Tag: basic elements of screenwriting

White Space

Recently, I decided to enter my latest screenplay into another screenwriting competition. Before I submitted my screenplay, I decided to do another rewrite to make it easier to read. I started out with the basic writing rule; storytelling is more about showing than it is telling— especially with screenplays. So there are a few things I wanted to accomplish with this version.

Tighten dialogue up
Removing unnecessary repetitions
Condensing scene descriptions

I hoped to create more white space to make it easier to read. Before screenplays ever make it to the big screen, they will be read by a reader who must read hundreds of screenplays each day.

Thus we must make our screenplays more readable so they stand out amongst the countless other aspiring screenwriter’s work. Screenplays need to be a fast read for Hollywood’s screenplay readers.

“Script readers know about the trend to write shorter paragraphs of scene description so they will likely bring that expectation to a reading assignment. If they see long blocks of scene description, that will probably suggest to them the writer is an amateur.”
Scott Myers (Screen Writer)

If a screenplay is too bulky or wordy, it will never make it past a reader’s desk. So screenwriters need to be able to tell the most visually entertaining story without using a lot of unnecessary wordage that weighs a story down like too much baggage on a plane.

I have read a lot of produced screenplays in the last year and there is an obvious trend towards leaner screenplays. One of the biggest trends in screenwriting today is lean screenplays with lots of white space.

White Space

To be clear, white space is used in all forms of writing, from advertising to poetry and screenwriting, and it is simply the unprinted area of a piece of writing, a blank in a newspaper or advertisement.

White space can even be used in a sentence to structure and pace it. The never-ending sentence. In recent years white space has become a great tool in screenwriting.

Here are a few purposes of white space.

It unclutters pages of information.
It allows breathing room for the reader to intake and interpret information for any specific image that is necessary to visualize.
It emphasizes important elements, leading readers’ eyes to the focal areas of a script.
It showcases a shift from one visual to the next.
It gives a reader comfort.
It helps the reader better understand and interpret the visuals.[2]

Always Remember storytelling is more about showing than telling every minor detail. Leave room for the audience’s imagination and for the production team to put everything else where it goes.

Where Things Go

I am not talking about screenplay structure here, but more about movie production. Like any other piece of writing, screenplays are a combination of information for other people to consume and interpret.

Directors, producers, and production teams need to be able to clearly understand the story and the instructions you put into your screenplay. Huge chunks of information can hinder the ability of others to understand the information in your story.

Writers who don’t study the craft clutter up a page with lots of information and fail to learn the basics of screenwriting.

Font
Margins
Spacing

Amateurs try to manipulate a screenplay’s margins and font to try to fit more information into their screenplays. Spacing keeps the reader from getting overwhelmed and keeps the story flowing smoothly without abusing a page’s white space!

Martin Johnson survived a severe car accident with a (T.B.I.) Traumatic brain injury which left him legally blind and partially paralyzed on the left side. He is an award-winning Christian screenwriter who has recently finished his first Christian nonfiction book. Martin has spent the last nine years volunteering as an ambassador and promoter for Promise Keepers ministries. While speaking to local men’s ministries he shares his testimony. He explains The Jesus Paradigm and how following Jesus changes what matters most in our lives. Martin lives in a Georgia and connects with readers at MartinThomasJohnson.com and on Twitter at mtjohnson51.

Tags basic elements of screenwriting, screenplay, screenplay differs from novel, screenwriting, white space

Screenwriting

Screenplay Format

For some reason, most writers are curious about writing screenplays. And they come to me with many questions about the craft below are just a few questions I am routinely asked.

How long should my script be?
How do you write the dialogue?
What is the correct script format?

First things first, scripts and screenplays are different arts.

“A ‘script’ is the written document version of a visual art form and is used across multiple mediums, while a ‘screenplay’ refers to a script specifically for movies or television. When you read a script, it could be for a play, movie, television show, comic book, or video game, while a screenplay is specific to movies and tv shows. Each script has its own formatting rules to help you tell what type of script it is; whether it’s a screenplay, teleplay, stage play, or something else.”
Film Draft

Writers ask about format a lot because they’ve been taught and know the format and technicalities of both nonfiction and novel writing. Writers know, depending on the genre they write, there are specific formats publishers, editors and agents follow. And they correctly assume that screenplays have guidelines for formatting. So this month I will look at screenplay format and some of the differences between it and what most writers are used to.

Screenplay Format

All writing categories have specific formats and guidelines writers know to follow. Knowing the correct way to write and present their writing helps separate amateurs from professionals.

