elf who has abandoned his claim to the throne of Gondor because he has fallen in love with Arwin, an elfin princess who must sacrifice immortality if she marries him. Boromir is a caretaker prince of Gondor worried that he will lose his governance if Aragorn claims the throne. Broadly, act two is the section where the author pushes the plot forward by exploring all of the other stories that populate the world the author has created.

Act Three begins as the problems faced by the hero close in, forcing the hero to confront the ultimate problem presented in Act One. Even in a comedy, the bad guys have to confront the hero. In You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly loses her bookstore to Joe Fox’s mega store, Joe loses his longtime live-in roommate, his father loses his fourth or fifth wife to a lesbian girlfriend as Kathleen breaks up with her boyfriend. It doesn’t sound very funny does it? Read George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words”: it isn’t funny on paper. Indeed, it’s rather grim until the master of comedy takes the stage to deliver it.

Good storytelling relies on the three act structure (or the Blake Snyder beat sheet for screenplays) to deliver the story so that the reader/audience can readily absorb. Indeed, the basic structure of storytelling shouldn’t be varied much, even if one begins in medias res or tells the story using a series of flashbacks (Memento, American Beauty, and Pulp Fiction all follow a traditional structure despite the inflicted time-lines each use). The scenes that give life to the structure of the story have their own structure. In comedy, we complement the “comedic timing” of the performer: he/she is demonstrating an understanding of the structure of the bit (or scene) offered. Jack Benny had the best timing of any comedian. For the younger crowd, Jack portrayed himself as being unbelievably stingy, a trait that he developed in radio during the 30’s and 40’s when unemployment was rampant and money was hard to come by. In one of his classic routines, Jack is held up at gunpoint. “Your wallet or your life!” the robber demands. Jack stares at the audience deadpan which provokes titters at first and crescendos into belly laughs as he remains frozen. The thief, tired of waiting, breaks the spell: “I said, your wallet or your life!!!” Jack just continues to stare at the audience until the audience is in pain from laughing. The robber, in abject frustration, demands, “WELL???” and Jack delivers the punch line, “I’m thinking it over!” The dialogue isn’t that funny; the delivery makes it work; but without understanding the underlying structure of the joke—set up, pause, and punch line—the joke can’t work no matter how it’s delivered. The same is true for writing any scene.

All scenes have a beginning, middle and an end or transition. By understanding what the scene is to accomplish at a particular beat, the writer then develops the action and dialogue that accomplishes the purpose of the scene. The scene will be developed utilizing dialogue that can simply tell the audience what it needs to know, or (better) by showing the audience. In Runaway Bride, Josanna McGibbon and Sara Parriott have the task of introducing Ike, the lead played by Richard Gere. He is a well-known Chicago columnist who writes diatribes against the vagaries of women’s behavior. They could have opened the scene at the bar with the bartender asking Ike about his next column and then commenting that his wife always complains about Ike’s point of view. The screenwriters didn’t because they could show his status effectively by having Ike walk down the street and have a random woman whack him with a newspaper. This shows that Ike is famous and that his writing humorously affects women negatively.

Later in Runaway Bride the beat calls for a transition in which Julia Robert’s character must abandon her frustration with Ike for having called her a man-eater in his column and show that she is falling in love with him. To change the basic tone of the story momentarily, the series of scenes that delivers the beat opens with Maggie helping her drunken father leave the local bar. [Indeed, the scene becomes so muted in tone that that joke imparted by the name of the bar, Inn Hale Tavern, doesn’t work.] Having a drunken father is depicted as a serious problem for Maggie and is not parodied. Walter sleeps it off in his pick-up, allowing Maggie and Ike to go for a drive while he does. The car breaks down. Ike and Maggie cross a cornfield to a farm to get tools. They encounter a low fence they must climb over. As Maggie pauses as she swings her weight over the fence, Ike helps her and the pause shows the audience that they are becoming romantically connected.

Garry Marshall thought that the scene took too long to develop but kept it because he could do a comic bit about snakes in the grass that required Richard Geer to do a bit of shtick, something Gere normally isn’t required to do. While Marshall is right, the scene does take its time, think about what the screenwriters are required to do within the context of the story to make this critical beat work. All romantic comedies are built on the concept that the lovers have a problem with each other before they fall in love. If they didn’t have a problem that keeps them apart, there’d be no story. In order for them to fall in love, they have to have an excuse to be alone. Since the thrust of the relationship prior to the beat (which is usually the transition from Act Two to Act Three) has been comedic animosity, the tone must move from satire/farce/slapstick/jib-and-thrust—pick one—to one of brief seriousness. McGibbon and Parriott uses drunkenness in a side character to do it. Earlier they played the alcohol problem as tipsiness allowing Paul Dooley to deliver some good one-liners. Being tipsy is one thing; being blackout drunk is another, and the writers follow this turn faithfully later in the story by fundamentally changing the relationship between Maggie and her father. Once the purpose of the beat is complete, we can go move on to the next beat.

