Screenwriting

There should be a universal list of no-no’s that every writer (and editor) should be forced to go through when they have completed their work.  Amongst them, in fact maybe even atop this whole list, is that your main character should never become dumber than your audience.  Here’s what I mean:

I’m in the last 150 pages of a 2500 page fantasy trilogy.   I have some real pet peeves with this series (which I run into in a lot of fantasy novels) , but here’s what just happened.  Throughout this complex, intriguing, and very good story we have gotten very close to this character named Fitz.  He’s had to endure massive tragedy, massive pain and punishment, and massive discrimination.  He’s strong-willed, clever, and dedicated to his King most of all (who was overthrown by his scheming brother when the King went searching for a way to stop the raids from evil foreigners on their coasts).

Now, nearing the end of this epic story, Fitz and a small group of others have traveled out of their land to find the good King and help him overthrow his conniving brother.  For Fitz, this also would mean that his wife, a woman whom he loves more than anything but believes him to be dead, and his daughter whom he’s never seen will be safe and that he can return to them.  We are close to these people, and we want Fitz to get back there and finally have something good in his life.

Fitz holds The Skill (like Jedi mind tricks – only a few people hold this power and some are evil), though he was never trained in it.  There is a group who are from the conniving King, however, who have been very well trained in it.  They have been following Fitz and his group into the wilds, hoping to corrupt his mind and find a way to hurt him.  Fitz and his group members have realized that a very minuscule Skill-link has formed between Fitz and another character in his group, The Fool (he was the King’s fool – kind of a mysterious prophet).  They are all concerned that this link could be exploited by the king’s Skill users to get into Fitz’s mind without him knowing, or worse – they could take control of the Fool’s mind and get to Fitz.

Then the conniving king recently communicated to Fitz through one of his Skill users that I know where your wife and daughter are.  I will rape her, torture her, and then kill them both.  You can do nothing to stop me. As you can imagine, this is horrendous news for Fitz.  However, he quickly realizes that there is no way any of them know where she is.  So he simply must not allow them to know.

A few pages later, The Fool begins acting strangely.  He asks Fitz if he would be okay with him visiting his wife were Fitz to be killed.  Fitz responds that he’d rather his wife (remember, she thinks he’d dead) never know that he still lives because she’d be hurt he didn’t come to her.  But the Fool persists with his pressure and Fitz says, “Well I don’t even know where she is specifically.  Only that she’s near this town called Buck Cliffs.”  And suddenly the Fool freezes, collapses, and acts exaclty like the last two times evil King’s skill users tried to take control of him.

What does Fitz do?  He gets angry at the Fool for acting like an idiot.  Even when the rest of his group claims that they found the Fool laying on the ground having violent dreams.  They even say, “It’s as if he’s been Skilling using.”  What does Fitz do?  He gets concerned the Fool is sick.  Eventually the Fool wakes up and Fitz has a change of heart, telling the fool he does with him to visit his wife if he were to die.  “Why on earth would you be telling me that, Fitz?”  He doesn’t remember the conversation – only as if it were a remnant of a dying dream.  What does Fitz do?  He still assumes the Fool is sick.

So here I am.  150 pages left, and my main character has been deliberately made an idiot by the author.  Why wouldn’t they realize that the Fool is doing exactly what they’d warned themselves about for days and days on end?  They would realize it!  Instantly!  And if they couldn’t prove it, Fitz wouldn’t be able to hold himself back from using the Skill to try and kill those other guys or at least use people’s minds to try and warn his wife.  Oh I’m certain he’ll realize that the others have now found the approximate location of his wife.  But not for a while (and the book is nearly over).  And in the meantime, I don’t believe anything any longer.  I think a hell of a lot less of the characters I should care most about.

For the love of god, DO NOT ALLOW YOUR AUDIENCE TO GET AHEAD OF YOUR CHARACTERS OR YOUR STORY!!!!

It’s funny how new ideas arrive.  I don’t get them a lot.  Maybe a couple of really good ideas every year, but definitely not more than that.  As a writer, though, we always have to be in search for those new ideas, and willing to open our minds to and chase nearly every idea that comes along.   We must test whether or not it actually is an idea worth really thinking about.

I read a lot.  Partially because I know I need to, but I actually love learning and gaining insight into other storytellers’ minds.  I read the news a lot, and try to keep up on scientific developments – particularly in Physics and Astronomy (I’m just very interested in those subjects).  Recently however, I’ve been reading a 2400 page fantasy trilogy which has been a drag.  As with many fantasy books the concepts are great, the characters are great, but the author gets so carried away with the minutia of the world that he or she forgets to tell a gripping story.   But this is where my mind has been for the last month or so, except for the 15 hour book-on-tape marathon I had in which I listened to The Elegant Universe (all about String theory).

So yesterday, I climb onto the orbital trainer at the gym, and start my daily exercise routine.  Within a few moments, no more than a minute, a new idea had spawned in my brain.  For the next 1/2 hour while I was on the machine, I followed that spark of an idea and saw where it led me.  The more I thought about it, the more I liked it.  There are strong elements of every boy’s childhood in there, but with a fantastic sci-fi thriller angle, all set in a great location which I’ve never seen in a film before.  And the kicker – I tend to think BIG – and this is an incredibly small, contained idea that could be made for just a few hundred thousand dollars – if the production team was right.

So I pitched it to Tess, just the concept, and she dug it.  It’s now been a full day, and I still think it’s got a lot of potential.  “Where’s that double-edged sword you mentioned?  Isn’t this a good thing?”

Well… here it is.  Writing is hard.  And writing from a brand new idea is very hard.  So while it’s great to have some cool new idea that I can actually <em>see </em>specific moments in my head that are thrilling, that’s all I’ve got.  Will it blossom into a full and interesting story?  It can.  Will the idea be worthy of the time commitment it’ll take to develop and write?  I could.  But will it?

This is the double-edged sword of a new idea.  It’s a spark, but nothing more.  Taking it from a spark to a complete, satisfying story full of lifelike characters, twists and turns, and hopefully interesting new ideas… well… that is very hard.   And these sparks are dangerous.  Potentially very dangerous.   Here I am now with at least 4 other scripts at some stage of completion, which can all develop into great scripts, and I am drawn to write something new before finishing those.

As Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio say, “Your premise will make or break your script.”  That’s wonderful advice, but equally important is having the dedication and fortitude to actually finish what you start.  We are not writing ideas, and we are not writing premises.  We are writing complete, compelling, and satisfying stories!