And this is why we all study the craft, no one wants to look like an amateur even though we are all at some point. Before I continue I want to emphasize there’s a difference between format and formula. The format is a guide for our narratives. Formulas are rigid, not fluid, and can hinder our writing.

Screenwriter and writing coach Scott Myers explains,

“Screenplays are stories, not formulas— if you go in with formula, you come out with formula.”

Knowing the correct format will help you guide the audience or reader through your story most clearly and quickly. Of course, there are plenty of screenwriting programs to help writers write screenplays, but still, writers need to know basic formatting for screenplays.

With that said below are the main components of a screenplay writers need to know from the Scriptlab.

Slug Lines: These are the scene headings in a screenplay, a key difference is slug lines also include both the time of day and whether a location is inside or outside.
Subheader: These headers indicate movement from locale to locale with and a specific location.
Action lines: These are the short description lines beneath the slug lines that describe what we are seeing. They should be in the present tense with an active voice.
Dialogue: In film, dialogue should be snappy and get to the point. Occasionally a monologue is warranted in film, but rarely. Keep in mind that the best dialogue contains subtext, or the unwritten meaning behind the words. sing (V.O.), (O.S.), or (O.C.) next to a character name is a way to tell the reader there is a provision or special circumstance to the following dialogue.
Wrylies (parentheticals): These are short emotional or delivery directions for the actor regarding that specific line.
Transitions: There is an implied transition from one scene to another as indicated whenever there’s a new slug line. Adding “Cut to:” isn’t necessary and only takes up much-needed space in your screenplay.

A few things I wanted to add are, most writers know the importance of white space in the writing. When giving a scene description under the slug line, limit the description to one or two lines. Also, keep dialogue short. Make scene transitions brief and use parentheticals scarcely.

Not only do actors not want to be told how to act, but brevity also helps keep a page from being cluttered with too much information that will more than likely only slow a reader down. Screenplay readers have a lot of screenplays to read and you don’t want to make their job any harder by filling a page with too much information that will only slow them down. White space allows our eyes to take a break.

Take a Break

The best writers understand the importance of leaving room for the audience’s imagination. We’ve all experienced information overload when reading. If not, please understand too much information can confuse a reader and will slow the story down. Imagine going on a road trip and hitting the brakes every time you see a landmark. The trip will both exhaust you and take forever, perhaps even ruin the trip altogether for you. White space gives the reader a break from all the action and visuals, it’s the old adage, “less is more.” Below are a few types of information overload a writer can unknowingly put into their screenplays.

Excessive exposition
Unnecessary actors instructions
Artsy camera angles
Unnecessary dialogue

Leaving subtext in your dialogue and not using acting instructions, allows the actors to act. Limiting camera angles allows the director to direct, and limiting exposition allows the set designer to create the perfect imaginary world, none of which are necessary in proper screenplay format.

Tags basic elements of screenwriting, screenplay, screenplay differs from novel, screenwriting, script to screen-stage

Screenwriting

Where It Begins

Over Valentine’s weekend, I decided to re-watch one of my all-time favorite movies. I decided to do a commentary video on the beautiful foreign movie, A Very Long Engagement.

Not only is the movie one of the most romantic and hopeful movies I’ve ever seen and have some of the most beautiful cinematography and subtext ever filmed. It has all the key elements of a great movie, just not typical screenwriting format.

Clear plot
Both internal and external conflict
A great inciting incident

The unique thing about this movie is it is a perfect example of nonlinear storytelling. These types of stories aren’t told in chronological order. This means the story can switch from different points of the characters’ lives, all the pieces of the story are there, just jumbled up in different order.

For instance, this movie begins with the inciting incident, but then halfway through the movie, we see the main character’s childhoods and how they met which goes back to the inciting incident at the beginning of the movie. In storytelling the inciting incident is where the conflict and story begin, it is where a movie begins.

Where It All Begins?

An inciting incident is an event that occurs and disrupts a protagonist’s life sending it out of control or in another direction. It puts the events of your story into motion.

“The stronger your inciting incident, the more dramatic, compelling, and engrossing your novel will be.”
Jerry B. Jenkins, author and writing coach

In a sense, the inciting incident creates the conflict of a narrative.

Five characteristics from The Write Practice, that qualify an event as an inciting incident.

Early: They occur early in the story, sometimes in the first scene, almost always within the first three to four scenes.
Interruption: They are an interruption in the main character’s normal life.
Out of the protagonist’s control: They are not caused by the character and are not a result of the character’s desires.
Life-changing: They must have higher-than-normal stakes and the potential to change the protagonist’s life.
Urgent: They necessitate an urgent response.