In the opening of the Third Act, the bad guys move in until nearly everything is lost. In RB, Ike and Maggie confront the reality of their love at the wedding rehearsal, lose their love as Maggie bolts (thus fulfilling the premise of Ike’s original column), and Ike experiences the “dark night of the soul” back in his New York apartment having been humiliated in the manner he once mocked. In the latter scene, he enters his room and turns on his answering machine. In an earlier rendition of this scene, Ike’s tape says something like: this is Ike-leave me a message-if you want to fax me something, buy me a fax. The message is flippant because Ike’s character is charmingly flippant earlier in the film. Here, the message is: this is Ike-leave me a message. The fax machine bit is dropped because the tone of the scene is dark: a man alone with his cat.

The scene is developed by considering these critical elements: what is the scene to accomplish, how does it move the story forward, can the purpose be shown rather than delivered in exposition, which character(s) can be used best to develop the scene, how can the dialogue be shaped with minimal use to effect the scene, and how can the setting (place, time of day, color scheme, time of year, weather, lighting, etc) reinforce the purpose and tone of the scene. All of these elements must be provided by the novelist or short story writer as economically as possible, removing everything that is not necessary. Since the screenwriter provides only the name of the setting, action lines and dialogue, the rest of the elements must be suggested either by the tone of the lines or by the action depicted, counting on the director to fill in the rest. This is why screenwriters like to move into directing, and directors like to write their scripts.

Everyone who saw Memento said, “Wow!!!!!! How did Jonathan and Christopher Nolan do it?” After all, this movie is about a man who cannot remember what he did yesterday and makes notes to remind him of important things that he’s discovered in his “present” that he’d normally remember so that he could use them to evaluate what’s going on tomorrow, even tattooing the notes on his body to make certain that he won’t lose the information. The difficulty in writing the last sentence indicates just how tough a job the Nolans had to tell their story without losing the audience. Indeed, in lesser hands, the entire thing would have been a mess.

Before discussing Memento further, let’s consider the whole idea of time as an element in writing. Philosophically, time doesn’t really exist. Everything we do is in the present, the past is a present recollection of an experience and the future is a present guess of possible experiences that may happen. Way too egghead, you say? No, Booboo, it’s not. Indeed, it’s helpful. When writing, think of the past as a recollection not a series of actual, linear events that happened earlier. We don’t remember the past exactly; we remember the high points. Therefore, in approaching that great flashback you want to use, my suggestion is to hit the high points and eliminate the inconsequential stuff you might otherwise use in writing a “present” narrative. The same goes for “future-casting”.

There are three things (at least that number) that make handling time difficult. First, there’s the basic structure of any story: what happened if we told the story in linear time, first event to last. The normative state existing prior to the first event that happens must be covered somewhere in order to provide reference. The various events of complication must build and there has to be a climax that returns the world back to the normative state.

Second, we need to consider “The Cat”, the paradigm for screenwriting that insures that elements of the three-act structure are covered in the manner that the audience expects (as well as those pesky producers that we want to finance our projects). The first act presents the characters, the fundamental theme of the movie, the problem that must be solved, discusses the foregoing and leads to a transition setting up the second act. The second act introduces the “B” story that allows the characters to develop, explores other facets of the overall story and sets up the “loss and resolution” of the third act. A linear presentation of the story may work fine for The Cat. It may not.

Third, whether the actual time line of the story is inflected or not, scenes that occurred earlier create rules that must be followed in the later scenes. Continuity is critical. If the character is anorexic in scene one, we can’t have that character eating a six-course dinner in scene seventeen without handing the anorexia problem. Continuity is much more than making sure Hugh Grant is wearing the polka dot tie between takes as he enters Number Ten Downing Street in Love Actually (which he doesn’t). At its most critical, continuity is making sure that the events of the story logically build, and that the changes to the characters (character development) is both logical and presented in a manner the audience can follow.

Fourth—I just knew there’d be a fourth—if the time line is going to be bent, there must be a reason for doing it that enhances the themes, impact, or sense of discovery in the story, or there’s really no reason for doing it. Christopher McQuarrie opens  The Usual Suspects at the end of the story. The heist that resolves the criminal activity of the principle characters has occurred. Why not tell the story linearly? McQuarrie’s story really isn’t about the heist; it’s about who Keyser Söze is. By using the narrative flashback technique, McQuarrie is able to have a wider discussion of this elusive person and is better able to set up the ending than would be possible otherwise. After all, his task, essentially, was to contrast Söze’s persona, a character that doesn’t actually appear in the story except for one, brief flashback, with that of Verbal Kint’s, the narrator of the story. Since Kint is the narrator and a character present at nearly all events, using narration gets rid of the first person bugaboo of providing information that was given in scenes that did not include the first person narrator. Kint doesn’t have to be in every scene if the story is structured as a recollection of what happened because Kint simply could have heard about events that transpired in his absence from the other characters. Moreover, a cop grilling a suspect is interested in hearing the events he needs to know about, not a linear story dictated by the Kint (although, McQuarrie did follow nearly a linear story once Kint got going).

American Beauty solved the “ick” problem in its story by having it be essentially a narration by (again) Kevin Spacy of the last year of his life. Alan Ball is going to have his character, Lester Burnham, seduce an underage girl. There is far less ick in this if we know already that the character is dead.

Memento achieved its continuity by using pieces of action that occurred in the past as lead-ins for the next sequence of events. Thus, the story is a series of overlapping loops that divulge the past as the story slowly moves forward. The story plays fair, in my opinion, in that the lead character, Leonard, does not in fact get the story straight. Yes, he ends up killing the bad guy thus satisfying our need for closure in the story, but he never learns the truth about his involvement in the crimes that were committed.

DGM’s story, Absaroka, deals, in part, about the Battle of the Little Big Horn. I suggested a story arc that used flashbacks in order to begin the story in the middle of fight. This allowed the back-story of the central character to be used as the “B” story of the second act. If the story were told linearly, the history of the leading character would have come in the first act, leaving us with no “B” story. It also allowed us to largely ignore the period of time leading up the battle that, historically, was repetitious and somewhat uninteresting, a series of scouting forays by the Seventh Cavalry to locate the Sioux.

I think it is important for the writer to know the story he/she is telling in linear time. We must remember that messing around with time as an element of the story is a fairly recent tool that been added to the writer’s toolbox. Playing with time can be fun stuff. It can also cause continuity problems and confuse the audience. As writers, we know the story. We have to make sure that in telling it, we don’t lose our audience because we haven’t been effective in understanding what the audience must know if it’s to follow the story we are presenting.

If you are going to be an artist, there are a number of tools you’ll need. Your kit should include the basics of your art form: if you are a painter—of any sort—it might be helpful if you’ve learned to draw. Picasso couldn’t draw, you say? Look at his early works and you’ll find that he could draw accurately and with great style. His expression, his view of art changed making drawing ability secondary, but it existed initially. You have to be able to center clay before you can throw a pot. While a mastery of spelling and grammar are not, strictly speaking, essential for a writer—your editor will fix them if you don’t—it’s not a bad idea to learn the rules. These are the things that are most often discussed when we explain about art. It’s what we talk about as artists. It’s what we share among ourselves when the audience isn’t around. It’s the secret cult we enjoy: being one of those that are truly, inexhaustively, among those who must create and enjoy artistic creation.

I would not be the first to tell you that an artist must deal effectively with disappointment. Saying that one must be patient is almost a cliché. We all know that Van Gough never sold anything except to his friends who took pity on him. And, we all know that we don’t want to be like him. So, we go to the next gallery, the next exhibition, the next wine fest, work in hand, set up the easel, arrange the painting for sale and hope for the best. At the end of the day when none of the gawkers have had enough sense to see a masterpiece that’s been stuck in front of their eyes, you pack up your works and say those magic words, “Better next time.” For those of us in the film business, we plan out how we are going to get the next story produced, or if we’ve produced it, the way in which it will be distributed, hoping that you’ll spend ten or fifteen dollars to view our work. I suppose that Steven Spielberg no longer has to worry if you’ll come but I suspect that the dark thoughts that you might not cross his mind now and then.

So, why this topic now? Why visit a topic entitled “The Unforeseen?” On Monday, we were enjoying a particularly productive meeting on Call Waiting, readying for the casting process, discussing what our characters looked like, who they were, anticipating the receipt of headshots and resumes from actors looking to appear in the film. On Friday, Wilson called one of our team to tell him that we’d finished a bit of the work necessary to produce the film and learned that he was ill with an uncertain prognosis. Out of respect for privacy, I will not discuss anything more about the specifics except to say that the individual is our friend as well as our colleague.

Disappointment with artistic effort is a given. Most of us feel that anything we do can be done better. Disappointment with fickle audience is part and parcel of art. Crisis with time and timing is the canvas upon which we work.

What do I feel about the news? In all honesty, anger. I’m pissed at the gods. Why does fate ever hit the deserving? Of course I’m hopeful, but, I must confess, I’m extremely angry—not about the film in progress—but about the arbitrary nature of the world we live in. I know I’m not alone. You’ve felt the same thing about someone you care about. It does underline one thing however. Life is indeed uncertain which is all the more reason to take the risk of being an artist.