It is critical to a story’s success for the inciting incident to happen as soon as possible in your screenplay. It doesn’t have to be in chronological order as with A Very Long Engagement, however, the audience needs it to occur sooner rather than later in the story.

“The inciting incident is indispensable because the inciting incident is the hook.”
Scott Myers, screenwriting coach

The hook is the lift-off moment of your story!

Story?

All stories follow a basic structure to some degree, they may not have the same events, but they follow a typical pattern. Think of it as a stream flowing from a lake, there can be multiple streams heading in the opposite direction of the lake, each one can follow their own paths.

But ultimately they are all flowing away from the lake towards a new destination. Using this analogy we can view the lake as the inciting incident if the lake boundary is breached. The CEO of Storybrand Donald Miller says, “The inciting incident is how you get (characters) to do something. It’s the doorway through which they can’t return, you know. The story takes care of the rest.”

The inciting incident is simply the starting point of any story, however, it complicates your story and sets the events in motion.

“The inciting incident is the primary cause that follows that puts in motion the other four elements.”
Robert McKee

Progressive complications
Crisis
Climax
Resolution

As you can see the inciting incident is a critical part of the plot of every story, regardless of what structure you use. Because the inciting incident is where it all begins!

Tags basic elements of screenwriting, screen writing, screenplay, screenplay differs from novel, screenwriting, script to screen-stage

Screenwriting

Conflict in StoryTelling

By now most of you know I am a big Marvel junkie and escape into the marvel cinematic universe whenever I can. For the past six months, I’ve been binge-watching the Daredevil series on Disney plus.

It honestly has some of the best storytelling on the small screen I have ever seen and I’m not saying that just because I’m a big fan of comics, in college I had a collection of over 3000 comic books. Yes, I am an action and superhero junkie.

While, books and novels both contain conflict in their storytelling, writing for the big and small screens focus on different aspects of conflict.

External conflict
Visual storytelling
Layered subtext

WARNING: The movie clip in the following paragraph is from a fight scene and be considered graphic.

Sure movies and television shows have inner conflict but they express them more visually. The writers of Daredevil masterfully combine both inner and external conflict beautifully, sometimes in a not so family-friendly way. These writers understand the importance and need for conflict in storytelling!

Conflict

First, we must understand what conflict is. The dictionary defines conflict as, “A serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one.” By definition conflict is continuous, it isn’t some brief break in harmonious living.

As long as the conflict continues in our stories, they will have the necessary momentum to keep our narrative going and hopefully keep our audiences interested. Many writing coaches describe conflict as the fuel of storytelling.

“Conflict generates drama. Conflict is entertaining. But perhaps most important is this: Conflict concerns struggle.”
Scott Myers, screenwriting coach

Below are six types of struggle found in storytelling according to Masterclass.

Character versus self: This is an internal conflict. Meaning that the opposition character faces is coming from within.
Character versus character: This is a common type of conflict in which one character’s needs or wants are at odds with another’s.
Character versus nature: In a nature conflict, a character is set in opposition to nature.
Character versus supernatural: Pitting characters against phenomena like ghosts, Gods, or monsters raises the stakes of the conflict by creating an equal playing field.
Character versus technology: In this case, is in conflict with some kind of technology.
Character versus society: A character versus society conflict is an external conflict that occurs in literature when the protagonist is placed in opposition to society, the government, or a cultural tradition or societal norm of some kind.

The age-old teaching of show versus tell is more pertinent to screenwriting because these stories are visual. We never want to bore the audience by telling when it is much easier to show regardless of its internal or external conflict.

The audience must see conflict either through action, acting or inaction. The audience needs to know what is at stake and how it affects the character or the world in which they live. There is a struggle somewhere in their life. Ultimately, the struggle will bring change to the character or their world.

Change

Conflict always brings a change in a story, whether internal or external.

“A film isn’t just moments of conflict or activity, personality or emotionality, witty talk or symbols. What the writer seeks are events, for an event contains all the above and more… ‘Event’ means change. A story event creates a meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed as an experience in terms of value. To make change meaningful you must express it in the audience must react to it, in terms of a value values are the soul of storytelling.”
Robert McKee

If conflict occurs, the events change things, McKee notes story values are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from Beaumont to the next.”. Below are a few types of conflict change can bring.

Alive/dead
Love/hate
Freedom/Slavery
Truth/lie
Courage/cowardice
Loyalty/betrayal
Wisdom/stupidity
Strength/weakness
Excitement/boredom

This change will be obvious as your story and characters progress from the beginning to the end of a screenplay. Conflict can build scene by scene, story value to story value. Along the way, our characters and their worlds will be changed when they face conflict.

Tags basic elements of screenwriting, internal conflict, screenplay, screenwriting, script to screen-stage

Screenwriting

Screenwriting Basics

Recently, I had a local writer friend reach out to me about how she could adapt her book into a screenplay. I get that question a lot; although I am not a successful screenwriter, people for some reason believe that anyone can write a screenplay, just because they’ve written a story or book.

Just because a book is successful and is a good read, doesn’t necessarily mean it will make a great movie. Studios have lost billions by producing popular books that bombed in theaters. Hollywood generally believes that novelists should not write screenplays.

So this year, I want to explore the basics of screenwriting and some of the different conventions, concepts, and features that novelists may not know about. There may be some similarities, but screenwriting has its own unique needs.

Tight writing is a must
A lot more show than tell

While the general rule in storytelling is to always show and not tell, this rule applies more to screenwriting, because screenplays are visual art forms. So in writing a screenplay, writers always must visualize their stories first, this is a basic element of screenwriting.

Elements of Screenwriting

“Screenwriting has no rules, it has conventions to help tell a story.”
Robert McKee

The number one convention of screenwriting is the story is seen. Screenplays are written with characters we will literally see and don’t have to imagine—always write from that perspective. If you cannot visualize your characters on screen, then they won’t parlay to the screen.

Seven tips for adapting a book to a screenplay from the Creative Penn.

Read screenwriting books- Reading some how-to screenwriting books will give you a solid grounding in writing characters, plot, structure, dialogue, theme, etc. for the big screen.
Read screenplays- The reason many screenplays fail, whether they’re adaptations or not, is because the writer simply hasn’t read enough screenplays.
Outline movies- It’s also important to become familiar with movies are put together structurally. Novels may contain some structural tropes within certain genres, such as Mystery or Romance, but screenplay structure is generally much more ‘formulaic’.”
Write an outline of your novel- Once you’ve spent some time on the first three steps, apply the same principle of writing outlines as described in Step 3 to your own novel.
Refine your movie’s core conflict- Take some time to think about the story from the point of view of someone watching it up on screen in a movie theater. What’s the core conflict here that’s going to make them pay money to want to go and see it?
Finalize your outline- Some screenwriters like to write outlines, synopses or treatments of their story before starting on the script. Other’s don’t. But I would strongly advise you have some kind of document to follow while writing the actual screenplay.
Start writing your screenplay- Once you have your outline, it’s time to finally start writing and I’d recommend purchasing some professional screenwriting software first, such as Movie Magic or Final Draft. (WriterDuet is a great free alternative if you’re strapped for cash.)

Screenwriters know the conventions of the art and resist the need for a formula. As I begin this series, I have to address the age-old debate of structure versus story. Not from my perspective, but that of the greats. While screenplays have conventions, never let structure kill your story.

Screenwriting, as with novel writing, is the art of storytelling. The story must dominate your script. However, according to Screencraft Magazine, “novels focus on the internal emotions of the story’s characters, screenplays are the outer emotions of the story’s characters.”

Story Matters

Typically when novelists try to adapt books to screenplays, they either kill their story by trying to use a bad writing structure or they don’t know a screenplay format at all. Either way, their narrative loses its beauty.

Sometimes no matter who adapts a book to a screenplay, the story just does not work as a movie. The readers’ imagination is better than the visuals on the screen. Before you attempt to adapt your screenplay, read the five story elements needed to make a great film from totalstoryteller.com.

A sympathetic hero: Having a ‘save the cat’ moment can help you create a sympathetic character. This ‘save the cat’ term was coined and popularized by writer Blake Snyder.
A vital quest: It’s no joke. There are real stakes to this quest.
Insurmountable obstacles: It seems impossible for the hero to achieve victory, at least as he is now.
Surprising ending: Ingenuity and creativity sees the hero achieve victory through unusual means, finding help in unexpected places or with unexpected allies.
Inevitable ending: The ending is logical. It seems obvious after-the-fact that it would end as it did.

Remember, it is the screenwriters’ job to take these elements and combine them into a visual cocktail to help the audience understand the narrative. It is like combining poetry with painting. Screenwriters need to know the basic elements of screenwriting.

Tags basic elements of screenwriting, from page to stage, screenwriting, story matters, tips